"I believe that education, therefore, is a process of living and not a preparation for future living." John Dewey
A family member of mine remarked to me (they must have glanced at something in my regular blog, as this blog is secreted away and discovery is via the right keywords), "I don't believe in meditation."
"I don't believe in meditation." That statement perplexed me. What is there to believe? You try it. You do it. You either like it or not like it. It's not intended as yet another belief system. So too with many 'alternative' methods of healing, alternative methods of living, alternative methods of ___ <fill in the blank>. You try it, you do it, you perhaps wrestle with getting it (I recall my first faltering attempts at skiing!) yet that's still through doing, and ultimately it either rings for you or it does not. It works for you, or it does not. There's no need to believe when you can get your hands dirty, your mind messy, and check it out for yourself.
"Don't blindly believe what I say. Don't believe me because others convince you of my words. Don't believe anything you see, read, or hear from others, whether of authority, religious teachers or texts. Don't rely on logic alone, nor speculation. Don't infer or be deceived by appearances.
Do not give up your authority and follow blindly the will of others. This way will lead to only delusion.
Find out for yourself what is truth, what is real." - The Buddha
Trying out for yourself. It's kind of like prototyping: "In a world that prizes answers and solutions, prototyping can be somewhat counterintuitive, placing the emphasis on doing to be able to think rather than thinking in order to do. Discovery doesn't happen in a vacuum, which is why doing things, however imperfectly at first, opens us up creatively," says Peter Sims in Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries.
I like to think from stratch too, what if we could start with a totally clean slate and build from the ground up... what would responding to dis-ease and imbalances look like? What would maintaining a moment-to-moment alignment with well-being look like? So I really gravitated to a few stories of innovators and pioneers I ran across today....
"One evening about nine years ago, Simon, Mike, Aiden and I met up at a Vietnamese restaurant in Chinatown. We’d become friends over the previous five years, working in various capacities at West Philly High. Somewhere in the midst of swapping gossip, storytelling, and generally giving each other a hard time the conversation turned more idealistic, driven by a simple question: if we could start with a totally clean slate and build from the ground up, what would high school look like?" - Introducing the Sustainability Workshop (from the school's blog on opening day)
So I'm kicking around ideas for an online curriculum and workshop to teach Ho'oponopono and other 'modalities' of Mind-based healing (even that word choice is wrong, that's just me trying to fit into conventional frameworks; the way 'healing' works is by clearing up habitual patterns obscuring the underlying perfection of Wholeness.... I've never gotten any positive results from focusing on brokenness nor 'fixing'...)
As much as I've learned from books and other teachers, it's been my own first-hand experiments and experience that has taught me the most, usually by trial and error, inquiry and refinement. So I'm working on a structure that is based on experiential learning. I liked what I read this morning in Newsweek, September 19, 2011 issue on "The Real Fixers" (yeah, ironically the headline labels them FIXERS, but many of them are really DOERS) about a pilot school:
"The boutique school follows the “project-based learning” model made popular by San Diego’s High Tech High and others around the country, where conventional classes are replaced with long, interdisciplinary exercises to solve real-world problems, like designing a solar charging station or writing energy-efficiency legislation. More engaged students, the thinking goes, learn deeply and retain knowledge longer. - The Real Fixers (on Simon Hauger and The Sustainability Workshop)
A family member of mine remarked to me (they must have glanced at something in my regular blog, as this blog is secreted away and discovery is via the right keywords), "I don't believe in meditation."
"I don't believe in meditation." That statement perplexed me. What is there to believe? You try it. You do it. You either like it or not like it. It's not intended as yet another belief system. So too with many 'alternative' methods of healing. You try it, you do it, and it either rings for you or it does not. And it works for you, or it does not. There's no need to believe when you can directly check it out for yourself.
I foresee two closed-intertwined tracks of project-based study and experiments. One focused on healers: clearing physical, spiritual, emotional, mental, psychological ailments and dis-ease as well as environmental dis-ease (i.e. anything from pollution to natural disasters). The second track focused on creators: releasing past to create through inspiration, improvisation and visionary (meaning could include manifestation, but not limited to that) in scope.
The complete list of catalysts to be introduced, presented, and then jointly as a class develop exercises and experiments to learn through direct experience might include: A Course in Miracles (particularly Psychotherapy: Purpose, Process and Practice booklet), Ho'oponopono, Byron Katie's The Work, dream/archetype/shadow work ala Carl Jung, Belvaspata, Louise Hay's symbols from Heal Your Body, Heal Your Life, Lise Bourbeau's work, Debra Shapiro's work, traditional Chinese Medicine (particularly the symbolic associations with body organs, etc.), Mary Baker Eddy's work, Gregg Braden's The Isaiah Effect, The Trivedi Effect, Zen Buddhism's notion of 'direct transmission', Full Catastrophe Living and Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (Jon Kabit-Zinn's work), Richard Moss' work, post-traumatic growth resarch, sound healing (especially correspondence of frequency to different body organs), Jane McGonigal's SuperBetter health game, Florence Scovel Shinn, Abraham-Hicks, Thich Nhat Hanh The Energy of Prayer, Advaita inquiry, The Holographic Universe, Toltec teachings, Russian magical priniciples from the medieval guild of skomorokh performers--and, that's for starters.
In another example from The Real Fixers, lawyer Brooke Richie started a 12-week class, The Resiliency Advocacy Project, to teach teens how to navigate the legwork, paperwork and legalities of effectively using both social (and other) services and resources to break out of poverty cycle. The part that really struck me is that those that completed the program were then empowered to teach peers in their own neighborhood: "Each class of 15 [teens] can help up to 400 teens get answers to their questions without paying legal fees."
Thus, our teaching curriculum and workshop ideally would be a grassroots wave that trickles out so that those who 'graduate' go out and share their experience with their own peers, and so on. The idea is to empower people to be their own author and authority--to clear themselves in a natural, innate way that addresses root issues rather than symptoms alone (like pulling weeds from the root so they don't just grow back), as well as assist others in regaining their authority without dependency on hospitals, professionals, pills, insurance and ability to pay.
As far as structure, I'm not quite sure yet. By structure, I mean is it online or live in-person class? Is it even a classroom feel or is it more self-study or small teams (slight personal preference for the small teams tackling projects) or a combination? Is it for-profit or non-profit or B corporation? I have enough resources to begin something possibly online--yet not enough to see this all through all on my own. It is definitely intended to be international, grassroots, spreadable, and experimental (in terms of keep pushing the edges, don't ever rest on laurels).
If what I've written so far ignites your soul and intrigues your mind in any way, please write me or comment below.
p.s. Coincidentally, in the same The Real Fixers article, here are some stats on healthcare in USA: "Because we currently reward quantity over quality, the U.S. spends at least twice as much per person on health care annually ($7,960 in 2009) as Japan, Canada, Germany, and other developed countries. Yet whether measured by infant mortality or cancer survival, we are far back in the pack in terms of quality."
p.p.s. Don't feel obligated, however if you would genuinely wish to donate to this project:
"Love has no obligations. Fear is full of obligations.... Whatever we do is because we want to do it. It becomes a pleasure; it's like a game, and we have fun with it." -- Miguel Ruiz, The Mastery of Love
You have a point there education is process of living and it is requirement for us to learn,well in Finland country education for everyone is getting stronger and quality of learning to everyone is really high and i am glad that there is some place where education is most important for the future.
Posted by: Erkki Tiilikainen | 09/19/2012 at 04:32 AM