Kony 2012 and the Engine of Change

I believe that Kony 2012 has shown the world how change that begins in our hearts can move mountains. I believe the same energy and devotion can work to change our children’s lives and the schools they attend in America – right now! What would you do if you knew that simple changes could revolutionize schools and wipe out the behavior labeled ADHD without drugging our kids with medication? What would you be willing to try, if it was healthy, easy, and natural?

Children’s Brain/Body Balancing in schools and at home does just that. But you won’t know until you experience it.

So I’m launching a new activist group that supports teachers, parents and children in America to rebuild our education system because it just doesn’t work right now. It is discouraging our children, drowning their spirits, and holding back their potential. Every teacher and parent I know wants the opportunity to change this situation – to improve their schools and help children learn and grow and succeed. But we are failing. The money we need, the innovations we want to implement, just aren’t happening.

How do we change that? We do something right now. We talk. We send out the message. And we act. I’m launching a new organization with one goal in mind – creative schools nurturing creative children right now in America. The group is called TPS:CS which stands for Teachers & Parents Supporting Children & Schools, which stands for teachers and parents standing up for children in America NOW. Watch the website and blog for the first scheduled meeting in Albuquerque, NM. Join me and become the engine of change that supports our children and our schools.

Helen Cordero Primary School – First APS School to Implement Children’s Brain/Body Balancing

The Albuquerque Public School District is the largest school district in New Mexico. Helen Cordero Primary School, in the southwest part of Albuquerque, NM, has over 40 teachers and 20 EAs teaching almost 800 children in grades pre-K through 2nd grade. This school has a very active parenting community as well. On March 6th, Ellen Griffiths, principal, and half of the teaching staff broke new ground by training in Children’s Brain/Body Balancing.

Children’s Brain/Body Balancing (CBBB) supports the Nurtured Heart Approach used by the teachers at Helen Cordero School. The CBBB movements help children focus and self-regulate which makes it easier for them to communicate and understand the principles of the Nurtured Hearth Approach, helping children feel positive, creative, and cooperative.

Gaby Vera, the Helen Cordero School Community Liaison, has begun teaching some of the Children’s Brain/Body Balancing movements and ideas to parents of students. Both parents and teachers have seen immediate positive changes in behavior and learning! Barbara Brandon, an APS Early Childhood Office Social Worker, has reported similar success with parents and students at Kit Carson Elementary School.

Here’s what the Helen Cordero teachers had to say after their recent training in Children’s Brain/Body Balancing:
“Easy to learn and fun to do activities to share with my class immediately!”
“I enjoyed all the material and movements.”
“The actual demonstrations and being able to do each movement was great.”
“I truly enjoyed learning positive methods of calming students.”
“The most useful parts were the research behind brain/body balancing, the various breathing and movement exercises, and the information about health and nutrition.”
“Wonderful workshop! Families need this information!”
“I think this is excellent information that I’m hoping has a big impact on kids!”
“I can’t wait to see how this works with my class!”
“Offer this to parents!”
“It’s great for the overall well-being of body, mind, and soul of students and teachers. It helps eliminate stress.”

Contact Marcia Lee at 949-468-9841 for information about bringing Children’s Brain/Body Balancing to your child’s school and parenting community. Enjoy the benefits of happier, confident, focused children.

How Do We “Cure” Our Schools?

  We all want to see our children grow up expressing their rich potential as human beings. Yet in our schools we are doing the one thing that will guarantee their failure in school – forcing our children to sit still which shuts down their brains.

  The biggest mistake U.S. educators and schools have been making for centuries is treating children as if they were machines instead of unique human beings who are growing and learning. Machines don’t walk, think, or feel; they just carry out their function without question. But children are not machines.

  In response to institutionally (i.e., classroom) enforced stillness, children will do whatever they can get away with to keep their brains alive – daydream, fidget, twist and turn – anything so that the natural need for movement and growth is not extinguished altogether. Above all, the brain and the body DEMAND to move to stay alive, active, effective, and growing. A  human being will naturally do whatever she or he can to strive for growth and balance – and MOVEMENT is ESSENTIAL.

  With the fabricated disorder called ADHD, the drug industry has given parents and teachers an excuse to freely administer stimulants like Ritalin. What are the results? Drugged out zombies who once again can barely move (machines) that now have OCD because the stimulant drugs create an artificial state of obsessive-compulsive disorder to force children to focus.

  WE CAN MAKE A CHANGE! But first we need to stop blaming children, their brains, and their personalities. We need to stop blaming parents and doctors, as well. We need to provide an atmosphere in the classroom that supports individual needs and essential growth requirements in childhood. One of the MAJOR NEEDS, along with emotional and social needs, is PHYSICAL MOVEMENT – what the child’s brain and body MUST HAVE to function well.

THE CHILD’S BRAIN MUST HAVE MOVEMENT TO FUNCTION AND GROW!

  My goal is to bring movement into every classroom in America! Every teacher training program in the U.S. should teach teachers how to use movement in the classroom to help our children improve their brains and unleash their potential. If you want to help children achieve top scores in any subject, give them the opportunity to move and grow their brains.

  Join me and Solutions Without Drugs in the quest to help all of our children prosper and grow – with movement. For more information, e-mail me at solutions4kids@yahoo.com.

Sincerely,
Marcia Lee

Why I do this work? Answer: Love

  In spite of what sometimes seems to be insurmountable odds, I still believe in love. I think most of us who choose to teach and care for children, do so because we love them, because we want to see them grow up happy, fulfilled, creative, caring, and giving. The question is, is that possible in today’s world?

  There is no doubt in my mind that the U.S. is an “empire of illusion,” as Chris Hedges calls it. When did it change? We began in America with hard work, commitment, integrity, pride as well as humility, and helping our neighbors.  Over the years we have sunk into an illusory world fueled by unchecked capitalism, self-aggrandizement, and greed amongst a small but powerful elite who have forgotten who we are and why we are here on earth. “The free market and globalization, promised as routes to world-wide prosperity, have been exposed as two parts of a con game.” We have shifted from production to consumption. Lost jobs, lost homes, and a seemingly lost future – for us, for our children.

  And the road appears to be heading toward even more illusion and greater controls. The corporation is a facade used by many people to hide their worst intentions. “The corporation is designed to make money without regard to human life, the social good, or the impact of the corporation’s activities on the environment,” says Hedges. This new elite uses its spurious power without regard for human sanctity. Knowing this, it fears losing its influence and wealth (what they call power), and will foment what it can to impose more control. Not the democracy we once envisioned.

  Hedges points out, “Democracy and capitalism are antagonistic entities. Democracy, like individualism, is based not on personal gain but on self-sacrifice.” The established system does not allow for self-sacrifice unless it is carried out by anyone but those in power. Greed does not take a holiday. Corporate education, corporate health care, corporate money, corporate business, corporate food, corporate government, corporate media.  In spite of the promises of a better America, we live with the growing deterioration of our society while these corporate leaders are not paying for its breakdown or its repair. We are.

  We are in the midst of a massive meltdown – environmental, economic, political, educational, spiritual, and moral.  But the answer will not come from the corporations. What we need is the plain-jane acceptance of reality, simplicity, humility, the ability to practice self-restraint, and the willingness to change. How do we foster that – in ourselves, in our children?

  The solution is love. We owe it to ourselves and to our children to reclaim our future and I believe it will come through love.

Hedges continues, “The mediocrities who mask their feelings of worthlessness and emptiness behind the façade of power and illusion . . . fear most those who speak in the language of love.” “. . . no tyranny in history has crushed the human capacity for love.” “The power of love is greater than the power of death. It cannot be controlled. It is about sacrifice for the other – something nearly every parent understands – rather than exploitation. It is about honoring the sacred. And power elites have for millennia tried and failed to crush the force of love . . . love constantly rises up to remind a wayward society of what is real and what is illusion. Love will endure, even it if appears darkness has swallowed us all, to triumph over the wreckage that remains.” 

  Love heals, love is freely given or not at all, and then it is no sacrifice at all. So let us do what we do for the sanctity of the human spirit, for love. Let us educate and nurture children for love. Work and help others for love. Let us teach love in the classroom, love in the boardroom, love in the hospital room, love in the Senate and the House, love in our farms and gardens, love in our parks, forests, oceans, love in our streets, towns, and cities. We can do it all with a loving human heart. It is the only change that heals and supports the human spirit. Love is an unassailable truth. Love is our power. It is who we are at the very root of our being.

Choose love. It is real.

 With sincere thanks to Chris Hedges for his words and his hope.