Back to school

Today I had the child-parent talk at my children's elementary school. As a mother of identical twins of eleven, I have often wondered what on earth the significance of these meetings is. Every time, we as parents are asked to schedule a meeting and we are also asked to prepare the meeting together with our children. A conversation in which a number of questions are suggested that then need to be answered. Each time I go there with the idea that it will be a conversation that is actually something that matters and each time I am disappointed. And I realize that this is my own issue. And yet.

Very often in my work life I've said that we should go "from finches to sparks," and then it wasn't a nice smooth one-liner for me, but then I wanted to actually accomplish that with those who could actually mean it. Sparks in the sense of, thinking outside the box, doing and experiencing things differently and especially from the principle that it was allowed to come from the heart and that if only you could explain what you wanted or planned from an awareness of something. I have always found it a challenge not to stay within the framework, but rather to go beyond it, because very often frameworks and the standardization of things did not fit the purpose for which they were created. 

And from that perspective I had chosen a completely different approach for this conversation. I had suggested to my girls that I would like to send the teacher a video based on their design and thus, how they are put together as human beings of flesh and blood and how they can flourish or continue to flourish as human beings at school. I discussed this with both my daughters and they thought it was a very nice and beautiful idea and were curious about my analysis themselves. A twelve-minute video I showed to my children and got back to them that this was so cool because this was exactly how they felt and also that this is how they always experience this at home and that it makes them so happy. 
This is how we went to school. Wondering what the teacher (and master) would think of it and if they would ask questions as a result.

The result? They had seen it, it was beautiful and then they were eager to spend the next ten minutes going over the questions they had presented with the children. And that was it. I felt a total frustration rising within myself and I was actually just plain sick of it too. Not because my work was not appreciated, not because there was no further discussion about it, but because it was just another ticking off the list, the pattern that has to be followed and that was the end of it. And I try with all the possibilities in me not to have a judgment about this, but of course I do....

If we ever want to appreciate that we are diverse as people and really embrace inclusiveness. That we are here to complement each other and that we are all different regardless of what color, race, identity or orientation, that starts with letting go of the system that tempts us to have to all be the same. That we may and can move as unique individuals in a world where there is room for being different and doing different. 

Because we are ALL different. We are spectators of the life that is unfolded before us. Passengers in a wonderfully put together body. And we try to keep and gain control over it in many ways. But we have no control over it. No matter how hard we try to have it. And whatever systems we may have devised to do that. Our Mind is the great disruptor in that. That we think we know. But it is the other way around. We know that we think. We have an inner knowing. A knowing that comes through us unconsciously and consciously. Wow how wonderful it would be if more people could be a little more aware of that. For ourselves but especially for our children.

I check with myself where I have not acted correctly here and where I have followed my Mind. Because frustration (in my case as a Manifesting Generator) is a signpost of not-self. I did this in response to the request to prepare for the child-parent meeting. But maybe I should have waited a little longer. Maybe that's it.... Nice to reflect on for a moment....or two...