From the period of the ancient Greeks and throughout history there have always been educators in the background who have implored the society not to load the child with the knowledge of the society, but allow the child to just be. Rudolf Steiner, for example, said that teachers were to act as midwives to what the child brings to the world.
Most children in formal education throughout history for most of the time have been forced to learn what they did not want to know at that particular time of their lives. The force prematurely removed their innocence by taking them too early out of the now; the present moment; the state of being lived in by human infants and all other animals. The result was to contribute to the creation of human adults who suffer a permanent emotional hollow that is futilely attempted to be filled with the stuff of the world.
Mind (Echo, February 21, page 7) is living in the now. Mindfulness does not need to be taught to children. It is their natural, perfect (holy) state.
If adults want children to remain mindful for as long as possible, they need to allow them to just be. This is the education revolution, rather than the virtual education revolution proposed by David Tow (Echo, January 17) which can be seen merely as the continuation of the race for knowledge devoid of wisdom.
Geoff Dawe, Uki
