Weston Kindergartner's Heroism Will Make You Feel Guilty About Gulf Spill, Sending Kids to Public Schools

By Thomas Francis Thu., Jun. 17 2010 at 11:19 AM

Categories: Broward, Education, Environment

Photo from prlog.org

Oskar Garcia, posing with one of the 169 bottles of Dawn he's collected since launching his bird rescue project.

Not quite depressed enough about your failure to resolve the Gulf spill and the educators being sacked at Broward County schools? Then let's learn about Oskar Garcia.

The 6-year-old kindergartner at the Sagemont School in Weston loves birds in a way that most of us should but can't. Oskar's been devastated by the effect the spill might have on all those majestic, soaring creatures in the Gulf of Mexico.

And since he goes to a private school, his teacher had the time and creativity to help Oskar do something about it.

From a release by Sagemont School, where they can afford to have media spinmeisters who don't focus all their energy on damage control:

He and his teacher, Vickie Stofsky, searched on Google to get ideas about what they could do to help save the birds. They came up with the plan to ask Oskar's classmates, friends and family members to donate bottles of Dawn dishwashing liquid which is known to be able to safely dissolve tar and oil from animals who get covered in the stuff. They planned to deliver the bottles to Suncoast Seabird Sanctuary located in Tampa (seabirdsanctuary.com). This is the largest wild bird hospital in the U.S. and it is one location where birds are to be brought in case they become drenched in the goo approaching the shoreline.

Almost brings a tear to the eye, doesn't it? But I'm not sure if that's for the sweetness of children. Or if it's a tear of sorrow for Oskar's 6-year-old counterpart in Broward schools, who must face a decade of being lost in enormous classrooms, trying to get the attention of a teacher who has time for nothing except drills that ensure the kids will post a decent test score.