The Disconnect

If you are overwhelmed and bored with parliamentary debates on housing, education, transport etc look up the speeches made by 2 NMPs Laurence Lien and Faizah Jamal. The latter is a lecturer in Environment education and focuses on heritage and environmental preservation and education whilst the former focuses on "social realities on the ground". Laurence Lien's speech on "social recession" in Singapore is quite a good read. Mind you coming from a super wealthy background (he is the grandson of Lien Yien Chow)it is quite surprising that he can appreciate real social problems. But then he is the CEO of the National Volunteer and Philantropy Association and the governor of the Lien Foundation.

Faizah Jamal spoke of her surprise of how "disconnected" our students are with nature beyond perhaps the once a lifetime nature study project in primary school. She believes that nature study is in itself a "value based educator". She described how children feel the sense of "awe" and "wonder" during the nature walks that she conducts. This she believes will help inculcate a sense of love for the country. I remembered my son once suggested that his little sense of belonging to the country may be because we do not have a land mass. I dismiss this as pure nonsense as many cities in the world do not have land masses as well and yet the citizens feel for their countries. He counter argued that most cities however have a hinterland of their own to retreat to.

One of Faizah Jamal's statements rings in my head which reads as follows:

"More importantly I am struck by the impact this disconnect (with nature) has on their relationships with other people and the world around them, and what is worse, their relationship with their own selves". She then goes on to share about her own experience of how nature offered comfort and supported her and her daughters when they were undergoing some life challenges some years ago.

Jamal's speech hits a chord with my own experience with a client at school. I have a sandtray and loads of symbols and figurines in my counselling room where I use sandplay therapy with some of the clients. A boy whose presenting issue is stress/anxiety from meeting parents' as well as his own expectations used coloured marbles to lay 2 walking paths. The yellow marbles led to an apple farm which he enacted by hanging some small plastic fruits on a little plastic tree. (This boy frequently visits his uncle in Australia who has apple trees in his garden). He used some green coloured marbles to lay another path in the sandtray. The puzzle however was that the path did not seem to lead anyway ie. hitting one side of the tray. I asked him where the green path led to. He said it was to the jungle. He could have easily enacted a jungle with other trees and leaves available but he did not. He said he loved the jungle because it was filled with wild lives. I then wondered out aloud where the jungle was. His reply was "It is sealed" "You can never go in".

I wonder whether his inner psychic is expressing his longing to connect with nature and how it is "sealed" for him. Is this the "Disconnect" Jamal was referring to? "Impacting their relationship with other people, the world around them and even their own selves"?