Of Will and Wings

Part Two on the discussion of the development of the individual will

Leo Tolstoy, John Holt, Maria Montessori, John Dewey, and Rudolf Steiner are among the world’s great liberators of the will of the child. Each purported that given an appropriate and stimulating environment, an interior guide connects the child with the activities that best support the development of his unique potentials.

Montessori designed charming “Lilliput” environments for children for just such a purpose. Providing miniature furniture and tools for practical life activities, the Children’s Houses offer charming environments with beautifully finished wooden sensorial materials arranged on shelves. The teacher’s primary role is as a connector, demonstrating the thoughtful use of the material that is of immediate interest to a child.

Montessori’s close observation of the children when their hands were engaged in such work revealed that this self-initiated labor engaged the will of the individual and developed powers of concentration.

One day Montessori observed a little girl of three years old, as she carefully removed and replaced one by one a set of graduated knobbed cylinders in the corresponding sockets. Amazed at the singular absorption of the small child, Montessori decided to test the intensity of this concentration. She instructed the teacher to invite the children to promenade around her singing aloud. But the little one, remained oblivious as she repeated her self-appointed challenge.

E.M. Standing  (Maria Montessori: Her Life and Work) writes eloquently of this event:

“Then Montessori picked up the arm chair on which the child was sitting with her in it and placed it on a table. The child who had clung on to the precious cylinders during this interruption at once continued her task as if nothing had happened. With her scientific habit of measuring phenomena Montessori counted the number of times the child repeated the exercise; it was forty-two. Then quite suddenly she stopped ‘as though coming out of a dream.’ She smiled as if she was very happy; her eyes shone and she looked round about her. And strangely enough after all that long concentration she appeared to be rested rather than fatigued.”

The child could be seen as following a physiological, biological and spiritual imperative derived from the heart and soul. Few are aware that the very DNA of that individual holds the keys to the unlocking of unique and soul-satisfying potential.

A society that for generations has itself been force fed the social imperatives of institutions finds it difficult, if not unacceptable, to trust imperatives that arise from an unseen Source. And truly, the vast majority submissively falls in step with the societal drum and their parents beam with pride in their socially sanctioned accomplishments.

Yet, who is there to count the cost of over-speaking the voice of the interior will? The other night over dinner, a friend shared about a companion in his youth who was an outstanding saxophone player—one whose talent and love of the instrument rivaled the stars of the day. But his father, who was a prominent lawyer, insisted his son go to law school. And indeed his son became a respected lawyer, who today at seventy years old, declares he has disliked every day of his profession.

When I speak of ducks and swans it is to contrast the hollow rewards of socially and academically imposed expertise, with the heights of discovery and passionate self-expression in one’s chosen vocation/avocation.

Jesus, a great teacher is quoted as saying, “Seek you first the kingdom of heaven and all these things shall be added unto you.”

This is another way of saying young swans can be taught and related to as swans, and still achieve all the competencies lauded by ducks—the difference being that adult swans swim with extraordinary elegance; and in flight far outdistance their short-winged cousins.

OF DUCKS AND UGLY DUCKLINGS

Q.  Why do you differentiate between the training and the education of human will?

This is part one of a two-part discussion of the training and education of the will.

In the tale of the Ugly Duckling, the mother is concerned about the largest egg in her nest. All the other ducklings have already hatched and are developing according to schedule. Anxiously, she broods, until finally, an ungainly brown-feathered creature hatches – one that, compared the rest of the brood, can only be thought of as ugly.

To her relief when she takes her ducklings for their first swim, her youngest hatchling, while clumsy on land, distinguishes himself as a competent and graceful swimmer, far surpassing the abilities of his older nest mates.

However, the ugly duckling’s subsequent enculturation into “duckness” demotes his status to that of ugly and clumsy once again. By his very nature, he is ill-equipped for bowing to superiors, waddling on land and conforming to barnyard etiquette.

Sadly, the ugly duckling absorbs the attitudes and labels of the surrounding duck society, believing in his inferiority among his peers.

The cygnet endures a series of humiliations until as a young adult he sees his stunning reflection in the water, and recognizes himself to be a swan. When, at last, he meets others of his kind, he sees that they too glide elegantly through the water. And when he takes flight with fellow swans he experiences the ecstasy of flight to greater heights than ducks are capable. Beyond the ken of the duck society, he soars over and beyond the far away mountains.

How does this story relate to humans? One way is to view every human as ultimately “an ugly duckling”. However, whatever the historical precedent and reason, the society at large has come to be governed by duckness.

A powerful tenet of the society of duckness is the training of the individual will, to be forcefully carried out if necessary. According to the tenets of duckness, the primary role of parents and institutional authority figures is the training and even subduing of the individual will to promote compliance with the societal will. Thus all wild tendencies atrophy, and the child learns obedience to authorities that impose habits for success in academic minutia first, and the societal status quo, secondly.

The priorities of duckness are so entrenched, so touted as the only route to success, that most parents fear the slightest deviation. And the system has detentions, fines and drugs to firmly entrain ugly ducklings that indulge in unscheduled swims and flights.

Yet, there are some who have glimpsed their elegant reflection and dream of systems for the development of the heart, will and mind that have little in common with the duck society’s institutional confinement.

In this future system, cygnets will know themselves to be swans. These awakened guides of the next generation of young swans know it is neither desirable nor necessary to control and subdue the wills of beings destined to soar beyond the limitations of duckness.

When we learn to guide swans as swans, self-discipline furthers the path to self-mastery. Rather than forcing the entrained submission of millions, we seek to encourage the activated individual will. Rather than requiring obedience, we facilitate an engaged sense of purpose. As the strictures of enculturation fade away, a society flourishes in a culture of activated and unlimited potential.

OF GARDENS AND GARDENERS

Planting and Communion

In the third week of March, according to our yearly ritual, the teachers at The Living Ethics School brought wheelbarrows of soil, bags of worm castings and bean and squash seeds to the children’s play yard. The teachers readied stacks of planting pots, trowels and seed packages, and lined up trays to house the pots close by. The children gathered around eager to plant the first seeds for the spring garden.

As the adults explained about the earthworm casting nutrients for the baby plants, the children helped stir it into the soil. Then each filled a pot with the prepared soil to welcome the seed.

Our rule of gardener’s thumb is that the sensitive gardener establishes a relationship of tender appreciation and reverence for the nature and the gifts of each seed he plants.

Aware that energy exchanges connect all living beings, the adults modeled tenderly holding and speaking to each seed. Knowing the power of gratitude, the planters thanked each seed for the fruit it would produce before placing it in the little hole in the pot. Knowing the value of a sense of wonder to enrich life, the adult planters expressed their amazement that from each tiny seed would come nourishing food and many more seeds.

Cultivating the Soil

Gardeners know the foundational importance of feeding the soil. While the seeds sprout in the greenhouse, the gardener ascertains that the garden soil is rich in macronutrients and micronutrients –compost, potash, minerals, etc. to feed the micro-organisms that will help feed the tender seedlings. Biodynamic and organic gardeners appreciate the differences between living soil and lab-concocted soils filled with vermiculite and requiring chemical fertilizers. A handful of living soil in one hand and lifeless soil in the other tells all.

Similarly, gardeners of human seedlings know the foundational importance of optimal nutrition for children. Fresh produce grown in nutrient-rich living soil feeds them best, while processed food products laden with coloring, nitrates, 4-5 syllable chemicals and/or sugar feed them least. A year in the life of each child through flu, cold, and allergy seasons reveals much.

 Planting Seedlings

By mid April the adult and child planters marveled at the earthworms in the garden while digging planting holes. Again tender care, expressions of appreciation and a sense of wonder blessed the planting of each seedling.

Experienced gardeners note that the baby plants respond exuberantly to leaving the hothouse pots to be placed in the garden. Quickly, the seedlings rooted in the garden out-distance same-age counterparts remaining in the greenhouse.

Because of temperature sensitivities different members of the Plant Kingdom sprout earlier or later in spring. Radishes, peas and potatoes require earlier planting than beans, squash, tomatoes and corn.

Experienced gardeners of child gardens know the same is true for the human seedlings. For example, distinct individual proclivities determine readiness for academics. One child may learn to read at 4, and another at 8. By the time they are 12, given that each loves to read, their intelligence cultivated in a biodynamic, child-responsive environment, they are likely to both be reading at the same level with ease.

Rainclouds of Potential

Gardeners observe that garden plants respond differently to water from rainstorms than hose water. While water from hoses promotes measurable growth, dynamically charged rainwater induces profuse growth.

Similarly, rainclouds of ideas charged with attractive potentials water child gardens with novelty, meaning and creativity for a profusion of growth.

The future date approaches when schooling hot houses are only historical accounts of a failed experiment; and the proliferation of two-dimensional tests is only a relic of early 21^st century ignorance.

When the world’s children are thriving in organic child gardens; when generations take root in curricular soil that feeds the soul, watered by rainclouds of adult creativity, insight, and responsiveness—then will rainbow hues of bright-eyed enthusiasm, joy, and passionate, self-driven learning bless human seedlings. At last, the gardeners of human potentials will cultivate and celebrate bountiful harvests of multi-dimensional genius.

OF MOLECULES AND MEN

Q: Why do you favor replacing an emphasis on boundaries with more inclusive terminology for conflict-resolution. Clear boundaries are important to most people.

Recent revelations in science challenge the scientific dogma that many of us have heard all our lives. For example one truism has been that survival of the fittest is the main driver of a strong evolving species. In the survival of the fittest scenario, a singular species expands its borders at the expense of another. According to this view when humans behave this way we are following a biological imperative established in nature for billions of years.

This dominant view permeates our lives, even to the point of emphasizing personal boundaries when faced with conflict.

Likewise we have been told that the DNA we are born with remains unchanged for life. This view that change must be imposed from an external source, such as a system, parent or teacher, has profoundly affected our relationships with one another - especially children.

Yet modern research has shown that DNA intelligently reorganizes in response to challenges facing the organism.  And this reorganization consistently favors inclusiveness and wholeness for lasting and far-reaching solutions.

In Earth Dance: Living Systems in Evolution Elisabet Sahtouris brings to light a new and more complete view of living relationships. Yes, competition and survival of the fittest has played an important role in the evolvement of life, including the earliest bacteria. But in time, these life forms competing for resources have invariably created a life-threatening environment for themselves.

The first protein molecules multiplied in the early chemical soup that was the young earth. Eventually, they joined in partnerships to facilitate enzymatic activity.  Grouping together in the form of a cell generated a mutual support system for the molecules and the cell that housed them.

At one point the competition for nitrogen of the monera (one-celled organisms) that formed the organic soup in Gaia’s waters caused a crisis. Faced with possible extinction, Life instead reorganized the DNA to accommodate a new solution from a new resource - solar energy. 

A couple of billion years later still another crises arose. The gas excreted by Gaia’s bacteria filled the atmosphere. Life was again in danger of extinction from the poisonous gas, oxygen, and the accompanying stronger sunlight!

But again the DNA of these organisms responded with inventive solutions. Some learned to produce enzymes to render oxygen nonpoisonous to themselves. Others learned to make ultraviolet sunscreens. Still others learned to live together in colonies housed by an protective skin of dead cells.

So, what does this have to do with human relationships and in particular adult/child relationships?

A competitive worldview, emphasizing exclusive rights and boundaries between human beings, has triggered an epidemic of self-interest at the expense of the whole. We see this all the way from huge corporations that use up both Earth resources and human beings by desecrating and enslaving life; to human relationships ruled by self-interest and competition.

Can it be that this crisis facing the latest dominant species on Planet Earth, offers yet another momentous challenge?

Based on historical precedent on our planet, to the extent that we learn to re-pattern our relationships with one another and children to facilitate unity and wholeness we can affect positive changes down to the level of our DNA.

Indeed, avant-garde science ascertains that we work, play and relate in a unified field. We will know the forerunners of this latest expansion into unity and wholeness by its by-products – inclusive language and mutually supportive behaviors. To the extent we learn the language of encouragement and inspiration, and engagement through example and invitation, we help secure an Atmosphere of Love and Understanding in a momentous planetary grouping – the Human Family.

A SENSE OF WONDER

 Q. To provide lasting value for the child, which deserves first and foremost emphasis: rules, skills & formulas; or self-expression that flows from the very soul of the child?

In the book Quantum Creativity, the philosopher/physicist Amit Goswami relates the following story:

Two boys in France were given the task of taking a short trip and then coming back and reporting on it. When they came back, the first boy was asked, “So, what did you see?” The boy shrugged his shoulders. “Nothing much.” … But the second boy, in answer to the same question, said with luminous eyes, “I have seen so much.” Then he proceeded to describe it all in glowing detail. … The second boy grew up to be renowned novelist, Victor Hugo.

By way of contrast, I recently listened to a concerned mother speaking to her child’s tutor about long e word spellings. The concern over, and discussion of, this small detail of spelling continued for 20 minutes. Meanwhile her child escaped to play on nearby swings.

Does it seem heretical to care far more that children want to say something, i.e., that they desire to write their own stories on paper, regardless of misspellings? Written articulation is a return, at a higher level, to the toddler stage of learning to speak. The little one self-refines his speech and self-develops an amazing complexity of speech patterns because he is immersed in oral communication. Also, importantly, it is because he wants to want to communicate with those around him. Similarly, the child gradually learns to see and self-correct misspellings organically through immersion in compelling literature, and a triggered desire for self-expression. After writing, children are amenable to a degree of editing by an appreciative mentor, because the spelling is in the context of their creativity, and they like for their spelling to be correct.

Like windows closed to the soul, the emphasis on correct spelling first and foremost deflects the breezes of self-expression. The greater danger is for closed doors and windows to continue to deflect the urge to written articulation of one’s discoveries, ponderings and stories throughout life.

Fearfully, modern society confines its offspring to a speeding train of minutia for 12+ years of schooling. Compelling panoramas pass by unnoticed, in the belief that this is the track to the destination—successful adulthood. But is it?

In the 1950’s Donald Mckinnon conducted a study of the traits of 40 of the most distinguished architects in the United States. The two control groups included (1) a group of architects chosen randomly from a directory, and (2) architects who had worked with the 40 most creative architects above.

In a series of multidimensional tests, the 40 architects, who were the most sought after for their brilliant designs, scored significantly higher in two traits: sensitivity to feelings and a strong sense of aesthetics.*

How did schooling come to mean forcing the child’s brain to fixate on rule-driven bits of data, rather than awakening a sense of wonder at the world we live in? Far from being drones to perform programmed tasks, human beings are multidimensional beings, with the potential become eager explorers and purposeful creators. The task of the teachers of such beings is to stimulate a sense of adventure, anticipation and eagerness to learn more about the world. A child must FEEL something if his learning is to be meaningful and lasting.

Modern psychology now recognizes that feelings and sensory associations anchor meaningful and lasting learning. The place for academics is within the context of bringing the world to the child, i.e. triggered by the textures, colors, scents, sounds, tastes and aliveness of inviting surroundings. In this case, the honing of academic skill is a secondary impulse. The primary source is an awakened quest for increasing knowledge and self-expression as the child, regardless of age, relates to living kingdoms. Equally inspiring are evocative renderings of his ancestral heritage of great quests, discoveries, inventions, and masterpieces.

As the child reaches adulthood, knowledge of academic minutia may be vital for a successful vocation. However, overarching accustomed ordinariness, the skill of passionate self-expression vitalizes a fulfilling, beyond ordinary, avocation.

*D.W. Mckinnon, “The Personality Correlates of Creativity: A Study of American Architects,” in Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Congress of Applied Psychology, Volume 2, edited by G.S. Nielsen, 11-39 (Copenhagen: Munskgaard, 1962).

INTELLIGENCE AS INTERACTION

Q.  How can schools best promote enhanced intelligence growth in children?

We have spoken of the frontal lobes as being the most human part of the brain. The center for planning and design, these are also the seat of creative, innovative and abstract thinking. Additionally, this is the area where our self-reflective and empathic pondering takes place.

Importantly, this seat of high intelligence requires input from the heart and cerebrum. In fact, the more valid, and forthcoming the input, the greater the intelligence. It’s as if the frontal lobes are the president and the heart and cerebrum are the chief advisors. The heart has its finger on the interior pulse of the world, and the cerebrum is the liaison between President Frontal Lobes and the physical world.

The accuracy, the true value of the advice from this president’s chief advisors comes from first hand, ongoing contact with the living, dynamic, ever-changing planet, including its people, plants and animals by means of the body.

At no time is this first hand, ongoing contact with the surrounding, dynamic world more vital than in childhood. This time of growing, stretching intelligence requires hands-on interaction—the scintillating interplay of all the senses.

Receptors that line the sensory and motor cortices of the cerebrum receive input from all over the body, especially the hands.1

Carla Hannaford (Smart Moves: Why Learning Is Not all In Your Head) writes, “With a huge part of the sensory and motor cortices in the brain involved with the hand, the hand shapes our cognitive, emotional, linguistic and psychological development.”2

Let’s imagine we could see the cerebrum as thousands of lights. Like tiny lightning bolts, dendrites form a connective web of shining streams of light. New experiences send new dendrites arching between synapses. The denser this web of connections, the greater the  intelligence source for President Frontal Lobes.

This is the question: How many light bulbs and links are likely to be shining if for 7 hours a day the child is confined to a chair in a rectangular room, holding a pencil, writing on rectangular sheets of paper, or interacting with rectangular computer screens or rectangular text books?

This is the next question: How much are those lights and the connecting web of light streams likely to be firing in the following scenario:

At 8:45 the arriving children are glad it’s spring and eager to play and interact with one another outdoors for the first 20 minutes. As they converse, run and climb, an array of textures, colors, forms, and sounds stimulate their senses. Amidst bird calls and songs, and other children’s voices, a variety of earthy scents assault their nostrils. They may touch the bark of trees and feel the dew-laden prairie grass brush again their ankles. Yellow dandelions beckon amid shades of green and brown. The children exercise their bodies as they walk, run, change directions, climb, and jump.

After circle time at 9:05, the indoor scene is another vibrant hive of activity as the children design independent projects. Some are seated at tables, while others sprawl on the floor surrounded by books and materials. Researchers are flipping through book pages or at computers. While some cut cardboard boxes or pieces of paper for dioramas, others design backdrops. As one concentrates on fancy lettering, another paints an animal, and still another molds a tiny clay person. While one writes on note cards, two friends converse as they co-design a project. Someone heads outside to retrieve sticks for a miniature teepee, while another raids the craft cabinet for beads or feathers.

Amidst the background hum of conversation, eyes are bright, the senses are engaged, and the hands are busy.

At 10:20 in response to rumbling stomachs, the group stops for a snack and an outdoor break before returning to projects.

In Magical Child Joseph Chilton Pearce explains in chapter 3 entitled  “Intelligence as Interaction”, that interaction is a two-way exchange of energy. Through interaction the brain grows new dendrites as well as its ability to interact.

When we see intelligence as a dynamic exchange of energy with the sights, sounds, smells and textures of LIFE, we see childhood learning in a new light.

In which case, instead of “sit still and be quiet,” we are more likely to echo Captain Jean Luc Piccard as we point toward the world and say, “Engage!”
1.Penfield and Jasper, Epilepsy; The Functioning Anatomy of the Human Brain. Boston: little Brown. 1954, P.58.
2.Wilson, Frank R. The Hand; How its Use Shapes the Brain, Language and Human Culture. N.Y: Pantheon Books. 1998, Introduction.

CURRENTS OF EMOTION

 Q. Which is more important to a child’s successful navigation through life: due attention to signals from the individual body/emotions/mind complex; or pushing step by step through a lengthy highway of standardized curricula?

A sensitive teacher, who is allowed the luxury of tuning into the individual emotional and physiological states of children, can tell when the brain is open to learning and when it shuts down. S(he) reads children like a detective reads clues. With, either bright-eyed focus, or a glazed, far away look, the eyes clue-in the astute observer. The observant teacher notes that the child body turns away, the hands seek something to touch or another child, when the lesson fails to trigger high-interest. Children, who are free to do so, communicate very clearly their physical/emotional state.

School systems have a choice: to either invite the teacher to modify his/her curriculum in response to these child signals; or to demand the teachers override these signals in order to force-feed officially designated curricula.

The question is: Which of the above is the most direct route to the citadel of human brilliance?

In the 1600’s the French philosopher and mathematician Descartes proposed the mechanistic view of the universe and human body. Since the inception of institutions called schools, this established view has separated emotions from rationality, i.e. feeling from intelligence. Being mainly concerned with building intellect, the mechanistic view overlooks the pivotal role of emotions in learning. Hence, the suppression of the physical and emotional needs of children in schooling. Hence, the escalating push for gains in academics at the exclusion of the joys of childhood.

The discoveries of a growing number of scientists, including physicists and physiologists, have shaken this view at its foundations.  Candace Pert (Molecules of Emotion) discovered an “information highway” that biochemically unifies the mind/body system. In this communication system, neuropeptides and receptors serve as messengers between the organs and systems of the body. This neural network literally informs the brain of the physical and emotional state of the human being. Pert compares it to music:

“Every moment a massive information exchange is taking place in your body. Imagine each of these messenger systems possessing a specific tone … rising and falling … waxing and waning … , and if we could hear this body music with our ears, the sum of these tones would be the music that we call emotions.”

We either trust, or we don’t, that nature provided young children with this communication system for good reasons. We either respond to, ignore, or suppress the child’s facial, verbal, emotional, physical and physiological clues that we are stressing his system and, thereby, inhibiting his unique nature-designated intelligence.

On the Colorado River my own experience with white-water rafting (beginner level) has since served as an analogy for working with children. Like the river, these emotional beings are sometimes placid, but always exuberance is just around the bend. At the bend, where the river narrows, are bumps and boulders. A life jacket is required and skilled navigation prevents capsizing.

A teacher’s life jacket is intimate knowledge of the emotive currents of the individuals in her care. The skilled navigation is the guardian’s loving repertoire of nuanced glances, facial expressions, verbal communications, curricula offerings and inviting actions. Experienced, free and caring teachers know that skilled navigation through the shoals of boredom and resistance leads to shared exhilaration on the river of learning.

Teachers, who have the freedom to paddle through white-water learning with and for free children, capsize at times. Child laughter erupts when we emerge wet and sputtering. But I’ve noticed the best way to turn the raft upright and climb back on as a unified team is to laugh with them.

The important goal is to keep the molecules of positive emotion, the discrete and vital drops of living waters, flowing toward whole body/emotion/mind brilliance.

OF SIGHT AND INSIGHT

Q. According to science, maximum brain growth occurs during early childhood. So, Isn’t this the time to begin teaching children to read and write?

Perhaps Nicholas’ mother knew, or intuited, a secret. Most parents of her generation dutifully sent their children to rectangular structures outfitted with chalkboards, books, paper and pencil. Meanwhile, Nicholas’s mother allowed him to escape outdoors each morning on their ten acres. While, others his age sat at desks to learn geography, Nicholas surveyed the world from his tree house.  While most glanced at textbook photos of nature, Nicholas became on intimate terms with the insects, animals, trees and plants of his domain. While teachers lectured about the world, Nicholas watched science and nature documentaries.

When Nicholas turned ten, he decided to come to our school. One of the kindest children to ever grace our little society, he patiently stooped to tie shoelaces and lent a hand to struggling tree climbers. There was an innocence about him, and yet a quiet confidence; a fascination with the world, and a voracious hunger to learn more about it.

However, Nicholas could neither read nor write. Normally, the learning journey from phonics to reading classical literature takes five or six years. I began teaching Nicholas to read in September. By May of that same year, he was daily engrossed in none other than the classic, Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain.

The second year Nicholas wrote pages and pages in his journal.

Normally the journey from beginning math to algebra takes about six years. Nicholas progressed with ease through addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and fractions to reach the 5^th grade level in one year.

Was Nicholas a genius? As far a I could tell, no more so than other children are geniuses. He was emotionally ready to learn. He was highly motivated to augment his considerable knowledge of the world with academics. His level of physiological development supported his quest and made learning easy.

Did Nicholas’ mother intuit that when children are ready, when they have been allowed their full childhood, they can accomplish five or six years of learning in one year?

The collective story, passed from generation to generation, asserts that our success as adults is because of childhoods imprisoned in hierarchical systems. Fearfully, the current, seventh generation graduates of these institutions subject our children ever earlier to rote learning and left-brain minutia.

But, according to science, this practice holds hostage natural physiology, including the development of sight. In this first in a series on physiology and learning, let’s focus on the eyes.

Carla Hannaford, Ph.D (Smart Moves – Why Learning Is Not All In Your Head) writes, “In a three dimensional environment, such as outdoors, the eye is in constant motion, gathering sensory information to build intricate image packages necessary for learning. The brain integrates these image packages and other sensory information like touch and proprioception (the sense of how our bodies are positioned) to build a visual perception system. The eyes are equipped with different kinds of visual focus, of which three dimensional focus is vital for learning, yet we emphasize two dimensional focus in learning situations with books, worksheets, computers and video games.”

Have you ever observed a four-year old hunker down to intently follow the path of a roly-poly for several seconds? He’s exercising his foveal focus. Next, if he’s lucky, he’s running through an open field developing his peripheral vision. Sure, he’s having fun, but improving his vision?

In both the U.S. and Singapore the forcing of 3 and 4 yr. olds to sit still and do seatwork (reading and writing) has stunted the vision. In Singapore, this led to 85% having myopia as 5 year olds. Similarly, in the U.S. children tend to become myopic when they start to do school work. (G. Kobata, What Causes Nearsightedness? Science, 1985, vol. 229, pp. 1249-1250.)

Can there be a correlation between free and happy childhoods and excellent vision?

A New York longitudinal study* followed 133 subjects from infancy into adulthood. In the early learning environment three major factors emerged as vital contributors to competency in adulthood:

First, sensory-rich indoor and out door environments;

Secondly, freedom to explore the environment with few restrictions; and

Thirdly, available parents that acted as consultants when the child asked a question.

Nicholas’ mother must have intuited that nature designed full support of the child’s physiology, to fully support adult competency.

* Thomas Alexander and Stella Chess, Genesis and Evolution of Behavioral Disorders From Infancy to Early Adult Life. American Journal of Psychiatry, 141, pp. 1-9.

OF EAGLETS AND CHILDREN

Q. How is a child’s sense of fantasy related to inventiveness? Isn't technological savvy grounded in thorough scientific knowledge and rigorous study?

A. Similar to any other human muscle or capacity, the imagination atrophies if it’s not exercised. For this reason sixteen years of plodding through unimaginative academics fosters memory, analysis and parroting at the expense of the capacity to envision new possibilities.

Suppression of the sense of fantasy is analogous to clipping the wings of pet parakeets. It’s a good way to insure that a tame bird stays in the confines of a familiar dwelling. If the pet does escape through the door, it’s not likely to make it past a nearby tree.

The generative potentials of our children are more akin to freely soaring eagles than caged birds. Within months, eaglets begin to flap their wings. Importantly, the parent eagles encourage their offspring through their own daily flights. Very soon the eaglet’s food will no longer be brought to him. He must soar with strong wings at breathtaking heights to survey vast terrains.

Soon out of toddlerhood, fledgling humans begin exercising their imaginations. Once awakened, this persistent urge can turn anything from a bit of fluff, to a stone, stick or fabric square into the three year old’s pretend play.

Among the important reasons for cultivating the wings of the imagination, is the sense of meaningful connection and contribution to one's society. The heart of Nature impels the first flights of fantasy with joyful abandon. A dynamic community further infuses the sense of fantasy with a sense of purpose--the urge to create new designs and inventions for the betterment of one's people.

The hands that hold the doll or build structures of blocks become instruments of the heart that embraces humanity, taps limitless resources, and invents in harmony with nature. The lessons encoded in fairytales, parables and legends endow the generative genius with ethical precision.

At six, seven, eight and nine years old the imagination is still expanding with growing complexity. The chapter book series, Wolves of the Beyond (Lasky) inspired one group of 7 to 11 year olds to become wolf packs extrapolating new adventures from the books’ plots during recess. For weeks on end the wolf packs built structures on the prairie and pursued one another through Thorn Forest, which forms a green belt perimeter for the prairie. The participants even figured out how to card the school’s knitting yarn to make magnificent wolf tales, which they attached to their belts.

These past weeks, it's been moving to see the children’s total absorption in their co-created dramas. And how wonderful to know that by behaving as nature designed them, the children are exercising an artery of superior intelligence—the imagination!

While intellectual gymnastics in cold institutions produce pedantic plodders, the restored Mother essence incubates the heart/soul complex of human hatchlings. This heart/soul brilliance announces its presence through individual talents and preferences. The child, a receptive conduit for the soul’s nudging, invites academic forays and flights of imagination as complementary aspects of his work/play.

The imagination, synchronously developed with the absorption of new knowledge, expands exponentially. From childhoods satiated this integration of science and creativity, emerge  fulfilling vocation opportunities for graduates.

Far removed from the perching of caged fowl, Nature’s children try their wings for a future of soaring like eagles. But their best learning opportunities come from attentive elders, who likewise extend their own wings and soar skyward.

NATURE THERAPY

Q. What about challenges like ADHD? What about when children transition from the Living Ethics School to a mainstream school, in which they will have to sit still and attend to academic work several hours a day at school and then more at home?

In present day society the champion young resisters of forced confinement for several hours a day generally earn the label ADHD. In the ground-breaking book Last Child in the Woods Richard Louv connected ADHD to the emotional and physical cost of alienation from nature. He coined the term Nature-deficit-disorder (NDD), which is the only label I know of that actually points society toward a healing solution. Whereas the label ADHD provides a socially acceptable gateway to drugging children, so they will docilely comply with the system, Louv’s NDD points toward a bonafide healing therapy: access to the scents, sounds, colors, textures, and endless opportunities for play in wild nature. According to Louv:

The real disorder is less in the child, than it is in the imposed, artificial environment. Viewed from this angle, the society that has disengaged the child from nature is most certainly disordered, if well-meaning. To take nature and natural play away from children may be tantamount to withholding oxygen.

Just as withholding oxygen can result in brain damage, thousands of studies have proven that daily sensory deprivation of a variety of sounds, textures, and scents, such as those found in nature, contributes to the dulling of the senses and intelligence. Similarly, curriculums that are devoid of life deprive children of the joys of childhood and trigger depression and defiance. And of course, oxygenated blood flowing to the brain necessitates due attention to physiology. Confinement must be replaced with children running, playing, climbing a lot, every day.

But there’s more, much more to the story. The research of Dr. Konstantin G. Korotkov http://www.korotkov.eu/ takes us deeper, all the way into the quantum realities of the child-nature alliance. Dr. Korotkov invented the gas discharge visualization (GDV) camera. which captures energy fields emanating from humans and plants. Even more intriguing his camera captures ongoing interchanges between plants and plants, and plants and people. Science and spirituality are now on the same turf, revealing quantum level communication and communion between the plants and trees, as well as the natural environment and people.

But anyone who intuitively plants children in wild nature already senses this truth. At the Living Ethics School, for thirty years, we have observed children climbing trees, running across the prairie, sneaking through Thorn Forest, sitting in tree house headquarters, and creating households, shops, hotels, banks and post offices in the Children’s Village.

Years ago when the trend became less and less recess, we placed outside play right in the middle of the morning for 40 minutes, mid-day for an hour and at 2:30, after a shorter than usual school day. Most days a bright-eyed group floods into classes recharged and ready to learn. Snow days and early spring days are the exception, at which times we are forced to set aside lesson plans and accede to the irresistible beckoning of the outdoor amphitheater.

“What about when our children move back into the system?” Anxious parents ask.

When John Holt was asked what intelligence is, he replied that, “Intelligence is figuring out what to do, when you don’t know what to do.” When therapeutic attention has been given to the cultivation of both joy and real intelligence for the first decade of childhood, most children quickly become A-B honor students after a brief adjustment period, during which they figure out the teach/test and teach-to-the-test system.

The powerful assets, which those who have communed with wild nature (in both inner and outer terrains) bring to institutions, are their innocence, open-friendliness, sense of self-worth, enthusiasm for learning, and activated whole-brain intelligence. In an unnatural environment, some will even retain these natural attributes.

WIRED FOR BLISS

Q. Is the joy of children or the disciplined acquisition of knowledge more important?

The American neuroscientist and pharmacologist, Candace Pert, author of Molecules of Emotion, made a ground-breaking discovery about a secret located in the prefrontal lobes of humans. The prefrontals, the latest-to-evolve brain lobes, are the seat of the profound intelligence that is equal to our greatest challenges. Some examples of the kind of thinking done by this most human part of the brain are self-reflection, the pondering of deep meanings, the envisioning of new possibilities; the flashes of insight that offer a new solution, design or invention; empathy (understanding + compassion) for the plight of another.

So what’s the groundbreaking knowledge? Candace Pert discovered that located in the prefrontal lobes is the largest, densest abundance of neural receptors and transmitters of bliss inducing chemicals, such as endorphins, found anywhere in the body. Could it be that we have been hard-wired to experience spiritual highs when we are doing our best thinking?

So, what might ecstatic flashes of sheer genius look like? Is the trigger the laborious plodding of the rational mind, or is it something else?

Nichola Tesla was genius of rare stature, who had spent his childhood contriving experiments that confounded, amazed and alarmed his elders. As an adult his discoveries were ahead of his time. When Tesla was a young man, scientists were discussing the possibility of an AC motor and the rotational effects associated with alternating currents. Tesla’s musings about the possibility led to a profound experience:

One afternoon … I was enjoying a walk with my friend in the city park and reciting poetry. At that age I knew entire books by heart, word for word. One of these was Goethe’s Faust. The sun was just setting and reminded me of a glorious passage:

The glow retreats, alone is the day of toil;

It yonder hastes, new fields of life exploring;

Ah, that no wing can lift me from the soil

Upon its track to follow, follow soaring!

As I uttered these inspiring words, the idea came like a flash of lightning and in an instant the truth was revealed. I drew with a stick on the sand the diagram shown six years later in my address before the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. The images were wonderfully sharp and clear and had the solidity of metal. “See my motor here; watch me reverse it.”

Pygmalion, on seeing his statue come to life could not have been more deeply moved.

Significantly, Tesla accessed the heart through poetry, even as he engaged the brain in an elusive design project. You may recall that in a past blog, we discussed the ongoing heart/brain dialogue. The heart, the organ of elevated feelings, is also the source of intuitive flashes. The Institute of HeartMath found that people’s heart beats would either achieve coherence or become erratic according to whether a scene that was disturbing or inviting would appear seconds later on a screen.

The heart intuits future events and energetic blueprints that elude the rational mind.

In Testla’s case, when the heart and brain communication were open and flowing, while reciting poetry in a beautiful park, the elevated feelings served as a conduit for an astonishing breakthrough. Nor did the solution come as a laborious sequence of logic, but as an instantaneous single picture and a simple phrase, “See my motor here; watch me reverse it.”

The accounts of the break-throughs of countless geniuses echo Tesla’s experience. Yet another genius, Albert Einstein made the following two statements that point to the cultivation of such brilliance:

Imagination is more important than knowledge.  

And …

The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.

Poetry! Imagination! Inspiration! What have these to do with genius? EVERYTHING!

What have these to do with the education of our children? EVERYTHING!

Apparently nature has hardwired human children to engage in pursuits that activate human brilliance. Children, who are free to do so, spend their time initiating activities that sync with the body/heart/mind flow. Our role as inspirers, i.e. suppliers of evocative stories, compassionate relationships and compelling indoor and outdoor environments, is to step aside for the experiments and expressions of genius.  When we whole-heartedly nurture each child’s will to imagine, explore, experiment, design, create and construct, we can slip in academics in service to the project. Then academics mean something to a child. 

Schooling that has lost sight of the gift, oppresses the spirit of childhood by confining its offspring to a mass monoculture of memorizers and rational thinkers. This force-feeding of the intellect, bypasses the most human part of the brain (the prefrontals); silences the heart/brain communication; and plods forward with the endorphin transmitters and receptors switched off.

When at last we give credence to avant-garde science and the wisdom of the world’s geniuses, we will delight in young faces that reflect the bliss of firing endorphins. Rather than mass-producing rational intellects propped by megabytes of ROM and RAM, we will free innate geniuses with as many unique modes of expression as there are children in the world.

THE INVITING REAL WORLD

Q. You discourage parents from purchasing electronic devices and games for their children. Yet, according to some studies they build in intelligence. Why not a comfortable balance?

A. If you have young children, the day may be approaching or has already come, when your seven or eight year old asks for the latest electronic devices and/or games. If you resist, they are likely to insist that everyone else they know has one already. In desperation, your child may try every wile to wear you down, until you succumb.

The defeated parent, not wanting to be the “only” denying parent, has probably read about the challenges that devices and games bring to families.

“Okay,” the parent says, “but we have to agree on some rules.” “Okay,” says the jubilant child.

One of the most overlooked essentials in relationships with children in homes and learning environments is respect for the individual will. However, when we bring into the child's world something that is addictive in it's hold on the child's attention, another level of consideration arises.

Imagine putting an addictive drug within a child’s daily reach and saying, “Okay, you can have a little of this, on the condition you agree to use only such and such an amount.” Absurd as this analogy is, it is about something we all understand. Far from fostering independent volition, drugs cripple initiative and the creative/constructive will, as well as the will to resist the drug.

Electronics games act noticeably like drugs. Many children need increasing hits. They lose interest in entertainment through their own imagination, creativity and play. When they come off of the drug they are irritable and even belligerent. Some start to live in that cyber world even when away from it, even in a school where children are happily engaged and often in nature.

When denied a hit they often beg, cry, and even become enraged, because they so badly “need” another fix.

I am privileged to know parents who have taken a firm stand that can take weeks of exhausting persistence to “wean” the child from the electronic drug.

Nina persisted until Sasha began to pick up chapter books, instead of engaging in a futile push on his mother. Now, he is a voracious reader, having read multiple book series in their entirety. Currently, he is reading the eighth book of the Harry Potter Series for the second time.

The following e-mail exchange poignantly shares the challenging undertaking and devotion expressed by Alaina’s parents. Alaina is an extraordinarily independent and gifted child. She had been an endless fount of creativity at school until the first semester of this year, when there was a noticeable waning.

Then, suddenly, in recent weeks, her whole disposition switched from morose to happy. Her attitude became kinder and more magnanimous. Eyes shining with inspiration, she began a fantasy story, writing pages and pages for several days in a row. In addition, drawing on her forte, sculpturing paper animals, this fifth grader set up a little shop to demonstrate how to make them. Then she gifted the products of her labors to the eager attendees.

Alaina's parents inquired by e-mail about the next presentation night. The following exchange begins with my reply.

Vicki: Presentation night is scheduled for Thursday, February 26.

I so admire your precious daughter. She is definitely a leader among the other children. However, you should see how kind, respectful, and fair she is with them! Also, I'm enthused about the story she has been writing, with talent, I might add. Never has she alone and without any prompting taken off on a story like this to continue for several days. Whether or not she ends up finishing it, it's wonderful to see! This is exactly the spirit we are after, whether it comes to noticeable fruition in one, ten or twenty years!!

Jen: Awe...I'm so glad to hear this! We've had some similarly wonderful developments here at home as well! Just after Christmas, and FED UP, I took away Alaina's iPad...and game play...indefinitely. I was tired of fighting, the bad attitude when "time was up", the top of my daughter's head as she stared at that thing, and so on. And man, within just a day or two...the creative energies just took off! She was drawing all the time, and crafting all the time, and schematic drawing, and playing piano...you name it, she was doing it. And it's not like she didn't do those things before, but not very much. Like an hour here or there. But this? It was ALL DAY. Her mind just firing as she thought of the next thing she was going to do. So after much discussion and pressure to Lou, we're keeping it up for good. Now and for good she only gets her iPad OR game play for 1 hour on Saturday, and 1 hour on Sunday. And if she "complains" when time is up, she forfeits it for the next time. Because of this, it's simply so far OFF her radar now, she doesn't even think about it, talk about it, OR complain when time is up...at all. This seems to be the magic formula for her and we are thrilled. God help me come Summertime..but after what I've seen this time around, I'm determined!

Vicki: Thank you for sharing! This sort of example fortifies other beleaguered parents struggling against the tide of technology! You know, I have heard other 'testimonials' about the changed, pleasant, happy, creative child that emerges after being unplugged from electronics. This is such an important issue today. Do you mind if in my blog I refer to the info in your email, without saying who the family is?

Jen: Absolutely not! You may say, or not say, who we are. We believe in this so wholeheartedly we'd be proud either way. Alaina is such a good example of this. She is EXCEPTIONALLY "creative & imaginative" (she got "most imaginative back in pre-school). You know this about her. BUT, that said, we could have absolutely been guilty of "snuffing that out of her" if we'd been the kind of parents to let her spend too much time on these games and devices up to now, because their "worlds" really engage her imagination. Problem is, they don't INSPIRE it...AT ALL! It does all the work FOR HER, and shuts down her OWN creativity. Period. And it's a progressive issue...and it's not over until she's a full blown adult. If we ease off, even now, she would ease back in to more and more device time, and again, her creativity would wane. So it has to be CONSTANTLY on our minds. A constant battle. But it's one that I am more dedicated to than ANYTHING else in my life raising my daughter...because I will not live with the guilt of robbing the world of this precious child's creativity! Instead we are going to nurture, nurture, nurture it...until it's all she is and all she does! And RMCLE? God Bless you Vicki and your beautiful school. Alaina would simply NOT be who she is today, regardless of our efforts at home, were it not for her day to day, year to year experiences at the lovely "home away from home" ,,,

Children addicted to technology become easily bored. Without it, they easily become children.

BORN GENIUSES

 

Q: Many of the children at your school spend one and a half hours per week knitting, crocheting or engaged in other handwork. Wouldn’t this time be better spent on academics?

A. The following example is from Magical Child, by Joseph Chilton Pearce, a beloved teacher about the birthing, nurturance and education of children. This is part one of our discussion of this study.

In 1956 Marcelle Geber was sent to Uganda under a United Nations Research Grant to study the infants of Uganda and Kenya. Geber made a momentous discovery. Raised naturally according to what we today would call “attachment parenting”, these were the most precocious, brilliant and advanced infants ever observed anywhere. These babies smiled rapturously and continuously from soon after birth. The sensorimotor learning and general development were phenomenal, indeed miraculous.

These infants were born in the home and generally delivered by the mother herself. The child was never separated from the mother, who massaged, sang to, caressed, and fondled her infant continually. The mother carried her unswaddled infant in a sling, next to her bare breasts continually. She slept with her infant. The infant fed continuously according to its own schedule. These infants were wide awake a surprising amount of the time—alert, happy, watchful, calm. They virtually never cried. The mothers were bonded to them …  and sensed their every need. … At two days of age these infants sat bolt upright, held only by the forearms, with a beautifully straight back and perfect head balance, their finely focused eyes staring intently intelligently at their mothers. And they smiled and smiled.

 Observations by others (Jean Leidloff, Carla Hanaford, Charles Eastman) of tribal life on various continents have confirmed the benefits of the continuity of the afore mentioned natural processes. From a young age these children participate in the dynamic life of the village, including the handwork (jewelry-making, weaving, pottage, cooking, tool-making). In healthy tribes bright and happy children enjoy this natural continuum of interwoven living, working, playing, creating from birth to childhood.

In notable contrast, modern children birthed in hospitals, exhibit increasing numbers of syndromes, with growing numbers diagnosed with learning disabilities. Hospital practices that override nature’s timing and protocols often birth babies in whom the two hemispheres of the brain are not communicating across the corpus callosum.  Yet continuous dialogue between the two hemispheres is a fundamental and essential element of high intelligence.

In 1987 Brain Gym® International developed therapeutic exercises designed to help children think better, and be more fully and joyfully engaged with learning. The founders, Paul and Gail Dennison, discovered that movements that cross the midline help switch on the left-right hemispheric dialogue, which is essential for focus, concentration and memorization.

What does this have to do with handwork such as knitting, weaving or jewelry-making?  It turns out that many life-skills are actually “mini-brain gym”, facilitating the same cross-hemispheric exchange. Our children often sit and knit for half an hour happily engaged in a pleasurable activity that simultaneously stimulates neurological pathways between the hemispheres of the corpus callosum.  We do not have official studies of these children to prove that we are encouraging a beneficial process. We simply enjoy their general state of relaxed, friendly happiness as they work. We marvel at the cross-hemispheric play of intelligence as the happy,  focused 7 to 12 year olds engage in handwork.

It is difficult for modern parents and educators to appreciate knitting as forging pathways for high intelligence. Many are more impressed when a child accomplishes borrowing in a four-digit subtraction equation. Yet, this is generally only the monkey mind mimicking procedures that the child does not yet fully grasp. In societies many generations removed from natural processes, this premature forcing of intellect is frequently mistaken for evidence of real intelligence. (Math for intelligent comprehension includes manipulatives for the hands, imagination, art and happy engagement synced with the brain maturity of the child.)

 Now back to the Ungandans and Kenyans. Marcelle Geber noted that the adults conspicuously lacked the precocious spark of their infants and toddlers. But why? This leads us to the clincher of today’s blog. In an echo of some unknown calamity, perhaps in a superstitious response to it, there was an unquestioned tribal taboo. The four-year-old suddenly and traumatically found himself bereft of his mother’s love. All four-year-olds were taken from their mothers and switched to another woman. Each mother immediately withdrew all acknowledgement and affection from her shocked and grief-stricken child. From this point on, the prodigious brain development ceased, as the number one goal of the depressed child was bonding with the tribe and unquestioning observance of tribal taboos, so as not to risk abandonment again.

This is an extreme example of severing the child from a process designed to promote optimal intelligence and joy in living. Yet, some see echoes of this abrupt severance in modern civilization. At ever-earlier ages, modern society is severing children from maternal tenderness and hands-on work/play, as we thrust them into authoritarian academic settings. Training of the ‘monkey mind’ to memorize formulas for abstractions the child hardly grasps has replaced the ‘play of intelligence’.

According to Buckminster Fuller, “Every child is born a genius, “ The question is, is this merely a nice saying? Or, for the astute reader and observer, is there is a trail of clues in this blog regarding either the preservation of brilliance or its suppression? According to Dr. Lim Kok Wing, the Founding President of Limkokwing University of Creative Technology:

Children start life as geniuses, until schools make them average. http://founder.limkokwing.net/blog/

I quote Dr. Lim Kok Wing’s blog below, because of his exquisite eloquence and deep wisdom:

Every child is born brilliant. If we just figure out how to create an education system that recognizes that as the start point, we won’t have to worry about innovative solutions to some of the world’s most pressing problems.

If we figure this out, we won’t have to worry about war because peace will be the default solution.

If we figure this out, I have every faith that the future of the world will be in great hands.

AUTHORITY AND EMPATHY

Q. You don't emphasize the obedience of children. Yet, how can children possibly learn to get along in the world as adults, if they haven’t learned to obey authority figures as children?

A. Two evenings ago an ex-student and beloved young friend, now about 10 yrs. old, called. She was weeping as I picked up the phone. Her intense dislike and avoidance of homework had resulted a failing grade on her report card. Was my most helpful role to empathize with her woeful dilemma or to authoritatively admonish her to bring up her grade?

Two contrasting examples offer clues as to how we can best support children.

Recently we discussed two heart cells beating in unison and keeping one another alive on slides. Along similar lines, Cleve Backster (Primary Perception), shares remarkable discoveries of the energetic exchanges between plants and other life forms in his lab. On a whim, he decided to connect a dracaena cane plant to the polygraph machine, of which he is the designer. Noting that the machine recorded a somewhat irregular and alive electrical pattern, he decided to test it for a human-like reaction. After only minor reactions when he dipped a leaf in hot coffee and tapped it with a pen, he sat back to contemplate the plant.

Several minutes later, Backster’s musings led to an unvoiced speculation. “What if I get a match and burn the plant’s electroded leaf?”

At this mere thought, he noted that the polygraph pattern moved to the extreme, recording dramatic excitation. The plant was 15 feet away.

 Backster continued his experiments, recording the plants’ sympathetic excitation in response to endangered creatures from other kingdoms, including brine shrimp, yogurt bacteria and chicken eggs. Meanwhile, the plants continued to track Backster’s thoughts and feelings.

Of interest here is the quantum level sympathetic responsiveness between living beings. If this is the natural state of all living entities, in line with heart-to-heart resonance, it bears close consideration—and nowhere more than in our relationships with children.

By way of contrast, Stanley Milgram (Obedience to Authority) designed an experiment carried out at several universities to explore obedience to authority figures. The purpose was to see to what extent adults, schooled in authoritarian institutions, would override an inherent sympathetic impulse, and continue to obey an authority figure while causing someone pain.

For the experiment Milgram hired two actors: The authority figure wearing a white lab coat, and the ‘learner’, to enact reactions to escalating levels of shock treatment for wrong answers to a test.

Over a 4-year period, more than a thousand people came to a psychological lab to participate in this experiment. Each was designated the ‘teacher’, whose job was to administer a ‘test’ to the ‘learner’ and punish him with increasing volts of painful shocks each time he answered wrongly. The following is the scenario:

The ‘teacher’ observes as the ‘learner’ is conducted into a room and seated in a chair, his arms strapped down with an electrode attached to his wrist. In the presence of the ‘teacher’ he is told to learn a list of word pairs for a test.

The authority figure in the white coat guides the ‘teacher’ to an adjoining room to be seated in front of a shock generator. In 15-volt increments, the horizontal line of switches ranges from 15 to 450 volts. Verbal designations range from Slight Shock, to Danger, to Severe Shock.

The authority figure directs the ‘teacher’ to push the switch to deliver intensifying shock punishment each time the ‘learner’ answers incorrectly. The ‘teacher’ experiences growing internal conflict as the ‘learner’ receiving the shock begins to grunt in discomfort, then moan, then cries out and finally screams in agony.

In the first experiment, of the 40 subjects, 14 ‘teachers’ refused at some point to proceed further, while 26 obeyed the orders of the authority to the end, proceeding to punish the victim to the most potent, 450- volt shock of the generator, accompanied by agonized screams.

Can it be that empathy for the plight of another, as in the resonant heart cells and plants, is an inborn trait, which authoritarian discipline tends to suppress in its participants? During the past 47 years, my child teachers have taught me there is a hardening of the spiritual arteries when, in obeisance to authoritarian hierarchies, we judge the suffering of others, including children strapped to academic strictures. Our imposed curricula and scores are equivalent to punishments to children who long to be free.

In the dialogue with my young friend, the heart indicated the highest path – to help her listen to her interior authority – the soul. “Spread a healing salve on her sense of failure induced by the report card score of ‘63’. Share her pain with your own recall of homework miseries. Help her access the interior voice that asserts, ‘I can overcome anything, even by degree, the ability of homework to make me miserable.’ Find the words for her to hang up and fall asleep comforted by the sense of ‘I am loved for who I am’.”

In obedience to the inner authority, she decided that a realistic goal that she could stick to was to raise her score by 5 points each six weeks. That way, by the end of the year her score would be a passing 78.

This blog is dedicated to all the weeping, suffering children who have come to my notice for the past 50 years.