Better To Be Freed By The Truth Than Held Captive By A Lie

By Phillip Hawkins

Education asks us to loosen our grip on reality, to let go of the past in the form of what we believed to be true and embrace a future created through applied knowledge and understanding. Learning isn’t just about the acquisition of new information; it’s also about re-evaluating what we have been conditioned to believe, and what we hold to be true. Our teachers could only teach us what they themselves had learnt, and in many ways what we perceive as tradition and history are no more than stories written by those in a position of power and authority to do so. Their version of events are coloured to reflect kindly on their motives and actions, if we simply accept what we have been told as the gospel we run the risk of perpetuating lies half truths, myths and misconceptions.
Tradition has its place in education and learning but it should never be at the expense of truth, knowledge and understanding, and as seekers of the truth we must be willing to break new ground and old ideas in equal measure in order to reach a place of personal enlightenment. Like any journey it may at times be slow and laboured, detours and dead ends may delay our progress as we take the time to unlearn the old ways and discover new ways, new knowledge and understanding that allows us to move forward.
If we judge the past harshly based on its imperfections and failings, then we must also accept that those who come after us will judge us according to our actions, and invariably find us wanting in so many ways. The past can be a great teacher but if we simply use it as a template for learning we run the risk of making the same mistakes over and over again. A new age of learning requires us to adopt a new open and responsive mindset where we can without judgement look at what was, what is and most importantly what can be.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BadgerDesign
• Release date: Oct 19, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370578382

Phillip Hawkins

A little of my background: A skilled tutor and trainer with significant experience gained developing, delivering and managing training programmes for a wide range of organizations, and groups with complex training/educational/social needs. An effective manager of personnel and resources, with strong negotiating and interpersonal skills, organised and flexible in approach to work ensuring action taken to respond to changing circumstances. Excellent analytical and presentation skills with the ability to define and support the aims and needs of the individual and the organization, experienced at working under own initiative or as part of a team. Support Worker: Secure Psychiatric Unit Support worker in a private 26 bed female only rehabilitation psychiatric hospital. Working alongside medical personnel providing patients with around the clock care that includes supported interventions, one to one and two to one line of sight/arms length observations. Assisting the NIC with the administration of medication and controlled drugs. General duties: maintaining security within the unit and supporting patients whilst out in the community. Specialist Tutor: Learning Curve To advise in the setting up the role of in-house specialist tutor. The role would involve working with on-line learners who have learning disabilities and complex needs. To provide information and guidance to trainers and assessors, in addition to the teaching resources to help the learners complete their on-line qualification in an agreed timescale. Support Worker/Compliance Auditor Dimensions Initially working in a residential setting with adults who have Autism/Learning difficulties who live independently but because of their educational, social and emotional needs can exhibit challenging behavior that requires a high level of support, guidance and mentoring. Seconded to auditors role as part of a national compliance audit team with responsibility for 28 services in the Tyne/Tees region, ensuring the level of service provided within those services meets CQC and Dimensions standards of care and support. Trainer/ Tutor: TEAM Wearside As an employability tutor delivering NCFE/City and Guilds employability programmes to students/clients with complex needs. Programme content included H&S, equality and diversity, personal development and Safeguarding for Entry level/Level 1 & 2. Seconded to Castlegreen Special Educational and Social Needs Community School as part of their existing centre of excellence, liaising with SFL and Apprenticeship teams within TEAM Wearside and external agencies working towards achievement for the learners including further qualifications, whilst assisting them to gain self confidence, work experience, access to FE or employment and independent living status. Tutor: Bishop Auckland College Developing training programmes for accreditation by the Open College Network (T.R.O.C.N.) delivering courses / programmes on Personal Safety, Aggression Management, and Assertiveness as part of the college curriculum and also to the private sector. Working with Foundation Learning E2E, and groups with learning and social difficulties, basic skills, numeracy and literacy based portfolio building and Skills for Life and NCFE employability programmes. Tutor: New College Durham Part of the Summer School team; delivering Reiki/personal development training to the high risk and vulnerable inmates with educational and social needs at Frankland Maximum Security Prison. Tutor: Education in the Community Developing Reiki training programmes to accreditation standards (T.R.O.C.N.). Developing and delivering Personal Development and Skills for Life courses as part of the A.C.L. Education in the Community Programme. Care Worker: Agency work Working in a wide range of care environments, care homes, nursing homes, EMI units, hospitals/hospice, and in the clients own homes. Duties included personal care, cooking and cleaning, supervising social days out, client health and safety, administering medication and liaising with nursing/medial personnel. Lecturer University of Sunderland Training Connexions personal advisers; responsible for delivering and presenting Connexion’s Programme, preparing training courses, assessing students.

Book preview

Chapter 1 - The Duty Of A Teacher

The duty of a teacher is to educate. This we do this, not by telling the student what to think, but by challenging what they already hold to be true. Our role is to guide and help them break free of ignorance and fear formed by conditioning, tradition and dogma. We dare them to consider new thoughts and ideas that have the power to change their perception of reality and in doing so they can begin to take responsibility for their own learning. 

It is said that ‘we teach what we wish to learn’ and in many ways this is true, for knowledge and understanding never comes to us complete, and on our journey of exploration to find the truth, knowledge and understanding helps illuminate the path that opens up before us as the teacher and student walk side by side. 

A teacher never seeks to condition or control; they seek to empower by helping the student to free their spirit, and their mind. Their questions should never be seen as a challenge to authority but as an expression of their desire to learn and understand. The dark ages of mankind were unable to hold captive those who had the courage to question what was then held to be true, and overcome the barriers to development, real or imaginary.

Education is a physician of the mind and the body, for without the attendance of knowledge and understanding the healing of the patient is impossible. Symptoms of ignorance and fear may be addressed on a superficial level, but the root cause will go untouched. A closed mind is unaware of its own ignorance and the self imposed limitations that restrict its development and growth, changed against its will, it remains connect to its roots and will at the first opportunity seek to return to the comfort of the beliefs and values it holds to be true.

Education is the only viable means of introducing and maintaining sustainable change in the individual and in society as a whole. Reward and punishment are limited in their concept and application, for as with any addiction their use and application will have to be increased in order to maintain a level of control. Empower a person to take responsibility think for themselves and you help free them from the control of conditioning, tradition and dogma and the many prejudices they help perpetuate.

Every student has a personal best and it’s the role of the teacher to help them achieve it whatever it may be. Everyone has the capacity to learn but some may not be ready and willing to do so, as teachers we help those that we can and gently sow the seeds of learning that one day may come to fruition in another time, another place and with teacher who is better suited to the needs of the developing student. Like ripples spreading out beyond our horizon to rest upon far distant shores, knowledge and understanding has the power to transcend time and affect in a positive and life affirming way generations to come.

Chapter 2 - A Journey Of A Thousand Miles Begins Not With A Single Step, But With A Simple Question

It’s said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, if this is true then the journey of personal development begins with a single question. A question we often asked as children until we were told to stop asking so many questions, and we unknowingly accepted conditioning as a legitimate means of learning. That initial question of personal enlightenment was to simply ask ‘why’. This question isn’t a challenge; it’s a request for an explanation as to why it is so, and this desire to want answers is part of our learning process. Those around us are doing the best that they can to train, educate and inform us, and we as children are doing the best that