A Collection of Fairy Tales

By listening to dozens of ZERI fairy tales over time, children will be full of dreams and questions. As they ask their elders (and their peers) about their dreams and questions they will often come to realize that, sometimes, what seems obvious to the child is beyond the current scope of the parent. What more could we ask for? We want our children to have a better world - better than the world that was given to us, and better than the world that we are giving them. By inspiring this confidence, we are giving children the means with which to ask questions, solve problems, see systems, and improve their world.

For these children, it will be easier to ask the right questions, the hard questions, regarding many of our poorly designed systems. In today's production and agricultural systems we all too often utilize very little of the total energy, material, or nutrient base that is being processed. These children will more intuitively see the possibilities, and will be able to ask questions - lots of questions -, which will lead to the right answers.

Each ZERI fairy tale will bring forth many different reactions and paths to follow. Often children will begin to relate the fairy tales to "what they will do when they grow up" and thereby promote interest in learning various aspects of the disciplines involved - be they art, science, literature, anthropology, sociology, or ethics. The focus will not be on what we have done wrong, or on who was the culprit; the focus will emerge as "what we can do to make a difference." Given the many different reactions and paths, another key learning will emerge -that each has a role to play. Shared intelligence is a natural outcome.

Each ZERI fairy tale will stand on its own, and, each will complement the others in terms of the messages, impacts, and questions that will be built up over time. Each fairy tale will also exist at several age appropriate levels. In this fashion, the fairy tales can provide the challenge, richness, and contextual linkages that help children along their learning journey through their primary and secondary years of education.