Have you ever seen a group of soldiers marching in time, a mass of bodies with not one footstep out of place as they clump obediently to the tune of the Sergeant Major, LEFT RIGHT LEFT RIGHT… not daring to misalign or appear out of place for fear of condemnation and punishment!
The marching soldiers may be analogous of our education model, a system asking us to be obedient to quite strict approaches to learning. If we don’t fit into such educational methods, are we open to being labelled a failure, stupid, or rebellious? If education leaves many people disengaged, anxious and despairing, then it may be time to reassess how we implement such a foundational aspect of our lives.
Almost four in five (78%) teachers have seen a pupil struggle with a mental health problem in the past year, with one in seven (14%) cases involving suicidal thoughts or behaviour. (1)
Such statistics should make us stop and consider how we offer schooling to our children to support them through the intensity of modern life.
What would such health outcomes (as above) be if we had more flexible, open educational methods – approaches that recognised the untapped genius in us all?
If you ask a small child to draw a picture of the sky and they paint it the colour green, does that make them wrong, or is there no right or wrong, only the child expressing their own way? We often look on the child as just immature and not yet intelligent enough to paint with ‘correct’ colours, but perhaps we overlook the wisdom that shines out in that offering. Maybe the child has tapped into knowledge and wisdom that symbolises everything they want to share in their chosen palette.
Instead of cherishing that, we look to squash out the green and replace it with our accepted blue. It’s a process of erosion, taking place over years, slowly suppressing the magic found in the child with the green tinted brush.
We look to replace that wisdom with a blue brush, every child holding onto that uniform brush tightly, for that is their accepted medium. And this is where we fail with our educational ways in that it doesn’t allow space for that colour to shine. Instead of bringing out our qualities, we are asked to all like and be good at the same way of thinking and learning.
No question there are certain things to be taught within formal education, but there is something inspiring in considering a teacher’s role is foremost to guide a child, to listen and connect with the individual, to engage by being attentive and understanding; to encourage each person to feel valued and able to contribute in their unique way; to cherish and offer confirmation as the precious people that we all are. Such an approach may also greatly support the teachers within such a system.
Educational experiences can be magical when we place importance on this wisdom and inner knowing. It’s time to say yes to flexible learning, say yes to valuing individual expression, and say a big YES to the child with the green tinted brush!
References:
- Campbell, D. (2019). Children face mental health epidemic, say teachers. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jun/23/schoolchildren-facing-mental-help-epidemic [Accessed 15 Apr. 2019].
By Stephen
Further Reading:
True Education and Healing Matters
What would our Education be like if we Truly Supported our Kids to Connect to their Body?
Education is Good: or is it?
87 Comments
“The marching soldiers may be analogous of our education model, a system asking us to be obedient to quite strict approaches to learning. If we don’t fit into such educational methods, are we open to being labelled a failure, stupid, or rebellious? If education leaves many people disengaged, anxious and despairing, then it may be time to reassess how we implement such a foundational aspect of our lives.”
I came across this recently Stephen when I attended a school meeting, at this meeting one of the school governors asked why the children were not exceeding the expectations of the school curriculum set for them? He was inferring that they should be like robots and that they should attain the standards set by the school. There was no empathy for the children at all, they were being assessed as a commodity.
At the ripe old age of 50+ I can feel the joy of being confirmed and appreciated as a ‘child with the green tinted brush’… being enjoyed and accepted for who I am and for my unique expression and take on things. This of course starts with my relationship with myself, as in how accepting I am of myself. And yes the more we do this the more we can offer this same space and honour to others…
The more I am around children, the more I understand that they are constantly communicating much deeper things than we realise. Just because they don’t subscribe to ‘adult’ ways of speaking or drawing for that matter we overlook and play dumb to what they have to say. Convenient, as so often they are calling us out and pulling us up to return to a multi-dimensional understanding of life.
So many of us are so caught up in the doing of life that we are completely incapable of seeing and understanding the absolute beauty and wisdom that children inherently are.
I agree with you Joseph, recently I engaged with a very young child and we played a very simple game they had made up. I had to follow in their footsteps as they went from room to room. We had such fun and giggled as we went along. What this showed me is that there is a simplicity to life which is very joyful we had so much fun just being with one another as we both connected to something much deeper than ourselves. It was a sharing of the beauty of who we truly are. Children can show us these delights as they seem closer to the magic of God, to them it just is. There is no doubt, hesitation, they just accept they can play in heaven.
Joseph totally agree with your comment children can actually teach us so much if we stopped to listen to them and treated them as adults in a young body. I have so many experiences of being with young children and young adults who seem to understand life at a more subtle level than me , it is a reminder that we all carry this deeper knowledge we are just not choosing to tap into it.
We have created an education system that is a factory, creating something we require to come out the end to a standard, someone or body has decided what the minimum standard will be. Food processing plants still have workers that must reject items that don’t fit the standard. The EU has standards for bananas to not be too bendy. Shops are now being pressured to sell ugly vegetables rather than reject them because they look different. Do we reject students that are different?
I was definitely a bent banana at school and now, a few years on, really appreciate this.
Steve and Matilda I can definitely relate to being the bent Banana at school, I disliked school intently and couldn’t wait to leave. I hated that we had to keep our attention to the front of the class and conform to a standardised education one size fits all mentality.
I didn’t really conform at school. Labelled and Told I wouldn’t amount to much. I work with people with learning disabilities who get similar treatment. Non conformance doesn’t mean that what you bring to life is worthless. It fact it’s greater because it’s from outside the box to start with. There’s no growth if we all remain inside the box, knowing only same old same old.
There is not one of us that is not spun from The Body of God and so there is not one of us that doesn’t reflect God in some way but we write people off as being useless or worthless or both and often when we do, it leads to them writing themselves off and sometimes for the rest of their lives.
Leigh well said many of us get labeled at school as non conformists because we do not fit the model that has been determined as the acceptable standard. This can be excruciatingly painful as you get to feel the rejection of the group that ostracizes you for being the odd one out. There is no understanding when we go through this process of education that the system has been deliberately set up to only reward those who comply to the regurgitation of information that is our current education system. I have always likened education to be like a sausage machine by the time you have been in the system for 12 or so years you are supposed to come out the same size, fit and format as everyone else and if you don’t then you are the reject, that will not amount to much in life. How is it possible we can say to young adults as they leave school, that they will not amount to much, that they are already on the scrap heap of life.