Toothpick Reading

[Khatruman]

Bravo, Umb!

Took me a while to get to this post, but I fully understand what you are saying! Right Brain, YEAH!

Thanks for leading me to this post. You said so succinctly what I have not been able to voice.

Talk to you soon.

Peace!

 

[Khatruman]

Hey, Silverlotus

it seems to me that this is an exercise in letting your mind be free to tell you what it's been wanting to say but you've been ignoring. I think the point of the exercise is to open yourself to really listening and understanding just what your mind and/or spirit has been jumping up and down to draw your attention to, but you've been to caught up in archetypes, symbols, and other images to notice. At least that's what it seems to me.

Totally agree with you here on that inner voice idea, but here is how I see that inner, instinctual voice.

We all have many voices in our heads which clamor for attention. These voices all have characteristics... there is the scolding voice that tells you that something is bad, that you are no good.. sometimes that voice sounds like parents, and it can be pretty loud! and louder the more you listen to it.

The instinctive voice is very calm. It quietly says its peace, and lets you do what you want with it. It is a very powerful voice in that what it says is on the money, and if you follow it, amazing things will happen. But it doesn't tell you that, or jump up and down and scream at you. It gives you the info, and lets you decide how to handle it, quietly and matter of factly. We all are given this voice. Problem is that many of us stop listening to it, because it is not insistent like the parent voice, scolding us and berating us. And when we stop listening to it, it simply says, "Ok, you don't want to listen, I will just go creep back into the little recesses of your mind." Then it gets quieter and quieter. It only becomes stronger when we start to listen.

So if you want to know which voice it is, it is usually the quiet one. The one that doesn't argue. I don't agree that it will jump up and down at you, that's what the books do: jumping around saying "I AM AN AUTHORITY, What do YOU know???" and your instinct responds, "Ok, I said my peace. I will be quiet now." If it is loud, threatening, or bullying, it is NOT your instinct. Quiet your mind and listen to that voice every now and then. The more you listen, the stronger it gets.

Peace!

 

[floracove]

How very interesting, I shall give this a try.
It could be twigs, huh? Don't see why not...

 

[Diana]

Khatruman: Now why don't they teach stuff like that to kids when they're at school?

I wish I had been told that when I was little. I may have more peace in my heart if I had.

 

[Khatruman]

Khatruman: Now why don't they teach stuff like that to kids when they're at school?

I wish I had been told that when I was little. I may have more peace in my heart if I had.

You know, my first voice wanted to say "Well, they are too young to use that," but my instinct tells me you are right, and it should be taught. Actually, I think the California public school system did work on that in an experiment in building self-esteem, but all everyone hears about is the touchy feely stuff, which isn't true esteem building. It doesn't work to praise students for everything. They see through that in a minute.

Actually, I think it was just last week when I was telling a story about the power of the intuitive voice, and my students' (9th graders) attention was rapt! And this a group of easily distracted kids..*s*... It was what we call in the education field, a teachable moment, a moment that just comes out of the blue and becomes a wonderful moment. Problem with those is that they cannot really be planned. I guess when to teach about the intuition needs to be intuitively understood..

Peace!

 

[Khatruman]

used by everybody else…it’s a trap.

Anything - can -be – taught. Anything to damn near any student.

But the problem runs back to the same thing…folks go to school and ‘learn’ from books by experts on how to teach…so teachers ‘think’ they can teach.

But they cannot. Wanna know why they were rapt? Wanna know what makes a teachable moment?

Interest…you have to capture the interest – by putting on, and wearing their shoes.

Get folks to listen, without thinking about what they are going to say (to show folks how smart they are).
Not often done.

It is not thinking.

Number One, Umbrae.... step off the dias and come see me teach before you criticize. Getting my students to think is my top priority, despite the lecture my principal gave our whole staff at a meeting last week where he said, point blank, "We need to be teaching to the [state] test only. That's how they get their diploma." I prefer to stay on his bad side and teach my students to think.

I agree that anything can be taught, that you have to see life in their shoes, and Umbrae, I have seen a few shoes, or feet with no shoes or students beaten at home, or forced to work so the family can eat so that's why they are late for school, where a book is alien, where a student will be severely chastised by peers, lose his standing in a neighborhood that is survival of the fittest, if he or she even looks like learning interests him/her. Where students stay after school because it beats going home to nothing. I look inside their heads, I put my heart into them, so please don't be surprised if I get a little perturbed at your holier than thou attitude here. I show them and tell them at every turn that there is another way, and that way is found right inside their minds, and i feel the heartbreak when they don't listen, when I read a newspaper article about a former student gunning down three others in a car.

~Hands my teaching hat over to you~ Words, Umbrae... and I have given you nothing but praise here in these forums. Please don't make me think twice about that. It is easy to stand and criticize. Come into the trenches.

Peace!

PS, to folks that I promised not to go off the path of the subjects at hand, I am sorry. It does hurt to put your heart and life in something and have someone stand as holy critic over you.

 

[HudsonGray]

Being a teacher is one of the hardest jobs in the world (right up there with emergency room nursing staff). You're the best one to know what's teachable and what's not & how those moments sometimes come together. You're right, most schools don't teach kids to think, we'd be getting some real good quality out of them if that was a priority.

As it is, the ones that graduate that still WANT to learn can at least self educate by hitting the libraries (I did, my significant other did, my sister did & I can name several friends who did the same route). We couldn't afford college, but we kept learning. Instilling 'options' like that in kids is important too. Only two of my teachers encouraged it in me (but all of them knew I was an avid reader, so the others may have figured I'd do it myself anyways).

 

[Diana]

I think Khatruman's post fitted in perfectly with this Toothpick Reading thread. And I suspect that his students "learn" about intuition, without being "taught" it. I also suspect that intuitively, he is able to capture those magical "teachable" moments by putting himself in their shoes, because that day, there is receptivity in the air on both sides (one side is not enough), the planets are well positioned, the energy is balanced, and he is able to home in on that. Few teachers would feel the preciousness of that moment and it would be lost in time and space forever.

Symbolic toothpicks in Khatruman's classroom.

There are now two teachers I wish my son had at school: Khatruman and jmd.

 

[Moongold]

Teaching

I had some teachers like you, Khatruman. They made us want to learn and encouraged questioning.

I listened because their intellectual backround was strong and they wanted to share it with us.

How important it is to have a teacher care!

Thanks for your observations,

Moongold

 

[allibee]

The words ' clown shoes ' come to mind....