Back to Basics!

We still need to work on ourselves

Over the last few postings I have been looking at where our education systems seem to be going in terms of higher levels of meaning-making and cultures that stimulate autonomous motivation, cultures that do not rely on reward or punishment to get work done.

It is worth returning now to where we are today (and have been for a long time).  We have all been through a system that encouraged the development of two mind states and the transference of the same development to the next generation is really what we are trying to avoid.

We want (and need) young people to operate fully in the adult mind (the blue zone) so that they can face up to an uncertain future with confidence rather than with anxiety (the red zone).

It is managing our own red zones better and better that will make a difference.

Learning how to get out of the red zone when we fall into it, learning how to reduce the number of things that trigger it in the first place and, finally, learning how to cause it to fade away entirely.

Our modelling of being in the blue zone more and more often is the key to helping others, especially young people, to become used to being in their blue zones more and more often.

Ideally, we want to get to the point where young people move smoothly into operating fully in the adult mind/blue zone, leaving childhood behaviours behind, never to return.

It is hard to imagine what a world like that would be like but a worthy aspiration whatever our starting point.