Do we want school or education?

I wonder, therefore, if we might not usefully take some time to reconceive our concept of education and how it might be delivered in the world that must now rapidly emerge, so that education might play a useful role in shaping that emergence.

So here is my idea. First, I am going to assume that each child has the potential to achieve self-realisation and to define this, simply, as the capacity to reach its full potential. To do this, it will need to develop a powerfully integrated mind in which mental functions such as sensing, thoughts, feelings, memory and conscience work together seamlessly so that the child can act with initiative, conviction and courage. And, of course, this can only happen in an environment in which the child is nurtured as a whole person. This child will be able to engage in a deep critique of society and to then courageously participate in the nonviolent struggle to renew human civilisation in accord with our highest ideals however these manifest in each society, given its unique history, ecological foundation and set of cultural relations.

'This is ambitious', you are thinking pessimistically. Of course it is, if you are still trapped in that childhood classroom. But let's get out of it!

Each child is genetically programmed to be highly functional: able to sense an enormous amount from its surroundings, to feel, to think, to use memory and conscience as necessary. And to learn at an incredibly rapid rate; for example, children in many parts of the world learn several languages simultaneously at a very young age (without going to school to do so). But, mostly, we get in the way of children learning, without meaning to do so. How? Simply by not listening when a child tells us what it needs and wants. Given a choice, I believe that no self-aware child would go to school for more than a day (unless it was doing so to escape a more dysfunctional environment at home).

If we lived in communities, rather than nuclear families, that nurtured each child by listening to it, provided it with opportunities to learn knowledge and skills that enhanced individual and community self-reliance relevant to its future (such as permaculture, participation in group decision-making and conflict resolution processes), and which gave it the chance to learn contextually (whether reading, writing, relevant mathematics, geography, agricultural practices, political economy, tool-making, healthcare or anything else) as it participated in community activities, then each child would be spared the boredom we suffered and have the opportunity to realise its 'true self'. Moreover, by living in a wider community, our own shortcomings as parents and teachers (including any tendencies to be violent) would be diluted by the immediate presence of other adults/teachers. And we would dilute any shortcomings of theirs.

The tragic reality of human life is that few people value the awesome power of the individual Self with an integrated mind (that is, a mind in which memory, thoughts, feelings, sensing, conscience and other functions work together in an integrated way) because this individual will be decisive in choosing life-enhancing behavioural options (including those at variance with social laws and norms) and will fearlessly resist all efforts to control it or coerce it with violence.