Giving kids a part of creation
Prince Rupert, BC
Here is a powerful idea from Australian Aboriginal playwright Jack Davis about how to reconnect kids with nature:
It’s quite simple…give us love of country whether white or black. Give every kid at school something to protect of our flora and fauna. “OK,you look after the beetles…the quokka, the ladybugs…that’s your totem.”
Imagine doing this. A kid has responsibility for a fern species, a tree, an insect, a bird. You identify closely with this thing and do everything you can to steward it’s survival. In an interconnected world, giving someone responsibility for a small part will quickly lead them to an appreciation and engagement with the whole. You can’t protect something in isolation – you need to also care for it’s context.
Now imagine if we did that in organizations too? And communities. And families. Imagine what we would learn as we worked to protect our totem in a living system.
