by Travis Mateer
If you understand every screen is a virtual front in a war for the minds of our children, then you might want to consider how to equip your kids to defend themselves. My suggestion? Help them develop Narrative Control Sledgehammers so that they can learn how to identify and obliterate weaponized bullshit, also known as PROPAGANDA, from invading and occupying their young minds.
Synchronicity story time? How does applying the concept of “meaningful coincidence” (synchronicity) to the idea of stories told before bed time lead to a metaphorical tool to accomplish something you might not even think is a problem in the first place (narrative control). Great questions.
I see this approach as a way to locate curiosity and potentially unlock intuition for our youth so that they can have a better shot at starting to walk a real path toward self-actualization. And here is how I would begin: Legos.
After a session of either directed or undirected Lego play, the next step is Backyard Brainstorming. What’s this? It’s a way to find ANYTHING that ANYONE participating finds interesting about their backyard, i.e, neighborhood/town. It could be a street name, a neighbor’hood’s dog, a creepy abandoned building, literally anything, and then the facilitator uses THAT as a sort of portal into meaning-extraction/meaning-making.
Depending on how things behind the scenes work out in the next few months, I’m hoping to have some time to further develop this idea as an applicable use of my talents and physical resources, which will soon include a library on wheels.
Stay tuned!
