blown by the wind of despair

The wind blows and shakes the rigid edifice with windows rattling, and the boughs of the trees outside wave their new grown leaves in a dance of elation.  There is strain and tension in the air, whilst the black birds launch themselves from the tops of the trees into the path of the wind to be buffeted and thrown around like black rags; playing with flight.

Into the unknown we step and walk the tightrope between fear and excitement, acknowledging that control is an illusion and decisions are made with very little understanding of any outcome.  The road behind has gone and the road ahead stretches out like some meandering river and we are mesmerised by the mirage in the distance, ignoring what lies beyond the hedgerows either side of us.   We want someone to hold us, something to guide us, we crave certainty and steadfastly turn our gaze away from that one thing that defines our lives – the fact that we have an ending.

Here in the UK it is the time of the General Election, where the tired old body of a democracy that is anything but democratic receives its regular blood transfusion so that it might continue to exist.  So the promises are made that are transparently impossible to keep, and truth seems to have taken a holiday far away and left us to get on with it.  We are bombarded with reasons to hate; to hate those two enemies of the civilised world – the poor and the foreigner.  We are exhorted to the level of greed of the politician and the self-aggrandising rich, so that the central virtue of society is now crystallised in materialistic aspiration, and elevated to the highest form of motivation in our lives.  The heavy handed conditioning continues to hold is to this central fact that success is to be striven for and universally admired, whilst failure is to be avoided at all costs and even its very existence denied.  The consequence of this is the ever widening and deepening stinking river of corruption.

Now the votes are cast and the smiling complacency of the winners is matched only by the abject demeanour of those that have lost.  And nothing has changed.

Wild winds have given way to a chill breeze and branches move against the steel grey sky.  Spring is heard through the song of birds; the greens are deep and bright and there is new growth everywhere.  The year is turning, leaving behind the old and dying, seeking to replace and renew.  All the talk, words spoken and written cannot describe this movement for it is life itself.  And all the inventions and ideas of humankind are lost in this enveloping green, leaving the bare bones of the fallen tree in a bleached brown-grey submission to Spring: to played on by lambs, climbed by children and find a new existence as the home for so many insects.  In hope we look for answers, in desperation all we can do is look.

Where are you in all this?

Tear down the walls!  Deconstruct the language!  Wash away the thinking!  Exams are killing the young, sucking out their souls and mangling their senses until they are completely absorbed with their ‘future’ and the present has been sacrificed at the altar of arbitrary qualifications and random grades.  Joining the armies of the empty and the ranks of the frightened, your boys and girls stare from their lifeless eyes like fish on a slab, and are imprisoned in a world of make-believe.  Fairy-tale princesses glide by whilst their muscled young men loll contentedly like tom-cats ready to prowl out into the night of stark cold lights and drunken screams whilst the grass grows quietly through the relics of their dreams, leaving them like rusted limousines of lies.

Can you live in uncertainty?  Can you walk through a wood, over a moor, by the sea, by the river, along the trail of a mountain, through the dry, dusty desert, and the lush green valley, and not know where you are going?

What if there was a place in the world which said: you can do exams, but exams are not on the curriculum?  How can your child keep all her options open?  How can he keep up the pace of this global race, and how can she fulfill her potential… be happy?

He was really quite a small man, white hair swept defiantly over a shining nut brown dome of intelligence.  His eyes had the quality of depth and fullness that is not uncommon among many South Indians and the voice that seemed to join the wind still had that Asiatic feel.  He sat straight-backed, trembling hands gripping a white handkerchief….  A man may make statements, a man may ask questions, a man may challenge; but if all those that listen do is to stare in awe, wonder and reverence, then that it would have been better if that man had never lived.

What if there was a place in the world that was about learning about life; not just someone’s idea about life?  What if I, a man whose thinning white hair and stiffening joints, could engage with the vigour of youth, absorb the tears of young eyes, the smiles of laughing faces and listen to the passing of life in the understanding of an exploration which would not be fettered by fear and expectations, but revel in an ocean of possibilities.  Look at the hands of the maker, the planter, the painter and the poet; their fingers are at work, their bright eyes open; and their minds touching a stillness that has no possessor, no separation.

What if there was a place in the world where there was a sense of discovering together?  She would always touch the giant redwood when we passed; her long golden hair shrouding her face as she pressed against the soft trunk and her hands flattened as if gently communing through their touch.  She would say that it was like returning to an old friend, no need to explain the absence, just taking up where they left off.  The tree stands in a grove and is flanked by others that reach up to an extraordinary height; today it is dark with the rain and the branches drip amid the thickening gloom…its stillness reaches into her, an unbroken connection of wood, water, flesh, bone, blood and earth.

The seed is growing; the flowering may take a while in the presence of the dead weight of inertia and brittle certainty.  Courage is needed at every cautious, but steady step.  Nonetheless, the plight of the young cannot be left to their first faltering, clamorous demands, neither with the smooth, unctuous piety of those that exploit in the illusory game of success and failure.  It has to be with the rough-hewn, mistake-ridden, half-blinded adventurers who have seen a light shining dimly in the distance, and have some understanding that it is learning, a learning that cannot be measured.

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?