Passion to explore and create

We don’t pay attention to is to our own passion so we’re not seen as passionate people, loving something, and then establishing the environment where kids can pay attention to that without our input. Just establish an environment where kids can follow that kind of inner desire. I used to call it having a sense of your own uniqueness but I think uniqueness isn’t a deep enough word. Passion has a sense of pain. It has a sense of energy and I think when you pay attention, what I like to see in kids who are paying attention or I’m paying attention to their passion and they’re doing this is the fervered brow, the dripping sweat, the energy that you can feel in a child because there’s that wonderful passion about what they do.

Things to think about

What is your passion in this life?
Does your program have enough time and space to allow for children to discover their passions?
Can you see passion when it manifests in children? When you do, how do you honor it?
Do you educate your parents about the negative effects of organized activities for young children like sports teams?

Highlights from Playful Wisdom
by Michael Mendizza featuring Bev Bos and Joseph Chilton Pearce

A point worth ranting about is obvious. The society we create, one that, like it or not, reflects our collective inner core values, does not value, honor or support women as nurturing mothers. If we did, we would have a different culture and a different world. In order for women to protect and nurture life’s most precious gift, life, women need to be protected, supported, respected and yes, nurtured. They need to focus their attention on the miracle unfolding in their arms and nuzzling at their breasts. The highest male responsibility, and therefore culture’s highest achievement, is to be that sanctuary. Failing that is literally suicidal. Pearce paraphrasing Maria Montessori: “A child not nurtured during its formative years becomes its own worst enemy,” and that child becomes the society we live in. What goes around comes around. The way we treat babies and young children is the way those children will treat the world.

The next one, you know I’ve called it different things at different times, but I think it’s passion. Paying attention not only to your own passion so that you’re seen by other people as a person who has passion because then you’re the role model, but also paying attention to kid’s passion. I think the issue that people get into with kid’s passion, it changes. First they’re interested in this and they’re interested in that and then they play here and then they play there, and that’s as it should be. It shouldn’t narrow down to just one and I think what we don’t pay attention to is to our own passion so we’re not seen as passionate people, loving something, and then establishing the environment where kids can pay attention to that without our input. Just establish an environment where kids can follow that kind of inner desire. I used to call it having a sense of your own uniqueness but I think uniqueness isn’t a deep enough word. Passion has a sense of pain. It has a sense of energy and I think when you pay attention, what I like to see in kids who are paying attention or I’m paying attention to their passion and they’re doing this is the fervered brow, the dripping sweat, the energy that you can feel in a child because there’s that wonderful passion about what they do. So passion to me is, and we’ve just got to keep paying attention. You know what the issue is I see with passion, too often what it is these days is that the kids in the neighborhood are all playing soccer so you’re going to play it to whether it’s your passion or not. Everybody’s doing this, okay you do that. I don’t know why they’re all on the same team. Maybe so that the parents can find some kind of a social life. I don’t know. But it is a tragedy to me. You can’t tell me that every child in this world would like to play soccer. One of the things that I really loved is that’s one of the things I paid attention to with my children. They’re all very different and have different interests. I think they’re very connected but not everybody played the same thing or did the same thing and I think that that’s a really important philosophy.