The Conclusions I Came To While Sitting on the Concrete

So I'm sitting on the concrete (there are no benches) waiting for my younger daughter to be dismissed (she is one of a dozen walkers in a school of close to, what, 800--I park the car halfway between our house and school so we can walk about a mile since it is too far for our normal walking routine from past years). The student patrols in charge of lowering the flag come out. I watch as they take the flag and fold it as if it were a bed sheet. In half. In half again. End to end from the middle, and then in half again. A bed sheet. A towel. A piece of fabric at Hobby Lobby. Not how the American flag should be folded. But I realize these children have never learned about the ritual of folding the flag in a triangle and what it means.

The next day, I am sitting on the concrete again, when the children are lowering the flag, when all of a sudden a man steps forward and gently nudges one of the children aside and shows them, in simple steps, how to fold the triangle. I shoot this photo of their hands, intermingled, his knowledge passing to them.

Yesterday, there I was, on the concrete again, when the two children came out and lowered the flag. One child grabbed the end and started to fold it like a bedsheet when the other said, "No, the triangle!" and they struggled to fold it the way the man had shown them.

And this all reminded me of the list my daughters and I have been working on the last couple years, a list of things to learn in life, many of which we used to learn during our free-range afternoons as kids or by grown-ups who took the extra time, like this man did, to show us. The list is heavily inspired by two books (and interviews I did with the authors) that had a huge impact on me: Last Child in the Woods, and The Dumbest Generation, as well as other realizations we've come to on our own. In fact, a dinner conversation we had just last night led to the addition of several new items to the list this morning.

The items on the list are not things that appear on the CRCT or the Iowa tests, but these are things that I believe make a difference in life and help a society to be, yes, more sustainable by preserving and growing critical skill sets from generation to generation. These are not GPS, Georgia Performance Standards, but rather part of a GPS, Global Positioning System, preparing our children for success in a global world.

I'll share our current list at the end of this post, but I want to tell you, first, about something else about which I've been thinking as I've been sitting on that concrete, day in, day out, these past few weeks of school. It's about two bullets on the list: How government works, and what influences it, both now and historically, and How to be a good citizen. These are the two that nag at me because these are the two that inspired me to get involved with our new city as chair of the Sustainability Commission and then on the steering committee for the City of Dunwoody's comprehensive plan. These two bullets, and my two daughters. And I have spent the last six weeks during which I haven't been writing this blog wondering how I could best teach these lessons to my daughters next. It has surprised me more than anyone that I have been considering a run for City Council.

I have been up long before the crack of dawn many summer mornings doing research, and spoken to dozens of people for hours on this topic, getting valuable advice from a wide range of leaders in their fields and communities. I may have even spoken to you. If so, thank you. Your words carried great weight.

I know the big things--what I stand for personally, and I believe I know the key values of our city's residents and businesses--we want choice and we want voice. We don't want a heavy hand of government to dictate to us, we don't want our personal liberties tampered with, we want to preserve the quality of our community (and may not be convinced about the relationship between the quality of the community and our environment just yet), and we don't want anyone fixing things that aren't broken.

And I know the little things--who my campaign director would be, who would print my 100%-recycled wildflower-embedded post cards (to be composted at the community garden--I know, I know, gag, but it would be nice!), and who would provide local, sustainable food for a kick-off event (bring on my friends at the farmers market!)

What I didn't know was what was going to happen next.

My teenage daughter, a girl heavily into the arts, came home from school and made an announcement. It wasn't, "I'm trying out for the school play." It wasn't "I'm joining the orchestra." It was, "I've decided to run for Student Government." This is a girl who didn't have a political interest a year ago, a girl who has since attended almost every City of Dunwoody comprehensive plan community meeting with me and followed the progress of the Sustainability Commission closely.

She is now the Vice President of her grade.

And so, you see, I don't need to run for City Council. Not for my daughters, and frankly, that's the only reason I would be doing it. There are still many things on this list I need to find a way for them to learn. I'm needed elsewhere.

So for those of you who are running and the rest of you on City Council and at City Hall, thank you. Children are watching you. And learning.

FYI, here is our list. And if and when you get frustrated with the school system, remember that the schools have our children only 6 hours a day, during which they have a great number of state and federally-mandated bases to cover. We have them 18 hours. And that's a lot of time to learn some critically important things that can't be measured by filling in ovals on a standardized test.

Things Kids Need to Learn in Life

* How to grow, cook, and store your own food
* How to ride a bike
* How to swim
* How to take care of where you live (interpret that however you want)
* General etiquette/manners (and awareness of how it differs across cultures)
* How to access resources (physical resources as well as information)
* Basic "earth skill" survival knowledge
* Basic self defense
* Basic bike and car maintenance
* How to use a variety of tools
* How to earn, manage, invest and share money
* How to recognize and follow your passion
* How to read a map
* How to navigate a mass transit system
* How government works, and what influences it, both now and historically
* How to be a good citizen
* How to continually challenge yourself to broaden your mind and not settle for complacency
* The first-hand experience of volunteering
* How to sit still for two hours and read a book
* How to ask questions and not just give answers
* The pride and joy of memorizing a beloved poem
* How to fold your country's flag properly
* How to say please, thank you, yes, no and I'm sorry in five languages
* How to drive a car and ride a horse
* How to do your own laundry (the day we learned a boy named Carlo started doing this in 3rd grade will forever be remembered as a dark day in our house!)
* How to balance time
* How to perform or create some artistic expression simply for the sake of art, and how to be a good arts performance audience member (hint: this does not include waving a cell phone over your head. You might be interested in taking your kids to a performance at DeKalb School of the Arts and noting the difference in the audience's actions--or, should I say, silence).
* How to recognize and reduce stress
* How to tie your shoes (don't laugh--there is a whole generation that is not necessarily learning how to do this)
* How to produce or create something that you can barter or sell