10/03/2022
Aren’t we all different, isn't that the beauty of humanity and of our world?
Yet so very often we are expected to fit into a mould.
Breaking free from it, is a life challenge, when all you have been told as a child, to behave, to be good, to listen, to pay attention and not to speak up.
How often have observed children who can’t sit still, get distracted, hyperactive.
Schools being concerned and worried, sanction them by missing play, using traffic light system. Seriously, is that how we teach our future by naming and shaming them?
Children are being told to fit into ‘the mould’, to be a certain way, to be the same like everyone else.
Ironically schools often claim to respect and value each child as an individual!?!
I have heard of this beautiful story of a girl who struggled to sit still.
She continually got up, got easily distracted, had a wondering mind, and didn’t follow lessons.
The teachers were worried about her, the girl was often punished.
At home she would get told off as well.
The mother was invited to school, she was terrified of bad news. The teachers spoke of great concerns, an illness or even a disorder.
A teacher joined the meeting who knew the girl well. He asked them to follow him into a room from where the girl could be seen.
The girl was alone, music was playing in the room. The girl alone in the room was moving up and down chasing the music in the air with her feet and her heart.
The adults looked at each other with confusion and yet with some compassion. The teacher who knew the girl well, smiled at the parent and said "See? There is nothing wrong with her, this girl is a dancer!"
He recommended to take her to dance classes. After the first dance class the girl said to the mum.
"Everyone is like me, no one can sit still!"
This girl is called Gillian Lynne, in 1981, after a career as a dancer, opening her own dance academy and receiving international recognition for her art, she became the choreographer of the musical "Cats."
Hopefully children who are "different" can be embraced with love and care and find capable adults who can welcome them for who they are and not for what they lack.