I am
sitting in the summer sun outside the barn that has been converted to create a
schoolroom for twenty children, inside there is a high-ceilinged schoolroom,
two toilets and at one end, a kitchen. A redwood tree towers over
the building, one of the landmark trees of the area, and there is a stillness
in the air now that the laughter and activity of the children has ceased for
the day. The singing of birds in the surrounding woods and the call of a
buzzard from far above is contained within that stillness. I look up to see the
wide-winged birds wheeling through the blue on a warm flow of air;
an expression of freedom and power.
I have
been here for nearly a year now. The grass we planted as seed in the
autumn has grown to cover the mud of the Spring to create a large play space
around the solid form of the old oak. It is a place for young children to
wander about, to sit and daydream, and to chase each other, to take a book and
read or a piece of paper on which to draw. We, the adults, learn together
with the children, watching them, listening, laughing and being silent.
It is a good place; not idyllic for that is mere fantasy – usually
thought up through some theory. Nothing is rushed, there are few
deadlines to be attained and there is plenty of time for questions. If
there are tears, anger or unhappiness we have the space to address all these
emotions – sometimes with a gesture of affection, sometimes it takes patience
and words.
Through
economic circumstances I had to leave this school after only two years.
That was nearly ten years ago. Occasionally I see those children.
They are friendly, bright and still enjoying learning, still clearly
valuing the freedom, cooperation, space, affection and a love of learning
we all experienced in that time. For me
those two years were a blessing.
…
‘Your
children are not your children,
They
are the sons and daughters of life’s longing for itself.
They
come through you but not from you,
And
they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You
may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For
they have their own thoughts.
You
may house their bodies but not their souls,
For
their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
Which
you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You
may strive to be like them,
But
seek not to make them like you.’
From The
Prophet by Khalil Gibran (1923)
I read
this when I was in my late teens, many, many years ago. Its meaning has
resonated in me for all the time I have been a father, educator, and now a
grandfather. In my relationships with other parents, as a teacher and as
a houseparent, I have met others with this outlook, but a much larger number to
whom this way of looking at their children has no meaning at all. These
parents see their children as possessions, valuable, to be protected, but
ultimately belonging to them. This brings a mutual dependency; their
children seek the approval of their parents and the parents want their
children’s’ love to be expressed through obedience, conformity and achievement.
So, often the parent’s response is to indulge the child materially and to
monitor their every move – there has been much written about the collapse of
children’s engagement with nature (George Monbiot recently wrote in the
Guardian that ‘Eleven to Fifteen year olds (in the UK) now spend, on average,
half their waking day in front of a screen). These parents separate their
children from others, putting them in competitive roles and creating further
fragmentation in their relationships…….
I’ll be
exploring this further as I examine whether there is another way to approach
education rather than child-centred, parental choice or state dictatorship;
something that encompasses consciousness and the world in which we live.
