Area

Main Interest/Focus areas

• The consciousness of the developing child
• Natural learning relationships whole child development
• Children and social justice
• Spirituality in the developing child and the inherent wisdom in children
• Collaboration in parent-teacher relationships
• Holistic and spiritual education
• Applications of whole-family experiential learning.

Courses

SDGI Courses

SD 525 Rites of Passage in Our Times

Rites of Passage (ROP) have historically been very prominent in cultures. In our times, many people feel there are only vestiges left that are more of a celebration rather than a true passage. This loss is a catastrophe for humanity. When carefully and correctly executed, ROP can be a response to the lack of meaning and purpose that pervades the post-modern world.

Learners in this course will discover how the structure of Rites of Passage provides opportunity for a face to face meeting with the unknown. This responds to the question of how we, as individuals, can experientially know ourselves as open-ended and whole. Done well, ROP create opportunity to touch the very depths of human possibility including the emergence of greater self-knowledge.

SD 524 Positive Development in Children:

Applications for Academic Excellence, Resolving Conflict, and Promoting Social Justice

This course delves deeply into how children organize their world at different ages of their lives. Based on the principle that capacities are innate and development occurs in relationship, this course uses evidence based practices to examine the kinds of relationships that bring forth optimal well-being in children. This allows powerful opportunities to heal dysfunction, to support academic excellence, and to improve social relationships. Specific attention will be given to successful character development and behavior in school.

Spirituality and the Developing Child: Recognizing and nourishing the spiritual capacities of children

Children of all ages have natural spiritual capacities. Critical issues that every adult faces are: 1) how to recognize the spiritual capacity of children as they grow and 2) how to support its optimal development. When these natural capacities are nourished the child’s spiritual awareness unfolds naturally and in harmony with their social and physical environment. This course will answer these issues in ways that every adult can understand and apply. This course will deepen your appreciation of spirituality and stimulate new ideas for optimal well-being in children and families.

Children and Social Justice

Social justice and sustainable relationships provide the cornerstone of respect, integrity, connection, and relationship. Through the whole-child developmental approach of Natural Learning Relationships we insure the healthy personal and communal development of our students. There is no more important and powerful way to create social justice in our communities than by helping our children to become healthy, engaged, compassionate, and fulfilled adults. This course will help learners become proficient in creating social justice as a necessary and inevitable outcome of nurturing student’s developmental imperatives.

Personal Statement:

The aim of education is the dissolution of the illusion of separation. This can only be accomplished by participating in the child’s perspective—in their way of organizing the world. We must see thorough their eyes and feel through their hearts. We must know the unfolding nature of the child’s consciousness in our bones. Without this all other educational attempts, including sophisticated programs to sharpen skills, fail.

My courses reveal a path to this dissolution; to authentic humans who live in the field of self-actualization. Education can and must insist on this aim or we are condemned to a reductionist fear based paradigm that places cultural values above the inherent greatness in all of us, and so evident in children.

Media

In the Media

Meetings with Remarkable Educators Podcasts

Listen in from any of the following links:

• Amazon Author page: http://goo.gl/hxFS1P
• Website: https://www.remarkable-educators.com/podcast/

Projects

Publications/Presentations/Professional Projects

Books

Luvmour, B., & Luvmour, J. (Spring, 2019). Everyone wins!: Cooperative games and activities (3rd ed.). Philadelphia, PA: New Society Publishers.

Brain Development and The Natural Learning Relationships of children, (2018). (Vol. 5). Portland, OR: Luvmour Consulting, LLC.

1. Brain Development and The Natural Learning Relationships of children, (2018). (Vol. 5). Portland, OR: Luvmour Consulting, LLC.
2. A Compendium of writings: The work and ideas of Luvmour & Luvmour 2010 – 2016, (2018). (Vol. 4). Portland, OR: Luvmour Consulting, LLC.
3. Freedom in Education: Talks at the Brockwood Park Krishnamurti School 30th Anniversary (2018). (Vol. 3). Portland, OR: Luvmour Consulting, LLC.
4. Effective Boundaries with children: Creating and maintaining healthy boundaries with all age children (2018). (Vol. 2). Portland, OR: Luvmour Consulting, LLC.
5. Natural Learning Relationships: An introduction to whole-child development (Vol. 1). Portland, OR: Luvmour Consulting, LLC.

Luvmour, B. (2012). Beyond Metaphor: Dialogue from the realm of self-knowledge. Portland, OR: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.

Optimal Parenting—Using Natural Learning Relationships to Nurture the Whole Child, Sentient Publications, March, 2006.

Win, Win Games for All Ages: Cooperative Activities for Building Social Skills, (2002). New Society Publishers.

Natural Learning Relationships, How Children Grow and Learn, (1993). Published Celestial Arts.

Tiger by the Tail, Essays on the Inherent Spirituality of Natural Learning Relationships, (1998). Summa Press.

Everybody Wins, (1988). New Society Publishers. A collection of cooperative activities designed to build self-esteem, resolve conflict and enhance communication.

Books on cooperative games and activities:

• Luvmour, B., & Luvmour, J. (2019). Everyone wins!: Cooperative games and activities (3rd ed.). Philadelphia, PA: New Society Publishers.
• Luvmour, J., & Luvmour, B. (2002). Win-Win games for all ages: Cooperative activities for building social skills. Canada: New Society Publishers.
• Luvmour, B., & Luvmour, J. (1990). Everyone wins!: Cooperative games and activities. Philadelphia, PA: New Society Publishers.
• Luvmour, B., & Luvmour, J. (1989). Towards Peace: Cooperative Games & Activities. Nevada City, CA: Center for Educational Guidance Press. (Parent’s Choice Award Recipient)

Audio CD Set:

• Luvmour, B., & Luvmour, J. (2005). Optimal Parenting CD Set: The Natural Learning Rhythms approach to family well-being. Portland, OR.
  Write to: josette@luvmourconsulting.com to order

Articles:

• Luvmour, J. (2011). Education and the consciousness of the developing child. ENCOUNTER: Education for meaning and social justice, 24(4), 15-23.
• Luvmour, J. (2011). Developing together: Parents meeting children’s developmental imperatives. Journal of Adult Development, 18(4), 164-171.
• Luvmour, J. (2011). Nurturing children’s well-being: A developmental response to trends of over-diagnosis and overmedication. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 51(3), 350-368.
• Luvmour, J., & Loomis, M. (2009). Nurturing the child’s well-being: Key markers to support well-being in physiological and psycho-emotional development. Naturopathic Doctor News & Review, 5(9), 1-4.
• Luvmour, J. (2001). Families Learning Together. Family Post, p. 2.
• Luvmour, J. (2001). Rites of Passage in Our Times. Nevada City, CA.
• Luvmour, J. (2000). A Mother’s Humble View. EnCompass Newsletter, p. 2.
• Luvmour, J., & Luvmour, B. (1999). Confluence: Synthesizing the insights of Joseph Chilton Pearce and Natural Learning Rhythms, Paths of Learning (pp. 15).
• Luvmour, J., & Luvmour, B. (1999). Freedom in Education (Vol. October 10th, 1998). Bramdean, Hampshire, UK: 30th Anniversary Educational Conference of the Brockwood Park Krishnamurti Educational Center.
• Luvmour, J., & Luvmour, B. (1999c). Spirituality and Human Rights (Vol. 1995, pp. 9). San Francisco, CA: Convention on Spirit and Human Rights by the Fetzer Foundation.
• Luvmour, B. a. J. (1995, March, 1995). Teenagers and the Shadow. Holistic Education Review, Volume 8, 13.

Websites of Interest

• www.remarkable-educators.com

Writing Sample

The Answer: An Appreciation of the Consciousness of Children and Its Implications for Social Justice and Spiritual Awakening

By: Ba Luvmour, MA

Hurt and wounded people make hurtful and wounding decisions. This is the inevitable conclusion of a century of incisive psychological inquiry and several millennium of enlightened spiritual philosophy. So, instead of looking at the consequences of bad decisions such as stupid wars, environmental degradation, or a seducible citizenry which can only induce palliative responses, it is imperative that we examine human consciousness itself. Therein lays the possibility of fundamental change. Appreciation of consciousness is the Rosetta stone by which we can understand our actions and take the deliberate, responsible steps to direct them towards optimal well-being.

Unsurprisingly, very few of us take the time to investigate consciousness. Nowhere are we encouraged to do so. Schooling centers of fact retention and regurgitation. Religion depends upon a set of beliefs, not insight. Both rely on fear, the enemy of consciousness investigation. Religions see life as redemption for sin, or bad karma, or some other sort of fall. Schooling threatens students with failure.

Both are remarkable failures. James Gilligan, renowned expert on the nature, causes and consequences of violence, bitingly makes the case in his book, Violence. Alice Miller, eminent psychiatrist and author of the groundbreaking For Your Own Good, insists our schools are infected with a “poisonous pedagogy.” Both make the same point over and over. If you have been oppressed you will oppress, unless you consciously transform the wound. Oppression is shaming. Shame is the root of violence. Violence comes in obvious and subtle packages, but always has the intention, not matter how poorly conceived, of redeeming the shame.

Our ignorance leaves us bereft. The most precious human gift, consciousness, the ability to self observe and self reflect, is left under the tree like an unwanted pair of socks while the glitterati of data and power call like the ring called to Gollum. Love is trivialized into sex and romance, spirituality becomes the province of the few and is confused with mysticism, and social justice looks like policy adjustments rather than the celebration of our common humanity.

It is time for a change.

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