The New Century Education

domingo, 1 de febrero de 2015

Integral Education by Sri Aurobindo

Today I found a book bought on my trip around India: Pondicherry-Auroville in 2010, I was 23 years old... an amazing age to discover India and her Spirituallity..

Today I remembered visiting and experiencing these great teachers of the humanity Sri Aurobindo and The Mother thoughts and projects...

Me and my two friends Blanca and Irene went to India with a special mission to accomplish the last wish of Blanca's mother and visit his Guru in India... We decided to do a trip to discover what was Hinduism visiting different temples and Ashrams.. Blanca's mother was following this spiritual path and we wanted to feel closer to her... This was her last wish and we were ready to learn from it!

We had the pleasure to know Parvathi Kumar her Guru and many other hinduist paths...

We cannot say which temple and Ashrams visited were the best... but there were few we prolonged our stay.. In the North East Rajamudri (Parvathi Kumar Ashram), South East Tiruvannamalai (Ramana Maharshi Ashram) and Southern East Pondicherry (Sri Aurobindo and The Mother) were definitely the ones we spent more time in as we felt most confortable..

We learned from all of them... but in Auroville and Sri Aurobindo and The Mother Ashram we connected very much with the Educational system they were suggesting..
The three of us are music teachers and we felt The Integral Education System was very Inclusive and transformative...

We spent more than a week in Pondicherry and Auroville... We bought some books about education and we were told who Sri Aurobindo and the Mother's Dream were.

Today I recovered one of the books and I would like to share What is Integral Education?

Integral Education regards the child as a growing soul and helps him to bring out all that is best, most powerful, most innate and living in his nature. It helps the child develop all facets of his personality and awaken his latent possibilities so that he acquires

a strong, supple, healthy, beautiful body
a sensitive, emotionally refined, energetic personality
a wide-ranging, lively intelligence and will
the subtler spiritual qualities that unify and harmonise the being around his inmost Truth or Soul

The focus and emphasis in Integral Education (IE) is not just information and skills acquisition but also self-development, triggered from within the child and supported and nourished by teachers and parents. Every experience becomes a learning tool for the child as he grows. IE helps him to integrate with his true self, his surroundings, his society, his country and humanity in other words, to become the complete being, the integrated being that he is meant to be.

Source: http://aurosociety.org/focus-area/integral-education.aspx

domingo, 18 de enero de 2015

Why Waldorf Pedagogy Works?

Today I would like to write about my first experience with Waldorf Pedagoy....

Krisol Kindergarden, Premià de Dalt, Maresme, Barcelona. Spain

Since I am 17 I have been in contact with Waldorf Schools...

Back when I was 17 I had the opportunity to be part of the initiation and construction of the first Waldorf kindergarden in the Maresme area (Barcelona)... Under the name Krisol Kindergarden.

This Initiative started in a small hall in the midle of Premia de Dalt, a small town near Barcelona. Soon this group of families got bigger and they had to change the space to a bigger one, luckily a Rural Farm Villa from the last century owner agreed in allowing the school to be in one of their areas. This villa has a garden in front and a forest behind and the children after the class routine and breakfast could go outside to play in the forest and the higher area adapted for games.

I was voluntering three mornings under the supervision of Anna Maria, the best teacher I have ever known. She had a great vocation and pasion for her job and she belived in the Pedadogy in a very realistic way. She was soft, loving and at the same time energetic and methodic.
I learned a lot from her and to be spending these hours with these children was like a meditation for me... the food the children were eating was from the garden or bio brought by the parents, the classes were small but painted in harmony with soft colours and all game materials were from the nature, made of wood, cloth, depending on the season every class had an altar with the colours and treasures from nature you could find describing that season and many more details that were making the class a sacred place.

She was teaching through guiding and accompaniment but also respecting the individuality of each child...

I remember having a pupil 3 years old that was having a difficult time at home and one day playing with the rest of the class for no apparent reason, he slapped a girl who was playing with the dolls...the teacher took him and sat him down and said
- Paul let us talk to your hand, Hand why have you done that? Hands are made for playing, cooking, painting, hugging..

The teacher was unlinking the action with the person, Paul was sad and quiet and he did not want to talk at first. The teacher brought the oven mitt and put it on the hand and told Paul:
-Allow your hand to think about this action, speak to her and leave her for a while on top of the table.

Paul reacted saying:
-Hand do not harm again anyone, I love my friends. I don't know why did you slapted Marina.
I love her and she is my friend. After 3 minutes Paul started playing again not feeling he was a bad boy or he did something very bad but he knew this was a non correct action that would bring him to be a part of the class for a while.

I have thousands of stories like this one... that made me think and see the education from another prespective.

Read more about this pedagogy Here or Steiner Waldorf

domingo, 4 de enero de 2015

Art therapy and Mandalas

The Mandala (Sanskrit for “circle” or “completion”) has a long history and is recognized for its deep spiritual meaning and representation of wholeness.

Many people and cultures have vouched for the mandala’s intrinsic meaning. Buddhists, Tibetans, and Hindus have all derived meaning from the mandala and its captivating beauty. Psychoanalyst Carl Jung has called it “a representation of the unconscious self.” The mandala is widely recognized as a meaningful reflection of its creator. Mandala art therapy & healing can be a great source of reflection on one’s soul.

Mandalas can be seen all around us, but are not just people-centric. They are larger than life. Mandalas represent life as we know it, but they also represent a larger ecosystem and universe that exceeds our consciousness.

The “circle with a center” pattern is the basic structure of creation that is reflected from the micro to the macro in the world as we know it. It is a pattern found in nature and is seen in biology, geology, chemistry, physics and astronomy.

On our planet, living things are made of cells and each cell has a nucleus — all display circles with centers. The crystals that form ice, rocks, and mountains are made of atoms. Each atom is a mandala.

Within the Milky Way galaxy is our solar system and within our solar system, is Earth. Each is a mandala that is part of a larger mandala.

Flowers, the rings found in tree trunks and the spiraling outward and inward of a snail’s shell all reflect the primal mandala pattern. Wherever a center is found radiating outward and inward, there is wholeness–a mandala.