This is a brief transcription of two of the MANY conversations the XP children and I had over the year. It reflects their desire to imagine and create a Society that cares for everyone and everything. A society they called, the City of Care
John I am going to make a park.
Lila In our city I want there to be NO bad things happening to the Earth and only good things. I am building an environmental station to monitor and care for the earth.
Ari In our city, no one gets scared. So we should not have too much scary movies.
Lila But some people like them. If we care about people we have to let them watch
Ari So then they could see them.
Maddie M Everyone needs a house. Everyone needs a good house. They should be different but all equally good.
Lila Different because we need to have a house we like. Different people like different things.
Maddie S Yeah but equally good so everyone feels cared for.
Henry Maybe everyone gets given a house
Lila But maybe they don’t like that house and who has the money to give away a house to everyone?
Group Conversation about money ensues.
Lila Money is just a thing, it doesn’t have to be real. We could make care the most important thing.
Group Animated conversation and eventually agreement that CARE is the most important thing.
Maddie S We care for the earth. We pick up things. We give to the earth, for earth because we are part of the earth.
Ari If we don’t take care of the earth we can’t live on it and would have to live on Mars.
Lila Yeah, if we don’t take care of the earth we might not even have water or trees or food or anything we need to survive.
Ari Yeah and that would be way worse than Death Valley
Group Animated conversation about the planet “burning up”.
Henry We might need healthy food to eat in our city, like fruits and vegetable but we need to grow them ourselves.
Ari Yeah, and we need high protein stuff. Like beef.
The group looks at him.
Lila Is killing animals really caring?
Ari Okay….I know! We need to find a way to get protein without killing the animals.
William And we need fruits and veggies
The group calls out: lettuce, carrots, radishes, beets, beans, watermelon, blueberries and…
Ari And meat is good for you. Hey, we need to find a way to find a protein that’s as high as the protein we get from killing cows without killing anything.
Group Discussion and a blank on what that could be.
We all agree that we may need to think about that more to come up with a plan.
Henry We need bananas!
Ari Bananas need the warm.
Lila Yeah! We need a greenhouse with good weather to grow our food. I’ll make a greenhouse!
Ari So in the city we need a way to take care of our city in case something happens and we have to live in space.
Angelina What will happen.
Ari We could ruin the earth.
Angelina Will we need to leave if we are taking care of the Earth.
Ari I’m not talking about the Earth. I’m talking about taking care of human beings. Humans are a really important part of the earth
Are they more important than Nature?
Group Another animated discussion ensues. We decide to vote.
Angelina Who thinks the Earth and humans are equally important ? 11
Who thinks humans are more important? 3
Who thinks Nature/Earth is even more important than humans? 12
Henry We need bathrooms in our city!
Group Big conversation about taking care of water and we can’t make new water
Angelina I heard that the same water on Earth now, is the same water that was on Earth when the dinosaurs lived.
Group Wow.
Ari That’s a theory.
Angelina I believe that’s a fact.
Ari You don’t know Angelina.
Angelina How bout you research that and get back to us.
Ari Okay!
Maddie S. Did you know that monkeys were one of the first people on earth. They became smarter and smarter and they became humans
William And then the first people were cavemen
Angelina Were there women?
Henry No women don’t like caves
Angelina Really? Let's take a poll. If you are a girl and you like caves raise your hand.
All girls present raise their hand.
All boys present, if you like caves please raise your hand.
Four boys don’t.
More discussion.
The Group decides there were women and so we call them, Cave People
To be continued…
May 4th meeting
Maddie S So we don’t need money to buy all this stuff because what if no one has money. We can have a little card to pay
Gareth What if you don’t have a card
At my library I was thinking people can apply for a card and we could give you a card.
William could do the same and it could say toy store on it. The card would be for everyone and would have limits
Declan Yeah we’d need it for food
Henry What if we were out of cards.
Declan Or we had the wrong cards.
Maddie S. You don’t have to have cards that say specific cards. Maybe you just need a name card.
Ari Someone needs to make a sky for the city.
Buildings Explained
John A Park
We need parks for people to get to play on. If there were no parks people would be bored. Playing is important, it makes you feel happy.
Luke Gardens
We need a garden so we have foods and so we won't get sick. I take care of the garden. I plant the food and everyone gets to eat.
Maddie M Community House
Everybody needs a house, otherwise they will just be wet or cold in the snow and rain. Home is a cozy place where you eat and sleep. Every person gets to have a home. Construction workers help build the houses for the people and themselves and we help them in other ways, like food and stuff.
Maddie S. Library
We need a library because it's where you can get books and you can read. You can even sit at little places and you can read there. You can read any books you want but you need a library card so you can borrow them. Anyone can have a library card. Then you can use it to borrow one to ten books at a time and then you bring them back and other people can borrow them, one to ten at the time.
Riley A Donut Shop
A Donut Shop is important in our city because it’s also for celebrations. Celebrations and parties make people feel cared for and sometimes you get donuts and money. Donuts are delicious. We make vegetable or fruit donuts too for people who need them. There's’ a strawberry one that is gluten free too. Everyone can have a donut.
Henry A School
This is Children’s Garden Montessori, Preschool through Highschool. We need to have a school so kids can learn. When they learn and they they learn more and more. All kids can come to my school. They read books to learn also. They sometimes make art. They sometimes go outside and into the forest and park and the rest of the city. It is important to have children around. When they’re growed up they can make babies and they can go to school, so they can learn more and even better things.
William Toy Store
It has a ton of toys and if people don’t have toys they can buy it from the toy store. If they don’t have money, some of the toys can be free. Sometimes if someone misses or loses a toy I can just deliver the same toy back.
Lila Environmental Station
We don’t want bad things to happen to the earth. Environmental Station. I came up with it because I was in an earthquake in Palm Springs. I found out there were other bad things like, droughts, pollution, tornados and so I will take care of them so it’s safe. I care for the earth to take care of the people.
Murray Fire Station
This is a fire station with a fire truck. We don’t want fires happening to houses or buildings. We are first on the scene if there’s a problem. We definitely need it in a fire station in a city of care.
Sloan A Candy Store
I made a candy store. If anyone gets hungry for something sweet they can come to my store. Candy makes you feel loved and safe by all the yummy candy. Maybe I could make healthy candy like peach lollipops instead of sugar.
Isaac Recycling Center.
They are good for our world. This city doesn't create trash, only what is recyclable. Nothing is new. We do it so it doesn’t pollute the planet.
Ari Hospital
If people get really sick or really hurt they might need to go to the hospital. I take care of them. I give them special medicine, I have a special camera to take pictures inside of them. We have a kitchen to make like chicken noodle soup or tomato soup to make them feel better. Of course we need a hospital. We take care of people!
Gareth A Forest
We need a forest because forests give us care. They are beautiful. They’re green. They have animals. Forests have lots of animals. We need Wild. It gives us lots of things. I wanted to make a forest because I love forests. Forests are important. We care about the forest in our city and forests care for us.
Declan A Restaurant
We need a restaurant so people can eat or go to dinner or on a date. If people are poor they can come to the restaurant. Everyone gets fed at my restaurant. If you can’t pay, maybe it could be free because everybody deserves to eat.
