Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.
— Oscar Wilde.
Compassion, Empathy, Equality, Education, and Respect. Let’s “CEEER” (care).
I had this “CARE” talk this school year with my high school students. We put aside learning physics formulas and discussed why we should all care. …Care about their behavior, how they treat others, their grades, the future, family, school, community, and the larger world. Something so fundamentally easy on the surface…..right? But it’s not easy and the discussion I had in class with my students didn’t go as well as I had liked. The students actually laughed. And even as I write this today, I’m still not sure why “the care talk” became a joke. It was this discussion that prompted me to become more proactive and research ways to impact and ignite change in our youth. …Enter Fulbright Teachers for Global Classrooms…
So this is my first ever attempt at “blogging”. I have always loved writing and have found it to be very therapeutic throughout life’s tough journey. However, putting your inner thoughts down on paper and sharing them publicly is a very strange adventure for me.
My name is Karly Lyons and I’m a teacher from Ohio with over 15 years of experience. I have spent most of my career teaching science to middle and high schoolers. But lately, I have ventured into teaching earth science college courses for local community colleges, which I absolutely love. I consider myself a life-long learner and have readjusted my career trajectory yet again this year by committing to start my PhD this coming fall at Mississippi State University in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences.
I was listening to the radio today while having my own personal concert in my car when Pink’s new song , “Walk Me Home” came on and struck a cord with me. There’s a lyric in the song that gives the reason why she doesn’t want to walk home alone; “Cause there is so much wrong….going on outside”. The reality is, there are a lot of monstrosities that have been occurring all around the world that have been tolerated or ignored for far too long and these issues often find themselves trickling into and affecting our own local communities.
Just yesterday, my husband and I went to a Cleveland Indians game and witnessed random hatred. A larger man rammed into another gentleman with the opposite jersey on and this sparked some nasty name calling. It escalated into a bloody fist fight in minutes and small children had to witness their father get beaten and bloodied in front of their eyes. And for what?….But I was more appalled by the bystanders that just watched it all happen and did nothing. There were many that didn’t even acknowledge the incident and just kept walking. Is this the kind of world we all want to live in? Are we that desensitized to violence? To hatred? Where is the compassion? Kindness should not be a rare trait!
Poverty, homelessness, hunger, drug addiction, mental health, a lack of clean water/air/land/oceans, a lack of access to health insurance coverage, a huge disparity in an all inclusive quality education, a lack of empathy, the climate change crisis, unstable international relations, inequality, degradation of biodiversity, a gross dependence on fossil fuels….and these are just the tip of the iceberg of global issues that need to be addressed. Global leaders should be developing partnerships to promote sustainable systems for the future. These programs need to promote peace, respect, sanitation, safety, sustainable renewable energy resources, building resilient infrastructures, and decent work environments that foster economic growth. Folks, I didn’t come up with all of these on my own. These are the United Nations’ Sustainability Development Goals or SDGs. There is already a solid framework developed for leaders around the world to start working together to help solve some of our problems here on our ONE planet. But EDUCATION and AWARENESS are key!
At the end of this month (June), I will travel to India for three weeks with Fulbright Teachers for Global Classrooms. The year-long professional development program aims at sending teachers to international destinations to act as national diplomats with the goal of gaining a better understanding of different cultures to later bring that new perspective into the classroom for the next generation to benefit from. The program hopes to equip teachers with the knowledge and support they need to help better prepare globally competent students.
Why the random stream of thought about caring, Pink, a Reds game, global issues, and traveling to India? Because it’s very difficult to “care” about anything else when you don’t care about yourself. In the last 15 years teaching our youth, I have seen a drastic increase in mental health problems, self destructive behaviors, and a lack of self worth in the children I educate. As heartbreaking as it is, we need to acknowledge this problem and start addressing it. I have learned that India has a “Happiness Curriculum” that focuses on the importance of educating the whole child. I’m super excited to see it in action and want to see if this is something that would benefit the students here in America.
I believe that if we invest in the self esteem, self awareness, and self worth of each child, we can teach them to “care” about all things. And that my friends, is what it’s all about for me. Humanity and planet Earth need healing…
Karly's Blog 