Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Teaching Waste?

While visiting the Easter party at my son's preschool this past spring, I was shocked to learn that his preschool, one of the largest in town, does not participate in any recycling efforts. I was so surprised and disappointed in myself for not having researched this earlier. We moved to town after the school year had begun and we were lucky enough to get him into this school that presented itself as one of the best in every other aspect.

I noticed the assistant teacher going to throw out a plastic cupcake container and that's when I asked her about recycling at the school.

"No, we don't do anything like that here," she responded.

What?!!! "anything like that..." You mean, incorporating the idea of respecting and nurturing our planet into the daily existence of our children's lives? Do you mean, we don't do anything like teach them that throwing away recyclable items such as the plastic container, is being wasteful and LAZY...

Oh. I'm so disappointed to hear this. And I began to question the school's motives. It's so important to teach the kids about their alphabet, about God's love for them (it's a Christian based school) about being kind to one another...but it's not a priority to teach them about being kind to the Earth? Or about reducing the amount of waste we as humans create each and every day? In my opinion, in this day and age, it is simply unacceptable.


My goal is to set up a meeting this summer with the director of the school to see how I can help start some sort of recycling effort in the school. We can start small, and hopefully if other's help and get involved we can grow.

What are your experiences with teaching little one's about recycling? Do you have any suggestions on how I should approach this subject with the director of the school?

Thanks, Kate