Work Life & Living

Greetings
The work, the duty of raising our children and providing them with the education and training needed to function as adults in this society is a prime responsibility that defines many aspects of our lives. I would like to examine the assumptions, values and underlying belief system that informs the choices we make in pursuit of this vital mission. I offer that many, if not all of those decisions about the educational and overall development of our children are made not on the strength of our own awareness or initiative but by an external authority that is an expression of the dominant culture.
The problem here is not just that we have to follow the rules but how does that process serve our needs. That is the needs of our children to be nourished, access their inherent creative potential and use it to meet their basic survival/living needs and importantly provide the skills and knowledge needed to enrich the life experience of themselves and their community.
I offer that this goal is compromised from the start, because the essential requirements for the system to totally accept and affirm the humanity of all students and that successful completion is validated by relevance to the living culture of the student herself are not guaranteed. Of course, I am not denying the brilliant achievement of our children and many of us in our endeavors as students and parents. I suggest that success came in spite of and not because of the system but at the end of the day will our efforts, our work primarily serve us or someone else.
My proposal is that we are responding to a power situation where in essence, we perceive our survival and overall opportunities as conditional on the approval of the dominant culture it therefore makes sense to follow the rules regardless of the devaluation of our humanity. For those of us who quest for freedom and want to live our lives in full expression of our humanity the choices are stark and will come at significant cost, but will undoubtedly be refreshingly restorative. Either we force the dominant culture to accept, and affirm by active practice our humanity as the essential criteria for our participation, or we make our own way forward by drawing on our own validity to know and honor what is best for us and our children.
Maroon communities, home school, who knows, the answers lie in our hearts and in critical examination of the questions that emerge when we operate from the absolute acknowledgment of our own irreducible human worth. The value of the educational or other developmental process is to nourish and facilitate the liberation and expression of the our unique and infinite creative capacity. The fruits of our work of our education, our enlightenment, of our labor should serve the goal of making life meaningfully productive by living in affirmation of ourselves