Way back in 1970 — the Dark Ages, for sure — the band Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young topped the charts with “Teach Your Children,” a philosophical tune that included the stanza: Teach your parents well/Their children’s hell will slowly go by/And feed them on your dreams/The one they pick’s, the one you’ll know by/Don’t you ever ask them why/If they told you, you would cry/So just look at them and sigh/And know they love you.”
This week’s front page of The Chief features three young people from Howe Sound Secondary School who serve as shining examples of those wishing to teach their parents well. Inspired by a Vancouver couple who started The Clean Bin Project to show how little waste we can produce if we really try, students Megan Dewar, Mathias Horne and Payton Burgin are challenging their classmates — and the community — to use far fewer disposable cups. As part of the effort, the students have erected a tower of plastic, paper and wax cardboard take-out cups inside the school in the hopes of making people think twice the next time they go for a take-out coffee, tea or other drink.
It’s not like we adults didn’t know that the disposable cups were, and still are, a tremendous waste and that there’s a much better alternative — namely, bringing our own mugs into Starbucks, Timmy’s or even 7-Eleven. Starbucks even offers an (admittedly meager) 10-cent-per-drink discount for those who bring their own. We would urge them to increase the discount — say, to 10 per cent.
Yet another example of our young people “teaching their parents well” is last week’s Global Awareness Dinner, largely organized by students with the Howe Sound Interact Club and the Kenya Tuition Fund. Such efforts — in this case aiming to raise awareness about the injustices girls face in trying to get an education in many developing countries — give us faith that despite the obvious challenges, there’s hope for the future.
And it’s not just teens trying to make a difference. On page A25 is a Daffodil about a little girl doing her part. Sure, good parenting is likely part of the equation. But there’s no substitute for a bit of youthful exuberance when it comes to offering adults a shot of inspiration.
