Everybody is already born a special, unique and vital piece to the whole. Very few of us, however, can really appreciate this or can accept it without question. As a result, we live a collective life, missing out on the potential richness of the bigger picture that together is there for us to claim.
How is it that we have failed to see the vastness and amazingness of the end result of what we could all bring together if we were to individually express ourselves fully within the whole, without self-judgment or in comparison or competition with each other?
I feel one of the biggest players in all of this is the education system, which is set up so that we are in fact subliminally encouraged to think and feel very negatively about ourselves. In a very diminished way, we perceive ourselves as either right or wrong, good enough or not good enough. We learn this from very young, as soon as we enter formal education in fact, and then spend the rest of our lives in either reaction to or in protection of that hurt.
But what if the themes of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, ‘success’ and ‘failure’ that run through our education system are completely false? What if it turns out that we are all just simply evolving in our own time and learning as we go?
I have been working with a colleague recently in schools, supporting children to become aware of what happens in their bodies and what choices they make at the critical point of not understanding something. For me this is uncovering a huge can of worms, highlighting the insidiousness of how the system affects our self-perception and how we relate and interact with each other.
As a teacher, and having been a student myself, I am very aware of the constrictions of the curriculum and how the education system tries to make one size fit all. If you don’t fit into this mold, or do not get top marks, you can believe you are inadequate. As a result of feeling this inadequacy we can go into a whole range of reactions and behaviours to try and compensate. (Honestly, I felt I was stupid for years!).
I have observed also, however, that those who do feel adequate feel a pressure to keep proving that they are and have equally unhealthy reactions to not understanding something, as they too do not want to perceive themselves as failures!
It has been a really interesting experience to observe the children I teach as they come to realisations about their own choices, and to the understanding that it is normal to not ‘get’ something straight away (and that this absolutely is ok); that there is no pride lost in asking for help and that indeed it is important to do so.
Admitting vulnerability can be difficult because it is often viewed as a weakness and hardly ever modelled for them by adults.
Is it possible that in the hurt of our own journey through our schooling – that we buried by becoming achievers – teachers present a very ‘sorted’ persona and it is very rare that we admit to feeling fragile or in need of support in front of the children we teach?
How many of us as teachers transparently admit that we simply don’t know or have all the answers, or need the time to work it out? In this way we model that getting things ‘right’ all the time is the only way. Whilst we may say it’s ok to make mistakes, we do not confirm this through our own behaviour, body language and choices. No one is playfully given physical permission to muck up or get things wrong because we do not model this ourselves!
In a very revelatory way I have observed children become aware of what is physically happening in their bodies at that critical moment when they don’t understand something. They share there is an anxiety – their breathing changes and becomes shallower, and a feeling of discomfort and inadequacy arises because of the belief that they are ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’ for not having understood.
Many have come to the understanding that, to avoid these feelings, they go into a whole range of behaviours – from switching off and daydreaming, to wanting the loo, chatting with friends, or reacting by saying, “This is boring,” and so on. In the tension of this anxiety, children often simply don’t have access to the tools needed to work through the block. Many haven’t learned either that this reaction is a choice – most slip into the “I am a bad learner” mode of thought and beat themselves up.
The students I teach have also been learning, through having shared their feelings, that everyone feels the same way and that not knowing is part of the normal process of learning. They also learn how to ask for the help and support – without shame – and how to work together better as a group, rather than as separate individuals.
However, what is also pertinent about what they are learning, is that when this “I am a bad learner” choice is entered into, they are giving their bodies permission to go into a whole host of physiological changes. For example, they learn that in the tension, they have gone into ‘flight or fight’ mode, a shutting down of the frontal cortex part of the brain where access to thoughts that can sort out a problem can be made. In this shutting down, the reptilian brain takes over, which makes them want to run away etc. Within this process a real connection to the body is lost because this lack of connection to the body contributes to the anxiety and lack of presence they are feeling, and hence the inability to access clear mental processes.
With this body related awareness, the children I teach learn the Gentle Breath Meditation™ and other techniques to re-connect in full with their bodies. When the whole class does this, the difference is palpable. Where the room had before may have felt jagged and unsettled, it becomes incredibly still and lovely (more unified), and the children are much calmer and more steady within themselves – each contributing to the greater whole.
When a child is given permission to be who they are in this way and to appreciate what it is they bring, they tend to be more relaxed, open to learning, self-accepting and at ease with the notion that there are just some things they need support with.
Knowing that others are best placed to bring their expression to music, or to science, while mine is best placed to bring something else, doesn’t diminish my responsibility to learn about those other things I need support with, but simply allows me to do it in the acceptance and appreciation of where I am with my own talents, whilst also appreciating those amazing things that others can bring that I can’t.
When a child is in a situation where they feel inadequate and tense (and as a consequence in a physiologically altered state), then this is a sure sign that we are not delivering the education curriculum in a way that supports body friendly learning or an appreciative self-acceptance.
As an experienced teacher and as someone who has gone through the system myself, I know that this element of support with self-acceptance is very much lacking in many schools. Yet this simple programme of self-awareness and connection to one’s body can potentially produce lifelong results in allowing a child to develop an intimacy and trust with self.
By contrast, when we deliver the education curriculum in a way that makes children doubt themselves to the point where they think they are stupid, or feel pressure to keep proving that they are not, then it is clear that we have lost sight of a child centred approach and have aligned with the mindset of solely achieving results. Does this not reflect more about what we think we should be seeing, based on the education we had ourselves, rather than connecting with what truly supports our children?
The true purpose of education is to support a child to know and deeply appreciate the innate qualities they bring so that they are empowered to bring that essence to everything that they do, even when at first they don’t understand it.
From this perspective it is easy to tackle something challenging, rather than get caught up in the overwhelm of not understanding or being good enough. The not understanding isn’t then an impediment to self-worth, but an offered point of evolution, in the acceptance that we are already amazing and whole, but that we are forever being offered opportunities to deepen that whole through our awareness, knowledge, wisdom, understanding and love.
It is with deep appreciation of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine that I have managed to unpick my own feelings of inadequacy and to begin to appreciate those qualities I have been innately given, understanding how much they contribute to the bigger picture and to the whole. Being more loving, sure and steady within myself, I am able to express in genuinity and awe the amazingness that others bring that simply are not in my physical makeup to do so.
By Michelle McWaters, Bath, UK
Further Reading:
My Teaching Philosophy – The Real Responsibility of a Teacher
Competition or connection: What are students really learning?
Students, teachers and the pressure to achieve: Have we got it back-to-front?
898 Comments
There is an enormous difference between ‘education’ and learning. When a child starts school they have already learnt a great deal; how to talk, walk, play etc.
I agree with you Michelle when you say
“Everybody is already born a special, unique and vital piece to the whole. Very few of us, however, can really appreciate this or can accept it without question. As a result, we live a collective life, missing out on the potential richness of the bigger picture that together is there for us to claim.”
Unfortunately we have as a collective built a society based on jealousy; comparison and competition just to name a few of our negative attributes. We do not celebrate at all our uniqueness or sensitivity and because of this we are missing out on the fact that we have the ability to be the most amazingly sensitive people but we sell ourselves short. We know and allow that animals are highly sensitive and we have this same level of sensitivity but we dull it down by eating all the wrong foods and liquids because as a collective we have decided this is what we will do. But my question has to be who decided this and is it at all possible the wrong decision was made?
Anxiety has dropped drastically now that I no longer expect myself to be able to know and do everything. Nothing wrong with asking for help.
Thank you Michelle, may I add that as we learn to appreciate we are more than this “physical makeup” and that having a divine essence with the Deepening-appreciate-ive-ness of the way we live free from the entrapping of our physical driven desires, with the understanding we “could do things differently”.
The more I connect back to my heart and get back to the real me the more obvious it is to me our current education system
Is so very deeply flawed.
It is interesting to observe how blindly accepting so many of us are when it comes to our education system, especially as parents when we place our children within it. Whilst so many of us will admit that it is not perfect, we try very hard to make it work as it is, without ever really calling out the lovelessness in it or how diminished this makes our children feel. The impact this then has on society and our structures at work, as well as on family life is staggering if only we were open to seeing the truth of it. Our system affects us all, all of the time whether we are students within it or not.
When we feel enough knowing that whatever comes our way we can handle we support children and others to do the same. We do not need to say a word as what we bring is sensed and they respond with no emotion or anxiousness but a natural and confident way of being in their learning.
We communicate so much on an energetic level and when we are connected we hold others in that connectivity, offering them the space to rise to their own connection. Within this connection is the sense of space itself and a sense of settlement that no words can really describe.
If our education was of true good we would learn love first, then anything other than love would be easily identifiable as a lie.
Instead we have a world where people are lost in illusion because love was shown to be something it is not,
And if our world was based on love, then anything that was not love would stand out, and not be tolerated. We are love, so I welcome us all living that in full.
I was having a conversation with a colleague the other day in which I was talking about supporting children with confidence from confirming their essence not what they are good at. She reacted a little because she clocked that that was the whole education system. The system does feel overwhelmingly large to so many and so many feel powerless in the face of it. This also means however that so many get invested in making it work as it is. It won’t ever work until its foundation is based on love not on function.
Teachers are also very invested in getting results and making the system work. If we were all to understand that our current educational model is not it and that we are perhaps inflicting more harm than support through not allowing our kids to express from their essence or indeed teaching from our essence then we might be more open to looking at how we could do things differently.
What if education was simply teaching people how to learn, not what to learn. To have that body centric understanding of what it feels like when we shut down and avoid something, so we can learn the triggers and how to stay open. When we stay open we naturally want to learn and understand, we observe more, and there is going to be so much more wisdom in that learning.
I love this Simon. In the teaching of what and not the how we get stuck in ideals and pictures. Teach the how and we realise we are all equal.
Teachers are in a place of great influence over the children in their care- and it is when they truly care for the children that the children benefit and unhealthy behaviour patterns get a chance to dislodge. I know from the days when I taught children that it was all about the connection with the child not his or her performance.
Absolutely, however, it is of greater benefit when children are supported in this at home and in the school. Children’s primary influence is the home and as a teacher, it can be very hard to undo the lack of self-worth issues arising when a child doesn’t feel supported and nurtured in the home. Having said that – a teacher can plant seeds that children can come back to but it depends very much on the child and what they choose to identify with.
Many adult mental health problems stem from the fact they weren’t given permission as children to be who they are.
Put in it’s simplest form it doesn’t really get more clear!
I was observing the behaviour of a child in a maths lesson I was supporting in last week and his behaviour was not great at all. He was told off several times by his teacher and asked to leave the room. When I was able to get to him and gently worked with him on what he was being asked to do, he settled down immediately and felt much more positive when he began to demonstrate he understood the formula. When our kids feel out of their depth or left behind in their learning at school the tension of this needs to find some release. It really is no wonder that low-level disruption is so prevalent and is a major headache for most schools.
It is always great to support children in these situations, I have been doing exactly this, and it has such a knock on effect as you describe.
‘Admitting vulnerability can be difficult because it is often viewed as a weakness and hardly ever modelled for them by adults.’ Reading this makes me realise as adults how important it is that we express how we are feeling to children rather than pretending that we are ok when they can feel that we are not. By us being honest and expressing our feelings then we are role-modelling that is ok for children to do the same.
I love this Michelle; ‘What if it turns out that we are all just simply evolving in our own time and learning as we go?’ This feels so simple and true and gets rid of competition and comparison.
‘Now this is the way we can be ‘educated’ knowing our innate value and worth and bringing the joy of us to all we do.’ Beautifully expressed Monica. Imagine being able to sustain that innate joy that we see consistently in very small children, bringing it through all the way into adulthood and old age. Now this is what I would call evolution on this planet!
Our deepest learning so often comes from ‘getting it wrong’ and realising that there is no ‘wrong’ just an opportunity to find another way.
“Admitting vulnerability can be difficult because it is often viewed as a weakness and hardly ever modelled for them by adults.” No instead we have sporting stars and celebrities that often lead by bad example. No wonder many kids are so lost.
More and more, we are seeing with a one size fits all Education the ramifications of anxiety, ill mental health, a given up-ness in our teenagers and children. We are seeing teachers leaving the profession in droves, as presenting a curriculum that does not serve with high accountability stakes means teachers loose heart in what they do. This is not supporting children to learn in a fun, caring and nurturing environment.
Yes, the fun, caring and nurturing environment has gone out of the window with targets and performance related pay, but was it ever really there in the first place?
If we don’t trust what we feel, because we haven’t been given the space to explore and confirm what we feel in school and at home, then we grow up cut adrift from an innate knowing, lose confidence in ourselves and can only, at best, function rather than live fully.
Rachel, this has summed up my experience with myself from very young. The lack of connection to my feelings led to incredible doubt in many interactions especially when I was challenged, which also meant that I chose not to express honestly and in the soup this created, I opted for comfort and an easy life rather than rocking the boat and expressing what was true.
It makes such a difference to be in a class where the teacher holds all the students as equally amazing with their own unique set of learnings and understandings in life to be had. This alone takes so much pressure of a students shoulders to prove their worth from what they know