Can School Change The World?

6 Ideas For An Educational Revolution

Is school the answer for creating a little more peace in the world? Or to go one step further is it the answer to world peace?

School is something that most of the developed world has in common. Maybe if we could organise schools to be a more creative & nurturing place then there would be the potential for it to have a massive impact on the world.

Below are 6 things that could be brought to the education system that would have an immediate impact on the lives of the attending individuals & society.

Autonomy
No child has a problem with learning because it is a part of what we inquisitively want out of life. We all have to learn & grow to survive. But the way one child learns can be very different from another.

If we allowed a little autonomy over the way we learnt & what we learnt I think a lot of children would be less resistant to learning.

Although school is a little different from work, companies like Google & Zappos are proving this module to be working by using a method similar to the ROWE module which stands for “Results Only Work Environment” Which in a nut shell means it doesn’t matter how you get the work done, just get it done.

In this environment children would be inspired to learn because they would be learning about topics that interest them, homework would become just a further extension of the person they are & learning would be an all-round more fun & engaging experience.

The current education system is very restrictive on the arts, as a result we are losing a large portion of artists, musicians & creative types because these jobs are looked at as hobbies & not potential for a future career.

If we had a system in place that nurtured creativity, not just as a gift, but also as potential for a profession children could come out of school feeling a little bit more prepared & optimistic for a future in these particular areas.

Leadership (Teachers)
The need for leaders at the forefront would go hand in hand with the autonomy of the children. They need to be led by inspiring teachers. I think this could happen as a result of having a leader at the head of every school. If every head teacher’s job was to motivate those below them we would definitely see an improvement in education.

If we were able to teach the teachers motivational skills so they had more of a coach’s mentality they would be able to encourage children into action. Understanding phycology, leadership & creative learning are probably the most important things when trying to inspire action (especially from children).

But our current system has more of a focus on control, discipline & rigid learning conditions with little room for out of the box thinking. This environment leads to rebellion & an “us vs them” mentality.

Relationships are built from trust, mutual respect & genuine care for those around you & you will always be more motivated to do something for someone because you are inspired by them, than because you feel like you have to.

Relationships
Some children do not know how to have a relationship. This is not the fault of a child. It may be the environment they have grown up in or they may have been exposed to toxic relationships outside of their home environment.

However it may have happened, the fact is we could all improve our relationships skills.

If we taught kids about love, kindness & how to healthily express these feelings we could create a future generation of people who treat their partners & friends with respect & children who understand conflict not as a negative but as something that is sometimes necessary to resolve problems.

It would also teach children about peer to peer relationships & how to treat each other compassionately despite our differences. Bullying is a major part of school these days & I think dealing with it at the route by preventing it happening in the first place is a much better way to deal with it than punishing it once it has happened.

Spirituality
Spirituality is less understood than your mental, emotional & physical health. Mostly because it’s less visible. But even so it is a very real & key component to living a fulfilling & healthy life.

Children should be taught about spirituality in a non-religious way from a young age. Because things like meditation, random acts of kindness, gratitude & compassion have all been proven to give you a better quality of life. If we incorporated this into the curriculum there is no doubt that we would have a generation of happier & more emotionally in tune children.

If we started the school day with 5-10 minutes meditation children could clear their minds & be ready for a day of expression & creativity. Meditation is a very spiritual thing but it’s also very scientific & according to a study from Harvard it has been proven to physically alter the structure of the human brain. Increasing grey matter in the areas relating to learning, memory, emotional regulation & sense of self. Adding this as a daily practise to the start of the school day could surely only produce a positive result!

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Emotional Cycles
We all experience a full range of emotions, we have moments of happiness, moments of despair, moments of depression & moments of pure joy. These are all normal & so are all the different states in between. But not a lot of children know this.

Most children report feeling isolated & different from others & while we are all very unique, we also all experience the same full range of emotions.

When you don’t feel good it’s an indicator that something is wrong. If we could learn to listen to this indicator & use our inbuilt intuition it could be a blessing every time we feel down because we would know that change is needed.

I think if we taught children not to avoid there emotional states, but to understand them, they wouldn’t grow up feeling so bad every time they have a bad day.

Expressing too much of any emotion (even the good ones) will eventually lead to a crash if we could teach children about creating emotional balance they would have more of an understanding of why they feel the way they do & be more able to take control of their emotional states.

Purpose
When you have purpose anything is possible! Yet some people live their entire lives without knowing what their true purpose is. It’s not easy to find & the only real way to learn what you like is through experience.

We should be encouraging children to try new things, so they can live their lives based on what they enjoy & not based on what they think they should enjoy. This goes hand in hand with compassion & autonomy because when you are surrounded by compassion in an environment that you can freely explore you have less trouble expressing your true self & it’s easier to find what truly matters to you.

A lot of the above could be argued that parents should teach these subjects & this would be a great idea. But unfortunately not every parent has these skills themselves to teach. Accountability is important, but so is compassion & if we choose to live in a world where we look out for other people who can benefit from what we have learnt. Then we will all benefit.
When I have mentioned ideas to friends about these changes most people agree that it should be part of the curriculum. But I would go a step further & say; It should Be the curriculum.

School is the only real way I see that we can teach an entire nation about love & kindness. It’s the only real way that we could reach out to so many people. It would take change & creativity for this to work, but the benefits it could have on the world would be worth the change!

If you have any questions or comments I would love to hear them, I like to learn as much as I like to teach so I welcome comments of all types & I will answer every single comment below!

About The Author

My name is Luke Miller & I am the owner & creator of Potential For Change I believe that meditation is the foundations for good health & I like to blend psychology & spirituality to help you find more purpose & happiness in your life. I like to shoot videos relating to spirituality & personal development over at my YouTube channel

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