An Inspired Approach to Education: A Spiritual Perspective

"Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each." – Plato

‘Inspired’ has the word ‘Spirit’ in it. ‘Inner Spirit’. To me the word spirit means the ‘spirit of life’, the ‘divine spirit’, the ‘river of life’ we can all tap into. This spirit wants to stream through us and express itself through us. The more we become aware of this spirit inside of us, the more we realize that we can be an open door for this stream, the more joy and happiness we will experience. It is the force of creativity, the force of the creator, the force of life that always wants to express itself!

The forces that try to stop this stream from coming through are fears and ego that is afraid of surrendering to this stream, for fear of losing control and for fear of death. But once you are fully connected to this stream, there is no death, because in this stream we are all one with God, our creator.

Where the education comes in is where we help children to see this and connect with this stream, this creativity, and help them to become more of who they are, and who they are meant to be. Each soul that comes here, comes with his/her own unique mission and we as educators can help them discover this mission, and help them to reconnect to it.

As educators we need to be aware that we all have mental boxes and thought patterns that impede the flow of the spirit. We have our own experiences that color our perceptions. They may stand in the way of the creative process of the child we are trying to ‘help’. The more we are willing to look at our own mental boxes, and are willing to transcend them, the more we will be able to allow the stream to express itself through us.

The words freedom and love come to mind, for me, in connection with this education. Love coming from our heart to the heart of our children, allowing them the freedom to ‘Be’, to become who they are.

Homeschooling provides a great platform for that. But there are many other ways to offer children this opportunity to connect to the inner creativity.

I think of all the great people that came before us in history. The greatest ones were great because they were able to express God’s creation through them in some capacity. Was Abraham Lincoln required to read certain books, or did he read because he was inspired to do so, because his inner voice told him to?

Was Benjamin Franklin a great thinker and inventor because he was required to? Or did he allow himself to let the creativity stream through him, inspiring him to bring forth great creations?

Was Maria Montessori driven by requirements when she developed her ideas on education, or was she inspired by her love for the children she wanted to ‘help’?

Was Galileo required to study the stars? Or did he feel inspired to do so because he felt this inner drive, the need to express that part of his creativity, despite the opposition he experienced from all his surroundings?

I could go on and on with examples like this. All examples of expression of inner brilliance, of the spirit that wanted to manifest itself.

All children have the potential to the same greatness, in all manners, shape or form. They don’t all have to become Ben Franklin or Galileo, but they all have the inner mission that needs to come out. And we can help them with that.

Our educational system in the last hundred years has in my opinion not brought forth many of those geniuses I mentioned above. And why would that be? What is it in our schools that have restricted rather than encouraged this creative expression to occur?

I think the cause is the structure, the rules and regulations, the requirements that schools have put in the way of this stream. In school, children are required to comply with the methods, and curriculum, with schedules, and forced to fit into the mental boxes of the teachers and to the expectations of society. The industrial revolution may have played a role, as John Taylor
Gatto and others like him have so brilliantly explained in their books, where he describes the need to produce workers for the assembly lines; robots who just follow orders and comply with the system.

Even though there will always be people who want to feel comfortable in a structured and ordered environment, the challenges we are faced with in our times ask for more.

It wasn’t the presence of so-called ‘education’ that was responsible for the creative expressions that have been produced by great men and women in the past, but rather the absence of it. Many of them had only a few years of public education, or no formal education at all, but mostly taught themselves. They educated themselves because they were intrinsically motivated by the spirit within.

The public school educational model is a result of thinking that we need to put structures and requirements and expectations in place as the manner in which children would then become academically ready to enter the structured industrial world.

But all those structures and mental limitations and mental boxes is the result of fear and desire to control, and as we become more and more aware of the spirit inside of ourselves, and in other people, we become aware that we need to overcome this fear and those mental boxes, as they are blocking the flow…. The universe is in constant motion, the consciousness is always expanding, and the force of life is always trying to come through. No longer do we need to resist this stream, in our educational system, or elsewhere in structures we have created for ourselves.

When we are willing to look at our own fears, and at the need inside ourselves for those structures we have put up to feel safe, we can see that in the ultimate oneness with God there is no fear and no need for any of those structures. In the ultimate oneness with God there is only love. If we can establish this connection within with our own Creator, we will be able to let go more and more of this fear and need for control, and allow the flow of the river of life to flow though us. The more we can allow this inspiration to happen inside of ourselves, the easier it becomes to allow our children the same freedom to connect to their own spirit.

Maria Montessori taught us that we all have an inner teacher that knows exactly what is right and what is wrong. Right and wrong meaning what is real and what is unreal, that which comes from the spirit, and that which does not. This teacher will manifest itself in the form of inspiration. We don’t have to control this inspiration by putting our matrix of fear or control on this process, but the more we are able to step aside, to watch, to surrender, the more of this inspiration will then manifest.

The Thomas Jefferson Education people have shown us how the ‘love of learning’ is the ideal driving force we want to help our children to tap into. This is the same principle of universal love, the same stream of life that wants to be manifested through creative expressions in so many forms.

So let’s surrender our need to force children into our limited ego-based structures and matrices that require them to meet our expectations related to those structures, as opposed to what the Spirit wants to bring forth. But instead, let our education be there to serve what the Spirit wants to bring forth.

For, if we are attached or are upset by the children not fulfilling those requirements we put on them, does that not say something about us? Does that not say more about our need of the security and safety of those structures, rather than our ability to trust the flow, to trust the inner teacher?

The more we can help children to connect with their inner source, in freedom and love, the more we can allow the children to ‘Be’ who they are, to freely express themselves, their uniqueness, their creativity, the more we will be able to see ever more of God’s beauty, God’s unique creations come into manifestation, bringing us ultimate joy and fulfillment.

"The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath." - Mark 2:27

*the views expressed here do not necessarily represent the 'official' views of Inspired Education

The Call To Brilliance

I love this book "The Call to Brilliance" by Resa Steindel Brown. The message completely resonates with the way I have always looked at children, namely: children are born with their own uniqueness, and brilliance, and that it is our task as parents/educators to nurture this and help them to connect to this inner source, and help them to multiply their talents and become MORE.  This inner source is the source of creativity, where we find the connection with our Creator.  

Every child comes with a unique mission to fulfill in this world, in this life, and we as parents/educators must allow the child to find this mission and connect with it by stepping “out of the way” and by creating an environment that is nurturing and inspiring.  If parents/educators don’t do this, the child loses connection with this inner source, this inner place where the creativity comes from, his creativity goes dormant, and the child can become withdrawn and depressed, or becomes a ‘follower’, a 'pleaser', without trust in his/her own creativity.  The child loses his/her sense of self, and the outer ‘survival’ skills to cope take over.  This then becomes the outer personality.

Ms. Steindel Brown has so much wisdom in her understanding of human beings and their spirituality, and she supports her ideas with a lot of great and very insightful quotes, from Maria Montessori, Rudolf Steiner, Carl Rogers, Erich Fromm, just to name a few.  It makes me want to read more of those books she mentioned.

The author has a lot of experience in education, (she was in the public school, home school and coop) and shows that public schools can have a  negative effect on a child, because in many cases, it leaves little room for creativity.  Instead, school demands of the child to become more like a robot, complying with the teachers, the curriculum and the group of peers, trying to fit in and be ‘normal’, doing worksheets and other soulless activities.  “Learning to follow directions [what they are learning in school], is very different from learning to follow inner direction.” Page 139.  There is little room for individualism and or creativity in those learning institutes; the child is often just being prepared and educated to be a ‘good worker’ in society.  She talks about how schools originally started in the industrial revolution to instruct and prepare good factory workers.  That model has not really changed today.

I like the way the author describes how she came to her ideas, using a lot of quotes from books she has read.  It sort of describes her growth and spiritual journey.  Her ideas are helpful for understanding children on a spiritual level, and they are not only helpful to understand children, but understanding our own selves as well.  In order to find real fulfillment in life, we all need to go back and find and connect to our inner brilliance, or passion, our inner mission which is the reason why we came here on earth in the first place.

In her book Ms. Steindel Brown mixes her thoughts and theories with the present time, describing sitting in a Panera restaurant, while she is watching her daughter studying for a math exam of some sort.  It makes the book fun to read, shifting the styles around a bit.  She talks a lot about her three children, and how their brilliance and uniqueness manifested in their lives.  They all became very successful, because they were able to find and connect with their passion in life.  She tells how her sons could not read until age 9 or 10, but they were doing college level courses when they were 12 and 13 years old.  She points out how important it is to find mentors to help educate and develop certain areas of interest, a concept that sounds very familiar to us TJed* people (* 'Thomas Jefferson Education'. I will post more information about this on my next blog entry). 

The author describes her experience with her coop school, G.T. Water, a ‘school’ that she started with a number of parents who worked in the same company and wanted to homeschool their children.  They had the kids come together and spend time together during the day.  They went on walks in the hills, they set up a theatre, they invited a music teacher to teach them music, they also did spend time developing skills like reading, spelling, writing, math etc.  But most of the time they were working on projects that the children came up with, following their own creativity and imagination.  I think this is a wonderful opportunity for children, and if I had the opportunity, I would love for our kids to participate in such a model school. 

This book gives us a wonderful perspective on humanity, a deep understanding of the human soul, but also shows our responsibilities as parents/educators to raise our children into whole, well-rounded individuals, so that they will be able to be leaders for the next generation.   

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If you would like to find out more about Ms. Resa Steindel Brown, and "The Call to Brilliance", there is a lot more in the book that I did not mention here,  you can check out this website http://www.thecalltobrilliance.com.     

Thanksgiving 2008

Wow, I did it, I started a blog! I am not sure what to make of it yet, but there are lots of things I could talk about.

Since Thanksgiving is just behind us, I would like to say a few things about that. It definitely is my favorite holiday. For one thing because we think about the "start" of our country, and the vision the pilgrims and other early settlers had to start a new life, in a new land, to be free. Because they were willing to go through the hardships, the suffering, the pain of leaving everything behind, including their comfortable, and know lifestyle, they plowed the way for us, and I am incredibly thankful for the role they played. What fascinates me the most is their vision, and the fact that they were a relatively small group..... Think about what one, or a few people can do. And there are so many other instances in our history where one man or woman has had a huge impact. And it always starts with a vision.

It says in Proverbs: "Without vision the people perish", and I think about that often. I think that many of those inflencial people in history had a connection with their inner self, their being, and dared to listen to the inner voice of God talking to them. That gave them the courage, the strength, the perserverance they needed to plow through. (I am mainly talking here about people with a positive impact; we can explore the negative ones another time.)

It brings me to the next thing I am so grateful for and that is the opportunity to homeschool our children. It is my gratitude for living in this country where we can (still) enjoy the freedom of teaching our own children at home. (I grew up in Holland where homeschooling is not allowed by law!) It is also my gratitude for actually being the witness of our children's development and coming into being. The fact that we can help them learn to think for themselves, by spending time together with them, by reading books written by great thinkers, by studying great thinkers of the past, and by just giving them the space to learn who they are, to get connected to their own inner being. It is a huge responsibility for us parents to give them the tools and provide the right environment for learning for them, but the rewards are so awesome, to see the process of learning take place right before your eyes, the forming of thoughts, ideas, creativity, the original things they express, and the persons you see them become. I will go deeper into homeschooling in a later post, but it is one of my greatest joys in life.

So, to me, a lot of what Thanksgiving is all about is the celebration of living in such a great country, started and based on such great principles as freedom and liberty for all, inspired by our Creator, the most important power of all. So many blessings have come forth. We have more opportunity to become who we really are here in this country than in any other country in the world! It makes me want to be awake and dilligent in protecting those freedoms, in keeping our eyes open for any encroachments upon them. We all have a responsibility to continue what our pilgrims started, so their efforts were not in vain.