Greetings GreenMount Community,
Today,
at our Monday Morning Meeting, we discussed homelessness and the fact that more
than 4,000 men, women and children will
be homeless this holiday season. We
asked the students to imagine what it must be like to have no place to sleep, have
little food and certainly none of the things that we use to enjoy life. We pointed to all of the things left in our
lost and found, which were laid out and literally filled the stage steps. I spoke of how fortunate we all are to have
so many things in addition to the basic needs, like the coats, sweaters and
shirts that they have left for our lost and found. The point of this discussion was not to make
our students feel guilty about all they have, but to help them realize how you
have worked hard to provide your families with the comforts and enjoyment that
life has to offer and that they need to be more responsible with the things
that they possess.
In asking the students to imagine what it must be like to be
homeless, I realized that it must be hard for them to actually do that without
some frame of reference or experience. I
asked the students to close their eyes and imagine a polar bear. When asked to raise their hands if they could
see a polar bear, they all did so. They
know what a polar bear looks like. Then
I asked them to keep their eyes closed and imagine the polar bear wearing a
green dress, roller skates and sunglasses.
Immediately, they began to laugh at the sight they had created in their
minds. Then, with their eyes open again,
I asked the students to tell me why they could imagine the polar bear with a
dress, roller skates and sunglasses.
They seemed unsure, so I helped them by pointing out that they could
imagine this because I asked them to picture familiar things. Our imaginations can pull together any
combination of things that we know to create any number of images or
scenarios. We discovered that we cannot
imagine homelessness unless we had some experience with it. It’s not part of what we know. Teachers asked the students to imagine some aspects
of homelessness, like being cold, wet, hungry, sick, and afraid. This they understood, and I believe that they
came away with some sense of what homelessness must be like.
On Wednesday, Mr. Fletcher’s 8th
grade students will be going to Paul’s Place to deliver the things that you and
your families have generously donated.
If you have not done so yet, I encourage you to bring some of the items
that were noted on the flier you received last week in order to lessen the pain
of homelessness for the people our students will meet at Paul’s Place. Our students have had some wonderful
experiences as part of their service learning, and the 8th graders
especially are gaining some understanding and skills that they will take with
them when they visit Costa Rica in the spring.
There they will also help families in a village with a project designed
to make their life better.
"No
act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted." - Aesop
Cheers,
Steve
