FOUNDATIONS FOR A HEALTHY LEARNING SYSTEM FOR A HEALTHY PLANET

 

1.    Be based on a holographic understanding of health and vitality:  Given that we function as a holographic living system where all the parts of the whole impact and are impacted by all other parts, the study of local and global health and vitality must be seen as an integrative discipline, that touches on all aspects of society.  We need to focus not only on the symptoms of the global imbalance but on the collective culture that generates these symptoms. 

 

We need to address the mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, relational and environmental aspects of health and vitality in complex eco-systems where humans exist and have the power to determine the health of the system as a whole. It is essential also to address the complex conscious and unconscious dynamics of the individual and collective human psyche and learn about how it impacts the health and vitality of human societal systems and their relationship with the non-human environment.

 

We need to ask how  our collective processes as humans (ideas, values, forms of social organization etc.) contribute to local and global health and vitality and how they deplete it and about the necessary healing processes for the damage we have created.

 

2.    Embody vitality in its structures and processes:  Vitality entails the integrity of form and essence.  We cannot educate for vitality if we do not practice it and embody it in our education system. This means that as we learn more and more about system health and vitality, we need to radically revise teachers training skills, curricula and the architecture of the education environment to ensure that all aspects of the education accurately embody and encourage health and vitality.

 

3.   Follow the relationship principles of accurate mutual nourishment and harmony in diversity.  In nature, everything is about the accurate mutual nourishment that ensures harmony in diversity.  As urbanized humans living in increasingly chemical worlds we have distanced ourselves from  relationship with food directly  from nature.  Huge food manufacturers contaminate our digestive system with chemicals that undermine our health and disconnect us from a direct, clear resonance with nature's vibrations.  As we are an integral part of the nature and the animal kingdom, the art of healthy nourishment is key to our survival and health.  Many global challenges could be resolved by transforming our relationship to cultivating the land in a way that puts the planet and the mutual healthy nourishment of its inhabitants as a priority.

 

Nourishment for humans as with many animals is not only physical, but also emotional. Accurate emotional nourishment is essential for children be able to grow up with self-awareness and self-respect, respect and empathy for others and the ability to engage in healthy relationships with other people and the environment.

 

While we have little understanding of the cognitive and spiritual lives of other animals, for humans - accurate nourishment relates also to the  mental and spiritual food that inspires them to realize their unique gifts in mutually nourishing ways with society.  We live under the tyranny of false, manipulative and aggressive political, religious, cultural  and economic messaging, with multiple agendas to control the minds and hearts of people.  To reclaim our freedom to discern that which is truly nourishing we need to address the blight of media manipulation that is the artificial nourishment that is poisoning our minds, souls, hearts and bodies.

 

In nature the principle of accurate mutual nourishment has evolved to ensure harmony in rich diversity. Rich diversity in turn generates new forms of nourishment.  Rather than cultivating diversity, most school systems instead promote standardization of knowledge, intelligence and success and thus deplete the potential richness of the classroom and of society. In a holographic model, all intelligences and skills are recognized in their complementary value for the system as a whole and are equally nourished. Each child receives precisely what she or he needs in order in to be able to take up her or his unique role in mutually nourishing exchange with the environment. This principle of mutual nourishment transcends the dualistic debate about whether  education systems should foster  individualism  on the one hand or uniformity on the other. Instead it focuses on the honoring and sacred relationship of mutual nourishment between the core of one's own being and the farthest reaches of the planet and beyond.  Rather than focusing on the parts as separate entities, the holographic model focuses on the quality of the relational code that travels through the whole system animating the quality of interaction between the parts and the whole.  While the hierarchic model organizes according to a relational code of hierarchy, privilege and competition for the benefit of a few,  the holographic model organizes according to the realtional code of complementarity, co-operation and mutual nourishment for the benefit of the planet and all its diverse and unique inhabitants.

 

Most educational content taught can be used or misused when conveyed out of the context of the wisdom of mutually honoring relationship. It is esential that the education system learns and cultivates not only knowledge, but also the relational wisdom of mutual nourishment and harmony in diversity, between the different knowledge areas, among humans and between humans and the environment.

 

4.    Be part of and not separate from community and planetary life:

 

The education system needs to mimic to the extent possible, the holographic, organic wisdom of our richly diverse planet.  With the mandate to socialize citizens, it must be held accountable to the human and non-human environment for the far reaching consequence of its structures, contents and processes. It must be evaluated for its effective contribution to the health and vitality of the children it schools and the societal and environmental impact of the schooling.

 

Many education systems function in ways that are fundamentally disconnected from community and planetary life.  Disciplines are taught in fragmented ways.  Schools are structured in ways that are disconnected from the environment.  The focus on competitive individual learning at the expense of community learning and team work undermines the mutually nourishing relationship essential to healthy living systems.

 

Social learning does not occur only in schools. Social learning occurs in every part of community life including media, health, culture, environment, infrastructures, faith, agriculture, politics, law, security, commerce and sports.  It is absurd to believe that the education system, separate from these other sectors can offer effective learning about how society functions and how to fundtion in healthy ways in society when other sectors are playing such a large part in shaping the minds, hearts and bodies of our children. 

 

Rather than conceiving education as fragmented disciplines taught in ways   disconnected from human and planetary experience, the education environment needs to mimic community and planetary situations. Schools can develop ways to function as a micro-system of society and the planet, and develop healthy ways for the different sectors in the school and in the community (such as art, science, business, health, media, technology, environment etc.) work in complementary mutually nourishing ways.

 

 

5.    Be dynamic and evolving in vital resonance with shifting social and planetary contexts: Education systems and curricula are for the most part outdated and irrelevant given the rapidly changing context of the world today. More and more educated people are jobless in a market that has little need for many existing professions and very few people are equipped with the knowledge and skills required for tackling the social and environmenal challenges that we face today.

Given the challenges to life, health and liberty, our rapidly changing contexts require a whole new set of skills and perspectives. In particular we need to develop the social, cultural, artistic, spiritual, mind-body-planet wisdom and scientific and technical know-how to understand and cultivate healthy living systems. These skills need to be grounded in a holographic systems approach that recognizes the inherent connection between local and global vitality. The structures and content need to be updated in a fluid and resonant way with the changing context and be able to access and integrate new information occuring throughout the system.

 

6.  Cultivate diverse intelligences: Holographic intelligence is guided by relational principles rather than the many static concepts and structures prevalent in modern society. In Western society we are trained to value the rational mind and to deny and repress our instincts, intuition, emotions and other embodied intelligences.  In cultivating primarily our rational mind at the expense of our other multi-faceted intelligences, we have depleted our ability to live in vitality with all other species. There is growing awareness as to the value of the range of human intelligences including for instance emotional, spatial, creative etc. While this knowledge exists it has still not been integrated into mainstream education.

 

Holographic intelligence is the ability to perceive the relational dynamics of complex living systems.  It is the capacity to perceive the interweaving of the whole in the parts and the parts in the whole and to use this understanding for the benefit of the whole. Holographic intelligence  integrates a range of human intelligences including the instinctual, symbolic, imaginative, energetic, intuitive and creative intelligences. Health and vitality is based on the health and vitality of the relationship among the parts.  To cultivate health and vitality aomong the parts it is important to access and activate the spectrum of intelligences in every person from the  instinctual to the rational and imaginative. It is important also to learn how these intelligences complement each other and function together in integrative holographic ways in everyday activity in ways that take into account more of the personal and environmental information than any one or few perspectives on their own.

 

7. Cultivate  wisdom through learning from direct experience: Mainstream education cultivates dependence on external authority. As such it undermines the childs development of her or his personal authority that comes with the confidence of being able to navigate life with a healthy internal compass and capacity for discernment.  When we educate for dependence on external messaging, we sabotatge the child's ability to discern what is accurate and nourishing information and what is false and or even dangerous information.

 

Education based on external authority focuses on fragmented areas of knowledge and faith, rather than on the wisdom to use  knowledge, faith and insight received from others in discerning healthy and healthy ways. They are not necessarily encouraged to explore the way in which the stories they hear correlate with their own direct experience and through the development of critical and discerning skills. In other words, the education system socializes children to relinquish their internal compass, instinct, intuition and heart wisdom in favor of external messaging of authorities often with overt or covert agendas.

 

Learning from others experience is an essential part of the education process but can only be useful if this learning is complemented by cultivating a child's personal authority to discern what is good and nourishing for her/himself and for others as the central compass. The learning from others, whether books or frontal teaching methods is often primarily a cognitive experience that cannot immediately be applied to life.  Learning from direct experience whether about  the impact of different foods on the body, different ideas on a group of people or the effects of different behaviors on the environment is a more integrative learning process that entails activating different intelligences. It allows for a far more resonant and discerning learning process that focuses on the relevance of what is learned to the self and the environment.

 

8 .  Cultivate a love of self, a love of others, and a love of sacred relationship between self and other:  Education systems  based on principles of separateness, hierarchy, entitlement, control and competition generally cultivate cultures of alienation, greed, envy and fear where people are alienated from themselves, each other and the environment.

 

Creating vital societies means that the social learning process meets the needs of the people, the animals and the environment for a safe,  secure and loving context.  Learning from life with life focuses on ensuring the healthy physical, emotional, cognitive and spiritual  nourishment that allows  each individual to use her/his unique potential in mutual nourishment with the environment .  The accurate educational environment must cultivate a love of self, a love of others and a love of the sacred and honoring relationship between people and the environment.

 

Diversity in nature and in people enables the complementarity of rather than competition over needs and potentials. Societies that standardize and brand what is valued and abuse shared resources with divisive concepts of ownership and power generate cultures of conflict and mutual violation rather than healthy mutual nourishment. 

 

Sacred relationship is a core organizing principle in healthy education for local and global vitality.  Learning about ourselves as differentiated interdependent parts of the same system whose well being depends on the well being of the other is more likely to cultivate mutual respect and loving kindness than learning about the other as a threatening competitor for the same resources.

 

Educating for individual and collective vitality starts with reclaiming the integrity of love, wisdom, knowledge, mutual nourishment and service.  It entails a profound journey for educators and learners about reconnecting to fundamental principles of life and love that have been fragmented in following the paradigm of separeness, hierarchy, entitlement and control. It means focusing not only on the what of education, but the loving relational wisdom and practices that emerge from a deeply systemic understanding of vitality, people and planet in an interdependent world.

 

9. Integrate technology

 

There are extraordinary educational initiatives all over the world that practice many of the above principles. These initiatives however have not yet been integrated into mainstream educational structures. Some of these initiatives include creating and disseminating new curricula for local and global vitality through information technology and making it readily accessible to all. There are extraordinary opportunities available through social networks and technology to integrate, develop and disseminate studies towards a new integrative discipline of local and global vitality that can contribute to shaping healthy and vital societies.