Showing posts with label early childhood education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label early childhood education. Show all posts

Thursday, April 22, 2021

Nature's Patterns -- the Repetition of Flow



Notice the patterns which catch our eye, produced by natural processes. Here the swirls and flows created by movements of water and wind ("feng shui") are repeated on the sand of a beach at low tide, and inside a log washed up on the shore. The sight of them is inherently aesthetic to the eye and calming to the mind -- part of the therapeutic effect of nature. 

They are images of "flow". The same effect can be seen in the patterns of willow roots just under the soil beside a pond, and in the swirl of kelp on the surface of the ocean.



The effects of the digital world detach us from nature's flow, high-jacking our attention and attaching it to the attraction-distraction seesaw. Being online for whatever reason takes us away from both awareness of natural rhythms and access to inner calm. That schools -- and even daycare centres in the promised "early learning" regime to come -- rely heavily on digital devices is cause for concern. Experts in childhood psychology warn that no kid should be on a computer (for games, movies or whatever) before age two. Many would put the age far above that. But "Early Learning Daycare" will use computers to attract-and-distract the crowd of kids invited to surge into them for the sake of "the future economy".

Algorithms and the advertising economy make sure that there's plenty of distraction and redirection of attention in the online and social media world, including in social media for kids. Their resulting agitation is treated with tranquilizing drugs, and when the kids thus medicated grow up we wonder why so many turn to drugs. When weren't they accustomed to medication? Self-medication, like smartphone addiction, is merely an extension of habits learned in childhood. Then come the "mental health issues" that lead to homelessness, which leads to demand for more public housing (much of it for "youth" who have "aged out" of care and other programs -- welcome to Daycare Stage 2, child-adults). More housing means more building and more trees cut down to make space for dense development -- augmenting the original problem which was lack of access to and immersion in nature.
 
An over-simplified argument? No: sometimes an issue is simply … simple.

For more on "flow" and kids' freedom from digital prison, see a comic tale here: at http://satiroceneage.blogspot.com/2021/04/pre-school-graduation-day.html