While teaching a Primary School Science lesson recently, I had the opportunity to observe the quality of Science we currently offer our school students, as well as to discern something of the true status of Science as it currently operates in our world. I was struck deeply by the omission of building upon children’s natural and vital sense of awe and wonder.
The lesson itself was ‘textbook’ best practice and ticked many boxes from the perspective of what is considered as good Science teaching. It was a hands-on activity with a sound theoretical foundation: students would be engaging in real life experimental design, manipulating only one variable – they were to work in teams of three with clearly assigned roles, and were outside the confines of the classroom. In addition, the students would be sharing their findings in a report.
The topic under investigation was the effects of tidal action on beach erosion, an issue common in our local area, and we had previously viewed this phenomenon at length, online.
Each group of students had constructed a model in a plastic box of how the land is eroded by the wave action of the ocean and each group was actively engaged in pushing water towards a 20cm bank of sand, using a small piece of flat plastic.
The students were having great fun with the activity but, as I observed them ‘making’ the sand bank in the tray collapse, I became acutely aware of how far short of the truth this ‘model’ of the wave phenomenon actually was.
Water contained thus in a box cannot be said to faithfully replicate the rhythms and movements of water in the oceans. Moreover, accurate measurements of beach erosion can only typically be made by a longitudinal study over an extended time period – observations naturally offered by those who have lived on a coastline for many, many years. On an even grander scale, we know that shorelines, and even landmasses, change monumentally over longer periods of time – on occasions, even disappearing completely.
A single point in time measurement of a controlled model, like this one here, is an extreme example of reducing down the truth and the grandness of Nature’s cycles quite literally, into a box.
Moreover, where was the science of the moon’s effects on the waves, or the acknowledgement that the moon’s effects are actually the Sun’s effects? Where was the understanding of the blessing of this solar gesture, or, indeed, the reasons behind intense land erosion? What about the Science of the origins and movements of the intense winds that usually accompany this activity and their purpose? Where was the sense of this synchronous interconnectedness? In short, where was the sense of awe and wonder readily felt by observing this phenomenon, an awe and wonder that children easily connect with when inspired to do so by adults?
Reducing down such a multi-faceted phenomenon to a box, as well as excluding its relationships with what lays beyond the Earth, falls far short of the Science we could be offering our children in school, a Science which could easily build upon their natural sense of awe and wonder. It is this sense of a much bigger picture, this feeling of a universal magnificence in life that we are all a part of that, as a teacher, I know children resonate with deeply.
Why does Science in general and Science in Primary Schools insist that our world and its wonder always be confined, reduced and constricted into controlled, measurable laboratory settings, whilst outside the box we observe the intricate grandeur of the Universe with an innate awe?
What are we teaching our students in Science? Is it to unfold our innate sense of appreciation, wonderment and awe at all that we are a part of? In spite of the fact that we cannot measure it…? Or is it how to reduce life to whatever can be measured singly, in isolation to everything else (1)? If we constantly reduce life, what effect does it have on us, given that we are part of the life that we are reducing?
Are we schooling children to cut themselves off from the wonder of themselves in relationship with an awe-inspiring Universe? Have we ever stopped to consider investigating this mentalisation of children’s innate impulses and are we avoiding the possibility that:
“An awe-willing outlook is just as important if not more so than what we call and or consider having an open mind, for an awe-willing outlook may further open one’s mind.” (‘Time, Space and all of us; Book 2, Space’, Serge Benhayon, p. 297)
Could it be that the suppressing of this awe in childhood is potentially as damaging as suppressing other innate impulses like love and affection? This is a discussion we educators and parents must have.
By Anonymous
References:
Further Reading:
The True Purpose of Education – One Size Fits All or Evolution?
Science is beauty
The true foundations of education – our future
This is Science
I know someone who is supporting their child to enter school by supporting them with hugely interesting lessons at home. Currently they are looking at the cycle of water. They are having so much fun pasting and sticking clouds, Sun, rain, etc., onto paper to explain the cycle. Very soon we are all going to the sea side to see the sea where the cycle of the rain begins. I feel it is a brilliant idea to support children to have a sense of wonderment when it comes to nature because I noticed when my child was at school just how boring the education system has made the lessons. The education system seems to dull children down rather then fill them with a sense of awe at the way nature works in cycles and with a flow that is missing from our lives.
An awareness of all that is ‘outside the box’ of the educational curriculum inspires children and all of us to awe and wonder of the Universe.
When there is no awe life is really boring and flat. Lately I have been more inclined to not take photos of something and simply enjoy the moment as it is. Because really, I rarely if ever look back at those pictures other than when deleting them to clear space. Looking at life through the phone screen diminishes the ability to take everything in and enjoy that awe.
Watching the natural awe and wonderment of a child is inspiring and as you have shared Anonymous, this level of innate investigation should be encouraged and not be shut down.
In the future we will look back at our education and realise what a farce it has been, nothing of truly any real value is taught hence why we have children to grow up and suffer as adults.
This is a great topic of conversation and one very dear to my heart because we have allowed the scientist to reduce and confine our world so that we have lost the wonder and awe at the magic that is constantly at play. How is it possible that we have reduced the magnificence of the universe into something that we seemingly do not take any notice of. We no longer look to the stars as our ancestors did there is so much light pollution most of us cannot see them any more. By confining and reducing our universe we have confined and reduced ourselves.
It actually makes me sad when I see how education impacts our children in such a negative way, we have societies full of depressed people who do not know who they are, many people have lost the magic in life and why – because we have an education system all set up around recall with little regard for the heart and body that will always be far wiser then a minds used in isolation.
‘ Is it to unfold our innate sense of appreciation, wonderment and awe at all that we are a part of? In spite of the fact that we cannot measure it…? ‘ I love this appreciation of wonderment not being something we can tie down, compare and measure. When we try to pin it down to a formula or to something concrete we miss how it’s not something static to be owned and displayed. It’s like trying to put a ray of sunshine into a matchstick box and capturing it – it doesn’t work.
Awe and wonder is such a beautiful quality to be with, as if offers us the opportunity to deepen our awareness of the magnificence of the rhythm, cycles and magic of the universe which inspires us to reflect and deepen our awareness of who we are, all that we are connected to and to appreciate our own innate magnificence and our inescapable part in it all.
Such a great question my sense is that we are educating our children in the most limited way. With devastating consequences.
So to turn the question round – how can we expand horizons and encourage, teach and inspire each other to look outside of the box?
Great call to foster the ‘awe-willing outlook’ of all children young and old so that we never lose our sense of being part of the universe and how we are within it. When we reduce anything by putting it in a box we lose far more than we gain.
I wonder if many science lessons manage to capture the awe and wonderment of what we are a part, ‘What are we teaching our students in Science? Is it to unfold our innate sense of appreciation, wonderment and awe at all that we are a part of?’
How do we foster and nurture that sense of awe that kids naturally experience is a great question. I think in general the way we educate kids tends to switch off our awe-button by making the world seem incredibly 2d and flat rather than turning it their awe by letting them explore just how incredible the world is…
At the moment there is a lot of media discussion around the amount of money and funding a school receives and if it is adequate or not, the question is political and is quite heavy. To me the real answer is in the quality and space we re able to give our children – deny them who they are and no amount of money will be able to offer them a ‘better’ education.
Encourage them to be who they are, and the very air we breathe becomes a true education, along with the sun, stars, nature, people, and everything that is around us and going on in the world. When we come into relationship with all of that, there is an infinite number of lessons on offer.
Beautifully said Simon – if our innate sense of wonder, awe and fascination is fostered from a young age our exploration and understanding of who we are would be in a very different place right now.
This is a great question ; ‘Why does Science in general and Science in Primary Schools insist that our world and its wonder always be confined, reduced and constricted into controlled, measurable laboratory settings, whilst outside the box we observe the intricate grandeur of the Universe with an innate awe?’
We are all the losers when science is reduced away from the grandeur of its innate relationship with every aspect of the universe and our lives within that.
This is a great article. Reading it makes me realise that when I was at school science seemed to be about testing different metals and doing measured experiments – none of which I understood or found interesting and so I wrote science off as being dull and complicated. Now I read this I can feel how amazing science and nature and the world we live in is and how this awe and amazingness is what inspires children.
You are asking a fabulous question at the end of your article pointing out that we are the ones that also are reduced when science is reduced. It feels like you are touching on a very crucial point. Could it be that our quality and understanding of life is also reduced when we reduce science?
Absolutely Elizabeth, a well joy to read this absolute truth in revelation.
I love how children have a natural wonder of the world; from crystals and rocks to feathers, leaves and water – it’s beautiful to encourage and support this natural sense of wonder and awe, rather than make subjects dull and lifeless.
‘where was the sense of awe and wonder readily felt by observing this phenomenon, an awe and wonder that children easily connect with when inspired to do so by adults?’ I can really relate to this, science can be amazing and awe-inspiring but as in my case I found science very dull and hard to understand when I was taught it. It feels like this is a such an amazing subject that it needs to be presented in an inspiring and bigger picture way so that children can engage with it and enjoy it.
What a great example this is for reducing the truth, as eduction reduces all the children who go through the system.
I recently went to a forest school with my young grandchildren – for just one morning. The learning that took place their, through play activities, was amazing. The cooperation and creativity engendered – and fun – were second to none – all outside in natural surroundings. They loved it.
The education system doesn’t foster wonder. Science is thus reduced and it is no wonder some students get put off learning. An amazing teacher can transform a subject for their students and make a huge difference in their lives. Many of us can remember a teacher who made a difference to us, in spite of the education system in their country.
An awe-inspired outlook is the only way to go when you clock the wonder in nature and in the human body. It is amazing to consider the divine design of it all and how everything is in relationship with everything whether we choose to be aware of it or not.
Awe and wonder, I cannot remember feeling much of that at school. It is very much needed however for real learning to occur.
The awe and wonder has taken second place to the drill and disease of our current education system. A great blog to awaken the wonder and awe we can often ignore in our everyday lives.
Let’s face it… Most of the world’s scientists do not go to the multidimensional aspect of the universe is offered by quantum mechanics… if they did, science and medicine will be in a very different state they are now
I absolutely love “children’s natural and vital sense of awe and wonder” as it always reminds me of a time when I was a child in awe of the world. But it seems to me that so many within society, including our educators, want to keep things neatly in a box so they can control what can go in and what can come out. And all the while our amazing Universe, which cannot be contained in any box, is forever teaching us of the magic that is on offer in every moment, magic full of awe and wonder that will delight the child within us all.
This turns science into not just proof and evidence but it makes it about science in the world, science we see and understand and can connect with. It is so much bigger than text books or formulas – it is life.
The classroom can never truly represent what we can find out there, in nature.
And so it is that when we isolate ‘the part’ from the whole it is a part of, without looking to see how it relates to this, we reduce ourselves into a way of thinking that isolates us from the grandness of the universal intelligence we are a part of.
A very great point for us all to consider, that our relationship with awe and wonderment with the movements of nature, cycles, our life here on earth in general and the universe is what inspires us to explore our innate connection to our universality, multi-dimensionality and God, who we are in essence and our true purpose for being here together.
This was awesome to read “An awe-willing outlook is just as important if not more so than what we call and or consider having an open mind, for an awe-willing outlook may further open one’s mind.” (‘Time, Space and all of us; Book 2, Space’, Serge Benhayon, p. 297)’ Thank you for sharing.
Beautiful Anonymous, this experiment you describe perfectly summarises the way we curtail and box ourselves in, instead of letting Love be felt and living in a way that lets the world know we are Universal through and through. This knowing of our multi-dimensionality is true science we can do.
We do seem to have compartmentalised ourselves, life, religion, science, philosophy, and our relationship to it all, yet in truth our power is in our knowing that all are truly and intrinsically connected, as are we to it all. The beautiful thing is that we never truly are disconnected from it all, as we can never leave all that we are, we simply need only to open ourselves up to our connection to our essence, and as you have shared, reflect the ‘more’ that we naturally are and the multi-dimensionality that we are here to live.
Science that makes sense-I love that.
Without first confirming the wonder of everything and how it is all interlinked, our knowledge and learning is at best just a small slice of the truth. We don’t need to investigate further but zoom back and see the universe as infinitely larger – then life’s mysteries start to make sense. Thanks for this lesson Anonymous.
Yes, taking an observers perspective and offer ourselves an opportunity to zoom out and consider how things inter-relate feels much smarter than reducing our vision and perspective to the minutia.
Great that there are some teachers like yourself who naturally teach and inspire the sense of wonderment of ourselves and nature, ‘What are we teaching our students in Science? Is it to unfold our innate sense of appreciation, wonderment and awe at all that we are a part of?’
There is so much that science can teach us, about the incredible universe we live in and the order, precision and laws that guide nature to be in perfect alignment – things that cannot be conveyed by a cut and dry curriculum based on recall and not wonder.
It seems that everything comes in boxes these days; science experiments, parts of the human body, fast food take aways and our thinking and looking for solutions. What is outside the box gets brushed aside, to the detriment of the vastness and universality that wisdom, awe and wonderment can so easily deliver.
Very true, children have a massive capacity to observe, contemplate, express and be in awe of many amazing things in the world. When we reduce this down to ‘simple’ science lessons it does not ask for their connection to all of this, but instead it asks for a linear perception of it and this takes away the wonder and grandness of science and the child’s relationship with the world.
What if we have education as not about reaching a goal but allowing us all to unfold and deepen our understanding and wisdom of life, what if we then saw that we are always learning and that school has a specific purpose and is not the main part of our education. What if we realized that trying to get everyone to fit into the mold of the way we have society setup will not allow us to truly grow and evolve, as there are many things in society that are not true yet accepted as normal. What if we would then be able to be in awe of the magic of the universe, of nature and indeed of waves and water instead of needing to reach an outcome and complete a task.
Learning objectives and outcomes have been created to cover the backs of the governments and teachers who create them. Education has become a box-ticking exercise but there is always room for the awe and wonder to be brought in by truly committed teachers like yourself Anonymous.
I have always been fascinated and deeply intrigued by nature and being outside and find it particularly interesting during school that science was always about textbook and very controlled experiments that never gave us room to expand our own natural curiosity and wonder. Giving children the opportunity to engage with the world in a more deeper way will also give them permission to feel what is true and how wonderful the world is and how much more there is to learn and appreciate about the natural world around us.
I would have loved you as my science teacher at school, bringing so much more than what the syllabus asks, which I agree is lacking at present.
Yes true, we make learning so narrow along an already predetermined trajectory and this does not allow for the space of inquiry, exploration, real discussion, sharing of experiences and growing together as there can be no predetermined outcome when drawing out wisdom. It naturally unfolds as the children share and expand on what each other say, you can not determine the outcome of this and because its not something you can ‘measure’ in a standardised way, it is not valued, yet this is actually real learning.
It seems to me that we do not as you say anonymous support children to develop their natural and vital sense of awe and wonder with their surroundings. As adults we seem to have contributed to making life so dull, boring and robotic. Is it then any wonder our children are escaping by playing games on some sort of electronic devise, rather than fully interacting with life.
We generally use science to prove things in controlled conditions so we can refer to it later as a point of validation. But this misses out on the fact that life is science. The way the body works, the planets work, nature works – it is all science – proven simply because we observe and feel it, not because we have lots of research and papers about it.
My favourite science lessons from school were the ones when my teachers would go off on a tangent into an area they were interested or passionate about but wasn’t on the syllabus – the move away from the dry and set topics into a discussion based on true wonder and awe of life
I always loved that too Rebecca!
The best science is one that comes from direct observational experience over one experiments that are done in a controlled manner in a laboratory or classroom. The same way that politicians attempt to manipulate the truth of a situation is similar to how scientists use contolled inputs and variables to come to a ‘conclusion’ on how some facet of Nature works even though they did not take into account potentially hundreds of other inter-relating energies and variables. Also, a true scientist to me is one who can stay in awe of everything observed in an innocent way that accepts the possibility of what was deemed ‘fact’ today can evolve into a greater understanding and be let go of tomorrow.
From experience a lot of students develop a dis-love of Science as a result of the lessons taught at school, and some of this comes about because Science is promoted as a ‘subject for the smart’ and not for everyone. This is such an illusion, and it doesn’t make sense that the Sciences are often restricted at a higher level for those who get certain results in Maths and English because they teach you so much about the world, makeup of the universe and people too.
Reading this I’m reminded of living by the sea and going in it nearly daily for many years. I was fascinated by the sandbanks and how they moved, trying to predict such a complex system was nearly impossible. I used to surf which partly motivated my trying to predict which part of the beach to surf on, when to go in depending on the tide and the waves size etc. Some years the sand banks moved so much it was a mystery. There even was an island of sand created which caused a hazard to swimmers who remained on it and then had to swim deeper waters to shore. And then there was asking why the sand would have huge ripples in it and other times not. So much to appreciate about the ways of the sea.
The magic and majesty of nature, its rhythms and ways would be lost in a box. Reminds me of asking at surf school if the children had been surfing or not and one lad insisting he had but his dad explaining he had only played it as a computer game.
The education system is so geared towards academic outcomes that there is ‘no time’ to explore things further than what’s written in a textbook. But who gets to decide what millions of children should and should not learn, and how is this decision not made by communities, industry professionals and as a collective? Where have the opportunities gone for children and young people to choose what they want to know more about?
You’ve given readers a lot to reflect on as you have highlighted just how easy it is to reduce down a comprehensive understanding of something without many people even being aware of what is happening. It just goes to show how important it is to hold a level of awe and wonderment, otherwise we never ask questions and are just ‘herded’ into thinking whatever it is that those with a vested interest want us to believe or know about a topic. Thank you for bringing this to our attention through your example here and I agree that it’s worth keeping the discussion open where and when possible.
I observed recently during the super moon event this month, most talking about the impact of higher and lower than normal tides of our everyday life. Whilst this is true of course, I was pondering whether we are viewing this science and wonderful occurrence purely through a limited eye by only seeing the impact on us and not seeing the event in the whole wonder it truly is.
It’s amazing how the wonder of science can be represented in a box size experiment in the classroom. The challenge is to be able to bring it alive in a way that makes sense for the purpose of learning.
What an amazing example of how much reductionism there is going on everyday, not just in education but when we hold back anything we know as truth and accept a lesser version of the grandness, awe and wonder of life.
When we take away a Childs natural awe and wonder by being harsh or critical, we set them up to fail, their natural joy and zest for life needs to be what leads their way not any idea we have that imposed on them.
Absolutely Sam. Well said.
Yes unfortunately it is true, suppressing the magic and awe in children is damaging and suppressing their natural qualities like love and affection will always lead to a lessening of the amazing beings they are.
I wonder how it is for the kids when it comes to confining and putting in separate boxes the awe and wonder of the universe? They are often far more connected to the grandness of the all than adults are and it must be very challenging having an adult in a classroom “teach” them things that they know are not complete.
I was on a plane yesterday to Brisbane and was fortunate to sit next to a young mum and child. The child was about 3-4 and was such a delight. At one point, he asked his Mum ‘are we still flying’ and I loved that, because to me it was obvious as we had not moved as such, and he did not allow anything else to come in the way of him asking that question. And then when we landed and the pilot said, welcome to Brisbane and he was in complete awe that he was in Brisbane. And again I loved that because the plane was going to Brisbane, but he allowed his natural awe to be expressed that he was in Brisbane at that time.
After reading your words here Anonymous, I strongly feel that if we shut down all our classes and schools, universities and colleges tomorrow and replaced them with classes on wonder and awe, the world would be in a much healthier place overall. We spend so long studying but it seems to me it’s truly the wrong part. Ironic, for as you say we were naturally born with it all.
Awe-willing is a great way to describe what can be an inspiring life. I am at present in awe for example of the support of a friend in my home renovation, out of the blue he has come and made an immense difference. Awe-inspiring, awe-incredible and awesome all in one.
“Are we schooling children to cut themselves off from the wonder of themselves in relationship with an awe-inspiring Universe?” The answer to this has to be yes and as we do so we cap another generation from really knowing themselves.
I love this and it exposes how we do not live or teach in line with the true cycles, magic and wonder of the universe. We have so very much to learn and live here.
Ah the words ‘awe’ and ‘wonderment’, they give my body space to breath! they remind me we cannot be contained in a box because we are from one, we are part of one, part of another body that is more vast than we can understand from our heads, science and what we can explain. It is a feeling, a sense and is only understood when we take a step away from being able to explain it and give space to awe and wonderment.
I remember enjoying those physical real example experiments at school, so much better than just reading out of a textbook!
Don’t we make life contained in a box in many many instances? In medical science for instance we look as a dentist mostly at the mouth and work with that without fully considering the whole way the person is living, his thoughts, his choices and his movements. Even though all of those make up the end picture we see in the mouth. I am all for making it simple but not for putting things or people in a box because it just does not and will never be true.
This comes across as ‘creative restriction’ – where we are making learning more dynamic but at the same time we are still reducing education to what can be taught not what can be felt.
‘Are we schooling children to cut themselves off from the wonder of themselves in relationship with an awe-inspiring Universe?’ Great question Colleen, and what we do in the rush to achieve ‘results’. But what does it ultimately result in?
Most of the resistance to learn we used to find at schools everyday, would change into willingness to learn if we as educators would allow it in our lives the openness that is required to really learn. Of course, there are restrictions that affect us into the education system, but as we are much more than that, and are able to experience this grandness in ourselves, we can bring that knowingness into our classrooms and inspire with it, while being inspired by the students too. Teaching (as in the ancient times one day was) to be truly embodied can never be dictated, but experienced and unfolded by everyone in its greatness.
There is an awe and wonderment in learning the laws of the universe because they come from the divine. Imagine being told as a science student that you will be learning the laws of the universe. Who would be able to resist the class? Nobody.
I used to really struggle with science and all the experiments. They just did not make sense to me what we were doing and why we were doing it. If someone had put it all in perspective and shown me the magic at play I’m sure I would have loved it.
I had a conversation today about how so often in school we get pushed towards studying what we are good at, which is measured by what we get good marks in – when we view education like this it takes out all consideration of learning about life and choosing a career based on feeling a connection or a purpose rather than just marks on a paper.
Love and awe cannot be controlled it is unlimited and expansive and therefore it is not what our world feels comfortable about. Systems can be controlled they are limited but what they reflect is not the full Truth. From young in school what we are exposed to is a system which does not reflect full truth.
I agree – we absolutely do need to have this conversation, as how our education system currently runs today does not seems to be working in supporting our children to feel confident with who they are or in understating their purpose in this world. We should be nurturing and fostering, as you say here, ‘our innate sense of appreciation, wonderment and awe at all that we are a part of.’ as in omitting this from our education we are omitting a huge part of understanding and exploring who we are, and our relationship with the universe that we are inescapably part of.
The Beauty of science is that we as human beings are a living science, and the more we know about what is within, the more we know the science which is reflected externally.
When we are cramped within the confines of boxed in thinking we totally miss out on the wonderment, the spaciousness and the potential of what is on offer in the world around us.
I can remember that at school I often was disappointed when a specific scientific subject was presented as it always left me unfulfilled because something in me knew there was more to be shared about the subject at hand.
We all have an inherent natural wonderment of nature and the universe. How different education has become over time. In the past it was about learning from nature through being out there in it and observing the majesty and magnificence of it with a true appreciation of all it’s reflecting back to us making it a living experience instead of being reduced to learning about the oceans from an experiment in a box. When we do this are we not undermining children’s confidence and appreciation of what they can feel? When through guidance we can be encouraging this natural wonderment, awe and appreciation of nature and the universe to keep on expanding. I agree it is time we asked the question. Could it be that the suppressing of this awe in children is potentially as damaging as suppressing other innate impulses like love and affection?
I think they are absolutely connected, awe and love and wonder and divine intelligence all come from the same source.
So much of how children are taught today lacks the space and encouragement for children to truly shine. Where have we got to in education, if all that is being taught is coming from a text book that has to meet certain criteria rather than allowing children to explore and expand as they so naturally do when given the support to do so.
sure Sandra, actually everything we get taught at school today is reduced into a box, as is written in this blog, and by doing so our children are restricted in their learning and understanding of the all we are an inescapable part of. Actually we are robbing our children, as we have been, from the innate knowing that everything is interconnected and interdependent of one another and restrict them to be, and develop, the multi dimensional beings they are.
What I love and is so great about this piece is your innate appreciation of the natural wonderment that exists for all people, and how you know that this wonderment is not ever lost or stolen, it is simply distracted away from us and so as such it is easily re-connected with.
I agree, science, maths etc is confined to certain pattern and it is rigid, there is no joy in it. I know what it was like, I dd not like numbers in school. The truth is though that numbers are amazing and beautiful, as is the wonder of the universe and science, there is so much that can be shared that does not fit in a box and is not separate from each other. Everything we live and observe is linked and being aware of these links opens up the universe to explore, AWE.
In our natural awe and wonder everything is felt if not seen in its entirety.
Being in Awe is our natural way, I meet people everyday and connect with who they are in essence and feel joy and awe, because I am seeing them for who they are, there is sparkle, a depth of warmth and love in everyone when we are open to observing it. This along with how all these millions of being fit together in the all, the universe and all the natural order it presents, is just well…awesome. Awe- Inspiring.
Yes, when you allow space to see others for who they are in their essence, there is an awe at what could have brought such divinity into being. Really we have to wonder what energy could have created a human body with all the intricacies of the workings, and what energetic being enhouses that physical body to make decisions that impede its’ natural flow and hence function?
” …. where was the sense of awe and wonder readily felt by observing this phenomenon, an awe and wonder that children easily connect with when inspired to do so by adults?” Children naturally love nature and science and its magic, but not when reduced to science in a box. No wonder so many young people are put off science.
The ‘vital sense of awe and wonder’ is what makes us forever students of life, the openness to the more that we are and that we are part of.
Reducing awe and wonder into a box, what a great observation of the disservice we do to so many aspects of our lives and the wonder of the world around us.
And the super cool thing is that at any age we can re-access the curious scientists we all so naturally are… lots of ‘why’ questions help.
‘Building awe and wonder’ is what every teacher comes into teaching to do and whatever challenges and obstacles they face it is something they hold dear. This article reminds us to keep our eyes open and our view broad.
I agree that there is something not right about the way we educate and teach in that rather than observing the universe and how life works and encouraging a natural exploration and awareness of this, we tend to bring our interpretation to what we are observing and in that we are changing or reducing the magnificence of it all, simply so that our intellect or mind can contain it and fathom it. However we have forgotten that our bodies are made of the same particles as the rest of the universe and therefore understand it all innately.
It exposes the self who wants to remain an individual thinking it knows everything and wants to be in control of something that is much grander that we could ever imagine. To live in the awe and magic of the universe is to live humbly and not pretend we have all the answers.
This article helps me to understand why I hated maths and science so much when I was at school. Had these subjects been taught in a way that allowed me to see the wonder of interconnectedness I have no doubt that I would have absolutely loved these subjects as I love them now.
Feeling the grandness and amazingness we are from and part of is wonder-full, and making this part of our education system is something all children can relate to and feel for themselves with the awe and wonder, this is very beautiful and offering this to children everywhere naturally is amazing to feel.
When we live with awe and wonder we remain open to the beauty and grandness of the Universe, it makes no sense to reduce something that is continually expanding and evolving.
Age 50+ I still love to learn with awe and wonder everything there is to learn about who we are and what makes the world go round and round. How shall we grow, evolve and blossom when we are not open, curious and adventurous to explore what is beyond the familiar? We are forever students, that´s what keeps us evolving.
We tend to put things into categories and compartments – like science, relationships, economics, arts etc.. and when we do this people either become identified with one or a few but we ridicule our ability to see the wholeness within each other, and in this wholeness is science, religion and art equally. If we were taught subjects and studies from who we truly are then we would have much more understanding and collaborative in education and our economy.
All teaching should be built on the sense of wonder and awe that is naturally ours but seems to be dulled down in most of us as we grow up. There is magic in the exploration and discovery that hint of far bigger things at play than merely what we see.
It is incredible how we can reduce the vastness and magnificence of our Universe into little pockets that we can feel we can control the situation. I find detail and the micro vision can be great, as long as the understanding and relationship with the macro is maintained. I find whenever I lose my awareness of the bigger whole, it all just becomes a clever exercise and knowledge, which compared to the awe, expansion and wisdom that the Universe naturally offers is as flat as a pancake.
When we try to understand only with our mind we will reduce life to so much less, experiencing and exploring life from and with our body and its ability to feel also what is beyond the physical allows us to know ourselves to be part of the gigantic science of the expansion of the universe.
Awe and wonder indeed allow for a broader perspective where perhaps we can ponder that we are also interdependent with the wonder around us and more than just a human that is here to function.
Despite all rationale I may like to favour since I started to allow myself to ‘feel’ the light of the moon with my body a whole new dimension of understanding the greater phenomena of nature has opened up to me.
Very inspiring – you just expanded my ‘open mind’ by understanding the reductionism in what appeared first to be a very practical and engaging way of learning something. You just exposed that when we learn something we may be so focused on the subject (or excerpt), even being fascinated and curious and willing to learn, that we miss the greater picture that would be so much richer to be learned and opening our minds for the grandness of the universe we live in and with and by. It is nothing wrong about exploring the detail but we should never lose the greater context of what that detail is part of and contributes to.
The awe and wonderment of the world all around us is the magical joy of life allowing the flow within us, dulling and cutting this off from our education is cutting this off from our lives. The magic of science was what I felt as a child and a beautiful teacher, but how it was taught usually took this away to a boredom and the magic was lost but always there to be reclaimed.
“Awe-willing” a new saying of mine!! Love it, I feel wonder for the universe and how it works and with this I can feel my experience and appreciation of life expand.
Wow, I like the big picture here. It’s something I’ve never considered but makes total sense – nature and its movements cannot be replicated or reproduced. What arrogance do we have to think we can do so.
Science at primary school for me was the most boring thing and it didn’t get much better at secondary either, any experiments we did were rather lame, when it could have been so much fun. When I have heard science being presented by someone that thinks and feels outside the box it really comes alive and there is nothing boring about it at all.
It is so wrong that we turn off people’s natural curiosity in education. Running with children’s inquisitiveness makes teaching so simple.
Serge Benhayon’s quote in this article offers a profound point: ” An awe-willing outlook is just as important if not more so than what we call and or consider having an open mind, for an awe-willing outlook may further open one’s mind.” (‘Time, Space and all of us; Book 2, Space’, Serge Benhayon, p. 297)
I can not imagine true expansion of science without the awe and wonder about ourselves, life and the Universe. How can we expand, if we think we already know it all?
There seems to be a trade off, a deal we participate in – we label and box things in so we have a ‘known’, something we can always say is correct and exactly the same. But that’s not the way life actually is. As your sharing shows Anonymous, if we relaxed and stopped trying to have all the answers we might find we are already informed by the knowing in our cells. Without having to control how it works, the truth flows through us so we have access to everything that is. The greatest science experiment we could embark on then is to surrender to our body and let go of our head.
I so agree Anonymous – we do need to begin to unravel the way we have limited our perceptions of life by reductionism and what we are told is our reality, when we know innately that we are so much grander. When we allow ourselves a sense of wonderment the whole world opens up to us – and not just the world but the magnificence of the Universe and the infinity it reflects and inspires.
Well said Fiona and it is around children that I am reminded of the awe and wonder I very naturally feel.
It is uncomfortable, but super important, to talk about the fact that a lot of what we do to our children in our parenting, education and and social conditioning is actually shrinking them to fit rather than enabling, honouring and nourishing their innate qualities. We all lose out this way.
You really sum up why I couldn’t relate to in school. My teachers used to say to me that I was too smart for school, I was not a big academic or anything, in fact I could hardly read but I asked too many questions apparently. I was always curious of what was inside the box, related to awe and wonderment I could feel outside the box. I was so ready to find out about the magic of life but I was met with what I felt was meaningless information. I was not afraid of speaking my mind and so I let the teaches know that what they were teaching didn’t have true purpose, most of them would whisper to me that they agreed. I managed to inspire them to bring some of their own flavour to the dry curriculum and I would join in with enthusiasm when I could feel the life in what they presented. The point is, although school is very restricting, it is about bringing the essence of who we are to what we present, in that, every child feels met.
Kids know more than we give them credit for, and when we allow them to express it we can learn a lot.
A beautiful study of how nothing works in isolation, and how we reduce life when we separate it.
Thank you Anonymous. It’s a solid point you make. You can’t measure science to a single variable by a laboratory and objects. A discussion with a class representing the all can open up much more to what we all may know and feel. Science as taught by Universal Medicine presents how much we hold that awe in the body. Science of the universe is in our body and thus a group discussion can reveal much of this awe.
It feels like in those days they struggled to express with joy and fun. It was more about sharing the mechanics than being really able to explore the playfulness in the science.
We live in a world of science and it can never be boxed in, it is forever evolving, changing and everyday we can feel and see the magic of it.
Interesting that Science lessons about nature, geological processes and different environments are done ‘in a box’ when this is the perfect opportunity to let students explore the world for themselves and express themselves too. Could we reshape the system where this ‘practical’ application of learning is truly practical and fostering of intrigue, personal development and exploration?
I so appreciate you writing this blog as it gives me a platform to express my dismay at the way our children are being educated. When I went to school we were encouraged in the science lessons to develop a deep respect for our world and the universe and that Mother Nature was something to behold in awe. I loved science and the way it was presented by the teacher, he was so enthusiastic about everything to minute detail. Then many years later when my child went to school I was always saying wait until you get to science it is such a brilliant subject. But how things have changed science as you say has been so reduced it’s unrecognizable to me. It’s as ‘dull as ditch water’ and all the wonderment has been erased. The Scientists seem to me to be trying to control the uncontrollable and they will come unstuck, you cannot control Mother Nature and we are all witness to this fact.
We can feel so much more than we allowed to consider in education – it feels like education is the fitting of ‘blinkers’ to limit our awareness of what we feel from all around us all of the time to what is acceptable to society and an already existing system fed by the people in it.
Have we reduced science to dropping a rock in the water and it sinks because it is heavy and a needle will float on water because it is too light to sink. How much fantastic science lies hidden in these two simple experiments that should invoke many, why does that happen, questions?
Learning can either expand you to see, feel, want to know more…or it can, as it did with me, feel like a heavier and heavier burden to carry and deal with; always having to keep up, learn more, hit a new target, reach a new grade…so the whole thing became a very laborious process that, not surprisingly I began to resent. I can remember the exact time when I turned my back on it all.
Slightly obtuse segue, but I was reading this and was reminded of a code that, as youngsters, we were taught for crossing the road “Stop, Look, Listen”. Perhaps we need a bit more of this brought into our education system and indeed to the way we walk through life. Maybe there’s something that could be added to it. “Stop, Look, Listen, be in Awe.”
It occurs to me that even in such a class as the wave simulation in a box, there could be a section of the time dedicated to stop. As well as looking at the merits of the exercise children could discuss its shortcomings and consider such reflections as offered in this blog eg the relationship the sea has with the moon and the Sun, the rhythms and cycles and any other aspect they find interesting.
I love that Otto “Stop, Look, Listen, be in Awe.” This could and ought to be introduced every step of the way.
In my days at school, Science was definitely not my favourite subject because the delivery was rather dry and just telling of the knowledge of findings with a sprinkle of the odd experiment or two. Not very inspiring or getting anywhere near the truth of science and the role it plays in our lives.
This is no different nowadays as it is still sold as the solution based approach and the level of universal grandness doesn’t even get a mention.
Wow – this is an absolute eye opener. When we reduce the grandness true science presents, we are left with an activity that is boring and lacking connection to our lives. When the whole is considered science comes alive.
Yes so true Science comes a live when the whole is considered otherwise we are left with activity which is boring and lacking connection.
We can become book smart, but, riding your bike on a wall may be fun and exciting until someone teaches you about gravity and actions have reactions from collisions. Does, the packaged information of science, limit our view and experience of the real world.
This is how I lived my life, as a child. The key is to not lose it in our adult years. Hold onto your multi-dimensionality at all costs. We live in the presence of God and are Sons of God, so why do we lose this quality so easily as we become adults? Despite how teachers teach us we are forever this majesty and can return to it instantly. It is our birth-right.
“Could it be that the suppressing of this awe in childhood is potentially as damaging as suppressing other innate impulses like love and affection? This is a discussion we educators and parents must have.” I remember learning science in the dry disconnected way you describe here.
Fortunately for me I was brought up being very close to nature and exposed to outdoor adventures daily, so I never lost my awe of the natural world, even when, finally going to school, my science teachers unknowingly taught their reduced experiments. I always felt so much grander and much more magnificent than the controlled event. Hopefully we who feel this truth can find a way to remind society what is truly going on, as you have here. How we live and reflect back our ‘awe-willing’ to the world, is our great responsibility. We all have it within us to inspire each other daily. Bring on the discussions!
If I feel what it is like reading a book about something, giving me knowledge, and then feel how it is to walk out into the world and take in all around me, I discover how narrowing and confining the book is and how expanding and alive a lived experience is. It would be so liberating for children to walk out into the world and be encouraged to share their feelings of awe and wonder about what they see and hear, and from that the questions would arise, and then maybe support it with some knowledge from a book or a controlled experiment. That way they would be affirmed in their wonderment and awe first, and come to trust their own responses.
The ‘all’ that we are can be felt in this blog as it exposes how we are restricted from so early on in our life. I wonder if each of us reflected on our time as children and the awareness we held then in different situations, how much of what this blog is offering would be confirmed? We all hold the most expansive understanding of life within us and this blog is offering each of us an opportunity to explore this more deeply and open the way for our children to bring what is so naturally innate out. Thank you.
This is marvellous Anonymous…I so wish you had been my teacher!
Me too. We can be these teachers now however in the quality of all we bring to others.
I absolutely love science, every time I learn something about the world i’m in more awe of this amazing planet we live on. How can life ever be the same once you know that we share our particles with each other, but not only that; our particles are made up of the same matter as stars?
True science is a living, breathing evolving endeavour as it is the ability to observe and learn from one’s observations. It can never be fixed and put in a box for scientific knowledge is forever expanding as there is an expansive universe to understand and if we stay open and willing we are never going to stop learning about its many wonders.
‘If we constantly reduce life, what effect does it have on us, given that we are part of the life that we are reducing?’ Great point Colleen.
Observation of life and all it brings offers much wisdom if we are but to allow it.
Education is indeed not supporting children to know the depth of who they are, trust the enormity of their awareness and connect deeply with the magnificence of the Universe we are a part of.
We are called as adults to reflect on the values which we hold dear, the relationship we have with life and the example we are offering to our children. We can not teach something we are neither living nor developing in our lives.
Interesting what you have shared about the awe and wonder in science at school Anonymous. It is like the education system today took the spice away so to speak and installed instead only facts and knowledge. It is a bit boring and will perhaps keep most of our children in this box. Of course there will be some who will break out of it as awe and wonder has its own power.
The awe and wonderment of true science connecting all of us to the universe and all we are part of is so beautiful and something so missing in our current education system. Thank you for sharing your experiences and the understanding of the fun of the natural world we are all part of and that can be shared with children in their education system allowing an appreciation , expansion and joy with it all.
I spent some time looking after a young girl, and in that time, her sense of wonder at life – at the flowers and the clouds and the tractor going down the lane, was just beautiful to behold. As we grow up and go through education, we are not given the space to appreciate and wonder at the world and how it is, we are pressured to understand, study and compartmentalise it all, when in truth we know so very little about the universe.
It is a breath of fresh air experiencing such pure expression of wonder, awe and appreciation that you share about. There is much to learn from this depth of awareness of life. We are truly short changing ourselves by limiting our vision to the regurgitated facts and figures in our text books when we have access to such natural connection which is where are true wisdom comes from.
I recall when I was at school always enjoying things that helped me understand actual life. And since I have come across Universal Medicine that understanding has taken on a whole new level.
I was delighted when the system stopped demanding you to memorise a whole lot of formula for the exams, and an effort is made by many teachers who deeply care about their work to engage the pupils. Yet as portrayed in this blog what we are offering is a far cry from the glorious education that inspires and expands our relationship with ourself, life and the Universe.
When western science reduces the majority of things it studies, how can it give us a complete answer?
I love teaching kids it is an absolute joy when it’s not ‘teaching’ but igniting awe and natural curiosity.
To me science is the process of wonder. There is always more and there is never an end. Its a very sad state of affairs that we loose this through the current way we are educated. Turning everything into facts that need to be learned off by heart. Losing the ability to learn by feeling or sensing things. We do know so much, but not in the way we think.
You can’t separate something from the whole and hope to understand it. Everything is a part of so much more than its separate parts.
Beautifully said Nikki, and the irony is that most children I have met know this as fact. If they were given an opportunity they would readily discuss the bigger picture with ease.
Science is fun when we can make it physical and interactive. It is much more engaging.
Children have a natural sense of awe and wonder. It’s criminal to encourage anything less than that.
The beauty of Serge Benhayon’s presentations is that he speaks spherically, we feel the whole and are awed and inspired not just by him but the wisdom and wonder that is expressed through him. It is the responsibility of all teachers to bring that same quality to teaching. Something that fires the imagination of children.
Thanks, Anonymous. It is so great to read your observations about the education of young children, as it gives us the opportunity to identify the areas where we accept reductionism in our lives in order to initiate change.
True science is all about relationship, within our bodies, with one another, with our environment and with the grand and immense Universe we live in. When we slice our world up into sections, the relationships are fractured and therefore we can never gain an understanding of the whole or a true resolution to the issue under the investigation.
In 1894 Einstein at the age of 15 clashed with his school and resented the school’s regimen and teaching methods. He wrote that ‘the spirit of learning and creative thought was lost in strict rote learning’. Not much has changed, but there is another way!
A subject such a science should be the most interesting of all, up there with philosophy and religion, so why are they all made so very boring when we are at school?
I used to enjoy science at school but always felt limited by what we could explore. I now understand that science is far grander than our school system teaches.
“An awe-willing outlook is just as important if not more so than what we call and or consider having an open mind, for an awe-willing outlook may further open one’s mind.” now this is great for me to consider, just seeing my daughter so amazing at a vacuum cleaner or lovingly opening the door are two great reflections of the magic in the simplicity and how perhaps to approach life fresh in each moment.
“Could it be that the suppressing of this awe in childhood is potentially as damaging as suppressing other innate impulses like love and affection?” – when there is awe, there is love and fondness too for what it is being learnt.
Children can teach us so much because they have a different perspective on life than we have, so why do we think we are the only ones who can teach them? When children learn according to their interests, the learning is more solid.
I vote that people with such wonderful understanding and awe of the Universe are the ones that write our textbooks.
Science has always had a religious aspect, which brings in the true feeling that ends up with what Einstein presented and not only the religious aspect but also the philosophical view. So maybe we should teach all three together Science, Religion and philosophy so that the wonderment of a child can blossom on different areas of life at one time?
About 15 years ago I had a job providing all the materials for the science aspect of the primary education students at uni. I used to spend a lot of time in the class and the very hands on and playful pracs really brought out the child in most of the adult students. Science should be awe inspiring and so engaging, rather than training kids early to bring things down to measurable and separated elements. Leaving out all the interconnected wonders of the universe may be justified as ‘keeping it simple’ but it is indicative of a society that only acknowledges the physical and measurable.
Just reading the title I can feel the expansiveness of building a foundation of awe and wonder would bring to children and their experience of life, our beautiful planet and beyond, also the constraints of the limitations on this of Science in a box.
The science lessons I remember were pretty dry, and uneventful – even the teacher acted bored. It must be disheartening to teach something no one wants to sit and listen to.
“A single point in time measurement of a controlled model, like this one here, is an extreme example of reducing down the truth and the grandness of Nature’s cycles quite literally, into a box.” And then we have the audacity to base our decisions about the environment and nature on a knife edge of ill gained knowledge.
I just read your bio which says “I love children of all ages from 1 to 100” the numbers gave me a big smile and does not put us in a box or provide any limit except perhaps at the far end 🙂
I got cut down for a long time, but I am now a youngster a very playful and awe-full youngster of 60 so it is never too late to resurrect 😉
It is so true that our education system, and life in general, needs to foster awe and wonder – it is this that inspires us, motivates us and gives purpose to our lives… all of which is so very needed in society today. We see people sucked into technology in all its varying forms and individual virtual realities but where is the awe, the wonder, expansiveness and inspiration of the real world – of nature, all of humanity and the universe?!
Children are naturally curious and keen to learn but the way the learning is presented to me feels very limiting. children who learn from life then to have a much more rounded education
What you have shared is huge Anonymous. Even I as an adult who is interested in science and all awe of the Universe, as I read your account of the controlled wave action in the box, I considered it a well thought out learning project. Yet when I started reading about the omitted significant universal and planetary relevant factors you have mentioned I noticed how my own imagination and relationship with life lit up. It seems we have the ability and opportunity to engage with life as a 12 cylinder engine yet we are choosing to act as if there are only 2 cylinders if that.
As children we are naturally in tune with nature and her cycles. What a difference this would make to our scientific explorations if this innate sense was nurtured from a young age. Slicing up nature to examine her in thin sections just narrows our focus and in doing so, we completely miss out on the grandure of how all the elements interact and produce such an incredible web of inter-dependency and co-creative activity.
‘If we constantly reduce life, what effect does it have on us, given that we are part of the life that we are reducing?’
It is like taking a part of the universe because we cannot handle the ‘whole’. We live in a world full of magic and in trying to reduce it we loose connection to this world full of wonderment.
How true this is of life – that we reduce and reduce the grandness of all that we are and settle for a less than divine expression that is far removed from the truth we will otherwise know and live.
The awe and wonderment in children is a delight to observe, it is interesting how readily we will squash this because of our own hurts, busyness, experiences and patterns and even more interesting how this is rarely discussed.
Anonymous some great question you have posed “Could it be that the suppressing of this awe in childhood is potentially as damaging as suppressing other innate impulses like love and affection? This is a discussion we educators and parents must have.” Something for all of us to reflect on and see the true impact.
If we just accepted that it is ok not to have everything proved then we might have a science that actually captures people’s imagination. As things stand science, as it is taught is a boring reductionism of the wonder that encapsulates our world and the vastness of the universe that surrounds us. A universe we will come closer to understanding the less we rely on this form of intelligence that keeps us in the box.
The joy of science and of any subject, is the living joy of oneself and sharing that… making all learning joyful : )
Science is all around us and children can learn so much being outdoors
You inspire me Carmel with your inquisitive mind and how you encourage the scientist in all of us to emerge.
There is no inspiration when we see and view life as a finite box… it is the awe and wonder that inspires us.
Life is so much more wonder-full when we are open to the magic – we may not know ‘the answers’ to the Universe, but we can feel and appreciate its magnificence all the same.
This is a great example of reductionism – reducing life to small individual parts i.e. boxes, rather than viewing and appreciating the awe-inspriing grandeur of the whole Universe we are all equally part of.
I hated biology – or so I thought. It seemed to be all about learning the biggest, longest, hardest names and drawing a boring diagram and then getting tested on it. But with presentations from a Universal Medicine student, Dianne Trussel, I have come to see how, how can my own body ever be boring?! It’s been fascinating to learn about cells and how they function- now this I can remember. Her presentations have opened up an appreciation for my body that is supporting me to look after myself more -whereas what I was taught at school, completely pointless unless you want me to know how to spell words I have no any day use for.
The wonder and awe of the universe are innate in us all the time, and our environment can support us to thrive, relish and delight in feeling this for our selves and claiming it.
You open up a topic that need more consideration Anonymous. I feel you are on the wavelength of the children and what you share is that our children are being ” boxed” in as well and not allowed to embrace all that is awe inspiring around them. More educators could look at what you share with their students.
I’m still at school now and as I open myself up more and more to the wonderment of the world, I begin to rediscover the ‘awe’ that I shut down very early in my formal education. And now, if I ever spot myself not wondering, curious, questioning or intrigued (which still happens a lot)…then I know that I have shut myself down…it’s a great marker of where I am at.
I agree Otto I am still at School, School of life and its being open to this wonderment and magic of the world that keeps me inspired.
Children can be so inspired by the world around them I agree it is sad to have everything reduced to a box.
It is sad how most of science is taught in a way where it has been defined to a box or something small. When if through these beautiful kids are like sponges and can be so inspired by the world around them.
What if we explored the magic of science together with our kids with open minds and open hearts, approaching science not from the construct of we don’t know but with the openness of exploring the magic of the universe. I have no doubt it what incredibleness and fun we would have.
I love your open minds and open hearts approach to science, David and I agree that it would be fun to explore the magic of the Universe together.
Science in my schooldays in Germany was separated into Physics and Chemistry, neither of which I ever understood or got. Biology was the one at least I understood a little bit . The teachings were done from boring textbooks and all we had to do was learn it so we could regurgitate it. For me in those days they were some of the most boring subjects with no awe and no wonder nurtured or even presented, hence I barely scraped through. What you share here seems that it has not changed a lot either … and your questions are very important ones that ought be to part of school meetings everywhere .
You would think it almost impossible to make biology boring! I’m still trying to work out how my fingers know how and when to touch the right keys on my keyboard!!
I love the inquiry that you have shared here. There are so many inquiries that only facilitate investigations that remain within the box but yours offers us the opportunity of blowing the lid clean off the box, as we enquire.
Thanks, Anonymous. I love this term “awe-willing outlook” and will take it into my day, as a reminder to expand my perspective and appreciation of life and what we are a part of.
I’m beginning to re-study the science of my own body; to really dive into it’s amazingness and spend time in wonderment at what it actually does. For example, when I am doing exercises; lying on my back and letting my legs fall to one side, I focus very specifically on the incredible twists that my vertebrae are doing, each and every one interconnecting with the next in this magnificent and brilliant engineering and mechanical marvel, the nerves running through them and the infinitely complex and essential information that they are transporting, the intricately balanced muscles holding them together working in perfect synchronicity to allow the stretch and still maintain the form and the incredible delicacy combined with the amazing strength. It really is a masterpiece and being open to, and appreciative of, that science is not just a delight, but is also teaching me to really treasure my body and thus keeps me more open to what it can show me.
I’ve observed my son watch a bug in the grass for what felt like an eternity to me – and it felt that long because he was so much more open to the wonder of it than I was. But then I learnt to get down on hands and knees and join him. He has taught me a huge amount.
My feeling of the word ‘awe’ is an absolute openness to any and everything. A blank canvas of wonderment and fascination; a huge open door into which understanding, learning, exploration and expansion can pour. It’s the perfect and ultimate catalyst for true learning. Water in a box and a small pile off sand is never going to induce ‘awe’!
Interesting Colleen and I guess it boils down to how the teachers allow themselves to (still) be awe-inspired too by life, people, and so on, or more taken in and held hostage by the dictation of school inspectors’ demands for league tables/grades that inhibit the flow to reduce into insignificance any wonder of teaching, learning and education.
What I love about small children is being able to go on a walk and it taking forever because wait! there’s an ant on the path, or a beautiful flower, or a friendly dog. I remember having a conversation with a 7 year old (in a kid’s club at a posh hotel by the beach) who just wanted to play computer games and everything was ‘boring’. (If I am ever bored I know there are feelings I don’t want to feel and I’ve shut down.) This boy being bored so early in life got me to wonder how is he ever going to grow up when life is already a chore.
I didn’t particularly like life at that age but I loved school and the wonderment of being connected to a world and universe that was vast and amazing. Not sure it was the school that taught me this but they certainly introduced things like the pyramids to me and I felt the otherworldliness. School 38 years later is so different and so reduced. For me who struggled with my life, to take away wonderment and try and control and reign it all into a prison of intellectual knowledge would have seriously affected my mental health.
I absolutely loved Science at school, even though the lessons were essentially textbook I could feel the awe and wonder. How much more could we inspire when we teach science from the interconnectedness of everything!
It is good to understand the principles of scientific investigation but it is also important to see the bigger picture. It needs both, though the sense of wonder at the bigger picture is very important.
Truth can easily be distorted if we put it into a box, or over think it and the wonders of science can not fit into a box either when we understand what science truly means. Unfortunately our current education system is set up in a way that teaches our children from a very limited aspect of what true education can really offer.
‘Why does Science in general and Science in Primary Schools insist that our world and its wonder always be confined, reduced and constricted into controlled, measurable laboratory settings, whilst outside the box we observe the intricate grandeur of the Universe with an innate awe?’ Very true Anonymous – a complete set-up for our future you might say. So great to break out of the box!
I agree – why do we have to understand everything from our heads? Our bodies just know some things and is at ease with that knowing. Sometimes I have to remind myself this is the most powerful piece of education!
This sense of awe is certainly one that is less championed that the constriction of reducing science to a tick box check list. “If we constantly reduce life, what effect does it have on us, given that we are part of the life that we are reducing?”
The curriculum is so tight with restrictive goals as the end aim, that we curb natural curiosity and awe from as early as 4 and 5years old. One school I went to, I observed 5 year olds supposedly ‘playing’, but the activities were so tightly controlled that is was like pseudo playing… there was no freedom at all and no joy in the room. The curriculum was being covered, boxes ticked and on the surface, all looked great, but it felt completely unnatural and alien.
There is so much for us to be in awe and wonder about, and it is a tragedy that we deny ourselves and our children this joy, reducing life to three dimensions.
Agree Janet, I can feel the responsibility we all have to reflect a different way and to live with the wonder and joy of the grandness and magnificence that is within and around us.
Our education systems are reductionism at its most acute. Working with our natural awe and wonder, expanding our relationship with the universe rather than reducing it to box-size, is our responsibility.
It’s so awesome what you are sharing, Colleen – in the reduction of what was being taught in the science lesson, to fit into a box, aren’t we then also reducing the children’s spontaneous curiosity, creativity and wonderment. Shouldn’t we be doing all we can to inspire our children to explore this amazing world in which we live, without restrictions and boundaries, after all, they have as much access to the wisdom that surrounds us as we do, who’s to say what discoveries they may make, let’s not limit them, rather encourage their expansion.
Does this restriction within our current education system feed the current evidence-based science bias that ignores the wider picture that cannot be confined to a measurable box? It feels like this is a discussion that we should all be participating in.
It makes so much sense why as adults we live feeling life is mundane and boring. For how would it not be if we have reduced life to a minimum of the awe it truly is?
Indeed why does any or most teaching in Education reduce so much and miss out on the far grander picture of the Universe itself. What do we not want to feel? And what do we not want to teach!
Perhaps it is a reflection of what teachers and parent want?
This reductionism you illustrate is everywhere in life Anonymous, and perhaps what you are showing is one of the most significant places in which we begin to take on a view of the world that has us and is limited to the most evident physical dynamics in front of us. Very few of us maintain that gorgeous sense of awe and fascination that children so often have when they are very young… it is most definitely a pertinent topic for deep deliberation and discussion amongst educators and parents.
If only you had been my science teacher Anonymous, as I know that I would have been able to stay awake through the lesson instead of nodding off at the boredom that ensues from trying to fit science ‘into a box”. There were no awe-inspiring lessons on the grandness of the Universe and our natural place in it. How sad that endless classes of children have, and still are, missing out on the truth of science and the relationship that we have with it in every single moment.
I love your observations Anonymous. What I can feel in your words is, that when we truly observe it is a blessing for us all, because it gives room for understanding and with that no judgement is placed but space provided for all to feel that there is more but the limited life we have conformed to.
This really resonated with me. When I consider the effects of education on myself I do feel like it encouraged a focus on a topic or subject and this was always in exclusion to the everything it was part of. We seem to be dividing up life into neat little pockets separated from each other, but to do that cuts us off from a wider communication, one that is reflected by the very universe itself and pertinent to every subject.
Such good points you raise here Colleen. Why rob children of the wonderment and awe they naturally tap into? I remember hating science because it did not make any sense to me. I now understand that this is because it was being presented in separation to everything else. How could it make sense? I’m sure I would have loved science if it had been presented in the way that you are describing.
Anon, what you are sharing here resonates with me; ‘Are we schooling children to cut themselves off from the wonder of themselves in relationship with an awe-inspiring Universe?’ Reading this I can feel how as a child science was made very complicated and uninteresting, it was a subject that I struggled with in school and felt stupid as a result. As an adult I can now feel that the way science was taught was very reductionist and controlled and that there was no awe or wonder, what an amazing oppurtunity to inspire children we have with science, but from my experience this very often does not happen and instead turns children away from science and an interest in the amazingness of the universe and our interconnectedness.
To look at the components of life in isolation is to miss so much amazingness and the truth.
Being open and discussing the grandness of the universe and how everything is connected is an essential part in raising our kids to be open and seeing that schooling and education does not have all the answers which I was led to believe when I was a child. It is super important when we see and read changes in reductionism in our children that we discuss what is going on for them.
There is indeed a magic and miraculousness to nature and the universe that our rational mind cannot fully explain or completely understand. However our bodies know this science innately and very naturally.
I remember that teaching used to be in the form of projects, where all the subjects were linked under one umbrella. For examples the Egyptians, where children would learn about how they made paper, what crops they grew, the geography of the Nile, the number counting systems, how they studied the stars, the clothes worn at the times, their customs, etc. The compartmentalization of learning has indeed reduced the amount of awe and wonder youngsters have, to a set of facts they must learn and remember in order to pass exams.
Thank you. It is a vital discussion to have as our current approach to teaching children about the immense wonders of the world we live in that is in relationship with the Universe falls massively short of what we could be doing. When we encourage a child to open up to feel, ponder and connect to the multidimensional influences on our world, we empower them to connect to a deep wisdom and understanding within them that will serve the whole of humanity.
I agree there is definitely a difference between simplicity and reductionism.
When we are young, the world and every moment can be new and exciting. Then school effectively tells us to watch one ant and how it lives. I would rather look at a single ant doing its thing, than being put into a box and told what to believe.
On the one hand I love the way we (and especially kids) can have this wonderful enthusiasm for interacting with our world and that comes through in the example of the ‘science in a box’ in the same way it does when little ones through a whole load of different things into a bucket and make a mud cake!
But I get your point… how do you explain to a tadpole that is living in a puddle the awe and majesty of the ocean? The only way is for them to experience it directly…
Yep we all need to be taught to think outside the box and not stay between the lines!
We need to support and encourage the wonderment of children as otherwise as they grow up they slowly stop observing the wonderment that is happening around them and need things like screens to entertain them. Whereas when children are young they can be entertained by watching the patterns in the sand as the wave breaks and then retreats back out to sea. Or they can be awed by the shape and coloring of a sea shell. There is so much to be in awe of in nature
Gorgeous examples of being in awe of nature Mary-Louise, it feels simple, natural and being in harmony with our surroundings. I find that when we don’t encourage the wonderment in our children, when they are presented with scientific or health findings they tend to believe only that and not question it.
It’s the ultimate joke, that we are divine beings living in absolute natural beauty yet thanks to the way we live we believe the world is full of struggle, darkness and trouble. Hell doesn’t exist but we’ve certainly given it a good go making it real. When we forget the awe-some-ness of life we end up in a whole heap of strife – thank you anon.
That is so true Joseph – “When we forget the awe-some-ness of life we end up in a whole heap of strife.” – Time to bring it back for all of us and it starts with each little moment and detail.
Effects of this way of teaching science or doing science based experiments is that children become fractured from the truth. It’s almost like regurgitating our multiplication sums, it’s information learnt without fully considering or talking about what is really going on. I feel that’s why so many children and teenagers are disengaged with school because they’re not encouraged to access universality.
Hear hear – and to the point. Yes I feel that too and not only are they not engaged to universality, they are not truly connected with in the first place…
The wonder and awe of our connection to learning and life is offered to our early years learning curriculum and left behind by the time the children are 5years old. This tells us some home truths about our current curriculum model.
Education in the way we know it today is a self-perpetuating reductionist exercise that cultivates the myth that children need to be taught things in pieces and then put together the whole – as if we can’t understand the magnificence and wonder of the universe, it’s cycles and rhythms with our so-called ‘young’ brains. But we are ancient beings who were impulsed forth by the universal pulse. Our rhythm is that of the en-housing being we live within and to deny this and try to fit us into a box, is creation doing it’s worst.
When I read what you write Lucy I could feel they were such different approaches. One went from the magnificence and wonder of the all to the detail and the other went from the detail and didn’t quite get the magnificent and wonder of the all because it ended up being open to re-interpretation.
Great article Anonymous, showing how reductionism in science stunts the connection and awe children naturally have with nature around them, do they even get to feel the sand under their feet, observe the power of the waves and feel the wind on their bodies. Feeling all of this and observing the effects of nature would allow them to feel the interconnectedness that they have as part of this grand design. The lesson would then be a living science instead of a dead and separated process.
This is so true for so much of our education today, we make it very lineal and it is about repetition and recall. It does not connect to and draw out a child’s innate knowledge and wisdom. This is common across all learning areas, the rush mode of education does not allow for true learning to occur, which includes discovery, sharing of experiences and wisdom and connecting students together and hearing their different insights and perspectives.
I do love an awe-moment and we do need more of them. I was sitting at a sunset soiree the other day with mostly adults and a gorgeous 3-4 year old. At one point, the young child demanded our attention and then directed to the moon in the sky. It was very beautiful and we shared an awe-moment.
Cap a child and you are capping the world at large, because it is through every child that we can be reminded of the wonderment and awe we are all from. It keeps science on the shelf it has been placed on by a handful few that want to keep science under the false constraints that have now become an accepted truth – along with the belief that life is a mediocre trajectory with highs, lows, distractions to be welcomed and the inevitable death to silently dread. We have reduced life itself to a lie we then choose to live.
“Could it be that the suppressing of this awe in childhood is potentially as damaging as suppressing other innate impulses like love and affection? This is a discussion we educators and parents must have.” I have to admit that I got goosebumps when I read these lines, as they feel so true and actually so urgent.
I could feel the difference between the reductionist view on life and the grander sense of awe and wonderment while reading this. It’s simple to step out of the box but to completely discard it, to live in awe rather than control and security, is not so easy from my experience up to now. But I don’t doubt that it can be done.
A gem of a blog Anonymous, exposing that the school systems currently in place are master-full in bringing further separation and isolation to individuals, thus reducing the awareness,natural spontaneity and awe of children from the bigger picture of the grandness of the Universe that they/we are all part of.
Limiting science just to experiments leaves it short of the magnificence it is.
I love this title it brilliantly captures the way life can be, either awe inspired or constrained to a box.
Indeed – and I know what I’d rather have, because who wants to truly live in a box! Asking more and more questions with eyes and heart open brings out the awe and wonder in anyone – and at Universal Medicine presentations, when a science topic gets shared, they are so very awe inspiring indeed as for one the way a science topic gets presented is in a language everyone can understand and also put into context of everyone’s life and connection to the All that we are all from.
This made me look at all the subjects we learn at school as well – math, chemistry, physics, geography, history, language … and I get a sense that the very first school on earth must have been about getting to know the truth about us, humanity and the world we lived in, and we had our own personal relationship with what we were learning. There must have been much fascination and curiosity, awe and wonderment for there to be a school in the first place – but that is so clearly not how many people, including myself, have experienced school education. Looks like we have managed to preserve a formality over the years but lost the essence completely. How has it been possible for us to make something so fascinating become so boring and uninspiring?
From my observation one of the education’s system agenda is to teach children that they can own what they learn and in simple term as described about the box in this writing . So as children grow up in education it’s constantly reinforced to own knowledge , to own results that happen in a test tube , students are taught university wisdom the consequences being students forget or disengage from universal wisdom and therefore become puppets to knowledge.
Science is a vast subject and every aspect of it is a wonder – the best teachers at school were always those who were able to bring that wonder and passion for life into the dull and dry textbook layout of a lesson. I have always had a love of science that education could never dim, but I know many who hate it or are very put off from it because of their experience in education. Science doesn’t have to be hard, complicated or boring, it is the study of the way that the universe works and that is incredible – but our current model pushes kids to produce grades rather than to inspire them to greater understandings of the mechanisms and laws at work around them and how they fit into the picture, and equally how little of the true picture of life we actually understand.
When science is brought to life by being about life who wouldn’t want to learn more about the magnificence of the universe we live in.
We are naturally inquisitive, enthusiastic, and filled with wonder – to me science and knowledge are an extension of that original impulse and not the other way around. When the learning becomes the focal point without the innate curiosity and magic, the world becomes flat and 2 dimensional.
The simple facts of the joys in life are the awe and wonderment. I was on a school camp that took some country children to Sydney and Canberra and for me the greatest joy was watching the looks on the children’s faces as they discovered and experienced city life.
Indeed reducing our understanding of life to a single moment does not encompass the whole context or influences especially when we consider that the point of observation or the observer is only one perspective.
What an awesome blog anon that exposes the horrors of reductionist science, and not just in science but that it can occur, and does, to the whole approach to life.
Your examples sum up beautifully the way we have of taking one small slither of life and making that scaled down version what the world is all about. Yet if we truly looked even at this slice we would understand that everything is energy and therefore part of something grand. What you are calling us to do is to see the science of the universe in every single thing. There’s no bit that is small as it’s all a part of a bigger divine whole. This scale is great medicine to apply to life and how we are in this world.
Instead of straight silence, children should absolutely be encouraged to ask questions and be inquisitive in lessons, as this makes the subject much richer and offers them the opportunity to explore how what they learn relates to life. Science is a completely different topic when you open the lid to seeing the wider picture of it.
I agree Susie w, when students ask questions in class, the lessons come alive and you can feel their engagement.
It’s not that science experiments are bad per se, but it’s when they are cut off from the much bigger, wider picture and patterns of everything else that is also going on in the wider universe, that the meaning and significance of these patterns can get lost. As you say Anonymous, to reduce the enormity of geographical phenomenon and the influences of the sun and the moon on enormous bodies of water into a box, is to greatly reduce our understanding of and connection to the wider world.
Man what a great observation and sharing Colleen. Much of human life is reduced to parts and this is no exception. I would say that the reductionism happens most in in the education system as this is what forms the basis of how most know and will go out to the working world to live. So much can be brought to someone’s life if we opening up the perspective to a much truer picture of what is truly going on in life.
Anonymous I love what you share here, I love the observation of what for many could be considered the peak of education and interactivity yet the fact it missing and does not allow that awe-inspiring view that children naturally have. It makes one realise just how controlled our education systems are and the role we each can play in changing that.
Thank you for explaining why I never liked science at school! This is a great observation and example of how reductionism infiltrates the whole education system.
This made me appreciate my upbringing on a farm and the awe inspiring experiences that were a day to day occurrence. I can see how easy it is to cut ourselves off from this and if we start this process in schools when children are very young it is setting up a very false view or rather limited view of life. This view becomes a mental one rather than a fully lived one. I see the correlations in many so called diseases like autism….so could we be creating these diseases or conditions and thus have the answer to preventing their onset in the first place?
To me, there are certain things we cannot replicate in its entirety – the ocean being one – and for kids to see and experience something similar physically can give them great understanding. There is certainly room in this experiment for greater teaching along the lines of the Moon, Wind, Sun and Stars and to bring that in would be a great addition.
“Why does Science in general and Science in Primary Schools insist that our world and its wonder always be confined, reduced and constricted into controlled, measurable laboratory settings, whilst outside the box we observe the intricate grandeur of the Universe with an innate awe?” A good and poignant question Anonymous. Children are so creative and have such wonderful imagination it does them a disservice to reduce Nature and Science into a box.
Collen, I agree as a fellow educator it is a discussion we must have. To so reduce our view of the world into organised and segmented boxes does indeed leave us short. There is a magnificence we then deny or stop seeing, which then delays or halts what we could truly let ourselves connect to.
Isn’t that then falling in preparing children for life? Because life isn’t boxed yet they are taught all about the box and work from that. When out in the world how then can you relate to the vastness…
There is science everywhere all around us constantly and we all know the subject really well naturally.
Love your expression – thank you Andrew,
A great example of how we stifle children’s natural awe and wonder in the grandness of natural phenomenon to enforce measurable conformity to tick the right boxes to prove we are delivering education. In this environment thinking outside the box is discouraged as there is always an apparent time pressure to achieve set outcomes by the end of the lesson which completely discounts the innate wisdom of children and how true education supports them to connect to this and trust in their own knowing.
It is rather interesting that scientists I have spoken too can never give me certainty – everything is probable based on scientific experimenting. But what if we have reduced science to a controlled environment when in fact this is not how life works? I love what is shared here about considering the whole – that we cannot reduce an environmental project to a few elements because science exists everywhere.
It is interesting when we try to contain something into a box, the truth gets easily lost and it seems we only get a reduced version of truth. Thank you Anonymous for this brilliant blog, also for raising our awareness around this topic and for exposing how harmful it is to suppress our ‘awe-willing outlook’.
Science is a great way to teach awe and wonder, how can you not be awestruck by the incredible way the body works and it all works together, or how the world is made up of energy and particles. It’s simply incredible to know how the world works.
I agree – if we could support our children to develop a relationship with their body based on awe and respect for the incredible way it works, perhaps they would be so much more loving and less abusive towards themselves.
I remember science at school being the most boring subject, taught in a way that you couldn’t help but stare out the window or fall asleep. Then much later in life seeing very passionate scientists explaining things about science in an exciting and interesting way and wishing we had science teachers like that when I was at school.
We certainly do reduce the magnificence of nature into a box that is why for most science is a dry dull experience. Which is literally insane as science can be a confirmation of how incredible and mind blowing everything is.
How would skipping a rock in a still pond and the effect of the ripples that are created ever be fitted into a box? Living life and questioning what we see and feel is the real classroom of science that is a can of worms that once opened, makes everything awe-some.
Beautifully said Steve, I feel it’s the curiosity and questioning that supports us in our evolution not trying to find or know the ‘answers’ as these are mostly not the true truth anyway!
A great blog and exposing of the untruths that we have and accept in life and in our education system. The words ‘short, where was the sense of awe and wonder readily felt’ should make us all consider just how much education, teaching and learning no longer seems to have the desire, wonderment and magic with it. I have an elder friend who is a teacher voluntarily today and he always shared that it is a teacher’s job through the way they teach to keep the kids passionate, asking more and wanting to be curious.
A teacher being inspired by her students to think outside the box erodes the constrictions of the curriculum.
Ooo, great observation Mary. It only takes a single person to shed some light.
Wise words Mary, if we all were so inspired by the qualities of truth the children live with naturally the whole education system would change.
I like your view on this, it shows so clearly how we reduce ourselves to gaining knowledge but not really understanding what it truly means in the setting of the whole universe. We have very much made life about estranging ourselves from the truth that we deep down know. We have created an education system that turns us in to little robots that have unlearned to honour themselves and others and their part in the all.
Sad isn’t it – “… an education system that turns us in to little robots that have unlearned to honour themselves and others and their part in the all.” When you put it like this – it’s so true, ticking boxes without connection – yes robots…
Children do have a natural awe and wonder, and I got to experience this recently with some six year olds. The teacher was showing them on the board how to use a ruler to complete a square, rectangle and a triangle, and just seeing this some of them were in awe, and were fascinated with the outcome of the shapes.
Great article, I can feel how children’s sense of awe and wonder are not generally encouraged and supported, activities often seem limited, repetitive and controlled, rather than allowing children to actually discover for themselves and to truly experiment.
I remember my time spent in Science class at school and I always felt things were cut short and that there was much more to be shared and explored. Nature is an ever changing and moving part of the whole and it really is such a delight and wonder to behold its truly magical science.
My Physics teacher and me did not get on. Before I even stepped into the class he told me to get out. I spent most of my time sitting outside the classroom. I think he needed to learn the science of relationships! ????????
There is something dangerous about reducing life to function – especially for children whose sense of wonderment and joy is suppressed by the linear, intellectual mindset that governs our education system. As with the phenomenon that is wave activity, it’s definitely time to bring education back out of the box.
In reading this blog I come to the realisation that our current school system is reducing our natural ability to be open and awa-willing towards nature and the world we live in. By introducing these confined concepts, reduced to only a limited and therefore controllable set of parameters, we think we understand the whole but in truth we are comfortable ignoring the fact that our life is so much more than what we can see with our eyes and can grasp with our mind..
Concept confines are purposefully put into place so that the children are geared to give the right answer, not allowing the pace to ponder on the bigger picture which brings the universe to the classroom.
Science is so diminished when reduced to theory. How enlivening and enriching it would be to reintroduce the divine: that which is naturally awe-inspiring.
Yes Victoria, I found it very difficult to learn at school but a fews year ago I heard a presentation on biochemistry that included the divine as a natural part of the presentation and I was fascinated.. on the edge of my seat almost, I understood everything and wanted to hear and learn more. How wonderful it would be for children to have the fullness of this in their lessons.
Beautiful example Anonymous of how certain modes of science reduce the wonder of the natural world and all the elements that contribute to the movement of energy throughout nature. Cause and effect can be made to be a very mental thing indeed instead of a multidimensional understanding.
Life is one big classroom of awe and wonderment, our body and expression is the marker of the most amazing science of evolution, let this enormous wonder grace our every day and teachers and educators will inspire by the most precious quality of all, their livingness.
I agree Adele with what you have shared and it is exactly because most people are not connected to their livingness that our education system, like most of our establishments is a rather tired, beaten up product that has been manufactured from an energetic source that gets it’s kicks out of delaying our return to Soul.
Awe and wonderment plus a deep appreciation of what surrounds us are essential ingredients in education and in our lives; without them we can become cynical and disillusioned.
Very true Gabriele. It is this that I observe very often in people; the cynicism and disillusionment reducing the person to a fraction of themselves with this deep sadness and loneliness lurking underneath – because if we have let go of wonderment and awe, we have let go of a huge part of who we truly are.
Very well said Katerina – “because if we have let go of wonderment and awe, we have let go of a huge part of who we truly are.” We can do heaps with our children to make sure that this does not occur, and it all starts at the little wondrous things – to pay attention to them and nurture the natural wonder inherent in all children (and adults) too.
Feeling the grandness we are part of is always something to be deeply appreciated.
Anything that cannot be measured or is not fully understood and “proven” by set measurements is so often squashed out of view. And this runs contrary to the wonder that we do see in young children, who are still in the process of being squashed but have an openness that our education system almost always manages to drive out of them. If we look at the world, the tides, the moon cycles, the stars, the grandness of the Universe and what we feel when we take it all in, this is most definitely not captured in anything that is box like, and to deny that there is more than we conventionally understand is to deny the very essence of science itself.
Gorgeously expressed Stephen. Thank you