graduation

A job is something that needs to be done, disconnected from our being. Joy is the mirror opposite of it:  it is only in the being.

VTA, says, let them play. The controlling adult in me sometimes shudders at the thought. But the soul knows always that, it is the only way.

For a few classes, I tried administering classes with more discipline than usual.

I noticed that the energy in my kids was settling down, sedimenting almost into a quietude that frightened me. I realised that I was monitoring a discipline that was taking away the ability to be surprised. I was making a mistake, an error that I abhor in the contemporary mass education system.

"Surprise is the greatest gift that life can  grant us" observed Boris Pasternak. Innocence of the soul allows this miraculous gift to unravel. What ruins the innocence, in our layman's world, is, disciplining and fostering similarity, rather than enthusing difference. That is what teachers mostly do when they have a job to teach.

The two principal focus areas in a job in a school/college/university are:
1. finishing a curriculum within a stipulated time; and,
2. to have the kids pass the examinations. This is to successfully create a habit of memorising facts without application. Information is passed on and innovation is not expected.

The following video discusses the need to change the paradigms of education and captures what education means to me: " ... waking them up to what is inside of themselves" (at 6:32)

(video courtesy: YouTube.com)

I was giving into the 'system' since that is easier than having a class full of thinkers and active 4 year olds who can test anyone's sense of composure and discipline.

As I was losing the personalised connection with my kids, I realised this was starting to look like a job. And, believe me, 'a job' and I are not the best compatible units. As too much discipline and kids are not.

I had started kindergarten teaching because I needed to get out of my home, and this was the only employment I got. I continue to be in the kindergarten because it is my fountain of being forever surprised. Surprised at how the little ones grow up, how each day they laugh with even more vivacity than the day before, how they are eager to know, how they are perpetually happy.

They are happy when they play. And they are at play always - when they are eating and rubbing their tummies and saying, 'mmmmm I'm hungry'; when they are laying down the cots and puffing up their tiny muscles and saying, 'nnngggg I'm strong'; when they march up the stairs; when they rush around; when they put their little hands  in the mystery box. They are at play and they are learning much more than strict disciplining can teach.

As I sit here and miss my unreal world of joy at school, I am happy to announce that I have graduated. From holding a job to simply playing around.


(video courtesy : The Little Garden Kindergarten)