There is a quote by Frederick Douglass, the anti slavery campaigner that goes like this, “it is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” After a recent visit to a primary school I would attest that this quote is right on the money.
I was invited to talk about composting in worm farms and I came away from the hour in the classroom more impressed with anything than I had been in a long time.
The grade 2 kids had taken the initiative to prepare their own presentation on reducing plastics in the school yard and raising the funds to be able to buy worm farms for food waste.
It was delivered in a tight knit team like manner by 6 unflappable students. This was followed by what I had to say, which I know was elevated by the kids previous effort. And then a question session where I received astute quizzing on all aspects of recycling and worm farms the beauty of which was that each question came from the area of interest for each particular student.
Questions came on managing contamination, collection trucks, worm friendly food and the budding accountant piped up with questions on the dollar costs of the worm farms.
It took a while to sink in afterwards but I have no doubt that there is incredible potential in our young children, prior to learning too much from adults, to set all else aside including distractions, judgement and risks to pursue their passions, including saving the planet’s natural ecosystems.
My previous experience with waste education generally has been that it is directed towards all ages. I believe that the early school children warrant special attention. Not to teach them all that we know but to encourage them to be all they can be and do all they can do. Let them off the leash and follow their ideas to see what comes of it. Feed them some of the world’s biggest challenges, such as plastic waste, as the teachers had expertly done on this occasion, and see where the kids go with it. But then rather than finishing the class at the end of the term, semester or year, devise programs and projects so that they can build their knowledge, skills, actions and self worth in the field of sustainability. Like a sporting club takes kids from the very young to seniors, sustainability programs could take kids all the way through to when they can start to really make an impact, a la Greta Thunberg.
We have pledged our time to these kids and their teachers as their class require to foster their interest and passion in cleaning up the planet. We would encourage others to do the same and, in combination with others already building great environmental awareness and action in kids, we may start to change our culture to that which is necessary to reduce consumption and use resources wisely.
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