Curriculum of Peace and Joy

In my life, there are 2 things that I long for above all else, joy and peace.  It seems that the current American lifestyle fights these 2 things like nothing else, especially in the lives of children.  I feel like society is telling me, "If you want your children to succeed they must keep up with the Jones's or at the very least with the Common Core standards."  This can mean hours of rigor and failed expectations.  

Since childhood, I have had unreal expectations of myself.  This has caused me great stress and anxiety as I do not feel like I have done enough to succeed.  I fight these feelings that I believe were instilled in me at school where I would always compare my grades, scores, etc. against my classmates and my brother to see how I measured up.  I felt joy when I learned, but the fear of failure often trumped this joy.  Further, as I strove for success, I would constantly push the line for success in my life further back.  Thus, I often robbed myself of peace and joy.      

In one of the high school classes that I taught, I would take one day a week for 5-8 minutes for what I called meditation time.  This is where I would take the students outside to sit without eye contact, digital contact, physical contact, verbal contact with anyone else, to just sit and listen.  At first this was very difficult for the students, but distinctly enjoyable at the same time.  Many of the students discovered how to claim peace, even if just for a few moments.  It was often my favorite part of the week, as I believe was the case for many of my students as well.  

The excitement of learning something new is a reward unto itself.  As a teacher I have seen it many times, though not as often as I would have hoped.  This is how I want my children to learn, not out of expectation or comparison to those the same age, but out of a deeply driven desire to learn, recognizing and claiming the joy when learning occurs.     

I define my personal success as the amount of peace and joy generated by my actions.  In the picture with this article, joy is evident on my son's face!  This was generated by an afternoon out at the park followed by yogurt pretzels as a snack.  For a two-year-old, this intentional event led to this wonderful expression.  As is clear from my previous statements, teaching joy and peace does not come easily for me.  The peace and joy that I claim and that I try to provide for my children is very intentional as I could easily focus on the chaos and failure in my life which would lead to to stress and worry.

I want to leave a legacy of joy and peace, thus I must claim it in my own life first, modeling it for my children.    I do not define success by the American Dream.  My children could be the richest, most famous, most beautiful, best [insert anything here], but if they fail to find joy and peace in their lives, then I would not consider them to be successful.  Thus, I have to be intentional to teach my children the important things which are how to find joy and peace in life.  

Written By Jay Melashenko 
Dad and Co-teacher of 3 joyful boys ages 2,5, & 8