Superman

I've secretly Always wanted to save the world. Wipe out the bad guys, inspire the good in others. Don't we all?! Watching the Avengers movie I couldn't make up my mind which of the four superhero men I liked the most. Captain America was sweet and rule-abiding, but almost...too serious for me. By contrast, Iron Man was hilarious, super fun, but...plays by his own rules and very independent. Hard to take seriously. Then the Hulk, who scares the crap out of me when he gets mad, it's kinda hard to trust a bomb that's always about to go off. Or Thor, if you overlook his poor fashion choices, and get over the hammer he carries everywhere, it might work. But he kind of has a big ego. By the end of the movie I had decided. I wanted a hybrid Captain America/Iron Man.

In actuality, Batman has always been my favorite superhero. It's not just the tight suit, flashy cars, giant mansion or "bad boy" but secretly good guy persona, although that's good stuff. He lacks superhuman strength but makes up for it with intelligence, creativity and he has a day job. And he's imperfect, he has fears and makes mistakes. If only the batman of MoCo were single....sigh.

Instead of the avengers or batman, others are waiting for Superman to come save them. I came across this article in Fast Company, highlighting cool new designs for schools and libraries in third world countries, making them self-sustainable and easy to build. The picture below is a school in Bangladesh, made entirely out of materials in the area where the school was built.

My two favorites, however, were the library and the discovery pod center. This library--part of the Safe Haven Orphanage--was built in just two weeks using only local material and labor. The simple bamboo facade and plastered concrete blocks, serve as natural temperature regulators, while the open architecture creates an inviting place for the children in the orphanage to read and play.

Seriously, how simple does that look?! I started getting all of these ideas, what if we used this very simple design to build libraries in developing countries? Books are cheap, easy to come by. Then I thought why not add in sustainable agriculture into the design, have a garden next to the library or school, maybe built into one of the walls. Below is one of the rooms from the discovery/ecological learning center that was build in Thailand for children to come and learn. Seriously, so cool.

All of these thoughts about building libraries and educating children led me to watch the documentary Waiting for Superman. Let me just say, that out of all the students I wanted to get accepted to a charter school, I was totally rooting for Daisy!! Ugh. I couldn't Believe she didn't cry when her name wasn't called, I was Crushed. Such pressure! The documentary poses interesting questions on the problems with education. I know that when I become a mother, have my dozen or so children (kidding, kind of), I am well equipped to help them with homework, teach them how to read, and I'll practically be leading the PTA. But I realized that as I watched the documentary, sure we have a problem with poor teachers and that horror of horrors known as tenure, but we also have a problem with parents that are unable (not necessarily by choice) to help their children. You can't expect a parent that's a high school dropout to know how to help their child with math, if they don't know it themselves. And not everyone is able to teach. But that's exactly what we expect, that a teacher with 30 students not just has to be able to teach the average student, but make up for whatever deficits exist in a student's background. It takes patience (working on it!), discipline, and lots of hours and commitment. So here's my question, something I want to use my life to help answer...how can we make a difference? How can we reward those kids with desires that lack the resources to achieve what it takes to graduate high school, or get into college? Answers, thoughts, wisdom, all accepted.

Here's to saving the world.
Lolo