Yesterday we read The Way to Start a Day by Byrd Baylor, illustrated by Peter Parnall during our morning time. (BTW, we love all their books and highly recommend them!) So this morning, as luck would have it, the wee ones and I were up bright and early, well in advance of sunrise on this late November morning. As per the book, Bess made up a song to sing to the sun as it rose this morning, a stunning shade of orange:
Time to come up sun,
Time to come up sun,
Without you the plants can't grow.
Without you we have no light.
Without you we are cold.
Aaaah...it almost makes it worth getting up that early!
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Monday, November 10, 2008
Keeping it Close to Home
This weekend, my sister and I brought Bess and Harry to Washington, DC for the Green Festival. While we were there, we planned to visit the National Zoo.
As a humane educator, I am ambivalent about zoos in general. I think that by bringing our children to visit animals in captivity, we are implicitly giving them the message that we approve of the practice of catching animals and putting them in enclosures for people's viewing pleasure. However, my sister, a zoologist and educator who has worked at one of the most well-known and well-respected zoos in the world, argues that without zoos, some animals would likely become extinct. Furthermore, she argues, giving people the chance to see these animals live increases the likelihood that they will make efforts to save them. I'm still not sure what I think about that, so my compromise has been to carefully select the zoos that we do visit, and to be sure to talk to my daughter about where these animals actually belong and how they might feel about being away from their homes.
Now, back to the story. The National Zoo has an impressive array of animals on display. We didn't get to see much because by the time we got there, Bess was quite overstimulated and exhausted. We did get to see their famous panda, and we walked through the bird house that contained some really interesting specimens including kookaburras, birds of paradise, and kiwi. But all Bess wanted to see were the mallard ducks in the pond outside and the squirrels playing in the trees.
In fact, that whole day, while we walked through the city, Bess was fascinated not by the new sights and sounds around her, but by the flowers in front of the buildings and the house sparrows and starlings sitting on the statues. She wanted to pick dandelions and look at the leaves, and feel the textures of the different types of pavement while we walked. She was duly unimpressed by the sightseeing, preferring to focus on the things that were no different from that which she sees every day at home.
I think that if we are going to effectively teach our children to be responsible citizens and stewards, we need to always make the effort to meet them where they are instead of trying to advance our own ideas of what they "should" be exposed to or care about. Bess is three - too young to be able to appreciate the panda we saw, and the struggles of wild pandas trying to survive in a faraway land. She is focused on her immediate environment, and attached to the familiar. As humane parents, we are best off trying to cultivate the attachment that already exists rather than trying to expand their horizons before they're ready.
In the end, the whole DC trip was probably a bad idea. It was too much, too far, too different for anyone to be able to enjoy it. It will probably, unfortunately, be a few years before I'm able to attend another Green Festival. But I'll have to take a page from Bess, and instead focus on examining and enjoying the things I have in my own backyard.
As a humane educator, I am ambivalent about zoos in general. I think that by bringing our children to visit animals in captivity, we are implicitly giving them the message that we approve of the practice of catching animals and putting them in enclosures for people's viewing pleasure. However, my sister, a zoologist and educator who has worked at one of the most well-known and well-respected zoos in the world, argues that without zoos, some animals would likely become extinct. Furthermore, she argues, giving people the chance to see these animals live increases the likelihood that they will make efforts to save them. I'm still not sure what I think about that, so my compromise has been to carefully select the zoos that we do visit, and to be sure to talk to my daughter about where these animals actually belong and how they might feel about being away from their homes.
Now, back to the story. The National Zoo has an impressive array of animals on display. We didn't get to see much because by the time we got there, Bess was quite overstimulated and exhausted. We did get to see their famous panda, and we walked through the bird house that contained some really interesting specimens including kookaburras, birds of paradise, and kiwi. But all Bess wanted to see were the mallard ducks in the pond outside and the squirrels playing in the trees.
In fact, that whole day, while we walked through the city, Bess was fascinated not by the new sights and sounds around her, but by the flowers in front of the buildings and the house sparrows and starlings sitting on the statues. She wanted to pick dandelions and look at the leaves, and feel the textures of the different types of pavement while we walked. She was duly unimpressed by the sightseeing, preferring to focus on the things that were no different from that which she sees every day at home.
I think that if we are going to effectively teach our children to be responsible citizens and stewards, we need to always make the effort to meet them where they are instead of trying to advance our own ideas of what they "should" be exposed to or care about. Bess is three - too young to be able to appreciate the panda we saw, and the struggles of wild pandas trying to survive in a faraway land. She is focused on her immediate environment, and attached to the familiar. As humane parents, we are best off trying to cultivate the attachment that already exists rather than trying to expand their horizons before they're ready.
In the end, the whole DC trip was probably a bad idea. It was too much, too far, too different for anyone to be able to enjoy it. It will probably, unfortunately, be a few years before I'm able to attend another Green Festival. But I'll have to take a page from Bess, and instead focus on examining and enjoying the things I have in my own backyard.
Monday, November 3, 2008
What is "Non Violence"?
I participate in a Nonviolent Communication study group once a month (based on the work of Marshall Rosenberg), and our November meeting was this past Saturday. There was a woman there who was joining our group for the first time, and one of her first questions was how exactly, in the context of NVC, do we define "violence"?
Good question.
Dr. Rosenberg says this on the subject, on pages 2 - 3 of Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life:
The definition of the word "violence" is as follows: swift and intense force; rough or injurious physical force, action, or treatment; an unjust or unwarranted exertion of force or power, as against rights or laws; rough or immoderate vehemence, as of feeling or language; damage through distortion or unwarranted alteration.
That's some pretty heavy stuff - there's probably a whole month's worth of blogging in there! For today, I'm going to think about the last one, which is "damage through distortion or unwarranted alteration."
In NVC, at least to my mind, it's all about communicating with other people in an empathetic, non-judgemental way. Judgement can be violence. Clearly, we all make judgements about good and bad - that's how we decide what we do and do not want to do in every facet of our lives. To judge is human. What I'm talking about is when our judgements limit our willingness to meet others where they are, when it causes us to formulate ideas about them based on minimal information. In other words, when our judgements distort our ability to be compassionate, that is violence.
My grandmother used to tell me that "sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me." As an adult, I see how that simply is not true. Not only can words hurt my feelings, labels - names - that people give me can hurt my ability to form relationships, to be treated fairly, even to make a living. Yet, even (or maybe especially) among the most loving, conscious people I know, violence in the form of judgement runs rampant. Those who have committed themselves to living compassionately still have a difficult time with the idea of interacting with individuals whose actions they disapprove of - maybe even despise - with an open and loving heart.
This whole idea has me thinking a lot about Alice Miller's classic book, For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence, which I read many years ago. Yet even after all these years, one idea in particular from her work sticks out in my mind:
Every "crime" - against fellow human or against humanity, against the Earth or any of her inhabitants whether animal, vegetable or mineral - has a personal tragedy behind it. A perpetrator who was treated with violence in any number of ways cannot be judged guilty for her disconnection with the Other. And, as Miller so eloquently and thoroughly points out, almost all of us in Western, industrialized cultures have been treated violently throughout our upbringings. All we can do now is try to solve the problem by breaking the cycle of violence, and empowering our children to find the connection and compassion which is their birthright.
Good question.
Dr. Rosenberg says this on the subject, on pages 2 - 3 of Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life:
...the term nonviolence [is used] as Gandhi used it - to refer to our natural state of compassion when violence has subsided from the heart. While we may not consider the way we talk to be "violent," words often lead to hurt or pain, whether for others or for ourselves.
The definition of the word "violence" is as follows: swift and intense force; rough or injurious physical force, action, or treatment; an unjust or unwarranted exertion of force or power, as against rights or laws; rough or immoderate vehemence, as of feeling or language; damage through distortion or unwarranted alteration.
That's some pretty heavy stuff - there's probably a whole month's worth of blogging in there! For today, I'm going to think about the last one, which is "damage through distortion or unwarranted alteration."
In NVC, at least to my mind, it's all about communicating with other people in an empathetic, non-judgemental way. Judgement can be violence. Clearly, we all make judgements about good and bad - that's how we decide what we do and do not want to do in every facet of our lives. To judge is human. What I'm talking about is when our judgements limit our willingness to meet others where they are, when it causes us to formulate ideas about them based on minimal information. In other words, when our judgements distort our ability to be compassionate, that is violence.
My grandmother used to tell me that "sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me." As an adult, I see how that simply is not true. Not only can words hurt my feelings, labels - names - that people give me can hurt my ability to form relationships, to be treated fairly, even to make a living. Yet, even (or maybe especially) among the most loving, conscious people I know, violence in the form of judgement runs rampant. Those who have committed themselves to living compassionately still have a difficult time with the idea of interacting with individuals whose actions they disapprove of - maybe even despise - with an open and loving heart.
This whole idea has me thinking a lot about Alice Miller's classic book, For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence, which I read many years ago. Yet even after all these years, one idea in particular from her work sticks out in my mind:
I have no doubt that behind every crime a personal tragedy lies hidden
(177).
Every "crime" - against fellow human or against humanity, against the Earth or any of her inhabitants whether animal, vegetable or mineral - has a personal tragedy behind it. A perpetrator who was treated with violence in any number of ways cannot be judged guilty for her disconnection with the Other. And, as Miller so eloquently and thoroughly points out, almost all of us in Western, industrialized cultures have been treated violently throughout our upbringings. All we can do now is try to solve the problem by breaking the cycle of violence, and empowering our children to find the connection and compassion which is their birthright.
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