Our World, Our Eyes: Problems of the World Seen Through the Eyes of 5th Graders

Prologue  by Lucy Collier (5th grade student at Forsythe, Used with permission)

In honor of this day...children speaking to us about our earth this is being posted.

The Forsyth School in St. Louis in conjunction with Washington University and their arts program produced a book composed of words and art titled: Our World, Our Eyes: Problems of the worlds seen through the eyes of 5th graders.

Looking Through New Eyes

To some grown-ups, fifth graders are naive and know little about world problems. But other adults listen to kids' ideas and believe in them to help change things. Those are the people who value other people's thoughts, especially kids' thought. Some people think because of kids' ages they don't have good ideas but if you take the time to listen you will find something different about kids. They see things with a different mindset; they look for the truth and they speak up when something is not right. They are bold and can fix things--even big world problems to which others fail to see the answer. But sometimes kids aren't heard because someone told them to be quiet and stop talking about things only frown-ups can fix. That is when the ideas is lost, never to be heard again because of that one person who says you can't make a change, who says your idea will never work.

In my life, I feel really privileged because just like in my family the grown-ups at Forsyth listen to my classmates and me and give us opportunities to help change things in our community and world. They bring up issues like global warming, political disagreements, racism, drug abuse, and inequality and help us find ways to make things better. After all, we are the next generation, we're going to be the ones who have to fix all the mistakes that our parents and grandparents and every generation before made. We are the ones who are going to have to deal with the consequences of our parents' actions--there is no changing that. So when some adult tells a kid that their idea is never going to work, they are just preventing one problem from possibly being fixed.

In this book, you will see the world through the eyes of your children. We have discovered listening is the key to solving problems. When we listen to others we open our minds, peer through different windows, and sometimes even manage to open doors we thought would be closed forever.

Lucy Collier (2018)