Why is the SR Seminar team eager to bring our work to kids and teachers? Every few months I receive a phone call from someone that goes like this:
"I've gotten your name from a friend and need to see you. My knees hurt, my back hurts, I'm only in my early 40's and already I'm stiff and uncomfortable all the time when I move. Not only that, but I'm a fitness consultant! Why am I such a wreck?"
One way to look at this predicament is that we have been given highly sophisticated neuro-muscular systems and no directions for using them.
Jacob Needleman writes: "There is in the body a flowing deep river of tangible sensitivity about which our culture has taught us nothing." (The Wisdom of Love)
SR Seminars is working to change this!
In our education programs we teach children and teachers to bring attention to themselves, to begin to see that they can release habitual tensions and re-direct their activities. We do this in order to prevent the kids losing their birthright, the natural skillful use of themselves.
How we teach this is simply. We introduce the idea that what is important to master is what not to do in order to do more efficiently, effectively, and creatively.
For example, we teach teachers to let kids stop and pause, to bring awareness back to their physical bodies and physical balance before, during, and after each activity in the classroom.
By learning this form of Not Doing, kids in school learn to manage their attention and prevent stress and manage anxiety and learning difficulties.
If the school is lucky enough - or forward-looking enough - they can then provide kids with hands-on, kinesthetic guidance from a local Alexander teacher. John Dewey, the education visionary, referred to the Technique as "Thinking in Activity" and said it bears the same relation to education that education bears to all of human endeavor.
Parents and teachers who attend our seminars can provide support for kids and foster their natural ability (which far outstrips ours, as they haven't gone so far off the mark as we have) to coordinate themselves and achieve their highest potential in and out of the classroom.
|
