A New Paradigm for Education
“Every living culture and language is the result of countless cross-fertilizations- not a rise and fall of civilizations, but more like a flowerlike periodic absorbing-blooming-bursting and scattering of seed.” (Gary Snyder)
The Latin etymology of the English word, “educate” means “to lead out”. This means to guide or direct what is inside to a place outside. Apparently, within an educational process, this would mean to help a student to go inside himself/herself and externalize the wisdom that already resides within. Our modern concept of teaching seems to contradict this at almost every bend in the road. We stuff students with information, sit them down on hard, wooden chairs, one behind the other in linear rows, and, nowadays, we even sit young children in front of computers and ask them to learn on their own. By taking instruction form a two-dimensional screen in this way we create tunnel vision and a lack of spatial and bodily awareness. This debilitating practice fails to take into account the fine art of observation and experience of the actual world even in the student’s immediate environment at hand. The only motor and hand skills developed are a constant tapping and pecking with very little range of motion. In later life joint pain, stiffness, carpal tunnel syndrome and countless other physical and emotional ailments may arise from this lack of wholeness. On top of this the student learns to collect thousands of bits of disconnected information that have no relevance to an actual presence in the physical world.
If we take the Latin root of the word “educate” literally we must assume that true education attempts to guide individuals to draw out of themselves the inherent wisdom from within. We may also assume, as we have previously mentioned, that the point where internal and external energies merge is the meeting place of manifestation in the world. We conclude that education is a blending of external exposition and revelation meeting internal wisdom and response. Only here will idea find a vehicle for its expression. At this juncture, idea sculpts matter into form. The profundity of education lies in its ability to render this process into a conscious, creative and ultimately satisfying human experience.
This leads us into our next questions: Why educate? Why take the time to nurture and guide, to teach specific skills, to train the mind, to observe and calculate and theorize? Why self-educate, read books, walk in the woods and look for salamanders under rocks and match scientific nomenclature with what is found? Why meditate and seek to learn in a deeper sense what is coming from our so-called essence or core? Why learn at all?
If we slow down and take a good look around we will see that everything in our environment is in a process of learning, of change, of adaptation to that change. All beings are attempting to find their way back into the circle, unity, the One. Learning is built into us even beyond our DNA. It seems to be something cosmic or esoteric, a hidden ore within that drives us to smelt our yearning for knowledge into works of art and genius. This question of “why educate?” will hopefully put us onto the path of essential discovery. In our current historical mode it is imperative to dig in and keep asking why, no matter how much pain or circumstance this might cause. Why do we teach children algebra? Why do we invent new fangled ways to view and manipulate the world and use these new fangled ways to teach others? Why do we find it so hard to take steps toward re-form? What are the very origins and sap of education? And what makes the sap flow? How did old cultures go about educating? How do the animals do it? Why teach the young (or the old) at all?
I am sure that our questioning could go on ad nauseum. But, we are here to rock the boat, watch the tidal wave crack the shore and sweep away, if need be, the very foundations that we build our cultural edifices upon and start afresh. If we wish to jump into this life whole we may as well feel and sing and dance in curiosity and wonder. We are stealing the child out of childhood. We are stealing the education out of education. Why?
It is important to ask the question now: How do we educate? This question will naturally lead us into asking, who, what, where. Or, how can we educate? We employ many educational methods in our practice of learning. We have all been educated in some form, whether it was in school, at a job site, or from our mother who taught us how to hold a fork or tie a shoelace. The how of education requires instruction in a practical and meaningful manner. Each teacher is unique in his or her approach. Some teach hands-on, some assign readings, some lecture, some combine all of these. The methods of whole learning have evolved over a number of years to aid in the development of an education that “grows” balanced, unified, happy and hopeful, focused human beings. More important than any accumulation of knowledge or specialization in a particular field, whole learning seeks to locate the thread that runs through all understanding and begin a path toward knowledge acquisition from the springboard of “unity”. If identifying a particular field were necessary we would call it a “unified field”.
All of our teaching principles are founded on the fact that we are spiritual beings involved in a human situation. Whatever causes separation and isolation in our lives, whatever takes us out of the present, fractures our awareness, and divorces us from pure, one-pointed focus in the moment. The how of it is in the doing of it- in cooperation, in communication with others and with one’s environment. All methods are, therefore, directed at breaking through the idiosyncrasies programmed into us by the social and political milieu that surrounds us since the day we were born. It is the illusory mountain we climb that leads to separate and disconcerting lives. It is the illusory mountain that falls flat beneath the weight of insecurity, depression and misdirection in many of our daily routines.
We are not rejecting the many gifts of our ancestors, nor are we blotting out our future possibilities and hopes for this world. But, if we, as educators, help our students, whoever they may be, to live fully into this very moment, mutual love and respect for all life would shine penultimately throughout our communities and all our existence on this planet earth. Wonder and childlike awe penetrate our whole existence and drive us into a future of majesty, mercy, compassion and love. How can we do this? We will explore this ideal in more depth as we navigate our way through the living process of whole learning. Wholeness, inclusivity and unity are the keys to what we are seeking in the educational realm, and for that matter, in all of life. We can only hope that all of us will take the time to lift our personal veils, peel the layers of the onion away and locate the thread that will lead us back to some kind of primordial state of understanding and unity. If this happens, real healing will take place, healing that guides the human being by allowing their basic intrinsic nature to emerge and come to full expression.
When an osteopath follows a bone to another bone to an organ to a lymph node, and feels his or her way to the source of imbalance, he or she is constantly unwinding inhibiting nodes along the way. The osteopath seeks only the natural, underlying rhythm and wisdom of the body. He or she does not cut parts out that don’t seem to be working. He or she lets live what lives within the patient and simply helps to remove the obstacles that wall up the essential unity and logic of the body’s architecture and physiological flow. Whole learning seeks the same path. “To lead out”, to allow the process of learning to hit its own stride, to find true communion and brethren amongst other learners along the path.