For many of us, school was a rigid way of learning, a necessity for us to be part of the world. When we invite this word into our consciousness, we bring memories and many beliefs about what schooling is about.
Far from being just a place to drop of your kids in order to go at work, school today is the main source of inspiration and guidance, the playground of existence, where so much about your future can be decided. By saying this I want to emphasize the crucial role of a school, but I don’t want to put even more pressure on parents in choosing „the perfect school”. During this transition era of humanity, when dreams and facts collide together, it is even hard to say what ideal education looks like.
We need to see our work in progress and trust our deep nature that guides the path for future generations. For now, we know for sure what doesn’t work: blind authority, relaying on grades as substitutes for joy, superficial discipline, fear-based practices, pressure for kids to know it all, lack of individual approaches and boredom. Thanks to our previous generations, we know have a clear picture of what we can avoid.
My belief is also that, if we dig deep down, we can find many precious gifts that are about to be lost today, because we want something completely different. Qualities like resilience, perseverence, hard work, inner strength, planning skills are very important and many of them were exercised in the public system school. There is this trap, to create something completely different, forgetting that our history is a resource, not a recycle bin full of errors. Giving kids too much freedom at an early age and no boundaries, creating a bubble around them in order to protect them from the real world, could be what I call „the worst good” we can give to them. This will guarantee a generation of lost souls, living in the fantasies of their unhealed adults. Wanting the opposite is a form of incomplete thinking, and it has a compensating nature, not a inspiring one.
For me (and many others) the inspiring view integrates what can be recycled and restored from the past (max 20%) and makes space for what this generation is aiming for: responsible freedom, great love and integrated knowledge (80%). Some of you will ask „but I don’t want my child to be part of this new experiment of alternative education, what if it will fail?” or „this dreamy-like way will crash at the very first touch of reality”.
Even if that scenario turns out to be true, my short response is: „our children will not forgive us for at least not trying to hear their call and honour their true nature. For us, there is no excuse”.
Every new path has a sort of unknowing essence and still, humans went into this realm. Is is our evolutionary path. There are many responsible ways to go into this journey, and it is not about making a change just for the sake of it. So, it is more about experiencing with them, not an experiment (this second perspective views students in an objectified way, as if they are passive receptors). I believe children are so alive and so willing to guide us and show us what they truly need. We need to listen, hear, feel.
About the idealistic, fantasy-like part I can only say that it can be a source of immense treasure only if it is seen as a resource, not a pressure or a perfect goal.
Maybe we can achieve only 2-3 goals from this new alternative view, but imagine how it will ne if we give up and just perpetuate the reward-punishment system. Our children will become a copy-paste version of us, in a world entirely different from ours. Is this fair?
I am so happy to play a small part in this global movement of refreshing schools and my heart was so happy when I created a sample design for a new school, that includes freedom and self-authority, knowledge and real life situations skills, arts and inspiring ways of being in the world, movement and science, discernment and flexibility, love and action. There is so much space for kids to work on their passions on what we called „genius hours” (inspired by schools from abroad), and also to learn about the magic of maths or the enriching effects of literature and poetry. In this process, the teachers and mentors are also rewiring their experience with schooling, learning with the kids from a space of curiosity and free-will.
Of course, this is work in progress, but what I felt when I created coherence and harmony with this design is great confidence. Our children will thank us deeply for truly being in their life as agents of love, fully open and committed to clear the path for them to blossom.
