IF WE TRUSTED OUR CHILDREN
“The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image. If in loving them we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then we do not love them: we only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them.” Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island
What is trust? Where does it begin? Why don’t we trust? Why do we feel so isolated?
Could it be conditioned into us? Does our culture teach us that we are isolated individuals who are separate from each other and nature? Yet, is this true? Does this teaching then govern our actions? And thereby, we mirror this back and forth to each other?
What would happen if we trusted our children and began to see what happened to culture?
What would happen if we let children play, explore, and follow their innate love for learning and meet them with presence and a space to voice their questions and be listened to with an open consciousness?
What would happen if we were engaged with them and were open to exploring their interests? Would their interests be isolated or connected to everything else in the Universe? As John Muir said, “When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.”
What would happen if we were open to their uniqueness and their gifts, strengths, and challenges?
What would happen if the classroom was a vibrant community, a place where students learned each day how to be engaged in dialogue in order to understand other perspectives unlike their own and how to find healthy solutions?
What would it mean if we incorporated healthy boundaries and a consistent structure?
Would these boundaries help students feel safe?
Would these boundaries be flexible based on each student and the group?
Could we have natural consequences take shape based on the needs of each individual and group rather than punishment based directly on actions?
What would happen if the child’s voice was respected and heard?
Do we need competition to be motivated? Do we need grades to be motivated? If you think yes, why would this be the case? Is not learning motivating enough?
Do we need to be controlled regarding schooling? In other words, do we need to have a teacher of authority tell us what to learn? When we were young children, we were curious and full of wonder. Did we not just need someone to be open to our questions and wonders? Isn’t this when learning was joyful and playful? Why can’t education be like this?
Don’t all children have a playfulness, a sense of wonder, a joy to explore, and a deep passion for learning?
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Doesn’t every child have this passion and tenacity to discover? Think about a child learning their native language. It is not because they are forced or asked to; their internal curiosity and wonder drive them. Think about all the questions a child asks and thinks about.
My son Noah’s first word was a question. “Moon?” as he pointed to the glowing white sphere above. From the time he could speak, he would ask questions. Noah was and is always curious. This is not something that was taught to him. He was always given the space to explore and express himself. But this curiosity, inherently in him, I have seen inherent in all children. Because this wonder was embraced and allowed to be fostered at home, he not only loves learning, but he has a stillness, a depth of wonder and curiosity, and confidence that is hard to find in 19-year-olds.
Children engage with the world through play. Yet, this is rarely expressed in school. Play helps children feel and understand their world and use their extraordinary imaginations. It also helps them feel their sense of place and connection with the world. As Rachel Carson spoke of, they have a deep sense of wonder.
I loved observing my son since the day he was born. I loved watching his personality emerge, and deeper still, a deep wonder about the world that he wanted to understand. Noah would constantly be actively playing out ideas, whether inside or outside. From playing house, warriors, wizards, or truckers, he would try to explore his interests and visions.
I remember one day when Noah and I went on a walk. I had been telling him a story based on a book I had read to my class called The Wizard of Earthsea. He must have been six at the time. The snow was falling lightly as we took a walk.
He said, “Daddy, who do you want to be? I am Ermine.”
“I am Sparrowhawk,” I said. “Wait, hold on.” We had just stepped outside, so I returned to our apartment and grabbed my walking stick. “I needed my staff, Ermine.”
Noah smiled. “Sparrowhawk, Azule the Evil Sorcerer, has frozen the world. She came from another planet. She came out of one of the frozen puddles. She is trying to freeze our planet to make it like hers. Her whole family was taken away from her as a young girl, and she wanted to destroy everything good because of her hurt. And now she is here to do the same.”
“Well, if we fight her with hatred, we will only continue the hurt. How can we defeat her Ermine?”
“We can only defeat her through love, Sparrowhawk.”
I smiled, for I didn’t expect him to say that. But we had been discussing these themes at home, and now we were playing them out through his imagination. For Noah, the world became that vision; through play, he could test his ideas. For him, the world is magical. Like most children, Noah was and continues to be in a state of discovery through questions and a love to explore his interests and the world around him. He has seen that learning always happens if he is open to it. Learning doesn’t stop all of a sudden if we are open. This is innate to all of us. This sense of wonder can continue throughout our lives.
To bring out the best in a child, they need to be seen and heard, be able to explore and question, and know that there is a safe structure and consistency of expectations so they know they are held. Noah and I would often talk through something when he had done something that wasn’t thoughtful. It wasn’t to scold him but to understand the whole situation and the possibilities he could do differently next time to foster health and goodness in his relationships. This type of scaffolding allows a child to see the complexities of relationships and what it means to be present and thoughtful, as well as how to adapt and see the diversity of life within each given situation. A child also learns about their voice and how to not only listen but also speak up assertively when an injustice is done to the child or someone else. The role of the parent or teacher is to be in direct relationship with the child so that they can help bring forth the fullest potential of each individual.
Coercion and authority only destroy the individual’s growth.
The individual is an undivided whole, indivisible. If we let the fullest potential rise and emanate, the world would be transformed. The way we currently educate and have been educating is forming a society that spawns fear, drama, and fragmentation, mirroring a dualistic world of power and decadence against a backdrop of oppression and poverty. This type of society spirals into a whirlpool of disease, spreading its toxic hands into environmental degradation and war.
However, if we transform how we educate to one of trust, wonder, curiosity, and interdependency with each other and nature, our community will become one of love, health, interconnectedness, and Wholeness. Wholeness for each person will rise in their flowering, as they will know, feel, and see that they are undivided and free.
This is and was known intuitively by some for millennia. In the twelfth century, from the Book of The Twenty-four Philosophers, it was said that “God is an intelligible sphere, whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere.” This is very similar to the Hindu myth of Indra. “Far away in the heavenly abode of the great god Indra, there is a wonderful net which has been hung by some cunning artificer in such a manner that it stretches out infinitely in all directions. In accordance with the extravagant tastes of deities, the artificer has hung a single glittering jewel in each “eye” of the net, and since the net itself is infinite in dimension, the jewels are infinite in number. There hang the jewels, glittering “like” stars in the first magnitude, a wonderful sight to behold. Suppose we now arbitrarily select one of these jewels for inspection and look closely at it. In that case, we will discover that in its polished surface there are reflected all the other jewels in the net, infinite in number. Not only that, but each of the jewels reflected in this one jewel is also reflecting all the other jewels, so that there is an infinite reflecting process occurring.”
This is no different than ourselves, for we are the pearls and the net endlessly partaking in the infinite wonder with everything else. When we come home to our fullest expression, we also illustrate the ultimate beauty of the universal expression and what we should be. This is possible only by educating in a way that enhances and lets the individual and community shine for both enhance each other. Instead of being at war with nature and each other, we would live in peace and fellowship, reengaging with the mythical Eden that nature is.
What do you think? Is this possible?
