The heart of education

I love education. 

I love all it's facets - home-based, school-based, kindergarten, higher education, lifelong learning, teaching, lecturing, self-education...

But what I've found, as an educator and parent over the past almost 15 years, is that much of the structure, content and instructional techniques are based on scientific or educational research, or on institutional assumptions that quietly carry on from generation to generation.

Now there's nothing wrong, I believe, with basing decisions on rigorous research per se, but I question the dependence our education system has on this form of education.

For one, the findings of research can be misinterpreted, or at least become diluted by the powers who decide what to fund and how to implement change.

Secondly, despite the advances that educational research and theories point to, change within our system is slow - stuck in its own habits and assumptions much like we, as individuals, can be stuck in our habits and unable to move forward into freedom.

And thirdly, research is not the only way of 'knowing' upon which decisions can be based. Think about Edward de Bono and his thinking caps, the ideas about the multiple intelligences we have and how we, as individuals, make decisions based on our mental, spiritual, emotional and physical needs. We can feel a decision too, rather than think it.

And so what can we do? How can we move education forward into its own freedom? How can we free it from it's limiting assumptions?

It must come from each individual's heart.

What we can do must come from our hearts as well as our heads. It must be grounded - from the bottom up, as well as the top down. It must come from parents and classroom teachers and helpers - from those working directly with our precious new souls.

I propose a grass-roots movement - a heartswell that ripples out from each individual. For the power of change is within each of us - the shift toward our future resides within.

When we each make the commitment to be our best selves - to look within and embrace our vulnerability, to shift our personal perspectives into the future and to expand our comfort zones, then education within the institutions we are a part of will benefit and shift too.

It's up to us to embrace that inner work - alone and with others. 

Let these questions be your guide and perhaps a conversation starter with others.

Making a difference within means making a difference on the outside too.

1. How soon can you imagine stepping outside of your comfort zone in your life? What would you need to do to take that first step?

 2. Where are you feeling most vulnerable at the moment? Sit with yourself quietly and really feel those emotions - how can you now move forward into your future?

3. Where in your life can you step up and be a more open parent/teacher/educator/coach?

Let's shift that edge together.

Xx

Transformational Learning

"The more radical the person is, the more fully he or she enters into reality so that, knowing it better, he or she can transform it" - Paolo Freire

As a teacher there was a paradigm that always piqued my interest and triggered my passions - it is transformative learning. For me this means that moment/class/activity when a learner has an 'aha moment' - where something has shifted inside and a new perspective is reached. This was what drove me as an educator and what drives me now as a coach and parent.

This is what we're all looking for...

Educational research around transformative learning has been building for some time, but I also see parallels with wellness and personal transformation which make it relevant to every one of us who is seeking to transform their lives into their ideal lives and in turn transform the world.

I'm calling it Transformational Learning...

And it goes hand in hand with transformational living and leadership.

To give you an idea of the relevant educational research, a transformative education including listening, dialogue, action and reflection (rather than a 'stand-and-deliver' style of education). Learners are fully engaged in what they're learning - they're turned on, fired up, in the moment and creatively involved.

"Transformative (learning) prepares people for change" (from here)

As a coach, parent and educator I find myself often thinking don't we all want this?

Don't we all want to be engaged in our lives?

To be transformed into our ideal selves?

To be creative, reflective and living in the moment?

Is there, perhaps, a new shift we can make to learn and live transformationally?

Why feeling heartbroken is so good

It's a paradox, this life.

It's a bundle of contradictions. It's ebb and flow. Give and take. It's cyclical. Not absolute. Subjective and changeable.

What feels good can actually be bad for us. And what feels bad can actually be amazingly good for us.

It's our perceptions, our attitudes, our thoughts, in which we must turn to look deeper.

This is how it was with me this week....

Sadly I had my final coaching session with dear Tara Bliss. This amazing woman has helped to crack me open with her wisdom and intuition. These days I'm living with more and more vulnerability, taking more risks, feeling a raw edginess that's refreshing. In short, I'm playing safe a lot less and living a lot more since working with Tara.

And in the process of this last session, perhaps the most amazing of all, I admitted to myself that my heart is broken. Not by a person or a relationship, but by my love of teaching itself.

Teaching and education call to me and tug at my heart daily, and yet I've trained myself to push it aside, to cover the pain, knowing that I've evolved beyond the teacher that I was - but not knowing what or where to go next. It's been 5 years since I've taught within an institution with any gusto and yet my passion for education is no less diminished.

It's bringing me to tears simply writing this. I MISS teaching in such a visceral, whole-bodied way - I miss the curriculum design, the big discussions, the 'aha' moments with students (so addictive!) and being part of an awesome group of people making a difference in the world.

Without this in my life I've been struggling to live with even a moderate amount of joy.

And the real paradox here?

It was me who ran away. I left the relationship. I could feel my heart starting to be torn as I was heading in one direction and my teaching job was going somewhere else. And so I left, hoping for something better to come up, unwilling to face the pain.

But nothing did come up - to be honest I didn't dream big enough - and now that tear has travelled right through. The break is completed and I'm cracked wide open.

But here's the tricky thing - the gem that Tara helped me uncover...

The pain is raw but being heartbroken is a good thing.

All that joy and motivation for teaching is released again, flooding back into my life. No longer trying to hold it together, I can let it go into new projects and new educationally-focussed dreams. By re-framing my heartbreak into an expanded, raw, open heart I get to live, ironically, with the whole of my heart. And from a wholehearted approach I can only be a better teacher and have more to give to education.

Are you a heartbroken Mama?
Are you carrying around the pain of a love lost?

Can you reframe it? Can you feel that being cracked open is good?

Please, leave a comment below and let us all feel that rawness, 'cause we all got it Mama.

Be the Boss

Its been a tough week here in camp homeschool. We've returned from our week away feeling relaxed, and I must admit that I expected us to get back motivated and pleased to be home. And this may have been the case for all of us, but its felt like hard work. Perhaps its the retrograde Mercury that's been affecting us this week, tampering with our technology and upsetting our learning rituals. Perhaps we were really just tired and needed a week to 'get back into the swing of things'.

Either way, there have been a lot of tears, from both small girls.

And as the homeschooling Mum who has taken responsibility for their education as well as their general health and wellbeing (I separate these three terms for the sake of understanding, but I really believe their one and the same - we are a whole are we not?), I have been feeling several emotions that have pushed me to my limits - anger, disappointment, sadness, guilt and fear - the big 5 really.

At times I've been able to look these squarely in the eye and breathe deeply and let them go. At other times this week, as they've come back again, I've been less than admirable and have yelled and judged. Not my finest qualities, but ones we all have nonetheless.

Having said all this, the biggest challenge this week has been an amazing learning opportunity for both Rosie and I. She has been suffering from her perception that other people create the happiness in her life - and that its other people's problem if she's not happy/motivated/inspired. And as a parent who has struggled with this herself a lot, but also come a long way with it, personal responsibility that is, this has challenged my sense of self and lead me to look deep within again.

So this week has also been a week of soul-searching - how can I help Rosie? Should I be disciplining her? Why is this happening now? Again? Really? I thought we dealt with this the other day?

And as this challenge repeatedly came up, my understanding of both Rosie and I grew. This is her greatest learning opportunity at the moment. She needs to feel her boundaries here. She needs to gain control over herself and her thoughts and actions so that she can determine her learning needs and move forward.

And so I have been surprised to find that we have been working on the most important learning of all - learning to be responsible for our own thoughts, words and actions. For authentic change in the world really only comes about by each of us taking personal responsibility for what we do, what we choose, what we think.

And so we have been talking to Rosie (and really ourselves) about the importance of being our own boss - being the boss of our thoughts, being the boss of our words and being the boss of our actions. For it is through these that we create our experiences. It is through these that we perceive our environment and decide whether we want to see it positively and with optimism, or negatively and with pessimism.

It is our hope as parents that this challenge is something Rosie remembers for the rest of her life, that it stands her in good stead and enables her to be a force for good in this world. And its our hope that we keep working on ourselves as well - delving deeper, becoming more authentic in our own ability to be personally responsible and ultimately be living role models for our children and others.

Wishing you a lovely day. xx

Allowing Advantages

Our homeschool this week has relocated to the coast near Bairnsdale. Here we have 6 days to learn from and with grandparents and a large property on which to run around, fly kites and ride bikes. And of course we're not far from the Gippsland Lakes and 90 mile beach - a treat for those of us who live inland.

Our decision to homeschool this year was certainly not made lightly and we value the need for solid literacy and numeracy instruction, but we also recognise the advantages that homeschooling allows - more camps, more excursions, more experiential learning. That's what we love and live for as parents.

Thus, it would be remiss of us to not take advantage of the freedom that homeschooling offers. We've set our lives up to be flexible with our time as much as possible, and learning while we travel is a big part of the appeal.

This week is our 'mid-term camp' to the beach - to enjoy the ending of Summer, to learn about other parts of our world , to really take experiential learning to its fullest definition.

Today we spent some time at the beach in Paynesville after some morning reading at the house. I made our 'word of the week' out of shells on the sand (our word IS shells) - to infuse some impromptu creativity into our learning and to help it stick in Rosie's mind. 

We then took the free ferry to Raymond Island, walked the 1.2 km Koala Trail and sighted 7 sleeping beauties up in the Coastal Manna Gums around the homes. I highly recommend this to everyone.

A lovely day of beachschooling had by all. Xx