A New Educational Model

We need an integrated approach to education and personal development. Students need to be trained as a whole being, from body awareness to insight, how their work fits into the larger scheme of things. Companies would benefit much from people trained in such a way.

In my practice I often teach all those aspects not offered in traditional education. It's not a miracle to guess that many trainings within companies are all about these aspects. Many employees and managers have very limited grasps of one or more of these aspects: what it means to be human, to be creative, to be intuitive, to know what they themselves want, showing courage, listening to ethics, being empathic. Many are lacking emotional and spiritual intelligence. However much money is made, this is global poverty.

These are all the aspects within young people that need to be addressed to raise a well rounded, well aware and capable human beings

Knowledge, Integral Worldview & Systems Thinking. Knowledge, freely available on the internet decreases being the centerpiece of education. The need to be conscious about what place we all have within the world is increasing. From dying barrier reefs to oil spills, from arms trades to lobbyists pushing cancerous products, both as consumers and as workers we influence the whole. We need to evolve from factual knowledge to deeper understanding and 'knowing'. Everything is interconnected. We are part of a intricate interconnected and codependent bigger system. We cannot continue to develop workers, employees, managers who are blind to how their actions impact the world. When you develop your profession or company you need to know what you contribute, or damage, within the bigger picture.

Connectedness, Awareness, Intuition. In the growing complexity of our society and world, the underbelly needs to be trained much better. We need to feel more what's going on. We need to be also deeper connected to nature and others. That's not something that can be solved by knowledge alone. It needs touch, feel, senses, intuition, even enjoying nature through play. People who have not developed this cannot fly.

Head, Heart and Hands. Much has already been written about these three aspects. Thinking without heart or values. Acting without passion. Knowing without being able to. They all make little sense. We need to know where we can go, want to go, how to go there and being able to. Integration of these three aspects help education to go from purely mental to fully integral.

Guts. When we mostly train compliant employees, foremost focussed on their own progress, then the world as a whole is soo much poorer for it. The courage to see what's going on and to dare act on needs. Preferably aligned with deeper values and insight in what action will be effective.

Body. The lack of body awareness is sickening our society. We sense through the body. We feel in the body. We express with the body. Good body awareness, our channel to the world is essential and key to develop many of the aspects above. The capability to ground, breath well, relax nerves and listen to signals like stress, etc, are essential to become capable human beings.

World & Your Community. Practical presence in the world is essential too. Rich kids who've never been to a poor neighborhood, never did community service and later grow to be minsters or managers can make awful decision due to lack of empathy and understanding. And what goes for them, goes actually for all of us. Being involved with and in the world through school should be an essential part of education.

Inspiration. Creative expressiveness. "Imagination is more important than knowledge." Einstein said. Then let's bring more art, fantasy, imagination and playing with possibilities into school. You'll see both children and the world will benefit hugely. Art by the way helps very much with dealing with modern ambiguities, and expressing emotion in a constructive way.