Standardized testing, ranking schools, and undermining student intelligence are the current trends of education. It is a time of dramatic change as schools turn into factories which are churning out students being taught a narrow set of skills readied to enter the ‘workforce’.
Students have become mere dapplers in education – learning a little bit of everything without any real depth – rather than obtaining mastery, thorough and applicable knowledge on a subject. Students have stopped learning just for the sake of knowledge and instead are making cover letters and resumes as early as grade seven.
Teachers, as well, are increasingly scrutinized and held accountable if their class does not rank in the ‘top’ schools of the city in two isolated subjects: English and Math. As a result, teachers have to ‘teach to the test’ producing deadening curricula, taking the heart and soul out of education.
However, this is not being done without the concerned eye of holistic teachers and interestingly, environmentalists[1], who are advocating in the margins, barely heard, over dumbed-down[2] learning outcomes in the hallways of our schools. An obsession with grades and testing are loudly taking over construction paper poems and watercolour paintings. Schools are leaning towards the left-side of the brain, teaching logic, reason, and analytics as priority and are leaving out the right-side of the brain that teaches compassion, creativity and culture as Art, Music, Drama and Physical Education are side-lined in the curriculum.
Students do not have a choice whether they want to learn English or Math[3] but PE becomes optional[4] as students enter high-school. Students can not even choose the latter as they are bombarded with homework[5] in the ‘priority’ subjects. The priorities have drastically changed, as the time allocation for PE and Art has gone from everyday to twice a week for only 30 minutes.
Moreover, many teachers are frustrated that they don’t have the time for even that, as time constraints to ‘finish the curriculum’ loom. Unless the teacher herself is a lover of PE or Art, it is forgotten under the guise of ’subject priority’ in schools. Even more, resources to teach Art or PE are a luxury as paint has dried up and basketballs are left deflated. This also teaches students that Art, PE or Drama is something they can do after-school in a club (after the ‘real’ learning is done). They become mere hobbies rather than an important skill set.
Yet, it is not the fault of the teacher or the administration as they are pawns in a hidden curriculum[6] that deadens the senses and positions education like a business that serves to produce observable results.
At the most impressionable age of children, usually aged 7, a students’ sense of balancing both sides of the brain is fast becoming lost. If students do not come from households that establish a sense of reflection and wonder, students end up becoming regimented, moody and stressed as they grow into adults.
Learning as a Voyage of Discovery of Oneself
One reason is because their sense of Truth and awe is subtly suppressed as their entire learning process is designed to pass provincial exams and not seen as a voyage of discovery of oneself, as education once was.
How can we revive Spirituality in Education?
If the natural order of the world is that everything is in pairs, “And we have created you in pairs,” like the night and the day, then the best approach would be to equally water both sides of the brain, to give students the best holistic education possible. And, to maintain this sense of balance within students, the soul needs constant care and nourishing from teachers that teach from the heart[7] to the heart of the student.
The Heart and Soul
Because the soul is difficult to give a universal meaning to and something that can not really be identified by science, it makes it even more uncomfortable for educators and thus disregarded. And, really, the last thing we want is another ‘assessment’ test, like the FSA[8], that measures the soul. For, how do you place value on a random act of kindness or a picture of a landscape or a running race? Because the soul can not be quantified, (given a letter grade on a report card), schools are leaving out unobservable activities altogether.
The challenge is to revive spirituality in education, knowing that ‘religious’ education is entirely a different thing. Schools have a mandate to not overtly teach or promote any religion in danger of indoctrinating children and rightfully so! Spirituality, on the other hand, serves to bring universal values of all people, of all races and of all creeds to the forefront towards cultivating them in our students.
As a result, there has been a wave in faith, independent and private schools. Endeavours like Waldorf, Montessori, Reggio Emilio and a plethora of home-schooling philosophies are fast becoming the learning center of choice.
A Future Vision
Education will have a just balance between the spiritual and the intellectual. But, at the same time blurring the lines between the two, so they are a unified concept rather than just another separate subject allotted in a block of time.
An ideal learning center’s mission would insist on nurturing mercy, peace and love in its students as a priority, strengthening their identity first as spiritual beings, re-discovering self-respect for one self, for others and their environment, before any quantitative knowledge is explicitly taught.
Students can not learn anything if their basic need for being accepted and acknowledged as a special being on the Earth are not met first. For, what will a student who is hungry, broken-hearted or dispirited find useful with a memorized set of multiplication tables?
With a solid foundation in place that takes root in nourishing the soul, it’s branches are sure to produce fruits of knowledge from balanced whole students. If the roots are anything other than holistic, it will raise fragmented children who may have knowledge but without mercy.
Knowledge and Mercy
Knowledge without mercy can make one argumentative and even arrogant. While mercy without knowledge makes one gentle indeed, but without having any real knowledge to impart. A balance between knowledge and mercy, the intellect and the heart, invites children to become whole beings, with their true disposition in tact, and only then can they serve the world.
Ideally, building a new school with a new philosophy may be a temporary solution and serve a certain number of students, but public education is a large international enterprise. In reality, many students are stuck there as these other alternatives are also costly. It would be wise to raise holistic teachers to brave the storm and change the course from within the schools themselves, navigating with a spiritual compass.
For example, television, movies and now the internet are often condemned as bad for your soul. But, it is not the medium that we should blame (nor the schools). It is what is on these mediums that cause us to cringe. Television, media and the internet have the potential to reach millions of people very quickly, as do schools.
If we could have more of our youth develop media personalities, become journalists or creators of more expressive art or document interesting history we would not be so disgruntled about our screens. These inventions are remarkable, likewise, there are some outstanding administrators in schools already changing the tide. It is not the school nor the screens, but how they are being used. It is up to us to make a change to these inventions, these schools, by getting involved in these very mediums.
The future face of education shall be one that creates wonder, a sense of Truth, and compassion for others and the environment. It holds teachers who create a thirst for learning, who guide students to become self-motivated seekers of knowledge. It houses students who reflect on the signs of the universe, who are well-balanced, healthy-bodied, expressive children who strive for excellence and seek Truth.
Educare: Lead Forth, Draw Out
The word education is derived from the Latin roots, ‘educo’ and ‘educare’. Educare means to “to bring up.” Educare can also be traced back to the latin roots, ‘e’ and ‘ducere’. Educere means to “lead forth” or “draw out.” True education would steer students to “draw out” inherent knowledge rather than “put in” celebrating that students already arrive in the world with something to offer us and are not “empty” containers.
Educare – seeking knowledge from within will invite our souls to school, so we can move ever closer to the knowledge of our Lord. Know Thyself is only one part of the famous maxim we have all come to memorize – but the complete maxim is “Know Thyself, Know Thy Lord.” And, holistic stewards would strive to reveal and revive exactly that – heart to heart.
[1]Caring for the Earth is rooted in spirituality.
[2]See “Dumbing Us Down,” by John Taylor Gatto.
[3]English and Math are important subjects. I am emphasizing the need for all kinds of learning.
[4]Students in high-school have ‘electives’ to add on to Math, English and Science, which are obligatory.
[5]Homework can be seen as another tool to control kid’s free time.
[6]A type of secular education that thrives on dominating obediece of children, while ignoring their inherent gifts.
[7]They guide students to self-discovery using the child’s inherent longing. See “Teaching to Transgress,” by bell hooks.
[8]The FSA test is given to Grade 4 and Grade 7 students every year to assess their English and Math skills in written format whose results are posted to rank students and schools.
An Invitation
What are some ways that you balance both brains? If you have kids have you thought about other ways to “teach” them rather than public school? What are your thoughts on home-schooling? How else can we “teach” our kids? Share your comments below and let’s work together to think about and even put into action how kids can grow up as whole as can be.
image credit: vaXzine
