Self-Reliance Defined in my Classroom

At the beginning of the school year, we were asked by our administration to come up with a motto for our classroom and frame it somewhere in the room. I have always been a fan of wall splattering, using images to collage and create a meaning, and so when we were asked as educators to make our room thematic, I naturally went with a maxim that is central to who I am and what I believe is the purpose of life: "MAN, KNOW THYSELF."

I do not ever place my beliefs, ideas, and/or thinking onto anyone else. I have already been that kind of person in my more Christian days, existing in an exclusivity that often showcased more ego than the love and understanding found in Oneness, and I have no intentions of returning to that kind of volitional action again. Rather, I try to openly share who I am with whomever the Universe connects me with - intimately or even as spaced out as through a social media platform. If something in my words or actions spawn discovery or understanding for another, then it is primarily on them - organic as it should be. This leads me to the extensional practice of my classroom, one that all students are cultured in throughout the school year: Self-Reliance.  Here's how Self-Reliance is defined in my classroom:


Self Reliance is the individual's ability to provide for himself/herself and to not be swayed or dependent on an institution or another's thoughts, ideas, beliefs, and actions to determine their own. This is a state of existence and way of life that is contrary to how most institutions like health care, education, and big business desires for its itinerants to be... To be Self-Reliant is to take control of one's life and to create develop, and produce as an individual defined only by yourself.

The expectation in my classroom, based off of the above and the class theme.motto, is that each individual must hold their own and learn to think and act for themselves. By them understanding what it means to be self-reliant, they will learn about who they are and in practice come to the knowledge of self, becoming producers and creators rather than mimickers and conformists.