As the service progresses, my mind wanders (as it often does during church services) and I reflect on how people learn. I am actually quite spiritual, but my faith is my own and I am not even sure it is shared by the rest of my family. So how do we learn? And how do we learn the most elemental of constructs to the human condition, such as spiritual awareness?
Well it occurred to me, sitting in the back pew that people divide into a number of groups:
- experience: those that learn by doing, doesn't matter what you tell them, they have to experience for themselves. They experiment and often latch onto the newest leading edge not so much to store and reflect on the learning as to experience the first steps of new learnings and to be in the constant process of the not yet known. Pioneers. Not always with any overt purpose other than it is necessary.
- personal journey. More than experimentation, more than experience, these are people who set off on a path of personal discovery. Often painful, often more time consuming, ultimately very personal and deep learning. Discovery is to go on a spiritual journey of self-awareness and actualization like the main character in A Razor's Edge. Their journey is driven by a constant question of "why?" to just about every facet of life and living. Disdainful of rules, authority and conformity. Innovative. Charismatic or delusional, depending upon the audience. Often wrong, seldom in doubt.
- directional: people who learn but need guidance and leadership to venture into new domains, like structure and the re-assurance of a conforming message. Will apply new rules but not initiate nor innovate those new meanings. Community builders. The mainstay of small, rural Ontario churches. People who run things.
- institutional: people who are less about learning and more about being educated. They seek, need and appreciate the structure and directions supplied by an institutional setting and instructional training. There is clarity in conforming to norms, not questions. Comfort from consistency and compliance, not acquiescence. The congregation, the majority of students who sit in class and associate their grade with learning: "is this going to be on the exam?". Need to 70 to get into Heaven.
Well I often use the analogy of the beach. The beach has sand and waves that crash onto the shore. And I will liken traditional pedagogy to an accepted paradigm of building sandcastles. The waves represent change: inevitable, constantly changing, dynamic and not subject to human instruction, even royal fiats as Canute can testify.
So we organize society into little teams, each building sandcastles. Some elaborate and using buckets and spades, some using left over cups and some using powerful sand moving technology Tonka trucks (made in China). Bullies knock over other peoples castles, some castles aren't very robust, fights break out over who has the best looking sand castle and everyone accepts that life is about building sandcastles under fear of "the big wave" that knocks any and all sand castles down and washes them away -- they are sand after all.
There are classes on castle building, rules and directions on correct castle design, construction and maintenance, people who draw castles, people selling shovels and spades and people running around preventing people from running on sections of the beach to protect the castles (well the important ones anyways). And on one end of the beach there are the people protesting that 1% of the people have 99% of the sand, another group extolling the virtues of castle building as God's work and people organizing teams to tell other teams how to build their castles like their castles....
Then there are the groups who watch the waves. They are assisted by others who shout about how the next incoming wave is "the big wave" and constantly try to run drills shepherding people up the beach to safety in case the "big wave" hits -- which of course hasn't happened but every wave does destroy at least one castle, especially those built close to the margin of the shore.
And there are people who don't actually do any building any more. Like parents they sit under umbrellas, on comfy beach chairs and sip cool beers or drinks with little umbrellas and watch the beach around them. Occasionally, they walk the length of the beach, saving their prime spaces on the beach with books, determining what new activities should be allowed and what should be prohibited. They make the rules, rules that fit their view and use of the beach but after all, without rules, where would the organization be?
Meanwhile waves come and go, Change is constant. Some people have tried to play in the waves. Pioneers, with big boards, they surf in the waves, look wonderful, routinely drown once in a while and are invigorated and inspired. Many watch them but do not aspire to surf themselves as it is challenging, difficult to learn and not something everyone can do: not everyone is blond, with 10% body fat and blue eyes, coordinated and a strong swimmer.
Some complain about surfing. It is risky. Not everyone can do it. It is hard to learn. There are movements afoot to ban surfing. Plus it is disruptive: often during castle building classes kids will gaze at the surfers and admire them, wonder "what if...", it gives them wrong ideas.
That is until someone had a bright idea. Big boards are difficult but little tiny floating devices, boogie boards, allow everyone to play in the waves. You don't even need big huge dangerous waves, just the every day, on the shore waves can be enjoyed by everyone using a boogie board. Wow! Technological innovation changes the whole dynamic of the beach. Waves are not to be feared but enjoyed -- easily and by everyone! Suddenly the metric and pre-eminence of castle building is challenged. More and more people stop trying to mold the beach into castles of sand they seek then to protect and preserve, and instead they jump into the very waves they have be told to fear and frolic, boogie boarding, laughing, together, people from all sections of the beach, playing in the ever changing waves. Life is not dreary, a daily drudge of more castle building. Instead it is a daily play in the waves of change.
Of course this comes at a cost. The chair people have lost their control over beach life. People are too busy playing in the waves to worry about the chairs or to want to "steal" them. No one worries about the "big wave" -- people do not fear change, the waves are a new challenge and new opportunity to test their skills and learn how to enjoy the dynamics of constant change. Most of the beach monitors are irrelevant: the water and the waves are the focus of life, not the beach. Who knew?
So are we educating people for a life on the beach? A life based on moving sand, inherent impermanence, rule by chair people and plagued by bullies? An education predicated on fear of change and the illusion of castles?
Or is education for sustainability about embracing the changes of new technological innovation? More and cheaper boogie boards to allow more people from more places on the beach the opportunity to play and revel in the constant waves of change?
Educate to conform. Or educate to empower?
Directional training. Or personal journeys of discovery and the exploration of new frontiers of knowing?
As I write this, Southern Ontario is getting its first dusting of snow for the season. A heavy wet snow. Guaranteed people will gripe and moan. I think I will start an "Occupy Cayman Islands" movement to protest the mal-distribution of sun and sand on the planet that persecutes snow and winter bound Canadians.
Or I can get out my hat and mitts, build a snowman, check out my skis and snowboard, get out the snowmobile....and change my whole analogy of the beach to a Ski and snow metaphor. Life is for living, laughter and love. Not worry, whining and work. (Thank you Ed!)
What are we teaching? Why and how?
