Education to change the world

We would also need to understand how each of us can best be enabled to learn. My understanding of this is that we each have our own unique learning agenda and preferred ways of learning; and we tend to want to focus on one thing at a time, and pursue it obsessively until we have mastered it to our satisfaction. This was particularly confirmed for me by the findings of a 15-year study called the Peckham Experiment (Stallibrass, A 1989. Being Me and Also Us: Lessons From the Peckham Experiment. Scottish Academic Press, Edinburgh, UK; see also: www.thephf.org; www.ru.org/stalib.htm); and also in my work at the University of Western Sydney, where I aimed to enable students to learn about Social Ecology, which deals with all of the things I am discussing here (I define Social Ecology as: the study and practice of personal, social [including all economic, political and other institutional considerations], and ecological sustainability and change, based on the critical application and integration of ecological, humanistic, relational, community and 'spiritual' values to enable the sustained wellbeing of all; see also:Wright D, Camden-Pratt C, Hill S (eds) 2011. Social Ecology: Applying Ecological Understanding to our Lives and our Planet. Hawthorn Press, Stroud, UK; powerpoint presentations on applied social ecology are available at: www.stuartbhill.comand www.scribd.com/doc/55937783).

So, organising learners into age groups, sticking them in classrooms, and subjecting them to imposed, diversified, daily curricula is clearly a recipe for disaster. Predictably, most of the learners, for most of the time, are sitting there waiting for something to happen that is of relevance to their particular learning agenda. It is a bit like roulette – with very few winners and lots of losers!

No wonder learners commonly don't pay attention, misbehave, seek compensatory stimulation, go to sleep, drop out, and learn so little of what is being presented. In such systems, learners really have only three choices: to go along with the agenda of the SYSTEM, and become 'colonised' and half dead in the process (which is what happened, and is still happening, to most of us), to rebel and tie up half of one's energy in resisting the imposed learning agendas, and in trying to stay alive (this usually involves a diverse range of acting-out behaviours, which are invariably addressed through 'behaviour management' strategies; by focussing on the symptoms of the problem, and aiming to achieve compliance, these fail to recognise, and thereby help perpetuate the underlying causes), or to withdraw and drop out. All of the world's real geniuses, not surprisingly, were individuals who, in one way or another, were able to escape or recover from the 'colonisation' process.

It is not really very complex; indeed, it is actually profoundly simple: educators can be most effective by enabling learners to clarify what they want to learn, and in supporting them in their unique learning journeys. This may involve empathetic, active listening, providing respectful, constructive feedback, appropriate challenging, facilitating access to relevant information and resources, mentoring, modelling and sharing (particularly of enabling stories from one's own and other's experiences, including from throughout history), acknowledging and celebrating efforts and achievements – and even, occasionally, when requested and appropriate, to actually do some 'conventional' teaching. Currently, this is being most effectively done in the best of the 'democratic (alternative) schools' (Hecht Y 2010. Democratic Education: A Beginning of a Story. Alternative Education Resource Organization, Roslyn Heights, NY; see also: www.yaacovhecht.com; www.educationrevolution.org; www.idenetwork.org; www.aapae.edu.au;the last two sites list the 14 'democratic schools' in Australia).

Because there is a limit to how much individual coaching our poorly paid and under-appreciated teachers can provide, a primary task – in addition to addressing this – is for educators to design, establish and maintain the structures and procedures that can provide the above 'services' through mutual support and collaboration within, and beyond, the school learning environment.

The underlying challenge, however, is to fundamentally transform our institutional structures and processes so that all of this can actually happen; and to be constantly ready to courageously take small meaningful initiatives whenever and wherever opportunities arise.

A visual comparison of key influencing variables within 'transformative' and 'colonising' educational systems is provided below in Figure 1. Thus, within the 'transformative' educational systems, equitable and respectful differentiation (valuing and working with difference) replaces hierarchical differentiation (with winners and losers); enabling and valuing spontaneity and deep subjectivity (and the associated development of wisdom) replaces an emphasis on control, predictability and naive objectivity (with its focus on memorisation and limited cleverness); and nurturing relationships that are mutualistic, caring and loving (co-operacy: collaborative pluralism in the service of wellbeing for all; Hunter D, Bailey A, Taylor B 1997. Co-operacy: A New Way of Being at Work. Tandem Press, Birkenhead, NZ.) replace the current focus on individualism and competition. In the Peckham Experiment, mentioned earlier, when children were enabled to follow their own learning agendas, rather than those of adults, they showed little interest in competition, and focussed on consistently improving their own performance over time.

Fig. 1. Comparison of key elements of transformative and colonising education (modified from E O'Sullivan 1999Transformative Learning: Educational Vision for the 21^st Century. Zed Books, London).

Yes, if we approached education in this way humans might actually be enabled to become much more fully human, and who knows what might happen!