I have a vivid memory from an experience at school in the third grade:
I was dreamy, everything seemed to move too quick about me, as if hearing voices while under water. There were assignments, alliances between the children. I could see it all happening around me but couldn’t understand or keep up enough to fit in. Recess, was as I encounter dreams now; slides with waving tongues the size of beasts that children screamed as they slide down, small caves set back, I would peer into the darkness, to find children hiding from each other. Monkey bars with strong quick tongued girls swinging across, who never bothered to speak or look at me. It’s all a dream, I walked through it, was stranded and trapped within it but unable to speak within it, anymore than shy responses.
I know that they worried about me, special tests were done, I would raise right arm and then left while they shone a flashlight into my eyes. I would sit with a pleasant woman in a blank room with green walls and put together puzzles for her.
There was a small terrarium near the door that led out to the play ground. It was filled with sand, I don’t remember that it held anything else. I found some small plastic animals and began to arrange the animals in the sand, to talk with them, not with my voice but in how I held them and arranged them. This terrarium became my solace each day. I never questioned why I was at school, but it seemed a strange place and I didn’t understand who I was there only that others laughed, joined each other, knew what was asked and did it, in delightful ways that would make the teacher smile and befriend them.
Everyday I was given an arithmetic ditto sheet and wasn’t allowed outside at recess until it was finished. I was told if I wouldn’t be so stubborn, slow, if I would stop dreaming and pay attention then it would all be finished and I could go outside.
I did not connect the numbers with amounts. I knew that they were in relationship with each other and that they needed to create something new out of their combinations but what?
So I sat and sat, and they became not unlike the terrarium to me. I can still recall seven as a tall handsome cowboy, three the saloon girl, two a dainty lady, five was the sheriff, and eight was the banker. They would combine and recombine in their scenes with each other, like the wild west. The correct numbers were never written, but I would write down numbers as seemed appropriate to the story.
I have wondered many times since what would have supported me. Most of the other children didn’t seem adversely affected, to them it was a happy, thriving place to learn.
As a teacher how would I have taught myself? Not by insisting that I work in abstractions, like number symbols without someway to make them concrete. The way that I would explain it to myself now is that the outer world, needed attention so that rich inner world could connect to it and they could be equals in their being and becoming. The volume of the inner was turned up and the outer was a static confusion so I clung to th outer. The place I found comfort was in the movement and arrangement of the plastic animals in the sand.
A powerful place for this kind of child and really for all children is a consistent time with hands-on processes. Sand play, water play, building hideouts and forts, clay work and moving out from these basics are lenghened work with agriculture and food, animals, a relationship with nature. Natural, healthy and basic processes to connect them into their bodies and senses, to in fact bring them down to earth.
I know that in those years that a sense of balance and coordination were difficult for me, so all of the opposites inherent in work and play would have been good for me. Climb and jump; push and pull; in and out; over and under. The different states of a process: raw, chopped, baked and eaten. The potentials are endless but it’s a matter of observing the child’s natural inclinations towards unfolding and then to follow that lead. You lead where there’s a following.
If I could have used the time at school to be immersed in sensation, to make discoveries and naturally strengthen the bonds between the inner and outer senses. Then I would be ready for abstractions which are a short hand for real understanding.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
The Matriarchal consciousness of the child
The Matriarchal consciousness of the child is most clearly revealed by the role of fantasy and its close relative, play. Fantasy is by no means identical with a wishful inner pleasure principle; rather, it is an inner sense organ that perceives and expresses inner worlds and laws as the outward sense organs perceives and express the outside world and its laws. The world of play is of extreme importance not only for children but also for adults of all cultures; it is not a world to be transcended. It is especially important for children. Only an individual embedded in this symbolic reality of play can become a complete human being. One of the main dangers implicit in this modern occidental-patriarchal culture with its over accentuation of rational consciousness and its one-sidedly extroverted adaptation of reality, is that it tends to damage if not destroy, this pregnant and sustaining symbol-world of childhood.
Neuman, Erich, The Child, Boston Massachusetts, Shambhala Pub., 1973, p70.
Who am I to them?
Remember these are a set of quiet tools available to the teacher. They are not meant to be everything for everyone but a potent inner place that may help you teach.
Whatever the teaching situation or developmental stage of the students it is important to know exactly what is being asked of you. Why are you there? If you think it’s to pour knowledge into empty vessels, so that they’ll be full, then good luck to you.
Your purpose will never change but you can deepen into your understanding of it.
It’s easy to congratulate yourself that they are learning to read or understand algebra or speak French but really subjects are only vehicles to learning. Whatever the subject that you teach, it is only a prop, like a set of blocks or a doll for what’s really going on.
What is really going on? Everyone is busy, busy very busy becoming. They are also busy being. Being and becoming and it doesn’t seem to really matter if they are a child or adult, everyone is creating an inner-connected system of relational understanding. They are connecting or disconnecting themselves to something or someone all of the time.
Children have two distinct ways to understand: through their outer senses and through their inner senses. If a child is to understand Tree then they will approach Tree through sight, sound, touch, smell, taste as well as balance and the environmental context of the tree. Is it an apple tree in the backyard? Is it a great oak to be climbed? Is it part of a forest? Is it in a book and the child has not experienced this Tree in reality? All of this will need to be explored, tested and understandings put in place, torn down and built again for the child to construct their conception of Tree.
At the same time, in as natural a way as they explore Tree with their bodies, they explore Tree with their inner senses. As adults we accept the inner senses as necessary to the creation and understanding of poetry, myth, story, music, art, dance, drama as well as the sciences, philosophy and the construction of any and all abstractions, none of which could contain a Tree without using the inner senses to symbolize and imagine Tree.
To understand Tree we must both experience Tree through the body and through the imagination. The bodily senses create a deeper experience for the imagination and the imagination connects us relationally to Tree. Now Tree becomes a symbol for rootedness, strength, endurance, trust and truth. We create a tree of life, a tree of knowledge, a world tree. A tree is a place for winged messengers to land. Trees bear fruit, trees are timber for boats and houses. Trees are carved and religions created around them... nymphs live in them and in our scary movies they reach out with their twig hands to grab us.
Our relationship to Tree is both outer and inner and will continue to be enriched lifelong through noticing leaves as the seasons change, coming to know individual trees, as well as playing with our relationship to Tree through the arts and imagination.
The two sets of senses are interwoven in the healthy child, one informs and supports the other. We are poverty struck without both. Take another example of your own choice, it can be an verb instead of a noun and then follow it, by imagining the rich pathways that we encounter in coming to create understandings.
My job is more of an ecologist, someone who strives to understand the interwoven complexities of the natural world and commits to protecting and nurturing their health and balance. Anything less than this seems a flimsy excuse in my experience.
Who am I to them?
I am a steward. I protect their senses, inner and outer so that they can have full use of them to create and recreate understandings of life and themselves. I keep the ecosystem healthy and diverse so they will have plenty to work with.
As a steward I am aware that they are developmental, meaning that they will seek opportunities to learn and repeat them until satisfied. Exploring life and its relationships with their senses. This work in turn supports the development of their inner senses and the increasing work with inner senses informs the strength of the outer ones.
When I teach a particular subject take reading for example I am acutely aware of this primary human purpose at work. To do them any real good, I must teach with this dynamic in mind.
I AM A SUPER HERO
I AM A SUPER HERO
Out for an explore one summer with a dozen children who ranged in age from five to eight years old. A bright day, they wore sunhats with oily sun screen applied all over their little limbs. Each child with so distinct a personality, some ran ahead and then waited panting at the run ahead stop place that I would name as we moved along, others lagged behind, held my hand and talked about their life or asked questions. I can feel that day move within my heart. I can’t remember all of their names but one little girl stands out.
The state park we were in, was a turn of the century military base overlooking a strait. It has dark bunker passage ways and mysterious places to explore. We had all brought wind up flashlights and got them out to enter the black and to some children scary halls and rooms.
For most of the children the mood was of high adventure and excitement but for a couple of the girls it was uncomfortably scary. I was with these girls, four of them huddled around my legs. Then up troops a tiny girl, the youngest of them all. Her name was Jade, a beautiful small boned child from India but there was nothing small about her spirit. I’m in wonder at the intensity of energy in small children. It’s as if all of their adult capacity is now compressed into a fraction of the space than it will eventually occupy.
Jade stepped up in front of us with her flashlight bright and said.
“ You will be safe with me because I- AM- A- SUPER- HERO.” I looked down and took her in, just who she was in that moment. Her confident, unhampered imagination had made her our leader. She, was, a super hero and so we followed her through the dark passages.
It’s always this way. I teach because they teach me. There is a living exchange. They have so much intrinsic wisdom in the way they naturally are and I am their trusted guide into culture.
That, ‘I AM A SUPER HERO’ spoken by the child has served me countless times as a quiet tool. I’m not brave, am afraid of the dark and don’t run ahead but drag along behind others and yet how many times must I lead and teach others to find their own super hero inside.
I learned from Jade that I can call on my childlike imagination to be whoever is needed in the moment and that I have the inner resources to wind up my trusty flashlight until it shines bright into the darkness.
She used her imagination to create a persona to help others through the dark. This is the true super power that she held.
It was also her innocent confidence that transfixed me and went to my soul. She was as she believed herself to be.
To leap beyond my storehouse full of judgements and limits, to take the child’s lead, to use this powerful tool that has brought us Shakespeare and Einstein. The power to pretend and play with our pretend with exuberance and joy. It’s a powerful tool and takes the innocence of the child inside to pull it off but I can just pretend that to.
I now know thanks to Jade, when to step in front of my fears and say: I AM A SUPER HERO.
Out for an explore one summer with a dozen children who ranged in age from five to eight years old. A bright day, they wore sunhats with oily sun screen applied all over their little limbs. Each child with so distinct a personality, some ran ahead and then waited panting at the run ahead stop place that I would name as we moved along, others lagged behind, held my hand and talked about their life or asked questions. I can feel that day move within my heart. I can’t remember all of their names but one little girl stands out.
The state park we were in, was a turn of the century military base overlooking a strait. It has dark bunker passage ways and mysterious places to explore. We had all brought wind up flashlights and got them out to enter the black and to some children scary halls and rooms.
For most of the children the mood was of high adventure and excitement but for a couple of the girls it was uncomfortably scary. I was with these girls, four of them huddled around my legs. Then up troops a tiny girl, the youngest of them all. Her name was Jade, a beautiful small boned child from India but there was nothing small about her spirit. I’m in wonder at the intensity of energy in small children. It’s as if all of their adult capacity is now compressed into a fraction of the space than it will eventually occupy.
Jade stepped up in front of us with her flashlight bright and said.
“ You will be safe with me because I- AM- A- SUPER- HERO.” I looked down and took her in, just who she was in that moment. Her confident, unhampered imagination had made her our leader. She, was, a super hero and so we followed her through the dark passages.
It’s always this way. I teach because they teach me. There is a living exchange. They have so much intrinsic wisdom in the way they naturally are and I am their trusted guide into culture.
That, ‘I AM A SUPER HERO’ spoken by the child has served me countless times as a quiet tool. I’m not brave, am afraid of the dark and don’t run ahead but drag along behind others and yet how many times must I lead and teach others to find their own super hero inside.
I learned from Jade that I can call on my childlike imagination to be whoever is needed in the moment and that I have the inner resources to wind up my trusty flashlight until it shines bright into the darkness.
She used her imagination to create a persona to help others through the dark. This is the true super power that she held.
It was also her innocent confidence that transfixed me and went to my soul. She was as she believed herself to be.
To leap beyond my storehouse full of judgements and limits, to take the child’s lead, to use this powerful tool that has brought us Shakespeare and Einstein. The power to pretend and play with our pretend with exuberance and joy. It’s a powerful tool and takes the innocence of the child inside to pull it off but I can just pretend that to.
I now know thanks to Jade, when to step in front of my fears and say: I AM A SUPER HERO.
Monday, May 11, 2009
The Simple Blessing
Friday, May 8th 2009
Dear Lily,
You asked me last night if I would write down the talks we’ve had about the art of teaching. You are becoming a teacher and I am becoming a teacher of teachers. I’ve had mentors along the way, but no one to guide me hand in hand in what I’ve found to be the art of the craft. In the inner ways of teaching that I intend to give you, the quiet tools that have made the difference between a job to be done and teaching as a life long passion.
Quiet Tools
The Simple Blessing
Somewhere along the way, I noticed the difference in the quality of a workshop or class day when I asked for higher help, ahead of time, instead of just barging in headlong.
There is already enough wisdom in the world but how is it made accessible to the teacher? Imagine yourself as a circle, a big round colorful circle. While you are awake, walking around and living your life, you comprehend and use only a fraction of your circle, not even a quarter of it, yet the whole vibrant circle is yours. Now imagine everyone as a circle and where we interact, our colors blend and create geometric designs of light and dark, hue and value. In our regular everyday way of doing things we can’t hold what’s going in our own circle let alone what’s going on with a classroom of full circles interacting, yet they are and that’s a reality.
The simple blessing is about acknowledging what’s incomprehensible in us. Teaching is a challenge because there are so many variables that go into the dynamic of the classroom. I must be more than just a little me. That’s why I call upon my full circle or higher self.
I also need our collective human wisdom, imagine this as an enormous sphere housing the circles. This is the collective wisdom of our species. It’s all of our symbols, stories, archetypes and ideas. It’s where I’m drawing from right now to explain this to you.
Finally, I call upon the wisdom of the planet,that holds our human collective as only a small part of its big biology. It contains a totality of the systems, patterns and energies that sustain us.
Why would I call this a ‘simple’ blessing, to call upon the higher personal, collective human and biological wisdom of the planet? If you spend your days with young children, then you’ll understand why!
For all of this complication, I use a shorthand because like everyone else I don’t always have the time for anything else and it works just fine, add in the sacred words for any faith or lack of faith. It just works, oh so well. I’d never enter any more without it. The difference is paliable.
In my head it looks like this:
Dear God,
Please bless my teaching.
Please be with me throughout the day, in my thoughts, words and actions.
Please fill my time here with your wisdom, grace and insight.
Thanks
I try and pay attention to my breath while I feel and create a moment out of ordinary time. Sometimes it’s quick, sometimes more considered but always there.
Dear Lily,
You asked me last night if I would write down the talks we’ve had about the art of teaching. You are becoming a teacher and I am becoming a teacher of teachers. I’ve had mentors along the way, but no one to guide me hand in hand in what I’ve found to be the art of the craft. In the inner ways of teaching that I intend to give you, the quiet tools that have made the difference between a job to be done and teaching as a life long passion.
Quiet Tools
The Simple Blessing
Somewhere along the way, I noticed the difference in the quality of a workshop or class day when I asked for higher help, ahead of time, instead of just barging in headlong.
There is already enough wisdom in the world but how is it made accessible to the teacher? Imagine yourself as a circle, a big round colorful circle. While you are awake, walking around and living your life, you comprehend and use only a fraction of your circle, not even a quarter of it, yet the whole vibrant circle is yours. Now imagine everyone as a circle and where we interact, our colors blend and create geometric designs of light and dark, hue and value. In our regular everyday way of doing things we can’t hold what’s going in our own circle let alone what’s going on with a classroom of full circles interacting, yet they are and that’s a reality.
The simple blessing is about acknowledging what’s incomprehensible in us. Teaching is a challenge because there are so many variables that go into the dynamic of the classroom. I must be more than just a little me. That’s why I call upon my full circle or higher self.
I also need our collective human wisdom, imagine this as an enormous sphere housing the circles. This is the collective wisdom of our species. It’s all of our symbols, stories, archetypes and ideas. It’s where I’m drawing from right now to explain this to you.
Finally, I call upon the wisdom of the planet,that holds our human collective as only a small part of its big biology. It contains a totality of the systems, patterns and energies that sustain us.
Why would I call this a ‘simple’ blessing, to call upon the higher personal, collective human and biological wisdom of the planet? If you spend your days with young children, then you’ll understand why!
For all of this complication, I use a shorthand because like everyone else I don’t always have the time for anything else and it works just fine, add in the sacred words for any faith or lack of faith. It just works, oh so well. I’d never enter any more without it. The difference is paliable.
In my head it looks like this:
Dear God,
Please bless my teaching.
Please be with me throughout the day, in my thoughts, words and actions.
Please fill my time here with your wisdom, grace and insight.
Thanks
I try and pay attention to my breath while I feel and create a moment out of ordinary time. Sometimes it’s quick, sometimes more considered but always there.
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