.schooling...

I went to a meeting last night between Saugerties parents and a panel of local education figures- it was set up to be a roundtable discussion of questions, ideas, and possible solutions to the current budget crisis. I went as a home schooling mom because I think it is important for all of us in the community to work together to educate our children, regardless of whether they attend public school or not. I was deeply dismayed by the lack of discussion- last night- of education, children's needs, or the need for creative solutions and community involvement. It seemed the primary topic was numbers, numbers, and more numbers. While I understand that these numbers must be dealt with, I think we are, as a community and a culture, losing sight of the real problems of education...which should and do revolve around creating and nurturing an environment that fosters learning and the love of learning. This is one of the primary reasons Zzoe and I have chosen to home school our kids. We have seen, over and over, evidence that public school creates distrust in the learning process- tossing it over in favor of a highly artificial model whose primary functions are to teach children to follow directions, transfer information onto endless worksheets, and constantly prove, again and again, that they know what they know. As a culture, we are setting our children up for failure by entrenching them in a system whose primary concern is numbers and taxpayer dollars. Our kids will be facing huge environmental, economic, and ethical decisions when they enter the adult world, and if we don't start restructuring our public education system NOW, they will be without any effective tools to make these decisions.

They are ordered!

Beautiful punch cards should arrive in a week or so. If you are reading this and would like one mailed to you, leave your name and address and we'll get one sent off as soon as they arrive!

We start at the beginning....

>Well, here it is. I said I would do it and I am doing it. I will be ordering the punchards later today. What is a Spiritual Punch card- you are thinking? Has she finally flipped completely? Well, first let me explain the concept of the Spiritual Punch Card. The idea was born during a car ride with singer/harpist extraoraire Elizabeth Clark-Jeres. We were commiserating about the difficulties of being an Artist in a world that only recognizes value in the production/consumption cycle. Anything that falls outside of that is seen as frivolous-only acceptable if the precious cycle is not disrupted in order to undertake it. Beauty, the joy of play, simple companionship, making music/art, dance, joy these things are essential to our health and vitality as human beings. When we constantly relegate them to side dishes our humanity is compromised, and our spirits begin to dry and shrivel like so many raisins....The spiritual punch card project is for all of us. It is a way to bring value and recognition to things that fill the well of spirit. The punch card is a business size card with 10 blank boxes on the back. It instructs it's holder to keep track of acts that fill spirit by crossing off or punching out each box. On the back of the card is are some suggestions to help you get started, as well as a link to this blog so that anyone who has a card and uses it can post back to the site about how they chose to fill it. I am also encouraging people to send back the card itself or post images of a used card with all of it's numbers stamped on, marked of, checked off, chewed off, of punched out. Let's see the movement begin! My husband and I will also use this blog to post about our own challenges in the lives of artists to continue to fill spirit in a world that often feels like a spiritual wasteland. A quick last word- this is not a blog about god, the divine, heaven, or personal religious beliefs. Instead, we are hoping to share that part of spirit that is common to every human being on this planet, and encourage it to grow, one punch card at a time.