Preface to multisensory Living and learning
Creativity is the gift of movement
Joy is the gift of love
Happiness is the gift of being present
Peace is the gift of calm contemplation
Gratitude is the gift of sharing
Devotion is the gift of life
Reverence is the gift of humility
Patience is the gift of time.
Only through the power of unconditional love can we hope to provide an abundance of creative opportunity for personal empowerment and self-directed learning.
Creativity and co-operative interaction are the foundations of multisensory learning. Multisensory integration creates depth and richness to our interaction with the world around us through the heart and soul-spirit. Thus when multi-sensory information is framed within areas of creative freedom and passionate interaction learning can be experienced as personal discovery within an infinite future potential for meaningful expansion into our fullest potential. What I have written is not presented as a curriculum as such. I have tried to illustrate how learning can be presented within a mind map that creates its own presentation of the human auspicious intelligence alongside a celebration of life experiences through aesthetic appreciation and natural enthusiasm.
| As Robert Barron writes in his book ‘And Now I See’‘God is reliable in his love and delightfully unpredictable in the way that he demonstrates it.’ |
Creativity, multisensory learning, aesthetic appreciation and divergent thinking plus some heart magic, is born when ideas, feelings and experiences flow togerther like the water within a stream, where an infinite freedom is contanined within the boundaryies of the geographical terain and the earthly laws of physics.
The true master can successfully support others to discover for themselves: attention to small detail, authentic passion and genuine understanding. The apprentice thereby learns, over a period of time, to achieve what the master can already do with natural ease and uses these skills to develop his/her own natural field of excellence.
Multisensory scaffolding for Self-Directed Discovery Learning through:-
- Creative activity
- Authentic social and physical interaction,
- Co-operative games
- The organic development of experiential projects of enquiry.
Only through the power of unconditional love can we hope to provide an abundance of creative opportunity for personal empowerment and self-directed learning.
Scaffolding learning from a multisensory perspective comes from the heart and soul-spirit connection. From this sweet place activities and interaction embraces a natural balancing of mental and physical activity. A harmonious combination of both musical and structural aspects of creativity, organically integrate imagination with a tangible expression of creative interaction. This organically supports desires to gain conscious awareness and understand.
Whereby: The Keys to Empowerment are fully maintained and each individual’s learning potential is acknowledged as:-
All knowledge is subject to Personal Experience,
Choice is fundamental to every individual,
Authentic creativity is essential to natural play and learning,
Compassionate understanding comes from co-operative sharing.
Trust, gratitude and appreciation are. embraced within a positive attitude.
Multi-sensory activities embrace a wealth of sensory experience whereby motivation and focus are intrinsically directed by environmental scaffolding. An expansive relationship with an indefinable potential presents qualities of creative engagement and supports future development of awareness.
Multi-sensory activities do not necessarily have a predetermined goal or measure of achievement. Sensory integration may embrace a spectrum of intelligence that was previously unacknowledged by the participant and thus aspects of learning may not necessarily be attributed to specific interactive games or activities.
Knowledge and skills are secondary to the abstract qualities of enjoyment and pleasures of participation. Creative consequences extend like an over-flowing river into new domains beyond perceived normal boundaries. Each individual’s unique human design is nurtured as a tender gift.
When multisensory materials are carefully designed they can intrinsically meet different styles of learning, different levels of skill, and sensory perceptual differences. The teaching benefits offered by multisensory didactic materials can be helpful to a wide age range, and a broad spectrum of ability and interest.
Creativity and co-operative interaction are the foundations of multisensory learning. Multisensory integration creates depth and richness to our interaction with the world around us through the heart and soul-spirit. Thus when multi-sensory information is framed within areas of creative freedom and passionate interaction learning can be experienced as personal discovery within an infinite future potential of meaningful expansion into our full potential. Multi-sensory Living and Learning is not a curriculum as such, it is presented on this website as pedagogy illustrated through a compendium of games, creative activities and carefully designed learning materials. Learning can be presented within an auspicious mind map approach that facilitates its own presentation of our human intelligence alongside a celebration of life experiences through aesthetic appreciation and natural enthusiasm.
| The true art of teaching is to creatively present multisensory information through an integrated spectrum of accurate conceptual communication. |
New sciences and new levels of thinking can encourage and inspire higher levels of awareness through a nurturing of supportive scaffolding within the practicalities of our everyday living.
Working on small easy steps and simple steady improvements, can anchor our efforts to seed new growth within the harmony of Highest Good and our individual capacity to live, love and learn together.
Simple structures of communication can deeply nurture seeds of encouragement for meaningful experiences and the accompanying sweetness of personal empowerment. It is the very nature of this simple and successful scaffolding that wisely supports our evolution into higher realms of consciousness. Can we empower our children to develop their individuality and creativity beyond that of the limitations of our present day?
Where are we today
When multi-sensory information is framed within areas of creative freedom and passionate interaction learning can be experienced as personal discovery. This opens the learner to an infinite potential for meaningful expansion into a love of life and learning.
Multi-sensory Enrichment:
- Presenting a wide spectrum of associated sensory information.
- Supporting comprehensive understanding
- Encouraging conceptual understanding
- Stimulating feelings of aesthetic appreciation.
- Participation is guided by personal choices and preferences.
| : E.g. Finding a strawberry in a bowl of assorted different fruits. Feeling the strawberry shape and texture . Watching the development of a strawberry as it grows on a plant. Make some strawberry jelly or jam Smelling and eating a strawberry. Eating strawberry jelly and strawberry ice-cream. |
Versus
Multi-sensory over-whelm
- One high level of sensory experience dominates over other sensory perceptions.
- Personal preferences have no influence;
- A concoction of different sensory experience; so diverse that the mind experiences a sense of chaos.
- Mental hyperactivity and/or hypersensitivity.
| E.g. someone is playing loud heavy metal music in a communal space. Boisterous young people having a party with loud music, dancing, shouting too each other because of the loud music, drinking, and eating. Intense perfumes and body smells. They have flashing lights on the disco dance floor. |
The examples in the boxes above illustrate that multi-sensory in itself may not necessarily be desirable for successful living and learning. Multi-sensory at its best presents opportunities for enrichment, diversity and expansion; at its worst it can present opportunities for over stimulation and hyperactivity, wild chaotic activity and adrenaline based types of excitement, dramaand addiction.
Thus multi-sensory presentation may range from a man-made concoction of intense stimulation; to a broad spectrum of meaningful sensory scaffolding structured to support sensory integration and intellectual understanding. Overwhelming levels of unrelated stimulus and focus on illogical abstract sensory experience can create a sense of over-stimulation and chaos. Similarly multi-sensory may have a strong overwhelming influence that either entertains or disturbs our sense of reality; and thereby prevents new learning, foundations of understanding and development of appropriate skills.
Ideally multi-sensory scaffolding for learning incorporates subtle and primary sensory information, within a conceptually sound presentation that offers a wide spectrum of expansion into further learning, related interests, enquiry and potential for diversity. An example of expansion and diversity are presented in the diagram below that is centred upon learning to Knit:-
- Beating a repeated rhythm on a drum, [establishing a physical awareness of rhythm and repetition.]
- Plaiting a thick cord,[acquiring a sense of tension and control of a length of cord.]
- Finger knitting, [making a chain of loops with one thread and seeing how it can be pulled ]
- French knitting, [using an implement to move the thread over each pin.]
- Traditional knitting using thick wool and chunky needles. [Then using thinner and shorter needles]
Extensions into associated skills for the above consecutive stages of learning could be any of the following activities:-
Threading buttons and beads first at random then as a sequenced pattern.
Weaving
Carpet making with a tool.
Spinning to make wool thread.
Tying a bow with shoe lace or ribbon.
Learning rope knots.
Learning to make a net of thin rope.
Needle felting.
Sewing on Binca material.
Crochet.
Embroidery.