Spotlight Plus - Special circle and tailoring.

This is how I started off my 5th class last week, with the Imix kids of the recently opened Spotlight PLUS Holistic ESL Program:

"Dear kids,

Please sit down and gather for our special circle.

You know that every week we have a special time where we sit down and speak words of grief and praise to each other, trying to unlock the special doors of the things that are oftentimes hard to say and for some even hard to hear. Today I would like to start off by re-membering words of praise from the past 5 weeks of classes. Does anyone here re-member the 3 people that we praised on our very first class? For what did we praise them for? "

A moment of suspense and curiosity filled the room. It was quite clear that the kids were caught up in the mystery I was trying to create by connecting with them at a level they had seldom, if ever, been reached out at. Slowly, the bravest began to take part in the conversation with their guesses and questions. They are an eager group, at a golden age where the desire to learn has not yet been killed. Then suddenly one of them surprised me by saying the names of the 2 girls that finished the sewing project of a The Maker Doll. This girls were bestowed with the honor of being in charge of costume design for our upcoming production of: The Adventures of Mouse deer. 

In Holistic education, mentors are the seamstress, that patiently puts the needle in and out of the canvas of their children’s lives, carefully making sure to bring together the cognitive, emotional and spiritual potential we know all children have, but that if not fostered unravels like any sweater with a loose thread that no one cared to mend. Parents unfamiliar with the cyclical notions of Holistic Education, are often skeptical of activities such as sewing in their kids language classes. As mentors, we understand the difficulty of mustering the patience necessary to begin to see these processes through to fruition. As the mentor of the first ESL Holistic program in Eastern China, I am honored by the group of 10 parents that have entrusted their kids’ development to our care.

Next in line to be honored by our special circle, were the girls that often times were seen “wasting their time” drawing in some distant corner of the class while the group was engaged in a story. The doubt of the program is once again understandable. Multiple learning stations within one same classroom can look quite chaotic to the eye unacquainted with ideas such as peripheral learning. Holistic education takes seriously the idea that every child is a unique gift to the Universe. There is a distinct ember in each of us that must be fanned back into the blazing fire we are meant to be. In order to achieve this near divine task, we take advantage of peripheral learning by allowing kids to engage in the activities that they are naturally inclined to while exposing them to the activities of others around them. In this way we are all learning from each other, in different ways but towards the same goal: the holistic development of the self. By the way, the young lady honored for her sketches, which often times in traditional education are reason for punishment, was honored with the task of being in charge of the stage design for our big production. As a group we were taken by her beautiful question of can I first draw the stage in my notebook and see what you guys think?

Then was the honoring of the 6 individuals that finished the electrical circuit we had made for a light bulb that served for a representative of the first light in our Zoroastrian story of Ahura Mazda. During the week, I had discussed with upper management the building of a nice stage and theatre for Spotlight productions. The special surprise for these kids is that they will be able to be a part of the electrical installation of the lights. This here is a key Mentoring way of always being 10 steps ahead of the apprentice. We want kids to believe in the impossible. That the Universe is an ongoing surprise, a love relationship between the creator and the created. Experiences like these are what ignite the soul and once the soul is on fire, there is no limited to growth.

The special circle was key for the emotional intelligence and group chemistry needed, especially for the difficult task that followed: Beginning our Reading through the script for the play we will put on in December. Upon building up the show to this degree, the kids were then ready to read like they never read before. We enjoyed 30 minutes of reading in their 2^nd language. Where I paired up strong readers with the beginners to have peer to peer accountability. Upon finishing the reading, the kids took their scripts over to the table and highlighted the parts they needed to learn during the next 6 weeks. The task ahead is an impossible one and as a Holistic Mentor I would have it no other way. We will perform a play together, we will make the costumes, we will install the lights, we will set up the stage:

This is only just the beginning of what you can expect from a Holistic program for your children.