Changing the World One Child at a Time By: Stephen Blakely

Thought I would share with you something my eldest son Stephen wrote for a grade four writing contest. He received a runner up prize for his efforts. It's about how a child can change the word. Enjoy:


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My dad told me a saying that goes ‘a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step’, he also said that if you want to change the world you have to start with yourself. So I think he means when he say’s those two things that the first step to changing the world starts with me.

When was Christmas time and my brother and I were asking for presents, my mommy and daddy always tell us that we are lucky because other children in some places don’t get any presents and sometimes don’t even have a house or something to eat.

When he tells me this I feel a little sad and wonder what I can do to help other people who don’t have a nice family and home like I do. So now on this past Christmas I learned that I can change myself and start to think of those who don’t have the things I do, like toys and a home and a nice family.

Dad says I can start changing myself by following what he calls the Golden Rule. This is from the Ten Commandments, and it says “Do to others, what you would want others to do to you”. To me this means treat people the way you would want to be treated. One way I can do this is in school for example if I’m standing with my group and giving a presentation I would want people not to talk or fool around and I would want them to respect my group and I. So when other groups are giving their presentation I should also pay attention and listen quietly.

That way by changing how I act I can make the class better and make the other group feel better about themselves and I hope they would treat my group the same. That would be helping our class to be a better one.

There are a lot of other things I can change about myself to make the world a better place outside of school. I like going for walks with my family in the park near our house and also going on trips to Lake Simco or other places. I learned that by not throwing things on the ground and putting my garbage in the right place I can make the world better for others to enjoy as well as myself. If I teach my friends and my little brother to not litter then I am making an even more of a difference, because by changing myself I also was able to change others.

My mom also helps me to change myself to help me change the world. My mom was born in a different country, where there are a lot of poor people. She told me that I have cousins still living far away and they don’t have the same things that I have.

Every Christmas we send gifts to my cousins far away – my dad calls it ‘overseas’. One year my mom and dad sent one of my older stuffed animals to my younger cousin. I really didn’t like this at first but when I learned that she didn’t have as much as I do I felt a little better since I didn’t need it anymore. Later on I began to feel better and imagined that they would be very happy getting a gift from me even though I’m very far away.

So by changing myself I now feel differently and every Christmas I would like to send something to my cousins overseas.

Now I see that it’s true that a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step and that you have to change yourself before you change the world. By learning to not always think about what I want right now and to think of others, I can make my class better, my neighbourhood cleaner and even help someone in another country to feel better.

That to me is changing my world, and by changing my world I change the world around me!