Airport (and train station) Outings

Every rainy season presents both a challenge for entertaining children and an opportunity to introduce them to travel. No tickets (except maybe for parking) are required to push strollers or to let older children pull their own roller suitcases filled with toys and snacks through major airports, including those that have separate buildings for international flights, and railroad stations. Since these environments cater to travelers who need information and who have waiting time to kill, they provide some unusual teaching experiences.

     Just consider the "Arrivals" and "Departures" boards with their cities, times, concourse and gate/track numbers. Help children choose a city, see the current time, figure how long it will be before a plane or train arrives or leaves, and begin the process of going to the concourse letter, gate or track number. Once there, watch people arrive or go through security. See how they might have to take off their shoes, put metal items in a basket, or how they might set off an alarm. Count how many travelers are women/men, how many carry their own luggage or wear hats/caps, how many have people welcoming them or seeing them off.

     What if a family misses the next plane or train? Check the airport's board to see how long they would have to wait for the one after that. See if there is a paper train schedule and help children study what stops a train makes, if trains have different schedules on weekends, and the cost of tickets for children and adults.

     In the area where travelers claim their luggage, see if there is a rack of brochures describing local attractions. Choose a few that might lead to your next outing. Watch luggage arrive on carousels. Look for signs that tell where travelers can get buses and taxis, go to a parking lot, make hotel reservations, exchange currency, or rent a car. Explain why someone would need a currency exchange (See the earlier blog post, "When to Buy/Sell in the World Market.") or to rent a car. And why would someone in the luggage claim area be holding a sign with a person's name on it?

     Some transportation centers might offer a bit of foreign language study. Look for signs identifying telephones and restrooms in languages other than English. What are these languages and why are they needed? At an airport or train station there also might be some attraction brochures and restaurant information printed in a variety of languages.

     The chairs and benches provided for waiting travelers give little visitors a chance to sit, have a snack, listen to announcements (or even a piano or musical group), and look for people arriving in their native dress. Once rested, there often are exhibits to visit and even playsets to climb. In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the airport has a ping pong table and an exhibit of foreign coins found in the airport's "wishing well" pasted on cards with the flags of their countries. Some airports and train stations have art exhibits and display items from local museums. Then, there are the gift shops and book stores. Since these market to travelers, they have items for amusing children on trips that also can amuse them at home.

     After an airport or train station outing, when kids start thinking about taking their own trips, you'll find some family travel ideas at the earlier blog post, "See the World."

    

Young Voices

For 90 years, the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards have recognized the outstanding ways students in grades seven through twelve have expressed their views of the world. When my granddaughter won a gold key this year for her modern fable about the consequences of a wolf's deception, I had an opportunity to look through the book of submissions from last year's winners that she received.

     With World Creativity and Innovation Week coming up April 15-21, this might be a good time for parents and teachers to encourage children and students to think about the world and compare what they draw and say with some of the representations and comments of Scholastic Art and Writing Award winners.

     One student disputed the stereotypes of color: yellow Asians, black Africans, brown Indians, and white Americans. She saw herself in many colors.

     World hunger was a topic that came up in several essays. A girl who wrote about villages where people "are skin and bones, their ribs visible" and their eyes always sad ended by saying that she never stops praying that, like "a blade of grass," these villagers can be "new and fresh." But a young immigrant from Laos who is a waitress in a bowling alley looks at American children in wonder when they "swallow between rounds" of arcade games and "drop food on the floor."

     Boys think about war. One made a sculpture showing a young man being persuaded to enlist in the Army. Another wrote about depth charges attacking a U-boat in World War II. A poet whose entry went from boy to old man included a stanza about being "a soldier with the callused heart mindlessly...following orders and longing for a purpose."

     Religion was a subject covered in art and word. Monks and Hindu statues caught the eyes of young photographers. One student looked at Christianity, Buddhism, and Islam and decided it was possible to start a world religion by deciding whom to exclude and what beliefs were contrary to the status quo.

     There were a number of unsettling dystopian views of the future. Meat and gems could not save a boy from a rare fever, and, when everything was plastic, only an old worn blanket could hold memories.

     For information about how students can share their voices with other young people and adults next year, login to artandwriting.org later this year.

North Pole Flag

     Santa Claus has a flag now. Thanks to the "Flag for the Future" competition jointly sponsored by the Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts and Greenpeace's "Save the Arctic," the North Pole, which is surrounded by high seas that no country owns, has a new flag.

     British designer, Dame Vivienne Westwood, on March 17, 2013, declared the winner of the "Flag for the Future" competition a pennant-shaped flag designed by 13-year-old Sarah Bartrisyia from Malaysia. On a white background, Ms. Bartrisyia used a circle of seven multicolored doves around Arctic starflowers to symbolize peace, hope, and global community.

     The winning design will be reproduced on a titanium flag and stuck in the Arctic ice alongside a time capsule containing a Greenpeace petition signed by those who want to preserve the Arctic from overfishing and oil drilling. Drilling noise and vibrations also could have an impact on fish behavior, while an oil spill would be difficult to contain in ice-clogged waters. When a pipeline ruptured off Santa Barbara's California coast on May 19, 2015, the 105,000 gallon oil spill showed what can happen when drilling occurs anywhere. To dramatize the under-reported perils of drilling for oil in the Arctic, six Greenpeace volunteers climbed aboard Shell's gigantic oil rig, Polar Pioneer, in April, 2015 as it was en route through the Pacific Ocean to Alaska. June, 2015 saw Greenpeace volunteers in their kayaks blocking the Shell rig from leaving port in Seattle. Later, they hung from a bridge to dramatize the need to block the rig's progress to the Arctic. For more about the need to protect the Arctic and to sign a petition asking world leaders to ban oil drilling and industrial fishing in Arctic waters, go to savethearctic.org.

     In London, you can purchase a "Save the Arctic" T-shirt designed by Vivienne Westwood at her World's End Shop at 430 Kings Road. The cost is 35 British pounds.

      BP already operates in Alaska's offshore Arctic. Operating with Rosneft, the state-owned Russian energy company with the world's highest oil output, BP has a controlling interest in British-Russian TNK-BP and is set to launch a series of big projects in Russia's Arctic. As a result of Russia's actions in Ukraine in March and April, 2014, however, BP stockholders and Rosneft were concerned about the company's Russian investments until BP signed a major shale deal with Rosneft in May, 2014. In mid-2018, BP also would purchase the US shale assets of BHP for $10.5 billion.

     Concern about Rosneft's profits was justified in 2014, when the drop in oil prices and the value of the ruble caused fourth quarter losses. By August, 2018, however, a barrel of crude was selling in the mid $60s and Rosnett''s quarterly net profit reached $3.7 billion. When a BP oil spill sent 170 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, the company withdrew its bid for an exploration license to drill around Danish-owned Greenland. In 2014, BP renewed its application and, along with Statoil and other firms, won an exploration license there.  A Chinese group is bidding for a license to drill for oil off of neighboring Iceland. Although the remote Chukchi Sea area of the Arctic experiences extreme weather conditions and lacks preparation to deal with an oil spill that would endanger wild life and indigenous communities, in 2008, the U.S. Department of the Interior sold oil and gas leases there.

     The 8-nation intergovernmental Arctic Council, that includes Russia, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Canada, and the United States, has failed to agree on regulations that would govern oil and gas exploration in the Arctic region. Relying on a 1953 law that allows U.S. presidents to take executive action to prevent leasing of unleased lands in the federally administered Outer Continental Shelf, President Obama, in December, 2016, placed an indefinite ban on oil and gas leases in the Alaskan Beaufort and Chukchi areas of U.S. Arctic waters. Canada took similar actions. Both counties plan to identify shipping lanes through their protected areas, where harsh conditions would hamper cleaning up oil spills.

      The Arctic region is believed to hold 30% of undiscovered gas deposits and 13% of undiscovered oil reserves. Ice melt in the area is opening a larger region for gas and oil exploration and, consequently, a larger area for border disputes and conflicting claims of sovereignty. By submarine, Russia planted a flag 2.5 miles beneath the North Pole in 2007, and according to TIME magazine (Aug. 17, 2015), the country submitted a formal claim to the United Nations for 463,000 square miles around the pole on Aug. 4, 2015. On April 30, 2017, NBC's Evening News showed Russian military men and armor training in the Arctic.  Canada and Denmark (based on its Greenland island territory) have staked claims to sovereignty on territory including the North Pole by arguing that the Lomonosov Ridge of the continental shelf extends under the pole from their countries. A U.N. panel is expected to decide the disputes.

     For information about other world flags, see my earlier blog post, "A Salute to Flags."

    

    

"We Have a Pope"

Can children respect different religions, when the beliefs of other faiths are very foreign to them? They can if they understand a bit about the backgrounds of the world's religions. Now that the Cardinals of the Catholic religion have elected a new Pope, it is a good time to consider what led to his selection and to learn what the new Pope is saying and doing. From May 1 through October 31, 2015, the Vatican's pavillon at the World Expo (expo2015.org) in Milan, Italy, will feature the theme, "Not by Bread Alone." On his first foreign trip to Brazil, before joining students at World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro, July 23-28, 2013, he said protection of nature was one of his major goals. In November, 2013 he began polling the layity about the subjects of gay marriage, single-parent families, surrogate mothers, and divorce. What will he say, when he visits Cuba and the USA in September, 2015?

     Ever since Jesus told St. Peter, "...you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church...." (Matthew 16:18), there has been a continuous succession of Popes. Beginning in 533, they have adopted names such as Alexander, Celestine, John, Paul, and Benedict. The new Pope is the first one to take the name Francis. He also is the first Latin American Pope and the first Jesuit to become Pope. Known as the bishop of the Church of Rome and successor to St. Peter, the Pope has power over the whole Catholic Church. Ever since the Lateran Treaty of 1929, the Vatican State of his residence in Italy has enjoyed sovereign, independent status.

     Cardinals appointed by the Pope hold the highest religious rank under the Pope. Papal authority is exercised collectively with the College of Cardinals at ecumenical councils, such as Vatican II that was announced by Pope John XXIII on January 25, 1959, which issue documents concerning important Church doctrine. In 1869-1870, Vatican I, for example, defined papal primacy and infallibility in matters of faith and morals.

     Since the divine mission of all members of the Catholic Church is salvation, i.e. happiness in heaven, the Church hierarchy looks to Scripture and Tradition to determine and teach what is required to live a holy life. That path involves a wide range of matters, including the rituals of worship, prayer, forgiveness of sins against the Ten Commandments, care for the poor, respect for life. The Pope canonizes as saints known to be in heaven, men and women who have been true to Church teaching, such as the early Christians who died rather than renounce their faith.

     By reading about the lives of saints, children who are trying to be good will learn that Popes have recognized that there are many ways to live a holy life. St. Francis of Assisi, born into a wealthy family, sold what he had to help the poor and sick and to repair churches in poor neighborhoods. He was known for his love of animals and all creation and for his ability to win over bullies with his good sense of humor. St. Isidore of Seville didn't do his homework until he saw how a thin rope had worn away the stone on a well. Once he realized a little effort applied constantly could produce results, he became a learned scholar who presided over the Church's Council of Toledo that determined in 633 that Jewish people should have freedom of religion and not be forced to convert to Christianity. St. Monica, like many mothers, faced the problem of raising a teenage son who was living a wild, undisciplined life. Her prayer and determination not to give up on him paid off in his conversion. He became St. Augustine, one of the Catholic Church's most influential thinkers.

     Beginning in 1431, Colleges of Cardinals have selected the new Popes. Before a new Pope is elected, the ring of the former Pope is smashed to symbolize the end of his authority, and the doors to his papal residence are sealed. Although, in the eighth century, a layman became Pope Constantine, modern Popes have been elected by a two-thirds vote of members of the College of Cardinals who are younger than 80. This year it took at least 77 of the 115 assembled Cardinals to elect a Pope. In the 13th century, it once took 33 months to elect a Pope, but after 12 to 13 days now, a Pope can be chosen by a simple majority. Ballots are burned after each vote. When the smoke from these burnt ballots was white on March 13, 2013, the world learned that Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio (76) of Buenos Aires, Argentina, had become the Catholic Church's new Pope.

     Information about some of the other world religions is included in an earlier blog post, "This We Believe."

See the World at the Movies

Not every film that provides a glimpse of a foreign country or culture is a child friendly "Sound of Music." But it is worth screening new movies and animated features to find a "Brave" that introduces children to different countries.

     In fact, an amazing number of countries have been featured in Oscar-winning films: "ARGO" (Iran), "The King's Speech" (United Kingdom), "The Hurt Locker" (Iraq), "Slumdog Millionaire" (India), "Braveheart" (Scotland), "Schindler's List" (Poland), "The Last Emperor" (China), "Gandhi" (India).

     The Academy Awards also honor the best foreign language films. The 2011 winner, "A Separation" from Iran, provided positive recognition to a country sanctioned for its nuclear program and scorned in ARGO for holding U.S. citizens hostage. The director of the 2012 best foreign language winner, "Amour," is from Austria.

     Like foreign language films, animated and live action short subjects don't have wide-spread distribution, but, if they are shown locally, they can give youngsters insight into the lives of children in other countries. In "Asad," one of the 2012 live action nominees, we saw Somali children dealing with their dysfunctional world, and in another 2012 nominee, "Buzkashi Boys" opened our eyes to the limited opportunities for young boys in Afghanistan.

     Perhaps the best impact a film can have on a child is the realization that, not only can foreign be fun, but humor also can expose the foolishness of a situation by looking at it differently, the way a live action short about Rwanda's bloody Hutu-Tutsi struggle did a couple of years ago.

Games Children Play

Children in different countries might speak and dress differently, but they play with similar balls, cars, tops, and other toys. In A World of Children's Games, Friendship Press (friendshippress.org) has collected the rules children aged 5 to 12 need in order to play games from 60 countries. By checking the origin of their games, youngsters will find that they are putting together Ravensburger puzzles and Playmobils from Germany, building with LEGOs from Denmark, playing Nintendo games and folding origami cats (origami-instructions.com) or flowers and leaves described in "Origami Bonsai" (signals.com)  from Japan, and building virtual worlds using the Minecraft video game created in Sweden.

     International scavenger hunts help children understand other countries. In the simplest form, kids can use an atlas, almanac (including The World Almanac for Kids), or computer to find the locations of monuments, mountains, rivers, animals, and the like. In other versions, students may be asked to find the countries where people: drive on the left hand side of the road, eat with chopsticks, and bow instead of shake hands.

     Schools with a large concentration of foreign students have an opportunity to plan an advanced form of an international scavenger hunt. Parents can dress in their native clothes and set up classrooms with musical instruments, maps, dolls, crafts, foods, and other items associated with their countries. Once the classrooms are prepared students can go room to room trying to win prizes by finding the answers to a sheet of questions (possibly called a passport) based on the country displays.

     An African scavenger hunt I've played with elementary school classes involves giving each child a bag filled with African products and helping them locate on a large wall map the countries where these items are produced.
                                                     African Products

Cloves, Cocoa (chocolate candy), Coffee (coffee beans), Copper (a penny), Cotton (cotton ball), Diamonds (clear plastic bead), Gold (gold button), Peanut, Rice, Rubber (rubber band), Sisal (piece of rope), Sugar (sugar cube), Tea (tea bag), Wood (toothpick).
    
                                           Sources of African Products

Cloves: Comoros, Madagascar
Cocoa: Benin, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria,
            Sao Tome and Principe, Sierra Leone, Togo
Coffee: Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Cote d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic
             of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia,
            Madagascar, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Togo,Uganda
Copper: Botswana, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Namibia ,Uganda, Zambia
Cotton: Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Egypt, Mali,
             Mozambique, Niger, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zimbabwe
Diamonds: Angola, Botswana, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo,
                  Guinea, Liberia, Namibia, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Zimbabwe
Gold: Ghana Guinea, Rwanda, South Africa
Peanuts: Burkina Faso, The Gambia, Malawi, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sudan
Rice: Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Sierra Leone
Rubber: Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia
Sisal: Angola, Tanzania
Sugar: Angola, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique,
           Republic of the Congo, Swaziland, Uganda
Tea: Burundi, Kenya, Malawi, Mauritius, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda
Wood: Cameroon, Central African republic, Cote d'Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Gabor, Ghana,
            Republic of the Congo, Swaziland, Zimbabwe

If any students are allergic to nuts, remember to leave peanuts out of the bags, because students do enjoy eating some of  these products, when the lesson is complete.

     One game that needs no setup time encourages children to learn the names of foreign cities and countries. From A to Z, players alternate using a letter to identify a place in the world and something a traveler could bring back from that location. For example, someone might say, "Going to Kuwait for kites." The next player could say, "Going to La Paz for llamas." Since almost any item can be found in any country these days, there is no need to think about the accuracy of associations. This game is equally fun and challenging en route to grandma's by car or to Australia by airplane.

     Adults can benefit by watching children play with blocks, dolls, toys, games, playground equipment, dirt, and sticks.  According to Juliet Kinchin, curator of Architecture and Design at New York's MoMA (Museum of Modern Art), seeing kids at play enables designers (and I would add, politicians and foreign policy experts) to look past the limitations of social norms, geography, politics, and culture and to make new connections that can lead to a different, ideal future. What did Walt Disney do when he created Disneyland, a composite of his boyhood's Main Street, Fantasyland, Frontierland, Adventureland, and Tomorrowland or Epcot?
    

How the World Shapes Up

Michigan looks like a mitten to people who live there. What other shapes can children find when they look at maps and atlases of the world?

     Whether it's in their first books, on "Sesame Street," or connecting puzzle pieces, children learn about shapes. Apply this concept to the world, and they will see Italy looks like a boot. The Red Sea is a string bean, and Paraguay and The Gambia are shaped like peanuts. In Africa, some call Zambia the butterfly country because of its shape. My granddaughter thinks Chad looks like a face, and it has a man's name besides. Doesn't India look like a triangle? Lake Victoria is a circle, and there are so many ovals: Madagascar, Taiwan, Mongolia.

     Multicultural Kids (multiculturalkids.com) sells a China puzzle to give children hands-on experience with shapes in that country, while "World GeoPuzzle" from Museumtour.com does the same for the world. And, if you have an expendable world map, kids can point out shapes they would like to cut out and label.