Education

Education, News from the world

C’è da chiedersi quale sia ora lo scenario distopico (o distopia) attuale.

Perchè quella del ventennio scorso è divenuta tragica realtà ergo non è più lecito ed appropriato identificarla tale.

Una ridemensionata “Matrix”, dove la IA controlla il genere umano, potrebbe essere plausibile (magari con scenografie meno eclatanti ed appariscenti rispetto al film); a guardare bene i segnali ci sono e sono anche abbastanza sconfortanti: progressione impressionante e costante della distruzione culturale, nel senso di pensiero critico e capacità di leggere ed interpretare gli eventi che accadono con particolare riferimento al meccanismo “causa-effetto”; diffusione pervasiva e capillare attraverso i sistemi di comunicazione (digitiale/virtuale e televisivo) del programma cosidetto “neoliberista” o capitalista; esasperazione e magnificazione delle caratterizzazioni mirate al mantenimento del conflitto quale strumento prioritario del controllo del “gregge”, il “noi verso loro” che diventa martellante, ossessivo, proprio come da clima di caccia alle streghe. Le ondate sono cicliche e si rinnovano a seconda del periodo storico; i flussi migratori sono quasi un evergreen perchè meglio incarnano il nemico da abbattere; spirito nazionalistico che permetta di rifugiarsi dietro ad un bandiera quasi come la coperta di Linus; conflittualità sociale facendo sempre attenzione a mantenere la mira non su chi detiene il controllo od il potere ma sul vicino di casa, sull’omologo sociale cosi da alimentare la cosidetta guerra tra poveri. Ma soprattutto la narrazione, oramai ossessiva e compulsiva del mito dell’apparenza, dell’edonismo più becero, del senso dell’effimero, del disinteresse più totale verso l’eco sistema di cui facciamo parte.

La crisi totale, vista da un profano come me, rappresenta intrinsecamente una possibilità di reale cambiamento. Temo che la compromissione della ragione e della Cultura del genere umana renda questa possibilità abbastanza remota e difficile da realizzarsi. La legge del Caos (quello vero, quello che governa i processi naturali) potrebbe vernirci in aiuto e dare un colpo di grazia all’attuale sistema di potere sparigliando le carte e rendendo quasi impossibile governare la matrice ad n-variabili in gioco : geografiche, culturale/etnico, climatiche, tanto per citare le principali.

Pervaso da un improvviso e quasi irrazionale senso di ottimismo, mi piace pensare che per una distopia prossima, esista, parimenti, un’utopia possibile in contrapposizione. Proprio come nella filosia dei fumetti che prevede che per ogni super eroe-buono, vi sia un super-cattivo.

Insomma, viva Eraclito e speriamo, anzi adoperiamoci, per un prossimo “panta rei”.

Education, Pedagogic Journey

Once upon a time, there was a child who was living like an adult. The child had kept on living like an adult until he’d realized that something, or better, someone was calling him to a different life.
Thus the child started wandering around trying to listen better and to figure where this voice was coming from and whose was that voice. He had been struggling for years, decades stumbling upon “not-my-call-choices” he had made: living for working instead of the other way around, childhood companion taken for wife, places he longed seeing not seen and place not to be seen, seen . As the time was passing and child was encumbered and weighed down, life also was passing by. Too many bells not heard and too many sunset not seen started engraving his life backward, in some way. Child started talking with the adult he was mimicking, yet no answer manifest. Child had started becoming upset and annoyed and still adult wouldn’t explain anything. Till one day, that day, when the adult took child’s hand firmly yet gently and showing him the door, he said “here we are. Time is over for me to let you go “. “Where to?” was the answer from an astonished child.
“Right where you showed me, all along these years”
The 60 years old child seemed relieved, as he never felt in his life; he had not a clue as to what that sentence had meant, if it meant anything at all; neither he cared. He left the adult’s hand and while walking out through the door, he was moved as he had been probably just few times in his past 60 years; he had the very sharp, real and fulfilling sense of accomplishment.
Child and adult never met again since that day, but they both kept thinking very deeply and lovingly of each other every single day of their lives.

Education, News from the world, Pedagogic Journey

Early 90’s, Middle East crisis. Bush struggling to get people support to invade Iraq. People don’t see this as a right war. Few days later, a breaking news shows a “nurse from Kuwait” claiming that she witnessed hundreds of children slaughtered in their cradles in a Kuwait hospital by Iraqi Army. Anger and indignation raged extraordinarily among US people and in few days act to invade IRAQI was approved almost unanimously by US parliament. The nurse from Kuwait was the Kuwait ambassador’s daughter. Nothing of what she claimed was true. Not a word.

Vietnam war: US army massacre in My Lai. Hugh Thompson Jr, an U.S.helicopter pilot saved a group of local civilians threatening his comrades to fire on them if they hadn’t ceased immediately fire

Two stories among thousand which should teach us all about danger of manipulation and how “us vs them” theory could turn people’s live entirely upside down

So, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink. We as human we’ll continue to see and hear what others want us to see and hear. Unless and until we take control on our own lives.

Education

I keep on talking and discussing about what gets in first when it comes to human shaping up. The debate is often along the lines of “chicken and egg”: chicken, sometimes, is just a way to make another egg.

What you see in here is might not be animal silhouettes….

As Educator and coach, I am strongly tempted to fall in the “Education comes first” paradigm; of course I am not talking purely about schooling though I admit schooling contributes a lot. Genetics too has very little to do when we think of one’s development. Genes make us tall, brown eye or, God forbid, us facing consequences for their mutation; behavior, for the best and for the worst, is most powerful and effective educator. One’s development is indissolubly related to other’s behavior, especially to the behavior of parents and relatives. The closer we are each other, the more effective and pervasive the influence will be. As easy and obvious as this could appear, we most of the time we lack and miss this perspective. We all have a place in the world, in the society: parents, children, educator, grandparents and for each and every of these roles corresponding behaviors carry consequences and effects. Is a serial killer such because he or she had bad parents? Or is a Nobel prize winner particularly lucky to have parents who are genius? Of course there is not just one answer; it is true however that most of the times, things happen for a reason and rarely as a result of “random” causes. Butterfly effect is just an elementary simplification of this concept. My humble view on this is therefore: we are what we are for a reason even though we cannot even pretend to control every single facet of life. Chaos, in the best interpretation possible, is the very, prime and true law ruling our and other’s existences. We do have the possibility though to reasonably affect and make the difference in our own and other’s lives, with every word we speak and every deed we do.

Never underestimate the powerful influence we can exert on other’s lives. Never underestimate the powerful influence that our thoughts and deeds have on ourselves.

Lorenzo

Education, Pedagogic Journey

And here we are, again! Our journey continues heading to Flensburg, Germany. In May 2020 (15th till 19th), we will accompany Italian team throughout the beauty of the very first Forest Kindergarten in Germany.

Petra and I we will not be alone during this experience as Paolo Mai, co-founder of the Italian forest kindergarten “Asilo nel Bosco” in Rome will join us. During these five extraordinary days, Italian Team will have the opportunity to visit Flensburg FK and also the Beach Kindergarten, close to Flensburg. Experience sharing, round table and most importantly community time will represent an unique opportunity for teacher, parents and concerned people to deepen their knowledge and confidence in the realm of the Education in Nature. See you soon in Flensburg!

Petra and Lorenzo