The past two weeks have been amazing. I've been telling everyone I know that this is the best job I've ever had, and it's true. Seeing children's faces as they discover a crab for the first time, or the joy when a kid learns to fish makes our mission at Save the Harbor/Save the Bay feel meaningful. Wonder is a blessed emotion, and young children are full of it. Living creatures are completely fascinating to them. Crabs and jellyfish ARE AMAZING! The best is when a parent shares this wonder with their child. So many adults are jaded to the natural world. I had a guy today who saw our crabs and said, "Oh, it's just a bunch of green crabs." I wanted to stand up and say, "Green crabs are amazing! Did you know that they lay 185,000 eggs, or that they are invasive, but are also an important part of our ecosystem? Did you know that they can stay out of water for a week and survive? Have you ever seen one lay eggs? We did!" The more I learn about the wildlife we encounter, the more I find them incredible. I mean, a crab laid eggs today in our touch tank. How cool is that!?
The JPA's I work with––Marco, Jayda, Ana, and Bella–– are amazing people. I have loved getting to know them, and they are so good with kids. What makes them such good educators is that they feel joy and wonder for the sea creatures we find. Good teaching begins love: love of a subject, love of a city, or love of a creature. Marco, Jayda, Ana, and Bella love what they're doing and it shows. I really do enjoy being with them. They make my day better by being such interesting and kind people. A woman came up to me today and commented how wonderful they were with children. I told her that they had no official training in education. She was amazed. I wasn't, because I know how awesome my team is :).
Doing what we, as a group, do is really important. We are connecting people to their world, and giving them a new set of eyes. We are helping kids discover life. If people don't feel for their world and their harbor, why would they care about making it beautiful?
I can't wait for tomorrow.
"At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.” -Henry David Thoreau
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