"Are we doing anything for Earth Day?" asked a yearling named Adam. "I had thought we would, but I haven't heard anything."
I must have looked quite blank, because June laughed at me.
"Today's Monday, you know," she informed me. "In April, if you want be precise."
"I know what day it is!" I retorted. "I just didn't know it was Earth Day. It's Earth Day? Really?"
"Sure. My school's doing a whole big thing about it. We've been planning it for weeks." June, you might remember, has a job as an environmental education coordinator at a private school nearby. Sometimes she tells me about her work, but apparently she hasn't lately. I sat there, probably looking confused, a bit disconcerted by this apparent lack of communication between my wife and I.
"So, we're not doing anything here?" pressed Adam.
"We're not," I told him, "not that I know of, and we haven't before, but you can."
"Why not? I would have thought you would."
"Well, we will if you make it happen," said June. "Come on, be the change!"
But Adam shook his head.
"I'm not going to try to change anything until I understand why things are the way they are. Maybe there's a good reason and I've missed something." Smart man, Adam.
"You know, I don't know," I admitted. "We've never talked about it since I've been here. Maybe we don't need it? Unless you think we do?"
"I don't know, I'm just used to environmentalists celebrating Earth Day."
We were quiet for a while, eating, and then somebody brought up an unrelated topic, and we talked about that until they called for announcements at the end of breakfast. None of the announcements were particularly interesting, except that somebody said something about rescheduling a workshop on something or other, and I think that gave Adam an idea.
"Hey, Daniel," he said, just as we were heading up to put our trays away, "you lead workshops. Do you think you could do one about environmental stuff on campus? Like, why do we do the things we do here? How does it all work? I was thinking, maybe you all are already perfect and don't need Earth Day or whatever, but how am I supposed to participate if I don't know what's going on? Maybe if we knew more about how campus runs, we could figure out ways to run it better?"
And I stood there like a bell that had been struck, not doing anything but ringing. I'd been worrying there might not be much I could add to the curriculum, but he's totally right, I could teach that--and it's not a workshop, it's a class.
Out of the mouths of yearlings, I suppose.
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