The Constantian Academy for Renaissance Education is the product of a lifetime of challenging the social conditioning that limits us all. My favourite colour was blue from the moment I was told that blue was for boys and pink was for girls. When I was 13 I petitioned our high school to allow girls to study Industrial Arts (woodwork and metalwork) instead of Home Economics. I turned 21 on a kibbutz. My daughter has been unschooled since 2001, before the concept was even acknowledged. I took over running Slutwalk Johannesburg in 2013. The use of the word slut is still challenging for a lot of people.
It was not easy being different, especially growing up in Indian townships in apartheid South Africa. There was never a sense of belonging or acceptance. For as long as I can remember I have wanted to find a place where I could just be myself without fear of being ridiculed or bullied. At some point in my activist work I came across a meme that said, “Be the person that you needed.” This is what I aspire to in my interactions with all children. As activists we talk about gender equality, body autonomy, consent culture etc. How do we expect our children to grasp these concepts when they spend 12 years of their lives asking for permission to go to the bathroom?! We take it for granted that the teacher has that much control over such basic bodily functions, but at the same time we tell our children that they have choice over what happens to their bodies? Is it any wonder they are so confused? The problems of war, poverty, racism, sexism etc. do not belong to certain groups. They start with individuals. Individuals who do not love themselves and therefore cannot love others. Individuals who have no self-confidence and therefore are afraid of others. Individuals who are disconnected from their own personal power and therefore seek power by oppressing others. These individuals form groups to try to fill the void within themselves. Groups form communities, in cooperation with those they accept and in conflict with those they reject. These communities make up society, nations, and the world - in an infinity of in-groups and out-groups. The basis of creating consent culture is developing a strong sense of self-esteem in an environment of mutual love and respect. We need to break the cycle that continues to create the current reality. We can change the world by changing the way we socialise our children. If every person responsible for raising children in this world took responsibility for their role in the process, children could grow up with a completely different reality. Instead of transmitting our doubts and fears to our kids we could be giving them the best of ourselves. Children learn what they live. A child who is raised in an environment where the people around them are self-aware and conscious of the impact they make in the world, will learn to choose their own definitions of what it means to be the best human they can be. This means that they can grow up knowing their strengths and weaknesses and how to express them in the world in the most effective ways. Let’s work together to help our children grow in a way that doesn’t require them to be “finding themselves” later in life, because we will have given them the freedom to choose who they want to be throughout their childhood. The result will be a world in which people deal with each other on a more real level. There will no longer be a need for fear and all of the behaviours that result from the insecurities we currently condition into our children. This means that in a few generations we would be able to change the basic operating principles of society. By shifting the focus from competition to cooperation we can eliminate all crime - interpersonal, societal, national and global. Everything from pick pocketing to world hunger doesn't have to be part of the human reality. This is what C.A.R.E is about. We have created a safe space for people to express their individuality and know that they will be treated with basic human dignity. There is no one size fits all model of education or parenting. The first step of the process is an assessment based on Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences Theory. We explore each student’s unique combination of learning styles and design a personalised study programme for each individual. They choose their own distance learning curriculum. Students then work according to their ability instead of their age. For example a student might be reading 3 grade levels ahead of their age group but have the same maths ability as their peers. It would not make sense for them to be forced to read the same books as other people their age. Boredom is one of the biggest reason that children “misbehave” or lose interest in their schoolwork. We need to look at who they are as individual human beings. This is why the academy also offers parenting and family building workshops as well as personal development workshops for adults. Our facilities are also used for support group meetings for survivors of sexual violence. We are building a community that will change the world. Join us now.
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March 2024
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