I don’t know exactly what the next revolution will look like. I’m not a historian. I haven’t studied deeply what they’ve looked like in the past and I don’t know that we can even do that to predict the future.
Looking Merriam Webster’s dictionary I see it’s definition d) I’m looking for “: a fundamental change in the way of thinking about or visualizing something : change of paradigm.” That’s the kind of revolution I’m thinking about.
I might not know for sure what the revolution will like like, but I have a few ideas.
A couple of years ago I saw a video on YouTube made me smile. A woman in England (I think she was with Extinction Rebellion) went into a store, purchased her items and then proceeded to take each one out of its plastic packaging. She ripped open a bag of cookies and gently laid the contents in her cloth bag. The same for the other dozen or so items she had purchased. I don’t remember her words exactly, but something like, “I really want these food items but not the plastic. So I’m going to just leave the plastic here for you to deal with.”
I’ve looked for the video many times since and had no luck. I find the memory of it extremely inspiring. What if we all did that? Imagine supermarkets filled with the plastic they are spewing out.
If they don’t like it, they can contact their suppliers. I know where that conversation would end. It would lead to the fossil fuel companies who, seeing the end of burning fossil fuels for energy, are pushing petrochemicals as plastic.
I need to work up the chutzpah to do this myself. A few months ago I arranged for someone to film me. I wrote a little script. I signed up on TikTok as ‘Something’s Wrong with the World,’ thinking I’d post it there. Instead, I watch a couple of TikTok recipe videos every day as part of my morning routine.
I haven’t done my plastics action yet, but I will. We’ve got to stop the flow of single use and plastic packaging at the source. We have to stop acting like we have no control. So, part of the revolution will get the overabundance of plastics out of our lives. Not by pulling it out of the ocean after the fact, but by stopping it at the source.
Another area I see prime for a revolution is schools. Teachers are leaving the profession in large numbers. There is a teacher shortage. Teachers have power.
Schools are prime for a revolution.
End standardized student testing. Who is benefiting the most from all the student testing? Pearson — ‘The world’s learning company.” Until we end structural racism in this country, the tests will tell us what we already know — that we have structural racism in this country.
Student testing is a big business that purports to allow us to track progress and raise standards. Mostly it tells teachers that the students they knew were struggling with school academics are struggling and those that were seen to be succeeding are succeeding. Testing doesn’t motivate teachers or students to do better. It is not helpful. It’s detrimental.
Get rid of the onerous teacher evaluation system. At least in the state of Washington, teacher’s have to do a lot of work just to prove that they’re teaching. Less time proving and more time collaborating would be wonderful.
Keep parental opinions out of the classroom. Teacher’s know what they’re doing. They are professionals who are well trained to do the job. Yes, teachers should listen to parents, but parent’s are not in charge of the classroom.
Focus on mental health. Last year, I witnessed a teacher gently counseling a 5th grade student who was having suicidal thoughts. We are facing a mental health crisis in the United States, not only in adults but in teens and younger children. Schools are wisely focusing on student social and emotional health, but then we get to the end of the year and the kids have to take those darned standardized tests.
What you focus on grows. We need to focus on kindness and compassion. We need to focus on teaching children that we are part of nature, connected to the natural world around us. More and more teachers are getting that gut feeling that how schools are operating is not how they should be operating. They have that feeling that we’re not doing right by the students.
I think there are still many teachers who don’t have this ‘gut feeling’ yet. So many of us need to take a step back, away from our possessions, and do some soul searching. The revolution will require soul searching.
The revolution requires that we have health care for all. The revolution requires living wage for all. The revolution requires compassion.
The revolution looks at homelessness as a symptom societal dysfunction, not a personal failing. I think the personal moral failing should go instead to the single person living along in a three story house. While we have been glorifying wealth and selfishness, the revolutionary paradigm would turn that on its head. Generosity over greed, contentment over endless striving.
The revolution requires a deep look into why we are facing a mental health and drug addiction crisis. Why are so many people so unhappy?
The revolution will happen when people wake up to the beauty of where they are, and the time they have. The revolution will have to face the inequity of income and opportunity, and the damage to our lives of constant distraction.
People all over the world are joining the revolution, saying no to what is harmful and yes to ways that lead to health and happiness over profit. They are eschewing the idea that I can win only if you lose, that having a car means freedom, that having trust in others is a failing.
Ask yourself one of these questions. Memorize it or write it on the fridge. What are the children of the future asking us to do? What legacy do you want to leave? What does the earth require of us if we want to continue to live on it? What kind of ancestor do you want to be?
And remember that corporations are not people. They don’t have a fridge to post questions on or a heart to hold them in. We’re needing to re-form the way we’ve been living on earth since the dawn of the agricultural era and colonialism.
Change is happening. If we can imagine a better world, we can create one.
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This post was previously published on Medium.
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