Elders, they're good n' plenty

My first friend in America was Ruth Henderson, a small, bright-eyed woman with soft white curls around her face. I had arrived in Oregon from England during the spring of first grade, and Ruth was one of the first people at school not to bother me for my accent. From the onset of our first discussion we commenced a dear friendship. She was 93. Despite her age Ruth was agile and vibrant. I went for tea at her home on a few occasions and can remember vividly the smells, her artwork and books stacked on the walls and shelves and the life in her voice when she told me stories of world travel. Even as I got older Ruth would visit me in my other classrooms when she would come back to volunteer for the first grade reading program; One day she brought me a little jewelery box filled with good n' plenties and a tiny gold ring with a small ruby embedded. I still wear it now, on my pinkie. I still remember Ruth everyday, though it's not because of the ring, it's because she was my first memorable mentor.

Perhaps I was a strange child, but I have always loved intergenerational closeness. It seems to me that elders and youth share a sweet, mutual sub-didactic. That is, there is a great deal of communication, learning and engaging - on a very elemental level. There have been times that I have connected deeply with an elder in the absence of a common language. Youth need elders, and elders need youth. It is a basic and age old formula.

Fez Orator tells a story to a group of young men. Morocco, 2007. -RT

Yet, we have forgotten. Western custom today dictates separation between ages. Kids in school are separated by age, rather than passion and our elderly are politely put away in retirement homes. It is my humble opinion that placing our Grandparents and Parents in homes only diminishes prospects of longevity. It cuts them off from life.

I just read about a superb program in Oklahoma, where they built a preschool classroom encased in glass, in the heart of The Grace Living Center, a Retirement home foyer. The retirees were naturally interested in the sprightly kids and some offered to volunteer time. That being so, Book Buddies was conceived; a partnership of elders and preschoolers who read to them aloud. The reading levels have since soared and many of the retirees diminished their doses of medication as a result of surging levels of vitality.

Are we tapping into our intergenerational treasure-chest enough? I don't think so. I believe it is an essential move in fostering greater understanding in an era when things are changing more quickly than we know how to grasp. We need the dialogue and shared learning between generations; A first grader can give technological support to a 90 year old, and the elder can help the child master reading, listening and the ever-valuable offering of engagement.

You can read more about the Grace Living Center partnership with Oklahoma Public Schools ain this edutopia article, or where I discovered the story, in Sir Ken Robinson's book; 'The Element; How finding your Passion can Change Everything.'

Single-Use Plastic is of no use.

Although the world's oceanic gyres are largely imperceptible from land, these are the kind of systems that youth need to be grappling with. How does Consumption lead to Pollution, Circulation, Accumulation and Ingestion?

Ocean Gyre : is a kind of vortex, a large system of rotating ocean currents, particularly those involved with strong wind movements.

Plastic gets caught within the forceful currents of these gyres and, because it is made to last, will stay in the ocean for decades, not degrading, but breaking down into smaller bits. The North Pacific gyre is most heavily researched for plastic pollution - It spans roughly twice the size of the United States, though it shifts in mass and shape with the sea and changes in ocean current. There are efforts being made to understand these vast bodies of collected debris, yet, the real difference will take place from efforts on the ground. It is our habits that must change. We honestly have no use for single-use plastics. Can you eliminate them from your household?

Light on Plastic. South Eastern Coastline of Ghana. 2009

The most devastating aspect of the disposable-products era is that the inventions of the west have been shipped abroad. Most developing nations have survived throughout the ages without plastic, but now it is ubiquitous in markets, littered along the sides of the road and strewn across beaches such as this one in Ghana.

Here is a fantastic educational website about the oceans 5 Gyres. I learned a great deal about the ocean's health this weekend at TEDx Brooklyn; Here is a blog written by one of the speakers which focuses on plastic reduction.

Learning on the streets of Fez

Or, 'An Introduction to Globalization Education...'

Fez is Morocco’s spiritual capital. Like Morocco’s larger cities Fez is divided between the medina, the ancient, walled city and the new city with its supermarkets, boutiques, cafés and high-rise buildings. The call to prayer chimes and echoes throughout the city five times daily, reminding all of their place. However, unlike the uniformity of the prayers, the people are contrasting – Even within one family. Walking down the cobbled street there are three women, three generations walking arm in arm. The grandmother is covered from head to toe in a black burqa, leaving only her eyes visible, her daughter is wearing a simple hijab, leaving only her face exposed, while the granddaughter is dressed in the latest fad of jeans and a soft, form-fitting blouse. Her hair is exposed, blow-dried into a large coiffure, much like Egyptian pop singers on television. She is speaking French into her cell phone. As I look at them I recognize the significance of our time. We live in a global era, where modernity clashes with tradition and boundaries are no longer dictated by the nation state. There has been little foresight for the unprecedented scope of globalization we have entered. Tradition and culture are fluid and ever changing and schools too, must make changes to prepare and empower youth to be citizens in the 21^st century.

"…what a difference it would make to our understanding if we looked at the world as a whole, a totality, a system, instead of as a sum of self-contained societies and cultures; if we understood better how this totality developed over time; if we took seriously the admonition to think of human aggregates as “inextricably involved with other aggregates, near and far, in weblike, netlike connections.

- Wolf, Europe and the People Without History