Jump Up

Celebrating a successful three-day training of Jump Up.

I am in Beijing getting ready to go to sleep after the first day of a training for a spinoff of the Awakening the Dreamer Symposium developed for children by Helena Read from Australia.  38 of us gathered in an office building on a smoggy Beijing day to  experience community while playing games, learning how to work as team members, and share our love for our Mother Earth and its inhabitant with the younger generation.

Day two brought new insights into how to bring this message to children so that they feel empowered to help our Earth. I found out that one of the participants is a teacher in a Waldorf school here in Beijing. Waldorf and Montessori schools fill an important role in alternative ways of learning for parents that don’t want the rote and extremely competitive school experience in the Chinese school system. The alternative schools will be a great fit for the Jump Up program here and around the world.

I would like to find an elementary school in the US to try this program. It would take a commitment from the school of eight one and a half hour segments, which could be  taught in a semester.

On our third day we discussed possibilities which the participates thought might happen in the future integrating  the program in various ways in China. One woman works for a book publishing company and thinks a book could grow our of the program. Half of the group work for a company called Ideas and they hold summer camps for children. They want to integrate the Jump Up ideas into their program. The Waldorf teacher is actually the principal of the school and has the power to implement the program in creative ways. All in all, I think there is a strong possibility that this will be a program that will grow and find fruit in the children it inspires.