Alessio Morassut, Superintendent of Elementary Schools, Mirano [Venice], Italy

“We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want.”  — Lao Tzu

Today, educators and learners alike are facing very difficult times, physically, emotionally, and mentally. And now as ever, no one goes into the field of education to make money; it is a ‘calling’. As a teacher and a school superintendent, I’ve always been a little unusual, searching outside the system for new opportunities to develop the school and encourage and motivate both my teachers and our students. In recent years I’ve come to realize the urgency of eradicating fear in all its overt and covert forms, this leading to my knowing that we as teachers can not suppress what our own hearts say, nor can we afford to ignore what the children are saying.

Never, has my personal inclination been so well supported by a happy fate, as when in July 2003, my wife and I met Lynnclaire Dennis while on a visit to Assisi, Italy. Over the next weeks and months we came to know her and understand more her work with Mereon. When I grasped the deep meaning and rigorous science underlying Belonging, the education project built on the Mereon principles, I realized that this was the opportunity of a lifetime.

The purpose that this project addresses as part of what is a new call to educational action, starts with "Authenticity", and ends with "Experience that generates respect for others". This rings with crystalline clarity. In the Mereon taxonomy of educational purposes, I feel every word has been thought through with enlightening innovation, communicating the possibility for happiness. With simplicity and wisdom, BeLonging provides a means for allowing the deep and inalienable rights of every student and educator rise to the surface. BeLonging provides new proof that education is the soul of planetary sustainability, quickly teaching us to recognize the difference between natural, and normal. Talk about a miracle! Experiencing natural is the clearest and most direct path to opening minds and hearts. We realized that through our willingness to be real with one another, vulnerable rather than shielded, that we most powerfully discovered our shared humanity. This willingness freed us to evolve the spirit of something greater. Inevitably, I recall Guilford's cognitive cube, Bloom's taxonomy of educational aims, the scale of the fundamental needs of man according to Maslow and Vandevelde's analysis of teaching/learning situations, the analysis of class dynamics according to DuPont. All were fascinating and fundamental contributions to the sciences of education, but I believe the Mereon Educational model is a contribution that goes beyond all of them for originality, essential organicity and realizability. Moreover, I believe this ‘inside-out’, inner-as primary driven social curriculum is the only one of its kind, aimed at presenting the role of the teacher as a facilitator of the class dynamics. This work is powerful in that is essentially orients students and teachers alike toward a fundamental principle of self-organization and from there to cooperation.

Every opportunity to work with the Mereon Education Team focuses us on deepening our learning, exploring new methods of communication based on what is natural in a holistic system. They continue to impart a deep understanding by reminding us that how we say what we say, the tones we use, has the power to link our hearts and minds, or break us apart. Every single participant, teachers, parents and community leaders, report that they have come to see new perspectives of themselves and others, experiencing the unity that is the foundation beneath their obvious diversity. The many weeks we have spent together, now over almost seven years, have been occasions to celebrate as we came to feel and reflect a new harmony, honouring the essential beauty and unity within one another. We continue to discover new skills for self-organizing, individually and as members of a group, while learning innovative ways to collaborate and accept both solo and joint responsibilities for planning.

The Mereon Education Team has designed many different interactive exercises that allow us to experience how simple it is for the authenticity of every teacher and student to safely rise to the surface and be voiced. In learning anew how to nurture and improve the informal dimension of school life, the emotions, affections and relationships with colleagues, we as course participants began to link our intuitive and cognitive intelligences, honoring our subjective feelings and the objectively shared reality, recognizing aspects of ourselves that are simultaneously spiritual and human.

Every time Mereon Education Team members are in Italy, the courses spill over into lunch and dinner, as she selflessly invests hours in nurturing our spirits and our one soul, helping us balance our personal energy as well as our analytical, organizational skills. Every moment flows together, the time evaporating as we experience a lasting harmonizing of our relational dynamics that lead us to higher levels of self-respect and a deeper appreciation for others. The benefits are personal as well as for us as educators and human beings; this program has done far more than make us better educators; it has made us better parents, spouses and friends. By reconnecting with our individual authenticity, we continue to expand our own creativity while reinvigorating the remarkable spirit of co-creation. The joy that comes in this work is based upon the Mereon Team's insistence that elementary principles of organization and education are FUN, ‘fun’ being the first syllable in the word fundamental. In requiring that fun come before the ‘mental’, we have –incredibly– found the cure for ‘burn-out’!

The teachers and children both jump with joy when the Mereon Team members come to visit, many children involved in the program since infant school. It is an honour to work with the Mereon Education Team and to have been privileged to inaugurate this fascinating adventure in education. We love hosting those who come to observe and participate with what is happening in our lives as well as our schools, and have enjoyed visitors from America, Denmark, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Croatia, and England!

Can you imagine what it is for me as a director to have parents calling to tell me that their children are happy to come to school? Imagine what it is like to hear parents say that they want all of their children to be involved in this project!  It is incredible to walk down the halls of my schools and feel and see the changes; there are smiles on everyone’s faces. Even the school auditor from Rome asked me, “Why are your schools so different? What is making everyone happy?”  

We have learned that as educators we are social architects, and it is up to us to work together to design a new civilization. It is time for us to relearn how to care for our children, and allow them to learn to be authentic so they can take care of themselves and care for the planet. It is time to stop coercing them, and in a new way, begin to respect them as human beings. BeLonging’s positive impact in education and moving from Mirano into the world has long been our dream. Here in Mirano, with the Mereon education project we are inaugurating a new kind of literacy program; one that teaches us the languages of the heart and mind; BeLonging shows us how to read and speak our own emotional and mental languages and those of others; it is showing us how to write new truths into our physical worlds by mastering skills that allow us to with wisdom and discernment, support personal transformation that leads to holistic global sustainability. 

Working/playing with the Mereon Education Team and my incredible teachers, has led us all to a new commitment; we are dedicated to understanding. This program continues to bring deep honour to us as individuals, to our families, our schools, our community, and to all Italy. By bringing our different experiences together, we have opened the rare gift of understanding, discovering the energy that continues to deeply unite our minds and hearts. The first assessment of the project, written at the conclusion of the 2004-2005 school year by the BeLonging Commission, says, “Through BeLonging learners learn and learn to lead; some learn best by thinking, by doing, and by loving; while others learn by loving, doing and only later thinking.”

I want to express all my abiding gratitude for the logic and creative insights of this work, and to Lynnclaire for first sharing these inlightening thoughts with us, the people, educators, children, and community leaders of Mirano, Italy. As Director of the Mirano Elementary Public Schools, I face very difficult times. However, I am proud of our community for recognizing the vital importance of this work. Every opportunity has proven to be a chance to grow personally and thereby to become an effective catalyst for assisting our teachers who work so hard with the children, helping them to see how by working together, in our individual wholeness we each play a significant part in making a positive difference in our world, both inner and outer. What ‘BeLonging’ has brought out of our teachers, learners, schools and our community is almost unimaginable.”

"Non scholae, sed vitae discimus!" Not for school, but for life we learn!