Education or Whatever

We can learn anywhere. Yet, our culture prefers that we spend most of our growing, impressionable and learning time in the classroom. Why is that? Why is our existing formal education system so important to our culture? Are we happier than the generations that had little or no formal education programs? Is it possible that we may be caught up in various economic competitions world wide and require these educated human resources (students) to facilitate our greed? Is it that we must produce ‘X’ from our educated workforce to compete for global dominance? Is it that the world power brokers require a competitive economic ‘edge’ for control of the consuming masses? Are the demands being placed on us by various institutions for meritorious and honourable educational, moral and ethical purposes? Is it that we are so motivated and driven to produce, that we become oblivious to the cost of our children's' ill health and well-being never mind our/their ‘pocket book’? What about all the other, and perhaps more important areas of education that we neglect as a result of striving for the above? Some of these areas would include; intimate loving relationships, communication, developing our inner senses, trusting our direction and guidance systems, identifying and expressing our emotions honestly and accurately (transparency), parenting, honouring our nature, authenticity, health and wellness balance inclusive of our mind, body and spirit, understanding differences, respect and tolerance of differences, accepting and loving our self, taking responsibility and being accountable for how we feel and hence behave, becoming more in sync with nature, learning from other species, honouring our natural rhythm and synchronicity with other species on this wonderful planet, empowerment, understanding faith and trust in the Universe and its ‘bigger picture’ and most importantly, loving ourselves and others. Instead, we allow coercion to take place by legislators at our peril to follow some ill-founded educational curriculum (system), that is anything but natural, in an unnatural (school and classroom) environment where we grade our children like cattle for auction or for various meat cuts. Why? Because of corporate domination and control, that is why. Have you ever wondered why we are only exposed to certain information in educational institutions and feel so ignorant when challenged by other sources and cultures with different information? Who has the right to determine and limit what we would prefer to learn? Who has the right to tell us what we have to or should learn? Have we ever been consulted about what we wish to learn or what we are passionate about and supported accordingly? We have sold out to an education system that is too old, too structured, too stressful, too stifling, too expensive, too burdensome, too demanding, too competitive without choice for the majority of students, too humiliating, too limiting, too uninspiring, too formal, too disconnected from the natural process, too stifling too comparative (grading), too narrow in scope, too uniform, too imposing, too authoritarian, too uncreative and much too destructive and abusive. And, all this is supported by well intentioned and sometimes very passionate human resources who have difficulty thinking outside the ‘box’ because this industry ‘feeds’ on itself. Some very qualified and passionate teachers are caught in the conundrum of limited structural teaching options. Most of our education program(s) are encouraged and promoted by religions, governments, corporations, economic powers (stock exchanges and financial institutions, political and religious zealots, technological institutions, and the education Industry that is out of control and a power bureaucracy onto itself. We reason that this is the education structural model that will get us what we want. We put our children through cloning educational ‘factories’ for all the wrong reasons. What is wrong with this picture? Where is the humanity here? We allow well intended but misguided ‘educators’ to exploit us like puppets for their/our perceived good as opposed to real benefit making it appear as if they are there only for us. Perhaps our educational forefathers original intention was pure, but has since been ‘bastardized’ by corporate power and wealth. And, we let it happen by gratefully allowing ourselves to ‘buy’ into a sacrosanct education system that is difficult to challenge. How should we feel about that? Has there been benefits from this obsolete system? Of course there have been some and they continue, but at what cost…and what have we retained in relationship to the time and money invested? There are parts to the system that should be retained but restructured. What has existing value within this system, will surely be retained by natural selection. If they are so important to are well being, our natural process will satisfy those requirements. If not than we should question the veracity of the model we have implemented. What measurement system do we use to determine the value of the existing education system other than by economic production and success thereof? Our return on the existing form of educational investment is very low for the majority of students. Most of our students are left marginalized and discarded with this 'sifting' or 'prospecting' process. There is much ‘overkill’ and the cost in money and student health is prohibitive. It appears that our fear of not being educated precludes us from allowing our children…to choose what they wish to learn. Let the existing system be tested by opening education up to a wider focus and broader scope, and let us see where our preferences for education lie and what we gravitate toward. Let our passion for learning be our benchmark and standard for being educated. By allowing for a natural form of education, everything else falls into place. Those areas that require human resources for our healthy self best interest will attract the resources required. If they do not attract human resources, they do not fit or belong in our culture. Or, has it also become “too big to fail”.
We all learn differently. There should not be one program (curriculum) for all of us, with minor variations, to facilitate grandiose corporate and economic requirements. We are all on different learning curve`s. There is no good or bad in any of our differences or abilities. We should never compare ourselves with anyone or succumb to having ourselves be compared. We are all unique and must follow and honour our uniqueness for our purpose and not for anyone nor anything else. And yet we subject ourselves to a compulsory (by legislation) education gradient system that is very destructive and abusive to our children. Grading in it of itself isn`t bad if one is given a choice to compete academically. Competition is not bad. Forced competition is unacceptable, humiliating and abusive which is what forced grading is for the majority of our children. The net result is having the majority of us feel ‘less than’. Can you imagine everyone being graded continuously for their entire lives? What arbitrary standard would you use? Can you imagine teachers being graded regularly by their students and or parents? Can you imagine grading our children at home? Why have we allowed our children to be humiliated and slotted into intellectual compartments (boxes) for others` human resource evaluation and benefit purposes? If we cannot trust that students can and will learn in an education environment over an extended amount of time without being graded, then perhaps the teachers, the system and programs should be graded, evaluated and assessed…on a continuum by all concerned as are our children. How would everyone like that? And then we wonder why less than 20% of our high school graduates qualify for University. That is because our education system is designed to separate that group from the majority and utilize them as academic ‘slaves’ to carry the technological ‘baton’ in the various technological 'Olympics'. What is wrong with opening up our Universities to anyone who wishes to attend to follow whatever passions they may have? We have made a mockery of education in it`s purist and most natural form. We should be providing environments for everyone to learn within, which would depend upon the students’ inner passions and not only for their ability to write exams. We have allowed the education industry to become much too elite. What demographic profile does it serve? How many of us could write a high school exam today and pass????? What does that say for the existing education process? What have we retained from this unnatural exercise?

Why do we follow like ‘sheep’ without questioning? Materialism and consumerism have been our role models and false g_d’s. Has it been made so easy for us to opt into? We only have to look around our experiences to see the mess we have created and the stress being experienced by our children as we put them through his unnatural labyrinth. This education system has served it`s original purpose, has become obsolete and now we must move on. It has shown us what is no longer required for our well-being and for that, we should be grateful. So, let us give thanks for the ‘heads-up’ and do what is required for our welfare. We must change direction in formal education for us to grow and get back to feeling happier about our learning process and experience. We deserve better and should demand what is in our healthy self best interest. But, there is a price to pay for irreverence, non-conformance, and thinking unconventionally for yourself if we wish to challenge the status quo. We will surely be pressured, perhaps shunned, ostracized, and further coerced into thinking in-mass by the ‘education industry’. We still believe it is better to be part of something unhealthy but familiar rather than to be alone and in bliss. Can you handle standing alone? It will only be for a while, while everyone else begins to see the ‘light’ and start thinking for themselves as well. Be patient. Love yourself for having the insight into doing what is necessary for you, for that is all there is. The rest is simply ‘confetti’. It lies there wilting in disillusionment and isn`t purposeful, long after the celebration is over. Don`t be the ‘confetti’ in your life’s celebration.

There is ‘light at the end of the tunnel’. Check out the Sudbury Valley School web site in Mass. U.S. as an example and model of education system we may consider as an alternative. We are only limited by our lack of imagination and ignorance…and so it is.