Are you a Solutionary?

I don’t know about you, but it doesn’t feel to me like next week should be the 4th of July, but here we are. One week from today is Independence Day! Tonight is the first presidential (presumed) candidate debate of this election season, at 8 pm our local (Central Daylight) time. I’m leaning toward the idea that it will make US think of one of Shakespeare’s plays. I would be delighted to be proven wrong.

On a brighter, more positive note, this morning I came across a refreshing source for optimism. The founder of the Institute for Humane Education, Zoe Weil, has a recently published book, The Solutionary Way. It ticks almost all of the checkboxes on my list for systems solutions, plus it covers most of the substantive sectors we need to be concerned with. The author and her approach are one of the more encouraging prospects I’ve seen in a long time.

Trout in the Classroom aquarium

Photo by J. Harrington

In another aspect related to education, I may be reengaging in Minnesota Trout Unlimited’s Trout in the Classroom [TIC] activities. For one class years ago I did a quick summary of the history of fly fishing for trout. Today I started to refresh and update my knowledge of the program by looking at the Minnesota and National web sections on TIC. I don’t really believe in coincidences, and the fact that this morning, as I was in a doom and gloom mode, two emails showed up related to The World Becomes What We Teach and shattered my dark ceiling can’t be coincidental.

There are lots of good, helpful, folks doing lots of positive work to make this world a much better place. They all too often get thirty seconds of human interest air time rather than being acknowledged as resources that can help US address many of the issues troubling US. Imagine if the evening news content didn’t emphasize “If it bleeds, it leads.” It could be time for US to adopt the line from Network: “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this any more!”

A House Called Tomorrow

Alberto Ríos
1952 – 

You are not fifteen, or twelve, or seventeen—
You are a hundred wild centuries

And fifteen, bringing with you
In every breath and in every step

Everyone who has come before you,
All the yous that you have been,

The mothers of your mother,
The fathers of your father.

If someone in your family tree was trouble,
A hundred were not:

The bad do not win—not finally,
No matter how loud they are.

We simply would not be here
If that were so.

You are made, fundamentally, from the good.
With this knowledge, you never march alone.

You are the breaking news of the century.
You are the good who has come forward

Through it all, even if so many days
Feel otherwise.  But think:

When you as a child learned to speak,
It’s not that you didn’t know words—

It’s that, from the centuries, you knew so many,
And it’s hard to choose the words that will be your own.

From those centuries we human beings bring with us
The simple solutions and songs,

The river bridges and star charts and song harmonies
All in service to a simple idea:

That we can make a house called tomorrow.
What we bring, finally, into the new day, every day,

Is ourselves.  And that’s all we need
To start.  That’s everything we require to keep going. 

Look back only for as long as you must,
Then go forward into the history you will make.

Be good, then better.  Write books.  Cure disease.
Make us proud.  Make yourself proud.

And those who came before you?  When you hear thunder,
Hear it as their applause.

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