Daniel Goleman writes: In a system there are no side effects – just effects, anticipated or not. What we see as “side effects” simply reflects our flawed understanding of the system. In a complex system cause and effect may be more distant in time and space than we realize. Much of the time people attribute what happens to them to events close in time and space, when in reality it’s the result of the dynamics of the larger system within which they are embedded. [in Focus - The Driver of Excellence]
Teachers all over and beyond Europe suffer. Here they suffer more than in China, where teachers are used serve as the regime's executive arm. Here they are less experienced with following orders which change by the week. Teachers are miserable slaves in a system which they are ordained to keep in place in order to let adults go to office and purchase things they don't need. But what about the children they are asked to guide towards enlightenment and wisdom?
The cause and effect chain is as simple as this: scientists tell us that we live in the Anthropocene, i.e. the geological age which is defined by man's impact on the planet. It is without doubt how we educate our offspring what defines the next generations impact on the planet. That's not rocket science. Its common sense. However, we go at great length to maintain the status quo. We ask our children to wear masks in school all day. We ask them to bore themselves to death during online classes which are hardly interesting when experienced in the classroom.
What is it that we want to testify to ourselves? That we have seen the collapse coming but were incapable to react in time? That we rather conform to a failing system than have the courage to think about something new? I feel like we go through a new form of holocaust. Then we looked away and pretended that fellow human beings were slaughtered by a - in Erich Fromm words' - mechanistic culture. Now we look away and pretend not to see that our children are being spiritually and emotionally slaughtered in an industrial system which has become obsolete and needs to be abandoned for the sake of humanity's survival and evolution.
I am at my wit's end. In the last weeks i have talked to highly decorated members of the club of rome, the distinguished members of the austrian biodiversity council, we have submitted our idea to transform education to the austrian biodiversity conference, we have talked to sustainability investors, we have submitted two grant applications to the European Commission. nobody is ready to take a substantial leap of faith. nobody even sees what needs to be done despite it being so obvious. scientists have a tunnel vision which is limited by their research subjects. they have lost or never had interdisciplinary thought. business people rather continue to sell "green" products instead of igniting the practice of the wild.
until a few months ago i thought that the Chinese education system is radically different from Europe's. Covid-19 has shown that it is essentially the same. Instead of granting our children and their parents a well deserved winter break, a break which is in deep alignment with the rhythm of nature, a break which allows beast, man and land to rest and regenerate, a break which was an annual rule until the peak of the industrial revolution, instead of granting this break, we busy ourselves through the quietest of all times, force ourselves and our children to get up in the dark of the night and spend the same amount of hours in classes and offices as we do during the long days of summer.
why do not more people react to this insanity and call for a change?
Teachers all over and beyond Europe suffer. Here they suffer more than in China, where teachers are used serve as the regime's executive arm. Here they are less experienced with following orders which change by the week. Teachers are miserable slaves in a system which they are ordained to keep in place in order to let adults go to office and purchase things they don't need. But what about the children they are asked to guide towards enlightenment and wisdom?
The cause and effect chain is as simple as this: scientists tell us that we live in the Anthropocene, i.e. the geological age which is defined by man's impact on the planet. It is without doubt how we educate our offspring what defines the next generations impact on the planet. That's not rocket science. Its common sense. However, we go at great length to maintain the status quo. We ask our children to wear masks in school all day. We ask them to bore themselves to death during online classes which are hardly interesting when experienced in the classroom.
What is it that we want to testify to ourselves? That we have seen the collapse coming but were incapable to react in time? That we rather conform to a failing system than have the courage to think about something new? I feel like we go through a new form of holocaust. Then we looked away and pretended that fellow human beings were slaughtered by a - in Erich Fromm words' - mechanistic culture. Now we look away and pretend not to see that our children are being spiritually and emotionally slaughtered in an industrial system which has become obsolete and needs to be abandoned for the sake of humanity's survival and evolution.
I am at my wit's end. In the last weeks i have talked to highly decorated members of the club of rome, the distinguished members of the austrian biodiversity council, we have submitted our idea to transform education to the austrian biodiversity conference, we have talked to sustainability investors, we have submitted two grant applications to the European Commission. nobody is ready to take a substantial leap of faith. nobody even sees what needs to be done despite it being so obvious. scientists have a tunnel vision which is limited by their research subjects. they have lost or never had interdisciplinary thought. business people rather continue to sell "green" products instead of igniting the practice of the wild.
until a few months ago i thought that the Chinese education system is radically different from Europe's. Covid-19 has shown that it is essentially the same. Instead of granting our children and their parents a well deserved winter break, a break which is in deep alignment with the rhythm of nature, a break which allows beast, man and land to rest and regenerate, a break which was an annual rule until the peak of the industrial revolution, instead of granting this break, we busy ourselves through the quietest of all times, force ourselves and our children to get up in the dark of the night and spend the same amount of hours in classes and offices as we do during the long days of summer.
why do not more people react to this insanity and call for a change?
GOOD KIDS BAD SOCIETY
The last quarter has started before Easter 2021. We will gradually offer a new curriculum. One which is outdoors instead of indoors. One which focuses on empathy and ecology instead of STEM subjects. One which teaches collaboration instead of competition. One which teaches love instead of fear. We shall not fear. Something much better is just around the corner.
