Teaching without Walls

Vermont 2009. Mud oven, built by 16 children, 8-9 years old in 2 days. It withstands 950 degree heat and bakes 100 pizzas in 3 hours.

Cost- almost nothing.

Let's talk of a system that transforms all the social organisms into a work of art, in which the entire process of work is included...something in which the principle of production and consumption takes on a form of quality. Its a gigantic project.

Joseph Beuys 1921-1986

I wish that man could live in homes as marvelous and beautiful as that of the snail and that he could build cities as endlessly rewarding as a forest.

-James Hubbell, sculptor, builder

The few moments when a child feels awake to the world, when she is learning and discovering that which quickens and enlivens the very core of her being for life, are connected to two powerful, different forces.One of these forces resides within the mystery of nature. The other lives and changes in the mystery of the human soul landscape.

To build a playground, a stage, a canvas, a poem where the human being can embark upon a fruitful quest for this discovery, we need the thoughts of Hubble and Beuys to establish two important principles.Our longing in this time of macro transformation - energy- money- waste- carbon- food- learning-working-transportation-consumer debt- the list goes on and on- is to start over and live with dignity and integrity. I would also add, with beauty. A new aesthetic has yet to be founded that re-casts the feared and regretted, rebelled and rejected notions of beauty which lived a life of suffering in our past eras.

Hubbel's life long work of sculpted buildings; homes, businesses and schools, works out a new aesthetic seeded in Gaudi's organic patterning of water, earth and plant movements. Beuys used staged urban events to point out the need for extreme social change, an awakening to spirit in matter.

When children and other ordinary people get a chance to use their hands, feet and senses engaging in a deep mindful and playful dialogue with the four elements, new structures for life appear which can seed the intelligence the world is waiting for.

It is indeed a joyful, musical, playful, humorous day when we work with skilled craftsmen and women to create the shelters we need to learn, work,cook, eat, play and sleep in out of natural materials that even cost less than what we already use.

My father, a civil engineer who builds bridges, tells me these days there are two sources of strength when you build bridges. One is tensile strength. The other is compressive strength.

I like to think about this. I am a teacher and in a way I build bridges. From the mind to the heart and back again. Passion for learning is everything.

With tensile strength, we knead with our feet delicate golden wheat or barley straw in the mud so the adobe does not crack when it freezes.

In childhood, we learn to be flexible through endless disappointment. The golden straw of our childish hope that it will go better next time keeps us upright and lovable as children. Our tensile strength, our ability to adapt to the climate and mood changes of adults around us is endless.

The adult with a bit of luck gradually acquires or learns compressive strength. The world begins to bear down upon us and we withstand its pressure. The world will not crush us entirely, this is our small hope. Our resolve to push back, create balance, do better, do more, do well, do it somehow, is endless. Cracks appear and the golden tensile strength of our offspring or our glimpses of other's encourages us to keep going. The question of a bridge between these two sources of strength is a question of education. What does a perfect school look like? When does school begin? When does it end? In a life, in a day? A year? When is enough enough? When is it poison? What is it for? Is it worth it?

Can we re-work our notion of schools and after care, work and home to include a new way of living that asks more of the children, of us all? More time, more love of the earth, of each other, more discovery, more ways to learn how to do basic things like grow food, cook it, build and discover how things work from a new reliance on trial and error?

Imagine a revolution for after school care. What if the after school care programs were the most important part of the day instead of the garbage heap of quality learning time for children.?
Imagine children dealing with the reality of a fire to be built up, a cow that had to be milked, pizza dough kneaded and dinner cooked and ready for the tired parents who came to collect everyone at 6 pm?

Simple things with big impact on the senses and skills of a child can change how a child sleeps, how a child learns, how a child retains what she has learned for life. How she applies it to other situations in an intelligent and creative way.

In the end, a life is poetry. It is a dance, a song. A creation like the Finnish Kalevala song of creation. Only it is now the creation song of our new lives ready to be sown.