What is education for?

What is education for?

The Village School, formerly a public charter school, is now the Village. We are a learning community of 24 students and four adults, actually several adults. We have chosen to be a learning community that emphasizes freedom, democracy, restorative justice, collective decision making, hands-on learning, and entrepreneurial endeavors to support ourselves.

We were formerly a charter school, a status that required us to give a lot of standardized tests and deliver a standardized curriculum. Our sponsoring district decided not to renew our charter, we believe a mistake, but in the long run a blessing for us all because now we focus on the fundamentals of real education, real learning.

What are these qualities of real learning? Here's what we think:

1. Physical growth and development

2. Emotional growth and development

3. Moral growth and development

4. Intellectual growth and development (not to be confused with academics)

5. Spiritual growth and development

6. Community responsibility and participation

Implied in these five areas are whatRachael Kessler in "The Soul of Education" calls the "seven gateways to the soul in education":

1. Deep Connection
2. Silence
3. Meaning and Purpose
4. Joy and delight
5. Creativity
6. Transcendence
7. Initiation

The current educational system is now as far from these qualities as any endeavor can get. For example, with a standardized education, learners are not encouraged to ask the big questions--What happens when I die; Why do people take their own lives? Is there a God . . . and so on. In fact, young people are not encouraged to ask questions at all. They are forced to learn answers, and not even answers or solutions of their own creation.

In the Village Learning Community, we concern ourselves with these and thousands of other questions, and searchings, and creations, and imaginings, and love, and deep reflection, and compassion, and I could go on.

Why will not the world community awake and yearn for something different in a time when we are on the brink of extinction with Global Warming? Our old ways of doing things--including education--have gotten us into the mess we are in. These old ways will not get us out. Is it that most in the U.S. do not want to face our grim future? Do people simply not want to stop living the lives that they live? They do not want to give up their things, and their cars, and their ease?

What is learning and education if they are not about meaning and purpose--deep meaning, not phony meaning--like take the spelling test and answer the questions at the back of the book.

My hope for this blog is that we will capture this necessary and fundamental revolution, no, transformation in education, and show the path to the miracle of our rebirth. We are done criticizing what exists, what passes for education. We are creating new learning. Join us!

Olivia