Many, many moons ago, I was living in a indigenous village of close to 200 people (100 dogs, 70 burros, 50 pigs, 30 goats and 1000 chickens) along the Pacific coast of southern central Peru. It was called San Vicente de Azpitia. These were thoughtful, hardworking, gentle, kind-hearted and somber people born of the coastal Andes, farming the soil of one of the driest regions on our good Earth.

The numerous children of Azpitia were part of an ancient child care system that proved to be not only nurturing and educational but also very safe. At first glance though, it seemed that Azpitian youth (ranging from ages 4 to 14) were simply running recklessly like a wild pack of dogs! They would appear here, there and everywhere, scruffy little urchins roaming the village in gangs. It seemed chaotic and dangerous. But after several months, I realized how beautifully ordered, disciplined and safe this ‘system’ was.

The children essentially spent all their days gallivanting around the village in groups of up to 25 altogether. It was a multiage organization where the little ones were looked after by the older ones who were in turn answerable to the village adults. The adults who were ultimately responsible for the children’s safety were their “tias y tios’, their aunts and uncles. As it turned out, every adult in the village fit into this category.

So as the children roamed the countryside playing games, being read to under a tree, exploring the river and the ancient irrigation canals, visiting the many farmers, doing domestic chores whenever needed, getting fed by this or that relative, they were always, always within view of a caring eye!

Safety was paramount! And yet the children of Azpitia were able to run free!

What are the keys to safety as illustrated by this story?

1)      There is no isolation, socially or geographically.

2)      Every child was part of an integrated multi age structure.

3)      There is 100% community participation!

4)      Everything is shared, generosity abounds and somehow, there is always enough to go around (even in utterly sparse circumstances)!

5)      Every child knew they were being looked after. There was a collective instinct for protection that extended its cover to every single life!

Galileo’s ideas challenged the assumptions of his time and culture. The mere suggestion that the earth was not the center of all creation with humans being at the center of the center, was ludicrous, even heretical! The proposition that we lived in a helio-centric system and all that it implied, threatened the stronghold (and vested interests) of the dominant institutions of the time. Suddenly, the fiercely held beliefs about the nature of the universe were displaced by a greater “truth”!

Young minds, the students of 21^st century education need to be stridently encouraged to think, to research, to reason and intuit, to challenge assumptions about nearly everything - as a first principle!

Why do we do things the way we do?

Why do we think things are the way they are?

Whole paradigms, models of thought, have come and gone based on the assumptions of the age. New ideas, new models, new perceptions always meet resistance from the dogma of the time…always and inevitably. History is loaded with examples…here are just a few:

There was a time when medical hygiene was dismissed as ludicrous!

Early genetic ‘theorists’ faced massive opposition that such things as genes and the DNA that composes them could possibly exist!

Continental drift and plate tectonics was laughed out of the halls of geological science even though the mineral strata of the two continental coastlines facing each other across the Atlantic Ocean were not only similar, but were proven to be identical in every detail!

Principles of human evolution were once thought to be contrary to the design of Creation! 

Before the microscope, the idea that countless millions upon millions of micro-organisms inhabit every niche of every niche of life was inconceivable.

And today…

We know that nutrition, the quality composition and balances of the food we eat is essential to physical health, and yet nutritional science is not a prerequisite of medical training!

The actual composition of our earth below the crust is unknown and theorized, and yet the textbooks won’t tell you that. The textbooks to do with geo-physics and geology give the impression that what is hypothesis is fact.

There is more ‘known’ about the solar system (thanks to Hubble) than there is about the world beneath the oceans…and investigation of our solar system is in its infancy!

To argue against the possibility of ‘life’ elsewhere in the universe, seems especially arrogant and narrow minded.

Assumptions abound in nearly every branch of science. Some of those assumptions go unquestioned and become fact by default. Some of which come all too close to home - like the pharmacological basis of western medicine or the industrial model of education, agriculture and consumption or the petroleum based energy economy - to name just a few.

There are even greater assumptions still. Big ones! But these we will save for another time.

So here we are! What new shifts in perception are just outside our reach right now? What new ways of feeling, thinking and doing just about everything might be knocking on the doors of our habituated beliefs right this minute?

To those young and highly agile minds (of any age): Challenge the assumptions of our time, diligently, respectfully and passionately… and we shall see what happens!

There is so much more that is unknown and undiscovered about nearly everything than is currently known and understood.

The word “science” comes from the root - to know. And school textbooks give the impression that the sciences are based on irrefutable evidence and hard facts.

Wouldn’t it be more accurate to say “science” means our current best understanding of things?

Believe it or not, every single branch of science, from biology to astrophysics, from geology to chemistry to human physiology, you name it, is loaded to the gills with more unanswered questions than answered ones. Yes, we know a lot more than we did a hundred years ago, but what we don’t yet know (or perceive for that matter) is way more substantial!

That is why the future is totally and utterly open!

Pure science is the search for knowledge through a method or system of observation. The emphasis is on ‘the search’ for knowledge! And yet, the textbooks and the experts give us the impression that what is ‘science’ is solid, concrete, conclusive truth. That mindset (set in concrete) leaves little room for discovery.

Young minds need to know and feel and believe that their lives can make a difference!

Wouldn’t it be better simply to say to our students: “There is so much more to discover and we need you to discover it!” Or - “This is the best knowledge come to so far, what is missing?” Or - “Can you think of a different way of doing this, understanding this?”

What is to motivate young lives, if they don’t feel needed?

The future is open!

]]> http://talkinghandstalkingfeet.com/blog/the-future-is-open/feed/ http://talkinghandstalkingfeet.com/blog/what-is-art-for/ http://talkinghandstalkingfeet.com/blog/what-is-art-for/#comments Mon, 15 Feb 2010 15:13:35 +0000 P.A. Zeir http://talkinghandstalkingfeet.com/blog/?p=180

Art lives at the heart of what makes us human.

What is art for?

If not to inspire and motivate us to our best, then what?

If not to engender hope, to light a candle in the darkness, then what?

If not to reflect back to us the brilliant human potential, causing uplift and upgrade, then what?

What is art for?

To give expression to that which cannot ‘speak’ for itself.

To wake us up, to wake up new perception, new ways of thinking, feeling, seeing, hearing, touching life.

To remind and reconnect us to the greater human journey.

To help give us a start.

To help us come to know ourselves!

Arts in Education is essential in so many ways. It is more than bringing a variety of art forms into a school to be taught alongside academics. The art form, whether it be music, sculpture, painting, drama, poetry or dance, is not meant to be the object of art. Art forms are the media of human expression. “To art” is the urge to give expression, to communicate, to give response through a media - whether that be through rhythm, movement, gesture, voice, feeling, sound, ideas, images…Art itself is at the core of human response! We cannot not ‘art’!

To get trained inside an art form is valuable as long as the emphasis is on the process, not the product. Children are better served if they learn to paint, dance, draw from the inside first, not from how it looks! Comparison critique and judgment have no place in early art training, none whatsoever!

The arts go so much deeper than this. It is all about the process first, not the product!

Navajo sand paintings are a good example of this. Colored sands are used to ‘paint’ within a pre-described space in order to represent and attract the influences needed to heal a person or a community. It is the process of drawing the images that heals. When it is over and the person is healed, the beautiful painting is wiped out, erased, never to be repeated - its function is fulfilled.

Still, you can go to the tourist markets and find ‘sand paintings’ frozen in varnish. But to the Navajo, the ‘art’ is entirely functional, it does something! It is in the doing of it, that it does something and once it’s done, it’s past tense, it’s irrelevant, it no longer lives.

Another example is music. What causes music in human beings precedes its various forms and styles expressed throughout the world and through history. Music is a primordial potency ever resonating through the feeling chambers of the human soul! It is a language unto itself. It is universal. It can reach the stars and touch the core of existence! Why would we limit its training and expression to a fixed period or style?

To dance is to move and be moved by the music of the great passion of life itself! To imitate a form as a first principle of training stifles the very spirit of dance. Children especially, need to move, to explore movement and being moved. We can supply a versatile alphabet of movement. But they need to explore what it can do, how it feels, what is possible!

Children need the opportunity to be exposed to various art forms, to have the hands-on experience. But with the emphasis on the process first!

People have forgotten how to make things. Everything is made for them nowadays. So taking up an art form or a craft is a valuable endeavour. The word handsome used to mean dexterous, being good with your hands, having some hands! Now it means looking good. Strange how meanings change!

When we ‘make’ something - a picture, a poem, a melody, a song, or perhaps a garden, a special ecology inside or outside, others can feel the process that created it and what that now attracts to itself. That is why art is so powerful. It is not the superficial appearance of something that makes it beautiful or profound or moving…It is what caused it to be in the first place!

What is art for?

]]> http://talkinghandstalkingfeet.com/blog/what-is-art-for/feed/ http://talkinghandstalkingfeet.com/blog/to-be-a-child/ http://talkinghandstalkingfeet.com/blog/to-be-a-child/#comments Sun, 31 Jan 2010 20:29:34 +0000 P.A. Zeir http://talkinghandstalkingfeet.com/blog/?p=178

Do you remember what it feels like to be a child?

To wake up in the morning tingling and trembling with excitement because there is a whole new day to discover!

To be unafraid of the unknown. But to be so comforted by what is familiar.

To barely be able to contain oneself because life is just too important to sit still!

To wonder about things not from how they appear outside you but from how they feel inside you: a butterfly, a magical brook, a giant tree, a busy squirrel, a shadow or a breeze.

To be completely and utterly free!

To be making connections all the time: “Ah Ha! That goes with that. And that goes with that!”

To go into a troubled place, a place where people are sad or not themselves - and to wish for everything that is not them to simply go away!

To be afraid of things that you later realized made no sense at all.

To be comforted by a face, a story, a voice, a smell, a song, a picture, a word, a place… because those are your home and safety.

To actually, totally feel without a doubt or hesitation that the future is open and anything is possible!

To notice some people are not themselves at all, which makes you feel strange inside.

To have a whole cast of ever changing characters in your mind, some who you met in real life, some from books, some from movies…some who you want to be like.

To learn how to read and wonder about words - some make pictures, some make sounds, some make feelings, and some make no sense at all. But all of it is music to you, or makes you want to dance or play out stories.

To wonder about the other gender; why on earth do they act that way?

To wonder why you have to go to school ‘cause all this time you’ve been learning stuff just fine!

When you meet children…whether it is in your classroom or around your kitchen table…remember, reconnect with what it feels like to be a child. That is where arts integrated education begins!

Whatever your teaching ecology happens to be, wherever you are helping to “grow” young learners, here is an analogy that provides some food for thought…

Agriculture

The further we have moved away from the source of our food, the more disconnected we have become from our bodies, the earth’s natural cycles and systems and the natural immunity, value and intelligence therein.

The further we have moved from the source of our food, physically but also mentally, the more abstract the source of our food becomes. (And look at the consequences - to the greater source which, of course, is the earth itself!)

It is the same with so many things:

Medicine

The further we move away from understanding our bodies, the more susceptible we are to medical authority and what for many is an abstract science.

Are we not meant to be in a partnership with our bodies and with those trained to heal them? Why then, do we so easily surrender our power and responsibility to others when it comes to our fundamental health and well-being?

Consumerism

Look at the ever widening divide between consumer and producer in our culture. Most of us don’t have a clue where our clothing, appliances, furnishings, cars, soaps, toothpaste, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, electricity etc… come from.

If something’s broken we tend to just throw it away. But, hold on a moment, where is away? There is no away. All our trash is here to stay. It wasn’t too long ago that people knew how to fix things. The idea of built in obsolescence is anathema to our most basic standards and instincts as human beings.

Education

What is the source of our education? Hmmm?!!

The nearer we are to the source of our education, the greater it’s meaning, significance, relevancy and longevity! So what is the source?

It ain’t schools, colleges, universities, academies etc. Those are facilities.

It ain’t textbooks and manuals. Those are also facilities.

Isn’t the source of our learning the extraordinary university of life itself? Are we not included in that - our bodies, our brains, nerves, blood and bones, our senses and higher faculties, our multiple inner lives? Isn’t all of creation included in that, the natural worlds, the laws that govern it, the mysteries of the universe, the very air we breathe, the life of water itself - all these things and more?

The job of the “educator” (in the broadest sense of the word) is to “teach” self resourcefulness and responsibility. It is not about looking for the answers already outside of oneself, but the process of discovery from inside oneself!

We humans do not need more resources. We don’t need to go searching for more resources. No. What we need first is to reconnect with our own resourcefulness.

Not resources, resourcefulness!

Patience is an enduring love for natural process.

It is a “being with”, an abiding with another life without imposition.

Patience is the teacher who has the space and time for every child, fast or slow, red or blue, straight or round… It is a presence, a warmth, an encouragement… kind but firm.

It is fulfilling the requirements of something on its terms, not yours.

It is a love for the natural timings of things and an attitude which says, “It’s alright, take the time you need!”

Patience is the persistent wish to see things as they truly are.

It is a love of process without expectation or pre-condition regarding the outcome.

It is a deeply human quality we are able to witness in all nature.

Impatience however, is its absence and antithesis.

Impatience puts the emphasis on getting the right answers rather than how you got there.

Impatience short-cuts, pre-empts, assumes, imposes, interrupts, manipulates.

There is no forbearance in impatience, only short sighted, self-based and short fused expectation.

The only cure for impatience is to grow one of the many extraordinary qualities that reside in the heart of our humanity. It stems from the same root as the word - peace.

It is the key to understanding - Patience!
]]> http://talkinghandstalkingfeet.com/blog/patience/feed/ http://talkinghandstalkingfeet.com/blog/is-your-heart-in-it/ http://talkinghandstalkingfeet.com/blog/is-your-heart-in-it/#comments Wed, 13 Jan 2010 02:52:46 +0000 P.A. Zeir http://talkinghandstalkingfeet.com/blog/?p=172

My grandmother was an extraordinary human being. She was a feisty, smart, extremely talented and lovely woman who, as she related to me, grew up with all the disadvantages of privilege. Pretty much everything was provided for her from cradle to grave, she said. But in her twenties, in the nineteen twenties, she rebelled.

She had graduated from a private college in New York State and contrary to all expectations of her, decided to move to the city to audition for the Siegfield Follies. She was going to be a Broadway show girl!

So she moved to Manhattan and began a rigorous training regime leading up to a series of auditions for the most illustrious Broadway company of the day. As the story goes, she couldn’t get an audition at first because she was a complete unknown. So she crashed the second in charge producer’s office and insisted on a try out. He asked her to lift her skirt so he could see “the full extent” of her legs, and upon being duly impressed signed her up for the next audition!

She was fabulous! She danced and sang and charmed her way right up to the final audition. But before this final and decisive test, the producer asked to see her again in his office. He said that she had all the makings of a Broadway performer… the looks, the moves, the wit, the voice, the talent…everything, except for the one most important ingredient of all. She asked what on earth that could be. He told her frankly - “You are not hungry enough for this! Those other girls out there are hungry, some of them desperate to get this job. Because of that they have put their whole lives on the line to be here and you can feel the difference. Do you know why? Because their hearts are in it all the way!

For this reason she was turned away.

Alas, the direction of her life was not to be a Broadway showgirl, but to marry a Scottish businessman, settle down and raise three children.

Nevertheless, she did have the humility and humanity to graciously accept the producer’s words, knowing in her heart it was true. But from then on she told this story as an encouragement and council to anyone she felt needed to hear it.

I can still hear her gentle but firm voice asking me on more than a few occasions -

“Is your heart in it?”

]]> http://talkinghandstalkingfeet.com/blog/is-your-heart-in-it/feed/ http://talkinghandstalkingfeet.com/blog/trust/ http://talkinghandstalkingfeet.com/blog/trust/#comments Wed, 06 Jan 2010 03:44:41 +0000 P.A. Zeir http://talkinghandstalkingfeet.com/blog/?p=170

We trust others as we trust ourselves.

One of the greatest gifts we can give to the youngsters in our care is trust. It starts with having a deep trust in oneself, in the deeper parts of oneself. Before you can extend genuine trust to others, especially the children in your care, it’s got to be a living quality in you first, right? So that’s a good thing to reflect on for starters.

Young children, really young children don’t have “trust issues” do they? They are near to the creation cause of a natural and totally inherent deep, deep trust. It seems we are meant to have the feeling that we can trust life, trust ourselves, trust each other. But… so much human experience seems to contradict that, doesn’t it?

So how do we help to engender deep trust in children when the world in which they live bombards them with suspicion, distrust, dishonesty, outright manipulation and deception? We learn self-protection and suspicion and defensive psychologies because of these warps in human behavior…NOT naturally so. It is not a reason to abandon the deep human quality that is our birthright - TRUST.

So how do you help to build trust in children (in spite of all those reasons to the contrary)?

Well, as always, it begins with you, the teacher, the parent, the elder, the mentor, the coach, the fellow human traveler.

Let’s just say you wish to help a child who, for whatever reason, is considered not trustworthy. OK?  On top of their unfortunate track record, they have been stigmatized, punished, marginalized, and labeled as a “trouble-maker”. Some of you may recognize this child. Some of us were this child!

Well, in resistance to the reflexive reactions to punish or isolate or bang your head against the wall in frustration, try something different:

Begin, patiently and persistently to build a new record of trust between you and that individual. Extend trust “on loan” so to speak, for the child to build their own savings account of trust with, one “penny” at a time!  Extend to them the opportunities to build a tool chest of trustworthiness.

What are some of the tools?

Willingness

Keeping your word

Being prompt

Constancy

Reliability

Honesty

Discernment

Resilience

Following through

Respect

Self Reliance

Self Correction

Making Agreements

Confidence

Can Do Spirit

Teamwork

Companionship

Love

Accountability

Humor

Humility

Humanity

Having the profound feeling-knowing that human life is a valuable and meaningful journey within a greater context - even if you spend your whole life finding out what that is! Trust.

]]> http://talkinghandstalkingfeet.com/blog/trust/feed/ http://talkinghandstalkingfeet.com/blog/confidence/ http://talkinghandstalkingfeet.com/blog/confidence/#comments Mon, 09 Nov 2009 01:21:14 +0000 P.A. Zeir http://talkinghandstalkingfeet.com/blog/?p=168

Little Johnny Whitaker was rambling down the alleyway on his way to the Saturday afternoon baseball game with his buddies. Bat, mitt and ball in hand, White Sox cap on head, he was ready for the big game!

“Johnny ‘Blue Eyes’ Whitaker, best hitter in the world!” he called out as he pitched himself the ball ten feet in the air.

He swung, he spun around, kicking up a cloud of dust and… thud! The ball plopped on the ground. He missed.

“Stee-rike! Shouted the umpire. The crowd couldn’t believe their eyes!”

Johnny brushed off the dust, got to his feet and steadied himself for the next pitch.

“Here comes the pitch, the swing…No! He misses! The crowd goes into a frenzy! No one can believe it.”

“Two strikes, no balls, Johnny Blue Eyes up to bat, greatest batter in the world!”

Johnny threw the ball up, wound back and swung like his life depended on it. He spun around, dust rising, the ball just lie there on the ground…He missed!

“The crowd hushed into a stunned silence.”

Johnny got to his feet, brushed off the dust, picked up his baseball and tossed it a couple times in the air, chewing his gum announcing:

“Johnny Blue Eyes Whitaker, world’s greatest pitcher!”

Confidence is a human art. It is the art of resilience and bounce-back. It is  grace and finesse; being able to smile in the face of adversity. It is picking oneself up ‘by the bootstraps’ and summoning the courage to move on undaunted by one’s mistakes.

Confidence is being able to recognize one’s mistakes as a part of the training! It is having the humility to see one’s inadequacies as part of life and living…being able to march on nevertheless!

True genius and brilliance come by merit, not by luck or inheritance. Confidence is discovering one’s natural gifts and talents and then setting one’s feet upon the path of meaningful and purposeful application.

Confidence is trusting in what is true and real and natural. It is knowing oneself well enough to say NO to that which is unnatural, contrived or deceptive.

Confidence is contagious! It rubs off on others. It loves a challenge, not for ego’s sake, not to show off…but for the love of discovering what it can do!

It grows with being willing to try new things.

Instead of talking about something, do it, show it, be it! Then your students, friends and colleagues can also catch the way of it!

Confidence in one area of living is still confidence; and once that way blooms, it can bloom in many other areas of your life. A success, even a small success leads to many more!

It is doing what you love to do and believing in it with every fiber. Love and belief are the keys to confidence. Inspire it in yourself and it will naturally overflow to others.

I once asked a 12 year old - what season of the year he loves best? His confident response was - “Whichever season I’m in!” Yes!

*****

To hear a confidence inspired song go to….track #20 of Do Re Mi Dragon http://talkinghandstalkingfeet.com/music.html

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