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.