Primary Education (For Children and Adults)

This blog is intended to increase interest in, and involvement in, the efforts of Episcopal Relief and Development to promote the Millennium Development Goals. We want to use the blog medium to get people to write and post poems which are, to a greater or lesser degree, "about" the feelings they have when they confront the issues implicit in these goals. Then we will, with the permission of the contributors, record the poems and create a podcast which can download into their iPods or mp3 players.

I remember hearing a story about Mohandas Gandhi. He was in London on a visit, and a reporter stopped him in the street in front of the house where he was staying. "Mr. Gandhi," the reporter said. "What do you think of Western Civilization?" Gandhi answered, "I think that it would be a very good idea."

This leads us to a meditation on the Second Millennium Goal:

ACHIEVE UNIVERSAL PRIMARY EDUCATION FOR CHILDREN.

I think there is many an 'inner child' that is still in need of primary education. Grown people run businesses and governments all over the world, but by the year 1980 there were over 50,000 unregulated toxic waste dumps in the United States alone. Since 1941, the governments' armed forces were the greatest contributors to soil pollution in both the United States and the Soviet Union. (Source: Something New Under The Sun, by J. R. McNeill, pg. 29).

A few years ago I wrote a set of poems, each of which is based on one article in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I "pointed" the poems and set them to Anglican Chant tunes so that they could be sung like psalms in church. Here is the poem I wrote for the 54th article:

54. Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.

S225 (Herbert S. Oakeley)

The farmer’s children · take their · rest
As the · sun falls · to the · west;

Above them go the · things that · fly:
Chalk lines a · cross a · board of · sky.

The teacher’s lessons · do not · reach them –
The lines do · not know · what to · teach them.

One day passes · like an · other,
Child like · father, · child like · mother,

Until at last they · come to · die,
Not knowing · where the · world would · be,

If they had known all · they could · know,
If they had · grown all · they could · grow.

Wars and disorders · still im · pede
The knowledge · that each · child will · need

To end the famine · and the · fights,

To cele · brate their · human · rights.

Do you have a poem you can send me, too? Just email me at jabez.vancleef@verizon.net Or, you can post your poem as a comment at the bottom of this page.