And the killings go on.... last night the moon rose...

The killings go on, justified by men on television in their impenetrable grey/black funeral suits and carried out by men dressed as plastic action men dolls.  Flesh and bone torn apart to make room for ideas: there is nothing sacred about a life which does not agree with you, may threaten you, might defy you.  Sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, sisters brothers; indiscriminate lives, indiscriminate tears, lost smiles and all tenderness exposed as bloodied flesh in the explosion of bomb and bullet....

Last night the moon rose from the Albanian hills, a ghost of what it was to become.  As it gained form and substance it filled with an extraordinary gold/silver light, sending a pathway across the sea towards the tiny village on the coast of the island of Corfu.  Today the sunlight dances on the water against the background of the blue, misty hills and the pale early morning sky.  The beauty takes the breath away, not in some sentimental moment, but in the realisation this is the natural world of which all humanity is part.  It exists, untouched by human thought. 

This week has seen what human thought does at its most vicious: the attack on the Palestinians in Gaza and the shooting down of a civil aeroplane as it was flying over Ukraine.  Both these events have seen the violent deaths of innocent people caught up in the desperate fighting of other human beings, who appear not to care who they kill as long as their goal is achieved.  Elsewhere bombings and killings continue, the number of refugees rise and those who suffer most are women and children – the powerless.  As a species we seem to be addicted to violence, to the cruelty and greed that drives aggression.  We lack sensitivity and are dominated by fear, which leads us to seek security in ways that make us all much less secure.  We are divided by nation, by ideology, by religion; by the way we define ourselves; by the images we create and we use these divisions to give meaning to our lives, whilst we cut short the lives of others.  One wonders sometimes how we, who are so destructive, continue to live on this planet that contains so much beauty; and, if we continue as we are, it would seem likely that we will not survive much longer.

What can be done amid such apparent callousness and ignorance?  Can a new generation be brought into being where violence, anger and selfishness are not seen as the way to be? At the moment we live in a world of separation and we teach our children through this separation: humanity is separate from nature; I am separate from you.  So we compete instead of collaborate; we exploit instead of care; we are individuals standing out from the crowd – who we despise.  We compare so we might feel superior, but all too often we feel inferior.   The continuation of war takes place in our families, in our classrooms, in our entertainment, in our media and ultimately in ourselves.

Do we really want to live without war?  Are we prepared to face the reality of how we live; in conflict with ourselves and in conflict with others?  Or will we continue to wring our hands in horror at the photographs of bloodied, broken bodies?  Cry our tears of outraged hypocrisy at the carnage, call for revenge upon the perpetrators and carry on the madness that underpins our so-called sane society.

We have to look at what life is, without sentiment, without judgement, and observe exactly where our behaviour is leading us.  So come to understand what is happening, without justification and without condemnation.  And then that understanding leads to a change in behaviour, not through the creation of a new ideology or system, but through taking care of humanity through pure observation.  Taking care in the sense of learning what it means to be human in this world, not separated, but unified through our common consciousness.

This has tremendous implications as to how we bring up our children – this is where the road to sanity begins.

Feeling the Pressure?

Acceptance

The greying woman stands in the shallows, her shoes wet.

Waves play cold liquid games with her legs.  Clouds curl.

A fish swims up.  It wears her lover’s face.

When she awakens she puts the radio on.  Voices, cold light, no music.

She showers, chooses her clothes.  Imagines changing her hair.

Appearances almost matter.  Her car is clean.

In the classroom her face is caressed by an occasional sea breeze.

She stands at the board and remembers numbers and lines.

There is a boy with the face of a fish.  She carries on.

(Poem by our eldest son, Tom)        itstomalexander.blogspot.com.es

Pressure… pressure… pressure… pressure.  I must be motivated.  The click and grind and motion of the wheel in my head; the treadmill of the brain.  Cannot, must not stand still… must move on.

Success, success, success...  I must be inspired.  Please inspire me; inside I am empty.  Please fill me with your wise words, positive statements, your exhortations to achievement.  Without them I am nothing; another statistic in the data bank of human misery.  You tell me I am nothing and then you tell me to be something – thin, beautiful, clever.  And then you say: don’t talk so much; don’t be so silent.  So I cannot tell what you are thinking.

Anxiety… close cropped and bare as barbed-wire.  What is going to become of me?  You exhort me not be a failure and urge me to follow my passion. You talk to me of the global race and the part I have to play in it.  So I am looking for the finishing line and think about what will happen when I get there.  Will I then be spat out?  Chewed over and over until all outward form is lost?  Will I be digested then excreted in some unrecognisable form that once was me?  What do you think of me?  Do you like me?  If you don’t, then I won’t like you?

Entertain me!  Make me laugh, dance, and sing for you:  I can no longer do this on my own.  Absorb me in your cleverness, your silky long words like hypnotic snakes, and maybe, just maybe I could be like you.  Tell me what to do; don’t ask me questions; don’t make me think.  Reflection takes place in a darkening mirror, and these days the dark frightens me.  Comfort me.  I am frozen in time, like a mammoth in ice……….

But, I want to be alive!  For I am young and confusion is the state of all humanity.  I am young, and you, old man, what do you know?

You do not see me like you – you think we are separate.  You see my laughter as different from yours, my tears also.  But you are wrong, so wrong.  So stop transferring your pressure to me, old man.  You say you are dying, but tomorrow I also may not be here.

…

Slowly the vast bird circles below us, seeking out the warm air in the cool of the Himalayan mountains.  Wings edged with finger-like feathers that are stretched, tentative and gentle.  The sound of villagers at work seeps up on the same currents that support the silent flight.  All is embraced in the beauty of these mountains.

…

Don’t tell me what to do!  Look at what you’re doing; look at what you have done: the poverty, destruction, pollution, violence and, above all, the separation.  You continue to force me to think of myself as being distinct from others, from the air we breathe, from the food we eat, and from the stranger in the street.

So don’t pressure me with your exams, your hypocritical praise, your damning condemnation and your pathetic view of the world.  Just listen, look and be still for one moment.  Then, without pressure, we might be able to explore together this thing we call life.

…

The sun is warm with thoughts of the blistering hot summers that submerge this old Spanish city, and the breeze is heavy with the scent of orange blossom.  Down on the south coast, over the border in Portugal the sea rises and falls in a constant sequence of silky turquoise movement.  Back in England young leaves form against the background of delicate blossoms, whose petals loosened by the wind, fall to the ground in a covering of white and pink.

A Letter to my Young, and not so Young, Friends: there is a revolution going on.

From the snow capped mountains I walk across the brown-green fells of the Lake District, up past the noisy waterfall to the placid tarn – a place of mirrors and reflections…  As the logs crackle in the fire and sparks explode when they are moved, thoughts move from past, to present, to future….  Is it possible to live without conflict?

What of my young friends?  I wonder if I might call you friends; you who have been the students with whom I have shared my life during the past three decades and more; despite the pressure to control, to manage and make demands, maybe there was some sense of affection.   And what of the students who, in two day’s time, will return to the school community of which I am now part?  In this environment, pressure, control and authority are the subjects of questioning, and affection is seen as an essential element in living.  My young life, like many others of my generation and background, was almost completely devoid of affection – it was not part of the education, an education that was specifically designed to produce rulers of the world!  I have learnt affection through my relationship with my wife, my children, through friendship and through nature.

 I watch the light on the snow as we drive away from our week of reflection and activity together.  Fresh snow has fallen in the night, whilst coming as heavy rain into the valleys.  Even from this distance the newness of the snow creates a cleansing effect on the mind and, for a fleeting moment, there is a sense that this mind soars like an eagle, hovers over those softened sharp rocks and gazes down on this magnificent scene.

Our own children are caught in the conflict between the creative and the mundane.  And, as a family we sit by the fire of a house we have now deserted, consider and explore together the need to earn money to exist, whilst maintaining vital involvement in writing, music and art which give our lives meaning.  Our sons still hold on to their profound interests whilst all the time they are under siege from the world of exploitation, aspiration and conformity.

So, my friends, as it is the beginning of a new year and I have had the birthday which takes my aging, hesitant steps further into my seventh decade, may I ask your permission to participate in your revolution?   I know it is going on.  I have seen it in the eyes of the young and not so young in many places of the world.  I have seen it in the faces of the children who refuse to be coerced, to fit in despite the weight of the adult world that in its stupidity and arrogance thinks it knows how we all should live.  I saw it a few days ago in as I was sitting on a rock by a lake eating my lunch after a walk that took me past that noisy, tumbling waterfall.  I saw it in the smiles of the two children feeding the ducks and laughing as their big, black dog plunged in to deprive the birds of their food.  I heard it in the call and laughter of their mother and the accompanying laughter of strangers.  I see it in my grandson in his second year of school, who loves learning; and my other grandson, who is in his third year of life and loves living.

Will you let me join you in negating a world that supports violence; that accepts people being driven out of their homes in Syria, Sudan and many other places in the world?   I will question with you the values in life that put the earning of money and owning of things as more important than treating the earth and all it contains with care and affection.  And, as I move with that sureness of step which unites us all in death, I will give you what little insight and understanding I have to contribute to the conversation that feeds your revolution.  But I will not hate; I will not lead, for that implies followers and then you have already joined the deadly game; I will not specialise in exams, academic theories or intellectual speculation; above all I will not be part of a movement!

A friend in India once called Maggie and me, ‘nomadic cross-pollinators’, as we travelled around the country having discussions with many people and observing the different work that was being done to alleviate poverty, engage with social justice, tackle environmental degradation and bring about a transformation of human thinking.  It is possible that this is what I can give to this process of revolution – for the revolution is not like any other that has gone before it.  There may be enemies, but there is no blueprint or dominant ideology; there is urgency, but that urgency consists of moving slowly and carefully for there are many traps; and above all there is no separation, because it is that very process of fragmentation that has brought us to the necessity of the revolution.

Perhaps we can talk about this?

What is the Role of the Teacher?

Outside our new home we have a magnificent black walnut tree, from all aspects of our small apartment we can see the solid grey/brown of its sturdy trunk, at night we hear the wind rushing through the leaves and the soft sway of its boughs.  Its height dwarfs the newly built wooden pavilions; it has come from another land, as have so many in the community we have recently joined.  

Lately I have been reminded on two separate and very different occasions of the power of the technological advances that have been made over the last decades, notably in the area of communication which has increased the potential for human connection all over the world.  However, this is not being mirrored with any sense of change in the quality of human relationships: wars continue; fragmentation of communities continues; greed and exploitation abound.  In addition to this there is ever increasing evidence of the dehumanising of much of humanity.  Systems, profits, economics and policies are destroying the lives of the poor, the vulnerable, the weak and the powerless in all parts of the world.

So what as an educator can I do?  For I must do something.  Years ago, just before finishing my course in education, I heard some people discussing teachers referring to that group as ‘a bunch of mischief-makers’.  Since then I have caught myself from time to time being drawn into the mass of people whose view of the young has not changed much since the Victorian era, finding myself being inadvertently institutionalised.  However, where I am now this role of the teacher is being challenged and that is why I am here.  In a community where the intentions of the place are explicit in learning about the whole of life, then it is incumbent upon all of us to explore all aspects of living.  However, there is a danger here that in such beautiful surroundings, superb healthy food, comfortable living, where there is intentionally no pressure, day to day life slips into a goldfish bowl of self-absorption and complacency that separates the community from the outside world: the inner from the outer. So finding a means to connect with the outer world is very important and to explore the conditions where the teacher becomes the student and the student the teacher, and falling back on the authority of knowledge and experience is not enough.   Being a conduit of expertise to furnish the desire for certainty is no longer the role of the teacher in a world where living is a process of uncertainty.  Interestingly, many of us, staff and students, have been experiencing moments frustration, inertia, and doubt, typical of the transitional stage in the movement towards radical change.

One of those groups that have been dehumanised are adolescents; not necessarily children, nor young adults; but those in their teenage years who are coerced into schooling, regimented, uniformed, and plagued by exams.  Across the world this section of humanity is being programmed into becoming economic units, exploited, dependent on the stimulation of entertainment, shaped by narrow ideas of success and haunted by the dark shadow of failure – whatever that might mean.  It seems to me that it is the role of the teacher to question these assumptions with the students, to listen and not to preach, direct or adopt the authority of superior knowledge.   For this to happen there must be a relationship that is based on trust and affection and that may not happen quickly for these qualities are not necessarily found easily.  Steps are being taken, hesitantly, carefully for we are all human beings.

The Next Step – Engaging in Educating the Spirit.

The long days of summer are shortening now, but for the last few weeks there have been many days of blue skies and warm sunshine.  Through the shadows of the trees a warm breeze flows playing with the leaves, bringing the scent of the newly harvested fields and the dust of the dry ground.  Copper leaves shine and glint among the dark and light greens of the other majestic trees.  The soft sounds of the pigeons float across the mottled browns and greens of the lawn.  For now the place is deserted; devoid of human activity.

Tomorrow we begin the next step in a process that began just under three weeks ago.  What has emerged through a flurry of questions and chaotic confusion is the skeleton of a framework for further exploration into education.  For over forty years this place has engaged with the challenge of ‘learning about the whole of life’.  Many students and staff have passed through contributing to a sense of constant change in the heart of the English countryside.  Now another change is being brought into being.

As the state sponsored systems of education throughout the world narrow further and further, funneling young people through rigid steps of disjointed learning towards a view of success that is only a reality for a lucky few and is almost entirely measured in economic terms, we are attempting to move significantly away from that approach.  After thirty five years as a teacher I have found myself in a place that is asking the question; what is the function of the teacher?  Here the content of my teaching is new as is my work in helping those students who will be finishing school take the next step in their lives; so, thankfully, I cannot fall back on past experience.  It is an enormous responsibility, but it does not weigh heavily on my shoulders, as, for the first time since I began training as a teacher nearly forty years ago, I do not feel that someone is looking over my shoulder waiting for me to make a mistake.  Accountability is a word that has been given greater and greater importance over the last few decades, its harsh spectre haunts many teachers, often making the process of teaching and learning into a crass commercial exchange.  The teacher has been made accountable for the progress of the student and, especially when it comes to exams, has to explain success and failures in terms of her or his own performance.

Here I am responsible, not as a separate entity, but as an integral part of the community and the students are responsible for themselves.  So in a sense they are also responsible for me as we work in shared exploration and understanding.  They will be teaching themselves and teaching each other.  I will also be learning.

…

This is my first description of the tentative beginning I am making to my time at Brockwood Park School.  So far I have been eating delicious vegetarian food, cleaning the place, washing up, waling, sitting, listening, talking and getting to know all the other people who make up the community of about one hundred and twenty young people and adults.

I intend to keep writing this blog as a contemplation of my life here with this question in the background  – Is this educating the spirit?

Leaves upon the water.

The question asked may be like leaves that rest upon the silent water; floating for while before sinking to the river bed providing vital nutrients.  It may be like a dropped pebble creating calm concentric ripples, reaching out to the lake shore.  It may even be a vast boulder cast into a placid sea, plummeting into the depths and making waves of disturbance taking all before them.

Teaching is the art of questioning; encouraging doubt and inviting exploration.  The small child slips its hand into that of the adult and seeks protection, but she still asks the question.  They are connected, not just through words, but in a feeling of safety created through understanding.  The adolescent looks with an assertion of independence, sometimes with a sense of challenge, other times with a studied lack of interest; gauging the reaction and judging whether the adult is really interested in her as an individual.  Her question might be a challenge, but the response, even though it may be just a smile, may the beginning of a connection.  However, many an adult has learnt to manipulate, to exploit, and often this means that the trust of the young has been replaced with a self-absorbed cynicism.  Nevertheless, the ground for connection for all humanity is the same:  the absence of judgement, no fear and no preconceived outcome.

Teaching is the flow of relationship: the waves of the sea, back and forth.  The adoption of rigid roles, student, teacher, learning, play work, effort discipline; the inability to explore outside predetermined parameters; and holding on to assumptions are all barriers to this flow relationship.  Authority, status, formality, formality and hierarchy stand like vast concrete dams of control;  controlling learning, controlling behaviour, seeking to mould, to ensure obedient servants to a corrupt world.  Teaching is a unifying process, where difference is understood as being part of the whole; so no division is caused by competition, comparison and the constant creation of categories.  The conventional approach to teaching is to break things down, to fragment and seek out disparity, and to look for disconnections.  There is very little holistic in this approach to learning.

…

Mostly they are friendly, smiling and wanting to enjoy our time together.  At the beginning many were suspicious, withdrawn and unsure of the grey haired, bearded man who had appeared in front of them one day in April, taking the place of the teacher they had expected to see and who had been there for them since September.  In a school that encourages openness, where there is no uniform and everyone is on first name terms, the teacher can appear to be vulnerable, even lack authority.  Direct questions are asked and, as with many teenagers, there is a fine line that divides genuine interest from outright rudeness.  I am instantly reminded of my humanity and recognise the relationship that holds us all together….

Now it looks as though Maggie and I will be joining the staff of Brockwood Park School in Hampshire, where I will be teaching full time.  This is a unique opportunity to inquire deeply into the activities of teaching and learning in a community that that is 'place where one learns about the totality, the wholeness of life.'   I intend to continue to write and will take the opportunity to reflect on what actually happens.

Mindfulness in Education: Educating the Spirit

Snow is still on the ground and the air is driven by an icy chill.  Here in Berlin the grey gritted snow is piled by the pavements and the roadsides.  It should be the time when the buds are appearing on the trees and the first flowers bring colour chasing away the drab grey of winter.  However, the trees are black in the wintery light and the grass maintains its dull, muddy semblance of green.  Perhaps it is fitting to be observing this city for the first, brief time against a winter that does not want to release its icy grip quite yet.

We take a boat ride along the river and through the peaceful canal waters.  Occasionally we pass groups of small children all woollen-hatted and buttoned up against the cold, their enthusiastic waving and smiling faces warm us.  We ride the bus along the road of recent history and we walk along the edge of the city’s large, still dormant, park and through the modern shopping complex.  Our friend shows us around and we stare silently at the remains of the wall that, until quite recently, separated families and friends with cruel threats of terror and death.  Outwardly there appears to be much prosperity; a city now raised from the appalling destruction of the Second World War and the following decades of drab ideological fragmentation.  Yet our friend talks of psychological fragility, the legacy of individual and communal experiences of the suffering and horror in this lifetime of conflict.  The collective consciousness of such violent suffering cannot be healed by economic rebuilding alone.

On my return I watch original film of the destruction of Berlin as the Second World War came to a close and the building of the Wall some fifteen years later.  Watching the scale of violence is horrifying and it is possible to feel that the determination to kill is a strong as the fear of being killed.  Evidence of humanity’s cruelty, arrogance and stupidity is all too clear.

The present contains all of the past and the seed of the future; this is not a separate, isolated moment.  Consciousness is the movement from the past, through the present into the future.  As human beings we are constantly trapped in this seemingly endless prison of thinking, which is dominated by conflict.  This thinking is expressed in the predominant world mind set of a militaristic/industrial system where ideologies, structures, organisations and institutions are considered more important than the Earth and its inhabitants.  What has happened to Berlin is stark evidence of this mind set.  So how do we change this way of thinking, because if we do not then we shall surely destroy all of humanity? We have cleverly ensured that we have the capability of doing this, and we are successfully destroying many other species of living beings.

It seems to me that the answer to this lies in our approach to education.  However, our current system of education is of the same mind set, indeed it is the cornerstone of militaristic/industrial thinking.  Our friend, Manish Jain, in his essay titled ‘McEducation’, describes this approach to education as ‘a devastating system of social control, cultural genocide and modern servitude to a suicidal economy.’*  However, if we look at education as an exploration into living, with the essence of this being the developing self-awareness of the individual within the clear understanding that the individual is undivided from the world, then there is the possibility for the emergence of a compassionate, balanced society. 

An interesting development in exploring self-awareness in an educational setting is the growth of mindfulness in schools.  Last month I attended the Third International Mindfulness in Schools Conference in London.  The main speaker was Jon Kabat-Zinn, and a large audience also heard from teachers and students who are putting the Mindfulness in Schools programme into practice.  Much was said about the technique of being mindful, giving attention to the moment and becoming aware of one’s breathing.  Emphasis was put on the effectiveness of mindfulness in alleviating stress and anxiety, especially in relation to exams.  The practice of mindfulness was discussed in term of training the mind to be watchful; aware of the process of thinking and gaining the skill of being mindful.

Unfortunately, I was left with the impression that mindfulness was being used essentially as a technique to enable young people to more effectively fit in to the prevailing mind set; a tool for coping with modern life and to help the individual perform more successfully.  And, although the practice would undoubtedly have some effect on a few young people, it was a very separate aspect of the school curriculum.

‘We have to alter the structure of our society, its injustice, its appalling morality, the divisions it has created between man and man, the wars, the utter lack of affection and love that is destroying the world.  If your meditation is only a personal matter, a thing which you personally enjoy then it is not meditation.  Meditation implies a complete radical change of mind and heart.’  J Krishnamurti

Interventions in the present school system, even those as important as mindfulness, cannot bring about the radical change that is necessary.  First we have to question the predominant world view for otherwise we are merely getting our children ready for destruction and with the weapons we have at our disposal Berlin may well be the last city capable of being re-established after a human conflict.

•  An 18 minute talk by Manish can be seen here - http://youtu.be/qGfuY9ivnW8   and the full text of his essay can be read here - http://www.criticalliteracyjournal.org/