I was previously a happy and successful public school teacher in California for eight years. I moved to Oregon and took a pay cut in order to learn how to teach the Education for LifeÔ philosophy after observing in a Living Wisdom SchoolÔ classroom and seeing how extraordinary the children were. Teaching with this philosophy, I have found that focusing on what is truly important-learning how to live with and share joy, love, service, and to see everything and everyone as extensions of ourselves-I have everything I ever need in any circumstance.

Education for Life

Our experience with students that have gone on to public schools shows that students taught with the Education for Life system have the confidence and intuitive ability to apply their knowledge to a wide variety of situations and thus perform well in all situations. More important, is the effect of what they learn in a heart-centered environment their lives. Our graduates are happy, confident, considerate, and know how to cooperate and get along with others. They carry an innate sense of who they are and what their strengths and passions are in life. We have all encountered people in our lives and workplaces that are intelligent and possess a lot of information, but that may not have the social skills to work effectively with others or know how to bring out the best in their coworkers or employees. My role as a creative teacher is to find practical experiences that teach students real life lessons. If a student knows how it feels to support his or her classmates and to work cooperatively toward a common goal, then he or she knows that to uplift each other is to uplift themselves. To put the common good before their own emphasizes the connectedness of us all and encourages responsibility.

To teach a heart-centered curriculum it is essential for me to have an open heart and model the kind of behavior I want to see in my students and to point out how even math and history can be appreciated on an feeling level. Mathematics is filled with pattern and beauty. History is filled with inspirational, selfless people who put the common good above their own. Of course sometimes we must also teach about the mundane and the cruel, but we discuss and learn with compassion for those who have suffered. Science is filled with opportunities to discuss parallels to our human existence. Positive and negative people attract and repel just as magnetic fields do, and the systems of the human body wouldn't do us much good if they didn't know how to cooperate.

It is my challenge to help my students see these parallels and the big picture as well as learning the parts of the whole.

Curriculum

In my classroom I emphasize opening the heart-mind connection to foster both joyful learning and also self-understanding and values. Science is just beginning to understand the importance of the heart to our well-being and development as human beings. This same connection also enhances the learning process and the practice of universal values such as kindness, compassion, cooperation, responsibility, and honesty. I tune into my students on an energetic level and use activities that will motivate the students to reach their highest potential of inspiration and service.

Each day our class begins with a circle time where we engage in activities to open the heart, uplift the energy, and then focus the energy-centering the children within themselves and their hearts. Openings may include songs, concentration games, sharing, and/or yoga. Choosing the activity is more of an intuitive process than an intellectual one. In perceiving everything with my heart first, I can guide my students by example as well as by teaching.

Being a private school, we are not required to administer standardized tests to our students and we are not bound by state curriculum. Because our students go on to both public and other schools, we make sure they have the academic skills to succeed on their grade level when they move on to middle school. We administer standardized tests in the upper grades (4-6) that correlate to the state administered tests in order to make sure our students are prepared for higher education experiences. Our students score and average of 1.5 grade levels above average in math and 1 grade level above in reading.

One of the advantages of not having a set curriculum is that the needs and interests of the students drive the curriculum. Often a unit of study just happens; it is born out of a moment of inspiration when curiosity and interest are ignited and enthusiasm takes over. William Butler Yeats said, "Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." Experiences, more often than not, create such an ignition, so experiences are a critical element of my classroom. For example, a few years ago, a field trip to see nesting eagles, owls and hawks turned into a month-long study of raptors and other birds, including many more birding field trips, the donation of binoculars and field guides by community members, daily internet viewing of a live eagle-cam set up in Washington, and a model of a life-sized bald eagle in flight that we constructed cooperatively.

Last year during our study of early civilizations, students became wildly interested in ancient Egypt, which culminated in our class planning and experiencing a day in the life of an Egyptian where each student researched, dressed, and acted the part of a particular member of Egyptian society. We ate Egyptian food, played Egyptian games, made Egyptian art, wrote in hieroglyphics, and culminated in a ceremony of wrapping the mummified remains of a Cornish game hen affectionately known as "Tutenchicken." She was rubbed with olive oil and herbs, wrapped in linen with hand-made amulets and charms, and deposited into her sarcophagus with prayer and chanting. Next month we will study astronomy, as the reading of a Native American creation myth sparked a forty-five minute discussion of the nature of the universe and ended with many unanswered questions.

Learning Compassion and Interconnectedness

My students are very fond of making things and leaving them anonymously for the younger kids to find, particularly at holiday times. For example, my students carved a mini-pumpkin for each student in the primary class and left the pumpkins filled with notes and a few candies in their classroom in their absence. Heart-shaped cookies were similarly left on Valentine's Day. Last year my class planned and executed a harvest festival complete with piñatas, carnival games, treasure hunt, pumpkin carving, refreshments, and balloon animals by a professional clown (one of our parents.

My favorite collaboration, I think, was this year when my students each interviewed one of the new students in our school, most of whom were pre-school children. They did this by spending time in the preschool room during free time, playing with and talking to them. Afterward, my students wrote papers and drew pictures of each new friend, and after practicing how to best do so, introduced them at our first all-school assembly, which included parents. Because many of the preschool students were shy, my students decided to join the child they were introducing in the audience if they were reluctant to come up on stage. Their little faces beamed and parents got tears in their eyes when the older kids lovingly told the audience about each child while supporting him or her with a gentle arm around the shoulders or by holding a hand. Since this assembly, the younger children in our school are not intimidated or frightened by the "big kids". They have formed lasting relationships, which bind our school together in love and allow all ages to play and work together comfortably. A child who connects to life with the heart and who feels comfortable and valuable in his or her environment always has the advantage and the best possible conditions for success.

Even after four years teaching at Living Wisdom School, I sometimes struggle with some of my old habits. Our students have taught, and continue to teach me, on a daily basis, what is truly important. I have seen the results of this curriculum of the heart out in the world, and it inspires me every day not only to be a more heart-centered teacher, but a heart-centered person out in the world, wherever I am and whatever I am doing. These students remind me every day that to live with an open heart is to truly live and to truly be successful as a human being.