Looking into the world of our educational system I can see a desire and intuitive feeling inside the parents and the teachers towards something NEW!
Many are speaking about reforming the schools and the curriculum towards a more open and playful approach which reduces the stress and pressure the children are dealing with nowadays.
Simultaneously we are facing insecurity in the parents questioning whether the children, as young adults, will be able to ‘survive’ the requests made to them by society and life itself! Do they ‘learn’ enough if we allow them an alternative and more free style schooling? Will they find a job without having passed the entire tests and exams?
Parents who are exploring these issues, with desire to go a different way with their children are often overwhelmed by the pressure put upon them by family, friends, community, society and government! This can lead to frustration and ultimately resignation!
Many of you who have already started to look at and explore the more Holistic Approach of Education, like the Educational System of Maria Montessori, Rudolf Steiner, Emelio Reggio and various styles of Free Schools are experiencing already the advantages of allowing their Children to grow up with more FREEDOM in learning!
In some countries parents are given the choice to Home School their Children, optionally taking on an outside designed curriculum or choosing a more natural learning approach where the daily schedule is a free choice and designed by the parent!
The astounding (for me!) realization I made during my research with teacher and parents about schooling was, that there are still millions of parents out there who deeply belief that our today Educational System is good enough for our Children!
Whether they question the conventional school system, desiring some changes, they are conditioned to belief that what is offered and happening is good for the kids! It worked well for them (more or less) and due to their life circumstances (work!) they have anyway no other option! And it’s true for them, because they are given this conditioning as early as they attended school!
For you, reading on will require an open mind, a willingness to take your head out of the ground and face your beliefs –the programs and conditionings which are creating your life since your time in school
Start to reflect, become aware what schools are created for and take on respond-ability!
Do you really belief that the conventional School System is the best environment to take care of your child!?
If you right HERE & NOW have just a ‘little’ doubt’ about this….. I invite you to read on….
John Gatto (1990) on the New York Teacher of the year Award said:
“Schools were designed by Horace Mann…..and other to be instrument of the scientific management of a mass population”.
Wondering for WHOM schools, as an instrument of scientific management, are designed, we logically can assume that they are created to be the instrument of a ‘managing organization’!
Since, so far, I have not seen any ‘managing organization’ formed out of children (and their role in the instrument school is a major one!), the above statement equates the Children with mass population! This does make sense considering the amount of children worldwide.
You might think the PARENTS are the managing organization, for WHOM the instrument schools are designed, yet every one of us, having attended school, knows that their parents have not been involved in the organization, nor have much influence in the main school program.
The teachers are in a way the managers of the daily routine, but even formed together in organizations, having actually very little influence on the course of what is happening in the schools. They are bound to the script which defines the scientific management!
In power behind the apparatus school, as in many other aspects of your life, is the government!
"They set the TONE, which the Children have to play, in this INSTRUMENT!"
The script for scientific management or “Curriculum”, also designed by the managing organizations of our society, incorporates the perfect “scientific” plan (their perfect plan!) for your Child for a minimum of the following 10 years of his life!
Allow me to summarize herewith:
“Schools are a, for the managing organizations of our society (Government), designed platform, which collect masses out of the population (Children) and keeps them under the scientific management (Curriculum)!"
Have you ever questioned or even read the "curriculum" you enroll your child in for the most precious time in his life!?
Without questioning the majority of the population beliefs that Children learn in school and getting the right EDUCATION for their life
You will be surprised to learn that the general definition of “Education” requires URGENT re-defining, as does the entire approach of conventional education since the essence of what Education means and can be, differs widely from the daily reality in our conventional schools.
The feeling you have inside, this, which makes you desire a change even without any logical proof or reason, this is what Education is all about!
The sad truth is that this essence of life is being taught far away from us, purposely, to loose the ability to trust ourselves, even to the extend that we stop questioning what is going on - which is our ability to learn!
You still say yes, BUT schools are educating our children! They learn in schools something for life!
I started to question the meaning and purpose of Education –looking for a proof of this feeling inside– and with the desire to learn more I started to research the Definition of ‘education’ through different dictionaries:
EDUCATION is defined as:
- the process or art of imparting knowledge
- knowledge acquired by learning and instruction;
- the gradual process of acquiring knowledge
- to develop the knowledge
Webster defines education as the process of educating or teaching (now that's really useful, isn't it?)
However from these definitions, we might assume that the purpose of education is to process, instruct or develop the knowledge of students.
Unfortunately, this definition offers little unless we further define the word “knowledge”.
What is meant by ‘knowledge’?
The dictionary defines Knowledge as expertise and skills, acquired by a person through education and the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject.
The term 'knowledge' is also used to refer to a body of facts and principles accumulated by mankind in the course of time, like a kind of goods that can be stored in a warehouse.
Well you might say this is very clear:
Education is the process of acquiring Knowledge and vice versa Knowledge is acquired through Education, so what the point!?
The point is to figure out, if our children through in this process of Education through acquiring Knowledge actually LEARN!
Does the process or art of imparting knowledge (Education!?) means that we REALLY LEARN?
You will agree with me that when it comes down to discuss Education, it is ALL about “what our children are LEARNING”!
EDUCATION = LEARNING - this in its essence is TRUE!
Yet the process of acquiring knowledge does not mean or guarantee our Children are LEARNING, and has TRUELY nothing to do with EDUCATION,
WHY, you ask!?
Primarily because if Education would be allowed in its essence, you would not function the way THEY want you too!
As a more efficient reason for “them” to create schools, we could refer to school as an ‘Instrument of the scientific management of MASS MANIPULATION!
The Educational System managing our schools gives the children the possibility to acquire a lot of knowledge! Often a process of “repeat and drill” for the sake of memorizing new data, which, you might agree, as a specie we have long grown past (and actually never grown in)!
How much of the knowledge you acquired in primary and high school do you remember NOW? Sure you can give the answer to yourself….very little compared to the amount of time you spend into acquiring knowledge, or!?
If we are looking towards a REAL CHANGE in Education, we have to understand what actually happens in our mainstream educational system AND we have find out HOW and WHERE “REAL” LEARNING happens?
To start with I invite you to practice the TRUTH SKILLS!
They play an important role in the approach of the NEW EDUCATION for the 21st century!
The first truth is that the definition of Education in the dictionaries is WRONG!
The second truth is, that because the definition of Education in the dictionaries is WRONG (could it be purposely!?) the approach and transmission of Education in SCHOOLS is WRONG (could it be purposely!?)!
Let us RE-DEFINE the very meaning of education BACK to its ROOTS and ESSENCE!
As many of you might not know, the word EDUCATION comes from the Latin ‘e-ducere’ meaning "to lead out"!
Socrates, at his time in ancient Greece, already argued that education was about drawing out what was already within the student, by stimulating the NATURAL INTELLIGENCE!
REAL LEARNING happens through stimulating the NATURAL INTELLIGENCE!
And we will explore this soon for you to understand
The term which defines the capacity of human being for original and abstract productive thought is INTELLIGENCE!
Intelligence rises from INSIDE!
Intelligence is the inherited ability to learn about, learn from, understand, and interact with one’s environment.
We are born with this potential to comprehend, understand and profit (learn!) from experiences!
Knowledge, to the contrary, is a body of information we acquire from the OUTSIDE - available information we receive from “out there”. The term 'knowledge' also refers to data that has been captured by a human, re-expressed and stored (in a medium such as this document), and intended to be later re-captured by other humans.
In daily reality our schools are performing what our dictionaries define as education:
”to process, instruct or develop the knowledge of students”.
I personally see a "gab" between the definition of Education in the common dictionaries …”to acquire knowledge” and the root of what Education originally refers to “to lead out”!
Furthermore I see a BIG gab in what the daily Reality of school environment reflecting the children and parents as Education, compared with WHAT Education actually can BE.
So, what has happened to our EDUCATION?
It might has been as simple as replacing the essence of the meaning, by using the word KNOWLEDGE instead of INTELLIGENCE!
"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words."
Philip K. DickWe have to question ourselves on this point whether we like our children to be filled up with an amount from the outside acquired knowledge or we like our Education to stimulate the natural intelligence of our children!?
A start to change the Education of our Children is to understand and re-define WHAT Education means and can be!
“Education is received through the optimum stimulation of Intelligence – to bring out of our being what we have inside of us, what we are born with and what we, each an ONE of us uniquely, want to LEARN!”
The following statement gives another example of what teacher’s, referring to Education, are daily confronted with:“Teachers who hold a more humanistic view of the purpose of education often experience stress because the meaning they assign to education differs greatly from the meaning assigned by society or their institution. It is clear in listening to the language of education that its primary focus is on knowledge and teaching rather than on the learner. Students are expected to conform to schools rather than schools serving the needs of students.
How would you complete the statement, "The purpose of education is..."? If you ask five of your fellow teachers to complete that sentence, it is likely that you'll have five different statements. Some will place the focus on knowledge, some on the teacher, and others on the student.
For example, some teachers believe that the transmission of knowledge is the primary purpose of education, while the transfer of knowledge from school to the real world is something that happens naturally as a consequence of possessing that knowledge—a function of education.”
Excerpt from http://www.teachersmind.com/education.html
The essence of Education worldwide misunderstood!
Originally referring to discover and bring out what we have INSIDE of us, how does the conventional Educational System and their Curriculum valid for millions of Children, succeeds to bring out their unique talents, qualities and potentials?
And you might question yourself here, whether they actually want to!?
How can they assert, education is a result of acquiring a lot of knowledge which is only available by teaching it to the children in school!?
Mainstream Education today is a mere shadow of what teaching and learning should be and can be. The assumption of students as “empty vessels” to be in need to be filled up has been the premise upon which most education and their institutions are based.
With that Schooling became a method of controlling children and forcing them to do what educators (and the curriculum) decided they had to learn. This is the current STATUS QUO
The assumption that ALL Children can receive the same teachings is silently accepted by the majority to the people by sending them into school!
Have you ever seen one child which is exactly like another!?
Each child is unique!
So where is the space for them to discover and explore the uniqueness and their natural inborn talents?
How to allow and stimulate Children’s natural human competences, also referred to as INTELLIGENCE, on the way to REAL Learning
The biology of Natural Learning throughout history is best described as follows:
“Teaching is not only about the transference of knowledge and skills deemed important by the culture, it is primarily about the development of natural human intelligences.
Humans evolved over a period of a few million years and have only been around themselves for about 150,000 years. During this time we evolved through natural ways of learning – namely, learning by doing and experiencing with the senses, the emotions, the body and the mind -learning in-context; which is basically the traditional apprenticeship model. Since the advent of writing 5000 years ago, and especially since the industrial-technological revolution began (only!) 200 years ago, education has become increasingly de contextualized. This means learning about things outside of the context in which they naturally occur, i.e. from books and blackboards and teachers talking about things; i.e. more abstract and less concrete. However, the way humans naturally learn and the biological mechanisms and pathways of this natural learning have not changed because genetic evolution doesn’t happen that fast.”
For 150.000 years, and most probably even more, children have learned in LIFE – learning by doing, a body – feeling/senses - mind experience!
NOW is the TIME to explore the SPIRIT of Learning!
How less Spirit we find in the Mainstream Educational System might be clearer to you by now.
Approaches explored by Maria Montessori are very much encouraging the child’s natural learning potential by recreating a MINI Reality of daily LIFE. Rudolf Steiner emphasized an approach in his Waldorf School environment, where the children are supported to gently incarnate staying connected to their SPIRIT….
In the 21st Century, a TIME where we are moving through incredible changes on ALL levels of our LIFE on Planet Earth, we are invited to reflect on these explored approaches of Learning and take a conscious look into ways of growing our CHILDREN Here and Now!
To focus on acquiring academic knowledge is one way to go, yet how many of us have already run into DEAD END Roads?
Now, we can ask ourselves the questions:
What have our Children incarnated for?
How do they like to explore the world around them?
HOW do they LEARN best?
What do our Children REALLY need?
We ALL are in the experience of re-awakening, re-connecting, remembering and raising our "frequency"!
For some it comes automatically for others it comes through meditation, healing triggering and other path that the soul takes on its journey to remember who it is.
There are children who remain in awareness of whom they are and why they are here, that they have a spiritual mission and focus that the time is HERE AND NOW they stay in touch with the higher aspects of their soul experience.
That’s the journey, to connect with WHO you are in the DIVINE LEELA!
Lets RE-MEMBER !
For the EvolutionFor the CHILDREN of this PLANET
For the Here and Now
With LOVE and INTENTION
Dariya Avantario
Next:
The SPIRIT of LEARNING!
