Want
to give kids a lesson they will never forget?
Allow
them to ditch school and help on a service project.
On
Friday, our squirrelly hyper active junior highers were divvied up to do some much needed work
around Kunming, China. Paint walls, pull weeds, clear fields and shovel pooh.
My
group of students got the privilege of painting a community center for a
minority group of Miao children just outside
of Kunming. These children speak the local dialect of Miao (pronounced like
meow) While Miao kids are fluent in “kitty-ese”, they
but speak about as much Mandarin as I do. Without the knowledge of Mandarin, the doors are not open for these children to go to school.
While
this Miao center may not look as impressive as Chicago’s New Trier school, it opens
doors that privileged kids don’t even know exist.
Take a
cyber tour around campus.
Uppity
Neighborhood Location
The
West Wing
New
Library
Sparkling
Restrooms
Toilet Paper Dispenser
Classroom
Chairs
White
Board Technology
School
Uniforms
Rec
Room
Sports
Equipment
Track
and Field
Modern
Plumbing
Adequate
Lighting
School
Mascot (Pig Pens, they look the same everywhere, don’t they?)
Fifty shades of yellow
Students,
Why don’t you work this hard in my class?
It was
a great lesson for all of us.