President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
SUBJECT: Project-Centered Education versus Program-Centered Education. Limitation of mind can produce great suffering. Education should be as much about raising consciousness as it is about raising money. It should be as much about serving the needs of the individual as it is about serving the needs of all.
All beings harbor within their consciousness the ideals, seek the greatest understanding and serve the highest good, but few have the courage or wisdom to express them to any significant degree under the overwhelming pressure to survive and gain acceptance in the world as it is. As an individual, you seem to have actualized these values very successfully. I suspect, in addition to love, they represent your highest goals in life or you would not be as bright or insightful as you are. Imagine what America would be like, what life would be like, if these values played a significant role in our lives, if they were consciously present in the mind of every person and written above the entrance of every school and institution. Imagine that the role of every teacher is to help every student achieve these goals to the world’s and the student’s greatest benefit and satisfaction.
Open-ended, unassuming values like these open our hearts and minds and keep them open over a lifetime. However, our current belief/education systems often close our minds and imaginations. They distort and limit our powers of observation and discernment instead of expanding them. Here is why I say this: when I started catechism class in Catholic school in 1947, a nun told the entire class that all humans are sinful (born in sin) because Adam and Eve ate an apple from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil against God’s command. The nun also added emphatically, “And you can’t trust the flesh because it will always betray you” – her personal belief, I suspect. In one awful moment, every student in that class was told you’re bad and you can’t trust yourself. There was a third message hidden in these words as well – trust us (the church) and do as we say, we know what’s best for you. Loudly protesting these damning ideas, I was told, “Be quiet!”
The next morning, as we stood in line outside her classroom, the nun appeared and pulled me out of line. She looked down and asked, “Are you going to learn your catechism today?” Looking her in the eye, I said No! She immediately pulled a heavy wooden ruler out of her habit, grabbed my right wrist and started beating my knuckles as hard as she could until I cried out in pain and humiliation. It was as if by using torture she could force me to submit to the church’s teachings.
That entire period, I sat with my back to her, facing the rear wall of the classroom. The next day, after walking the two miles to school with my older brother Dicky, I refused to enter. On the way to school, I had made up my mind never to go there again. I said I would wait in the woods behind the church until he got out so we could walk home together.
That afternoon I told my mother what happened and repeated that I would never go back there again. Angry herself, the next morning she enrolled Dicky and me in public school. When my new teacher asked me to stand up and introduce myself, I used the opportunity to tell him how the catholic school treated its students. I then asked him how public schools treated theirs. He shouted, “Sit down, shut up and do as I tell you because I’m the teacher and I know what’s best for you!”
I had struck a nerve and under the veneer of politeness and concern, the message was loud and clear. The dominant cultural belief was, and still is, that children are the ward of the state. At its worst, the rationale goes, it is in the best interest of competition and survival to sift the chaff from the wheat, skim the cream from the top. At best, we want children to grow up so they can replace us in the work force, become financially independent, good consumers and start replacement families of their own. It is no wonder many children feel alienated, become angry and act out or go underground with their thoughts and feelings. We prepare them to fit into life, as it is, not to question and improve it, not to stretch and grow in response to his or her experience, curiosity, impulses and inclinations; it is to accept the established teachings of institutional authorities without question. If it wasn’t for the whispered encouragement of our souls, the promise of love and a fear of dying, mankind would have been toast long ago.
We are now reaping the rewards of this flawed system in an unprecedented breakdown of relationships and society. We are a society at war with itself. Government does not trust the people and the people do not trust the government. Fear and greed supersede love and sharing in our relationships.
How can we change direction? Instead of limiting ourselves to the question, what’s going to work best for “ME”, as many of us now do, we can start asking:
- What’s going to work best for ALL of us in personal terms? (What is the best way to fulfill our own unique potential in support of the world and ourselves?)
- What’s going to work best for ALL of us in terms of business? (What is the best way to maintain the health and well-being of the planet and humanity?
- What’s going to work best for ALL of us in terms of education? (What is the best way for us to learn and grow? What are the most important things for us to learn?)
- What’s going to work best for ALL of us in terms of the environment? (What is the best and most sustainable way for us to relate to nature and the earth?)
- What’s going to work best for ALL of us in terms of peace? (What is the best way for us to relate to each other as individuals and nations?)
Make the Jump from the Value Judgment World to the Value Fulfillment World
Humanity has faced serious challenges to its existence before. We are facing one now. More than ever, we must be still and “know”, not melt down in fear and become reactionary, which only makes matters worse. We must open our hearts and minds to new ideas, new ways to see ourselves, and the world around us. We must think with new clarity and boldness. We must explore, discuss, collaborate and share. We must grow beyond our current limitations of thought and being.
First, consider there are two major value systems that serve as models for human behavior and two value systems that serve as measures of success. Life as we know it plays itself out within the matrix of these ideas. These core concepts, and how we relate to them, determine how we think and act in life. They give us the option of creating a Value Judgment World or a Value Fulfillment World. In a fear-based Value Judgment World, we manipulate and control each other with external values. We make value judgments of right and wrong, good and bad, smart and stupid, strong and weak, guilt and punishment. In a love-based Value Fulfillment World, individuals live by value fulfillment and practice idealism. In other words, they consciously determine the values of life and being they value most, their ideals, and actualize them to the best of their ability. They figure out what works for them and what doesn’t, what makes them happy and what doesn’t.
Models of Behavior
1. Law of the Jungle – The Law of the Jungle is fear-based and tells us that life is about separation, scarcity, competition and survival of the fittest. Some interpret this to mean that every man is an island, it’s eat or be eaten, kill or be killed.
2. Law of the Body – The Law of the Body is love-based and tells us that life is about oneness AND separation, interdependence, collaboration, sharing, creativity and cooperation. We know unconsciously, if not consciously, the lessons our bodies teach us, or life would be short and brutal indeed!
Measures of Success
1. Money, Power and Privilege – money, power and privilege are objective, material measures of success. Providing food, shelter and safety for our families and ourselves is essential while we exist in material form. For most, this is by far the dominant measure of success in our lives.
2. Love, Truth and Joy – love, truth and joy are subjective, emotional measures of success. For some, love, truth and joy are just as important and life giving as money, power and privilege, if not more so.
Whichever set of core beliefs we identify with most has the greatest influence on our surface thoughts, feelings and behavior. If we find the Law of the Jungle and the idea of money, power and privilege more appealing, we become more fearful, predatory and materially oriented. If we find the Law of the Body and love, truth and joy more appealing, we become more peaceful, loving and thought-conscious or spiritual. Evidence suggests, as a whole, we are closer to the material end of the spectrum than the spiritual end – if this is not so in numbers of people, it certainly is so in the impact of materialism on our lives.
Change Begins Within
The reality we create and then experience is a projection of two Primal Motives or Impulses. As human beings, we all strike a unique balance between the Will to Be (love of creation) and the Will to Survive (fear of dying). It is the same for societies and cultures. As individuals, and societies, this suggests that to change ourselves for the better, we must first find a healthy balance between our love of creation and fear of dying. As we all know, it is far more efficient, less expensive and less painful to change ourselves from within than it is to have unpredictable change forced upon us from without.
Many of us think life, as we know it, is failing or unsustainable because, as a culture, we make money, power and privilege more important than love, truth and joy.As a result, we live with more fear than love. Our thinking is more material than spiritual. It is compartmentalized, specialized and limited. As a society, we overtly and covertly place many areas of inquiry and exploration off limits, which results in feelings of oppression and selective perception. The challenge for each of us is to figure out what balance of ideas will work best for us as individuals and as a world. It is time to ask questions, not accept “official” answers without question.
The growing collapse of our economic and social system – increases in population, people in jail, homelessness, joblessness, food shortages, disease, wars, global warming, unsustainable growth and the loss of wealth, can be laid at the feet of putting fear, individuality and self-interest (ego) ahead of love, oneness and the common good. A similar imbalance occurs when we put the common good ahead of self-interest. We are capable of creating a system that values both equally. By giving equal value to both our oneness and individuality, we make it possible to cooperate, not compete, with one another. In addition, by asking questions that include ALL of us, we not only acknowledge our oneness and individuality, we acknowledge our individual and collective roles, and responsibility, in co-creating our shared reality.
Five Beliefs That Will Change the World for the Better
We create our own reality from what we choose to believe about ourselves, and the world around us. In other words, how we define ourselves, and the world around us, forms our intent, which in turn forms our reality.
We are both one AND separate. What you do to me, you do to you. What I do to you, I do to me. What you do to you, you do to me. What I do to me, I do to you. This largely intuitive knowledge is what gives substance and meaning to the Golden Rule – “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” (Is the prevalence of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in our troops and the guilt we feel when we harm others, as well as ourselves, the soul’s way of telling us to stop doing these things?)
We are not only the product of creation; we are creation itself! In the dynamic dance of life, sometimes we lead and sometimes we follow. Sometimes we do both simultaneously.
ALL life is sacred. You are one face of God. I am another. God is All That Is and All That Is, is God!
EVIL does not exist in reality. Consciousness (Energetic Awareness, Awareized Energy) or God wants to know itself in all ways. It seeks pleasure, not pain! However, to tell one from the other, to have the power of choice, Consciousness must know both. To know hot, we must know cold, to know happy, we must know sad, to know love, we must know fear.
Responsibility (response-ability, accountability, creativity and self-development) is the price of freedom, peace and long-term human survival. We can view life as a burdensome journey of pain and suffering or a creative opportunity to learn and grow. In either case, we get what we concentrate on. As creative beings our ultimate challenge is to see where we are, decide where we want to be, and get from here to there, safely and responsibly.
The 21st Century serves as a natural timeframe for building a dream, a vehicle for life in the New Millennium that will help transport mankind through the next 1,000 years in peace and safety.
Project-Centered Education versus Program-Centered Education
Program-Centered Education: Normally, as adults, we see children as thinking, feeling and creative beings. So why do we settle for an “official” view that defines them as anything less? Many of us sense children are newly arrived souls launched on a journey of self-discovery and reawakening. When we see a truth and ignore it, we are guilty of false loyalty, whether it is to a beloved individual or a sacred belief. In doing so, we are saying that loyalty to people and beliefs, even when they do us serious harm, is more important than life itself.
Program-Centered Education treats children as property – as resources or commodities to develop, harness and exploit for personal and social gain. Seldom does it encourage students to develop their own beliefs and values or question and challenge established ones. (See, My Recurring Superman Nightmare for an example of how the system works.)
In life and business, how many of us ask if what we’re doing is good? Does it improve the quality of life and increase humanity’s chances for survival or does it undermine it? In many cases, we do what we think works best for us, giving little or no thought to how it works for others. To create a society based solely on the Will to Survive, which many of us interpret to mean – survival of the fittest, eat or be eaten, kill or be killed – is a recipe for disaster. We need to include the Will to Be for the expansion of consciousness and balance. It is what makes us feel love and care about our future.
Project-Centered Education sees us as both one AND separate. We are both the product of creation and creation itself. The “project” in Project-Centered Education is to create better versions of reality and ourselves. Starting with what’s going to work best for ALL of us, in personal terms and in terms of business, education, the environment and peace, teachers and students can develop projects that help them discover greater understanding and serve the highest good. By encouraging children to ask questions, we not only engage them in creating their own reality and shaping their own future, we enlist them as partners in co-creating our shared reality.
When seek the greatest understanding and serve the highest good is our primary goal we have a purpose for living and learning, and buried within these ideals is the promise of love, truth and joy. We are not bad; it is our ideas about who we are and what reality is that limit and distort our human expression.
“Education” includes doing for ourselves what others will not or cannot do for us.
Active and thoughtful participation in the creation of our reality is the change we have been waiting for. Public education is an excellent place to start.
Evolution, not Revolution – it’s time for God’s “Children” to grow up.
What can we do today for the selves we’ll be tomorrow?
Roger and Sandra Peterson
CC:
| Vice President Joe BidenEd. Secretary Arne DuncanSenate Speaker Harry ReidHouse Speaker Nancy PelosiSenator Tom HarkinSenator Bernie SandersSenator Sharrod Brown | Senator Al FrankenSenator Dianne FeinsteinSenator Barbara BoxerRepresentative Dale KildeeRepresentative Dennis KucinichRepresentative Lynne WoolseyRepresentative Alan Grayson
Oprah Winfrey |
Bill & Melinda GatesSteven SpielbergBill MoyersThom & Louise HartmannAmy GoodmanEd ShultzGov. Arnold Schwarzenegger
CA Ed. Super. Jack O’Connell |
We Create Our Own Reality
During the course of everyday events we often forget the role of thoughts in the forging of our material reality. We get lost in the visible symbols, the material by-products of our imaginations, forgetting the invisible blueprints from which they, and we, emerge.
Pure energy like money, its material equivalent, is shaped into matter and experience by thought. It can be used to lift up or smash down, to build character or destroy character, to express love or express hate, to beautify or make ugly.
The purpose, or challenge, of life is to learn how to use thought in its various forms to shape energy into a pleasing reality. The prize is a sense of satisfaction, a feeling of a job well done. And, like learning to walk or talk, it is a personal, subjective endeavor that requires creative aggression. It is a great balancing act, where one must accept falling down in the course of learning how to stand up.
Remember:
Thoughts are “things” with a reality of their own and you an artist. With thoughts in the forms of belief, attitude, value and expectation, you paint the landscape of your life.
Visit The Real Talk World Library (http://realtalklibrary.com). It contains many first-hand accounts of extraordinary experiences like Encounter with the Energy of Unconditional Love, Ask Value Questions and Listen for Intuitive Answers, Inside Ivy, What I Learned in Catholic School, Dreams of My Unborn Grandson, A Healing Meditation Surprise, Pete’s Creation Dreams (includes the Genesis Dream), The “Suckface” Incident and The Ball of Light – a (Lucid) Dream about the Nature of Consciousness and Being. These experiences and others describe a much larger picture of who we are, what reality is and what we can all do when we let ourselves go gladly into the nature of creativity and not hold back.
Pete – http://realtalkworld.com
We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience. – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
We create our own reality from what we choose to believe about ourselves, and the world around us.
If we do not CONSCIOUSLY choose our own beliefs, we UNCONSCIOUSLY absorb them from our surroundings.
If we are accountable (responsible) for our actions, how can we afford NOT to question our beliefs?
How you define yourself, and the world around you, forms your intent, which, in turn, forms your reality. - Seth
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