Being childlike - a life of promise and efforts - Learning with Joy

30 April 2009 and 10 May 2009

An important part of myself has been, ... an important part of my life has been to keep in touch with some precious childhood memories.

These are not really the usual childhood memories, like Christmas, parties, holidays or even people. These are more like impressions - lasting impressions. My problem has been to be able to express them. Even understanding, or 'locating'  them has proven difficult. In fact precisely because of this difficulty to understand or to locate them, the ability to express them and share them has been greatly impaired... like limited.

Today, I think that a conscious decision, an important, deep decision that somehow I - or something in me - took, was to remain faithful to these impressions and somehow bring them to life.

***********

A lot of my professional, entrepreneurial life has been determined - like led - by that desire and that 'implicit' decision. In fact - it seems - my professional life became about that:

              bringing to life and getting in touch with strong, lasting child / child-like feelings    

Only recently - I would say these days, do I start to learn more and approach these feelings closer again.

What are they? Whom are there? The taste of the mango lies in tasting it - words are at loss. Only today is society more willing to invest and investigate into these... Early childhood development, children feelings and intelligences are being studied with a more open mind.

In this 'conflict' or 'tension' between the growing human being and the child, it is often the growing human - more specifically the adult - already grown up - that will look at and judge the child, it is often the growing human - more specifically the adult - already grown up, that will look at and judge the child.

Shall the adults' views prevail over any other? In fact are there been even any others? Rare are the instances in our modern world. The Little Prince stands out in his confinement and solitude. Far away in history are the stories or the representation of child-king, in ancient Egypt or during the Khmer kingdom.

In a world designed for the adults to WIN, shall we be surprised that little be made to uncover what is it that the child has and the adult not?

I am not saying that children should win nor that education is a fallacy and responsibility a mirage. I am giving my best at becoming an educated, responsible adult. But where so many of us, so often fail, isn't it worth to turn back and look at the whole equation differently?

1- What can we learn from children? Is there anything that adult can learn from children?
2- When it seems that from birth the fragile infant 's life is suspended into the adults' hands - primarily the mother and father - is that that children can only take and adults give?
3-Besides love and gratitude is there anything that we adult can receive and our children give?
4- If one has to admit that yes adults will have to win, does that mean a contrario that children must lose? Above the all too common scheme of domination, dependence, sometimes contend and humiliation or their reverse - adoration and glorification - is there another path of win-win openness, education and inclusion?

In view of the multiple talents deployed by our children, the world of adults is put into question...

a/ Yes - no 5 years old created the atomic bomb or the space shuttle or the compass or the chopsticks... Nonetheless if a comparison is possible by any standards the field of possibility for each man seem to shrink with years for most.

The smart student becomes a great professor, the dynamic teenager becomes a successful businessman, the playful boy a talented architect etc... a great violinist, scientist, sportsman...at most. And for most of us, an employee, a staff, a clerk, a worker, a farmer, ...There is absolutely no shame in this status, positions, occupations... And for sure they can be the subject of much pride and accomplishment.

Just that the spectrum of resources being used, the intensity of efforts and the depth of progress being made seem to pale when you compare how much is between achieved between 0 to 6 and 7 to 77. Isn't it? Maybe it could become the subject for new researches for people who have the time and money...

b/ Another reason why we question the world of adults and its traditionally accepted dominance over the world of children is the blatant failure - and irresponsibility - the lies, the perversity that seem to pervade every level and every aspects of the adult's society

Since my daughter was born, besides becoming - maybe - a subject of pride for a loving father - she also become a subject of wonder, such wonder as I encounter with any infant: I cannot help but wondering at the great efforts - inhuman for us adults it seems - over-human efforts my daughetr is making to ajust herself to her new environment and world: conquering, managing space, time, langage, food, objects.... She goes through all those previously unknown dimensions at high speed, overcoming all obstacles one after the other.


Besides signals of pain and absolute needs, she is only smile and laugh. There is an immense sense of enterprise. What drives her?

habits and getting stunned

We would rather get stunned than fully alive.
We would rather get absorbed into a non-activity: often reading a newspaper, watching TV, certain discussions - rather than to open to something real about using our mind.
We would rather fall back into habits - old habits, or new ones - than really - courageously - think.
Do we think about it? Do we?
Krishnamurthi - on this road - left footprints one may well follow - though they - his footprints - do not lead anywhere else than our own somewhere sometimes...

Outdoor education - field of interest to share at the MOE conference

It is time to submit a list of topics for which I will be keen to share and speak at the MOE outdoor education.
Though I never thought of specialising in outdoor education, I have been running hundreds and hundreds of outdoor training programs - many teambuildings and many camps. I created most programs and I had to adapt to many and many various types of situations, people, environment,.... I cannot help but wanting to contribute. I believe one the interesting aspect I am able to contribute is the freshness and innocence directly at the source of our designs. Our delivery is dictated by a strong, imperious need to engage everybody which means: every body should want to play and every body could and would. Last, learning should be a natural outcome - hence the idea of facilitation: (facil is french means easy - to facilitate is to make things easier: to support learning because learning is there, ready to be picked up... like a fruit when it is ripe or when the chick gets out of the shell and the mum gently helps breaking the shell).

"Natural" learning is something I should expand on.... I believe it is something many people do not get - or totally undervalue - and it is not their fault... there is a major drift in our modern societies between our natural abilities to learn and where "modern" education is bringing us, a drift to where and how learning really takes place and where our schools are leading us.

Now outdoor education is just one among the many ways to help us deal with the question of learning but it is a powerful one. Personnally, outdoors have always been an attraction because there is something "wholistic" when it comes to being outdoors. In no any order, I am listing below some of the reasons why I think so:

1- outdoors, the body - not just the mind - is part of the experience: how you walk, run, jump, hang on to something (or not)... etc... it all makes a difference. It matters and cannot be left aside as opposed to purely mind-based form of questioning. How the body gets engaged - in itself - should lead to much discussion. In particular we could start a reflexion on action - engagement - being. A funny - but essential way - to look at it: we all know Rodin's sculpture: "The thinker". Question: is the thinker really thinking? Or is he simply bored? German philosopher Nietzsche was saying (and I got this quote quoted by a famous jazzman - which is in itself significant): "Only thoughts that come as we walk are valuable thoughts (worth considering)"

2- outdoors there is no way but thinking about space and dealing with space and managing space... This is essentials when I see all too often how poorly human beings plan and manage and deal with their own space, their personnal space, their learning space, the private or public space. Learning to acknowledge and deal with space... a capital value.... missed, forgotten, ignored...

Now, what are the implications in terms of OE? There are important and relate in my opinion to a mature audience in the first place: dealing with space is about planning and about developing the ability to see through (helicopter view, mapping things, strategising). To reach to this stage, OE has many steps to cover, starting from the basics: dealing with groups, dynamics of groups, organising camps, to the more advanced: facilitating learning (creating learning space, learning climate, learning tools...).

Here the whole question of learning space can be looked at as the question of dealing with learning ecologies. Each outdoor speciality (outdoor sports and activities) offers a specific learning eco-system, with its idiosyncrasies and its richness. Much education can be derived from there. It needs to be looked into behind the technical aspects, but rather, focusing on what can be more universal and/or relate to behavior, skills and attitude. Of course the technical aspects should be kept and integrated within the bigger picture.

Practically, it could mean looking at building curriculum and lesson plans to train the trainers in the relevant aspects.  

3- outdoors and dealing with what is free. The greatest tragedy of our modern world(s) is to have lost touch with the magnificence of what is given and provided to us by Nature and the Creator (in a non-religious sense). Sun, air, water to start with. The very tenets of life are so so taken for granted that we ignore them, we even blame them for most things and we hide and cut ourselves from them. As we do so, the very first thing we should have - gratitude (a with it a sense of love, appreciation, humility, acceptance and the whole gamut of values that build proper attitude, skills and character) - is replaced by a sense of loss, frustration, fear and any opposite to what makes life easy, simple and enjoyable (complexities, negative emotions, ...). Of course, outdoor education in relation to THAT (capita letter because THAT = NATURE = outdoors in this context) teaches about freedom and dealing with freedom as human beings, ie the choice we have to make to find our place in this grand scheme of things and in our lives. OE has a role to play in helping

a- develop a sense of appreciation of nature, leading to respect, care etc...
b- connect the physical reality to the meta-physical reality (our dependancy) and highlight/extract from there the set of values people and society need to adhere to to live live fully, happily, together in peace.(courage, tolerance, patience, determination, collaboration, sharing, listening, and hundreds and hundreds more ....)

In other words, OE has a big role to play in dispensing value-based education

4- As a consequence, outdoors teach us about the essential distinction between NEEDS and WANTS. There is no WANTS in the Nature, there are only needs. Another way to put it is that outdoor education is very strong at reminding us all the time that what we want is only possible to the extent that the circonstance, nature, the weather, the geography allow it.

What about NEEDS AND WANTS is essential for any of us? People, we - are running around crazily talking about what we want to do. Our society has created so many wants so that millions of products can be sold, that we have become consuming machine driven by our wants. That - as early as 1930's how Ford was describing his philosophy of mass-production for mass-marketing. Today, even higher education is using the tricks and selling MBAs to any bored executive in its 30's. As professor, author and educationist Mintzberg puts it in one of his book, let's look for "Managers, not MBAs". It is not about what we have but what we do. We need people with the right values and qualities to run our business and institutions: ideals vs greed, patience vs rushing for quick gain, support of the people vs political backfiring etc....

How do we get OUT of the "wanting" zone? How do we learn about something different? Can we "de-condition" ourselves - after 20, 30, 40 years of exposure to a world bombarded with advertising, malls, commercials, fast food, fast cars, fast relationships, fast jobs... What else do we need to learn? How?

OE puts us in touch with nature and nature has the built-in ability to teach about needs, about reality, real causes and real consequences.... The practical implications are many and very powerful and of great consequences:

a- What does a human being really needs to survive: basics of food, body care and personal hygiene, human inter-personal skills so that I can live peacefully with my peers, intra-personal skills so that I remain a healthy, positive individual?
b- to live, play and enjoy: meanings, purposes of being together in a group or a society, role of rules, punishments, rewards, duties
c- connecting back to our natural learning abilities: what am I good at? what do I really enjoy doing? How do I see myself growing? What is my voice (See the Eigth Discipline by Cowey), my vocation, my destiny?

In Singapore context, any of these issues are highly relevant and can be discussed either in a broad context or in very specific, detailed manner.

Feeling the feelings

As I feel the feelings
As I stop, breath and listen to the feelings
---- what grips me, what burden me, what ... anything that affects me... any affects
as I stop, I can feel my feelings

And I feel the pain... and I feel the fear and I feel the weight and the burden
There are there... palpable
they have been there all the way
they were there
--- even when I was fleeing, escaping, hiding from them.... in hiding somewhere in braveland - the country where the coward can pretend to be courageous and never scared... because they are too scared and would not face it

Face what?
It is NOT ABOUT FACING YOUR FEARS
IT IS ABOUT FACING YOUR FEELINGS WHEN YOU ARE DAMN SCARED
Feel the pain, the panic, the sense of being at a loss, disappearing, scrambling
Feel the panic
Feel the heavy look - feel the heavy gaze - of yourself to yourself

What is my fear
What are my fears... this or that... some ideas
What is real is....
the sense of being less less less less, ... minus minus minus, losing losing losing ground, losing touch
alone,

NOW, Oh now, here they are... Now ho now I can recognise them
Here they are... darlings, ... dare I?, darlings!! My fears
As I feel my feelings, then they appear,
more perceptible, more domitable
MY FEARS... here you are
Here you were

As the rain stops
the sun sets
As the sun clouds, the rain falls
and cleanse the air, and the valley, and the house, and the room and the heart... and the Hearts

In this game lies my strenghth, my balance
my love, my love
my dove

**************
Facing your fears is meaningless until you can face your feelings
Feel your feelings and you will tenderly embrace your fears
The emotions will pass - as any cloud -
The storm will clean the air
Feelings are like thunder, wind or sunshine
Emotions are like smoke, clouds or shadows
emotions are not real but complex creations
feelings are real

Shall we learn to feel our feelings
as they speak the truth
so may we

Emotional intelligence - a sound enterprise

Emotional intelligence...how should this notion be approached?
Intelligence has long been thought to be the matter of the intelligible, ie the logos. Whereas emotions are derived from the world of passions, ie the pathos.... Schematically, intelligence would be about what I think, emotions about what I feel.

The notion of emotional intelligence seems to dispel the idea that the distinction is clear-cut and straight-forward.

It is not just intelligence on one side, emotions on the other and nothing in-between. Emotional intelligence is telling us about a mix, a bridge between two worlds. Descartes, the French XVII century philosopher, was applying his mind in ways to discover an intelligible world - a world of what we are sure about, as opposed to what is only illusion, superstition or ever-changing.... "Cogito" - the thinking mind - became the angular stone of what defines human being - cogito ergo sum - I think therefore I am.

Towards the end of his life, Descartes was hard-pressed to think and write on the domain of passions, emotions... He too had to deal with this question, whether and how we can either separate or combine thoughts and emotions.

In a simple way, intelligence is what helps us coming up with decision, for which we need to clarify issues, try to understand, share and communicate, using various tools like languages etc...

Emotions are a complex, unclear network of thoughts and feelings... It is important to distinguish between emotions and feelings as emotions are usually expressed... in "body-form": shaking, blushing, smiling, crying, as well as through language... words, signs... Feelings are anchored into every human being without taking any form... they are felt within... in our core.... As such they are felt. They are not perceived by the five senses. Feelings are not about seeing something, hearing or touching... it is an inner-perception. Feelings are just that. They may be triggered by senses or by something we get, some discussion, some ideas coming or passed on to us... Nonetheless feelings will always be of an inner-invisible-intangible-substance: fear, joy, anger, peace, plain satisfaction, plain discomfort...

Emotions will be a result of our feelings... In the same way as light is produced out of electricity, emotions are born out of feelings. You see the light but not the electricity. You see the emotions, but not the feelings. Another way to put it is to look at feelings like fire and emotions like smoke. This analogy highlights the primary aspect of feelings over emotions. It also helps understand the complex nature of emotions: complex in the sense that they are the result of a mix, something equivalent to a combustion, the combination of feelings with thoughts and langage.

These distinctions help us understand the role of emotional intelligence: trying to understand better, to decipher what rules the world of emotions... trace back to the feelings, look at expressing what happens (the mechanisms behind the "combustion"), make sense out what happens, ie allow the intelligence - the meaning, the intention - to emerge in this typically human language.

What does it take to understand the human language being displayed via our emotions and feelings?
What to see through the smoke?
It may be that feelings are not easy to describe. Besides, feeling are states of being, from which actions will follow. Whether I sleep, eat, work, rest, study... many actions are driven by what we see, think and feel.
Whenever we think or see, we also feel. Feelings are there at all time...

Feeling what we feel - becoming aware and conscious about it - is a powerful way to free ourselves from the pain and burden of many heavy emotional states... like stress, fear, worries, or over-excitement, or even intoxication. As we feel our feeling, we take ownership for them and can intelligently, rationally, come back to sound decision making - and it could be simply deciding to stop for a while, to relax or to suspend any action... A French writer - Michel Tournier -  used to say that anger always triggers action, but it is always the wrong action which is being triggered by anger.

Emotional intelligence may be the skill, the art and science of understanding - listening to - what links our feeling to our thoughts and while acknowledging our emotions, in the meantime avoiding the trap of falling into confused emotional states while favoring and fostering true self-expression of what we feel and light-headed, sound, intelligent decision making.

Learning - the risk and joy of learning - the gut to learn... and the curiosity

The only risk with learning is facing the unknown.
How many of us do like facing the unknown?
I spent too much time trying to make up things... thinking I like adventure and going for it... but in reality... escaping the possibility of any real learning...

REAL LEARNINGS: where are you?
Dear ones, shall I learn to love and welcome you?
Sometimes, what we learnt best is to turn our head... towards the other side...
Do you know the story of the good Samaritan? Before he was rescued by the good Samaritan, the injured lying down the sideway after beeing robbed and beaten by some daicoits - this poor man had just been ignored by a priest and another powerful man.... They had turned their head...

What does it take to learn? Be willing to learn
And what does it take to be willing to learn: face reality...
and for that: be at peace with your reality...
It is ok to be scared, it is ok to doubt, to worry...
Now as I am facing those feelings, they lighten up, releasing their grip on me

The risk of learning is the one of facing one's fear... this panic stage I often experienced when things take too fast a turn or when I lose all sense of control... panic... lets enjoy the panic... let's enjoy the butterfly in the stomac... let them be the premises of something great coming up.... the joy of facing reality

THE JOY OF FACING REALITY... of getting one's hands dirty, of being there and now, no matter what,
Being there for the poor man or the angry client
May be scared, may be sorry, may be mute, but be there and happy to be and committed to the best possible outcome. A CAPTAIN IN THE STORM.... and a good laugh... and god laughs
THERE IS IMMENSE JOY IN THE COURAGE IT TAKES TO FACE A STORM

There is a quiet resignation that may the best prevail and the wind blow in the right direction
It is not resignation... it is detachment, while I am there heart, mind and body ready to die while ready to fight to the last minute

READY TO LOSE, HARNESSED TO WIN - THERE IS NOTHING TO LOSE

What do we protect ourselves from when we turn our head from learning situations
Why do we cheat in exams?
Why do we say yes 'i understand', when we mean no 'i don't'?
We do not want to lose, lose face to our parents? our teachers?
Sometimes we just learn to "Not care". 'I just don't care' become the excuse
Looking good and avoiding looking bad
Avoiding conflict...
Not standing out

Now ... what about curiosity?
Curiosity pale to conformism
Of course curiosity is a powerful engine, when drivers slow down to watch this accident on the opposite lane of the highway... this even creates trafic jams... no risk of being spotted though...
Now as to asking a controversial question in a group... who dares?
Why dare? why not just ask?

Real learning attitude manifest naivety and a thirst stronger than the desire to look good...
In fact, the authentic thirst for learning look almost always good
Except maybe when it is compulsive or neurotic... and... still... why not?
What's this? What's this ask the 2-year old girl - 20 time in 5 minutes?