A message from Brooklyn to Nestle on Palm Oil and Forest Destruction
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Filed under 3 Economics
How to Be Courageous…
Go here for a pretty good piece from the Huffington Post on personal courage…
When Yves Biggoer-Burger was in the second grade, he witnessed a group of peers teasing an overweight girl. Drawing himself up to his full 8-year-old height, he stood by her side and said:
“Guys, she might be bigger than you, but she’s definitely not as stupid.”
The boys slunk away, shame-faced.
Many of us can remember times in our childhood—and our adulthood too—when we would have liked to act as bravely as Yves. But we couldn’t muster the courage. Maybe we weren’t lion-hearted or quick-witted enough. Maybe we thought that courage belongs to an elect class of noble souls and daredevils and not for the likes of us.
I have felt all of these things.
But this is a mistake not only for those who might benefit from our courage but also for our very own selves. Courage helps us grow and give. And it’s available to us all.
This post is not about how to take monumentally brave actions, like Malala Yousafzai, the young Pakistani education activist who was shot for her efforts, or like a firefighter rushing into a burning building. It is instead about understanding what courage really is and training ourselves to perform small, daily acts of bravery.
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A reminder that their world is far worse…
Michelle Sweeney – Facebook post / shared by Kaysie Stark (OHS c/o 2016)
We arrived in Chicago yesterday afternoon after pretty horrible Lufthansa flight. The flight was full and there were about 30 refugees on board – families with lots of small kids, who were tired, frightened and clearly overwhelmed, most spoke hardly a word of english. Some of them had never been on a flight before. Many didn’t know where they were (a women asked me when we were sitting on the tarmac at Frankfurt if “this was America?”). One family in particular appeared to be quite poor – the children were dressed in rags. Literally. Rags. And yes, they did smell a bit too. The kids had no nappies and they had very obviously been travelling for a long time. They looked utterly dishevelled.
This is not what made the flight horrible. It was actually heartwarming to see that an organisation (IOM I think) was arranging for these people to find safety and security in a new country. They were hopeful. Relieved to be going somewhere else. Tearful at the thought of starting a new life. But I imagine for them it was also terrifying – such a huge amount of uncertainty ahead of them.
What made the flight awful was the behaviour of the other passengers around them. We hadn’t been on the plan five minutes when the passengers around the ‘poorest’ family starting bitching and whining about these children that were crying. The passengers asked to be moved. The passengers started talking to each other about the ‘free tickets these families were being given’. And about how they ‘just knew that the kids weren’t going to stop crying all throughout the flight’. Frankly, they were vile. They spoke about these human people like they weren’t sitting right there next to them. Like they were trash. Like they didn’t matter. It was disgusting. We were mortified. Angry and upset by it. I felt so ashamed.
So, I say to you that it’s wonderful to see so many people supporting the plight of refugees by donating, campaigning and pleading with governments to do more. But none of that matters a sod, if when someone in dire need is sitting next to you and you can’t find a civil word to or a smile for them. Just be kind. Be kind to the person next to you, to the family in rags that smells a bit. To the person who doesn’t have a nice white smile and clean clothes. Because that smile or kind word might be the only one they get that day.
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Filed under 1 Senior Current Issues
Survey Results – 2015 SCI “What’s my Temperature?”
Please go here for survey results.
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How can you have any pudding, if you don’t eat your MEAT!
Watch it. Think about it. Write about it. What does it mean? How does it relate to you, to your school, to your government, to following the rules, to challenging the system, to questioning the institutions that have shaped your life, your parents, to your teachers, your school, the world? To the box that you might be currently thinking outside of.
Why the masks? Why the meat grinder? Why the poetry? Why the school? Why the teacher? Why pudding? Why meat?
What would it take to stop the slow march to the grinder?
What would it take to stop the rioting at the end?
How does this relate to you and your life? Or does it?
Reflect…the direction is yours entirely. There is no correct or incorrect evaluation here. It’s your thoughts fully. However you must check your spelling. 300 word target. Assignment is due posted to Google Classroom by Wednesday 11:59 PM.
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Filed under 2 Government
