61. Resourcefulness
Not Resources, Resourcefulness!
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!
~PAZ
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