Tomorrow I have an opportunity to make a short presentation in front a private audience of like-minded folks.

Here’s what I’m going to say…

“Thank you for this opportunity to share something special with you today.

I’ve worked as a teacher for 10 years now, teaching English to nearly 2000 foreign students. I’ve never had a behavioural issue and engagement is always high.

My approach, which is intended to provide protection and service to all those in my charge, informs my teaching methodology, the curriculum-building curriculum I’ve developed and the Teacher Training material I’m launching. This approach I call, ‘The Honorific Code‘.

It’s a fancy way of saying, “Treat People with Love“. Codified in this approach are the actions which recognise individuals as sovereign beings, honouring them as the Princes and Princesses you really are.

The first step is about the attitude and energy you bring and the space you create and hold. In other words, it’s about your state of Connectedness.  As always, Nature provides the perfect metaphor for this ideal learning environment:

Let’s illustrate this metaphor with a little story…

Imagine if you please, the individual learner as a Little Bird, sitting in the branches of a Tree, (the school and teachers)… where it is Safe, Nourished and Protected.

This Tree is rooted in the Earth, (the system of school governance)… where it is Grounded, Supported and Connected.

The Earth, bathed in Sunshine, (the philosophy behind the system), is Warmed, Energised and Illuminated.

The Sun cradles the Earth. The Earth cradles the Tree. The Tree cradles the Little Bird.

Perhaps you now can feel the warmth of these fractal connections.

But, taking a step back… You can see how this model of ‘connection’ is very different from our current, hierarchical model of authoritarian education.

Think of our school system where our little bird, (the individual learner), must be obedient to the tree, (the teachers and school), and is told what to do, when to do it, and how;
Where the tree is told how to grow by the earth, (the sinister ministers of our national department for education);
Where the earth is told what it can grow by the sun, (the archontic, parasitic philosophy which governs our school system).

This is a system, not of Connecting, Liberating and Enlightening. But of herding, confining and controlling.

Not of Freedom and Creativity. But of authority and obedience.”

Φ

“In the 1960s, Stanley Milgram, Doctor of Psychology at Yale University, conducted a revealing series of experiments on authority and obedience. These experiments were driven by a question… Trying to understand the Nazi atrocities of the 2nd World War and statements made at the Nuremberg Trials where people said they were simply following orders.

Milgram wanted to understand how ordinary people could be made to commit acts of extraordinary horror.

Through his experiments Milgram demonstrated that at least 2/3s of people would readily inflict mortal injury upon another person, simply because they were told to by a figure of authority. (More recently Derren Brown, the psychological illusionist brought Milgram’s experiments to life in his show, ‘Push‘, where 3 out of 4 participants were induced to push another person off a building to their apparent death.)

Milgram concluded that people are socially conditioned to obey authority – moving into an agentic state – giving up their individuality, their creative imagination and their critical thinking to become agents of the authority they’ve submitted to.

Where do you think most of this conditioning takes place? At school, of course.

Autonomy is the opposite of this agentic state, where you retain your self-responsibility and your sovereign, decision-making ability.

In our story of the Honorific Code, retaining and fostering autonomy is the same as being Connected and Present to the bigger picture of Life.

It’s how you’re able to move beyond the hierarchy of control and hold a space of connected consciousness, which Nourishes, Protects and Energises.
It’s like cradling this Little Bird in your hands, while you are being cradled by the Earth and the Sun.
It’s like being a Grail Knight whose purpose is to serve and protect the Heart of Love, which beats like the precious wings of our Little Bird.

It is possible for you to extend this connection far beyond the confines of authority and control to include the centre of the Galaxy… Declaring your autonomy, Raising the Galactic Excalibur to protect the realms of the Earth and all those here.

In this state of connection, all powers of control fall away, and those your are holding in this space light-up, their imagination blossoms and their creativity flows.

So I want to encourage you to Honour all your Connections, like the Little Bird honours the Tree; the Tree that honours the Earth; and the Earth that honours the Sun.”