It's Nice to Share

Remember being told that "it's nice to share" about a bazillion times when you were little? Remember telling your own off-spring, siblings, neighbors, etc. the same thing about a bazillion times?
I've found myself saying that to various schools all morning; it's an idea that I think might just save a lot of kids from being doomed to failure.
Over the past century, school after school after school has been nurturing people to live and work in isolation. We hide our papers; we don't collaborate on projects because how do we split up the grade; we partition ourselves from one another in the library and learn through reading in silence. Who's idea WAS this?
Earlier today I enjoyed lunch with a delightful table of people who were strangers this morning and are fast becoming vision-sharing friends. The age-old conversation comes up time and again--we don't have money, we don't have resources, we don't have people who want to become involved. I have an idea; let's just solve those problems once and for all and then we don't have to waste valuable time on those wheel spinning perplexities.
We don't have money--so what? We have brains, we have Internet resources, we have high school kids who want to be teachers, we have churches and libraries even in the smallest of towns. All of these resources can be used and it takes very little revenue. We use our brains to think so far outside the box that we can't even FIND the box. We use our Internet resources to network--our kids that live in the country, in the inner city, in the burbs can go virtually and visit with the person that's in the process of climbing Everest, swimming the English Channel, or in the lab discovering the next thing that's going to save the quality of our lives. We give those high school kids that chance to try out their dreams by helping them learn how to tutor kids, and, in turn, giving those little ones the chance to have a positive role model that doesn't come on a Wheaties box resulting in a much more attainable goal for the kiddo someday to return the favor to the next generation. We go into our churches and libraries and barbershops and coffee shops and ask them to post websites for the school, to host community meetings, to share resources and people power.
How did we ever get so far away from such simple solutions? It makes me wonder. Physical isolation doesn't need to mean emotional isolation--we're human--we need one another.
Let's start being community once again.
Have a fine day.