Soul food isn't just food.

Environment is everything, and that includes the environments of home, school and our bodies.

Nothing new in that statement, and yet how many of us nourish ourselves by carefully selecting the foods we eat, the school work set our children and the contents of our home on a regular basis?

How many of us are on autopilot when it comes to eating? Or asking if homework is done? And just going through the motions of cleaning of our homes?

How many of us pay as much attention to the things we put in our bodies as we do the teams we carefully select for our business?

How much focus do we give on building a joyful home life, making sure our children are happy at school, getting involved with the activities the school are involved with and the removal of items in our homes we no longer need or even see?

How many of us leave education to the school and are far too busy or tired from work to pay attention to what our children are learning?

And what on earth does this have to do with human rights and the problems facing others around the world who don't have access to schools and and abundance of food?

It has quite a lot to do with a lack of schools and education to be honest, because those who do not have access to what we call formal education in the 'first world' countries educate their children in a variety of other ways.

Having lived and worked in some of the poorest countries in the world, engaging with and creating social projects with the locals, as well as sailing around the world, I know first hand the education the children get is richer than many of the children sat in classrooms for eight to ten hours a day.

Why?

Because the children are learning real life skills such as how to grow and catch food, being taught how to build houses, repair engines and electrical systems, make clothing and repair sail cloth, understand weather systems and cartography, real time applied mathematics, as well as cultural diversity and how to be part of a society which exists outside of the mainstream society.

In remote villages with no access to electricity, we've learnt how to make candles for light, create refridgeration systems from water, clay and the ground. We've used plants to heal wounds and prevent infections.

On boats we have to fix all the plumbing, wiring, engine and structural problems ourselves because we have no other choice if we want to survive out in the midde of the oceans weeks away from land.

The education the people in remote villages have may not get them into Oxford or Harvard, and yet as demontrated by the young African boy William Kamkwamba, even with the most basic of education, observational skills of nature, drive and determination, anything is possible.

As an inventor, author and speaker, William had to drop out of school as his family could not afford the fees. Through his curious nature and his innate innovative abilities, he was able to prevent a faminine and save the lives of everyone in his village.

In Article 26 of the UDHR it states "Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages." so why then did William and others like him around the world have to drop out of school due to being unable to afford school fees?

Had he not been removed from school, would William had the time and inclination to invent the machines needed to light his home, irrigate the fields with the wind turbine and water pump he created? And would the villagers had died of hunger due to the severe drought caused by desertification?

Article 26 goes on further to state "Elementary education shall be compulsory". How is this article being implemented by the United Nations and the 192 member states which signed the declaration?

The truth is elementary education is different for all of us. For some it is a need to survive and provide, because our governments choose to neglect their duties, but then again so do many parents in the 'first world'.

Parents may be 'doing their best' but if they are not involved with the school, do not go into classrooms, and sit with their children to support the learning process, how do they know what their children are taught in schools?

Many parents, myself included have unschooled our children, previously known as homeschooling. Some parents chooes to unschool as the only option, whilst my ex-husband and I chose to unschool in addition to the private and state schools our sons have attended.

Having been a school governor, I gained access to the information which came down from central government which instructed our local government on how local schools should be governed. It made interesting reading that was for sure.

Sharing this information and discussing it over dinner with my sons gave them the insights of the indoctrination happening in the UK schooling system. Why did I share it with them? Well they had a right to know how their learning was being manipulated.

In Article 26 it further states "Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit." Merit of what? Intelligence? Parental status? Address? Or the colour of skin?

One would hope it would be on intelligence, but as many people across the globe find out, it has more to do with the family's status and the colour of skin.

The article goes on to state "Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.

Where in the world of employment is this part implemented? Why are universities still not giving places to those of us who may not have made our way through university education but have an abundance of intelligence and experience that could wipe the floor with many graduates with Masters degrees and Phd's?

Working towards my PhD with Oxford University has been an interesting process. Access course after access course just to apply, and then once accepted we still have to attend 30 days per year on site - even in this world of online connectivity and learning.

Where's the innovation in that?

Article 26 further states "It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace." and whilst this may be true of most edcucational establishments, we are now faced with a lack of understanding, tolerance and friendship due to the division created by the mass hysteria and manipulation of data concerning the latest health scare.

Bringing this full circle to a parents repsonsibility to elementary education, why are parents fined on average £60 per day per child for not sending their children to school, when in conclusion to Article 26 it clearly states "Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children".

In the UK we saw John Platt taken to court over him refusing to pay the fine for taking his children on a holiday to Disney Land. Having spoken to John and his team, I know he values education, and he also values family time and a time out to recharge.

The school my youngest son attends know they are fighting a losing battle even thinking about fining me for my son coming to visit. Why? Because they know my son will learn more about culture, the environment and life in just a few short weeks with me than he would a year in the classroom.

His previous school tried to fine me, until I laid out the terms of the UDHR to them and told them I would see them in court.

As parents we are too afraid to stand up to the schools, thinking they have more rights to how our children are educated, raised and taken care of. Schools and local government now think they have a right to medicate our children without our say so, because 'they understand the situation'.

Ask a 12 year old to sit an exam designed for a university graduate of genetics, or microbiology, even molecular diseases and let's see how they understand the science. Ask them to write a 20,000 word thesis on the political games which when combined with the business growth of a pharmaceutical company, and let's see how they get on.

When my children were asked to testify against me in a court of law and were dismissed due to being too well spoken and articulate, simply because of their ages and ethnicity, they had to have a chaperone because apparently they were too young to understand what was going on.

The law courts, schools and local government have no idea how we parent our children at home, how we educate them until we make it obvious, until we get involved; and getting parents involved in school activities is getting harder and harder.

Why?

Because parents don't want to get involved, even though the schools desperately need the involvement from parents. That said, the government are also making it harder and harder for schools to obtain help from parents with strict protocols, assessments and background checks.

Schools are a reflection of the community they serve, and school twinning has been a great step forward for integration and community cohesion. The problem is funding is taken away from schools to enable them to offer school trips locally, let alone internationally.

Outward bound weekends and holidays have now been taken away from most states schools, which leaves the private school children the only ones with access to the global learning opportunities.

Teachers are struggling to make ends meet both at home and in the classroom due to lack of wages and funding, and until we as parents step up, get involved and invest our time and resources into our children's education, then we ourselves are failing our children.

It is down to us to make sure our children are learning life skills and the fundamental basics of compassion and understanding how their counterparts in remote villages live, and in countries ravaged by civil war, government and corporate corruption, because whether we like to accept the responsibility or not, we were the ones who chose to have them in the first place.

#parenting #educationmatters #humanrightseveryday #humanrightsmonth #day6 #socialchange #schoolgovernors #educators #unschooling #parentingdifferently #udhr