Compassion Tune-Up: "There's a Choice We're Making, We're Saving Our Own Lives"

Do you remember the song We Are the World? It's a song that was recorded by umpteen famous American singers in 1985, to raise money for African famine relief. I remember at the time thinking, "There go those Yanks again, thinking they own the world." But the single went quadruple platinum and they raised over $63 million US (the equivalent of $138 million today), so who was I to judge? 

You know, one million people died in Ethiopia between 1983 and 1985 due to famine. Today, the lives of 5.6 million Ethiopians are threatened by drought and famine. As La Rochefoucauld said, the more things change, the more they stay the same. 

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That was a long-winded way of introducing this week's blog post. My hubby and I were despairing earlier this week that nothing is changing. People still don't feel the emergency, the crisis, the climate chaos and the ocean devastation, and they're not demanding change. 

That reminded Peter of Jiddu Krishnamurti, an Indian philosopher "discovered" by the Theosophical Society in 1909.

For Peter, the wisest thing that the very wise Krishnamurti ever said was that (I'm paraphrasing) we are the world, so if we ever expect to change the world, we'd better change ourselves. Right now. 

To explain it better, some pictures might be worth a thousand words or so. 

We Are the World

— Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie

There comes a time when we heed a certain call
When the world must come together as one
There are people dying
And it's time to lend a hand to life
The greatest gift of all

We can't go on pretending day by day
That someone, somewhere will soon make a change
We all are a part of God's great big family
And the truth, you know,
Love is all we need
Chorus:
We are the world, we are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So let's start giving
There's a choice we're making
We're saving our own lives
It's true we make a better day
Just you and me

Send them your heart so they'll know that someone cares
And their lives will be stronger and free
As God has shown us by turning stone to bread
So we all must lend a helping hand
[Chorus]

When you're down and out, there seems no hope at all
But if you just believe there's no way we can fall
Well...well...well
Let's realize that a change can only come
When we stand together as one
[Chorus]
                                                                                                                                                                                    

Am I a Teacher or a Human Being First?

I'm still "smarting" from a run-in with my professional union this week, one that broke my heart.

According to our new job action (precursor to a strike), teachers in my province are not participating in a whole host of activities, such as staff meetings, meetings with parents outside of instructional time, and fundraising — which I assumed meant raising money for school supplies that our government funding should pay for.

So I went ahead and planned our annual harvest luncheon as a soup potluck and invited students to bring pennies from home for famine relief in East Africa. "Soup for Somalia" we were calling it. I even contacted my union to make sure this was okay, and the rep told me my students and their parents could collect the money.

But my colleagues decided that this was "sidestepping the spirit of the current teaching strike initiative." One told me, "Although I agree that fundraising for Somalia is important, I also believe that it is not appropriate at this time. I would fully support a fundraiser after our job action." Another suggested that "using the school as the vehicle [for this fundraising] ... is problematic." This colleague thought that my unilateral organizing of this event (which I did last year, too, and no one complained) "does us a disservice at this time. What is the rush?"

Well, I put in a call to Somalia, and they said they can't postpone their famine til after we've settled our contract. But, like a coward (and I'm ashamed of my cowardice, especially after last week's entreaty to teachers to be courageous and compassionate), I cancelled the event — we're putting on a community soup dinner and benefit concert that evening instead.

Meantime, if you live here in Canada, anything you donate by September 16th will be matched by our federal government. (Visit the Humanitarian Coalition, or a similar group in your country.)

I know, I know, "donor fatigue" and "we've seen it all before." Here in my community, there's a huge benefit tomorrow for a young boy with cancer. And an all-out search elsewhere in my province for a child who's been abducted.

But Somalis and Ethiopians and Kenyans love their children, too. And so many of the factors leading to this drought, well, our lifestyles are implicated. Please, give what you can. And shame on teachers who think that helping our students become more compassionate is ever the wrong thing to do.

Here's to a Courageous and Compassionate New School Year

In my part of the world, students and teachers are heading back to school. Here's my wish for the new school year:

May all the educators — at all levels, everywhere — find the courage and compassion they need in order to teach what their students most need to learn, whether that is how to connect with the rest of Nature (for the young ones), how life works on this planet (ecological principles), what the state of their planet (and hence, their future) is, or how to move into the world of work and adulthood and citizenship as practitioners of sustainable (or better yet, survivable) development principles.

But we teachers also have to be brave enough to say NO! to irrelevant parts of the curriculum or syllabus and YES! to teaching what our students need for creating the best possible future for themselves: food growing skills, water collecting skills, energy generating skills. No matter what else you teach, you can teach with the Earth and the future and the children of all species in mind.

As I was writing an article for the 2009 issue of the Canadian Journal of Environmental Education (Transformative Environmental Education: Stepping Outside the Curriculum Box - pdf), I originally penned "Teachers are a timorous lot," timorous being the gentlest word I found amongst the 44 synonyms* for "wussy" I uncovered. (I was afraid "wussy" would be too offensive, thereby proving my own point.)

Teachers do not go into teaching to become heroes. We do not suffer from Fireman Syndrome. But heroes we must become! The lives of all our students are at risk, and we can and should and must be doing something about it. (I do a professional development workshop or webinar for teachers entitled Greening Education with Courage and Compassion.)

We in the education field consider our time very precious, but how precious is it compared to the lives, the future, of our students? (Not to mention the lives of tens of thousands of children lost to the famine in East Africa.) If we don't understand the climate change emergency, the crisis of biodiversity loss, the importance of protecting forests, the urgency of moving to a zero-carbon economy, then we must take the time to learn!

To my colleagues, a reminder that we teach best what we most need to learn. Please, consider how you can help safeguard the future for the children of all species through your teaching, and summon your courage and compassion to help you do the right thing. Visit GreenHeart Education for ideas and enCOURAGEment.

Have a wonderful new year at school ... but keep in mind and hold in your hearts all the kids who don't have (or won't have) enough to eat or drink due to droughts and floods and storms and heatwaves, let alone a school to go to.

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p.s. Despite job action in my jurisdiction, I am organizing a Soup for Somalia school garden harvest luncheon for my school. Please try to find some way to help the youngsters in your school or community connect to and help out

their peers in the Horn of Africa.

* Actually, it was only 43 synonyms; turns out I had "namby pamby" twice! Here's the rest of the list of synonyms for "wussy," in case you're interested:

1. timorous
2. faint-hearted
3. fearful
4. doormat
5. weakling
6. insipid
7. softie
8. crybaby
9. irresolute
10. wishy washy
11. sissy
12. wimp
13. timid
14. afraid
15. unassertive
16. feeble
17. weak
18. ineffectual
19. cowardly
20. weak-willed
21. jejune (I'm pushing it with this one)
22. suck
23. banal
24. prosaic
25. tame
26. anemic
27. vapid
28. lacking zest
29. flavourless
30. dull
31. boring
32. bland
33. diffident
34. doubtful
35. insecure
36. reticent
37. trepid
38. nervous
39. tense
40. apprehensive
41. jittery
42. collywobbly