Custom Workshop Example:

I will invite you to contemplate very deeply the current paradigm, to realize the very profound change that is urgently needed. It is not a change from something that is wrong (in the current paradigm) to something that is right (in a new paradigm). It is not a change of opinion or way of thinking, nor is it an improvement of our human goals and intentions. It is a change of mentality, a cultural-neuronal deconstruction, from separate perception to holistic perception. From being separated to inter-being. From separation to reunion.

Why? Because the underlying cultural story of separation (and the conception of being separate and discrete) is first and foremost a cultural story accepted as fact. And secondly because it is the root cause of the crisis we face in our education, as well as in every aspect of life today. As long as our attempts to build a holistic education are born out of the neuro-cultural arrangement of separation, we will only succeed in continuing to reproduce a separate education. As holistic as our intentions are, and as much as our goal is reunion, our way, our tools, our dwelling must also be holistic. You can't build reunion from separation. "You cannot dismantle the master's house using the master's tools" (Audre Lorde). That is why deconstruction is necessary.

A holistic education is an education in which the whole child is good, made up of kindness. I'm talking about something very radical. We have to walk an unknown path (we adult educators), until we find ourselves in a place where it is completely natural, without any effort, to accompany the child in full freedom.

This would be easy if it didn't involve us. If we were separated from the children. But it turns out that they affect us intensely. When a child wants to attack us, phew how it hurts. For example, when a child consistently ignores us in our loving and patient suggestion regarding something we know is for his or her own good (say, sheltering from the cold), we suffer. Or when a child inexplicably wants to grab a toy, just for the pleasure of another child's suffering. We are faced with the need to set limits: "we do not do that". When a child fights with another child for the private ownership of any object, let's say a twig: "It's mine", "No, it's mine" and the discussion escalates to violence. We see ourselves in the need to transmit to them, in one way or another, that there is something wrong within them, an egoism that we have to extirpate. We have no choice, within the history of separation there is no choice.

 In this workshop I consider the urgency of the soul to inter-find (with each one of you) another story that lies hidden. Mysterious, impossible for the intellect. I am going to ask you to share with me your examples that will surely be more accurate than mine (I am a parent but I have no experience as a preschool teacher).

The key is that we see ourselves as separate, part good and part bad. That's how we see life, some of it good, some of it bad. Like Hollywood movies always have a good side and a bad side. The mind, fully accustomed to this narrative, will vigorously claim: "No other story is possible! of course the world is full of evil! Etc." That's the story I've come to question. I invite you to deconstruct it. An unknown path from which truly new things will emerge.

As long as we see ourselves as separate, how could we build a holistic education?, how could separate human beings educate whole human beings? As long as there is distrust in life, there is distrust in oneself. As long as there is mistrust in oneself, there is mistrust in life.

On the other hand, a holistic education is possible immediately, very simply and easily. This is because genuine holism is the One with everything as it is. The one does not separate from the separation. Therefore, the only thing to 'do' to 'be' holistic in the immediate is to include separation. In practice, integrate whatever is handy to integrate. Crucially, integrate our feelings. It is not necessary to change them to make them holistic, they become holistic when allowed to be as they are.

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