In the Student Center
Caught Between Freedom and Conformity: Empowering Students To Take Charge of Their Learning with Will Hornblower and Aaron Gardner
This is the world the young people have to face, and naturally they are really frightened. They have an idea that they should be free, independent of routine, should not be dominated by their elders; and they shy away from all authority. Freedom to them means to choose what they want to do; but they are confused, uncertain and want to be shown what they should do. The student is caught between his own desire for freedom to do what he wants and society’s demands for conformity to its own necessities, that people become engineers, scientists, soldiers, or specialists of some kind. This is the world students have to face and become a part of through their education. It is a frightening world. We all want security physically as well as emotionally, and having this is becoming more and more difficult and painful. -J. Krishnamurti
Join Will and Aaron as we explore these guiding questions:
– How can we provide the scaffolding and support to help students design and execute their own journeys of learning, while still giving them opportunities for meaningful choices and autonomy?
– To what extent are the students aware of the conditioning and pressures that create a paralysis of choice?
– How can we create experiences that prepare students for the pressure of the many choices they have to make during these major transitional periods in their lives (8th graders choosing to stay or leave OGS, transition into young adulthood; 12th graders life after OGS, choosing a college/career, living independently, adulting etc)?
In the Reflective Classroom
Understanding Comes with the Awareness of What Is, dialogue facilitated by Terry O’Connor
We invite 15 participants for each dialogue. Please sign up to hold your place at the Information Booth.
Understanding comes with the awareness of what is. There can be no understanding if there is condemnation of or identification with what is. If you condemn a child or identify yourself with him, then you cease to understand him. So, being aware of a thought or a feeling as it arises, without condemning it or identifying with it, you will find that it unfolds ever more widely and deeply, and thereby discover the whole content of what is. To understand the process of what is there must be choiceless awareness, a freedom from condemnation, justification, and identification.
When you are vitally interested in fully understanding something, you give your mind and heart, withholding nothing. But unfortunately you are conditioned, educated, disciplined through religious and social environment to condemn or to identify, and not to understand. To condemn is stupid and easy, but to understand is arduous, requiring pliability and intelligence. Condemnation, as identification, is a form of self-protection. Condemnation or identification is a barrier to understanding. To understand the confusion, the misery in which one is, and so of the world, you must observe its total process. To be aware and pursue all its implications requires patience, to follow swiftly, and to be still. There is understanding only when there is stillness, when there is silent observation, passive awareness. Then only the problem yields its full significance. The awareness of which I speak is of what is from moment to moment, of the activities of thought and its subtle deceptions, fears, and hope. Choiceless awareness wholly dissolves our conflicts and miseries. -J. Krishnamurti – Collected Works, Vol. IV – 143
Is it possible to see without judgment, without identification? How might that come about? What does it mean to observe the total process? How do we see what we’re not seeing? Dialogue is an earnest inquiry into the fundamental issues of life and self. It is a laboratory in which our own thoughts and reactions are revealed in the mirror of relationship. It is not a debate where thought is paramount, but a deep, unhurried listening to ourselves and others. In this safe and respectful space, awareness can arise.
In the 1st Grade Classroom
Oak Grove School Workshop: Metacognition in Early Childhood with Laurie Cornell
We invite 15 participants for each workshop. Please sign up to hold your place at the Information Booth.
Laurie Cornell will lead a discussion on how Oak Grove supports inquiry and metacognition with the youngest students. One example of how this is done is through documentation work. Participants will have the opportunity to visit an Early Childhood classroom, to explore how the teachers inquire with students, and to see examples of documentation.