Thank you so much! I’ve been fortunate to be in circles with Shilpa Jain and with others from Swaraj. I’m a deep believer in the walk out wisdoms and in the beauty way of
the grandmas. So good to hear about these connections.
Shilpa is an incredibly dedicated "learning-activist"! So glad you are in this orbit. We all need to keep coming together, cross pollinating and supporting each other. Thanks for all the good work you are doing Cynthia! All blessings! Onward!
I too am on a journey of self-discovery, unlearning and relearning. During the process I have discovered "the more I know the more I don't know." The most liberating action is to admit when you are wrong and learn from it. I agree with you if more folks, particularly world leaders were less arrogant and humbled themselves the world would be a better place. Thank you for sharing some of your life experiences.
Love it. Instilling the idea of 'true leaders'. The idea that you cannot heal or uphold those of your own culture, if you are not willing to be in the mud and muck of our humanity.
Thank you so much for sharing these stories and reflections! It brought back fond memories of visiting Swaraj years ago. that trip changed so many ideas I had about schooling and learning. It takes a grand and noble courage indeed to walk away or choose beyond the security of modern education. Looking forward to more stories on your wonderful caravan journey.
So powerful. I’ve always been drawn to ecovillages & the vision of the future they represent. Thanks for doing the work of introducing this radical reframe through that lens.
Thanks for chiming in Eden. There are so many cool things happening in the world now. And so much of this is nothing new. Humans have been living in life-affirming ways for millennia. We just need to re-member. All blessings.
Truly beautiful. You are opening my eyes to what I’m starting to see. All from people like yourself who I feel im relearning the world but curiously what I’ve always felt to be true but relearning all over again here on Substack. P.s I wish I could meet and learn from your mother in law!
We may not need "them". But sometimes "They" are us!!! Ha! We all inter-are and in truth, we all genuinely do need each other. I am learning to see from you as well. Thank you for sharing Christiana!
The arrogance of the so-called "developed" world. "Destroyed" more like. And the arrogance of the "educated" who are blind to real life knowledge and look down on the "unskilled" labourer.
Good question and not easy to answer. In the narrow context of my comment I was thinking of those who are perhaps highly qualified in a narrow field yet totally ignorant of how much skill and ingenuity is required to live as a manual worker. Being to all appearances just a peasant farmer I have certainly experienced being looked down on by people who consider themselves clever. We once looked down on Neanderthals as inferior beings with no language or art only to find that in fact they were as intelligent as homo sapiens.
How to define education. On a basic level the acquisition of knowledge
What should education ultimately be for?
Our masters would say to program us to be compliant citizens.
I would say education should ultimately be to give us the tools we need to access the experience of all those who have gone before so that we can expand our horizons and , to use a cliché, become well rounded characters. A good education would not just be of the rational ordered world but also the wider wisdom of the irrational that cannot be constrained by words, the intelligence of emotion.
As a child we lived in poverty so my parents could send us nine children to one of the most expensive schools in the UK. Sadly I never made much use of this good education though frequent vicious beatings instilled in me a lifelong distrust of authority, to always question what I was told, and it did help me bullshit my way through the last sixty years. It was a decade or more after leaving school in 1967 before I appreciated how fortunate I had been to have had parents who had sacrificed so much to get us “educated”.
Thank you for sharing this. This film was very intruiguing and certainly got my mind spinning and reframing international aid and education. After living in an Athabascan village on the Yukon river for two years and working in the schools, having some of the most amazing experiences of my life and horrifying experiences of my life, I left with the belief that communities must be strengthened and empowered from within. People from their own communities are the ones to empower the next generation (whether they are western educated instructors or elders) not people from the outside, however well-intentioned those outsiders may be. Outsiders can never truly understand what the cultural and community needs are.
Thank you so much! I’ve been fortunate to be in circles with Shilpa Jain and with others from Swaraj. I’m a deep believer in the walk out wisdoms and in the beauty way of
the grandmas. So good to hear about these connections.
Shilpa is an incredibly dedicated "learning-activist"! So glad you are in this orbit. We all need to keep coming together, cross pollinating and supporting each other. Thanks for all the good work you are doing Cynthia! All blessings! Onward!
I too am on a journey of self-discovery, unlearning and relearning. During the process I have discovered "the more I know the more I don't know." The most liberating action is to admit when you are wrong and learn from it. I agree with you if more folks, particularly world leaders were less arrogant and humbled themselves the world would be a better place. Thank you for sharing some of your life experiences.
Yay! Keep going! The journey never ends. It just keeps getting more beautiful. All blessings.
Love it. Instilling the idea of 'true leaders'. The idea that you cannot heal or uphold those of your own culture, if you are not willing to be in the mud and muck of our humanity.
OOOOHHHHHH.... I LOVE THAT! Like Thich Naht Hanh reminds us... "No mud, no lutus."
Yes, yes and more yes. Thank you always for your words and insight. Appreciate your journey and the wisdom that comes from it. 😘
Thank you for reading. All blessings to you.
Thank you so much for sharing these stories and reflections! It brought back fond memories of visiting Swaraj years ago. that trip changed so many ideas I had about schooling and learning. It takes a grand and noble courage indeed to walk away or choose beyond the security of modern education. Looking forward to more stories on your wonderful caravan journey.
It has been a wild ride! And what a gift it was to visit with Swaraj! What was you experience there like?!
So powerful. I’ve always been drawn to ecovillages & the vision of the future they represent. Thanks for doing the work of introducing this radical reframe through that lens.
Thanks for chiming in Eden. There are so many cool things happening in the world now. And so much of this is nothing new. Humans have been living in life-affirming ways for millennia. We just need to re-member. All blessings.
Truly beautiful. You are opening my eyes to what I’m starting to see. All from people like yourself who I feel im relearning the world but curiously what I’ve always felt to be true but relearning all over again here on Substack. P.s I wish I could meet and learn from your mother in law!
We may not need "them". But sometimes "They" are us!!! Ha! We all inter-are and in truth, we all genuinely do need each other. I am learning to see from you as well. Thank you for sharing Christiana!
I really enjoyed this read- a loud resonance! Thank you.
Thank YOOOOOUUUUU!! :)
The arrogance of the so-called "developed" world. "Destroyed" more like. And the arrogance of the "educated" who are blind to real life knowledge and look down on the "unskilled" labourer.
Thank you for sharing Nick:)... How do you define "education"? What do you believe education should ultimately be for?
Good question and not easy to answer. In the narrow context of my comment I was thinking of those who are perhaps highly qualified in a narrow field yet totally ignorant of how much skill and ingenuity is required to live as a manual worker. Being to all appearances just a peasant farmer I have certainly experienced being looked down on by people who consider themselves clever. We once looked down on Neanderthals as inferior beings with no language or art only to find that in fact they were as intelligent as homo sapiens.
How to define education. On a basic level the acquisition of knowledge
What should education ultimately be for?
Our masters would say to program us to be compliant citizens.
I would say education should ultimately be to give us the tools we need to access the experience of all those who have gone before so that we can expand our horizons and , to use a cliché, become well rounded characters. A good education would not just be of the rational ordered world but also the wider wisdom of the irrational that cannot be constrained by words, the intelligence of emotion.
As a child we lived in poverty so my parents could send us nine children to one of the most expensive schools in the UK. Sadly I never made much use of this good education though frequent vicious beatings instilled in me a lifelong distrust of authority, to always question what I was told, and it did help me bullshit my way through the last sixty years. It was a decade or more after leaving school in 1967 before I appreciated how fortunate I had been to have had parents who had sacrificed so much to get us “educated”.
Thank you for sharing this. This film was very intruiguing and certainly got my mind spinning and reframing international aid and education. After living in an Athabascan village on the Yukon river for two years and working in the schools, having some of the most amazing experiences of my life and horrifying experiences of my life, I left with the belief that communities must be strengthened and empowered from within. People from their own communities are the ones to empower the next generation (whether they are western educated instructors or elders) not people from the outside, however well-intentioned those outsiders may be. Outsiders can never truly understand what the cultural and community needs are.
Oh Wow! I would LOVE to hear more about you experiences on the Yukon!
Okay! I'll write about it some time.