Think Globally Act Locally | The Power Of R

The last month and a half has been a whirlwind of presentations and lesson planning at Vanier, Isfeld, and Carihi High. I spent a fantastic afternoon with GP Vanier's media production class speaking about video production to reduce solid waste. The dynamic group has been producing videos and I think you should watch this funky piece about personal style and reusable bags.

I spent a week with Mark R. Isfeld's Honours Liberal Arts class speaking about environment, globalization, and solutions for the planet's worst dilemmas that include fresh water shortages and waste production. I spent an incredible amount of time working with a really intensive curriculum and preparing students for the tricky essay questions on final exams in English 11, and Social Studies 11. I could easily spend a year going into depth teaching this exciting content but managed to get it introduced in a single week. I love this age group and teaching this complex subject matter. If you teach Social Studies 11, I would be happy to spend 1 to 5 days with your class. This service is free of charge for schools in district #71 and #72. Send me an email and we can meet to discuss everything ahead of time.

There were several presentations at Carihi High last month. Two of my favorites were with Wayne Demers' Social Studies 11 class and his Geography 12 class. Both of these incredible audiences were so engaged and energized I thought we were all going to explode. Learning about alternative lifestyle and reducing our collective impacts on the earth can be so amazing and transformational. These two classes in particular "got it" and my heart is still racing just thinking about what a great time we had. Several of the students have sent me emails asking questions, getting connections and finding out more information on how to get involved at a deeper level in their community service commitments and transforming their lifestyle from material wants to contributory needs. This is the reward of my work and every day is a bright adventure in the classrooms of Central Vancouver Island. I'm already looking forward to a revolutionary year in 2011-2012 on the road to Zero Waste in all of our public facilities.

I've been presenting at Mark Isfeld for another week delivering a good chunk of the Social Studies 11 environment and geography unit with teacher Jouska Laquelle. This class of students is extremely bright and I'm really enjoying the contradictory discourse about real world actions and dilemmas we, as a planet of crazy people, are facing.

One of the students explained, what I think is a common feeling among high school students, that "the world is a messed up place; we've been raised being told that over and over again; there's not much I feel can be done about that; so I've accepted that the world is messed up and learned to live with it." It's a sad reality and what is even more difficult is this type of woeful acceptance seems to be resonating right across Canada right now.  The recent Federal election boasted almost no environmental discussions and the local coffee shops are handing out more, not fewer, disposable cups on a daily basis even though everyone has a reusable mug somewhere in their car or cupboard.

As an educator it is my job to present two sides of a coin and guide students to their own connections and approaches to problems to foster their positive development. As an activist I find this process dreadfully painful and slow but as a teacher, an elder even, I find it indelibly rewarding on so many levels.

I share moments of this apathetic feeling towards bettering the world around me almost daily but only for minutes at a time. I call them my Mr. Hyde moments. I think it's healthy to have an inner skeptic because it provides a directional base to launch your action from. It's difficult to go somewhere if you don't know where you left from. However, being entrenched, bound, dismissive and qualitatively absorbed in a feeling of indifference, being a Mr. Hyde all the time, must be a numbing. I couldn't imagine a life waiting for something good to happen instead of making it happen for myself. The journey usually carries all of the reward for me and I can't imagine anything without a journey, or at the very least a good story, attached.

My challenge then is this: tomorrow I will go in for my last class with these grade 11's with one goal - give them the tools they need to feel like change is possible. I'm not talking about becoming Prime Minister or spacewalking the rings of Saturn but I am talking about walking down the street and feeling like the world could become a better place if I smiled at the stranger walking towards me and wanting to make the world a better place because that stranger's smile is my smile and that connection feels good enough to repeat everyday. Small steps everyday make the world a better place. Give it a go.

To book "c'est moi" for a Power Of R presentation at the middle. Secondary or College/University level contact me at powerofr@gmail.com

January is always a fantastic month to make positive change a reality in our day-to-day activities. Once again this year I had the honour of teaching a full week of classes at Mark R. Isfeld school. The curriculum for the environment unit is huge and there was a lot of information to jam into a short time, but it was awesome.

In the first day we discussed consumerism and its effects on the planet and people on it. The curriculum worked beautifully with my "Defining Your Own Success" presentation because the bulk of the terms I introduced revolved around defining levels of prosperity and poverty. The UN Human Development Index measures the quality of life on a scale from 1-165. Ranking at the top of the HDI is Norway. Canada is currently eighth on the list so we broke into what the differences between Norway and Canada are to discover and understand the systems we measure state success by. Then we analyzed countries at the bottom of the list like Zimbabwe and The Democratic Republic of Congo to compare the disparities between the developed world and developing states. After laying the foundation for some mental building, things got very exciting.

Many of the students started to make insightful connections that generated some great discussion about human impacts on the environment. Much of the focus was on resource extraction, that inevitably forms solid waste, and fresh water in the midst of issues involving climate change, population growth, economic morals and ethics, and our personal stake in the future of the earth's environmental and social well-being.

On day two I focused on water in the Comox Valley, provincially, nationally and globally. After surveying the big issues, we discussed how those issues impact us in the long-term. If 1.5 billion people do not have access to clean fresh water now than what will happen in the future with larger populations, more urbanization and growing contamination of the biosphere? How can we guarantee human flourishing under these difficult limitations? These were tough questions but the kids were on it and did incredibly well putting logical arguments together using several different approaches. Critical thinking skills are going to help us get a handle on these issues - and the class was applying there skills well that week.

Over the next few days the class and I debated possible solutions to the issues that involved working at different levels politically, economically and socially to direct change. I was really happy to hear after the week that everyone felt positive and found empowerment through understanding. To top it all off, I mean seriously the biggest bonus ever, one of the core sets of questions on the Provincial Exam that the kids all wrote, one week after our time together, revolved around water. Everyone crushed it because they had a good understanding of water rights and privatization, the issues around keeping water clean and available, environmental refugees and population growth, policy and lifestyle clashes - total - "you just got EDJA-MA-CATED and crushed it" - success.

Without a doubt I get so pumped working with classes on a long-term basis. The relationships, the connections, energy and the learning on all sides of the environment unit are so inspiring that it's impossible to deny that humanity is heading in the right direction. Thanks for the amazing time Isfeld and thank you very much Jouska Laquell for inviting me again to spend a powerful week with your students.