‘The pledge allegiance to planet Earth.

Local children greet the day with West Yarmouth man’s Global Pledge

I pledge my allegiance
to the planet Earth,
to make it a better,
healthier and safer
world for all
~- Global Pledge by Jerry Schmeer

By Cynthia Robotham

“The rest of the hallway never feels the day has really
begun until they hear our class recite the pledge,” says
Joanne Claussen, a fourth grade teacher at the Edward
Stone School in Bourne who along with Susan Peters, a
Fifth grade teacher at Osterville Bay Elementary School,
hhave been utilizing the Global Pledge written by West
Yarmouth resident Jerry Schmeer last spring,

“If it hadn't been for their interest, I think the whole
idea would have died,” claims Schmeer, who wrote the
pledge as part of a letter to the editor assignment for an
English course at Cape Cod Community College.

‘The 33-year-old Schmeer said he originally intended
the Global Pledge to be a statement about the struggle for
world peace, At the same time he wrote the five line
pledge, in May 1989, Schmeer said he was deeply dis-
lurbed by the images he was seeing of a violence stricken
globe - from the struggle for democracy in China to the
sometimes bloody battle for freedom in Eastem Europe
to the endless warring in the Middle East

He felt the call for world peace needed to be renewed.

The idea of a pledge came to him as he remembered
the flap over the American Pledge of Allegiance during
the 1988 presidential campaign. If anything,-the heated
debate over Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis’ veio
‘of a state law that would have ordered teachers to lead
their classes in the pledge each moming got Schmeer
thinking about the emotional power of such an oath,

Recently, Schmeer sent copies of the pledge to both
Governor Dukakis and President Bush and received per-
sonal letters of thanks in return

‘What Schmeer hadn't realized when he wrote the
pledge was that it would carry two distinct messages; one
of peace and the other of environmental concern.

“I'm very happy with both,” claims Schmeer who
eared of the dual message when he received letters
written by Peters’ classroom children in response to his
editorial when it appeared in a local newspaper.

“The students wrote to him and were very enthused to
get a response from him,” remembers Peters, whose class
invited him to speak,

‘Although Schmeer was very warmly received by
Peters” class last spring, they did have a criticism about

the last line of his pledge, which originally read “healthi-
er and safer world for mankind.”

‘The class expressed strong concern that animals and
plant life were not included.

“They embellished on my pledge and wanted ‘erea-
tures’ included, but I told them that I wanted a pledge
that would be a common and simple one to translate,”
explains Schmeer,

Later, outside the classroom, Schmeer was informed
that the term mankind had also excluded another very
important species, womankind.

“After talking it over we decided that ‘for all’ would
cover everything,” said Schmeer.

Schmeer, who currently works in the Radio Shack out-
fet in Hyannis, returned to the Cape in 1983 after spend-
ing several years living in Hawaii, where he worked as a
retail clerk and part-time professional actor. Before injur-
ing his leg in a football game, Schmeer had landed a role
as a “homicidal maniac” in an episode of the television
series Magnum PI,

Peters, who spearheaded the Earth Day Program for
Barnstable, has made the Global Pledge available
throughout the entire school system.

Schmeer made Peters’ class a poster depicting the
planet Earth taken from space -- a 1969 NASA photo-
‘graph ~ and had his pledge printed on it

‘The poster was an enormous source of delight to the
youngsters and made Schmeer think about its distribu-
tion, He recently received permission from NASA to use
the photograph and has been approached about using the
picture and pledge on T-shirts.

“I think that 1969 photograph really changed the way
people perceived the Earth, it was the first time anyone
had seen the world before just hanging out in space and
that helped change their perception from extreme nation
alism to a global one,” said Peters,

“After all from space when looking at the Earth there
are no boundaries,” added Schmeer.

For Schmeer, the concept of children all over the
world reciting a common pledge 10 a shared planet can
make a difference.

“AL first the changes may be slow but as time goes on
those changes can become profound,” he sai.

Both Peters and Claussen, whose class also wrote 10
Schmeer, agree.

Since establishing the pledge as a mainstay in her
classroom this past year, Claussen has seen results in her
student's awareness,

“One of my students has a pen pal in California and
has invited her to spread the pledge out there, Another
boy is moving to Alabama with plans of spreading the
pledge in his new school. One of my students, a rather
quiet boy, actually wrote to the commander of Otis Air
Force Base about recycling,” said Claussen.

Both educators stressed the need to help students 10
achieve goals outside of themselves by becoming less
insular and more receptive to working for the good of
humankind and the planet, The need 10 make children, as
‘well as adults, feel that their actions can make a differ-
cence is of extreme importance.

‘Apathy they feel is fed by feelings of inadequacy and

Continued on next page

I pledge my allegiance
to the planet Earth,

to make it a better,
healthier and safer
world for all.