(Pre-school kids need guidance, exploration, freedom, process, and books more than ever before)
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…that preaches that buying a Volvo is a sure-fire way for becoming an individual in today’s crazy mixed-up world.
There are many good things that have to do with ‘others’ and ‘other’ like getting along with others, respecting parents, people and Nature, knowing how to communicate, being able to work within society, etc., but beyond that, this is your life and, as in the general flow and evolution of Western civilization, much of life has to do with personal consciousness and the importance of being an individual: accepting yourself as such, following your bliss/dreams, realizing your life goals, values, and potential, as well as being true to the unique person, spirit, and individual that you are. Freedom and process experiences as well as understanding of basic truths and patterns about humans and life remain Core.
Kids of pre-school age must have lots of freedom to explore and to make their own choices. They need parents who don’t just throw their phones and tablets at them, selling their souls out to The Machine. In elementary and secondary schools, kids basically need support and encouragement to grow and keep moving toward the desirable goal of autonomy. They need to explore, but they need responsible caring teachers, learning structures which facilitate increased consciousness, positive values, and significant subject matter needed to make good, astute personal choices. This requires much reading and information acquisition with an eye to increasing use of structure, pattern, meaning, and purpose in a wide variety of interrelational contexts (because, context tends to determine and limit choices).
Always in a school, college, and university setting, there should be a strong emphasis, too, on process and exploration. Within the ‘system’ and The Machine under these circumstances, individual students come to find themselves more easily and acquire values and learnings to help direct their lives (in addition to any of these derived from both home and parents).
But, inevitably, the evolution of a learner, with challenging significant subject matter and thoughtful, sensitive teachers and profs, should be toward much information, knowledge, pattern awareness, perception, understanding, and any appreciation. Kids and young people need a lot of attention, caring, structure, authority, and guidance along the way. In fact, it is those things which make the long roads of process to more fulfilling versions of freedom and independence.
At the bottom of each child’s/person’s development is consciousness, what a person knows and comes to learn about life in order to function and respond effectively and responsibly to myriad future life contexts and situations.Not only is personal survival at stake, but often achievement, self-actualization, and success on whatever levels.
There has to be important basic information, knowledge, and learning along the way, not just a soulless surrender to robots, machines, and technolological distractions. Being happy with who one is, knowing oneself, and having the freedom to live life on one’s own created terms are the typical keys to becoming a happy, well-adjusted individual. Freedom of choices in one’s life has long been a reliable indicator of happiness, success, and fulfilment within the history of Western civilization. The same is more important than ever before in today’s world of rapid changes, widespread deconstruction, and end of permanence as we once understood it.