Tuesday, July 08, 2008

Interactive Learning

As a person develops, the need to be open and aware of our surroundings never lessens. Awareness is expressed in many ways by many different people. The awareness of interactive learning can and should be exciting in a positive way.

Sometimes I hear people speak about growing up in what I see are terribly overly strict terms. Even more so than when they speak of growing scholastically, the growth in terms of social skills is expected by a certain date and time. Maturing physically and based on the number of years that someone is alive, we decide what that person should know and therefore how they should act. This experience can be counterproductive to the teacher of these skills as well as the student when the goal becomes more important than the means.

Autistic people are highly prone to being victims of abuse.

Sometimes I hear the reason for these regulations and strict methods of teaching people to develop what they consider civilized behaviors justified by lack of time and or money that is required to provide for each grower/learner in a way that is directly according to his or her need. So they need to be uncivilized in how they teach it for expediency sake???? twisted....

This becomes a mind numbing growth retarding cycle when life is seen and taught as a cruel, dog eat dog, social Darwinist, demand for attitudes that offend in order to defend ones self. This stifles everyone's awareness and demands that we always be on stage (so to speak) and never vulnerable enough to understand what we see.

While there are many factors to consider with each person due to heredity, altering experiences and injuries, and the aspects of someone's psychosocial development, how we view learners, treat them, and allow them to learn about us and their other surroundings will make a difference in how their awareness develops. A teacher's ego can only be displayed for so long until they have to recharge. In other words, when your shields are up you may be protected from others, but you're also protected from what you need....which includes being aware of how your abuse of others hurts them as well as yourself.

Maybe the fluttering of butterfly wings changing the atmosphere on the other side of the globe is somewhat of an extreme example of how we all interact with our environment in ways that affect it. However, too often we choose combative reactionary modes of defense toward otherwise ethically neutral behaviors that we just don't understand. Mis characterizing behaviors as bad won't make them better.

Can a learners behavior indicate they are asking to get attention? I would say so. If they are starved for attention, I would ask myself why. Sometimes older teaching people and people who are considered more mature are just more skillful in their methods of manipulation. What confuses me though is if someone is attempting to gain something by manipulative methods, wouldn't being more skillful at that make them actually less mature?

What people want when they abuse someone who is more vulnerable is something they can't have because they can't see the person they're abusing. Not really. They're not aware of their victim's feelings in ways that can benefit them. This shields them from seeing what is good about themselves too. Basically what I'm saying is they can't receive what they are trying to steal. It's an illusion.

You can't teach appropriate behavior by behaving inappropriately. You can't bring about awareness in others without being aware. They may be able to see what you're doing but a teachers abuse is always a part of the process of shutting down and aggravating everyone's emotions.

There is no lack of resources when it comes to the awareness that can create positive change. When people use and abuse others to temporarily and conveniently hide what they themselves are not willing to learn....we all pay for their convenience.

1 Comments:

At 8:04 PM , Blogger Contact said...

I enjoyed your post. Thanks for the perspective.

Fielding
http://autismparents.net

 

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