Growing pains: astrology for
teachers
Growing pains: astrology for teachers
As in infancy, once new neuronal paths are developed, they are
pruned at a time coinciding with the first Saturn opposition
at about the age of 14-15. From the chart above, it would also
appear that behaviour improves as the adolescent matures. In
brain development, a ‘use or lose it’ premise is in operation:
the habits of a lifetime are being formed at this time.
Can the cycles of Jupiter and Saturn help teachers better understand school students and their
development hurdles? Alex Trenoweth explains the role astrology could play in the pressure
cooker of our classrooms
Imagine these scenarios:
1) You’re a teacher in a secondary school and you’re faced with
the worst class in school - bottom set year 9 English. Thirty,
hormone-driven 13-14 year olds who are not even the slightest
bit interested in Gothic Literature. Worst still, it’s the Summer
Term and everyone (yes, even you) is knackered. Someone has
to get them through their GCSE coursework and all eyes are on
you to get those A*s- Cs.
2) You’re a year 6 teacher and your pupils have completely
outgrown their Primary School. Yet you stay awake at night
frantically worried that your ‘babies’ are not yet ready for the
big, wide world of secondary school. You can already identify
the ones that probably won’t make it through that journey
without being permanently excluded or falling victim to
bullying. or who are already displaying an abnormal, early
interest in sex.
3) You’re a teacher of Year 11 and your group is top set. The
whole class is like a pressure cooker about to explode. These are
top achievers and the best motivational phrase you can come
up with is: “Don’t forget to revise. You only get one chance to
do well on your GCSEs!”
4) You’re a parent who has to bear witness to your child’s
extreme anxiety—and your once loving child is taking out
their strains on you: issues over food or self-harming and/or
intolerable defiance have become a feature of your everyday
existence. You ask the school to help and the best ‘they’ can
offer is an appointment with an over-booked school counsellor.
5) You’re the head-teacher of an inner London school and in
the ‘War on Terror’, it is your job to report any concerns over
terrorism to the proper authorities. You are haunted by the 7/7
bombings and the memories of your Muslim pupils asking you
if they were going to be blamed for the atrocity.
6) In 2014 a 15-year-old boy stabbed his teacher Ann Maguire
to death. And earlier this year, a 14-year-old pupil stabbed a
teacher in a row over a mobile phone. You toss and turn every
night wondering if you could be next to get a knife in your back.
Your school has a no tolerance policy on mobile phones.
their knowledge of the roles of Jupiter and Saturn in human
development and use it not only to time when biological changes
are due to take place but to employ strategic interventions to
ease the process of growing up?
The cycles of Jupiter and Saturn
Jupiter makes significant aspects to its natal position (by
square, opposition or conjunction) approximately every three
years. At age 3, at the waxing Jupiter square, toilet training and
language development means a child is able, with help from his
care-givers, to expand his social circles through travel and play.
At age 6, the first opposition, he can demonstrate rote mastery
of letters and sounds; and if he attends a public school, will
have be V