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As mentioned, many parents find the moment of our birth one of the most intense experiences of love in their life. That love is us, is you. You cannot deny it because you did nothing to manifest it. It simply is who you are. It brings meaning and value. Everyone attending your birth knows it.

Yet, an extraordinary irony, completely at odds with social justice, exists right in the room at birth. Most people believe in original sin and bad karma. Most people believe, right in the midst of intense love, that we are wrong and bad from birth.

This confusion fuels social injustice. Development depends upon relationship. Relationships that hold us as sinful and fallen stifle development. They call for us to strive to be better, as if we are not OK or that without this negative motivation we would be, I don’t know, lazy or worthless or something. They create ridiculous expectations of perfection or (supposed) spiritual purity and so breed disappointment.

The idea that we are born in original sin or with bad karma has no value for social justice. It is the first and most pervasive social injustice. It ignores our contribution and condemns us to a life of shame. Worse, the institutions that promote these beliefs regularly commit severe social harm. Though individuals within the institutions may be champions the institutions themselves have a barbaric track record. Those who claim insider knowledge of spiritual purity regularly support social atrocities.

The hypocrisy is staggering and leads to a cultural shadow. We have to continually hide our shame, and the shameful history of our spiritual institutions. Shadows, as any decent psychologists will tell you, come out in many ways. The evangelical preacher seduces the gay boy, the insecure politician starts unnecessary conflicts, the Vatican hooks up with the mafia. The shadow of this hypocrisy—spiritual institutions generating social injustice—can be seen every time a religion supports an oppressive government, every time a religion usurps personal choice, every time a religion hides its wealth, every time a religion pretends it is the only true path. Shadow life cannot lead to social justice.

Original Sin and Bad Karma are cultural conceptions. They are institutionally promulgated myths. They memorialize the most egregious of spiritual misconceptions—separation. The misconception of children as separate is at the root of so much unnecessary suffering.

When children are seen as fallen, sinful, or tainted with bad karma, then life becomes a chore to make up for the transgression. Attention goes to the perceived evil, and parenting and education are dedicated to rooting it out. For example, BodyBeing children exploring boundaries becomes a test of wills; IdealBeing children learning to self-govern are seen as pathetically naive and selfish. In education, schools exist to perpetuate the dominant cultural values, whether of the Puritanical allegiance to Christianity or the corporate allegiance to math and science. Otherwise, it is believed, the child may give in to cruelty or self-indulgence and not become a productive member of society. In this mindset, the child is there to be molded, and her contribution only counts when she becomes an adult.

And so condemned to a life of separation before they were born, the child becomes anxious. Will I do evil? Will I succeed? The child creates personas—masks that she hopes are passports to acceptability—to inclusion rather than separation. Lost is the opportunity to develop core identity, her unique natural expression. The suboptimal relationships of her network leads to confusion. Childhood becomes a problem to be solved. Adulthood becomes a time of recovery from childhood or the continuation of the masked life that began with the misconception of separation.]]> http://www.baluvmour.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry070831-070947 Ba Luvmour Fri, 31 Aug 2007 14:09:47 GMT http://www.baluvmour.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry070828-074430
Families who live in optimal well-being enjoy happiness. They meet life’s challenges together. They expect frustration to accompany learning. They know how to prevent frustration from accelerating into conflict. Family members are not seen as adversaries. In short, they actualize the pursuit of happiness, that fragile, inalienable human right.

How important is the pursuit of happiness for social justice? My answer: immeasurably. To me, social justice and the pursuit of happiness are one in the same. Democracy cannot exist unless it guarantees its citizens the pursuit of happiness. In government, the complex challenges of the world, in which the legislature and executive must sometimes weigh its importance against national security. It would be a giant step towards social justice if government provided for optimal well-being in families. Then the pursuit of happiness would not be in question. It is right there in relationship with BodyBeing children.

We often bubble with happiness during our BodyBeing years. Our unadorned giggle has the melody of a mountain stream. We unabashedly rejoice in our accomplishments. When well nourished, our egotism delights. It doesn’t degenerate into exhibitionism or cranky begging for attention. Happiness exudes with the success of learning boundaries.

It saddens us that parents relate to boundaries as prohibition. Don’t they see that we engage boundaries in every moment of our lives? We turn babble into speech but by accepting the boundaries of our mother tongue. We learn the rhythms of the people in our home through our rudimentary capacity to bind time. We sense, we build sensory based topographical maps that continually redraw the boundaries in our world. This is our happiness, our delight, our joy, for it displays mastery and yields strength. Our pursuit of boundaries is nothing other than our pursuit of happiness.

Well executed boundary learning infects all family members with happiness. This implies that parents engage and enjoy boundary creation as well. The word chore, for example, implies burden and distress. We sense that parental distress and chores automatically become burdensome to us. When parents see chores as the opportunity to improve their home life—to enrich their place—then so do we. Chores then become a locus of connection, a deepening of Rightful Place.

Recognize, respect, and nourish our gifts of bonding and happiness we know ourselves as participatory in social justice. We belong; our lives are meaningful and valuable. Parents know themselves as bonded and happy. Complaints lessen, commitment grows. We are on the same side. We are citizens.]]> http://www.baluvmour.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry070828-074430 Ba Luvmour Tue, 28 Aug 2007 14:44:30 GMT http://www.baluvmour.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry070824-075104
Even more ironic and heartbreaking, the responsibility lies for dissolving this pernicious, insidious, norm lays with the parent, not the child. The parent can create boundaries with loving touch. End of problem. Beginning of social justice.

Can it really be that simple? Yes, especially if you recognize and reinforce the contributions BodyBeing children make to social justice. We bloom when our gifts are appreciated.

What are those gifts? Before I describe the gifts that I see I invite you to come up with your own. Perhaps you can add to my offering. The sooner people see children’s contribution to social justice the sooner we will have a socially just society.

Our birth affirms that life is sacred, precious, and worthy of devoted service. Parents rejoice when we birth. For many, it is the most profound moment of love in their life. In almost every instance, our birth brings commitment to life, renewed commitment to a better world, and deeper purpose and meaning. Almost no parent participates in our birth and thinks: Uh oh, original sin strikes again. Or: What bad karma brought this child into my life? Or, how can I consume as many resources as possible so that few will be left for this child? No, they think, how can I create a better world? How can I assure this little miracle that life is safe, beautiful, and full of great opportunity?

We bond. We bond to the parents and the parents bond to us. Our Rightful Place is with one another. This bonding is the foundation for society. Some believe that social bonding formed as a way to procure food and for protection. But society forms to nurture the young. Look at us. Without performing a deliberate act we are the nucleus of society. Few events call forth compassion like a suffering infant and child. It would be a better war deterrent to publish the baby pictures of fallen soldiers then pictures of them in uniforms. That would strip away the cultural trappings of their patriotism and remind us of the naked fact that these people were born to live life all the way through. What price compares to the cost of this infant dying before his time?

We BodyBeing children bond easily because we accept our elders freely. Unless they strike out developmentally, parents are our home. We cannot get enough of them. We study them without judgment and devotedly imitate them.

Some believe this to be proof of weakness and dependence. That may be, though, reasonable people see interdependence and interconnection as the way of the world. Isolated, separate dependence and supposed independence are pseudo-Darwinian artifacts; cheap cover-ups for the desire to power and dominance. Individualism, which means to separate, operates only from the competitive mindset. Humans are interdependent with one another and with their environment, which spans all life. Raymond Chandler reminds us in The Big Sleep that the most dangerous traps are those we set for ourselves. Don’t do it by striving for individualism. None of us stands alone, nor could we possibly do so.

Here we are, BodyBeing children, the nucleus of society. Vulnerable, unable to provide for our own security, we have given those whom we depend upon something they need, something they depend upon. We are interdependent with our elders, each of us providing for the well-being of the other.

We offer the bonding of love. Consequently, we offer deeper meaning and purpose to life. We offer devotion. We offer whole hearted participation. In a sense you could say we offer the gift of redemption. Most parents believe what one said to me in program: I am only as happy as my unhappiest child. Parents know that they have lived well and meaningfully if they parent well.]]> http://www.baluvmour.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry070824-075104 Ba Luvmour Fri, 24 Aug 2007 14:51:04 GMT http://www.baluvmour.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry070820-145305
We are sensation based beings. Our work is to know this body in this environment (including the people); to bond the one to the other. We then live our lives from the foundation of Rightful Place.

Nourishment comes primarily from loving touch. Everything touches you through your highly refined sensory receptors. When that touch is loving—when it sings of your value and importance and reaffirms your Rightful Place—then this place is your hearth and your home, your very self.

But, you must be asking, how can loving touch and boundaries both be present? My answer: that is a question from before the switch is thrown. Once thrown, the question becomes, how could they occur any other way?

Boundaries are a locus of learning. Loving touch opens us to the learning. Adults with hearts and mind dedicated to unconditional positive regard, sensitive and respectful to our need to receive information via the senses, cannot help but combine loving touch and boundaries.

I believe that every family can find their own expression of loving touch boundary creation. To jump start the process, here are a few specific comments.

Be clear, unwavering, and direct—like a mountain. Mountains don’t judge or argue. They simply define space. Get down on the child’s level, eye-to-eye, heart to heart. Establish physical touch if possible. Firmly state the boundary, i.e. “No hitting.” Do not negotiate.

As with all learning, there will be frustration. Do not mistake frustration for conflict. Only when adults approach boundaries to prohibit do they lead to conflict. They attempt only to modify the behavior, i.e. “don’t go in the street.” Their commitment is to what is learned, rather than how it is learned. But when the how is done well then the what gets learned quicker, and without the parent becoming the policeperson. Dedication to the how confirms Rightful Place to the child. Everything fits in my world. I am home and this person speaks my language. When he speaks it again I will respond. Though I may need repetition I know that he is on my side.

Staying with the what, with behavior modification, teaches only the dangers associated with the specific behavior. Often, the parent first explains the danger. Often, this fails to impress us. We BodyBeing children rely on sensory information, not on words. Parents become annoyed. We sense the annoyance. We become confused. Do we follow the natural impulse towards ever widening sensory exploration or do we respond to our parents? Of course, that depends on the level of annoyance and the degree of pleasure of the sensory event. When the scales tip to pleasure our parents often resort to coercion. Then we learn that the how is coercion.

I know that few people want to hear this. But when we learn that the how is coercion it stays with us throughout life unless we engage serious personal work to unlearn it. If you don’t believe me ask any psychologist, and maybe even a few psychiatrists, how many of their client’s presenting problems are boundary issues. Observe yourself with your spouse, with your boss and colleagues, with your children. Are you happy with the boundaries that you create?

Does anyone really believe that we are born with a coercion gene? Coercion as a form of conflict resolution is learned. Threat and coercion poison us. Our life is literally at stake. To us, death is annihilation. We have no concept for it, though we may mimic our parent’s beliefs. We live as our bodies. Threat attacks our bodies. We are little, elders are big. When we sense the force behind that raised hand, when we sense the rage behind that shouting voice, when we sense the separation behind that damning glare we shrivel and clench, become fear filled and angry. Annihilation looms. We have no way of knowing if the adult knows when to stop. They certainly have yet to demonstrate good judgment about boundaries.]]> http://www.baluvmour.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry070820-145305 Ba Luvmour Mon, 20 Aug 2007 21:53:05 GMT http://www.baluvmour.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry070816-071213
Our sensory based egotistical world view social justice as retributive. This is not deliberate, calculated retribution but simply the best our capacities allow. It does not reflect selfishness, which is the product of envy, a complex emotion. Rather, our attraction to the pleasant and repulsion from the unpleasant, our placing ourselves in the center of our world, our expectation of support, limits our appreciation of justice to an eye for an eye. This will change in FeelingBeing.

Emotions reduce to four categories—bad, mad, sad, and glad. Say, for example, that you want a toy that your sibling has. Adults might think you are jealous, but you are simply mad that you cannot get an interesting sensory object. If this happens repeatedly, you might well be sad that your sibling gets more attention than you. Neglect feels bad. The sophisticated considerations that comprise jealousy, for instance, don’t register. You do not care about another’s success or balance the moment against favors you have received in the past. You will, however, respond to your parent’s if they create the boundary. It will not be the data content of your parent’s message, but the sensory content, that will register.

Nor do you care about delayed gratification, fairness, sharing, Dad’s work schedule, the war in Iraq, or your sibling’s feelings. You have an unerring read on everyone’s sensory reaction to these events but the content of the events themselves have little meaning. However, those reactions comprise a critically important component in your sensory based topographical maps.

Parents now have what they need to respond to the retributive justice of BodyBeing children. Be precise when cutting the sandwich in half, or with any other shared resource. During contention do not try to explain, or rationalize your response. Listen to each child. Ask for a solution, but don’t expect it. Make the decision, such as remove the object or taking turns. Hold the boundary like a mountain. Do not negotiate or place undue emphasis on words and promises. Never stop actively loving the child as they struggle to decipher the ways of the world.

Coercing a BodyBeing child to share is exquisitely painful irony. The intentions of the parent to promote relationship undermine our ability to relate. We learn only to avoid the unpleasant sensations of our parent. We have been coerced. If done repeatedly the coercion takes root.

The irony extends to society. There is no decrease in selfishness (and plenty of anecdotal evidence of dramatic increases in selfishness) despite ever increasing attempts to enforce sharing in BodyBeing children. Along with epidemic boundary and non-specific anxiety dysfunctions—which preempt social justice and spirituality—we can certainly conclude that we are missing the mark with BodyBeing children.]]> http://www.baluvmour.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry070816-071213 Ba Luvmour Thu, 16 Aug 2007 14:12:13 GMT http://www.baluvmour.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry070812-213402
We crave the opportunity to explore. Climbing trees, curling into small dark spaces, snuggling, placing color on paper, skipping, sewing, turning in dizzying circles, pretending to fly, banging the piano keys, snagging metal objects with magnets, our own bodies (including our genitals)—whatever calls—provides fertile group for sensory investigation of our body and our world.

How venerable we are. Sensory learning is as old as life itself. Every living entity uses its senses to define its place. Memory depends up the sensory qualities of past events. Future lies phantasmagorically out there. Now matters. Reality lives here, in this sensory moment.

How crazy making is it when we are called to task on our words, when we are asked to make contracts? What happens to us when we are promised a pleasant sensory experience in exchange for a promise that we will do something in the future and then the future moment comes and we are enthralled by a new sensory experience? Didn’t we make the deal? Aren’t we ashamed that we are not keeping our word? Don’t we know that we are bad? How can we be trusted? If you really belong in this family you will learn to keep your word.

Ouch! The capacity for conditional agreements (if you do this, then you can do that) has not yet arrived. The beloved use of words-as-toys disintegrates. The intense negative sensations of our parents force us to abandon our exploration and turn our attention to watching them ever more closely for signs of their displeasure. A new capacity does not magically appear, though we wish it would, so much do we depend upon our parents. Unfortunately, and catastrophically if it continues, the locus of control has become external. Rather than being guided we are being coerced.]]> http://www.baluvmour.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry070812-213402 Ba Luvmour Mon, 13 Aug 2007 04:34:02 GMT http://www.baluvmour.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry070809-081130
So here you are, five years old, and the center of your world. Egotism shines, sensation rules. You’ve been making sensory based topographical maps since floating in utereo, superimposing one map upon another as you explore the landscape of your world. Stop for a moment and visualize these maps. They are analogous to computer simulations in which maps are built from successive layers of data. For you as a BodyBeing child, sensation is the data source.

All sensations count, especially those of our family. They sort by a simple rule: move towards the pleasant and away from the unpleasant. This sensory based topographical map defines the territory available for exploration.

How important is this? Through sensory based exploration we come to know our world. Curiosity and exploration inexorably compel. The field for that exploration defines the quality of learning. Sensory deficient environments lead to non-optimization of Rightful Place. Can insensitivity to the environment be far behind? Naturally, we do not foul our home. Bumped from our Natural Learning Rhythms, suffering distortion of our Rightful Place, and we do not recognize our home. It becomes a place of tension, of confusion. It becomes a thing, instead of its natural place as integral in our being.

We organize everything in our world to insure our Rightful Place, our belongingness. Rightful Place is the ultimate pleasant sensation, inextricably founded in successful attachment to parents. From that attachment we explore. To that attachment we return, the center of our ever expanding sensory topographical map.

Rightful Place cannot exist with boundaries. Learning boundaries may need repetition and be sometimes frustrating. Built into the natural process, boundary exploration and creation is a locus of learning for you and for your parents. It is not a test of wills. It only turns out that way when the boundaries are poorly done, when the nourishments are not provided during the learning.

Framing boundary exploration and learning as a test of wills exudes antagonism. This antagonism justifies controlling behaviors that harm us. So we suffer the double wounding of developmental deprivation and oppression. Then, we quail.

When done well, boundary creation yields profound belongingness and interpersonal connection. Rightful Place and boundaries are the warp and woof of the stage. Every wondrous capacity, including speech and movement, develops effortlessly throughout these years within the context of Rightful Place and boundaries. Their quality of development is directly proportional to our experience of Rightful Place.

Does that seem fanciful to you? I don’t see why. Do you believe we learn best under stress? Or when we are worried or in the midst of chaos? Or do we learn best when supported and psychologically safe? No doubt some challenge aids learning. That challenge is built into the natural process. Finding order in the multitude of sensations of the world is a challenge. Translating that order into speech and movement is a challenge. Participating in the social world is a challenge. To attempt to meet the challenges of life with the extra burden of chaos in our Rightful Place—or with chaos in any of our organizing principles—is like navigating a river with a bowling ball loose in the bottom of your kayak. As you shall find out It undermines the contribution you make to social justice.]]> http://www.baluvmour.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry070809-081130 Ba Luvmour Thu, 09 Aug 2007 15:11:30 GMT http://www.baluvmour.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry070805-134333 "People whose integrity has not been damaged in childhood, who were protected, respected, and treated with honesty by their parents, will be—both in their youth and in adulthood—intelligent, responsive, empathetic, and highly sensitive. They will take pleasure in life and will not feel any need to kill or even hurt others or themselves. They will use their power to defend themselves, not to attack others. They will not be able to do otherwise than respect and protect those weaker than themselves, including their children, because this is what they have learned from their own experience, and because it is this knowledge (and not the experience of cruelty) that has been stored up inside them from the beginning. It will be inconceivable to such people that earlier generations had to build up a gigantic war industry in order to feel comfortable and safe in this world. Since it will not be their unconscious drive in life to ward off intimidation experienced at a very early age, they will be able to deal with attempts at intimidation in their adult life more rationally and more creatively." —Alice Miller

"By treating everyone with respect, you teach them to treat everyone with respect also, because the only effective teaching is by example. Just as the most powerful provocation to violent behavior is disrespect, the most powerful means of preventing violence is universal respect." —James Gilligan

Who are Alice Miller and James Gilligan? Dr. Miller has devoted a lifetime to studying the cruelties inflicted on children. Her book For Your Own Good is a classic in the field. James Gilligan worked for twenty-five years directing the provision of psychiatric services to Massachusetts prisons and the prison mental hospital. He has worked intimately with violent perpetrators, completed a comprehensive study of the research on violence, lowered recidivism, and instituted programs that dramatically reduced—and in some cases eliminated—violence in prisons. His insight that “violence is an attempt to achieve justice” is a clarion call to pay attention to the way that the feeling of injustice takes root in a person’s consciousness. In his book Preventing Violence, Gilligan, after much deliberation, boils it down to a single word: shame. Where there is shame there is the feeling of injustice. Where there is the experience of injustice there is the desire for revenge. Revenge involves violence.

Long time readers of this blog are familiar with Miller and Gilligan and how well they describe the blocks to social justice and the way to dissolve those blocks. We need only to discover how to respect children, and social justice is ours.

Can it be so simple? Of course it can. Our troubles are of our own design. We therefore have the power to remedy them.

By now, you should see how imperative it is that we restore social justice to our world. And you should see how the root cause of social injustice is disrespect for children. And you should understand that Natural Learning Rhythms embodies the knowledge of how to respect children at different ages. It reveals how children organize their world, and what kinds of relationships yield optimal well-being.

It remains only to state that one of the best ways to respect and honor children is to recognize and nurture their contributions to social justice. The application of Natural Learning Rhythms to social justice is powerful and it alone might be a giant step towards a socially just world. Therefore, we will now devote many blogs to the gifts of social justice children bring to the world.]]> http://www.baluvmour.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry070805-134333 Ba Luvmour Sun, 05 Aug 2007 20:43:33 GMT http://www.baluvmour.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry070802-140404
Consider one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Rush. A great humanitarian, instigator of the famous pamphlet Common Sense by Thomas Paine, anti-slavery and perhaps most prophetic of all Founding Fathers when he declared that "Unless we put Medical Freedom into the Constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize into an undercover dictatorship . . . to restrict the art of healing to one class of men, and deny equal privilege to others, will be to constitute the Bastille of Medical Science. All such laws are un-American and despotic and have no place in a Republic ... The Constitution of this Republic should make special privilege for Medical Freedom as well as Religious Freedom." (Wikipedia).

Forget Bush, and others who are so obviously insensitive to the needs of people. Forget the business leaders who insist that education serve their bottom line. Forget teacher’s unions, and the textbook publishers, and all others who have a vested interest in maintaining the educational status quo. Forget the liberal colleges which fail to update their teacher training courses, and the religions which teach that children are sinners who must be controlled.

This is Benjamin Rush, brilliant chemist, doctor, professor, founder of the liberal Dickinson College in Pennsylvania and cognizant of the pivotal role he is playing in shaping the future of this new country. What are his views on education?

Dr. Rush wrote and spoke often about the need for education to serve the new American republic. His famous essay, "Thoughts Upon the Mode of Education Proper in a Republic," made the point several times over that children should be educated to serve the republic. Dr. Ron Miller, perhaps the foremost historian of holistic education of our times, believed that Rush represented the conservative view in American education. He quotes Rush as stating that "Man is naturally an ungovernable animal." Furthermore, the individual “does not belong to himself, but…he is public property.” For Rush, schools are for indoctrinating children into republican political ideals. Miller shows how far Rush was willing to go: "I consider it as possible to convert men into republican machines. This must be done if we expect them to perform their part properly in the great machine of the government of the state."

Rush advocated that education take place in the United States and not abroad, and that women be educated in the principles of democracy and how to manage their homes and then should be the educators of young children.

This left important questions unanswered. How can education be so selective and indoctrinating and still adhere to the principles of freedom and equality? Is it possible to hold the belief that "man is ungovernable" and needs to be made into a "machine" along with the belief that humans have unalienable rights of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"?

Nevertheless, the promotion of nationalism and patriotism were added to religion and the law as legitimate goals of American education. The minds of the young, as always, were seen as the place where the cultural future lay. They were therefore to be molded according to the values of the times.

This is our cultural heritage. No Child Left Behind is simply today’s expression of it.

If children are treated as chattel, they will treat others as chattel when they become adults. If children are divorced from their inherent blend on intelligences, if their developmental imperatives are ignored, if they are not mentored in interpersonal relationships, if they are continually subjected to rewards and punishments so that the locus of control is external rather than internal, than what chance do they have to actualizing social justice as adults, and what chance do we have to live in social justice as a culture? ]]> http://www.baluvmour.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry070802-140404 Ba Luvmour Thu, 02 Aug 2007 21:04:04 GMT http://www.baluvmour.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry070730-080350 "In the five years since a federal law mandated an expansion of reading and math tests, 44 percent of school districts nationwide have made deep cutbacks in social studies, science, art and music lessons in elementary grades and have even slashed lunchtime, a new survey has found." - Washington Post, 7/24/07

OK, we’ve got it now. Reading and math will help us learn music, but music will not help us learn reading and math. Wait, social studies, art, and a relaxed lunch and recess have nothing to do with fundamental learning. I knew all that time in my school years was wasted. Who cares how much oil the Middle East has, anyway? And only the unpatriotic would correlate the lack of understanding of how the government works with the decline of civil liberties. And everyone knows that emphasizing test driven reading and math skills will help eliminate systemic prejudice, and awaken social justice.

Friends, what is really important? When you see your children what do you hope for them? Is the highest priority that they do well in math?

There are deeper questions that are blithely ignored by the mainstream media. It is not just that reading and math versus the science, art, music, etc. It is what has been left out, what doesn’t even register as important.

Where is the comment on interpersonal curriculum? We get years of teaching about fractions (and still fall behind other wealthy countries) but no interpersonal guidance. Where is the recognition of different learning styles? Visual, auditory, and bodily-kinesthetic learners need different types of instruction. Understanding of learning styles is fairly new. We are not even sure how many styles there are or how they may combine in any given child.

And what of the (sort of famous) theory of multiple intelligences? Devised by Gardner and his friends at Harvard and well validated, it shows that each of us has a blend of verbal-linguistic, logical-mathematical, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligences. Most importantly, when the curriculum matches the child’s blend of intelligences there is improvement in all subjects. This is just common sense. Work from strengths first. Validate children in their natural intelligences and they will feel more confident when facing challenging subjects.

I have saved the biggest miss for last. The relationship with the teacher is the single most important factor in learning. Think back on your own life. Didn’t you learn better when you liked and respected the teacher? Yet there is no comment on relationship in No Child Left Behind. In fact, teachers are increasingly marginalized through pre-packaged curriculum, large class sizes, teacher trainings that emphasize class management at the expense of relationship, and economic uncertainty due to low wages.

There is more, such as the dearth of experiential learning, the negligence of family involvement, the inadequate lip service paid to child development, the importance of cooperative learning, the failure of punishments to motivate and support learning, etc. But it is safe to conclude that most children are left behind, and certainly important aspects of each child are ignored.

Why does this happen? See the next blog—Most Children Left Behind—Part II]]> http://www.baluvmour.com/pblog/index.php?entry=entry070730-080350 Ba Luvmour Mon, 30 Jul 2007 15:03:50 GMT