From Upworthy, Ray Flores: When this teacher saw that her 5th-graders were suicidal, she changed her curriculum
You know, I wish I could share this video prominently and make sure everyone saw it. I, too, was 10 when existential despair set in. If only hope and choice-making were taught so clearly in every school. If these principles were taught in private and public schools, to kids of every class including the disappearing middle class and the rich, maybe the policy-makers, lawmakers, corporations and governments, bankers and lawyers and movie stars and sports figures, and even the media, would choose hope and helping over nihilism and selfishness.
How lucky we are to have teachers like these (and schools where teachers are allowed to make curriculum decisions!), and
books, where there are no teachers, to provide life lessons! I just joined the local Friends of the Library board, and we had a presentation yesterday from Make Way For Books, an organization which is providing not only books to HeadStart and other Early Learning Centers, but to foster care kids and other families--books within the home, and programs that teach parents how to share books and reading with their kids. In Arizona, which is like 50th in child education. Our lawmakers use 4th grade reading scores to determine what prison space they will need in the future. This is what 30-40 years of canned curriculum and teaching to tests has brought us to.
But it's not only Arizona and schools of the South. It's high schools and colleges across the nation. How have we become a society where even people of goodwill and intelligence don't stand up and do the right thing? Don't make choices that put public welfare above profit? Don't feed the hungry?
As this wonderful teacher explains, unless we make the small choices in our daily lives, to do the right thing, to be kind to one another, to learn--
to have hope!--then we can't make those other choices. We have to start where we are.
