Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
All of the participating teachers agreed that their understanding of citizenship changed from one that emphasized following rules and helping others to one that fostered student engagement in making decisions together about shared problems in the classroom community and beyond.
We devote much of our lives to our children, the messages we send to the future we will never see.
Recorded history is the history of adults–generals, statesmen, explorers and scientists–but all of those adults began their path as children. And running beneath this official history is the unofficial history of childhood games and rituals, many of which were passed down for generations; children inhabited a separate universe of traditions, contests, solemn rituals and codes of honour …
My relief is palpable, and I ponder how to protect my own child from all that would harm her; like this tiny, fierce mother hen, I want to shout a warning into the sky.
Now, here in a changed world with a broken-open heart, I look into the eyes of beauty and invite in the fullness of it all, the grief and the love, the fear and the hope, the pain and the joy.
We have to undo our whole way of thinking about education. The process may be unsettling, but the results will be worth it. Join me for the next few weeks as I pick apart the things many people take for granted in our schools.
What I’ve learned is in these band hunter gatherer cultures, children play. They are free to play all day long. There’s no such thing as anything like school. There’s no sense that it’s the adults job to educate children. Children learn on their own and they learn in play. They learn by watching, observing, and incorporating what they see in to their play. That’s how children are designed to grow up.
On the day Greta Thunberg gave her emotion-filled speech at the United Nation’s (UN) Climate Summit, another historic event involving the Swedish activist and 15 other youthful climate hawks—representing 12 countries–took place. The filing of the first-ever legal complaint about climate change to the UN’s Committee on the Rights of the Child. The communication is titled Sacchi et al. vs. Argentina, et al.
We won’t build a more diverse food system until we help people develop more diverse preferences. At the moment, our food system is suffering from lack of diversity both at the level of supply and of demand.
The Children in Permaculture Manual has been written by people who not only see the world through the permaculture lens, but also know exactly how, through thoughtful pedagogy, children can be engaged to see through this lens too.
To me one of the most important things is mental sovereignty, is that you really think for yourself rather than be made small, be made constrained, by the narrowness of the dominant culture.
Protecting the children is a formidable responsibility. But it is our responsibility, and we bring to the task a formidable set of powers, honed, sharpened, and passed down mother-to-daughter over generations.
