global issues

Do kids learn enough about global issues in school? 6% Yes - 94% No

President Kennedy was shot! Princess Diana killed in car crash! Stories like these are probably the 6% of global issues that kids learn in school.

Does anyone teach that 30,000 children die every day from starvation? Do north american kids know that not everyone can turn on the tap to get clean drinking water and that most people in the world suffer disease and death every day from drinking dirty polluted water? Do they know that most people can't go to the refrigerator any time they want to get something to eat? Do they know that not all kids have shoes, not all kids have beds to sleep on, kids go to bed cold because they don't have central heating or enough blankets? Do they think that because it's 40 degrees in the daytime in Africa that it's always hot and wonder why African kids would need blankets? Do they know that 40 million people have AIDS? Do they know that people are still dying from TB in other areas of the world?

My sister-in-law told me Saturday that she thought that TB had been eradicated in the world. The WHO reported that as of 22 March 2007 there were 5,116,611 new and relapsed cases of TB throughout 208 countries, including 1,484 in Canada. We take our kids to school and they get immunized against TB, it's automatic and we think nothing of it.

We need to educate our children. They need to learn that there is more to life than themselves and their little corner of the world where everything is handed to them.