BEING WHO WE WANT OUR CHILDREN TO BECOME

The holiday of Thanksgiving approaches and several related issues come to the front for me as a teacher and someone looking at the way education is preparing our students for what they’ll be met with as young adults.  Each will need to be equipped with the foundational skills of curiosity, analytical thought and most important, a willingness to face what’s needed and take action that’s required:courage. And so, if we are educating them today, what is it that we need to be doing? I would say first and foremost what they need is a treasure chest of biographies filled with one courageous individual after another.At this time of year, if we are blessed with privilege, we welcome a harvest.  This season, each post will recognize a truth teller from Americans Who Tell the Truth whose work has a direct impact and relationship to the harvest in some way. The last post was about Coalition for the Homeless’ Homelessness and Hunger Week: 16 November. It is this time of year we often turn our attention , ever so briefly to the issues of resources and scarcity. And yet, they are at the basis of everything.I want to share a fable from the Persian tradition about this issue. I had students discuss what their understanding of the story was and what it means to them personally. These students are all from homes where there is poverty and their conclusion about the story was that “greed is the problem behind everything that’s wrong, because there’s a difference between what you want and what you need.” I wonder what your students will say….The Tiger and the Fox- A Persian taleOnce there was a young woman who wished to understand what wisdom and guidance she needed to know the real meaning of life ( and God, for those of you who can use that term) .  She set out to ask everyone she knew but none of the answers she heard satisfied her. She determined to go deep into the forest and listen for the voice of wisdom that she sought. She believed if she sat very still in the forest , the voice would speak to her.  As she walked deeper and deeper into the trees, the forest grew darker. She sat down by a tree to rest and in the distance she saw a fox whose legs were missing. She wondered how it managed to stay alive and looking so healthy. She decided to stay where she was and watch for the answer to her question. Not too long after that, a tiger approached with its’ kill fresh in its mouth. It sat to eat and when it was nearly finished , it got up and came to bring meat to the fox, who ate it and then slept. The tiger returned every day to feed the fox without fail. The young woman said to herself, “See how this fox sits patiently and waits for what it needs. This is how I will gain the wisdom I seek. I will stay here and wait, just as the fox does. ” And so she did. Days went by and she was nearly broken by hunger and despair. She cried out in pain from hunger and the disappointment of being left alone. And a voice answered: ” Foolish girl, what you seek is not gained by following the example of the crippled fox but by taking up the ways of the tiger.” A truth teller who took up the ways of the tiger from an early age was Emma Tenayuca. Her biography and life’s work was one of great compassion for those who did not have what others did , who were crippled by an unfair economic system and like the tiger, she sought to provide a pathway to fair wages and solutions for the workers. Fights for these laborers continue today and as we celebrate a harvest, we must ask ourselves under what conditions were these foods brought to our tables?