Hello Tree
I have never agreed and disagreed more strongly with the same
thought before. It took me some time to sit with your ideas as I
unpacked my own reaction to your statements. I do not believe I
misunderstand your beliefs about how you think childhoods should be
protected and sheltered and I don't disagree with you in theory.
They should be protected and sheltered. There is no going back to
stolen childhoods and childhood can be stolen. I do think
childhoods can be stolen under the guise of protection and shelter.
I do think there are developmental stages and that it's
important for us to go through all those stages as we grow because
we will use those stages as scaffolding as we become ourselves.
Having said that I also believe that we all come to be with a
different set of tools and brilliant abilities. Those unique
qualities of self allow us to move through different developmental
stages with different abilities and different times. Here is where
I take exception with what you are proposing and Waldorf for that
matter. Each brings our own time to the equation. Some are ready
to take on experiences interacting with adults and their world in
very competent ways at very young ages. In fact, they need to have
those experiences to find the self they came to be. I know for
myself I was already organizing anti-war events by the time I was
11. No one expected, pushed or even encouraged me to this. I felt
compelled by what I saw in the world and a deep need to change it.
I am grateful that as difficult as it was for my parents to allow
me to do these things because they kept me on the path to myself.
My daughter was crying about flowers picked that didn't want to be
picked by the time she was 2, raising money for pre-schools in
Central America by the time she was 7 and comfortably reading
essays she wrote to political demonstration with crowds of 50,000
people by the time she was 11. My son on the other hand is 22 and
still not ready to navigate the world as an adult. He needs more
time. The issue for me is not whether I think a young person
should participate in certain venues normally occupied by adults.
The issue is where the children are driven to go. What do the
children think? Are they there because their own heart has passion
and commitment or are they there because someone else thinks that
is where they should be? Childhood should be protected and
sheltered. I agree with that. I also think it needs to be driven
by the child's passion and commitment not the adults sense of what
is appropriate for a child. I am thinking about the recent hoopla
about the 16 year old girl who wanted to sail around the world and
all the talk about child abuse. There was a time when she was out
of radio contact and all the world was a twitter about what
happened to her because the loss of contact came after a bad storm
in the Pacific where she was. After some days they found the boat
and team rescued her. Her mast broke in the storm and with that
her satellite communications were down. The questioners went on
and on to her about her safety and whether she was alright and
whether she should be out in a boat sailing by herself and her
reply was "It was just a storm". This child can only become
herself through the sea and if you deny her the sea you deny her
herself.
I am just saying it is for the child to chose the direction and the
speed and the adults to do what they can to facility the possibility.
Pat Black
On Sat, Oct 9, 2010 at 8:11 AM, Tree Fitzpatrick
<[email protected]> wrote:
Michael, and other comments. .. I don't think anyone commenting
actually understood what I tried to say so I conclude that I failed
to communicate.
Young humans are not yet fully evolved humans. What all young
people need, including the most precocious of them, including ones
that get asked to sit on the board of the Jane Goodall Institute,
is to be children. It is only by being children than humans can
become fully realized adults.
The world needs fully realized adults to achieve our shared,
highest destiny. When we push children out of childhood and into
the adult realm, those people rarely, if ever, get space later in
life to go back and fill in the gaps of what was missing.
Michael, yes, indeed, children can bring a lovely element to any
open space. . . but that does not mean that it is right. Children
should not be asked to participate in adult matters. Ever.
The damage contemporary society does to childhood is a very
serious, long-term consequence to humanity. If we do not keep
children asleep in childhood so they might do the inner work of
their inner beings, we will have a human future full of unrealized
'grown ups'. It is casual, nonsensical folly to bring children --
unformed adults -- into adult discussions. It is wrong on a
gagillion levels.
We are all so caught up in rushing towards the future. One thing we
humans cannot 'rush' is the slow development and incubation of
fully realized human beings: that development takes place in
childhood. It is irrationally folly to bring children into adult
decisions.
On Fri, Oct 8, 2010 at 3:06 AM, Michael M Pannwitz
<[email protected]> wrote:
Dear Tree,
from where I sit (public) decision making as presently practiced,
for instance in Germany, is ineffective, creates larger problems,
is lobby-infested, dogmatic, expensive, not even a good show... who
would want to be part of that?
What I have experienced often in "formal" open space events and in
the "normal" open space of everyday life (like the 1,5 year old
daughter of a neighbor visiting and taking over our household, very
effectively involving us in her life and experiments, curious,
decisions?-easy for her....pure joy)is that kids of all ages thrive
in it.
But then, thats not decision making in the sense of sitting on a
"board" of whatsoever.
Day-care children, grade school kids, highschool kids, teenagers...
are the greatest gift to an open space event, so I encourage their
taking part and it seems to always have been productive, fun,
healthy...
Have a great day
Greetings from Berlin
mmp
Tree Fitzpatrick schrieb:
There are many things off kilter in human culture. One thing that I
think is
off kilter is that adult humans now routinely encourage non-adult
humans to
participate in things like 'public decision making'. Where did we
get the
assumption that a young person has the capacity of a fully evolved
adult
human to make informed decisions that might have long term
consequences on
the child, other children, the community, the culture, etc?
Children are not
yet adult.
We encourage children to 'awaken' to adulthood far too early.
I am appalled that many now take it for granted that children (a
non-adult
is still a child) should sit on something like the Board of
Directors of
something like the Jane Goddall Institute (whatever that is, I imagine
Ashley meant Jane Goddall).
This is a major flaw, I think, in evolving culture and it has
endlessly
complex repercussions.
Children's job is to be children, to developo their own personhood
fully so
that they will one day take a place in adult community. Children
awaken to
adult considerations much too early. TElevision has been a huge
culprit in
this regard and now, of course, the internet.
A child's main work is being a child. It's just not right to
cavalierly get
youth input into decisioins that children cannot, just cannot,
really know.
A twelve year old, a sixteen year old, is not mature enough to make
complex
public decisions and it is wrong to ask them to: asking children to
participate in grown up life as peers with the adults dishonors
children
I get my main attitudes about children from having sent my child to a
Waldorf School and having been a student of Rudolf STeiner for over
twenty
years. Much of what is wrong with human culture can be traced to the
practice of stunting youthful inner development under the guise of
awakening
children too early to adult concerns. This is why we now have an
education
system in USA that is focussed on test scores instead of the inner
development of children. There is a story in today's NYTImes about how
publishers are publishing less picture books and how parents
pressure four
years olds to listen to long stories and skip picture books so they
will
have better test scores later. . . this dynamic is connected to
including
youth in public decisinmaking.
I know this is a very popular trend and I know Ashely Cooper is deeply
invested in the world and I know she is a good caring person intent on
making positive contributions in the world.
I get to have my opinion, yes? I am worried about the millions of
humans
who are children today who are not cloud-gazing and spending their
summers
hunting rocks and birds' nests and who are told, when they are
twelve, that
they can contribute to public decisions. Grown up humans have a
duty to
children: to let them be children. Otherwise what we are creating
is an
army of humans who are not fully developed humans who will make
good wage
slaves for the elite billionaires running the tea part movement.
Thinking
caring loving people should not participate in pushing children
into the
adult arena while children.
On Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 6:51 PM, ashley cooper
<[email protected]>wrote:
Hello Open Space friends,
I have fallen off of the OSlist for awhile, but I wanted to share
with you
a talk from a recent TEDx event that I hosted,
TEDxNextGenerationAsheville<http://
www.tedxnextgenerationasheville.com/>.
This event was all about spotlighting the ideas of young people and
giving
them a public stage from which to share and be heard. It was also an
invitation for there to be more collaboration between youth and
adults.
Chase Pickering spoke about the role of youth in leadership and how
young
people can contribute to public decision-making and serve on Board of
Directors (which he did with the Jane Goddall Institute). If you
are in a
position to invite a youth to serve on your board of directors or
advisory
board or encourage the clients you work with, please consider Chase's
advice!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27IJpZVP1qs
You can also watch Birke Baehr's talk about the food we eat. He is
an 11
year old who is passionate about food and whose talk has gone viral
and been
viewed over 200,000 times in less than 2 weeks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7Id9caYw-Y
Sending fondest regards from Asheville, NC, USA,
Ashley
P.s. If you would like to respond to me personally, please send it to
[email protected] . I have not been checking this account
regularly.
Thank you.
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Love rays,
Tree Fitzpatrick (check out my new address)
. . . the great and incalculable grace of love, which says, with
Augustine, "I want you to be," without being able to give any
particular reason for such supreme and unsurpassable affirmation.
-- Hannah Arendt
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