Title: Integral parenting

Gender: Female

Age: 43

Sun Sign: Aries

Chinese Sign: Fire Horse

Location: Malmo

My name is Helena Drummond, I'm a 43 year old mother of two daughters, 8 and 12 years old, living outside Malmo, Sweden. I have a high school degree in computer system engineering. In 1988 I was in a motorcycle accident, which resulted in aphasia, difficulties in talking, reading and writing.

In our age when we have time for other things than just survival we must make a decision about how we want to live our lives. We can choose to just think about ourselves, consume and hence contribute to a downward spiral. But we can also choose to see ourselves in a bigger moral, ethical and philosophical context. The latter means that we think about others and take a bigger responsibility for an upward development.

I want to work with the Swedish schools, and transform their educational work. There's so much chaos in the schools today and hence much need for a perspective that can give the children a moral compass, a moral context that guides them through life. It's important that parents as well as the schools teach the children right and wrong behavior, so that we can put an end to bad behavior like for example bullying and name calling. It's important that we are good role models, that we set up clear rules, that we present clear objectives and choices, that we teach the children to make their own choices and to take responsibilities for them.

The developmental perspective that can create this new moral context is called integral education. Integral education uses a model called “It's your choice”, inspired by the work of Andrew Cohen, as well as a developmental or vertical perspective (eg Spiral Dynamics, Don Beck,  Ken Wilber) that recognizes the necessity for consciousness to evolve on all levels (egocentric, to ethnocentric, to individual centric, to worldcentric, to kosmocentric), all quadrants (my individual mindset, my individual behavior, our shared cultural values and vision, and our shared social actions and structures) and all dimensions (Body, Mind, Soul, Spirit and Ego/Shadow). For what is the role of education if kids meet teachers who only see half the picture and set up barriers to their development. What happens when teachers don't see levels of consciousness and leave kids stuck and deeply embedded in them? What happens when kids are left at an egocentric or individualcentric level of consciousness and we only recognize their bodies and minds? You maybe a “bright” student and get 100 % right in math's (high cognitive development) go on to become a computer engineer, but what if your moral development is stuck at stage 1 and your soul is dead (you make bad choices preventing growth)? What level of care will you be expressing? The short answer is chaos.  

I've tried to get my daughter's school to use this perspective, but they showed no interest. So now I'm interested in getting in touch with people who are interested in this perspective, and wants to spread it to the rest of the world. If you're interested please contact me.

For more information see: http://www.nordicintegral.com/

“No problem can be solved
from the same level of consciousness
that created it.”
- Albert Einstein

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