"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
