I have a 7year old in one of my classes who recently cried for the AMAZON region.
We were learning about this magnificent river system and looking at internet information, photos and videos.
As I had visited the area earlier this year, I was able to expand a little on the topic and all the kids had watched the worrying pictures of burning forest recently.
We were able to facetime with my daughter-in-law who works with small mammals in the Amazon region and the kids learned SO much and were able to pose their personal questions to Ana.
They decided to write to President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil to express their opinions and deep feelings about the destruction taking place in the mighty Amazon forest.
They were excited about having a voice and even decided to stop eating hamburgers from a particular company who have purchased meat from cows raised in illegally deforested areas.
And then Jay cried. Actually he did NOT cry- he sobbed for fifteen minutes and was inconsolable. I just sat and held him while another teacher took over the class.
You may think his response was over the top (Jay is seven years of age,) but actually it isn’t.
This is the future we are leaving for our kids and it’s not pretty.
Witness the impassioned plea of the 15-Year-Old Activist Greta Thunberg who recently addressed the United Nations . Her intense, well -chosen and strong words. “How dare you?” say it all!
Greta is right. How dare we carry on with this planet- destroying way of life.
All Jay could sob was, “It’s too sad. It’s too sad!,” and he’s right. It is!
Let’s all stop and consider what we can do because we CAN act.
