There’s got to be hope

Last night, as I huffed over yet another change in outrageously expensive, but compulsory, school PE kit for Maegan, we talked about whether it’s also being wasteful – why should we buy yet another white polo shirt, just because it has the Canterbury brand logo on it, when we have a cupboard full of perfectly serviceable polo shirts from Land’s End?

I like to think that the children’s formal education today will prepare them for the problems that will face us all. But they are starting to realise that it’s not always easy to work out what is the right thing to do, let alone do it. Role models in the real world (us parents included) don’t often follow what is taught in the current school curriculum, creating confusion for our little sponges. “Why do people do that Mummy?” they ask. They are also starting to learn that even when we do know what’s right we don’t always realise how important it is to do it. Or maybe we just don’t believe that our small contribution is worth the hassle? Could Mummy have raised her hand and pointed out the obvious, rather than unquestioningly dashing to the Canterbury shop and buying ¥20,000 worth of brand new kit, because that’s what everyone else does?! In hindsight, I think so!

The children looked around as we drove home through Omotesando’s crazy shopping district (yes drove, I know, it was raining, Maegan announced just before dinner that she absolutely had to have her new PE kit before school tomorrow and I was still dealing with an infestation of fleas in the house – poor excuses!). Their little faces got sadder and sadder – “I told you we are the worst thing that has happened to the Earth Mummy” said Maegan. More than a tinge of desperation came into Logan’s voice as he asked “but if the ice melts in the arctic, where will all the ice animals live?”. Their mood reminded me of the statement one of my lecturers made when we started a course in ‘Education for Sustainable Development’. He said, “we are educating for hope, not for despair”, which, after 8 months of totally depressing courses on the million and one ways we are trashing the planet and ourselves, this was such a welcome relief.

So we talked about hope, a need for having a vision, a need for endless learning and improvement, never giving up and ‘fighting’ for what you believe in – heavy stuff for a Monday evening with a 7 and 11 year old.

It’s important, but obviously difficult, to maintain a sense of hope for our children – for us too. So I was looking for some inspiring material, as much for me as the kids. To quote from a speech given by Paul Hawken (author of “The Ecology of Commerce”) to the graduating students of the University of Portland in 2009:

“If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand the data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse.”

“The most unrealistic person in the world is the cynic, not the dreamer. Hope only makes sense when it doesn’t make sense to be hopeful. This is your century. Take it and run as if your life depends on it.”