The role of the adult in a new education

Growth and development through self-activity is nature’s greatest miracle, as is the ability of awareness. The human being is a great builder, with a power, an intelligence and knowledge. There is within nature, a magic force that enables each individual to construct the Self. Through the process of being and becoming, integral learning aims to develop each individual’s consciousness. The outer perfection of one’s actions in life comes through the realization and connection to that which is within an individual – the mind, the will, the knowledge, the intention, and the spirit. Therefor the biggest work is on ourselves, as adults.

In an Integral Education the parent/teacher is a role model, researcher and learner. As well as being in an ongoing deepening of the Self, developing her/his own awareness, the parent/teacher also has to become an expert at observing and understanding the needs of each individual child. To gain the skills of how to summon each child to enter a journey of self-discovery and self-formation. It is therefore the child who is teaching the parent/teacher how to guide.

The adult is learning through observing the needs of the child, by getting to know the child, and by listening to the child’s questions. The work of the parent/teacher is then to guide the child to learning opportunities based on deeper knowledge and understanding of the child’s developmental needs. For a teacher it requires working with the same child over many years, to be able to reach this in-depth connection. When developing Aurogames we discover that we need to work on ourselves as teachers/parent in order to be able to offer these games in a manner through which they will serve their true purpose.

The parent/teacher’s task is to offer each child opportunities for learning, through situations that invoke the inner knowledge, without fixing a general outcome beforehand. The atmosphere needs to be warm and non-judge-mental. The parent/teacher supports the child to become aware of her/his own freedom and ability to realize her/his own aims and full potential. Opportunities for learning offered by the adult need to be understood only as an invitation to the self-activity of the child. This way that adult has a meditative role in relation to the child, in order to maintain and develop the individual’s self-relations - as one cannot summon someone to gain a deeper state of consciousness.

The universal values that will represent a change in education is an integral development – both individual and collective. To shift systems that will transcend existing norms and values of what education is. By questioning that which is, parents, teachers and children need to continually be cultivating their own learning process, developing their consciousness. When aligning their awareness with their actions, individuals will be able to create the conditions necessary for continuous unlearning, learning and reflection about a future society, that is yet to be conceptualized.