Many years ago, I was teaching Art at Lincoln High School, in San Diego, California. I noted that several students were very talented artists, and they were producing some marvelous pieces of Art But I also noticed that none of these students were taking what they had produced home.
My curiosity get the best of me, and I finally asked one of the students, when the opportunity arose that only he could hear my question: Why do you not take your art work home? And, because his answer could not be heard by other students, he answered me. He said that "none of the students could take their art work home with them because it would be taken and destroyed by young people in their neighborhood". He said that a large number of young people in his neighborhood believed that art was something what "White people did," and those young people hated anyone who did things that white people cared about".
I was shocked to hear this, and I was surprised, but mainly I was too much into my own life [involved in my own patterns of thinking, believing, and ways of relating to life] to be sufficiently conscious of the lives of my students. What their lives were like, in other words. What did I do with this information? Well, I went to the district official responsible for Art Education in the district, and I suggested that I would like to hold a District-wide Art Exhibition at Lincoln High School. Open to all High Schools in the District, and that the work would be judged, and prizes would be presented for the best work in various categories.
Being a bright and helpful individual, he agreed that my idea was a good one, and he said the District would help in whatever way possible. So, I invited a number of my students to help in this endeavor, and they were very pleased to have an opportunity to participate. So, we took on the challenge, and we spent the next two months putting together a System-wide Art Exhibition for all High Schools in the City of San Diego, California.
And we opened on a Thursday evening, and we were amazed at the number of people that attended. We also arranged for District High School Art classes to be bused to Lincoln High School to view the exhibition. Art at Lincoln High School would never be the same again. And I would never be quite as narrow, or closed to the needs of young people as I had been prior to this event. That event took place in 1966, I believe. Sadly, my own Fate Karma had a great many different avenues in store for me that I was meant to follow. My point of this blog is to try and point out the fact that too few people do too little to help education actually expand how much it can do to help young people move beyond the barriers of prejudice, poverty, and harmful and habitual beliefs of human beings stuck in patterns of psychological stagnation. Their fear is non-conscious, by the way!
There is a great deal wrong with education in America today. The greatest flaw in education lies in the strangle-hold the "Malady of Intellectualism' has imposed upon education at all levels. There is nothing worse that an adult who thinks that he knows more than he does... and is too fearful to admit otherwise! As long as teaching is controlled by Union bosses who care ONLY for the money, education will reflect the illness of greed. Wonder, the excitement of seeking Truth, and the discovery of the unknown... while abandoning oneself to developing one's faculty of Intuition has nothing in common with greed, or Intellectualism.
I have not forgotten about the Law of Karma... and the importance of Karma will be addressed in my next blog!
Peace, 1 Brother James
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