Today’s society is yesterday’s classroom, today’s classroom is tomorrow’s society

The bedrock, and wellbeing or otherwise, of a society, a nation, of humanity itself, is education. This is the foundational pillar of human activity, for good or for bad. Depending on the relative strength or weakness of this pillar, a society will progress or regress, evolve or stagnate, be liberated or tyrannical, be loving or fearful.

The general wellbeing of a population is perhaps most influenced by the quality and content of its education system. So, what is the current state of this pillar?

Not good, not good at all.

School systems worldwide are in a parlous and dreadful state, and not only are they not serving humanity, they are actively undermining our whole human family. The schooling experience for children is anti-fun, anti-health and even anti-human. And let’s remember, this is our preparation for adulthood.

I also know that for many teachers their work is stressful, overwhelming at times, and affords them few joys in their work.

I call it an anti-education.

There are always exceptions to the rule; and of course, great schools are to be found here and there, but the key word in my analysis is ‘system’. I am talking about school systems per se. I have no blame for the teachers, none for the parents, none for the children, my focus is squarely on the system itself, and what comprises the system.

In this essay, I would like to offer you an informal situation analysis of the typical approach to schooling, and to illustrate to you why I am so critical of our education systems.

I speak as an educator who, since 1992, has taught about 3500 adult and adolescent language students, and about 400 language teachers, from 35+ countries. I have travelled to 20+ countries in all five continents, and I’ve met and chatted with thousands of human beings of all ages, all backgrounds, multiple cultures, and all walks of life. This has been possible as I live in a town in Thailand where we get lots of travellers and tourists coming through, and before that I lived in Bangkok for a decade, again giving me the opportunity to meet people from all over the world. I also travel to many places myself.

And this is what I have found: the story of our human experience, our desires, aspirations and innate characteristics, is remarkably similar whoever I’m teaching or chatting with, and wherever I am. We all want one thing, but most of the time we get its polar opposite.

There is a disconnect within us and it’s stressing us right out. We all consciously desire friendship, belonging, love, good health and happiness, but we subconsciously sabotage ourselves from achieving this. We would like to be valued, but most of the time we can’t even value ourselves.

Because most of the people I meet are either in the classroom or on their travels, putting them outside their usual routine environment, I get to experience their more conscious selves. And it’s a beautiful experience; it’s why I love teaching and love travelling. When we are in a state of learning, and enjoying that learning experience, we are conscious and we are alert, open, exploring, evolving, and so we thrive. That happens in my classrooms, and I would say when we are travelling we are in the classroom of the world.

But in the general everyday life of the human experience, it’s not like this. And we have the subconscious, conditioned mind to thank for the dire state of affairs facing humanity right now, which in 2020 exploded into outright calamity.

The subconscious mind is dominant over the conscious mind.

That would not be a problem if our subconscious mind was in good shape. But it’s not. It’s been moulded into something that brings dissonance, division, and disconnect to us. It is severely disempowering and demoralising us, and, I would posit, it’s even dehumanising us. It’s taking the connection, the power, the morality and the human essence out of us.

This is devastating to the human being.

The root cause for this disaster is to be found in our schooling during our formative years as young human beings. This is when our subconscious mind is shaped, moulded and developed. It should - and can - be done in a manner that will allow us to navigate adulthood with courage, confidence, compassion and consciousness, and to face any trials and tribulations that come our way with an ability to solve and overcome them.

You will know that I am not describing the reality of humanity today. Instead human beings are more likely to be living with anxiety, frustration, anger, resentment, conflict and much stress, not to mention a feeling of being stuck, being unable to progress.

“I never let my schooling interfere with my education.”
~ Mark Twain, 1800s

It would seem the problem is nothing new! So, what I’d like to do is spell out my understanding of what this typical schooling experience is like, and at the macro-level of things. I might say that I have asked hundreds of children for their view on what school for them is like, and chatted to probably hundreds of teachers too. Additionally, I always broach the subject with every class I ever get to teach.

It’s always much the same experience that is shared with me by people from all over the world.

Anecdotes become very powerful and useful information when large numbers tend to bring the same story.

As you read through my situation analysis, I invite you to reflect upon your memories of your own schooling experience and compare them to what I’m writing. If you have children at school now, or even grown-up children, invite them to read this essay and comment too. Even better, have a discussion on it… with phones banished for the duration of your chat!

In #3 of this series, I shall begin to address the solutions. And they are not pipe dreams, for I have been offering solutions my whole teaching life. It has frustrated me to see the standard fare, which is why I evolved myself into educating the educators, and in fact I’m now building an online Learning Skills Academy to help transform our education systems worldwide.

We are social animals, yet we get an anti-social education. How so? Consider this…

• We are sat in classrooms in rows and columns, affording us no eye contact or facial interaction with our classmates. An essential form of communication and socialising skills denied.

• The teacher transfers the knowledge that is to be memorised by the children, and there is no choice over it, no discussion of it, no group work, no speaking or exploring or questioning, no making sense of it. Those who ask ‘awkward’ questions are ‘troublemakers’. Communication and social skills denied.

• The knowledge to be taught and memorised includes nothing of how our body and mind work; there is no self-knowledge. Nor does it teach us how the whole web of life works, nor what our relationship with the world is. Understanding as an essential human skill is ignored; ignorance is promoted.

• Curiosity, creativity, confidence, a motivation for learning, camaraderie, fun, interaction and action are all denied any chance of flourishing, and end up getting suppressed.

• Cognitive skills, self-knowledge and motivation have been removed from the curriculum. Or perhaps were never there.

And then we become adults, pitched out into the wide world. It’s no wonder we struggle so much. The nurture we get antagonises our nature rather than complementing and cultivating it.

We are conflicted and stressed within, acting in dissonance, not resonance, with the world around us. So of course, much conflict exists between us, and at higher levels we have terrorism, war, and state-sponsored violence by political decision-makers against populations.

In time we become the next round of parents, teachers and leaders. We have zero training in these most essential human skills, and so we see how we are stuck in an intergenerational vicious cycle. Going back to at least the 1800s.

“Let the children play, let the children have their say”, sang Santana, and I completely agree. I cannot imagine, once we have secured access to food, clothing and shelter, what greater purpose or objective there can be for us human beings, than to have fun and enjoy our life. Yet, as children, it’s almost as if fun and joy is to be banished from the school yard and classroom.

To make the learning experience fun and enjoyable is the precise approach I take in my classrooms, and I’ve done it with every single group of students I’ve ever had since I accidentally became a teacher in late 1991. In fact, I have developed what I call the FREEDOM Learning experience.

You may be wondering what this is. Well, I shall be writing about it in my next post, #3 in this new series on educational matters. But it would be remiss of me to not at least share what FREEDOM stands while we are here!

It means that learning should be predicated on bringing FREEDOM to students and teacher alike… learning should be Fun, Rewarding, Engaging, Empowering, Dynamic, Organic, and Moral.

Imagine how you’d be now if that had been your experience for 12 years and 14,000 classroom hours of learning…