http://carolblack.org/on-the-wildness-of-children
Click on the link above to visit Carol’s website for this well written and profoundly important article. Gratitude to Embercombe for alerting us to this piece via their Facebook page.
“But as Odawa elder and educator Wilfred Peltier tells us, learning – like all human relationships – must be based in the ethical principal of non-interference, in the right of all human beings to make their own choices, as long as they’re not interfering with anybody else. As Nishnaabeg scholar and author Leanne Betasamosake Simpson tells us, learning – like all human relationships – must be based in the ethical principal of consent, in the right of all human beings to be free of violence and the use of force. Simpson explains:
If children learn to normalize dominance and non-consent within the context of education, then non-consent becomes a normalized part of the ‘tool kit’ of those who have and wield power… This is unthinkable within Nishnaabeg intelligence.
Interestingly, the most brilliant artists and scientists in Euro-western societies tell us exactly the same thing: that it is precisely this state of open attention, curiosity, freedom, collaboration, consent, that is necessary for all true learning, discovery, creation.
But our school system has been built of other bricks.”
and:-
“Species die, our planet warms, and in the name of teaching our children to save the world, we go on destroying their wildness, “socializing” them away from nature and into the cage we have built around childhood. Our nice teachers try to find ways to make it “fun,” to limit or at least soften the damage that is done; like zookeepers giving beach balls to captive polar bears, they try to find substitutes for what is lost. But the world is too beautiful to substitute for, and the wildest of our children – the ones they have to put on Ritalin, the ones they have to put on Prozac – know it. These children are the canaries in the coal mine, the ones who will not obey our masters, who will not take their place as cogs in the machine that is destroying the earth. They are not the ones who have a “disorder.” They are the ones who still hold the perfect Kosmos in their hearts.
The revolution will not take place in a classroom.
In wildness is the preservation of the world.”
Yes, indeed. Thank you, Carol.
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Counselling in Exeter since 1994
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