Escuela Vieja

03/03/2022

Kindergarten, primary school, high school, good grades.

Then, university and a qualification.

Then a job, and hard work until retirement.

Something profound happens when you step off that expected path - you suddenly see how much time you’ve spent living in someone else’s construct. And it is just that - a social construct.

At the same time, you realise how much control you actually have over your own life. That you can play an active part in defining your own path, on your own terms. You just didn’t - no, couldn’t - see it before.

We give up a great deal of freedom by living that version of life, especially in the early years. We hand it to someone else to decide what we learn, when we learn, where we learn, who we learn from, who we learn with, and when we can progress to the next stage.

We shouldn’t underestimate the impact living that way through most of our formative years has on us.

If you want to test that impact, just ask the next person you bump into if they woke up to do something that gives them meaning today. Or, if they slowly climbed out of bed to get ready for a job they don’t enjoy, again handing over control of who they spend time with, when, for what, and why.

Statistically, globally, there’s a greater chance the response will be the latter.

Neither we nor our children played any part in building the system we're asked (required) to spend the first portion of our lives in. So if that system is not providing more of us than not with the confidence to make life choices that are true to who we are, then it’s not doing what it should.

The odds simply aren’t good enough. Together, for our children, let’s turn the tide.

12/13/2021

11/04/2021

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-learn/201912/kindergarten-teachers-are-quitting-and-here-is-why

Comments from exasperated kindergarten teachers throughout the country.

06/26/2021

"As human beings, our job in life is to help people realize how rare and valuable each one of us really is, that each of us has something that no one else has—or ever will have—something inside that is unique to all time. It's our job to encourage each other to discover that uniqueness and to provide ways of developing its expression."
— Fred Rogers

06/26/2021

What little children need is play, care, and love, not school.

02/10/2021

It happens over and over again. Caretakers will ask a child to put on a coat when it fact they are the ones who are cold. And when the child insists they are fine (because most of the time - not in every case - they are), the caretaker refuses to acknowledge that it is they who are experiencing the sensation.

This projection happens on a societal level. We believe children want and need what we want, but these are ideas and conditions that were once PROJECTED ONTO US....

don't you want to do well in school?
don't you want to get good grades?
don't you want to go to college?
don't you want to one day get a good job?
don't you want to be "successful"?
don't you want to see your friends?
don't you want to buy it?
don't you want to go to practice?
don't you want to get married?
don't you want to have children?
don't you want to buy a big house?

All of these are perfectly fine goals, but what manifestations would come from the child and adult themselves if born from our own inner authority? It's a radical thought.

When we state what we are feeling, express our own needs & are believed or at the very least heard, it creates enormous space and opportunity.

Through somatic sensation and recognition, we start to break free of the program. Maybe our children don't feel what we feel. Maybe they feel the edges and pulse of something beyond us. Beyond where we can perceive.

With that comes a deeper, more emotive expansion. With permission, children can begin to believe in and trust their own bodies, instincts, communities around them, sense of self and unique dreams and vision for the future.

And miraculously we can, maybe for the first time, begin to tune into ours.

--
Writing by Nicolette Sowder
Art by Vicki Sawyer
https://www.vickisawyer.com/

12/22/2020

This is his classroom.

And the library. The museum. Drama class. Our karate club. The local shops. Our street. Playgrounds. The skate park. Our home.

His classmates? Anyone he connects with, anywhere, of any age and from any background.

He will never tie learning to one physical space. It will never feel hierarchical, mandated or disconnected from real life. It is everywhere, all around him, all the time.

He will never associate his age with academic progress. His self-worth will never be tied to a grade.

Motivation and confidence grow from within him, not from other people’s expectations and praise.

He has a say in how his days are paced, in what he spends his time doing, in who he spends his time with.

And no one will ever convince him all this must change just so he can be *taught*.

12/11/2019

https://www.upworthy.com/irish-school-ditches-homework-for-december-assigns-students-acts-of-kindness-instead

"Our message to the children is very simple: they can be the reason somebody smiles today and they can definitely help make this world a better place for others and for themselves."