Evening thoughts...

[Updated May 8 in the end]. The book of the month in one of my book clubs was ”Glädjens pedagogik” or ”The pedagogy of Joy.” Another book was “Skapandets kraft” or “The Power of Creating.”

About the latter book you can read:

“The book describes the creativity both in theory and praxis, and the great significance of playing as a matter/material of origin and a prerequisite for all creation.”

Joy, lust, laughing, playing, having fun, even as grown up.

Once again; and all this I must be allowed to answer to too. Answer to my preferences, what is talking to me. If I am not allowed then I am maybe lees inclined to respect my pupils/students and their preferences (also on an unconscious level). But maybe I could explore my preferences even more, which they are, and their possible origins? (As if it was something wrong with MY preferences? As if I have to question them? And as if only I of some reason have to? And who is actually snobbish here?? I wonder a bit angry).

And I as giving and giving also need nourishment, so I have something to give.

A third book was about “Lärarna - om utövarna av en svår konst” or “The Teachers – about the practicians of a difficult art.” It stood about it

“Of course many teachers during the centuries have distinguished themselves as flunkeys (livered footmen) to the power and oppressors of the pupils [True!!]. On the other hand there are innumerable evidences about teachers who have been examples and models for children and adolescents in their development.”

And as to being flunkeys or footmen to the power struck me that other groups have too during history; priests (at least here), physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists etc. just to mention some? And I think many still are, how enlightened we even ought to be!

And in the book about Vygotsky it stood at page 55:

“I try to be as Skalman [the childbook figure; tortoise]: narrating lively, referring to the pupils opening thoughts, but I don’t hesitate saying ‘advanced things’. It’s a comfort that Vygotsky says that it doesn’t matter [isn’t wrong] if what I say in the beginning is ‘a head above’ the pupils. Even if the pupils don’t understand everything it influences them positively when I invite them to this larger (or widened) world.”

Yes that’s true? At least it was so for me (and still is?). Such things challenge me and make me want to understand. It has always done.

Showing children/pupils a world they maybe don’t know of yet really.Addition May 8: Or showing each other worlds we don't know of yet! The child showing the adult and vice versa? If we as adults could interact... An exchange, a dialogue, back and forth? We are probably not really aware, despite "enlightenment"? Do we get proper help developing these sides? Or do we have to do this work on our own? Make mistakes... Work over a longer time, maybe much longer?

Struck me what Jenson writes about Jane, who has gone in ACA or CODA meetings once a week more than one year and read many self help books on codependency and dysfunctional families. She has leaned to tell her husband that she doesn't want to go fishing on their vacations or meet his family each Christmas and that the children shall have a say in this too (putting a stop to things). She doesn't let her coworker put his arm around her any more just like that (posing boundaries), she has stopped calling her mom many times a day to "make" her go to mammography (refusing a responsibility that isn't hers), and she has created routines so all share the work in the household.

Jane still feels hurt, angry, embittered, set aside, neglected, ignored, afraid of saying and even thinking certain things. She can't just relax and read a good book or take a walk (and enjoy it). She is still depreciating herself, feels insufficient as wife and mother, and wonders if she is doing enough good at work. She thinks she is mean to her husband and kids and that she ought to control her temper better. Insights which have developed in parallel with her new understanding of herself. Despite all she has done and tried to change as the good girl, satisfying the therapists (and the other members) in the group(s) she has joined.

Why is that? What sort of help has she got actually? Is it Jane who is at fault? Not willing to change really?

It's nothing wrong with the help she has got? It's not the help that hasn't been sufficient? A help that has only been on the surface? Is another sort of work not possible? Where she would feel unburdened?

Yes, therapy walks in the leading strings of the power too? We shall adapt to the society and the norms there, or not least to the power (how healthy is that power?). The good girl/boy in the therapists, unconsciously striving to get their parents love and "approval." I get so angry.

Or rather, our change(s) shall take place on the society's and power's terms? How shall one put this to words?

And once again:

“If one uncritically cling to old methods' alleged infallibility and blames the client for failures, you inevitably land in the same fairways (waters) as the sect-guru, who also promises entire liberation. Such promises only produce self-destructive dependence which stands in the way for the individual’s liberation.”

(Alice Miller in “Paths of Life” in my amateur translation from the Swedish edition of this book).

See earlier posting, on Melanie Klein, Freud etc.