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Joseph Chilton Pearce: Heart Math and
the Magical Child
Dateline: 10/14/97, Updated 11/22/99
 By
Ann Zeise
In August 1997, at the Home=Education
Conference in Sacramento, California, I had the pleasure
of listening to Joseph
Chilton Pearce, author of "The
Magical Child," speak on the topic: The Heart / Brain
Factor: Revolutionizing Education.
Dr.
Pearce got my attention right away when he suggested that
public education had become such a hostile learning situation,
someone should burn down the whole institution using piles of
ditto sheets as fuel! Then we should restructure education with
what we're learned recently in the field of neuro-science about
the heart / mind connection.
There has been a disturbing breakdown of the natural instinct
to nurture the young in this world. Thomas Hartman, founder of
Prophets' Way, which provides homes for homeless children, points
out that:
- In eastern Brazil, 9,000,000 children between the ages of
four and eleven are living underground.
- In Thailand the schools are in total disrepair.
- Even in "civilized" Austria there are 400,000 abandonned
children.
- The United States is one of the biggest exporter of children
for adoption by foreign nationals.
Another disturbing trend is premature sexuality. For generations,
genital sexuality was not expressed in those younger than 14-15
years old. Now sexual activity is common in 11-12 year olds.
Eight year old girls experience the onset of menarche and some
are pregnant at age nine. Twenty percent of second grade girls
have noticable breast development! All this indicates a genetic
breakdown, Pearce says. Rudolf Steiner's studies point to a correlation
between the lowering of the age of puberty to pushing academics
too early.
Research in neuro-cardiology has pointed out that the heart
is the major governor of intelligence. It is the heart that has
the ability to respond in a way that is "most intelligent"
for the well-being of the body. The brain has a way of "intellectualizing"
and getting us in trouble, you may have noticed.
How does the heart
think? It actually has brain cells! Shortly after conception,
it is supposed that the mother's heart sends a "spark"
to certain cells of the developing fetus, and they, in turn,
start a rhythmic beating, too. Eventually, these cells become
the heart muscle. The pulsing creates an electrical field, much
like a miniature version of the polar field surrounding the earth,
with north and south poles. The other cells, which until given
this "orientation" could have become any part of the
body, now "know" that they are to differentiate according
to their distance and direction from the pulsing heart. Thus
toes become toes, and ears become ears, and so on.
Out of this young heart, the neural tube forms, and the brain
forms at one end, it's growth being determined by the strength
of the heart cells. In the first trimester, the "reptilian"
part of the brain forms. It will control the sensory-motor skills,
and have the instincts for basic survival. In the second trimester,
the "old mammalian" part of the brain forms. Here resides
the emotional, cognitive and relational of our brain. Last
to develop is the neo-cortex, where the capacities for creativity
and intellect reside.
Once the child is born, these three brain segments unfold
in the same order. Each part can be nurtured to its fullest,
but cannot be hurried or rushed without doing damage. Piaget
noticed that this unfolding of the intellect roughly follows
the teeth. Until the emergence of the first teeth, your child
is in the "reptilian" stage. This isn't as bad as it
sounds. With nurturing, this brain part will hold the higher,
kinder, virtues that ensure the survival of our species.
Between the time the baby teeth arrive and then are lost,
to be replaced by adult teeth around age eight, a child is in
this emotional / cognitive stage. while they may learn the fundamentals
of reading during this stage, they really aren't capable of the
interpretation they will be later on. About age 8-9 the prefontal
lobes undergo a growth spurt that will not be completed until
age 21. True intellectual growth occurs at this time, interestingly
enough, whether or not the child is in school! Schools, however,
love to take credit for the things learned during this phase.
Quite late in this phase, from ages 11-15, the child develops
the capacity to operate on what they have learned. This means,
don't worry if your child isn't a marvelous reader, writer, or
mathematician until this age range.
What is the point, you are asking, of all this scientific
information you are giving us? and what does it have to do with
homeschooling? It has been observed that in nurturing families,
children with larger than normal frontal lobes are being born.
It is as if these children with the capacity of greater intelligence
are being deliberately given to families that will nurture them
more and for a longer time. Hopefully, these children will counter-balance
the disturbing trends mentioned earlier. Call it God's will or
natural selection, it is most interesting. Ask your homeschooling
friends if they had problems finding t-shirts with necks large
enough to go over their infant's head. Did they have to buy t-shirts
far larger than needed for their child's body in order to get
shirts over the infant's head?
Pearce concluded his talk with a discussion about emotional
intelligence, or "EQ" as it is being nicknamed. EQ
is both a critical factor in learning as well as strengthening
the immune system. It is fostered through nurturing care, love,
and acceptance. Give a child time to learn from his heart about
the world around him. Give her time for imaginitive play and
exploration. Premature book-learning, imposed "adult"
facts, only teach a child to ignore the intelligence of the heart.
And the heart is the source of all true intelligence.
Joseph Chilton Pearce is the author of The
Magical Child, The Magical Child Returns, The
Bond of Power, The Crack in the Cosmic Egg, and Evolution's
End. He lectures worldwide on human intelligence, creativity,
and learning. He is also involved with the Institute
of HeartMath in Boulder Creek, California. For a lot more
information about HeartMath,
visit the website.
Photographs taken by Ann with the permission
to use by Mr. Pearce.
|
- Preschool Learning Online
- Time4Learning creates a foundation of early learning by building
literacy and mathematics skills and knowledge.
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- Books By Joseph Chilton Pearce
-
Magical Child
by Joseph Chilton Pearce
Right from the instant of birth, says Joseph Pearce, the human
child has only one concern--to learn all that there is to learn
about the world. But in the West we tend to thwart this concern
from the very start.
Evolution's End : Claiming the Potential of Our Intelligence
by Joseph Chilton Pearce
A provocative critique of the way we raise our children and undermine
our society's future from a pioneering thinker who speaks to
the heart as well as the mind.
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