Without fail the first question we get when we meet someone is: “What are you doing for the kids education?”
Hmmm… let’s see, so far they’ve navigated through seventeen countries.
Learned to speak Spanish.
Learned how to sail and maintain boats.
Learned how to disconnect.
Lost their asses in countless currency exchanges.
Worked.
Volunteered.
Brought electricity to villages without.
Been permanently recorded in the history of those villages.
Solved a breakdown in the middle of the Colombian Andes.
Participated in sacred ceremonies.
Had first hand experience with ancient cultures.
Eaten more types of unfamiliar food than they can remember.
And perhaps more importantly than all of the previous, they’ve made friends of every age in every place we’ve been.
That’s just off the top of my head.
If a Rolodex is as important as people say… these guys already have one of global proportions.
And… without fail their response to my explanation is…. “No… that’s not what I meant. I was talking about their schooling.”
GLOBAL BUY IN
I’ve never seen such solidarity of opinion on… well, anything. If nothing else, it’s evidence of how thoroughly the world, not just the first world… but the entire world, is sold on the idea that school is where a person gets educated. Probably because it’s measurable, and testable, and gosh darn it… it just feels good to know that our little bundles o joy are being taught super duper important stuff all day long.
It also, I might add, frees us up to pursue our fave pastime. The pursuit of cash. Incidentally, many years ago while combing through books at a used bookstore I ran across a fascinating series of letters that a Japanese monk wrote to his wife while visiting the US in the 1950’s. In one letter he observed… I’m paraphrasing, “… people say America has no driving culture. They’re wrong. The culture here is the pursuit of money, and it appears to operate by two rules. One, it’s bad form to talk about it. And two, you must pretend to dislike it.”
A profound observation.
If the schoolin’ tribe is right about the nexus between school and education, the global buy-in indicates a bright future for everyone. After all, we’ve been promised time and again… education is a cornerstone for success.
Education? Yes. School? I doubt it.
Foresters say there’s a critical strength in diversity. A forest is unhealthy… no more… it’s dangerously vulnerable, when the majority of it’s trees are composed of the same species. Because the whole forest shares the same weaknesses. If the right beetle or disease or fire of a certain temperature finds it’s way in, it’s game over… not just for a few poor saps (sorry couldn’t resist), but for the entire forest.
Societies are the same.
Yes it’s true, we’re always giving lip service to diversity. But when we do we’re talking about people… not ideas. And you have to wonder why we even bother to worry about the diversity of our populations because no matter who we get… we standardize them.
Oh for sure it’s true… throw just about any type of homo sapien into the school machine and… after twenty years of being taught the same stuff in the same way, it spits out a consistently conforming product.
THE PARADOX OF CONFORMITY
But conformity presents an interesting paradox. While stabilizing our society it simultaneously weakens it. Because when conformity is the goal the most conforming among us end up in charge. And when they’ve got the wheel, society suffers from a lack of innovation.
Whenever I decry a lack of innovation people are quick to point to things like computers and mobile phones and the ability to buy anything they want on Amazon. Those are gifts… or curses if you prefer, brought our way by business.
On other fronts our government has teamed up with business. Mostly for the purposes of innovating things like our killing power. “Smart” bombs, laser guided missiles, and drones… all love children of their union.
But for the rest of us common, non-killin’ folk… there hasn’t been too much in the way of social innovation for quite some time. Our lives are still subject to an economic system that crooks are constantly fucking with. We still confuse money with wealth. Our school system hasn’t changed in 100 years. And we’re trying to run a country in the 21rst century by rules created in the18th century.
THE DEVIL YOU KNOW
Believe it or not, we now have the technology to remove much of the drudgery from daily human life. We can actually free people from their economic system. Why hasn’t our thinking kept pace?
One answer is the architects of social change have historically been the folks that our schools are systematically eliminating… the non-conformists. The people to whom nothing is sacred except going beyond what’s known to search for better options.
And when the system accidentally allows a non-conformist to leak out… their ideas, even when directed at major fears, cause more unrest than motivation. Which all too often makes easy prey of their proposal. Better the devil you know… I guess.
I don’t know how it is for a forest, but when it comes to society… it seems diversity is the hardest thing to live with… and without.
BUILDING THE NEW
Here’s my prediction: the next people to make a dent in the universe will do so with a tool kit that includes, but is certainly not limited to, tolerance, simplicity, sufficient self-awareness to be able to sit alone in a quiet place, without needing to be entertained, a higher value for experience than possessions, the ability to cooperate, and a thirst for what’s not known so great it dwarfs their need for the approval of their society.
None are currently a subject in any school curriculum.
So we came up with our own plan to bring these skills into our children’s lives.
Yes, you’re right… they’re all behind in traditional school subjects like math. But it’s far easier to catch up on math than it is to unlearn fear, materialism, intolerance, and the need to be constantly entertained.
I hope.