A child's world: Geography lesson inspires a drive to alleviate suffering

The sympathetic impulses of children when seeing others are in need are enough to warm the coldest of hearts.

We all know that children on the playground can often be cruel to one another, but for any parent or older sibling who's had to sit a child down and deliver sad news to them, we also know how pure a child's heart can be.

So it comes as no surprise to us that a classroom filled with 3- and 4-year-old preschoolers shared an immediate response when learning a geography lesson from their School Street Early Learning Center teacher, Mrs. Patricia Rullman.

The discussion on islands quickly turned to hurricanes, given recent events, and the kids wanted to see where these islands they'd been hearing about were located.

Mrs. Rullman used a globe to show them, and began to tell them how families on the island of Puerto Rico and in the U.S. Virgin Islands had lost everything they had. From their blankets and teddy bears, to their homes altogether, so many people had lost all of their possessions.

To her surprise, the kids asked a simple, honest and heartwarming question in response to hearing all of this: What can we do to help them?

So there it is. This simple geography lesson has given way to a donation drive being called "Friends Helping Friends."

All of the teachers at School Street Early Learning Center have donation boxes in their classrooms, and there is one just outside of the school at 415 S. Virginia St.

You can read more about Mrs. Rullman -- she has personal ties to Puerto Rico -- and her class in today's paper.

But there is nothing politicized in the eyes or in the hearts of these children who simply heard there were families just like theirs, somewhere else in the world, who had suffered a tragedy. And their first and only inclination was to help.

Editor's note -- Donations are being accepted through the end of November.

Published in Editorials on October 24, 2017 3:21 PM