Rethinking our Educational System

How can schools help students begin to take responsibilities for their lives, for their beliefs about the world, touch their imaginations and inspire their souls?

I have three proposals:

1. The discovery of oneself is more important than the discovery of the world.

2. Life is a marathon, not a horse race.

3. Life is a journey, which starts at home.

The discovery of oneself is more important than the discovery of the world

Both are important, of course, but the world will always be there. We need to build up a belief in our competence to deal with it. Too many people experience life as a failure, believing that they are stupid, inadequate and incapable. This is the worst possible point to start our journey - looking for work or coping with life.

Nelson Mandela said, “ Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. We ask ourselves, “ Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?” Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. We are born to manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us, it is in everyone of us.”

Life is a marathon, not a horse race.

In a horse race, only the first three counts. In a marathon everyone who completes the course is a winner. Most of the runners are running against themselves, seeking to better the standards which they set themselves.

Life is like a marathon for most of us. We choose which races to enter, and what pace to run at, seeking , most of the time to better ourselves. There is ultimately no winning and losing, only the taking part, and the getting better.

Comparative grading at set ages turns education into a sorting device, not a development process.

Many youngsters quit to find other areas outside the schools where they might have better luck.

Life is a journey, which starts at home.

For most people, life is a process of discovery- of who we are, what we can do, and, ultimately, why we exist and what we believe. It is a circular process. This process like most of the important things in life, cannot be taught, only encouraged. The lessons learned cannot be graded, because each journey is unique to ourselves.

Young people should be encouraged to explore about the purpose of life - because this will start them on the second round of circle.

Knowing ‘What’ is not as important as knowing ‘Where’, ‘How’ and ‘Why’

Implicit in our education is the assumption that the objective of education and training was to fill our mind with as much information as possible, so that it would be there when you needed it. Of course we forgot most of it. In life and in work, we learn things when we need them, not before we need them. For example, learning a new language - if the new words or phrases do not get used within days, they evaporated.

Knowledge, these days, is readily available, whether it be contained in books and manuals, on CD-ROMS or in cyberspace, or in other people’s experience. The trick is not to try to transfer it all to one’s own brain, but to know where to find it, how to access it and what to do with it when you have it.

Schools ought not to be force-feeding their students, but teaching them how to feed themselves.

Teachers will have to be prepared to encourage their students to search for facts and theories in the depths of the Internet.

The real job of the teacher is to set the task which require the search for the knowledge, to help the individual to seek it out, and to demonstrate how the knowledge can be used.

Some starting skills are needed by all students, of course. A facility with Words, Numbers and Emotions are essential. More importantly, we need to learn how to manage our emotions, in Daniel Goleman’s sense of the word, to develop self-awareness, self-control, empathy and the arts of listening, resolving conflicts and cooperation. And crucially, we need to have learned how to learn, and to enjoy the process. Schools that kill that enjoyment can damage our life chances.

Ladies and Gentlemen

You may think that there is nothing wrong with our present educational system. After all, look at us, are we not sucessful? Are we not the product of this Educational System I am talking about?

The danger is that our traditional schools and colleges will lag behind, designed by people from a world that used to be, for a world that will be no more. If we fail, this time, to leap beyond our experience, we will fail our youth.

It is indeed a time for bold imaginings, for reinventing what we understand by education.

Only in that way will our young people acquire the self-confidence that is the prerequisite of self-respect and responsibility.