When I look back on the 38 years I have spent on this lovely planet, there are a few events I can identify, that wound up being a major crossroads for me. This is where, the fabric of my life wove together in such a way, I could see a picture emerge that I had not seen before.
That is certainly the case, in regards to the Vancouver trip I took in August, to attend a SelfDesign seminar. I arrived in British Columbia a women that has been on a life long quest to find meaningful education in my own life, provide it to my children, and the children of the world. I left a SelfDesigner.
I knew this shift in consciousness would have a huge impact on my life. I completely underestimated the effect it would have on my family.
When my husband and children picked me up from the airport, I told them on the car ride home about my weekend. I was explaining how one of the many highlights for me, was when Brent Cameron taught a room full of adults how to spell, more or less perfectly, in less than 10 minutes.
I have been in conversation with Brent for a year, before this conference. I knew that he was wonderful enough for me to fly a few thousand miles to meet him, but when he told me about this demonstration, I must admit I entered the room with a “Yeah, I’ll believe it when I see it,” attitude.
Brent taught us that most people who are poor spellers, have trouble because they are still trying to “sound it out.” This is something commonly taught in elementary education. However, as Brent explained it, spelling is a visual process, and when you get this, it is easy to spell any word backwards OR forwards.
In that moment, I was liberated from a story I had created about myself, that wasn’t true. I grew up thinking I am terrible at languages, because I am a visual learner. My sister, the auditory wonder, was the language guru in our house. She now speaks four languages, and one of our favorite pasttimes as children, was for me to give her words out of the dictionary, and she would say them backwards. I have yet to find a word, that she can’t phonetically work out in her mind, and say backwards.
I had a nerve wracking bus ride back to the Seattle airport from Vancouver, that picked me up late enough, I was in serious danger of missing my flight home. To keep my mind busy from wanting to throttle the bus driver, who seemed to be in no hurry at all, I passed the time by practicing Brent’s spelling philosophy. I found that I too, when picturing the words visually in my mind, and breaking them into segments of a few letters at time, could easily spell forwards and backwards.
What I realized on that trip is that Brent understands who children are, as neurological beings. When I explained this to my family, in our minivan on the way home from the airport, my eleven year old son, looked at me shaking his head in wonder, and asked, “Mom, who is this Brent Cameron guy?”
I gave him a quick explanation of how Brent is the head of SelfDesign, a cutting edge educational program in Canada, and thought that was the end of it. Something I said, obviously made a huge impact on him. The next day he came home from his beloved school, where he was highly vested in his teacher and friends, and said he wasn’t going back, because he wanted to SelfDesign.
I have looked back on this moment often, and wondered how it happened. My son LOVED his school. He would evangelize the self-directed, child centered philosophy, to anyone who would listen. He was very popular and had a deeply connected social network.
How did he, in less than 24 hours, go from being a student in his school, to a SelfDesigner? The only answer that my heart gives my over active mind, that makes any sense, is that he is so connected with me, that when I put my stake in the ground and surrendered to the fact that I AM a SelfDesigner, it was the most natural thing in the world, for him to become one too.
What would happen if each of us surrendered to our own process of unfolding as a life long learner and neurological being, that hungers for meaningful knowledge and wants to participate in our wonderful world? If each of us placed our stake in the ground, and claimed that as adults it is not too late for us to learn what is meaningful to us, in a way that really works for our own unique learning styles?
I am sure that I have only scratched the surface of who Brent Cameron is, but will be taking my son with me this year to British Columbia, so he can answer this question for himself. I am endlessly grateful that Brent has held the space for the past twenty five years, so that now anyone on the globe can be a SelfDesigner. It is as if Brent gave me a treasure map, where I was able to uncover a new truth about myself. The buried treasure that I found in the woods of Vancouver, is that I am actually great at language, and a wonderful speller, in my own unique way.
Ariel Miller
SelfDesigner,
SelfDesign mom,
Enrollment Counselor & Educational Consultant
