Adventures in Social Justice

Below is a blog from Bryan, a School of Leadership student living in Mexico. This is his description of a typical day of the students as they work through our LiveDifferent (formerly Absolute) Leadership Social Justice Curriculum…

Outside, the sun is climbing high above the clouds, where it will burn away the ocean mist in time for our twentieth day at the beach this afternoon. Inside our classroom, however, it’s all business. The flies are zipping by our heads, their ranks slowly diminishing as they land on our sticky spiral trap one by one. 

Kelsey reads out the next paragraph about desertification from our Social Justice curriculum. Bryan throws out another random, somewhat relevant interesting fact. Brett relates it back to life in Alberta. Kelsey nods in agreement with him based on life in Saskatchewan. Such is the life in the School of Leadership in Mexico. 

Adrian’s sporadic and worthy points capture the attention of every soul. Laura has attended conferences relevant to any topic, or at least can relate it back to her work with Tim Horton’s or UNICEF. Melissa wants to create changes in her life at home. Roxy thinks that is great!

Everyone has their place in our blue classroom and no topic is learned disinterestedly. I know we all look forward to it, and understand its importance. This is the stuff that will stick with us throughout the rest of our day to day lives. As we’re in line for a Timmy’s coffee, as we get handed our pay stub, as we question our life direction (as I find myself doing every day), and as we pass a retching homeless man in the street, we will remember.

We have the choice to live like we were never here, but unless we suffer catastrophic brain damage; we will never truly forget all the life changing, eye opening class time in our Mexican classroom.