A Journey in our Star - Bridges for a new education

Di Enrica Piccapietra

This book is the result of years of experience with kids and with educators; it develops around a girl’s curiosity who feels strange sensations that she can’t understand.
The arrival of a Wiseman in the city is the opportunity for her to ask questions and look for possible answers, through visualizations and stories, with him and with other children. The entire village is involved.Even parents and teachers find themselves in this magic, crossing the entire Assagioli star.
A greeting rite, invented by the children by night, ends the story and the Wiseman and the other two friends who have reached him, leave to look for other curious children.
Enrica Piccapietra
Biography synthesis
A life spent working for education, putting at the child/kid at the center. The meeting with Psychosynthesis by Roberto Assagioli allowed her to make a synthesis of the various educational paths she followed during her life and she became a strong fan of it. She taught for over thirty years to first grade children, where she guided parents’ meetings and counseling offices for kids, parents and teachers; she organized innovative education updates for teachers and parents.
Member of the National Register of Counselor by Assocounseling and of the Pedagogues National Register. President and founder member of the Psychosynthesis and Psychoenergetics Counseling School in Sondrio, founder member of the Gea Association, that works on the research and personal development using Psychosynthesis and the diffusion on a new education culture. Co-author of the book: Conoscere, simulare, scegliere. Unitàdidattiche per l’orientamento Ed. Juvenilia – Bergamo, Author of the book: Da Cuore a cuore: ponti verso una Nuova Educazione, L’UomoEdizioni
Teacher at Counseling Schools, Professional Counselor, Speaker at Conferences;
She runs psychosynthesis, psychoenergy and family constellation seminars and groups.
She created a research group on the education in the New Era, to give back to the children the light they deserve, and to educators new instruments so that they can contact the creative potentials of each little one.
Giovanni Tommasini Production

• Lingua: Italiano
• Editore: Enrica Piccapietra
• Data di uscita: 8 apr 2016
• ISBN: 9788892590816

Anteprima del libro

Assagioli

How to use this book

Every time you find this symbol it means there is an exercise you can try directly with children/kids.

All the exercises can be adapted by the educator/parent based on the age and difficulties of the children, so they represent a map that can be filled with various themes.

The book can be interactively read by children/kids and you can make the suggested exercises with them.

The book can also be used by the educator/parent in different moments, taking the exercises they need.

It can constitute as a guide path for the educator/parent looking for active, educational proposals to be tested y the children/kids

The proposed scenario concerns psychosynthesis by Roberto Assagioli and, particularly, the development and the education of the star of the I functions and, as in the spirit of psychosynthesis, the one who approaches this story doesn’t need to have specific skills.

Introduction

In this book Enrica Piccapietra describes some of her experiences as a teacher. In the first years her students were children with problematic families, often having painful backgrounds.

From her descriptions it’s immediately clear that she’s an empathetic teacher, with educational skills and an ability to communicate.

At the base of her job, as described in this book, there’s the star diagram, created by Roberto Assagioli, the founder of psychosynthesis.

To better understand the meaning of this diagram it’s important to say a few words about symbols in general: a subject often forgotten but one that’s important to keep into consideration any time it comes to education and training, as well as our social life.

Symbols are an intuitive, effective, deep and immediate way to communicate; symbols represent subjective realities that would be harder, if not impossible, to describe with words.

For example, sun is a symbol of light and warmth, sometimes also in the spiritual world. But the use of words to communicate that set of experiences represented by the sun for each of us isn’t necessarily recommended.

Other examples: the vase or the cup can represent the containment of something precious and delicate to be protected and preserved. And it can also be a spiritual treasure. The font represents the purity of roots.

The climb to the mountain, the ascent to the highest level of conscious. The sea, with all its secrets and mysteries, can represent the unconscious.

Being familiar with symbols language is really helpful, because they’re the language used by the unconscious.

Symbols help to evoke intuitions and direct psyche’s energies; so to set up our life, they indicate a direction and describing a way of being.

Advertisement uses them a lot: but for its own purpose, at the service of profits and not always of human beings. Icons and logos strike everybody, especially children, and they represent a commercial use of symbols due to their capacity to influence human behaviors.

For example, the big yellow ‘M’ of a famous fast food multinational is the first letter of the alphabet that American children learn to recognize.

Luckily symbols can be used not only to sell, but also to educate and inspire. The structure of this book is based on a symbol: the star symbol that is also the base of a famous diagram created by Assagioli. Jung, his colleague and friend, talked about four psychic functions: sensation, emotion, thought, and intuition.

To these, Assagioli decided to add, to complete the map of what we are, three other functions not included in Jung’s four: imagination, desire-impulse, and will. He represented them as a six-point star’s rays: each ray of the star is one of the first six functions. The seventh function, the will, directs them (or should) from the center. Will is the direct expression of the Self that, in turn, is represented in the center of the star.

The star is a symbol of light, which shines in the darkness, that guides (like the Pole star) and also of completeness because its rays go in all directions.

In human history various schools of thought, philosophical and religious leanings have stressed more this or that psychic function, sometimes also expressing perplexity and worries regarding the others.

For example, desire/impulse has often been seen as dangerous or misleading; the imagination as source of unreality; sensations, that’s the body, like something heavy and obtuse; mind as arid and cold; emotions as deceptive.

Assagioli’s perspective is different: for him, every function must and can be recognized and understood and then developed and regulated.

This is an essential didactic and educational task that can last all lifelong. Instead, if some of the functions are not developed or are wrongly expressed, all our being is affected by it.

So, to make a long story short:

sensations can be improved and enriched;

desire/impulse must be controlled (instead of being slaves to it), and then regularized and addressed;

emotions must be collected, released, transformed and nurtured;

thought can become the base to formulate new ideas and learn to think with our own mind;

imagination can generate projects and develop creativity;

intuition can be reinforced and then put under consideration by the rational mind, and so it can open new and big developments, helping us in relationships with others;

finally, will, is a sort of orchestra leader, can be trained, able to direct the various functions.

We’re also reminded that the use of each function, to the best of its ability, brings joy. It’s clear that the task to develop the potentialities of each psychic function is immense and sometimes requires the collaboration of various