Text
from the script of the multimedia presentation:
the
pedagogy of the heart
as if one learns through
one’s heart
The question is ... what and where is the heart?
the distinctive, significant, and characteristic center of
a system ...
the human system, considered as the source and center of emotional
life, where the deepest and sincerest feelings are
located, the ability to feel humane and altruistic
feelings ...
the universe system and the human system - the center - the
still place - the heart …
out
of the heart emerges the living story
the universe is not made of atoms...
...
it is made of stories
...
and the story of the photograph of earth from outer
space is probably the most important experience
in the past century and thanks to scientific thinking
we have accomplished much in this last century ...
yet in this same century we have virtually destroyed
the harmony and integrity of our home
...
something is out of balance in our way of living ...
Our scientific thinking is without heart;
it does not include or come from the
heart.
Let’s look at the story of science
in its search for the center of the universe, for
the still point - for the heart.
Long
ago the earth was the still point - the center of
the universe.
All the planets and stars moved about the earth, the heart
of the universe.
It was Copernicus, using new scientific thinking, who proved
that the earth is orbiting around the sun. The sun
became the still point, the new center, 93 million
miles away.
It was a heliocentric universe.
Hundreds
of years later, scientists realized that the sun
was just another star swirling about the center of
the Milky Way galaxy. The center of the galaxy was
the new heart of the universe.
Within a few years, it was discovered that the Milky Way
is a galaxy like billions of other galaxies. Each of these galaxies is rushing away
from the origin of the universe, the Big Bang. The
new still point is 10-15 billion years from here.
Human
beings have become insignificant individuals on an
insignificant planet, twirling around an average
star in an insignificant galaxy, on the edge of the
universe.
Until
one day when one insignificant human being said that, “time
and space are relative to the point of view of the
observer.” Now, in my way of thinking, this
brings the center of the universe home. The still
point is now back here within human experience.
The
universe swirls around and through each one of us.
It
took me many years to realize that Einstein was talking
as much about observation as he was about energy
fields and the velocity of light. It wasn’t
until I researched native perspectives that I realized
how language constructs perception.
Benjamin
Whorf, in his study of Hopi language, effectively
said: that every Hopi parent teaches the Theory of
Relativity to their two year old child. It seems
that the Hopi stay still in this present moment and
bring the world through them. They have remained
at the still point - they live through the heart.
As
a personal practice I began living in the moment,
staying present and becoming the still point.
I
discovered that I had returned to my own heart and
that I had become connected to the universe as one.
In
1972, I began my first experiment in designing a
learning environment around each child as a legitimate
center of the universe. The heart of the child is
experiencing the universe as if one is the center
... the still point.
However,
it was my daughter who transformed my understanding
of human learning. In 1983 I began working with her
and other children in a new model for learning that
allows the child to live from one’s center,
to learn from one’s heart.
In
order to illustrate learning through the heart we
would like to share one story of one boy.
This
is about Donnie who was losing his heart.
One
day Donnie’s parents found their son hiding
in the bushes because he didn’t want to go
to school. They knew something was seriously wrong.
Donnie was in Grade 3, couldn’t read, couldn’t
understand math and could hardly answer a question.
He hung his head in despair most of the time, his
eyes were beginning to cross and the doctors were
recommending surgery. Every expert found something
wrong with Donnie and the hours and hours of remedial
education were only making matters worse.
His
parents heard me speak at a local convention. They
were so desperate to find help for their son, that
although I stated ideas that were contrary to the
experts. they decided to try something different
and a week later they brought Donnie to see me.
To
his parents surprise, I did not test Donnie. I got
down on the floor and played with him. After about
an hour, I pronounced that there was nothing, absolutely
nothing, ‘wrong’ with Donnie. I choose
to believe that ‘all children are born geniuses’;
first because it is probably true, second, and most
important, the assumption gets better results. This
idea shifts the responsibility on adults to respond
respectfully and appropriately to the essential integrity
of every child.
While
playing with Donnie, I noticed that he composed information
predominately using his visual imagination. When
I asked him a question, he would roll his eyes back
and spend as much as ten minutes looking at the incredible
detail of his inner pictures before he would come
back with a response. The reason he couldn’t
talk was because no one knew to wait while Donnie
did his inner work.
Can
you imagine a classroom teacher with thirty restless
children waiting ten minutes for Donnie to give the
answer to 3 + 4? Imagine how Donnie felt never having
his inner world legitimized, unable to communicate
what he saw to the outer world. Imagine how his parents
felt, cut off from his inner world, left to witness
the physical symptoms of Donnie’s frustration.
All
his symptoms disappeared while Donnie worked with
us in Wondertree. Wondertree is a place where children
are legitimate and are enfranchised to design their
own learning adventure.
I
remember that first year, we gave Donnie all the
space he needed to do what he loved doing. He and ‘Hopper’,
his rabbit hand puppet, spent about half of the year
sitting up in the Magnolia tree in the backyard.
Many times I would go outside, climb the tree and
sit with Donnie staring at the clouds. I began to
sense his loneliness and his innocent, independent
spirit.
One
day, the children all wanted me to give them math
questions, ‘like they do in school’.
I made up some questions and handed them out to each
child. Donnie, who thought he was in heaven since
coming to Wondertree, looked down, saw the math papers
and burst into tears. I rushed over and dramatically
tore the papers into shreds. I told Donnie that his
happiness was the most important thing in the world
to me, far more important than any math questions.
We became friends. Donnie had lots to do, he drew
pictures, built clay models and played with the other
children. Each morning we would sit at the round
table to plan our day and after several months, Donnie
began talking with the group, by talking through
his puppet ‘Hopper’.
I
can assure you that my expertise as an educator did
not come from ‘anything’ I learned in
university, it came because I am a father. I learned
everything I know about children from children, first
from my daughter, then from the group of children
I have worked with for the past 20 years.
Since
the day my daughter, ilana, was born, until she was
6 years old, she, like virtually all children, figure
out pretty much how the world works and how to talk
intelligently about the whole process. Adults trust
young children to learn to talk, to do what psychologists
consider the most difficult learning task of a lifetime.
This awesome learning event is achieved by children
out of their joy, their curiosity and out of their
enthusiasm to understand and create relationships.
Why do we let schooling interfere with children’s
natural ability to learn and teach them to become
dependent on instruction?
My
daughter walked out of school, feeling disrespected
after only two weeks. I had a choice; to trust the
school system that doesn't trust children to learn
naturally, or to trust my daughter and support her
natural ability to learn. She had already taught
me to absolutely trust her ability to design her
own learning process. I also remembered that I felt
disrespected in school, and when my daughter came
home frustrated and asked to learn at home, I decided
to support her. I committed to a one year experiment
to work with her at home. As my commitment grew,
I began sharing my philosophy about “learning
as an enthusiastic process” with other parents.
Within
a year, I had ten children in my basement working
and playing with me each day. We created Wondertree,
a small learning community, out of our curiosity
and our need to understand.
Wondertree
is a place where enthusiasm is sacred. Our hearts
proved to be the best guide for designing our curriculum.
For example, my daughter didn’t decide to read
until she was 10, yet within a month she was reading
at a Grade 7 level. Within three years she enrolled
herself in a second year university English course
and excelled at it. Because we let the curriculum
emerge from our enthusiasm, each day became a learning
adventure. Learning made sense as part of a growth
process. Each day was filled with meaning as the
children learned from their passion.
One
day, I showed the children how to do video animation
by putting a rock in the middle of the floor. I filmed
it for a few frames, moved it - filmed it, moved
it - filmed it. Donnie got the idea immediately,
built a small movie set, painted faces on a couple
of rocks and began shooting his first movie.
I
entered the movies that the kids made in the annual
provincial student film festival. The first year
we won two awards and Donnie won first prize. Each
year, for the next 4 years, the kids made videos
and more often than not, Donnie was awarded first
prize for his video starring Hopper.
When
Donnie was about 13, he began building his sets and
filming his video four months before the annual contest.
On the award ceremonies evening, Donnie and the group
were sitting in the audience full of eager anticipation.
The winning movies that year were terrible and Donnie’s
wasn’t even shown. At the end of the screening,
I approached the head judge and stated that in my
opinion, Donnie’s movie was far better than
any of the winners. She agreed and explained that
the judges loved Donnie’s movie and also thought
it was the best. She added that they had decided
not to award him first prize in order to discourage
him from making movies about his rabbit in favor
of a more ‘mature’ subject. I stood aghast.
I looked long and deep into her eyes and said, “I
am so glad that none of you met Jim Hensen early
in his career.” I went back and told the kids
how the judges had come to their decision. We decided,
then and there, never to submit any more films to
the festival.
It
was relatively easy to let this incident go, because
we were still creating Wondertree as the greatest
learning adventure of our lives. Each September and
each January, we invited up to 20 people to the learning
centre and interviewed them as potential mentors
for the coming season. The children would hire and
fire artists, clowns, writers, potters, musicians,
dancers and scientists to hold weekly workshops in
the centre. One of their favorite mentors was Lawrence,
a street clown, who was hired again and again for
four years.
After
we let go of film making, we discovered HyperCard,
a Macintosh computer program that allowed us to design
our own software. The children were so excited by
this new interest, that soon there was a long line-up
at our one computer. After several frustrating days,
we began to discuss the problem at our daily planning
meetings. We realized that we did not ‘have’ to
hire our ten mentors this session and that we could
use the money to buy more computers.
After
a consensus decision, we negotiated a sabbatical
with our mentors and bought five new computers. We
began experimenting with the software and started
several interesting projects. We worked intensely
each day and the children shared ideas and built
on each other’s breakthroughs.
Six
months later, after one of the most exciting collaborative
learning experiences that I have ever had the honor
of participating in, we created a computer program
that won the Canadian Northern Telecom Award for
Excellence in Education. Donnie played a significant
role as our graphic artist and mentor to the other
children’s artwork.
The
following year, we were approached by a representative
from our electric utility company. They were looking
for a software design company to create a computer
game to teach children how to conserve energy in
their own homes. After several months of negotiation,
we got the contract. My group of twelve kids, ages
10 to 13, a couple of mentors and I, began to design
a computer game with the first payment of our $75,000
contract.
We
learned how to run a business and the children billed
for their hours and formed work teams to complete
the project. A year later when we finished the project,
we won two national Canadian awards; a second Northern
Telecom Award and a Marshall McLuhan Award. Needless
to say, we invested the $10,000 in prize money in
new computer equipment.
By
the time Donnie was 14 he was an award winning video
artist and an international award winning computer
graphics designer. He was the youngest winner of
a MacWorld and Apple Computer contest in California.
As
his learning consultant, I was aware that Donnie
was still virtually unable to read, however staying
true to our approach of supporting learning that
emerges from enthusiasm, I continued to focus on
what he loved doing. Appreciating his ability in
design, I arranged for him to apprentice with one
of Canada’s most famous architects. Over the
next months, while looking through the amazing books
on architecture in their office, Donnie became fascinated
with architecture and its history. He became frustrated
with just looking at the pictures and drawings and
wanted to read the accompanying text. Driven
by his own desire for knowledge, and given the space
and support, Donnie learned to read by himself, just
as he learned how to do computer graphics.
Donnie,
with his eidetic memory could take one glimpse at
a freighter in the harbor and draw every detail of
the entire ship. Every rust spot and every window
would be accurately illustrated, however he would
leave out all names and numbers from his drawing.
Although he became an excellent reader, his inattention
to words prevented him from learning to spell, even
his last name. Aware of this, I guided Donnie to
imagine his father’s workshop filled with pieces
of soapstone. One by one he carved each letter of
his last name and placed them on display on a shelf.
For years afterward, when filling out his name, Donnie
would stop for a second, look up into his father’s
imaginary workshop, dust off the soapstone letters
and copy the letters onto the paper.
I
haven’t seen Donnie for about a year now, although
I ran into his father just the other day. Donnie,
who is now 27, has had a remarkable ten year career
as a graphic artist. At 23 he was the Senior Graphic
Artist at a top international consulting firm in
Vancouver. He has designed work for clients around
the world from Japan, to Saudi Arabia and Germany
as well as across the US and Canada. He is currently
a graphics animator with a small company doing special
effects for the movie industry. He is earning a great
living doing what he loves. Donnie never graduated
from Grade 3 and has never looked back. His father
feels that I saved his son’s life by focusing
on what his son could do, rather than on trying to
fix what he couldn’t.
Donnie
learned to live each day of his life out of his enthusiasm
and fascination with the world. He grew to trust
himself and to work cooperatively with others. He
learned the value of his gifts and how to earn a
living sharing them. From his ability to design he
became a SelfDesigner and one of the pioneers of
the work heartfelt.
Wondertree
Foundation for Natural Learning
www.wondertree.org and www.selfdesign.org
learning
as a sacred act …
beyond the paradigm of schooling
| Credits |
|
| Photos: |
Maureen
Cameron and Brent Cameron |
| Flute
Music: |
Brent
Cameron |
| Text: |
Brent
Cameron |
| Story: |
with
the permission of Donnie |
| Editing: |
Wendy
Perttula |
| Technical: |
Martin
Elliott |
| |
|
About the Author
|
In 1982,
my daughter walked out of kindergarten after
two
weeks because she realized that she would lose
control of her life if she went to school. Along
with her birth, this event changed my life because
she asked me to be her teacher and to keep doing
what we had been doing for the past five years.
I began a learning experiment in honour of the
ability of every child to learn naturally from
their enthusiasm to understand and their curiosity
about how the world works. For the past 20 years,
I have been engaged with children and teens who
learn outside the school system yet inside the
domain of their heart and their neurology. I
am inspired daily by the amazing intra- and interpersonal
events that occur when one lives in a learning
community based on fascination and fulfillment.
I am writing a book about my journey which I
hope will be published in 2003. The book will
be called SelfDesign - The Wondertree Story.
E-mail: brentcameron@wondertree.org |
