Early and Elementary Education
The earliest education should provide the enrichments which can allow hungry minds to flourish and the development of complex and balanced brain structures. The earliest school years will focus upon emotional attunement and early mental development as discussed previously. These are the spiritual fundamentals which must underlie all methods of transferring important cultural knowledge---teaching the standard reading, writing, and arithmetic. By combining these principles with early learning opportunities which exploit the brain's plasticity, incredible learning can occur---which includes dormant multi-lingual, musical, and artistic talents, and manifests dazzling potentials and creative inclinations which would boggle the present day public mind.
Educators are well aware that the learning of a language, for example, is easier at the earliest stages of learning. Creative opportunities in music and art are also ready for tapping at this early stage. When educational systems can layer the 3 "R's" upon a program of creative expression, the long-term result is an overall stimulation of the learning experience that lasts well into adulthood.
Spiritual understandings can be presently instilled without upsetting any existing doctrines which separate church and state, if the emphasis remains upon biological self-regulation of the dual-self model (body and mind). But one major change will be understanding that experience and emotional feedback are the best teachers, and the purpose of self-development insists upon an open, liberal, and individually designed mindscape. The idea of mind control, sheltered protection, censorship, and the filling of an empty vessel with "the right ideas" is quite limiting. Instead, classrooms will offer safe and structured real world interactions that immediately orient the child to their ability to control their own destiny. No legitimate controversy need arise from practices which facilitate cooperation, connections, empathy, respect, responsibility, and self control.
Universal principles of positive human relationships, devoid of the accouterments of dogmatic belief systems, can compliment the learning process and teach individuals that they can play a major role in creating the successes in their respective lives. How they feel about what they do can serve as the appropriate guiding factor to behavior. Guilt need not be programmed so deeply that it causes emotional problems later on. In truth, it need not be a "program" at all. Mistakes can be viewed as a part of the learning process and not something resulting in eternal punishment.
Curriculums, exercises, cooperative projects, field trips, stories, presentations, "job" experiences, and routines will seek to instill basic self-regulatory information, an empowered sense of unique value potential and willful perspective; an equal, universal, sense of belonging within a welcoming world; awareness of life along purposeful developmental paths, and the evaluating role of feelings. Contrasts will be made continuously between the right track of purpose and the wrong track of deadly habits. Mistakes become laughable growing pains and opportunities.
The greater the level of enjoyment associated with the learning process, the less resistance to the idea of learning. This is bound to have beneficial, long-term effects on an individual's life experience. Confidence is built by doing and much learning is meant to be a process of trial and error. Without a recognition and appreciation of the latter, there can be no lasting progress.
Providing an unwavering cultural expectation of mutual acceptance for all human mistakes as inevitable to the learning process, combined with communal agreement to support each other to make corrections, can build cooperative trust, empathy, and mutual respect, as well as minimize defensive responses which might otherwise become habitual. Making a clear distinction between meanness and kindness and emphasizing the feelings produced from both strategies will minimize the competitive and isolating defensive and offensive actions. Humorously contrasting effective communicative techniques with ineffective ones, both verbal and nonverbal, that contrast feelings of giver and receiver can foster solid expressive skills and awareness of how others' perceptions might vary. Enjoying ongoing repetitive cyclic experiences where plans are carried forth to completed outcomes will instill the understanding of how keeping organized and on top of all challenges keeps the stress and pain of unfinished business at bay.
Each instructor must keep the level of kindness in the learning environment at the maximum whenever possible. Nothing is more distracting and demeaning than the cruelty of one's peer's. Meanness is not only detrimental for the recipient, but it is also a harmful habit of conduct that results in negative experiences later on in life. We have already begun to see and understand the dire consequences of indifference to the "bully" mandate in our schools.
Recognizing the role and power of fear and anger as signals of deficit states that need immediate correction, and how they lead to hurtful defenses can keep even the youngest children aligned to the purposeful path. Offering clear understandings of how self-deception, even little white lies, are actually methods of defensive escape which create painful distance instead of enhancing happy connection. Play-acting scenarios which demonstrate tit-for-tat morality and vividly depict how lies always bring pain in the end can help curtail the development of many common deadly habits. All such self-regulation information will foster the emergence of natural morality and allow the unfolding of the higher feeling signals of trust, confidence, compassion, pride and courage, and prevent learned shame, guilt, arrogance, or hatred.
Plays and cartoons with a moral point can benefit those in the learning process, particularly when those "points" are a subject of guided discussion. In an environment where truth is encouraged, trust is bound to follow and, with it, a whole series of positive feelings and experiences.
People are always characterized as good, yet necessarily subjected to human learning error as the price paid for free will. Violations are treated as learning mistakes. Positive inducements are used to open inner motivations, and withdrawal of pleasure is used when corrections are necessary. Intimidation, ridicule, corporal punishment, and any form of negative, pain inducing motivators are contradictory, and even destructive to an evolving sense of value and cooperative trust. They demonstrate a lack of faith that the child can exercise self-control and are contrary to purposeful self-development.
In a positive learning environment, the subject is given the necessary instruction to perform a task. He/she is then allowed to attempt that task and, if an error is made, shown the correct way and encouraged to repeat the effort until the task is mastered. The rate of learning is not held against the subject and no social stigma is attached to the time or effort needed to achieve a particular end.
It shall be readily acknowledged that grownups can make mistakes too, and neither teachers---nor parents---are ever excluded from the feedback process. Indeed, children have much to teach their elders about openness, spontaneity and discovery. The absence of blame and the presence of empathy shall allow exploration of alternative choices to any traditional approaches. Habit patterns from dysfunctional homes can be discouraged through "time-out" isolations where the child feels the loss of companionship and the benefits of cooperation, but the belief behind the behavior is discussed as well. Drawing comparisons and constant references to how each action puts one either on the right track or the painful path can quickly reorient the mind to the spiritual feedback cycle.
Intellectual arrogance is an example that teachers and adults too often set forth. If learning is to be held up as a virtue and goal, then a willingness to learn should be something taught by example. Those who come from a less than conducive environment can be helped by those with an opportunity to spend an extra amount of time in one-on-one communication and empathy. This can be built into the teaching curriculum and made an essential part of the process.
The daily routine will be punctured with many hands-on, interactive projects and activities. There will be an emphasis on problem solving, puzzle completion, artistic creation, musical appreciation, and every form of experience through which meaningful patterns can be discovered. Recognizing patterns and rhythms within sound and light will create neural synapses which recognize and intuit patterns of meaning. Experiencing plenty of both linear and gestalt patterns will unite and strengthen the dual hemispheric functions within the brain.
The most balanced form of thinking is that which results from a complimentary relationship between those respective qualities of the left and right brain. It should be noted that there will likely be a tendency of any child to lean toward one side or the other. However, this need not be judged to be good or bad in any way, but as natural as tending to be right or left handed.
Reading and other exercises with vivid imaginative visual imagery and powerful emotional resonance can stimulate untold brain networks which would otherwise lie dormant, and open young minds to many of their highest capabilities. Physical movement, vocalizing, and the broadest variety of new and diverse activity experiences can all maximize physical, as well as mental, and spiritual health. Curriculums will include regular, fun, and actively shared dreams and detailed images of what children want to become in the future, how they want to live. Dramatic role playing or otherwise depicting or sharing the most exotic of fantasy potentials are "games" with very powerful and very real positive effects upon the developing mindscape, and the realities created.
Any activity which helps an individual exercise his/her creative potential, particularly that which puts into play the imaginative capabilities, is essential to reorienting and putting into practice the act of forming one's reality. While being introduced as imaginative play, it can be taught as a natural tool in a reality which is a product of one's inner world.
There will be regular and diverse treks into nature to explore and discover meaningful patterns and dispel fearsome myths. Resonating with nature and feeling a sense of belonging can rapidly facilitate respect for and attunement to the inner abilities and guidance. Pattern recognition is the most awe-inspiring within nature, wherein the mathematical precision of natural processes and cycles inspires the highest faith in the integrity and intelligence within creation, which transcends to the self as part of that creation. Children need never fear, but to respect the power of nature. They can find both safety and power in discovering the night sky, witnessing the foraging of nocturnal creatures, planting seeds in the dirt, being drenched by rain, and whipped by wind. Such exposure develops a healthy sense of unwavering faith, connectedness, and respect for the goodness and power of nature.
A respect and appreciation of the universal laws reflected in nature can only serve to ingrain a willingness to protect one's environment to the fullest degree. Once nature becomes less feared and more respected, the urge to exploit it will diminish and nature, itself, will adopt a greater role of protector instead of destroyer. Playing in the rain is even healthier for children than swimming in a chlorinated pool and certainly more spiritual.
As self-development unfolds in the context of freedom, power, and connection, the self concept of each child naturally expands to enfold an ever broadening range of "'others". Empathy and compassion deepens as the pains and pleasures of others are vicariously experienced. Competitive games of win-lose superiority will lose their allure, as the truly cooperative nature of playing by the rules and taking turns is recognized. Acceptable forms of competition will be those that pit any child against only himself as additional motivation to continuously better his skills and abilities. Win-win solutions are encouraged within all interactions, and activities structured to demonstrate that when someone a child cares for has any success, that success feels good to both. This vicarious pleasure indicates a healthy connection while the pain of jealousy or guilt is recognized as an indicator that further self-development is necessary.
To refute an often quoted sports icon, "Winning is not only not everything, it is not
even the only thing." A game of golf played with one's self as the only opponent is far healthier than a game of professional football where the ultimate prize is little more than financial security or a loss thereof.
Sports develop character only when they bring out the best in children, that being a willingness and understanding that all benefit from individual success.
For a system to change from what it generally reflects today to what it can reflect tomorrow, requires a paradigm shift in the general thinking of the adult world. Unfortunately, since the adult population is generally less open to non-traditional perspectives, it sometimes takes a major upheaval to stimulate that "shift".
As each grade level is completed, higher levels of both freedom and responsibility are to be the rewards of such rites of passage. At these older ages, children are ready to absorb more abstract and symbolic concepts, although the experiential and interactive strategies shall continue. The emphasis becomes providing a myriad of structured opportunities for students to independently manage, and learn from their experience---to try their wings and get support, corrective advice, and encouragement when they make learning mistakes or "fail". Cooperative empowerment is enhanced by more challenging and diverse opportunities to create, express, build esteem and be able to find meaning in each experience to further hone the budding mindscape.
Because peer pressure can be such a positive or negative force in the learning process and because it is often reflected in the outward appearances and manners of the young, great emphasis should be put on allowing the learning activity to take place as publicly or privately as circumstances can dictate, while keeping the supervision and encouragement of the learning process intact.
The most enlightened structures will allow for a blend of short-term and long-term goals which will allow the student to advance at any pace possible. Such advancement comes with the completion of structured challenges and within the broad array of experiential opportunities to test one's wings. There shall be no limits externally placed upon the desires and efforts when accountability and success is demonstrated, nor should there be judgmental sanctions placed upon paths which might meander or need additional time to recover from previous limits or deficits.
So much emphasis is placed on keeping the learning pace as uniform as possible, that the heard instinct becomes predominant in the minds of the students and the educators as well. Instead of emphasizing the achievements, it is the failings in particular areas that end up getting most of the time and attention. It should be recognized that the learning process is as diverse as the individuals indulging in it.
Curriculums in traditional middle and high schools can build upon the earlier base with the finer and evermore complex points of the divine spiritual feedback system as well as share all forms of cultural knowledge and experience. All delivery of cultural knowledge can then be accomplished without the normal pitfalls of force-feeding facts, figures, and prepackaged judgments which are quickly forgotten, but rather emphasizing the dynamic patterns of human adaptation and creative change. All "information" should be acknowledged and treated as conditional, to be offered as potentials which might be useful upon the purposeful path at some point. Instilling the necessity of the complete openness of mind, how value is relative to the universal needs, and individual value potentials will be far more effective. Tolerance for the choices of others will lead to a natural state of open friendly banter, feedback, mutual respect, and agreement to disagree while remaining truly open to all potentially rewarding information and strategies.
The history of human progress is the history of creative response to the challenges of the time. Such successes (or failures) serve to point future generations in a constructive direction. Specifics are less important than patterns of behavior and sensing the experience of the times in a memorable manner which holds meaning in the mind of the student for an extended period of time. Just as perspectives vary, so do creative solutions. The sharing of perspectives in an atmosphere of open-mindedness is the key to a full and complete educational experience.
Job opportunities, direct and vicarious learning experiences, and general curriculums could revolve around the purposes of body and mind, the conflicts between them, the innate defenses and distorted mindscapes, and the deadly habits they create. Dramatic play-acting of undesirable as well as purposeful experiences can instill the preventative gut-level understandings of how short term pleasure can bring long-term pain, and develop life-giving habits which will endure short term pain to gain long-term purposeful pleasure.
Here is where the arts and theater are essential to a completed education, as they serve as an opportunity for those in the learning process to identify with the problems of their own time and how the solutions they elect to apply to them can continue to reverberate throughout their lives. Such plays can be written, directed and performed by any and all who wish to participate. Then, they can be evaluated for their learning content.
The mind's evolving ability to recognize and intuit meaningful patterns will become ever more adept as deeper patterns within nature and within the mathematical and logical harmonies rise within the conscious awareness. Mindscapes freed from time consuming slivers, create realities and further developmental experiences which can instead expand upon themselves in astounding ways.
True creativity, when pointed in the direction of enhancing the quality of life in a harmonious environment, can produce results which can be expansive in nature.
At these stages, the complex emotional signals are deciphered and each feeling tone is seen in the context of self-development and self-expression as well as the complex emotional patterns of others. Clarifying the two good and bad life tracks can expand to include the stages of human evolution and how living within purpose naturally brings one from the survival level, to the being state on to the transcendent destiny potential. The specific pitfalls (cognitive distortions, deception, resistance, and revenge) of the wrong track of defensive responses become more complex, as students begin to grasp the higher level of the directive to "judge-not". Exercises which give plenty of experience with uniqueness of other's reality, and how honest intimacy builds and deception breaks down trust and communication can prevent a myriad of painful learning experiences in the real world. Developing specific expressive communication skills, win-win persuasion and conflict negotiation can foster success in all real-world interactions.
It is so much more effective to build these learning concepts into the process at the earliest stages, than to try to alter behavioral thinking patterns that are set in place, although this, too, can be successful, if and when the older generation begins to understand the value of creating a more enlightened environment.
This is also an appropriate age to discuss relationships and family life, love and its pitfalls, and the life-long developmental path. Sharing and discussing biographical life experiences of historical and current public figures (both successful and the infamous), can offer emphatic resonance to the tenacity needed for overcoming challenges, and the clarity needed in avoiding treacherous choices. Blame-free sharing and contrasting of parents' individual and generational challenges with levels of potential value fulfillment can both foster respect, forgiveness, and ways to hold fast to and accomplish the highest of dreams.
The family environment, for better or worse, is and can be a positive part of the learning experience. For such to be the case, it must be viewed from a detached perspective in an environment where judgement is replaced by discernment. All experiences have educational value in showing the merits or adverse consequences of an established pattern of living. While thought patterns are often passed on from one generation to the next, there are always opportunities to keep the best ideas and leave the rest to the dung heap of history.
Reinforcing the equal value of each unique spirit in each structure and interaction will ensure that all students are embraced within the community of humanity through an enlightened public mind. With such a mass consciousness, the kinds of isolating and violent outcomes of fear and anger which exist now as scourges upon humanity will become virtually extinct.
We know from recent history what the consequences can be when some reflect their sense of isolation through violent means. The simple removing of the weapons of such violent expression can not resolve the problems nor remove the causes of negative activity. A shift in attitude and policy must begin to be explored by both educators and parents, alike. This should begin as soon as possible.
The most valuable structural change in public educational systems would be to ensure that each and every citizen has the opportunity to continue on to the maximum level of education desired, free of economic obstacles. When the government prioritizes its structures around the human needs and ceases squandering its resources on conflicting strategies and competitive defense, its first and foremost priority will become ensuring all citizens---of all ages---organizing educational opportunities. When the networks are in place with private enterprises, the transitional community services, projects, apprenticeships, and internships are established under this umbrella, the costs will be far less than might be suspected. This will not only allow any student to progress through to the PhD level, but it will also allow returning students of all ages and situations.
Most educators and economists would agree that the greatest boon to the American economy following World War II was the GI bill which enabled returning veterans to acquire a free college education. This educated class then went into the work force and benefitted the entire society. Had the program continued for veterans and non-veterans alike, illiteracy could have been nearly eliminated in the country. Just the curtailing of some defense programs (such as "star wars" for example) could initiate such a policy and could easily be paid for with a modest tax on the recipients over a later period of wage learning.
With enlightened understanding of the biological self-regulation system, the academic community can overcome the need of separation between church and state by acknowledging the emotional process as a feature of the third self-component of spirit. At the college level, the body-mind dual model of self can be fleshed out to contain the highest levels of meaning and implications which might formerly have been relegated only to religious discussion and found objectionable in the lower levels of public education. The separation being made between spirituality as attunement to the natural inner guidance, and religion being any specific set of beliefs in a supernatural higher power outside of the self, will more than adequately draw the necessary line between church and state. It would also acknowledge within the theory of evolution that consciousness indeed underlies all matter rather than being a product of it. This would liberate frustrated research scholars who are now forced down wrong-minded tracks of inquiry which only allow the public confusion and social pain to build.
The initial step of transcending the church-state block in the field of education is one that would be essential to any program of higher learning and universal education. Organized religion must face this issue by giving proper credence to the spiritual qualities innate in the human framework and accept it is the variance in perspective which leads to compartmentalizing of spirit and which results in different religions, and nothing more. Then the true nature of spirit and its relationship to consciousness can cease to compete with the scientific perspective.
The acknowledgment of conscious intention within natural selection will open many new areas of study wherein the inner self-regulatory system leads to the unfolding of the transcendental inner sensitivities and abilities that now lie dormant. There can then be experimentations with the boundaries and focus of consciousness that will unite and resolve many existing conundrums such as mechanical versus quantum physics. When the secrets of the mobility and connectedness of all consciousness begin to unfold, there can be tremendous breakthroughs in the approaches to space and time travel that cannot otherwise take place with physical technology alone. The universe cannot be understood until such inner pathways are utilized. As emotion becomes understood as the basic physical manifestation of spirit in pleasure and pain, it will allow the mind to open its intuitive pathways to more direct energy/information which resonates with the unmistakable validation of universal joy.
The current "limitedness" of thought in the area of physical/mental connection and it's relationship to emotion and spirit continues to result in a mechanical view of the universe we occupy, not just from the depth beyond the stars edge, but back to the sub-atomic level of our own physical bodies. Our very state of health is distorted by the ignorance of the potential power of mind. Our chemical/surgical attitude toward the practice of medicine, for example, has left us nearly financially drained and chronically ill. With physical and mental health so limited, so also is our potential for growth.
In such a structure, scientific academicians at the college level would take the reigns of the ongoing development of the public mind. Their activities and findings will not be limited to dusty unintelligible journals, but will be shared through many avenues of communication as the private media become aware that good news can help reduce the horrors of shocking violence of present headlines and televised stories. These networks will provide continuous updated self-developmental information to the public and directly to policymakers which would weigh much more heavily than the desire of special interests.
Shared knowledge is contagious, especially if it is of a positive nature. Further, a society not constantly bombarded by the negative, can get beyond the normal mentality of perpetual fear and anxiety and begin to function at a more creative level and in a ubiquitous fashion.
The structural opportunities for learning specific technical skills and job training will ensure that justice is attained wherein each citizen is rightfully enabled to join in the resource exchange marketplace in any way that the spirit directs. Unique lifestyles, work schedules, and need-meeting approaches are not only tolerated, but actively encouraged throughout the entire structure. The most creative and visionary contributions will be actively facilitated and valued within such a system so that entities such as Albert Einstein need not squander precious life hours in boring classrooms or menial jobs in order to simply meet survival needs. Special think-tanks, artist communities, and other such structures will be encouraged to allow the most fertile and synergistic ground for fine minds to flourish. Likewise, special recovery communities shall serve those needing the most assistance. All structures will promote maximum value fulfillment and the most direct and personally rewarding destiny path for all citizens.
The concept of leisure can be redefined and expanded to the realization that such can produce many positive results when directed at problem-solving and producing works of art and literature which benefits society as a whole. It took the depths of an economic depression to produce an atmosphere where artists and musicians could enjoy financial security while they contributed to society. Today, that state is much more precarious and our society, as a whole, suffers as a result. It is time for us to re-evaluate our priorities.
The educational system will be the crowning glory and the hope for humanity as the facilitator of cooperative defense and mindful development. We can now turn the discussion to the implications that enlightened self-understanding bring to concepts of mental and physical health.
Would that these concepts of "Enlightenment" reach the mainstream of our communication system. The challenge comes in removing the prevailing "bushel basket" which
now covers them. Would that this "light" serves that purpose.