Look after yourself. Don't forget the 'Deep blue'!!

Last week seemed tougher than previous weeks this year. Nothing major happened (although it was the anniversary of my Dad's Memorial / Thanksgiving service at York Minster) but I was aware that I was a little more tired than usual, a little less motivated, a little more distracted, etc and I was not taking the time to slow down or look after myself. There were signs and thoughts that were hinting that this was going to be a problem but I still ignored it.

I forgot to take my vitamins, omegas and cellular support pills; I wasn't quite so proactive with my emotional oils and my muscle rub (doTERRA's deep blue ointment), which keeps my back healthy, got misplaced. I usually apply it morning and night at the very least but I kept forgetting to find my tube and so didn't stick to my usual routine.

Fast forward to Friday and my back 'went'. I am standing straight in this photo and you can see that I am very wonky and my hips are out of alignment. 

This hasn't happened for at least 2 years (probably more) because I had been methodical with my essential oil use and other beneficial stuff for my body generally. It was so strange to be reminded of how awful this made me feel and I started out very annoyed with myself.

• How could I be so stupid to forget to use my muscle rub?
• Why didn't I just find the tube and put it where it needed to be?
• Why didn't I pay attention to the signs of my brain telling me, via my body, to slow down?

And various other questions! All valid but ultimately unhelpful. 

The problem is that once my back has gone into spasm it's a lot more difficult to get out of it. Prevention is definitely better than cure in this scenario. Once I have lost the ability to stand or walk safely it is problematic.

Luckily helping out a friend a week ago with some essential oils information meant that I found a helpful reference section in my Medicinal Essential Oils book. I looked up antispasmodic and found these 2 pages of oils that I could use and there were loads of them! I already knew about marjoram having used that before at any hint of back spasm issues. 

But how amazing that bergamot mint (from the doTERRA Spring Exclusives kit) had arrived that very morning. Are doTERRA wizards? How did they know? It was a sign to me and this little ray of hope turned my questions and mind chatter around.

How can I help myself now I am in this situation?
What can I do to support myself with my natural health solution knowledge and supplies?
What could I do now to pay attention to my brain's messages to slow down and find a positive in that?

And various other helpful questions! 

I even gave myself a target that if I couldn't fix this by Monday I would have to resort to going to the doctors and getting myself pills - which I hate and have made me feel shite in the past. This was very motivating and so with this in mind I got to action (in a very slow, deliberate, painful way!!!!)

1. I took my pills and set an alarm to remind myself to take them daily
2. I found my deep blue rub (3 tubes) and strategically placed them around the house (including one back on my chest of drawers for before bed and after waking application!) 
3. I used the deep blue rub and layered it with copaiba essential oil and my forgive / frankincense blend on my back
4. I took and then placed my antispasmodic oils on my chest of drawers - marjoram, bergamot mint, rosemary and a few others with capsules ready to take every 4 hours
5. I did some spinal twists to get my spine back in place
6. I had a hot bath and did some cold therapy too
7. I checked how my energy body was doing and found out what was going on in my lower chakras paying particular attention to my sacral chakra (something I do as part of my spiritual / energy / shamanic work)
8. I did some writing / journaling about what I found during my energy body scan and how I was feeling generally

I woke up Saturday morning and felt so much straighter.  I planned to use the antispasmodic oils and deep blue rub every few hours throughout the day which gave me a reason to move often throughout the day which was important for my back and for me to check my progress.

I could still feel the tension in my back. I was still worried so I added in some emotional oils on pulse points and I continued to journal my feelings, noted down this plan of action (and noted down some more antispasmodic oils) and had a plan for later in the day if things went in the right direction.

I have been walking most days at lunch with my DH who is working from home. Over the weekend we often do a longer walk or a bike ride but on Saturday I was concerned about any activity. My plan was to go for a walk if I could really feel that it would be ok for my back. Again this was a great motivator to use the oils, rest, look after myself and really tap into how my body was feeling and if it was realigning itself. 

I made it and it was so great to go out with DH, DS on a lovely late afternoon walk.

So my message to you is:

1. Make sure that your self care is foremost in your mind ALL THE TIME or at least most of the time
2. If your brain is telling you to remember to 
•     take your pills
•     use your essential oils
•     take a break
•     use whatever is your go-to thing to support your health and wellbeing, LISTEN TO YOURSELF
3. PAY ATTENTION if you are:
•     feeling a bit low 
•     a bit demotivated 
•     tired
•     feeling something that might be telling you to slow down
4. Take a BREAK when you need to and do something JOYFUL
5. Take a bath - do some hot / cold therapy 
6. 
   Go for a gentle walk - notice at least 3 things in nature
7. Lie on the floor with your feet and legs up against a wall and listen to some fab music
8. Check your chakras and see if anything is going awry (I can help with this if you want to know more)
9. Listen to your intuition or gut as to what you need to do
10. Be your own cheerleader for looking after yourself
11. Have some fun (like I did with Snapchat on my walk!)
    

If you want to know how to use essential oils, essential oil-infused supplements, energy body clearing or anything I have talked about here, please book a FREE spiritual / essential oil health check with me. I'm here to help you be the HERO of your HEALTH.

If you want to see what Kevin Hart thinks about doTERRA's Deep Blue rub watch here.

Empathy versus judgement (vaccinations)

I have been pondering for a while about empathy and judgement but I decided I would write something about my feelings after reading these two articles:

Comedian to retire controversial Katie Hopkins character - “I pretended to be someone so horrible that nobody could possibly believe she was a real person. I didn’t think anyone would take it seriously. How could they?”

Vaccines work - here are the facts - “in herd immunity the vaccinated protect the unvaccinated...help contribute to herd immunity by educating your community today!”

Very different articles I know but both made me think about the problem of passing judgement without compassion or empathy. It seems from what have read about and seen from Katie Hopkins that she is very good at passing judgement without even considering that the people she is talking about or she is arguing against, deserve her compassion or empathy. She is just totally sure that she is right and that everyone else is just wrong and they deserve to be educated by her superior knowledge or opinion.

The Vaccines work article on the other hand is yet again such a missed opportunity. I would be much happier reading an article about the facts of vaccines as long as it was a balanced article about vaccinations. This article states that we stopped smallpox and implies that this was done by vaccination alone (not true - Smallpox was eradicated by people going door to door.) The article also states that Andrew Wakefield did many dodgy things and had numerous conflicts of interest. But other companies and individuals have done similar things. For example read about the Vioxx recall here. And herein lies the problem. There is so much data out there that it is really, really difficult to find the truth about anything. Until recently one couldn't even rely on ALL studies associated with a scientific trial being published. If the trials didn't give the desired results there was no legal requirement to publish all the reports: you could leave out the ones which didn't back up your desired results!!!  Thank goodness that Dr Ben Goldacre has spear-headed a campaign to get this stopped in Europe - read here - but that doesn't bode well for anyone trying to find the truth about vaccines, drugs, GMO-food, etc. at present.

Another thing cited in the Vaccines article is that people wanted to keep their children "pure" by not injecting them with "chemicals" like this is some sort of weird behaviour. I like the idea that people actually think about what they are putting in their bodies including drugs, types of food, foreign bodies, sugar, fizzy drinks, etc. This is doubly important when it comes to our children because they cannot make that choice for themselves until they are  a lot older than when we vaccinate them, give them antibiotics, breastfeed or not, etc. Just look at the list of drugs that have been withdrawn over time because of adverse reactions. It is very thought provoking.

I also like the idea that people consider why they would or wouldn't vaccinate rather than blindly going along with the norm. I am all for going against the norm just to consider the possibilities. This sort of thinking is what got me into autocratically educating and trusting my children to carve an education for themselves. It is also probably a hang up from my BSc Philosophy days that I actually want people to stop and think and possible change their opinion when given reason to do so.  However, the problem is that there are very, very few people who will ever change their opinion even when proper thought is put into it. In my 42 years on this earth I have actually only ever found two people who I would say would change their opinion about anything given a decent argument backed by scientific evidence and neither of them is me!! I am more like the people written about here. I know that I am biased and as Tim Minchin quite rightly said here - "We'd as well be ten minutes back in time, for all the chance you'll change your mind" - I don't often change my mind. Luckily I am married to one of those two people I know of who can change their mind and not see it as a human failing. But he also has empathy for people who don't share his scientifically moulded brain and he accepts (although he finds them frustrating) those who refuse point-blank to change their mind even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

So when it comes down to it the only thing we can really do in any given situation is have empathy for the difficult decisions that as parents we make for our children every day. In the same way that I wouldn't "blame" a parent for losing a child through not breastfeeding (see here) or for losing a child to suicide after being bullied at school and not having removed them from that environment and home-educating or from allowing a kid to climb a tree and them falling out and dying or for not vaccinating and losing a child to measles, what I can do is have empathy for all parents who do what they believe is the best for their children given the information that they think they have a grasp on. As human beings we don't have enough time, brain power or access to accurate information to investigate everything or even understand those things that are investigated and anyone who says that they do can only do so in a very, very small sphere of their life.

If someone actually wrote a decent, honest article about vaccinations which actually gave proper information about (with thoughts in italics):

• herd immunity 

what is it?; does it actually exist?; what percentage does it work at?; do we really want to live in a utilitarian world where the greatest good of the greatest number is the most important things which means most of us should be neutered and NEVER allowed to have children

• why and how vaccines sometimes fail 

no drug works perfectly on everyone, every single time so let's be honest about vaccines too

• that there are trials paid for by companies who have a vested interest in the manufacture 

give us the honest truth so we can be proper consumers with all the information to make a decent choice

• statistics about how realistically problematic these diseases are as opposed to conflated ideas about how dangerous these childhood diseases are 

measles; rubella; mumps used to be classed as mild childhood diseases with very rare problems for a very small number - when did they suddenly become so dangerous?

• why vaccinated children get versions of the diseases that they are vaccinated against and why this doesn't seem to be reported 

why does this happen and are these vaccinated children getting mild versions of the disease reported and included in any stats?

• shut up about Andrew Wakefield because most of the people I know who didn't vaccinate did not do so because of Andrew Wakefield 

stop vilifying people, he isn't the only one and he won't be the last

• told the truth without resorting to over-playing it or slagging off  other people who might have a different point of view to yours

just common sense if your view is valid

• ingredients 
• possible side effects 
• lots of other things I cannot think of right now
• etc.

that would be fantastic and in the words of Tim Minchin again "I will take a compass and carve 'Fancy That' on the side of my cock" (if I had one) . But neither the pro or anti campaigners for vaccines seem to be able to do this because both have a "high-horse" stance to retain. Truly empathetic beings don't need a "high-horse" stance and would never resort to one, even when pushed. 

So let's all just start being lovely to each other and let's not resort to blaming and saying nasty, judgemental things to each other. Those that cannot do this really need to investigate why. It is a very interesting experience to actually sit with why you are so passionately judgemental about something or towards someone. Why not just have empathy, because you never know when you might want empathy back.

Useful links
A useful article about controversial statements being scientifically true.

Also if you see an article which makes claims which seem a bit off, type www.rbutr.com/ at the start of the web page leaving the rest of the http address as it is and see if there have been any rebuttals.

Women's Magazine

I recently went to Wales for a course so had a 1-change train trip.  I get quite excited when I get to go on the train and have limited distractions I can take with me and it is my one opportunity to peruse the magazine isle at the train station newsagents (normally WHSmith.)  Not being a regular train traveller I seem to have a memory problem in that I always forget the short-lived excitement of getting a puzzle book or a magazine because they don't have either the ones that I want.  I am a kakuro fan and most of the japanese puzzle books at suduko and I am a craft fan and there are NO craft magazines that you can purchase at station newsagents.  This trip I decided that I would actually count what magazines I could get as a 'typical' woman, if there is a such a thing!!

Beauty magazines – you know, the ones designed to help you make yourself as attractive as every other woman mostly showing you famous woman who have experts and the time to make themselves that beautiful → at least 10.  I was reminded of someone telling me how much time it takes for an average star to get ready for any red carpet event.  It's a long time and I mean a LONG time.  Let's be honest most of us don't have that amount of time so these magazines are just designed to much us feel crap about ourselves or at the very least inferior.

Exercise and weigh loss magazines – you know, the ones designed to help you make yourself as fit and healthy as every other woman.  Slightly better than the beauty magazines because they often feature 'real' women, they are still sending a message that you could or should be thinner, healthier, eating something different to what you are (often with an out-dated diet that is one size fits all because we are all the same or at least we should all try to be.)  The message is if you only tried a bit harder or had more willpower you too could be perfect or at least a helluva lot better than you are now.  There were at least 8 of these magazines so I least I could choose which diet or exercise regime I could beat myself up with!!

And then I have saved the worse to last.  There were at least 20 gossip magazines which I could choose from telling me who was wearing what dress, who was splitting up from whom, who was pregnant with who's baby and other such information.  These magazines are full of beautiful women, who again have the staff, time, money to spend on looking fab, or of women who were beautiful but let themselves slip; or who are beautiful but made the mistake of wearing the “wrong” clothes or could be more beautiful if only they would put on some more make-up.  There is a crossover with these magazines and the beauty ones but this category are much more underhand about what is or isn't beautiful.

Well strangely enough I did not want to waste £s on any of these.  I wanted to have a look at the craft magazines: the knitting, crochet, quilting, sewing, creative-type glossies.  Unfortunately there weren't any of those so instead I saved my money and wrote this and when I have finished this I will continue reading Charles Eisenstien's book “The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible” and sigh at the irony of how Charles mentions that the “all of our external institutions reflect our basic perceptions of the world, our invisible ideologies and belief systems.”  Basically, there are no craft magazines at train station newsagents because no-one wants to buy them.  People want to buy the other magazines to look outside of themselves to discover who they are.  The problem is it isn't making us any happier as is evident by a $4 billion dieting industry and this vicious cycle of beauty, gossip and health magazines.

Where is my life going in 2014?

I was one of the Transition Town Summer Competition winners back in September (read my entry here) and over the last few months what I wrote for that competition has got me thinking about what direction I am going in with my life.  I have found as my children have become older (as they seem to do scarily quickly) that my needs as their mother and home-education facilitator have changed dramatically.  I still drive them to home-ed gatherings, meetings and organise them seeing their friends and occasionally we even spend a day at home just the three of us, but they are very self-reliant and so I have more free time.

When the decision was taken by my husband and I to start the home-educating journey I was aware that as the primary carer (with my husband working full-time) I wanted to keep my brain active so that when the time came I could find some fulfilling activities to fill my time once my children didn't need me any more.  This started in the form of formal education via the Open University (OU) where I embarked on some Mathematics qualifications when my ds was 6 months.  Since then I have passed the following courses to work towards a Diploma in Higher Education getting a 1st class Certification in Mathematics along the way:

Course code and title	Year	Grade
MT121 - Using Mathematics	2002	1st
MS221 - Exploring Mathematics	2002	1st
MT262 - Putting computer systems to work	2003	1st
M225 - Object-oriented programming with Java	2006	2.1
ME624 Teaching mathematical thinking at Key Stage 3	2009	2.1
DB123 You and your money: personal finance in context	2010	Pass (ungraded)
U101 Design thinking: creativity for the 21st century	2012	Pass (ungraded)
T307 Innovation: Designing for a sustainable future	2013	2.1
MT264 Designing applications with Visual Basic	2014	expected 1st

I thought doing this sort of qualification would be helpful and it has in some ways.  For example I passed a PTTLS course at my local college (York College) in 2012 so that I am now happy to market myself as a Maths Tutor as I have my Certificate in Maths as well as a teaching qualification.  However over time I have become increasingly annoyed and frustrated with the way that educational establishments and especially the OU treats its students.  I was aiming for a degree with the OU, however after some issues with discrepancies between the marks that you get for continual assessment versus the marks you get for examinable work, I am of the opinion that I would be better served finishing with a 1st class Diploma and continuing my education via the various free websites out there like:
coursera
codacademy
Khan academy
Future Learn
EdX - (got this recommended by a friend who also says that Alison is not good at all!!)
Alison to name just a few.  Massive open online courses (MOOCs) are becoming more and more common as is hacking your own education.  Dale Stephens did a TED talk here about this very subject and obviously it is dear to my heart as a home-ed mother but also as a person who used to love academia and now is rather disillusioned with it.  I will be investigating this type of learning over the coming year and may do some posts about my findings.

So here I am at the start of 2014 having not really managed to get too much of what I set out to do at the beginning of the year (see here) but looking back at that blog post has made me realise that one of the resolutions I didn't really articulate but which I made to myself was that I would try and get more involved in my local community as part of my overall well-being.  I have managed to do that and I am now an active member of:
TIM in York - acknowledging the incredible things already done in York and making sure more incredible things are achieved - come and join in the community hub here if you want to know more.
York in Transition (YiT) - come and join us at the Sustainable York event at the Residents First weekend - read more here
York Environment Forum (YEF) where I do administration work for the group
York Timebank - where I help with admin with the database, website and communications
as well as regularly attending the Carr Connectors coffee morning at my local church which I am hoping to get more involved in with the children.

So you can see why some of my other NYRs went a bit awry although I reckon I did do over 10 crafty things although some of those were from scratch.  For example I made 5 pairs of gloves!!!  I also read over half the books I was supposed to but then got side-tracked by the course I was doing with the OU.

I am going to list the books I want to read this year and add a reminder to my phone every month to get my back on track with the list.  I am also going to do this with the craft activities too although this should be a lot easier as the house gets more zoned, de-cluttered and generally sorted (I am hoping to do a separate post on the zoning of the house as it is going really well).

I am still working towards a healthy BMI via martial arts classes with the family and regular Ceroc and climbing activities all three of which I really enjoy so attending doesn't even seem a chore.

Anyway basically my life is going well and I feel very positive about 2014 and looking back at the year I have achieved way more than I thought I was going to.  2014 looks set to be just as exciting!!!!

Happy New Year everyone

To learn or not to learn....

I have been thinking a lot recently about home educating.  This has mostly been because my 11 year old ds taught himself to read about 4 months ago.  This is one of the fears of many of my fellow home edders who take the autonomous route of education where we don’t actively teach our children but facilitate them learning what they want to learn when they want to learn it..  It is well known that an average self-taught reader will be anything between 3 and 14 years old but most seem to start showing an interest around 9 if they haven’t before that.  11 and a half seems old!!!  I don’t know why we have this obsession with reading and that is what got me to thinking.  Why Maths and English?  As an English nation we all know English: we all speak it.  So why after we have been taught to read and write does it go any further than that?  We abstract the ability to read from all the reasons we need to know how to read.  Most of the other subjects taught at school involve the ability to read, write and sometimes speak English.  So why force children to read books if they don’t want to read books?  Why abstract the ability to read, write and speak as part of natural life and have a separate subject that involves skills that you don’t need to be a valuable member of society?  You wouldn't force a child to dance when they don’t want to dance especially not to GCSE level even though I reckon the ability to know how to move your body and finding enjoyment from it is a way more valuable skill than the sedentary activity of reading fiction.

Again with maths.  Mental arithmetic I totally get.  A useful skill to have although I don’t believe you need that skill at the age of 6 or even any time before you are going to need to use it say in a shopping scenario.  Financial acuity on the other hand a wholeheartedly worthwhile skill that needs to be learnt before taking out your first credit card, loan, mortgage, etc.  The area of a circle however is a fact that anyone can look up on the internet.  It isn't a necessary fact to teach 9 year olds: the ability to regurgitate that area = pi * radius ^2 does not 'maketh the man.'  I know that Martin Lewis has managed to get financial skills into the curriculum but I have a feeling that many children will have been put off actually listening to this vital information by the way that numeracy and maths is taught in the earlier years.   Again most children learn to count before going to school – how is it that we turn the beautiful simplicity of maths into something so sterile and to many so confusing and/or boring?

The sad contradiction here is that kids love to learn.  Try and get a child to stop doing something they are absorbed in and you know what I mean.  My children will forget to eat, forget to go to the toilet and forget to go to bed when they are absorbed in what they are doing.  This is when the deep level learning occurs: the learning that stays with you years later.  And that learning can occur through random play, social interactions, or as Archimedes discovered whilst taking a bath or as Newton discovered sitting under an apple tree.  The shallow learning of facts for the sake of it however tend to fade because they are not backed by the ability or passion of wanting to learn those facts at that time.  And that is my main reason for home educating my children.  Passion:  the human right that every person has to learn something/anything when they are either ready and able and/or have a desire to do so.  And by ready and able, I mean when mental/physically/emotionally capable. 

My ds learnt to read because he was ready and able.  Once he realised that his brain could cope with deciphering the squiggles into words and that he had the vocabulary from all the bedtime stories my husband had read to him and all the conversations he had had, he started reading.  Just like that.  He was mentally capable.  If you meet him now a few months later you wouldn't know that he hasn't been reading since he was 5.  His passion for wanting to read and his capacity to do it led to him reading and he did it all himself which has given him a sense of worth that he would never have if he had been in school.  

My dd on the other hand has been reading since she was 5, again self-taught. Her brain could decipher squiggles but telling the time (which ds could do at age 4) was a different matter for her.  Numbers didn't make as much sense as letters to her when she was younger.  Her mental arithmetic and number skills have been learnt as part of life, through playing card games and going to the shop with her brother.  She recently learnt to tell the time because it helped her know when her school friends were getting home from school.  She found it difficult but persevered because she wanted to be able to do it and her passion saw her through. 

I am hoping that dd’s passion for reading and ds’s passion for computing and maths will help them when it comes time to get their English and Maths GCSEs (if that is still what they are by then.)  You may have realised that I don’t feel that those 2 subjects are any more important than others and in fact I feel that they are stunningly less important especially in the way they are taught at school.  My children will probably jump through those hoops and a lesson in pointless fact regurgitating will be learnt and I feel that is a shame.

This isn't what I thought I would write about when discussing home ed.  I thought I would be citing Ken Robinson videos and hack-schooling (I’ll add those at the bottom just in case you are interested LOL).  

Instead I would love for everyone to empower their children because they are amazing beings.  Those little babies that learnt to walk, talk, build towers, learn to use the toilet, etc. did so because they wanted to be like us.  They don’t need to be taught facts for the sake of learning them so that they can be tested and judged.  If we have to teach them anything then at least let’s teach them real stuff that will be useful all through their lives.  We have loads of creative, passionate, resourceful teachers out there and instead of using their talents we squash them into teaching abstracted subjects and learning is fast becoming synonymous with test passing.  Let’s set our children and teachers free to explore real subjects in a creative and stimulating way and let’s give teachers the freedom to know when a child is ready, willing and able to absorb those facts and adjust their role accordingly. 

So although I believe that all learning should be self-directed I thought I would put together a national curriculum just to show how things could be different if we had a government who actually wanted to adhere to their law about education being about an “education suitable to age, aptitude and ability”.

Anatomy and movement – I reckon everybody should know how their bodies work, how to move them correctly and look after them - breathing skills, meditation, swimming, climbing, cycling, etc.  Let's also give our children a healthy appreciation for how real bodies look, not photo-shopped bodies like here

Nutrition, cooking and sustainability – what we put in our bodies affects how they work, learning to make healthy meals from natural ingredients is vital to our survival.  Looking at where food comes from, learning to grow it, learning wild food foraging, learning about permaculture and other sustainable activities, etc.

Philosophy – the ability to form an argument and not take everything on face value is a vital skill.  So much of what is in the newspapers or that we are bombarded with via the TV needs to be taken with a pinch of salt.  Let’s give our children the skills to want to check the facts and not believe everything they are shown, told.  (Watch this video about one guys attack on the daily mail to see what our newspapers are really doing to us)

Mental arithmetic and financial skills – so you don’t get short-changed at a shop or fleeced by a loans company, knowing about how statistics really work and how they are skewed to serve many purposes would also be really useful. 

Empathy and non-violent communication (NVC) type skills – let’s teach our children to disassociate a person from their behaviour so that no-one is shamed and judged as bad because of the things they have done, forgiveness, acceptance of others, self-worth, etc.  Watch this video to see how prejudice really works, watch this one for how teachers have the power to affect how children perceive prejudice and watch this one to see how forgiveness can really change lives for the better.  

I am sure there are other important areas but these were just off the top of my head.  However subjects like history, geography, pure maths, applied maths, English literature, etc. can be left for those who are passionate about them.  

Here is one of the many brilliant Ken Robinson talks about education.  This one is extra brilliant because of the added animation.  Every one in the world should watch this video!!!

Schools kill Creativity, How to escape education's death valley and Bring on the Learning Revolution are his TED talks about learning and schooling.  Ken Robinson talks about diversity in education and notes (like I have above) that children, even born to the same parents, are different and so should be treated as such.  I cannot do justice to Ken's amazing ability to tell it like it is, in a funny but stunningly perceptive way.  If you cannot afford the time to watch all the talks above then at least watch his latest one How to escape education's death valley - "Children are natural learners and it is a real achievement to be able to stifle it."

Here are some interesting videos/pages and books about education:

Personalised Education Now

Teaching arts and sciences together
Hack Schooling makes me happy

How Children Fail by John Holt

How Children Learn  by John Holt
Teach Your Own by John Holt
Deschooling Society by Ivan Illich
Dumbing Us Down by John Taylor Gatto
Pedagogy of the Opressed by Paulo Freire

There are loads of other great books out there and other brilliant blogs.  Just google 'unlearning', 'home education', 'deschooling' or get in touch if you would like more info.

Here is a poem I wrote about my issues with school and our testing culture in this country:

Human Experience is not a test
Can you assess my state of happiness?
Can you score it out of five?
Can you really pass or fail a test
That tells if you are truly alive?
Is joy a quantifiable trait?
Can you plot it on a graph?
Do you score a special funny point
Every time you laugh?
Is empathy a transferable skill?
Can others give feedback?
Telling you if there are any traits
In which they think you lack?
I don't think you can pass an exam
In love or contemplation
I don't think you can get an NVQ
In passion or in meditation
Hope cannot be learnt from a book
Grace cannot be easily taught
Peace cannot be summed up in lesson
Just because you think it ought
You cannot have a kindness target
That everyone must reach
The attainment of gentleness
Is not something you can teach
The fruits of spirit andsoul
Need space and time to grow
They cannot be cultivated in league tables
Or seen in "tell and show"
Spirit cannot be marked and scored
Even if you wanted to
Because human experience is not an exam
ONLY YOU can A* you

Is being "wrong" really that bad?

It’s funny how time affects memories and links things together in a strange collage of time and events.  

At the end of May last year I was up in Glasgow with my family celebrating a friend’s 18^th birthday.  We arrived a few days before the celebrations to a complex break-up situation between the Mum (a long-time friend) and her partner.  My dh and I tried to create a buffer between the couple to lessen the stress being caused to the birthday girl and her siblings.  Over the few days we were there, we listened, advised as friends, reflected back feelings, listened some more and tried to help as best we could.  After the break-up both dh and I were blamed by the ex for various mistakes, and ultimately, his break up. 

Fast forward to this May and I have been embroiled in another situation where it seems blame has been directed from one individual towards many.  I understand that it isn't easy admitting that you might have been wrong or incorrect in your assumptions.  I still find it difficult - get defensive and try and justify that what I did was ok.  Although I do not think this is human nature, as such, I feel it is a deep conditioning in a lot of us on this planet.  I used to think it was great being able to blame someone else but not anymore because I know how detrimental it is to how I feel deep down inside.   

My dilemma is:

Do we have a moral obligation, or a right, to tell someone when we feel that they have got it wrong?  

If there are other people involved, especially kids, should we speak up?  

I needed to be at my friend’s 18^th celebrations regardless of the circumstances.  Should I have ignored what was going on between her Mum and the partner?  Should I have just listened, tried to shield the kids from the emotional outfall but not given any advice even when asked? 

I wouldn't let a friend mistakenly run in front of a car if I could stop it.  I wouldn't tell them as they lay in a hospital bed, recovering from the accident, that I thought they needed to 'learn' from their experience of being hit by a car.  So why would I let a friend (or any fellow human being) run in front of a metaphorical car in terms of destructive behaviour,  making mistakes, or let them continue to be in denial of their behaviour and its consequences?  Why do they need to learn for themselves when someone can point it out to them in a compassionate way? 

I don’t know the answers to these questions.  I just know I feel uncomfortable about these two situations and they led me to write this blog.  

I am glad that I have friends and family who challenge my behaviour.  It isn't easy to hear when you have done something wrong (I don’t like that word but it will have to do).  Being told I have been overly defensive, sarcastic, or anything similar is upsetting but I, like everyone else, can 'get over' being upset.  It isn’t the end of the world and I would rather know in the long run then not know.  

No-one has ever died from being told they didn’t do something as well as they could, especially if it is delivered in a friendly way that keeps the “wrong” behaviour separate from the person.  [Non-violent communication (NVC) is very good for examples of this, as is the Siblings without Rivarly and Talk so Kids will Listen and Listen so Kids will Talk books.  You don’t tell someone that they are a bad person - you tell them that they have acted badly.] 

So here are some of my relationship facts:

1. Treat everyone as you would like to be treated
2. Being told something you did is your fault NEVER killed anyone.  Accept it, don’t automatically justify your way out of it, sit with the feelings for a while and see what happens.  You know what though? – the world won’t end if you did do something wrong and if you didn’t then you have to wonder why the other person thought that you did and remember point 1
3. Not accepting that something is your fault when it might have been at some level affects your self-esteem in a detrimental way and could negatively affect your relationships – so is being right really worth it?
4. Blaming someone else for any thing in your life is making you a victim and removing your control over your own life.
5. No-one can make you do anything you don’t want to (other than in a very, very small set of circumstances) so accept your place in the universe, warts and all. 
6. We all have flaws, faults, patterns of behaviour which aren’t helpful to us but again acting out on these is not the end of the world.  Apologise when you realise, try and learn from the experience and move on.  Also if someone else points it out to you refer to point 2
7. Someone so hell-bent on being right is missing the opportunity to see where they might have been mistaken.  Sympathise with them because they aren’t really living, learning and growing (see point 4 and below)

Anyway attending the Hoffman Process a few years ago really helped me accept my “faults” without being as defensive or feeling as guilty.  I now find it easier (not easy yet – but easier) to apologise when I have made a mistake.  This willingness to accept responsibility for my actions has brought me closer to my friends and family.  It also means that every time I accept my not-so-nice behaviour I learn about myself and it becomes easier to acknowledge a mistake the next time.  Accepting my flaws and weaknesses actually makes me stronger and it seems to me that people who cannot accept theirs are more unhappy because they are caught up in a myth of who they really are. 

I don’t want to live my life as part myth and part me. 

I want to life my live part me and another part me, even if that second part:

makes mistakes (they are my mistakes)

has regrets (they are my regrets) 

hurts other people (I can apologise and re-connect with them)

lets people down (I can make it up to them and re-connect with them)

And by accepting these things about myself, I am accepting and loving myself.  Only by accepting and loving myself, can I accept and love others.  By continuing to learn and admit when I get it wrong, I give my friends and family the ability and space to do the same.  As Brene Brown would put it “for connection to happen [between human beings] we have to allow ourselves to be seen, really seen” – warts and all!!!

Maybe that is the answer to my dilemma.  If everyone could find a way to accept themselves for the wonderful, unique person that they are, maybe blame and the need to be right would become a thing of the past.  Until it does though, I celebrate my ability to say sorry and try harder next time and hope you will join me!!!!!

Click here to see Brene’s blog.  Click here for her "Listening to shame" TED talk and here for her "Power of vulnerability" TED talk.

"The Hoffman Process is an intensive 8-day residential course that promotes personal discovery and development."  You cannot really sum it up that easily because what you learn, experience and feel in those 8 days is potentially life-changing.  Click here to see the Hoffman Process UK website or contact me via the form on my website here, if you want to know more about my personal experience on the process.

"The key focus of NVC is - noticing the feelings and needs in ourselves and others, as a way of being in touch with what really matters to us and others.  In addition, to achieve greater clarity in our self awareness and ‘inner chatter’, and to decrease the likelihood of others hearing blame or criticism in the words we use with them, NVC brings our awareness to making factual observations without judgements and also to making clear specific requests in our dialogues with others."  Click here to go to the UK NVC website, here for the Siblings Without Rivalry book, here for the How to Talk so Kids will Listen and Listen so Kids will Talk book and here for the teenage version of the Talk book. 

Another brilliant perspective on a similar subject here - "There can often be many ‘right’ answers to a situation or for resolving a conflict. So the perception that there is just one  right answer  and all others are wrong is limiting."

addiction, hemispheres and spirituality

I know Russell Brand isn't everyone's cup of tea due to his 'offensive' manner and warped sense of humour   See my blog post on 'taking offence' and you will see what but I personally think of taking offence (DON'T) and if you don't like his sense of homour don't watch him.  Whatever you think of him I think he has some very interesting stuff to say about addiction.  For example he was invited to speak at a Committee on addiction which you can view here and also I recently found this video on YouTube - Russell Brand on drugs, Savile and yoga.  I love his thoughts on drug addict rehabilitation: that addiction cannot be overcome by giving someone a different type or form of addiction but needs to be tackled by abstinence-based recovery whilst at the same time looking at our spiritual selves.  He states that

1. addiction is a health matter
2. people who are addicts need to be dealt with with compassion
3. addiction is symptomatic of emotional and psychological difficulties as well as a spiritual malady
4. abstinence-based recovery is the key
5. all 3 areas (emotional, mental and spiritual) need to be dealt with

I know Russell Brand talks about addiction mostly from the viewpoint of drugs and maybe alcohol but I believe that a similar approach can be taken with all addictive behaviour although with some this is more problematic than with others.

Here are some of the common addictions that are known about:

sex addiction

love addiction

over-eating

gambling

drugs

alcohol

exercise

work

computer-use - game-playing, surfing, on-line gambling

shopping

An addiction is hallmarked by the impaired control over the substance (food, drink, drugs, etc.) or behaviour (falling in love, shopping, exercise, etc), preoccupation with substance of behaviour, continued use/behaviour despite consequences and denial of these behaviours.  Also the need for immediate gratification (short-term reward) regardless of the long-term costs.

Obviously abstinence-based recovery with some of these might make life a bit boring but still some of Russell's approaches I reckon would work.  For example, I know someone who is a love addict.  He has moved through his whole adult life from one relationship to another with very little time in-between to spend any significant amount of time really looking at the route cause of his addiction.  It seems from the outside that he reckons he was only addicted to one of the people he attached himself to and therefore now he isn't with that person he is 'cured.'  I reckon the analogy here would be a cocaine addict now being recovered by being addicted to methadone and so nothing has really changed at all.  An abstinence-based program would tell this man that he needs significant time by himself (not in a relationship) to really face his addiction and find the emotional and psychological basis for it.  At the same time his abstinence could also give him time to find the spirituality help that 'fills' the gap that a relationship 'filled' before.  I can see it in scenario how Russell's idea would work unfortunately denial is a great defence and that isn't what this person has done.  And I can sort of see why because no-one can know how long this person would need to abstain from 'being' with someone for it to really be long enough.  Co-dependency is a tricky thing that way and not at all like drug addiction or alcohol addiction and I feel some of the other addictions listed above could easily have the same problems.  Can you really never clothes shop ever again if you are a clothes addict, can a sex addict really abstain for ever and can a work-aholic really afford to just give up the day job?  Obviously not and this is where Russell has obviously thought it through (bless his Jesus-like hair and beard) because I believe the key here is the spiritual element.  The idea that human beings are more than just physical beings with emotions and intellect has been around for a long time.

Jill Bolte Taylor is a brain scientist who realised one morning she was having a stroke and therefore paid very special attention to what was happening to her whilst the stroke progressed.  Here TED talk explaining the experience is really worth watching here because it shows us that there is more to us human beings than just a physical body with a bit of intellect and emotion thrown in for good measure.  "I am an energy-being connected to the energy all around me through the consciousness of my right hemisphere.  We are energy-beings connected to one another through our right hemispheres as one human family."  She concludes the talk with the following "So who are we?  We are the life-force power of the universe with manual dexterity and two cognitive brains.  And we have the power to choose, moment by moment, who and how we want to be in the world....I believe that the more time we spend choosing to run the deep inner-peace circuitry of our right hemispheres, the more peace we will project into the world, and the more peaceful our planet will be."

I believe that 'running our inner-peace circuitry" means tapping into our spirit and finding ourselves there.  Brand does it via Kundalini Yoga, I do it via Shamanic journeying, my DH does it via walking through the woods and being connected to the earth, others do it via praying or meditating or just spending time by themselves.  Whatever your thing is, make sure you do of much of it as you need, when you need as often as you need and be aware that when you are 'out-of-sorts' that is probably an indication that your inner-peace circuitry needs some attention.

With regards to addicts of any kind the one thing they all have in common is the incessant left hemisphere chatter (as Jill puts it) that stops them from tapping into their right hemisphere and holds them captive to their addiction.  If you are constantly thinking about where your next 'fix' is coming from then there is no space for your spiritual side. If you are constantly finding the next 'job' to fill your time with or the next 'shag' or the next 'meal/chocolate bar/snack' or the next 'partner' who is going to make you feel ok/whole/worthy just for a little while then there is no peace and the cycle starts again.  Anything that fills your brain with endless chatter is stopping your right hemisphere having its time.

So although Brand may not be your cup of tea he is at least out there spreading the word in his own quirky way and I just thought I would add my own little thoughts to his.

To be or not to be offended....

I could take offence at a lot of things I reckon. Blonde jokes - I know they are only joking but let's be honest a lot of people, blonde or not, have blonde moments.  

I could take offence that people regularly call my son a girl because he has long hair.  The same way that I could have got offended when I was regularly called a boy as a child.  

I could definitely take offence to some of Tim Minchin's songs or the ramblings of religious zealots spouting about how gays are damned to hell.  Here's the problem though (other than the fact I cannot think of any other examples of things to get offended about!!!) - taking offence is a choice and a damn silly one if you choose to take it. 

Edited 21/06/21 - even more important is that if a person 'intended' to offend you then taking offence plays right into their hands and if they didn't then you taken offence for no reason. Either way taking offence is still pointless!!

I don't need to get offended about Zack being called a girl or me being called a boy when I was younger.  I don't need to get offended about blonde jokes or non-politically correct jokes about women.  I definitely don't need to be offended by Tim Minchin because he is just awesome and the religious nuts talking about gays going to hell are not even worth my time.  And that is it - if I choose to get offended what a total waste of time that is.

This seems simple to me but some people seem to find it difficult to grasp.

On someone else's blog today I wrote "The ‘abuse’ we put our children through when we ‘force’ them to learn stuff when they are not ready or able is appalling. Passion for learning is our children’s right and school squashes that right every single day. The joy on my 11-year-old’s face when he realised that he could read is something that I will never forget. He learnt to read in his own time and at his own pace. His passion to read needed that time and school steals that and many other passions every single day." and someone took offence.  The question I ask is why?  This is just my opinion.  These words do not hold power over anyone who has made a choice to send their child to school and is happy with and confident about that choice.  Those who are wavering about school might read them and think - oooh I hadn't thought about it like that, maybe I should do a bit of research.  What other positions are there?  This however elicited a response about how offensive 'abuse' and 'force' were as terms. Edited 21/06/21 - Gabor Mate talks about the human needs of attachment and authenticity so even more it seems that our schooling system and some early parenting scenarios actually lead to trauma - watch more here.

Here's an analogy though - if you saw a mother forcing a 9-month-old baby to walk before he was ready wouldn't you think that was abusive?  Just because that scenario couldn't really happen doesn't make it less awful an idea.  The damage that could be done to an under-developed spine or leg joints doesn't bear thinking about. 

I often wonder if my dyslexia came from being forced to read before my brain was ready.  I am very like my son who grasped the finer points of reading at the ripe old age of 11.5 years old.  He wasn't forced to try to read at 4 or 5 like I was.  He was left to work it out when his brain was ready much like babies are left to mature into walking toddlers at their own pace.  I wasn't left - I was forced to read when I wasn't ready and who knows if that abuse left my brain scarred and malfunctioning.  Scientists now know that leaving babies to cry (as in controlled crying) actually causes brain damage so who knows whether it could be discovered that our schooling system also leads to brain damage for some children.

Regardless of the reasons for my choice of words.  They are words, just words.  The same way that your thoughts about my words are your thoughts and yours to control.  So control your thoughts and don't take offence.  That is your right and a damn good one it is too.

I have to say I replied to the offence-taking woman with the following  " Taking offence is just another choice you have chosen to make along with other ones I choose not to make. None of my comments is any more offensive than your insinuations. I am not offended by your insinuations because I choose not to be. This is one of the life lessons I have explained to my children. Thanks for giving me another example to show them." I believe that she may well take offence to that and all I can say is - don't.  Life is too short so just stop taking offence.  It doesn't do you any good other than making you feel crappy and it definitely doesn't stop the offence-giver having their opinion edited 21/06/21 - whether it was meant to be offensive or not. Opinions can maybe be changed through discussion but they are rarely changed, if ever, by someone taking offence.

Anyway enough of the serious stuff.  Here are some funnies about 'stopping it', Tim Minchin probably offending someone (although there are way more 'offensive' stuff of his out there is you look!!) and a great scene from West Wing about gays and God.

And here is a great video about taking offence