A World-Class Teachable Moment

We need to think of the world as our classroom, and we need to begin learning in it together.

Is it any wonder why we are where we are? Humanity itself is facing an existential crisis, our very existence wavering on the edge.

We've gone from working towards a sustainability mind-set to one of survival in a matter of months. The critically ill health of the planet alone should be enough of a wake-up call. But the brokenness of the human spirit could complete the one-two punch that could knock us out.

Ironically none of this behavior would fly in a classroom. How confusing it must be for our children. Schools nurture cooperation, responsibility, empathy and creativity yet kids step out into a world led by adults who prioritize power, competitiveness, materialism, greed and unquestionably destructive behavior. This almost certainly creates a sense of disconnect in a world that claims to be so connected.

It's time to figure out what it means to be human; how we behave and how we live with each other on this fragile, miraculous planet that is able to support life that is now on life-support. And by the way, we are holding the switch.

Human beings have the capacity to make conscious choices. But we have not learned what this means.

The ability to choose does possess power, but it must also include responsibility. We can choose to recreate and renew our world by how we live in it alongside each other, or we can choose to continue destroying it, and ourselves.

We are all students in the same class - humanity. We always have been, but we need to recognize and understand this now more than ever because our survival depends on it. We can no longer separate ourselves by rooms (read: nations), or walls, or languages, or even ages.

The Earth will go on, adapting as it always does. The question is, will we? Will we rise to our unfathomable potential as an extraordinary species? The pinnacle moment of facing this question has been creeping up on us for a very long time. Well it's here, and we can't outrun it anymore. I don't want to consider the possibilities if we do. I suggest we face our questions, our future, and each other - together.