ecologist Garrett Hardin called this the “tragedy of the commons.” Businesses are allowed to transfer to the public “common” all of the “externalities” like the increase in unemployed, the need for a bigger safety net and more prisons, the water and air pollution. Thus, businesses don’t have to bear these costs; taxpayers do. We also end up with more costs for damaged souls and damaged lives. Look at what is happening with education. So many young people are graduating from college with debts of $50,000, $75,000, even $100,000 before they even get their first job. That effectively makes them indentured servants for an e... posted on Nov 12 2020 (28,285 reads)

March 15th alone, 1.6 million strikers were counted across 125 countries. This environmental movement to reduce carbon emissions was started by Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg in late 2018. In the meantime, a discussion has ensued among politicians in Germany about whether it is the right thing for students to take to the streets instead of the classroom on Fridays. The principles below weigh in on this conversation from a bigger picture view: how to “update” the world’s educational system, particularly the university, to tackle the technological, environmental, and social disruptions of the 21st century. See figure 1. Figure 1: Twelve Principles for Reinventing th... posted on May 25 2020 (11,086 reads)

Right before arriving at my destination -- which at the time happened to be a high-end hotel -- he asked me, "What is the secret of your success?  Please tell me, sir, I want to know."  Of course, what he was really asking was, "What can I do, that presumably you are doing, that would allow me to live the better life you appear to have?" The honest reply would have been, "Have been born in a wealthy country to good parents who will see that you get a good education," but of course, that would have been of little help. A more practical answer is something that I continue to struggle with. The answer was certainly not more virtue, at least for him.... posted on Jul 18 2011 (12,535 reads)

received many responses from various organizations but not too many from the massive side like Bill and Melinda. I’ve heard second hand about George Soros in conversation about it and an internal gathering at Ford. So, lots of people are talking, but not really talking to me, and I think that’s a good thing. You say in your piece, “Often I hear people say, “if only they had what we have” (clean water, access to health products and free markets, better education, safer living conditions). Yes, these are all important. But no “charitable” (I hate that word) intervention can solve any of these issues. It can only kick the can down the road... posted on Oct 8 2013 (25,022 reads)

& Community (Algonquin Books, 2016, 304 pages) JS: What can schools do better to help kids develop an affinity for nature?  RL: While many school districts in the U.S. are going in the opposite direction—toward less physical movement and more testing, more hours at desks or in the classroom—a counter trend is growing, toward school gardens, natural play areas, getting kids out of the classroom. We’re beginning to see the true greening of American education. In education, for every dollar we spend on the virtual, we should spend at least another dollar on the real, especially on creating more learning environments in natural settings. Ultima... posted on Nov 23 2016 (15,732 reads)

Order, became a friar, I believe — was it 1961? Fr. Rohr: That’s when I took first vows. That’s right. Ms. Tippett: And took first vows. And how old were you then? Fr. Rohr: Oh, we’d never let someone do this today, so I’m embarrassed to say it, but I was just 19. I think they wanted to get us before we met a girl or something. [laughs] Ms. Tippett: [laughs] But as you describe in your writing, the Franciscans then gave you a broad liberal arts education. Fr. Rohr: Yeah, they really did. Ms. Tippett: And you describe how this actually set off a very different second journey into rational complexity and also a different spirituality, it... posted on Sep 11 2017 (14,414 reads)

the next time I came back it was gone.  So that's the 1-4-3 story. The most recent post on my blog, which is kindnessandy.com, is about Benson and me walking this past Monday; we saw 1-4-3 spray painted on a sidewalk. Anne: Wow. Such a beautiful story. I’m curious how you and Melinda came to start the Puget Sound Community School; what led you to found a school on kindness? Andy: That’s a lovely question. I don't want to sound disrespectful to fans of public education, but I have concerns about it. I call myself the product of public education in the 1970s and early 1980s. I graduated in 1981, and I did really well by public school standards. I had a high... posted on Apr 7 2019 (7,395 reads)

Koli, a resident of Laximinagar basti in Lat, a village in the Kolhapur district of Maharashtra, has become a symbol of hope in the village thanks to her exemplary efforts in the field of education. A passionate believer in the importance of the education, Sushila noticed that there was no Anganwadi in the vicinity, and because of this, young children, who would have otherwise attended pre-school, had to abandon the hopes of receiving an education and would instead go to help in the fields. Sushila decided to do something about this and opened an Anganwadi in the basti. However, no one was willing to help her, and there was very little government support as well. So, she s... posted on Dec 10 2018 (6,216 reads)

capitalist theory the basic assumption about human being is done in a very wrong way. It’s assumed in a capitalist theory all human beings are motivated by self-interests. Everyone is selfish, everyone is trying to gain things for they themselves. As if everyone is born with the dollar sign in their eyes! So they’re pursuing the dollars. I said, that’s where it’s wrong, this interpretation of humanity. Human beings are not born with dollar signs in their eyes. Our education system has put those dollar signs in their eyes. And our economic system put those dollar signs in their eyes. The real human being is selfish and selfless at the same time. Selfishness has ... posted on Jul 24 2018 (7,386 reads)

of accumulation. Rather, it resides in a host of personal values that are closer to our hearts, as illustrated by the Himalayan nation of Bhutan (population: about 700,000). For many years, Bhutan has measured its general well-being—as the people themselves subjectively report it—using a Gross National Happiness (GNH) index. Its government bases policy decisions on how they might effect the kind of happiness associated with contentment, family, community, spirituality, education, compatibility with nature and good physical health. After years of primary research, the Bhutanese have identified nine domains for assessing happiness:  psychological well-being, phys... posted on Nov 20 2011 (23,433 reads)

doing what the machines were supposed to be about—freeing us from labor.   RW:  If we were freed from labor, then what would we do with our time?   AA:  Grow consciousness.   RW:  And what we’re doing now is watching TV and YouTube, and so on.    AA:  Exactly. This is the unfortunate thing. It’s a fulfillment of the old Protestant saying that idle hands are the Devil’s workshop. We haven’t used education for raising the human spirit. We’ve been using education as training to prepare individuals for businesses and careers, even as teachers and philosophers.   RW: In other words, ... posted on Nov 12 2013 (29,017 reads)

sit cross-legged in a circle, surrounding a baby clad in a onesie with the word “Teacher” on the front. Over the course of a year, students learn to label the baby’s feelings and to interpret his or her actions. They learn to look beyond language to identify underlying emotions, whether joy, fear, frustration, or curiosity. In so doing, they learn to understand their own emotions and those of others. They’re in a program called Roots of Empathy, part of a growing education trend broadly referred to as “social and emotional learning” (SEL), where children—and often their teachers and parents—learn to manage emotions, and to develop the s... posted on Jun 25 2014 (17,680 reads)

life – in some ways, she says, feeling more at home than she ever did. School ended, but Melching stayed, teaching English at three different cultural centers to cover the rent of her $40 room. “It was enough to keep me there,” she remembers with a laugh. 40 years later, Melching’s story continues in Dakar. She is the founder and executive director of Tostan, a nonprofit organization turning top-down development on its head. Tostan uses a three-year, non-formal education program that puts African communities in charge of their own futures. Called the Community Empowerment Program (CEP), Tostan is taking a holistic approach. One of Tostan’s most nota... posted on Oct 5 2014 (28,498 reads)

life – in some ways, she says, feeling more at home than she ever did. School ended, but Melching stayed, teaching English at three different cultural centers to cover the rent of her $40 room. “It was enough to keep me there,” she remembers with a laugh. 40 years later, Melching’s story continues in Dakar. She is the founder and executive director of Tostan, a nonprofit organization turning top-down development on its head. Tostan uses a three-year, non-formal education program that puts African communities in charge of their own futures. Called the Community Empowerment Program (CEP), Tostan is taking a holistic approach. One of Tostan’s most nota... posted on Oct 5 2014 (3,822 reads)

me, the process of education is intimately related to the process of healing. The root word of education -- educare -- means to lead forth a hidden wholeness in another person. A genuine education fosters self-knowledge, self-trust, creativity and the full expression of one’s unique identity. It gives people the courage to be more. Yet over the years so many health professionals have told me that they feel personally wounded by their experience of professional school and profoundly diminished by it. This was my experience as well.  It has made me wonder. Perhaps what we have all experienced is not an education at all but a training, which is something qu... posted on Jan 28 2015 (34,890 reads)

child psychiatrist and trauma specialist uses brain science to transform public education in high-poverty schools cross America. Watch a video about Dr. Pamela Cantor A few weeks after September 11, 2001, Pamela Cantor, then 53, received a call from the New York City Board of Education asking her to lead a team to assess the emotional impact of the attacks on the city’s public school children. As a child psychiatrist specializing in trauma for nearly two decades, she welcomed the opportunity. However, what she discovered from her team’s assessment surprised her. “From lower Manhattan to the Bronx, most of the children I met were traumatized less ... posted on Feb 4 2015 (38,204 reads)

idea how well it’s working out. I like the idea because it’s the federal government doing it, and the federal government has typically been really bad — I mean, they are the worst. If you think about it, it makes sense why. They are on the top theoretically in some ways — the 50 state governments and all those municipal governments under them. So, they are not in a position really to go micro. I understand that. But what they did with this Race to the Top program in education I thought was a really good idea. Again, I don’t know how well it’s going to work out, but they set up, first of all, a contest, which means that there are incentives that presum... posted on Mar 25 2015 (66,442 reads)

The Vatican II came out at that time. Pope John XXIII opened the window and all the changes started then. RW: People got very excited about that, didn't they? SD: Yeah. That was a great big change. He was great. I loved him. RW: And then it got closed down again. SD: The others came back in. So when I was a scholastic novice, I wanted to major in theology. They had theology courses, but they wouldn't let you major in theology unless you were a man or you were going into education, or you quit your program, so out of stubbornness, I started to be a cook for 3 or 4 months. RW: Basically, you dropped out of school? SD: Yes. And never in the history of the nuns, ha... posted on Apr 11 2015 (14,044 reads)

sit? How am I supposed to work? Where am I going to be in 5 years' time? And we looked at that and we said, we have to start much earlier. Where do we start? We said, oh, kindergarten seems like a good place. So we set up a foundation, which now has, for 11 years, three schools, where we started asking the same questions, how do you redesign school for wisdom? It is one thing to say, we need to recycle the teachers, we need the directors to do more. But the fact is that what we do with education is entirely obsolete. The teacher's role is entirely obsolete. Going from a math class, to biology, to 14th-century France is very silly. (Applause) So we started thinking, what could it... posted on Apr 15 2015 (29,673 reads)

Schwartz’s story take off on the Internet got me thinking about how much we are affected by experiences in school beyond our classes, extracurricular activities, and cafeteria gossip. Most kids deal with issues at home, illnesses, or disabilities that are invisible to others. These challenges affect every part of the learning process—including attention span, classroom behavior, and interaction with other kids. Every child has different needs, but the inflexibility of the education system in the United States often leaves behind those who don’t fit in. If you can’t learn to read the way reading is taught, you’re out of luck. Roadblocks like this hurt ... posted on May 28 2015 (27,072 reads)