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A Clear Vision

7/9/2016

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During my life of more than six decades, I've seen and experienced many forms of brutality, both obvious and more subtle. I've seen and experienced brutality from parents toward their own children, the rich toward the poor, one skin color against others, and many other forms. I've also seen the reverse of each one of these and violence in each group against others in the same group. This violence is endemic on individual, group, and institutional levels.

Humanity has been brave enough to evolve communication tools that today show us, in real time, the extent of our own brutality. We see up close that the human heart is in pain, and we all know it now!

In contemplating this terrible condition I find that the seed of humanity's misery is hidden in the heart A clear vision communicates that the contemplation of one's heart is where humanity finds the peace that forgives, heals and brings compassion.

Therefore, the challenge facing all of us, individually and collectively, adults and children, rich and poor, people of all skin colors, and everyone everywhere is to take the first step toward acknowledging that our heart is in pain before we point the finger at one another.

Throughout the centuries, we all have allowed dehumanization, and now it must end.

Looking deep within our hearts, we must facilitate listening and dialoguing with others and, especially, our children. To be more exact, this must be the heart of the education process. We know it, and we can make it happen!

PS.:  I am asking for your support by signing petitions.moveon.org/sign/education-in-the-twenty 
that asks US and world leaders for the establishment of a coalition to coordinate this work.  Please sign and share with others.

Thanks you.  



In Spanish...

​Una Visión Clara 

Durante mi vida de más de seis décadas yo he visto y tenido la experiencia de muchas formas de brutalidad en forma obvia y más sutil. Yo he visto y sufrido la brutalidad de padres hacia sus propios hijos, de ricos hacia pobres, un color de piel hacia otro y muchas otras de sus formas. Yo también he visto el reverso de cada una de ellas como también violencia en cada grupo en contra de otros del mismo grupo. Esta violencia es endémica a nivel individual, colectivo de grupo e institucional.

La humanidad ha tenido el coraje suficiente para evolucionar herramientas de comunicación que hoy día nos muestran, en tiempo real, el grado extremo de nuestra propia brutalidad. Frente a nuestras caras vemos que el corazón humano sufre un dolor profundo y todos ahora sabemos esto!

Al contemplar esta terrible condición yo encuentro que la semilla de esta miseria humana está escondida allí mismo, en el corazón.

Una visión clara comunica que en la contemplación del contenido del corazón de cada uno es donde la humanidad encuentra la paz que perdona, sana y evoca compasión.

Entonces, el reto frente a todos nosotros, individualmente y colectivamente, como adultos y niños, ricos y pobres, personas de todos los colores de piel y todos en todo lugar es dar el primer paso hacia el reconocimiento de que nuestro corazón sufre un dolor profundo antes de culparnos el uno al otro.

A través de los siglos, todos hemos permitido la deshumanización y ahora esto tiene que llegar a su fin. Mirando muy dentro de nuestros corazones tenemos que facilitar el escuchar y el dialogar con otros y especialmente con nuestros niños. De forma más exacta, este tiene que ser el corazón del proceso educativo. Es algo que ahora sabemos y para lo cual tenemos todos los instrumentos en que apoyarnos para que ocurra!

​Copyright (c) Aura Camacho-Maas, 2016. All rights reserved.

PS.:  Estoy pidiendo su apoyo para que se establezca una coalicion que coordine este trabajo.  Por favor firme la petición petitions.moveon.org/sign/education-in-the-twenty y compártala con otros.  Gracias.  



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My Source of Inspiration

7/12/2014

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I had a dream of and about the Heart 

   Once upon a time a girl finds herself contemplating the beauty of a Hopi 
vessel she owns and is holding in her hands.  
Suddenly, the vessel is overcome by the pressure of increasingly high heat.
As the temperature rises, the vessel 
laying in her hands begins to spin more and more rapidly. 
The girl  is fascinated watching this happening. The faster the vessel spins, the more it 
expands until in a moment,
 it explodes into a thousand pieces!

 As the explosion takes place, the girl becomes the
  vessel, and it is her body that then begins to spin around.  
Each time she completes a full circle, she sees buildings of ancient civilizations with high columns
 and statues of gods and goddesses everywhere.  Just as she sees it all in its full magnificence,
 she then sees it crumbling. 
She sees one, two and more civilizations at their peak of their development
and, at their end, in ruins. 
 
At one point her body dead stops.  Then it goes in straight direction toward a marbled building.
The girl begins to fear crashing against the white columns she sees in front of her.  
As she gets closer, she begins to identify a human body sculpted in the marble.  
She sees it is an ancient woman with white hair streaming down to her waist.
She is beautiful and she has a grave look on her face.   
 
Just as the girl is about to crash into her, she remembers she is carrying a heart in her left hand.
 At about the same time, she sees that the woman has a sculpted heart in her chest.  
Instinctively, she extends her arm and lays the heart she has in her hand over the woman's heart. 
When she does this, the woman becomes alive, 
happy and radiating magnificent and beautiful light.  
  
Then mind and body awaken,
 knowing the presence of the mother eternal wisdom
 and her message saying, 
 "that all is well –that there is light once the heart is recognized." 

                                                                                   Aura Camacho-Maas
Author's Interpretation

The vessel is the earth and all that exists within it.
Intense pressure causes the eternal in the collective memory to resurface helping the mind
to remember what it knows about what is essential for human life.

Humanity's discernment and integration of such information brings about the importance of considering the values and qualities of the heart along with those of the mind and body.  
This step is crucial in the definition and design of the path humanity is to follow in its next evolutionary step all of which is created and nurtured through an education process.

That the image the child sees is that of a woman represents the rising of the feminine in human nature that arises to balance humanity's masculine nature. 
The child is the voice of the children which must be heard by all while designing an education process.


          


Copyright (c) Aura Camacho-Maas, 2014. All rights reserved.        
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Post Title.

2/13/2012

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Awareness before Economics (A Memorandum to Women) 
By Aura Camacho-Maas 

At http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9oQYXu2ktg the late Václav Havel, playwright and former Czech president, speaking at the 2009 Forum for Creative Europe, says: “The human being is a carrier of awareness, curiosity, of a desire for knowledge… In order to be human, a human being needs a spirit to live spiritually.”  He also adds: “Human kind cannot be without culture, because it is a part of human nature.  (Culture) co-creates a person’s identity…it is an environment for humanity’s self-identification.”

At http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQmz6Rbpnu0&feature=player_embedded#! Severn Suzuki “The Girl that Silenced the World for Five Minutes” in presenting environmental issues from a youth perspective at the 1992 United Nations summit says:  “My dad says you are what you do,  not what you say…what you do makes me cry at night… You say you love us but I challenge you, please, make your actions reflect your words.”  
 
On February 5, 2012 in a New York Times article, Sheryl K. Sandberg, Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer says: “In Facebook early days, women were first to upload photographs, joining groups and post to walls.”  She also says “women drive 62 percent of activity on Facebook in terms of status updates, messages and comment. Women also drive 71 percent of daily fan activity. Women have 8 percent more Facebook friends than men, on average, and spend more time on the site.”   To read more
go to http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/business/sheryl-sandberg-of-facebook-staying-on-message.html?WT.mc_id=BU-D-I-NYT-MOD-MOD-M240-ROS-0212-HDR&WT.mc_ev=click&WT.mc_c=179904

My point here is that in crisscrossing this information, there is a level of embedded truth.  It suggests humanity’s intractable social challenges.  It speaks of the incongruence of human words and actions and the need to identify and develop a cultural base that recognizes the content of the human spirit.  It invites humans to interconnect such content with their knowledge and action. In other words, it invites the integration of the human spirit, mind and body.  It shows how women are playing a key role as social media users, which I translate as one manifestation of their“creative feminine” ready to collaborate with the “creative masculine” and together innovate a human path into the future.   

Let me explain further what I mean.  
   
From contemplating the content of the above information I derive that the human world up to now under the rational, commanding, competitive qualities of the “creative masculine” has been exploring its curiosity about the world of matter.  I also gather the
importance of acknowledging the level of readiness “the creative masculine” has
brought to humanity, equipping it with know-how and with global communications
technologies its next social evolution can apply.  Examples of these are the advancements in the field of neuroscience with regard to the far-reaching implications of the human creative potential and the role consciousness plays in it, and the worldwide web, which already, as social media, has become a main instrument for humans to communicate the content of their heart and mind.    

In my contemplation I also see a miracle and beauty embedded in this process.  All the experience, the how-to knowledge, and the wisdom that the awareness of the masculine in human nature manifested in scientific, industrial, and lately communication
technologies, is now available to serve the awareness of its creative feminine
manifestation.   

Therefore it appears as if, by an evolutionary or divine design,- you choose - the rational,
commanding, competitive “creative masculine” and the intuitive, nurturing and collaborative “creative feminine” are meeting on a global scale and therefore
become something humans can now exercise together.  

Humans can use this opportunity to collectively better understand the nature of their common local and global challenges, and adapt tools and structures from the past to the innovations they create.     

Vaclav Havel says: “for a long time we had been lectured that being, or existence, precedes awareness and that the economic base is primary and (that) derived from it is a secondary level comprised of human rights and culture…in my view being does indeed precede awareness, but at the same time, awareness precedes being.  Teaching us that being precedes awareness must have been conceived in some state of awareness before it could become to be applied in the form of communism.” About this, as a basis, capitalism also puts the economic base before human rights and culture.

To break down such conditioning, humans must work on remembering again and again, that, as Mr. Havel puts it“what primarily connects humanity are certain spiritual values as they have been formed on the planet for centuries.”  

The fact that women are, according to Facebook statistics, pioneering the usage of social media, I take as a perfect example of the essential role they are to play in the next human era.  It goes along with the recent Dalai Lama’s statement that this time in human history is the age of women.  If the opportunity is grand, so is the responsibility that it carries. 
 
I am convinced it would be a great success for them as mothers, teachers, policy makers, corporate and social workers, ministers, counselors, and others to open up local and global dialogue about the content of spirit and its role in assisting humanity’s re-design of its social, economic and political structures to better reflect all that it has achieved over the  centuries in its quality of life.  Such dialogue, in education reform, for example, where women also outnumber men, is a perfect ground for them to entertain such dialogue with and among teachers, students, parents and others in the community. It is a practical way to recognize individual awareness, humanize the teacher/student relationship, help create a more inclusive and effective learning environment that seeds the ground for a more conscious citizenry whom, among other things, innovates and produces. 
 
The remaking of culture and self-identity is the job of all.  The recognition of the individual and collective spiritual content and aspirations is an essential component in the human affairs development path that has lacked.  Its inclusion gives a sound basis for the improvement of culture, human rights, economics, and politics everywhere.  

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Post Title.

12/22/2011

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Are you an education stakeholder?

In a new paradigm can each one of us, of any age and walk of life, self-identify as an education stakeholder?  If so, where is our capacity to respond to the challenges the education sector present us?  What would be an initial step you are ready to take?  
 
Albert Einstein said "no problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it."  Can we acknowledge that our "doing" in education is grounded in 
principles and practices of the past and therefore not only ineffective but hurtful to all involved and with a devastating effect on the student and society's future?  
 
In a new paradigm can each one of us self-identify as an education stakeholder?  If so,
how are our capacities to respond (being responsible) going to manifest regarding the challenge the sector presents us?  Can we acknowledge that the answers lie in our heart and mind?  Can we acknowledge that our, heart and mind have allowed "us" to develop state of the art communications tools that now enable us to tap in and feed from the collective wisdom to reach our individual and community aspirations?

With this in mind, can we become multi-sector communities of learning and innovation at any level (local, national, international) and use such environment as a training ground for teachers and administrators?  Can we combine using private sector’s state of the art communications and management infrastructure to help organize and create a sustainable education process that is resonant to changing conditions?  Can existing summer and after school programs become the testing field for new tools and strategies the teachers in training develop, and can university education majors be the teachers’ assistants in these activities? 
 
Can institutions of higher education use this environment as a real-life laboratory whose valuable research findings would support the process and bring about new sector standards?  Can existing public educational entities transform themselves around this
process and become again viable as, for example, information  clearinghouses?

Aura Camacho-maas
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It is Just Common Sense

11/26/2011

2 Comments

 
Courage in Education

There is a simple and very valuable strategy many successful private sector enterprises developed and continue to innovate upon to maintain their excellence and viability.     

Here it is. These enterprises make sure that their products and fiscal and management practices keep up with the changing needs and wants of their customers and workforce. To do so, they apply the latest networking communications technologies available, and in the process of doing so, they listen and learn about the changing human paradigms impacting their customers and workforce.  As a result, their systems become more flexible and adaptable and their products and services more resonant to human needs.

Can the education sector transform and transcend its present chaos by engaging in a similar process? 


A successful private enterprise such as IBM reinvents itself while remaining in business. How?  It dedicates time and resources, in an on-going process, to gather the information about the state of their market, including its existing practices, products and trends. They study this information, develop new practices and products and adapt or integrate parts of old ones, test everything, and then implement and mass produce. While at it, they identify and address internal interpersonal, human relations, diversity, and management issues. This approach overall makes a company sensitive and resonant to the market, their customers and their workforce needs and, therefore, successful throughout changing times.

All of this is transferable to the education sector.  A similar process helps the sector to identify again its purpose while generating tailored resonant classroom content and practices and, with time, new sector standards.  Groups of stakeholders become learning and innovating communities whose initial responsibility is to continue to generate the knowledge that is to sustain the sector’s resonance and effectiveness.    

What is stopping the education sector from implementing this approach at the school, district and national level?  Albert Einstein said: "no problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it."  It is clear that the piecemeal approach the sector continues to be invested in doesn't
work. The latest one about accountability has manifested a high level of stress evidenced in the rise in test tampering by teachers and administrators.  This is a clear indicator that reinforcing accountability by itself is not only counterproductive, but it is further fueling the adversarial environment that has characterized the discussion of education issues for decades.  In that discussion parents, students, teachers and administrators all have been blamed for the ills that pervade the education system.

The education sector and its stakeholders must gather the courage to embrace the consciousness of the civilization of the Twenty-First Century and to integrate its state of human development.  The answers to the sector's challenges lie in the heart and mind of humanity.  To the degree that the sector is able to tap into such resources and resonate with the information they facilitate, it will succeed.

Why can't the sector begin a simultaneous process of collecting information by holding formal education stakeholders’ gatherings at the school, district, state and national levels that, with the teachers, school administrators, students and parents at the core, come together to have a dialogue about the education needs they have experienced? And why can't these communities of learning and innovation serve as a training ground for the sector's teachers and administrators?

There is nothing else than can be more grounding for all participants than to hear their own stories of the drama that takes place on a daily basis in the classroom, schools, private and public businesses and in their community that relate to the lack of a quality education process.   And there is nothing more inspiring than for them to collaborate to find solutions.    


This approach is quite distant from what the usual next consultant or taskforce offers.  In these communities the outputs of their formal dialogues define the products and the accountability of the sector.  

From this the teachers, as a part of an integral hands-on training program, can be charged with producing and testing education materials and strategies that address the most critical needs and trends they hear about. Why couldn't they test them in existing summer and after school programs that desperately need to change from childcare to quality academic curriculum and activities? And why couldn’t university education majors be the teachers’ assistants in these activities?

This approach elevates education and educators to the forefront, where they belong, by offering them a golden opportunity to shine, doing the work they love while receiving the support and input of an overall community that knows and understands their challenges and honors their profession.

Why couldn’t the education materials and strategies that proved effective then be shared with the whole system with the support of the hands-on, trained school administrators? Why can’t institutions of higher education use this real-life laboratory environment to develop valuable research? Why couldn't those research findings be shared with other education stakeholders, such as policy makers, who, as a result of participating in this process, become sensitized and more understanding of the constantly changing education needs and opportunities?

Why couldn’t private sector entities assume a shared role to supply the education process with the use of their communications technology know-how and systems to manage the sector? Why couldn’t educational entities transform themselves around this process and become again viable as, for example, information clearinghouses?

I speak from experience. This approach, even in the most minor scale, brings undeniable immediate benefits. It sends to the classroom re-energized and inspired teachers who have the support of their administrators and surrounding community. It keeps them employed during the summer time. Talk about job creation! Students participate in summer and after-school quality learning time rather than in destructive juvenile activities. Talk about government savings! College students are fired up to become quality educators. Talk about supplying quality teachers! An overall new sense of community and individual and collective responsibility permeates it all!

Taking this initial common sense approach gives the basis for the development of a sustainable educational process that manifests levels of human awareness that illuminate the path into the future.  No other sector in a society can be charged with such responsibility. 


The principle is simple and the development of the multi-sector, multidimensional infrastructure it implies is supported by the same technologies the IBMs of the world use to maintain their excellence and viability. Successful private enterprises do it and so can the education sector. Courage is the lacking main ingredient!





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First Post!

10/15/2011

5 Comments

 

An open Invitation

Dear Teachers, Parents; Students; School Administrators; Private, Public and Social Sector Officials; and others in the community, 

Can you imagine summer and after-school programs being the fruit of the labor of classroom teachers and college education majors who participate in and are supported by a collaborative community of innovation - formed by all kinds of individuals and institutions from public, private and social sectors - who come together, in mind and heart, to help organize the education process and infrastructure that fits today’s market realities?

Can you imagine hundreds of thousands of teachers being able to share their own stories and hear those of students, parents, schools administrators, policy makers and others in the community about their education experiences and perspectives? 

Can you imagine the teachers combining their own experience with other shared information and using this as a base to develop multidisciplinary educational tools that meet and engage the minds and hearts of their students in a realistic and relevant manner? 

Can you imagine policy makers and all sorts of other professionals in the private, public and social sectors feeling motivated to put their practices, experiences and their institutions’ infrastructures in alignment with the field research findings that their community of innovation invites? And, in the process of doing so, can you imagine the unintended effect of adding a more profound meaning to their work?

Can you imagine existing education institutions and interest groups being fueled by the innovation that this approach delivers and adapting changes accordingly to their operations and practices?  

Oh - What a movement this would be! 

Imagine using summer and after school time to work in laboratory-like environments, with the most disadvantaged and other students in changing communities under the guidance of trained and engaged educators testing prospective multidisciplinary quality academic materials and strategies.  

Imagine them transforming this mostly childcare time into powerful learning time connected with innovative school academic work.

Imagine teachers and college students being compensated as they train and address real education needs instead of working in unrelated jobs to make ends meet.  

Imagine youth juvenile delinquency and early pregnancy rates diminishing with the accompanying rise in social benefits and financial savings. 

Imagine teachers going back to their regular school classroom equipped with a renewed sense of trust and confidence in themselves, their superiors, their students and the community outside the school.

Imagine them equipped with new and tested classroom tools and strategies. 

Imagine them annually sharing their results and best practices to others in the sector. 

Imagine researchers being able to have at hand a real and sustainable environment from which to derive fresh knowledge and help determine the trends in the evolution of education.

Imagine private corporate officials, besides feeling helpful by putting their communications and management technologies to service the education process, being able to profit from getting knowledge workers with the attitudinal skills the global market demands.  

Today it is clear that the major challenges humanity faces are not solvable by any particular sector or interest group, and this is even truer in education.  Quality education is the responsibility of everyone in a community.  With teachers at the heart of it, communities of innovation are a way to create, support and maintain a fresh approach to the ever changing field of education.    

Aura Camacho-Maas


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    Aura Camacho-Maas

    CEO/Founder former Non-Profit Education Agency.  

    Former member North Carolina's Raising Achievement and Closing Gaps Commission and Human Relations Commission. 

    Frances Hesselbain Fellow - Peter Drucker Foundation, 
    William C. Friday Fellow for Human Relations.

    Awards

    YWCA of Wake County - Education Award

    YMCA  of Wake County - International Award

    Featured in UNC-TV North Carolina People with Bill Friday


       

    "The various faculties of memory, judgement, 
    imagination, perception, reasoning,  which build the edifice of the thought and knowledge for the knower, must not only be equipped with their fit and sufficient tools and materials, but trained to bring fresh materials and use more skillfully those of which they are in possession." 
                  Sri Aurobindo

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