Two of our junior students adopted this summer a passion for the cause, CharityWater.org, and brought to all-school meeting an inspirational video promoting its 5th Anniversary September campaign; immediately afterwards they sold water bottles with the Charity:Water logo to serve this cause.

As one of our teachers, Lorie Heald, who oversees community service and is working hard to integrate CS  in an exciting new way with our one year old faculty-study advisory program, transforming what had been isolated individual work into a new collaborative team initiative,

This morning Becca and Marion demonstrated EXACTLY what I would like each advisory to consider doing.  They identified a need in the world outside of school, they chose a charity to support, they took action, then they shared it with the whole school.  Community service will be much more meaningful if we follow their lead.
Awesome job girls!

The video is greatly engaging and moving, and the cause valuable and meaningful.  It was important to me to balance this effort with another approach, “thinking differently,” that brings ingenuity rather than heavy machinery to the cause.   It is not that one is better than the other altogether, but that they can complement each other valuably.   Accordingly, I shared the following Ted Talk, which created quite a buzz among students in the theater as the presenter first created a batch of disgusting water, and then drank it out of his water bottle.

But as I have thought more about it, both of these two approaches– one about heavy machinery from abroad, and the other about ingenuity from afar,  reflect something of a limited viewpoint: they are not built as much as we should aspire to upon empowering and encouraging local solutions.

Before too much longer, it would behoove us to show this talk, about supporting rather than supplanting indigenous solutions:

We haven’t shown the above video yet, but I intend to in the coming months.   This conversation is also enriched further, of course, by showcasing indigenous innovative efforts, such as the wonderful story of the Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, a popular Ted talk we showed at all school meeting last school year.