A Trashy Education

The title of this entry may sound a bit negative but wait until you hear about the most recent happenings at Inter and perhaps you'll think differently. The Bottle School I told you about a few entries ago is well underway. Everyone in the school community has been informed as to how they can help and what materials need to go inside the bottles. Students of all ages are coming up to me in the hallways and presenting bottles they stuffed at home with their families. They are also volunteering to stay in at recesses to help stuff, coming to school early, pulling garbage out of cans to use, cleaning out water bottles during their snack time, and collecting trash from students during lunch. Simply beautiful :)

Video of a Bottle School being built

Today, my elementary Earthkeepers performed a short skit at the assembly about a superhero called "Recycle Woman" who stops a bunch of students from throwing away their garbage. They instead showed everyone what materials can go in what water bottles and how they should look when they are finished. It was hilarious. For whatever reason, the students elected me to be "Recycle Woman" and suggested I have a cape and a giant "R" on my shirt. Hopefully the rest of the crowd got the idea and weren't just distracted with the obnoxiousness of my superhero attire.

Recycle Woman and her Planeteers!

The real reason I needed to post today was to tell you something remarkable that happened in 3B this afternoon. My students earned a party for first quarter because they filled our cotton ball jar through various acts of good behavior. Today we voted on how exactly we wanted to celebrate their accomplishments. The following ideas were thrown out to the rest of the class by students:

• whole class soccer game
• pizza party
• watch a movie
• pajama day
• "crazy day" (I'm never really sure what that entitles but kids seem to love that idea)
• extra recess
• dance party
• costume day
• pet day
• bring-any-toy-you-want-day (ummmm.... no.)

And then some sweet girl added, "We can do a party where we all make the bottles!" Of course I loved this idea but I was tickled pink to hear that other kids were nodding and saying "SI!" in agreement.

Then, it was voting time. First round everyone got to vote for two items and the ones with the least amount of votes would be eliminated. The class all had to put their heads down to keep with our theme of a secret ballot. The choices were narrowed down to...

• whole class soccer game
• pizza party
• movie
• pj party
• bottle brick party

I think you know where I'm headed with this. Second round students voted for only one option and to my disbelief and complete happiness, the bottle brick party won. Hands down it had the most votes. I was overjoyed to see how thoughtful my students were that they VOTED to celebrate their first earned party of the whole school year by putting garbage inside more garbage so that other kids in Guatemala could someday use those bottles as the walls of their classroom. The whole point of this project combining the efforts of city kids with those of the children in the pueblos was for this very reaction: for the kids to be genuinely moved by the prospect of children within their own country building their school out of garbage they collected. My students have found themselves so invested in this cause that they are dedicating almost all of their free time to helping make it happen. And the best part is they haven't even gotten to see the real good they are doing outside of recycling the school's waste. When they actually get to go to the community and with their own two hands build a structure with kids who are in many ways different but in many ways just like them, I cannot even fathom the impact it will have on everyone involved. I'm already overwhelmed with the emotions of this idea and we haven't even come close to finishing it. We're so very lucky to be working with Jaron and the guys at Hug it Forward because with all of our efforts and visions this truly could be a life-changing experience for a lot of people, especially my young, impressionable, future-leaders-of-Guatemala students. 

I'm looking forward to updating you all as we make more progress. Here are some photos from our recess stuffing session and Earthkeepers this afternoon. 

About 20 kids gave up their recess today to make bricks :)