Writing in Bangkok

Sitting on the balcony overlooking the variety of palm trees and listening to the birds who inhabit them, I think of the comfortable place these sounds and smells place me.  There is the sound of the broom sweeping across the pavement on the grounds below. These sounds and smells take me back to my childhood growing up in Pakistan during very formative years of my live, 12 to 15 years old. I think too it is significant that when my family resided in Pakistan,  we stayed there for the entire three years without returning to the U.S.  This extended time with no breaks must have influenced who I am today.

Sitting on this balcony in Bangkok takes me back to my childhood in Pakistan.  My childhood in Pakistan is why I was drawn to living in Bangkok in the early eighties.  It was the connections from Pakistan that fulfilled my desire to get a teaching job at the international school, parents of my friend who I used to sit on the rooftops with in Lahore, sharing our future dreams, our ideals and ideas.  When I was searching overseas sites for a teaching job, my childhood friend's parents were living in Bangkok at the time and convinced the international school I would be an asset to them as a Kindergarten teacher.

I am convinced that those years in Pakistan were the happiest years of my childhood.  It must have been where I felt safety, pleasure, and comfort.  Just as we refer to eating certain food as "comfort food."  These tastes connect us to fond memories, usually going back to our childhood.

Are not these "comfort moments" in our present life scaffolded upon happy moments from our childhood?  And are these "nothing without joy" moments based on our feelings of love and acceptance from others in our lives, our family and friends?  It affirms why my career has been based on an education philosophy holding front and center, the value of love shown by our reciprocity with others. In these formative childhood years in Pakistan, there was more time to truly and deeply communicate with each other.  In those days back in the sixties, there was not much technology obtrusion in the states, and definitely none in Pakistan, not even television.  So our entertainment was with each other between family and friends.  It must have been the place where my family was happiest.

In my first time returning to Bangkok last year after twenty eight years, I wrote that I felt this energy of familiarity and comfort here as soon as I got outside the airport waiting for my taxi.  I also felt that there was a presence with me even though I was alone.  Maybe this was my mother who passed on to her eternal life over a decade ago.  I know she is with me in spirit and I feel her more in these moments sitting on this balcony overlooking the familiarity of Asia that arouses all my senses and feelings of peace.  Was Pakistan the happiest time for you, Mom?  I will ask my Dad but I think my mom is saying
"Yes."

Sitting on this balcony with the long distance view of Bangkok brings back these "nothing without joy" moments of sitting on the rooftops in Pakistan.  It must be why I prefer a home with a long distance view like in California, where I can see the waves of the ocean a half mile away from our fourth floor apartment on the side of the hill.      

My trips to Bangkok are a place I can be without obtrusions, bombarded by the every day decisions of life.  I make this vow to my self to take this feeling where ever I go.  Speaking to a friend in California today, she expressed her crazy busy life, and when I gave her my expression of the value of slowing down and breathing, she responded, yes, I know these things but I forget.  I don't want to forget.

Sitting with this long distance view of the tropics here in Bangkok or of the waves in Ventura, I will pause and "not forget" to "slow down" and enjoy this present moment.

It is this same place where we can truly "be" with children.  They give us this time and reminder to "slow down" and enjoy the moment, they do it so well and being in their presence reminds of this so we don't "forget" to do it in our own lives.

Now I will go to a place where I will be bombarded by obtrusion but joy filled ones,                           the eb and flow of life.  It is like the waves that come and go.  I think I will go explore Bangkok's China Town, and see what treasures I can find to create my art, it is this place of creating that puts us into our soul and heart.

And when we are in our "inner soul" a word another dear friend expressed to me in our recent reciprocity of conversation, we are our happiest.  It is where I am now, where I am when I create and where my mother must have been living in Pakistan.

Musings while in Thailand, November 2013

A piece from Facebook message, November 20:
Thanks for your likes and comments. It is the reciprocity of friends that takes away the loneliness of travel. As much as I love these journeys, there is a loneliness but there is joy in this loneliness because it forces one to slow down and review ones individual life. I'm awake this early morning doing just that. This review led me to work this early morning to reflect on an interview that I was asked to give this Friday. Last month an editor of a Thai parent magazine, www.bambiweb.org/ discovered my blog, kate-ratliff.blogspot.com musings about education and emailed me to request an email interview. It was again the luck of chance I could respond that we could do the interview in person. So brushing up on my own knowledge to the sounds of roosters crowing, dogs barking, and mosquitos buzzing in my ear, I fell upon this marvelous interview with Carlina Rinaldi, my most respected inspiration. I pray that I will be a small percentage of what she expresses about reciprocity, learning, love, participation and democracy in education and in our lives. I plan to continue to share my reflections on my blog.

I will be adding my reflections to this piece and edit later because my blog is showing all Thai.

Google "Introduction to Reggio Emilia" to find Carlina's interview. 



It is day three in Thailand, Tuesday morning, November 21st.  I am sitting on the balcony  in 81 degree temperature at 8:37 am.   I have been reviewing our school website, www.springhollowschool.com and my own writings over my career, some that are on this blog to prepare for my interview in the morning for the parent magazine, Bambi.  I decided to write some notes directly on the blog this time in the hope that this will encourage me to write more being aware that these are in the process and will continue to be revised and edited by my self and I hope others. 

It is always an education in and of itself to review all these words and pull them together in my mind to make them clear  to another.   

The response from the editor interviewing me when asking her for questions via email was this:

The purpose of the series is to help our readers get an idea of what to expect if they send their children to a school following specific method. The article on Reggio Emilia approach will have the same structure as the others from the series. To outline the concept we'll use the information from my research, but to give our readers some first-hand information and deeper insight into the concept we'd like to talk to you and use some quotes from our interview for the article.

I haven't read much on Reggio Emilia approach yet, but my impression is that there is a lot of information on the philosophy, history and guiding principles, but is there a specific curriculum? Is the learning completely child-led  and spontaneous or do the teachers structure learning in some way?

I plan to respond by saying:

Our approach is entitled "The Spring Hollow Approach" because as Howard Gardner expressed in the CNN report about Reggio Emilia in 1997:  "We cannot transplant the Reggio Emilia Approach, we can only plant the seed in our own communities".   So therefore, our inspirations from Reggio Emilia to create "The Spring Hollow Approach" are a validation of how I have always felt education should be, termed in other ways as an emergent or constructivist curriculum, based on many different educators in our past and ones I studied and was inspired by for my teaching degrees such as Dewey, Piaget and Vygotsky.

This way of teaching and learning has some times been seen by others as a "free for all" and my response to this comment is in agreement that it is a "free for all" for the mind but not for behavior,  Children are given the right to be an equal and a co-researcher in the learning process, expressing their points of views, being listened to by others, and solving problems.  In short, constructing their own knowledge.   This is not done in isolation, it is done in collaboration with their peers and teacher as a facilitator.

As for the non "free for all" for behavior, I will share about Green Circle and my own research dissertation to show the increased kindness of children from its use.

The environment is seen as a third teacher.  Are there any particular requirements for the RE environment?
Inviting
Choices for their symbolic representations
Beautiful
Artistic

Students, teachers and parents are seen as collaborators, but how far does parents' involvement go?
Committees
Board
Education
Parent volunteer facilitating in the classroom

We are also interested in your personal perspective.

Why were you attracted to the Reggio Emilia education?
From my first lecture I attended in St Louis in a speech by Carlina Rinaldi:
"It is all about relationships"

What in your opinion are the benefits for children?
Children have the best start to be the best human possible

How would you define teacher's role?

Teacher role: knowing when to hold and fold, the dance
balance of socratic and didactic teaching

it is in the solving of the problem not the solution when learning occurs

open ended questions, think starters not think stoppers

use some quotes from the goals tof Spring Hollow piece

Observing, listening, documenting, and giving specific encouragement
Understanding and validating the point of view of  the child
Being aware of your own non conscious values that may keep you from accepting the true construction of learning from the child

I texted Lindsey, our director/teacher this morning about her opinion of the teacher role.  Her response was this:

"I would say first and foremost understanding and respecting the child for their unique background, gifts, and passions.  From there, supporting their development as a facilitator-encouraging when needed and stepping back whenever possible.  Also, I think truly valuing each child and genuinely valuing them as a person rather than a subordinate is the key to having a strong image of the child".

Maybe you have an interesting story from your experience to share.

My journey with Reggio Emilia has become my own way of life.  When we concentrate on our interactions with children as well as our relationships with our own peers, we increase our awareness and understanding of our own being, it is not just education, it is a way of life.  As I grow in my life and being a better observer of children, I become a better observer of life.  I find that their non inhibitions give us the true meaning of life.
Children give us the value to slow down and live in the moment.  It is through children that we can find our own journey in life. It is through my own grandchild when she was a toddler, that I was led into my first Reggio inspired school in St. Louis when she was attending the Family Center for a parent play group.

The word "education" is derived from "educe" which means to pull out, not to pour in.  Children take us back to our own childhood to touch on our natural abilities to learn, to wonder, to be kind, be grateful, and practice the RE message "Nothing Without Joy".

When one of our students commenced from Spring Hollow to a public kindergarten, his mother asked him:  What is different from your present school and Spring Hollow.  His answer:
At my school now, we can only go down the slide
At Spring Hollow, we can go up the slide too.
At my school now, we have to swing only on our bottoms.
At Spring Hollow, we can swing all different ways.
At my school now, we cannot hold hands.

At Spring Hollow we can hold hands.

It is now exactly one hour later, 9:37 and 85 degrees.  I am taking a break and going swimming. 

Inspirations from K2 and Liz

I sit on our California balcony looking over the calm and calming waters of the Pacific.  My neice, Katherine aka K2 asked me what I do all day now that I am not in a traditional job.  What a good question to reflect upon.  I will answer you K2 as I reflect with the help of my writing.  This word "reflect" is part of the answer it self.  Work keeps us from this time.  We spoke the other night at the Christmas party sitting facing each other about how we both have that genetic make up of feeling guilty if we are not productive.  Are we raised with this?  How we must always preform based on someone else's expectation.

Lately, I have been reading daily quotes from Krishnamurti and he speaks continually of holding on to our individuality and not conforming to the masses.  Yes, K2, in our upbringing and any child's upbringing we should not avoid following the guidance of our parents but I am learning that there must be a balance between the two, conforming to the outside world but without losing our individuality.  My habit in my life has been to stay busy and when we do this too much, we do not take the time to "reflect"  on our selves, our thoughts, our behaviors.

I think this first reflection should be based on if we are living to our highest potential, first and foremost are we true to our selves to not lose this self, whether it be in our most significant partner, a parent, or a sibling, etc.  Give but do not give away our "self"  "Love is not meant to stay, it is not love until it is given away"  This was a quote that was on one of your brother's wedding cards to he and his new wife.   We must first love our selves for who we are not who someone else wants us to be.  I feel our first love is to our selves, but I feel this card did not express this very important value.  This time to reflect on holding on to this balance is one way I spend my time these days.

The weather says it's 60
but the sun
on my face
feels like 75
there is much comfort
sitting on the deck
with Buddha by my side
I feel a presence next to me
when I think of
the  memory of Bangkok
my memory is of a person
who was with me
but I know I was traveling alone
was I really alone or
was that presence I felt
my protector
My theta
my self
protecting my child

I feel like it happened after I gifted my monk.
Is it my mother and your grandmother K2 or my nanny?

I spoke to Liz the other day and expressed after our conversation that I should and she should write down what we said, should have done it right after our conversation but let me reflect now on what we said.  It is the same about my conversations with George.  I read to her one of my daily meditations from Khrishnamurti, about "riding on the bus" and meditation does not have to be done standing on one's head, it is every present moment, to be present, to be thoughtful, to be aware of our behavior and the ripples it makes in the world around us.

The words that struck me most were "being aware of how we push others around"  this control of others that we are unaware of, yes we may accept this behavior as a way to take care of the world of people around us but it is only a selfish act to take care of our selves and our own needs.  But it is only taking care of what we want in the future, it is not taking care of our selves in the present, for it is only the predication of what we may think we need to give us joy.  So we are projecting and we are out of the moment when we "push others around" to conforming them to what we think is good for their lives, something we can not possibly know.

In my meditations or thoughts, or just sitting as I am now pondering and reflecting on any thoughts I may have, I feel this is an important one to reflect upon, in blessed free time I have in my life.  It is back to the question you asked me K2, how do you spend your time if you are not going to work?  And now my thoughts lead me back to gratitude of my value of "being productive"  This new years goal I have of writing keeps me focused on some some sort of productivity, writing down the thoughts.  This is a form of sharing them, if not only to my self to others if they care to read them and inspire them to go on such a journey.

It is all a form of creating, thoughts written down on paper are a way to understand your "self" in a deeper way as like the paint brush put to canvas or beads put together into a piece of jewelry that one feels better when they wear.  It brings me back to another piece I wrote about the dance step, the paint stroke and the written word.  It adds meaning to our lives.  After creating, I feel more whole, I feel joy.  I feel that it comes from deep in side, not something I have done for some one else's approval but for my "self" alone.

I'm in the process of writing and perchance the doors will open to these words being published if it is meant to be.  But these words may be only meant for me and a blog and go no further. This is an example in and of it self of trusting the process, the value of this present moment.
My writing is not only based on education but broader to include all relationships.

I have been a restaurant writing and I turn to watch a child inspect her high chair closely

It's about how we learn to be happier by seeing and observing as like a child. To be a child to be in the present moment with no expectations of the future.
Trusting our present and our future as if we had a parent taking care of us

The Refuge of Skiing

The Refuge of Skiing
Kate Ratliff

To slow down
Last run of the day
I ponder
What have I thought of today
Not much
I give my self permission
To think of nothing
A cleansing of the mind
Only to feel the wholeness
Of the body
To be in quiet and quiet
I become part of the mountain
It's quietness is inside of me
It is meditation
Not found anywhere else
Difficult to put into words
It is beyond words
Beyond thought

Going down the mountain
I briefly become
conscious of the non thought
Which then becomes a thought
Observing for a moment
and returning to non thought
Like peeking inside the mind
Only for a moment
And returning to the peace
Of the whole body
Of non thought
Stepping back outside
Closing the door to thinking
And only conscious of
where my ski
will lead me next

Getting out of the mind
into the heart to who we are
Skiing can be related to creating
Music and the arts
The process
Not expecting what is created
Instead enjoying the moment of creating
The moment
of being on the mountain
The only product
at the end of a ski day
Is a tired and cleansed body

A "refuge" is
"Anything that one
has recourse for relief"
A place of shelter
from danger
Skiing is
this thing and place
To cleanse the mind
And give relief
from too much thought
Relief from the stress
of a worried and busy life
The refuge of skiing

Bangkok November 2012

 It is saturday morning of my day four in Bangkok. I awake at three after forcing my self to stay awake until eight like the nights before. I accept this as a good night's sleep. Besides, it is two hours later in Japan where I will be in three days so ten to five is a good night's sleep. I am grateful for my sixty year old body to be this healthy and resilient to allow for enough rest to enjoy each day's moments.  I decide to go for an early morning walk with the hope that I may be amongst the orange robed monks carrying their layered food containers traveling to fill them with food gifts.  I do not meet any but know in my mind and memory they are with me but more likely on more rural streets.  I am grateful for the brightly lit spirit houses and the Erawan four face Buddha to remind me of their memory.  As I pass the four face Buddha whose gate has not yet opened, I notice a fellow early traveler cusping his hands in prayer to the four face Buddha.  I wait my turn and do the same.  Even though I do not consider my self a Buddhist,  I only have the chance to gain goodness by this act of respect in this culture I am blessed to be welcomed into.

I sit now in a comfortable seat in the Intercontinental Hotel enjoying my second cup of coffee and a delicious pastry put out as a gift for this hotel's  guests. No one questions my cover as a guest.

I sit in stillness thinking about my messages from the Ojah yoga retreat I experienced only last week, take time to be still, to meditate and breathe and expel all thoughts, a most difficult task but one worthwhile.

The first sky train of the day passes outside the large hotel windows above me and I imagine my day ahead to travel to the weekend market.

To stillness. The light of day is gradually showing its face. If my thoughts will not go away, I turn them to gratitude. To be able to take this journey and not feel I need to check in with any person or obligation. To let go of worries and concerns to the outside world. To reach a state of awareness to self and realize there is so much joy and contentment when we go to this place.

A message from Uma, one of the Ojah retreat speakers:  To learn to empathize not sympathize and to resist taking on another's pain.

The trees are silowettes against the dawn of the morning sky. I'm reminded of the beautiful sunrises and sunsets over the ocean viewed from our California balcony.

Stillness to meditate
with eyes wide open.
To slow down to observe
what is not normally seen
When too occupied
with the outside world
with thoughts of the past
and projections for the future.
To be still to see
the present moment.

I notice the sound of voices getting louder, more are awake to greet the day at 6 am.  I look up and the leaves of the trees are visible and the light of day is almost in full bloom.

The monk, my monk, greeted me as I stepped  into the early morning streets of Bangkok surrounded by high end stores like Louis Vuitton and the ageless culture symbolized by the spirit houses and the monk walking in front of me. I could see several other monks in front of him and across the street. I was pleased to be surrounded by them and no one else on these streets of dawn except the food vendors setting up their stands.

My walk hastened with my joy of this moment  as I passed by my monk smiled in return to my smile. A bit embarrassed to be the traditional tourist,  I asked to take his picture.  He kindly obliged, posing in front of one of Bangkok's high end store fronts. In return for his kind act and because I had always heard of but never experienced gifting monks food, their only susatance for their time in the monkhood, I bought food from one of the street vendors and placed it in his bowl. Gazing into his empty bowl, I noticed baht, the Thai currency, at the bottom so I placed a fifty baht bill along side it. He thanked me with a quiet "kap Kuhn ka" with bowed head. The food stall lady behind me said "you will have good luck madam"

At the weekend market.  I'm at a stall in front of a fan drinking fresh lemonade. My sweat is drying now to give me comfort from the heat. I have no idea if I will find it back to the sky train station but my mind reminds me not to worry and enjoy the moment. I feel like I am experiencing Bangkok  more fully then when I lived here. I think I came here to the weekend karakul market  a few times those years but it was a long trip through traffic in those days without  the sky train. I went to these kind of markets with the weaving alleys growing up in pakistan. It is wonderful to have these memories brought to the surface. I'm searching for beads and don't know if I'll find them but am grateful for the beautiful Thai people trying to guide me and the treasures I'm finding along the way.  My knowledge of Thai and my ability to replicate the tones  is coming to the surface.  I have even remembered how to ask someone's name.  My grandson would be proud of me because he has complimented this trait of mine to ask someone's name. I learned this from my very caring boyfriend george and do feel it is a form of showing love and a kind act.

I feel a relationship between this experience and education.  These values that are brought to the service are what are naturally held in the young child, slowing down to live in the present moment. This is a innate value in our children well worth our support as an adult.

The History of Spring Hollow

                                                           History of Spring Hollow Community Learning Center 

                                                                    aka Spring Hollow Early Learning Center

                                                                       Dr. Katherine Virginia Ratliff, Founder

In January of 1997, I went with my daughter and two year old granddaughter, Isabella,  to The Family Center Preschool in St. Louis, Missouri.  It was Isabella’s first school experience and unbeknown to me at the time, The Family Center was a school inspired by the Reggio Emilia Approach.  Because of my knowledge and attraction to the Reggio Emilia Approach through texts I used in my college teaching, I recognized that The Family Center was a Reggio Emilia inspired school.   The director confirmed my guess, and shared about upcoming conferences in St. Louis and Reggio Emilia if I wished to learn more.

The naming of the Diana School in Reggio Emilia as one of the top ten schools in the world in 1991 brought greater worldwide recognition to the approach.   As I learned more about the approach to share with evolving teachers, I grew to believe that it validated everything I believed early childhood education should be.   What I had read thus far, the Reggio Emilia Approach validated my training from Geoge Peabody Teacher’s College in the early seventies and my thirty year teaching career.   My beliefs always seemed to conflict with the mainstream of education and it was a relief to finally discover an approach that validated my personal education philosophy.  

I knew when I had to walk away prematurely from an early childhood program I began for expatriate families in Bangkok in 1981, I would begin a second school.  When I saw this Reggio Emilia inspired school environment in St. Louis, I knew it was time to begin another school.  I began the process of fulfilling this goal in Franklin Tennessee, the challenge was that I had no financial support to begin the school.  I realized that the community swimming pool down the street from my home off Arno Road had a cement building with bathroom facilities.  The building was only used for summer community activities when the pool was open.   It was not in use nine months out of the year.  I asked their board if it could be used as a preschool, they agreed to rent it to me for $500 a month with the understanding that I would vacate the building in the summer.   

In preparation to begin a Reggio Emilia inspired school, I attended my first Reggio Emilia Conference in April of 1997 in St. Louis where Carlina Rinaldi was the keynote speaker.  I hung on her every word and was never so inspired by a fellow educator, never so in agreement with every word she spoke.  I felt like I had come home to a place where I could grow within the walls of support for how I believed we as teachers should “be” with children.  Carlina’s words “It is all about relationships.” fit with my personal philosophy of the value of the social/emotional curriculum.  My doctoral dissertation tested a program, entitled “The Green Circle,” a program to discuss feelings of personal inclusion and exclusion and acceptance of differences.  The Green Circle has always been a prominent piece of my personal education philosophy and classroom teaching experiences.  Green Circle has merged well with the Reggio Emilia Approach to create The Spring Hollow Approach.

In May of 1997, I attended the annual education ten day seminar in Reggio Emilia, Italy.  I arrived a week before to take the time to explore this Italian town and engulf my self in its culture.   Never have I had a more knowledge fulfilled three weeks.  I gained strength in my endeavors to begin Spring Hollow when Bangkok was one of the places the Italians named among schools where their inspirations had spread.  I sat in that audience of educators wondering if the school they were referring to was the school I began in 1981, and inquiring further, found out it was the same school.  When I began this school in Bangkok, I knew nothing about the Reggio Emilia Approach but as the school grew after I left, the new director was inspired by the Reggio Emilia Approach.  Since the Reggio Emilia Approach validated my personal philosophy, it was logical that the evolution of the Bangkok school I founded, known now as The Early Learning Center, found support and validation in the Reggio Emilia Approach. 

I found great support to begin Spring Hollow from a colleague, chair of the Education Department at Belmont University.  I was an adjunct professor at Belmont at this time.   Earline had been a mentor of mine since the beginning of my education career, and supervised my student teaching experience.   In the summer of 1997 she was teaching an education graduate class with five students and she offered to use the founding of Spring Hollow as their project.  Among many other tasks to help found Spring Hollow, it was these students that created the name, “Spring Hollow Community Learning Center.”  Spring Hollow Farm was the name my ex husband and I gave our property we lived on close by the original school.  This name was given because the many underground springs on our farm and it was land that included a hollow, two large hills meeting to form a valley.  Earline became the first board president of Spring Hollow.

With the help of five families who knew me through the Epworth Methodist Church Preschool where I had been a director, we began the process of preparing this simple cement structure into an environment for their children.  With no heat,  we covered the walls with metallic insulation foam boards.   We lined the walls with metal shelving from Home Depot to openly display a rainbow of art materials from which children could choose to create their masterpieces.   We got free carpet samples from Home Depot to line the old and cold linoleum covered cement floors of the building.  We relied on a few space heaters to keep warm in the winter.  To help bring up the temperature during the winter months, I would go to school around five and start a wood fire in the fire place and put it out before the day began. 

Carlina’s story in one of her speeches made a strong impact on me.   “All your house centers in your schools look alike, you must order from the same education catalog, put some of your own history in your schools.”  Sitting in Reggio Emilia hearing these words, I thought of my home in Franklin as the antique capital of the world.  So what I did not have in my own collection of supplies, I went antique shopping and found treasures that still live at Spring Hollow, an antique child size ice cream parlor set, a child size cast iron oven stove used as a model to sell the real stoves and an antique pie shelf.  

In 2001, the necessity to move out every summer and the lack of heating for the building became too much of a challenge.  I was able to financially support from personal funds a piece of property to house the school.   It is the property where the school presently resides.  I chose the property because it had two acres surrounding it with a small creek where children could experience creek walks.   This property had been previously used as a community grocery store but was now an open shell.  I hired an architect and together we designed this open shell into a beautiful space for children.  The one thing I kept was the shelf the store had used as a bread shelf, now used to hold our Spring Hollow collage materials.  This shelf surrounded by other carefully chosen materials inviting children to scaffold upon their interests creates our Spring Hollow Approach, the combination of the Reggio Emilia Approach and The Green Circle.