The red doll …
I am not strange. Strange is the world that can not cope with diversity …

Mary is a student of the 3rd grade in the elementary school. The story is recounted by her teacher and I want to share it with you.
She is one of those kids that, although clever and good students, they create discomfort to all those around them. She seems to live in another world, makes noise, uses things in her own “abnormal” (for the rest of us) way. She is constantly searching her schoolbag as if she is trying to find something mysterious in there. She is so “different”.
For instance, instead of using the colorful board pens to paint a picture, like the other kids, she prefers to glue them together (one behind the other) in order to create a big stick. She is always “out of context” and she prefers to archive the books and the other staff in the bookcase instead of drawing like the other kids.
She likes it so much, that she can be absorbed in the book case in order to find all the possible ways to put things together in various combinations.
She also likes seeing the line that a brush draws in a paper, on her hand, her leg, the table, or the hand of her fellow student sitting beside her.
Mary painted her doll red.

‘Why?’ you may ask. Because she find this to be a nice idea.
A little before she had asked permission to cut all the hair from her cuddly toy. She wanted to see how it would look like. That is exactly what she said.
This little girl is torrential. She is like a wind. Never stops. Never stands still. And so do her thoughts.
Always alerted and beguiled from the beautiful and mysterious world around her, the things, the places, the lights, the colours, the people, the sounds and even the shadows. Everything has a hidden possibility she has to uncover and her curious brain is constantly scanning the world around her.
And she so thrilled from this beautiful world that looks like a pinball, or like the toys that we give to baybes with the buttons and sounds and colours, that she has to touch in every way. In her every breath she inhales the world and the many ways that this world can take form in her hands.
The psychiatric system that is “behind” the school and has the goal to “heal” this child and all kids like her, has come to the diagnose that in some way she is in some way “deficit”.
Not because she is not clever, but because she cannot sit in a chair for 7 long hours like the others can.
School disorders are a new “trend”, that, although delayed, have come to our world in order to “make things better”. Parents in agony ask teachers “John is not listening to me. Maybe he has a disorder of some kind?” or “Cathrin is standing while eating, she never wants to sit down. Is she problematic?” or “Jack is not good in Math. A friend of mine knows a specialist who can help overcome this.”
And the worst comes when teachers and the principal or a group of parents will mobilize in order to oust the “problematic kid” from their school of “little geniousses”. It destroys the “nice picture” we have for the world and reminds us of a possibility that this could be OUR child. And we don’t want that, do we?
Racism can have many faces, but it always has one root: FEAR!
So we create a lethal system that has rejection at its root, uses children like the horses of the hippodrome and everyone is betting on the best horse. And of course we want our “horse” to be “the best of the bunch”. Don’t we.
And rejection creates anger. And anger creates violence. And violence is the main problem of our society.
As for the others, the “right ones” the ones who can sit on chair for seven endless hours of teaching, or even more, what do they become? They also become enraged. Because one day they will look back and see that they lost all the best years of their childhood, sitting in chairs and learning how to compete in order to become “useful” material to a system that creates neurotic puppets who need Xanax (if not worse) in order to perform.
Is this the life we were promised? Is this the life we need? Finally, is this the life we WANT to have?
One of the truths that were hidden from us, is an educational system that is built around art as its core. In the Ancient Athens, children were taught only music and athletics until they became 12 years of age. Then they were instructed in other things, like maths philosophy etc.
The child’s brain is not ready for difficult things like maths, physics and the like until it reaches puberty. It needs to be cultivated and the body also needs to be cultivated together with the mind. “A healthy mind goes with a healthy body” as they said. And the best way to cultivate the mind of a small child is art.
Speaking of art at the core, we do not mean art for the shake of art. Rather we mean art as an instruction system that cultivates the analytical way of thinking in the child’s brain and helps in becoming creative and having judgement. This ability is inherent in every kind of true art but especially in music.
On the other hand in order to cultivate the character, you need to teach a child how to win and loose gracefully and for that they (the Athenians) used athletism. The energy of a child is used in athletics and at the same time it learns how to have sportsmanship on the one hand when alone, and cooperation on the other when in groups. In this manner you “build” a complete person that lacks nothing.
In today’s athletics we have the vile competition that was in the Roman Arena of the gladiators. This is not athletics, it is war in another form. And that is why the fans and supporters of the various teams are so violent. Just like the Romans who watched the gladiators and wanted blood.
The same goes for the world of business. Another stage for gladiators. Another theater of war. That is why our lives are so miserable, even if we earn much-much money.
Another hidden truth is that children “record in the hard drive of their self respect” the rejection that they receive in this atrocious educational system that we use. And we then have adults who carry an unbearable burden of unworthiness. Where we could have maybe Beethoven’s and Einstein’s, we have a hollow mess with nervous breakdowns.
Let me share another true story from the Ancient Greece this time:
When the Spartans were at war with the helots who had revolted, they were in a dire position and asked for help fron the Athenians. Instead of army, the Athenians send a lame poet neame “Tyrtaios”. The Spartans saw the poet and mocked him. How could he help in a war? But Tyratios was not a simple poet. His poems helped rise the moral of the Spartans in such a way, that finally they won the war. And they also learned a lesson.
You do not need power or money or guns, or tools in order to overcome a difficult situation. You need good moral first and most.You need to fill that you CAN overcome. That you are destined to overcome. That you are accepted and not a misshap. And sometimes what seems impossible as help, is all the help you need. You only have to accept it, humble yourself and learn the lesson. Then you trully become a mature person. Or people.
Yes, in this egocentric, narcicistic and abusive educational system that wants “meat for the machine” and “gladiators for the arena of the free market”, we create little fiestas for the “acceptance of diversity” in order to feel less guilty and ease our concience that in fact we are all accomplices to the crime of giving ourselves and our children as prey to the arena. Because we believe that the submissive and obedient soldier who can sit 7 hours in a chair and has no opinion, no judgement, no will and no choice at all, are the “healthy” adults of tommorrow that will make us proud and our country great.
In all this orderly and safe system that smells formalin, let those that have ears hear the cry of those children who scream:
I AM NOT STRANGE. THE WORLD IS STRANGE BECAUSE THEY DO NOT ACCEPT DIVERSITY!
