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Archives
- February, 2006
Learning Body Image – February 21, 2006
As I’ve moved into my mid-50s, my body shape has changed. I’ve on
some weight around the middle in spite of my best efforts to keep active
and eat well. And that bothers me. Recently, I’ve decided to do
something about being bothered. The problem is, it seems, some weighty
and often contradictory lessons that I’m still carrying around as
gifts from my mother – that heavy women are lazy; that ladies don’t
sweat; that to live large (both literally and figuratively) means
drawing attention to oneself and that’s unbecoming; that “it’s
what inside that counts”; that over-eating isn’t nice but one must
finish up everything on one’s plate; that dieting is a woman’s lot
in life; that the “right” clothing style can cover up any
“flaw.” These days, almost every time I look in the mirror I hear
her voice, see her frown and feel her scorn…about anyone who isn’t
model-thin and, worst of all, who doesn’t care.
Our mothers give us our first cues about our
bodies, for better or for worse. And, although I’ve made it to age 55
with suffering big esteem or health or body image issues (and managed, I
think, to help my daughters dodge those issues too), apparently those
early cues are still messing me up in small ways. Like many women, I
grew through stages of imitating then rebelling against my mother. And
one of my mantras for many years was not to be like her. However, along
with that weight around the middle, I’ve recently gained a bit of
compassion for the woman who birthed me, and come to see her as a
product of her times, of the expectations (or lack thereof) for women in
the early 20th century. But I’m still working on putting
down the burdens she handed off to me and trying to see her simply as a
woman who tried too hard to please. When I’ve accomplished that final
bit of learning, I’m sure my middle will easily shed some pounds.
By the way, in puttering around the Web on this
topic, I found a neat little site called
Adios Barbie.
Posted:
2006/02/21 2:20 PM
Not
Meddling – February 20, 2006
For some reason, this is the time of year when I start to hear from
parents exploring the idea of home-based education. Maybe the novelty of
a new school year has worn thin by now! Anyway, I’ve recently received
a bunch of phone calls and email messages from parents wanting to
unschool their kids and wondering what “the method” involves, and
how to best prepare themselves…what books to buy, how to keep their
kids “progressing in the basics”, as one dad put it.
The
people who contact me for direction are often articulate and highly
motivated parents. So it’s no wonder they are surprised when I tell
them to back off and practice keeping out of the way of their
children’s learning. They agree with me when I point out that most
people learn best when they have time to muddle...opportunities to
explore, to investigate their questions and ideas, to create theories
and test them, to make mistakes and try again, to take risks without
somebody monitoring what or if they are learning. But they sometimes get
a bit hostile when I tell them that in order to encourage muddling, they
will need to learn how to stop meddling. And that is harder than it
sounds, especially for highly
motivated and formally educated people who, by nature, are organizers
and achievers. In spite of the best efforts of the education industry,
learning is a process that defies organization and sequencing. And
observing that somewhat messy process can be frustrating and even scary
for some people.
So,
I tell these folks, relax, practice being flexible and let the learning
lifestyle happen. Please don’t try to slyly introduce “topics”,
engineer elaborate “field trips”, choose specific library books, or
plan other well-intentioned activities on your kids’ behalf, I urge.
To support their need to feel like they’re “doing something”, I
tell them that non-meddling parents give control of the learning process
to the learners. They respect their kids’ ability and motivation to
learn what they need to learn. They talk with them; provide
opportunities for interaction with people and things; share and model
learning; support the risk- and mistake-making processes; enrich the
environment with books, pens, paper and other creative materials;
celebrate good ideas and satisfying accomplishments; and commiserate
about experiments that don’t turn out the way they were expected to.
We’re
not programmed to trust in human nature, in people’s love of life and
of learning. School-type education is based on extrinsic motivation, on
learning what someone else has decided is good for you, in the manner
someone else has decided is the best way to learn, and for the reward of
someone else’s praise. It can be hard work to overturn all that
meddling.
Posted:
2006/02/20 11:25 PM
Taking Care of Ourselves – February
13, 2006
Rolf and I have both been sick with some kind of stomach virus.
“Hello, it’s your body talking – slow down and chill out!” This
forced respite has me thinking about how easy it is to lose ourselves in
caretaking others, and to fail to set boundaries that protect our
personal health and happiness.
Someone recently referred to this temporary losing
ourselves as “sacrificing”, but I don’t see it that way because I
have enjoyed my life, been a willing caregiver and don’t feel like
I’ve given up much. Nevertheless, when my daughters were small, my
focus was on ensuring they were happy, healthy and otherwise well
nurtured…while busy running our home-based publishing business. For
the past few years, a great deal of my time and emotional energy has
been spent dealing with my aged mother…while I continue to be busy
with an ever-expanding business life. And I’ve sometimes found myself
feeling guilty for grabbing time for myself amidst the chaos.
Colleague/activist/author Rahima Baldwin Dancy of
Waldorf in the Home and I have been
chatting a bit about this via email. Rahima, who has found the time to
complete a master’s degree in “Gerontology and Organizational
Change” while caring for both her mother and mother-in-law over the
past few years, believes the problem is lack of role models of how to
take care of ourselves in the midst of nurturing family. I think
that’s partly because caregiving (at least the unpaid kind that is
done in the home, mostly by women) is almost invisible in our society,
not financially rewarded and even demeaned by some as an obstacle to
self-fulfillment. Women “need” daycare so they can work outside the
home at “real” jobs, according to the prevailing feminist wisdom.
Psychologist and author
Joan Borysenko is traveling the continent conducting a series of
workshops aimed at healing what she calls “compassion
fatigue”. The Refilling the Chalice:
Healing for Healers workshops are, unfortunately, aimed at healthcare professionals,
rather than unpaid caregivers. But the symptoms that Borysenko describes include
short temper, emotional exhaustion, anxiety, depression and feeling that
your work is not effective – all things felt by both those with young
children at home and those caring for elderly family members. Some of Borysenko’s
remedies include meditation and giving oneself permission to admit to being
exhausted. That is a good start, but a dose of respect for the value of
the work would help too.
Posted:
2006/02/13 2:25 PM
Mindfulness – February 8, 2006
I have long admired the Buddhist principle of mindfulness. As a way of
applying it to my own life and work, I’ve been reading as many books
as I can on the topic. Among my recent readings have been Mindfulness and
The Power of Mindful Learning, both by Harvard psychologist Ellen J. Langer (
Da Capo Press). Langer points out that a mindful state is a learning state.
When one is fully present in each moment, one is constantly interacting
with one’s environment and constantly adapting and changing in
response to small changes in that environment. Mindfulness, she says,
results in us being aware of multiple perspectives and realizing that
failure is not a rigid category, but rather dependent on the situation.
And that creates a good climate for successful (and, I might add,
joyful) learning.
When you think about it, mindlessness, on the other
hand, is the rigid reliance on old categories, on pre-formulated
distinctions. This is the state that most schooling creates by requiring
the acquisition of facts as unconditional truths, without questioning,
and by testing for the “right” answer. And, notes Langer,
mindlessness is definitely not a condition in which real learning can
happen.
Posted:
2006/02/08 4:44 PM
On Being Effective – February 1, 2006
In both magazines that I edit –
Natural Life and Life Learning – the
focus is on positive ways to do things differently. And generally, we
receive a lot of praise from readers about how refreshing and useful
that approach is. But recently, a Natural Life reader sent me a letter
criticizing our “Pollyanna approach” and then switched metaphors to
accuse us of “fiddling while Rome burns” because we seldom publish articles describing the environmental
disasters that are occurring around the world.
I responded that it takes only a bit of exposure to
the mainstream media to develop an awareness of the fact that many
aspects of society, including the environment and the public education
system, have big problems. The time has long passed when, instead of
wringing our hands and launching another academic study about the
problems, we should focus on creating and demonstrating solutions. In
his
EcoLetter, author Guy Dauncey quotes from an interview with Amory Lovins,
co-founder of The Rocky Mountain Institute
where he said, “When I give talks about energy, the audience already
knows about the problems. So I don't talk about problems, only
solutions. But after a while, during the question period, someone in the
back will get up and give a long riff about all the bad things that are
happening – most of which are basically true. There’s only one way I've
found to deal with that. After this person calms down, I gently ask
whether feeling that way makes him more effective.”
Posted:
2006/02/01 12:40 PM
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