Fighting Fire with Fire?????

This is the second part in my installment about Human Design and children. Last week I talked about the first step in shifting our paradigms about children. This week I’d like to talk about what I think is the most important first step in creating a revolution in the education system (or anywhere else in the world or your life...).

My passion, as a Human Design teacher, is all about keeping it simple, so while there is a lot of big vocabulary and woo-woo stuff I could stick in this post, I’m going to try to keep is succinct and easy to understand. If you want to get more information about all of this, stay tuned…more to come!

Let’s start with the basics. If we’re going to create change in the school system or in any system, for that matter, we have to start first with where we are putting our energy and attention. It’s so easy, when you are feeling frustrated or disempowered with a system to respond and react.

I find it fascinating that in Human Design the energy for Revolution (49th Gate) is also the energy for intimacy and agreements. The energy for revolution is located on the Emotional Solar Plexus and has the potential to be very cut and dry or black and white. It’s the, “That’s It, I’m Outa Here” gate but it can also be a gate that asks of us to be deliberate in re-working our agreements and connections.

If we stay focused on the intention and take our time (The Emotional Solar Plexus needs time for clarity.) we can come to new agreements that lead to harmony and peace.

I am absolutely certain that our education system is in need of a major revolution. When over 30 percent of the children in the system are diagnosed with psychological disorders and learning disabilities, it makes me suspicious of the system. How can one in three children have problems with learning?

If you look at the Human Design chart as the archetype for the potential for humanity, you will see that there are multiple combinations of ways people learn. It only makes sense that in an education system that has a limited approach to teaching and educating that a bunch of kids are going to fall through the cracks and be classified as “learning disabled.” (Want to learn more? http://www.karencurry.tsemedia.com/articles/article/2243258/30059.htm)

This shouldn’t be a revelation to any of us. Since the early 60’s, education experts have been saying that there are different kinds of learning styles and multiple kinds of intelligences. This isn’t news.

And, yes, it’s easy to want to pull your hair out and scream with frustration over the inadequacies of the system, especially if your child falls into the 1/3 that isn’t best served by our schools. (I have a couple of those kinds of kids myself.)

But, before we can start a revolution, we have to be thoughtful, clear and deliberate. We have to take time to focus our intention and start first with looking at what IS working in the system before we react and burn the whole building down.

Personally, I have had more than my fair share of run-ins with the public school system. I have five children ranging in age from 2 – 21. I homeschooled four of my kids for 11 years.

I have a couple of kids who LOVE school. I have one kid who claims that her public school education robbed her of her love of learning and another kid who is on the Every Other Year education program. (That means that I homeschool him every other year because he can only handle public school one year at a time before he starts to go insane.)

I have been visited by Child Protective Services because I withdrew my son from school without filing the right paperwork. I have gone head-to-head, toe-to-toe with school psychologists, teacher and principals. I’m not going to lie. I have been rude, irate, beside myself and very, very angry at times. (I have the 50-27 in my Human Design chart. I have big, big Mama Bear energy and if you hurt my kids, look out. I cannot guarantee you will live. And, no, it’s not rational. It’s all about survival.)

Here is what I learned. The more I yelled, the more I got in trouble with different administrative representatives and the less help and support I got. The “squeaky wheel” only got me sent to the principal’s office, literally. The more I focused on the problem, the bigger the problem got. And the “elegant solution” was never discovered.

We are all designed to be abundant. There are no gates for suffering, pain or trauma in the charts. Some of us, by nature, will make choices that are more challenging than others but for those of us designed to live that way, those challenges are a part of our own personal evolution. With awareness, those challenges can be met with delight and anticipation.

When you live your strategy and relax into your design, you open yourself up to a life that is abundant, more pleasant and reawakens you to “the possibility and the wonder of your life.” (Ra Uru Hu)

But it all has to start with deliberation, intention and focus. The more you trust life, your natural place in the order of life and abundance that is waiting for you, the faster you can embrace the possibility and wonder that is your life.

Your abundance will be uniquely tailored to you. Your life holds exactly what you need and want when you live your strategy.

But, I digress. (Sorry, got swept up in the possibility and wonder of it all…. ;-)

Revolution is deliberate and the archetype of humanity calls for careful action that feels correct. Before we can revolutionize our education system, we have to take a step back, get clear about what we want, focus on the things that ARE working, appreciate the teachers and all of those people in the system who have dedicated their lives to helping children.

You cannot fight fire with fire. We must ask ourselves what are we for, not what are we against. And then we can create what we intend, a system that honors and meets the needs of each individual within it.

Of course, this is only the very first step. We have a lot of evolving and very exciting creating to do.

Next week: Revisiting ADD, Human Design and other “learning disabilities”…