Ponderings

Just yesterday I was asked the effect my round the world trip left me with. I've been asked that before but this recent question seems more answerable than the previous ones. When I first came back I really had no idea. I knew that it changed me but not quite certain how. And I'm sure that I'll continue to discover this as time goes on, perhaps for years I imagine.

I've become more mindful of the environment. Of the amount of waste that we create. Of how unnecessary some things are at times. And I've become more vocal about telling people too. I suppose those that are most affected are the people I work with since I spend most of my time with them. Around Thanksgiving some of the teachers were planning for us to have a luncheon together. We do this a few times a year just for something different. Well, the vote was to order in Swiss Chalet chicken dinners. I spoke up against the terrible waste that ordering in Swiss Chalet creates (everything is individually served in plastic and with plastic that just gets thrown out...it's not even recyclable plastic). Plus, it's not particularly a "sharing in community" event like a pot-luck would be, where people bring something to share and well, everyone shares. On the other hand, I understand that we working people don't necessarily have time to make something for a pot-luck. Though, arguably something could be bought too. Anyway, it became a little thing at school that helped to make some people a little bit more aware. We ordered Swiss Chalet anyway, though I brought my own lunch since I don't even particularly like Swiss Chalet on top of it. And the others all washed their plastic containers and the kindergarten teacher took them to use in her classroom for painting or something like that.

One of the big problems at our school is litter. Our schoolyard sometimes looks very terrible. The kids don't even see that they play in garbage. Granted, the community walks through the schoolyard and a bunch of litter is from that but our students are not innocent either as they seem to like to think that they are. We've been trying to educate them about this. Lynda has organized a clean-up crew that helps to pick up litter at recess and the students are very diligent and proud about it. I made a sandwich board sign that I wear when I'm out on yard duty that says, "Respect our School" on one side and "Please don't litter" on the other. It often creates a stir in the yard when I wear it. I organized an assembly in November that focussed on the environment. Lynda and I had gone out for yard duty one afternoon and saw a huge mess that was really only a few days old. We picked up all the garbage over two days, almost a whole garbage bag full, and then I dumped it out in front of the whole school onto the gym floor. Judging by the gasps of disgust, it was quite effective. I hope that helped change at least some students. There is still litter to be found in the schoolyard but students are also more aware. I've heard people say things like, "Oh we better clean this up, or Ms Schemeit will be upset." Actually I heard a teacher say this, which puzzled me. I spoke up and told them that that wasn't quite the right reason to be doing something. Perhaps I have become less Canadian in my attitude, less complacent about things I feel more strongly about.

That assembly on the environment also included a slide show. It was about the beauty of the earth and how we need to work towards preserving it. I showed pictures from my round the world adventures and juxtaposed some of them with the ugliness of pollution. It too was effective. Organizing slideshows has become one of my favourite things to do for school. There are so many experiences from my round the world adventures that are curriculum based and useful for enhancing lessons around the school. Students get excited when I arrive in their classroom with the data projector.

I've also become more mindful of how wasteful our society is, of how we have far more than we need and often we are not happy either. I think I mention this to people in my life on a regular basis too. I'm often reminded of my friends in Uganda who have much less than we do in material goods and have a less me-centered attitude than we do. When I was working at the school in Masooli, I had the grade 7 and 8 students write letters to the students at my school in Canada. The Canadian students wrote back to them in the spring sometime and just in October they received letters back again from the Masooli students. The students at my school were very excited and I helped to 'translate' some of what they'd written and threw together a little slideshow of pictures and storied of my time at Masooli school. Now there's a grade 8 student who has decided she wants to raise money for this school in Uganda. She came up with the idea to sell candygrams for Christmas and later for Valentine's Day and Easter. They did very well already in the two weeks before Christmas selling candy canes. $222 is great for our little community. I'm looking forward to setting up a more lasting relationship between the two schools.

Enough pondering for this bit.