Rethinking Education - How To Build Whole Humans
An exploration of the book "The Island", its educational model, and how to rethink education to help our kids thrive.
I hope this finds all 95 of you well! If you enjoy reading this newsletter share it with others who you think would value being an early adopter of this growing community of humans looking to thrive!
Alive & Thriving is an exploration of the big ideas that are important to living our lives well and in this edition I explore how we might rethink our educational model to develop more complete humans.
This is a bit of a stretch for me since I have investigated education minimally, but I recently read the Island by Aldous Huxley, which inspired me to explore the idea of how I would educate my kids to ensure that they had a really high-quality life. I don't mean high quality in the sense of pure performance and financial success. I mean high quality in that when my kids look back on their lives, they would find it full, meaningful, deep, satisfying, unbelievable, adventurous, breathtaking, fun, joyful, illuminating, peaceful, and wonderful. These are the words that come to mind when I think about what I hope my kids will say when they look back on their lives. As I think about how to help them get there, it begs the question, what do I teach them?
I'm not sure I'm ready to answer that question, but in this week's newsletter, I'll explore the educational model in the book The Island and what resonated with me, and why I think some of those ideas are important for the future of education.
What Is The Island About Anyway
The Island is set in Pala - a Utopia that for 200 years has avoided becoming industrialized by the modern world. Pala was built on the idea of creating a society where humans can flourish. With that said, everything in Palanese society is run through that lens - philosophy, religion, education, economics, politics, and every system is "built" on how to support and develop the "whole" human being.
As a result, Pala has very strict rules for who is and is not allowed to come onto the Island, what kind of technologies they will incorporate into their society, and generally what they allow to come in from the outside world.
What drew me to this book was their vision for the purpose a society serves - to help humans flourish. In the society illustrated I was drawn in particular to their educational model as an inspiration to help us rethink ours.
An Incomplete And Incredibly Brief Summary of The Evolution of Education
I know there are people reading this that are deep into education so forgive the quick and dirty overview. Also if anything I've said here is deeply flawed please do reach out, I've tried to give a 30,000-foot picture of the evolution of education and understand that its crude and lacks nuance across cultures/civilizations/time, but the purpose is to show distinct models of education that have dominated how we teach kids throughout human history and the core focus of each educational model.
Hunter-Gatherers
Social requirements: Skill & knowledge-intensive
Learning philosophy: Little distinction between work and play.
Characteristics:
Need to learn a ton to be an effective adult
Adults do not direct education. Children are free to play and explore on their own
Children acquired cultural skills and consolidated their knowledge by engaging in culturally valued activities - i.e. participating in conversations, finding food, caring for infants, building ladders, etc.
Children played in age-mixed groups
Agricultural Revolution
Social requirements: Labor intensive
Learning philosophy: Directed, repetitive, and majority of the day focused on unskilled labor
Characteristics:
No classroom or formal curriculum. Learning is work.
Adults direct children’s time and focus on work.
Discipline needed to be instilled into children
Willfulness and self-exploration needed to be curbed as it was a threat to survival
The majority of the day spent working in unskilled labor
Pre-Industrial/Industrial Revolution
Social requirements: Labor intensive
Learning philosophy: Learn morality and become good citizens
Characteristics
Learning in a classroom setting
Adults direct children's time
Learning is focused on morality and basic skills
Basic skills include things like reading, writing, arithmetic, spelling, etc.
Basic knowledge includes learning religious values and laws of the country
Belief that discipline needs to be instilled in children
Willfulness and self-exploration viewed as immoral and unproductive. Needed to be curbed to produce good adults
The majority of the day spent in the classroom
Modern Education
Social requirements: Skill & knowledge intensive, highly specialized
Learning philosophy: Learn skills that are progressively more specific to obtain high-quality jobs
Characteristics
Adults direct children's time and focus
Children are not free to play, explore, and roam in school
Children follow a curriculum chosen for them
Children are strictly segregated by age in school
Children follow standardized curriculums that progress in difficulty over the course of schooling. Students have the ability to diverge based on aptitude and have moderate choice over classes (improves as the student gets older)
The majority of the day is spent in the classroom
School is heavily focused on thinking and working with ideas
Now that we've got some broad strokes the question becomes how do we tailor our educational models to develop the whole human being and what do we mean by a whole human being? We'll look at the Palanese education model to answer both of those questions.
Education System in The Island
A good education may be defined as one which helps the boys and girls subjected to it to make the best of all worlds in which, as human beings, they are compelled, willy-nilly, to live. - Aldous Huxley
Before looking at the specifics of their educational model we must first understand what they mean by whole humans. This excerpt does a great job of illustrating what it signifies:
In more general terms, how can we educate children on the conceptual level without killing their capacity for intense nonverbal experience? How can we reconcile analysis with vision? And there are dozens of other questions that must be asked and answered. For example, does this child absorb all the vitamins in his food or is he subject to some chronic deficiency that, if it isn't recognized and treated, will lower his vitality, darken his mood, make him see ugliness, feel boredom and think foolishness or malice? And what about his blood sugar? What about his breathing? What about his posture and the way he uses his organism when he's working, playing, studying? And there are all the questions that have to do with special gifts. Does he show signs of having a talent for music, for mathematics, for handling words, for observing accurately and for thinking logically and imaginatively about what he has observed? And finally how suggestible is he going to be when he grows up? - The Island
Education Is Focused on Wholeness, Not Societal Success
Wholeness in Pala is about helping kids become fully themselves, which means the education is focused on the individual and the development of all of their faculties (mind, body, and the integration of the two).
Another key takeaway is this form of education is distinct from ours in that its primary function is to serve the human, not the society. In Western countries, the focus of education is largely to create productive consumers and the line we're fed is the goal is to help you (get a good job, make money, etc).
In other kinds of countries, the focus is on creating workers that serve the needs or agenda of the state. I know these statements are generalizations and unfair to lots of institutions so take it with heaping spoonfuls of salt but I was surprised that some of the ideas covered in the book we’re:
Not Part Of My Education - Surprisingly I covered none of these topics in my education which was considered to be a pretty good school.
Massively Beneficial To My Life Since I've Learned Them - I have since started to get into some of these topics and they’ve drastically improved my life.
Here are two core differences in the kind of learning in The Island's educational model
Non-Verbal Learning: Educating kids on their inner world - i.e. feelings and perceptions. Specifically, how to pay attention to their bodies and their feelings as they live in the world. By helping kids pay attention to both, they learn to become more aware of what they like, don't like, and how different things make them feel. They learn tools and tactics for changing their emotional state or directing their energies in a healthy way.
Integrated Mind-Body Learning - Helping kids understand how to connect ideas, words, and concepts to feelings, perceptions, and impulses. There is tons of evidence that our physiological states support our mental efforts. Additionally, emotional peace ensures a state of mental acuity as well as longevity. This kind of learning is useful in a bunch of areas - for example, how do you channel the awareness that kids develop and use it to develop their self-knowledge, or to find meaningful work, or to build healthy relationships with others, etc.
The Consequences of Not Focusing On Wholeness Are Huge
These two areas are woefully missing from our modern education. We have a killer approach to educating kids on the conceptual level - i.e. reading, writing, mathematics, working with ideas and concepts, but don't do so well on the education of the non-verbal and the integration of the two. This is made even more clear with how we refer to the modern workforce - “knowledge workers”. The result of only educating kids at the conceptual level is illustrated beautifully in the following excerpt:
I was thinking of two people I met last time I was in England. At Cambridge. One of them was an atomic physicist, the other was a philosopher. Both extremely eminent. But one had a mental age, outside the laboratory, of about eleven and the other was a compulsive eater with a weight problem that he refused to face. Two extreme examples of what happens when you take a clever boy, give him fifteen years of the most intensive formal education and totally neglect to do anything for the mind-body which has to do the learning and the living. - The Island
This excerpt is not far off from our own reality here in the United States. Here are some societal statistics:
Physical Fitness - More than 2/3 of the American population is overweight or obese
Mental Fitness - 1 in 5 Americans will experience a mental illness in a given year and 1 in 2 will experience one in their lifetime
Social Fitness - 65% of Americans are not considered high functioning adults (i.e. have not cleared Stage 3 of Kegan's Stages in Adult Development) and more than 3 in 5 Americans are lonely.
This, in my opinion, is, unfortunately, some of the consequences of a singular focus on educating kids on the conceptual level.
I'm not trying to paint a bleak picture because I do believe things are improving in the above three categories. Additionally, I know that education is not the only factor that affects those results, but I do believe that many topics covered in The Island are key to developing healthier humans and are missing from modern education. Here are some of the core topics covered in the educational curriculum of The Island:
Mindfulness
Practical Physiology
Experiential and Hands On Learning
Heavy Focus on Biology and Ecology
Early Focus on Philosophy and Psychology
Next, I'll dive into the details on each of these topics and how they've affected my life.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness is the quality or state of being conscious or aware of something. In particular, it is used in reference to a focus on the present moment and an awareness of one's feelings, thoughts, bodily sensations, and direct experiences.
Mindfulness Helps You Feel Better & Be More Aware - I've discussed the benefits of mindfulness and its importance to me in previous newsletters (Meditation), but the general takeaway is you feel better and you live more in the moment — it helps people become more emotionally resilient (buffer against mental illness) helps people pay more attention to how they feel (mindful eating can help train your awareness around how certain foods make you feel and on how quantities of food make you feel) as well as develop a stronger awareness of self (i.e. help you continue to grow and develop as a human).
Pala introduces mindfulness into its education model in a variety of ways:
Mynah Birds - They live on The Island and repeat words like "attention", "here and now". It's a bit weird but it's almost as if the Headspace app were out and active in the world, reminding people to pay attention to the moment.
Meditation - A practice that is adopted and encouraged in Pala. It is designed to train focus, awareness, and calmness. Ultimately, this training leads to a greater focus on being "here and now" and helps kids silence their inner voice and be more present in their day to day. This results in greater well-being, happiness, and focus.
Integrated Into Most Lessons - As kids learn and play sports they are constantly asked to talk through what they are seeing and what they are feeling. The goal is to continuously integrate their education on the conceptual level with their awareness of the non-verbal. Doing this helps kids cultivate awareness and presence - developing an understanding and sensitivity to how they feel moment to moment.
Applied Philosophy
Another key topic is applied philosophy. In Applied Philosophy kids learn practical applications of philosophical theories to help them fully understand and experience the world around them. The topics within applied philosophy that show up are:
The Proper Use of Language
The Proper Use of Self-Knowledge
The Proper Use of Religion
Proper use of language
Early in Palanese education, they insist on teaching kids the proper use of language - which is that language is used to communicate ideas and express feelings.
Proper is a key word because there is a focus on educating kids that language is made up and as a result, an imperfect mechanism for representing how we experience the world. This starts super early as they are taught to pay attention to how their language affects their feelings, habits, and sensations.
Additionally, they learn early on in classrooms that language is something that belongs to the public domain and feelings are in the private domain. This is illustrated during a lesson:
Symbols are public......."S is the system of symbols that the people use when they want to talk to one another……Words are public; they belong to all the speakers of a given language.
And then the teacher goes on to describe the things that happen within humans
But the things that go on inside these little circles are private. Private." He laid a hand on his chest. "Private." He rubbed his forehead. "Private."
And then we see the teacher illustrate the limits of words with a practical example that kids can understand
"Now let's make a simple experiment. Say the word 'pinch.' " "Pinch," said the class in ragged unison.....That's public, that's something you can look up in the dictionary. But now pinch yourselves.....Can anybody feel what the person sitting next to him is feeling?"There was a chorus of noes.".....It looks as though there were twenty-three distinct and separate pains.......And each of these pains is strictly private. There's no way of passing the experience from one center of pain to another center of pain. No communication except indirectly through [words]....And notice this: there's only one public word, 'pain,' for three thousand million private experiences, each of which is probably about as different from all the others as my nose is different from your noses.....A word only stands for the ways in which things or happenings of the same general kind are like one another. That's why the word is public. And, being public, it can't possibly stand for the ways in which happenings of the same general kind are unlike one another."
Words Do Not Equal Reality - I swear when I read this it blew my mind. It's such an elementary idea (taught to 8-year-olds in this particular lesson), but the understanding that words can’t possibly represent each of our experiences is something that I believe we forget over time with the way we are educated and the way we work. The reason being is we are educated on the verbal level so intensely with no focus on the non-verbal and no focus on the integration of the two that we begin to believe that our words are equivalent to our reality.
Helps Teach Compassion & Emotional Awareness - Teaching kids the mechanics of language, what purpose it serves, and where it falls short is such a powerful way to teach compassion, to teach the uniqueness of an individual's private world, to teach empathy, and to teach the importance of staying attuned to your own mind-body connection.
Proper use of self-knowledge
Self-Knowledge is learned early on as the Palanese assess children's physique, temperament, and unique tendencies. They use this information to slowly organize classes based on what they identify as the three polar extremes of personality - i.e. introversion, extroversion, and aggression.
Mixing Kids With Different Temperaments - Mixed classrooms are a child's first lesson in self-knowledge, which comes as they coexist in relationship to others. Exposure to different personalities helps them slowly come to terms with the fact that people are different.
Kids Learn Humans Are Different - Children continue learning about differences between people (and simultaneously what makes them unique) by learning about different kinds of people through animal parables. They learn that there are sheep people - people who like being together, guinea pig people - who are gentle and friendly, martens - who are fierce and independent, cat people - who like to be by themselves, and so on.
Talk about it in animal parables, and even very small children can understand the fact of human diversity and the need for mutual forbearance, mutual forgiveness.
Learn That No One Size Fits All - I find this intentional mixing and learning about others particularly important. I say this because I’ve noticed that many of us have a tendency to gravitate towards models of what we believe is the best way to be and to act.
I think this can be observed when advice is generalized and when we look for people that act similarly to ourselves or when we have certain expectations for what kinds of individuals will do well in X areas of life.
Learn To Embrace Variety of Experiences & Perspectives - To fully develop as humans, in my opinion, it’s important we learn that we are slivers of a much larger reality. And while our own perspectives are unique and valid, they are but a tiny fraction of the total perspectives and experiences in existence. And each of these slivers is an equally crucial part of the sum total that makeup being human.
Self-Knowledge Is Not A Given For Everyone - Additionally if we do not make self-knowledge an explicit goal of education, it is very likely to be missed or only partially realized in many humans, which would be unfortunate for the individual and the communities s(he) exists within.
Self-Knowledge Is About Wholeness - Cultivating self-awareness early in humans is not about promoting self-growth, it's about helping us develop the awareness to recognize our talents as well as our limitations, our tendencies both positive and negative, and coming to the world fully embracing both.
If we had robust education in this area I believe we would see more self-confidence, less defensiveness, more humility, less recklessness, higher emotional health, less repression of emotion, and a slew of other benefits. I'm committed to helping my kids fully explore and understand themselves - i.e. I have no expectation for what I want them to be, other than fully themselves.
Proper use of religion
Religion is an interesting one for me to talk about as a self-proclaimed culturally Jewish atheist who has dipped his toe into spirituality this year. To me, spirituality’s role is less about dogma and more about faith, which I think has benefits even without the religious package. The Palanese describe their religion as heavy on Mahayana Buddhism shot through with Tantra. Here's what that means (sorry to Mayahana Buddhists and Tantrics for the gross oversimplification):
On what they utilize from Tantrik thought
If you're a Tantrik, you don't renounce the world or deny its value; you don't try to escape into a Nirvana apart from life, as the monks of the Southern School do. No, you accept the world, and you make use of it; you make use of everything you do, of everything that happens to you, of all the things you see and hear and taste and touch, as so many means to your liberation from the prison of yourself
On what appeals about Mahayana Buddhism
Eastern philosophers are often rather bad talkers, but that doesn't matter. Talk isn't the point. Their philosophy is pragmatic and operational.....For example, tat tvam asi, 'thou are That'—the heart of all our philosophy. Tat tvam asi," he repeated. "It looks like a proposition in metaphysics; but what it actually refers to is a psychological experience, and the operations by means of which the experience can be lived through are described by our philosophers, so that anyone who's willing to perform the necessary operations can test the validity of tat tvam asi for himself. The operations are called yoga, or dhyana, or Zen—or, in certain special circumstances, maithuna."
To put it even more succinctly, religion offers the following:
A Meaning To Life - The general idea here is the "Final End" which is a release from suffering, from attachment to things, ideas, and identities, this philosophy prescribes that man's noblest goal is to attain liberation.
A Joy of Life - The general idea here is not to escape the world, but to make use of all of it, to love it as it is, and to fully immerse yourself in it. So while you pursue liberation you enjoy the here and now.
A Connectedness To Life - An idea that we are all in some way connected, part of the same thing, but we individually, makeup pieces of that thing so while we all bring our own perspectives and uniqueness to bear on the world that does not make it better or inherently more valuable than others. Additionally, there is an undercurrent of compassion that it creates, which is this idea that if we are connected we have a vested interest in each other.
Practical Exercises You Can Implement To Connect With The Above Ideas - These exercises include things like meditation, yoga, breathwork and other experiences that bring about an understanding of the above three ideas.
Whether you buy the religious packaging or not I do wholeheartedly believe in having faith in certain key ideas that are empirically proven to help you live better. Faith means I have no way to prove that these ideas are true, but I choose to believe them because I can’t imagine living my life any other way.
People are generally good
Humans are connected in ways we don't fully grasp
I'm extraordinarily lucky and the simple fact of being alive is proof enough of that
Life is awesome, even the stuff that on the surface appears not to be awesome
I am one small part of a much greater whole
I am unique and have a unique path to carve that only I can make
I confess I don't have all of my “faith” perfectly laid out, but these are things that make me feel good, have made my life better, and many are science-based in how they affect our well-being. As someone that has shunned faith for the better part of my life, I wonder if I've done myself a disservice and if my kids would benefit from these ideas and if it would improve their well-being and quality of life
Heavy Focus on Biology and Ecology
All Living Is Relationship - The idea here is to introduce kids early to the idea that all living is relationship. Kids learn from the earliest days about how relationship works in the forest, in the pond, in the streams, in the fields, and in the oceans. They use these early examples and leverage ecology to connect them to themes of morality and ethics. They begin to explore themes such as erosion, deforestation, and other natural phenomena that are products of disruption in ecological balance.
Learn Ethics Through Nature - As a matter of consequence they discuss the ethical implication of taking more than you give or of exploiting prior to understanding the consequences of that exploitation. As kids learn about relationships within nature, they go on to apply their learnings about connectedness to human experiences.
Easier To Grasp These Concepts Looking At Nature - They describe how difficult it is to understand relationship within and amongst humans for kids because 1) psychological wounds don't show and 2) kids take things for granted - if someone yells at someone else that must be a normal thing to do. However, once they've made connections in nature, understood the tenets of relationship in nature, as well as the consequences, it’s not a far jump to understand morality and ethics amongst humans.
Learn That No One Is Above Certain Natural Laws - Learning morality through conservation makes it clear that no one is above laws that are immutable - i.e. if you do X in nature, the consequences are Y no matter what or who you are in the world. This gives kids a firmer understanding of ethics in human life - i.e. there are no special privileges, no unique historical revelations that confer on you the right to mistreat and exploit others.
It's a beautiful way to use something tangible and fairly straightforward to study as a means of instilling ethics, morality, and an understanding of how healthy relationships in human society should work. As someone that was abundantly selfish in the formative years of my life and has worked to shake that off, these ideas make me wonder if this would help my kids early in their life.
Practical Physiology
The use of self-knowledge builds on itself in practical physiology. They take steps to teach kids how to change how they feel by changing their physical state. Here are some of the tactics:
Breathing - Use of the breath to relieve frustration, increase calmness, improve awareness, heighten focus, or as a general therapeutic technique
Meditation - Use of meditation to sharpen focus and increase awareness
Exercises, Physical Activities, and Games - Use of physical activities or games to channel aggression, frustration, and excess energy or to release exasperation
The idea here is we're often taught how to control our impulses by learning discipline. This repression of emotion or energy is done away with. The idea of "thou shall not" is translated into the idea of "thou shall." The energy that can be potentially harmful or disruptive is channeled productively or at the very least channeled in a healthy way that does not hurt others.
Other examples of physiological practices you can engage in to shift your state are:
Cold Exposure - Cold showering or exposure to cold can radically change your state and how you're feeling.
Sleep - This is not a "quick" physiological shift but good sleep and restful sleep are huge components of how you feel.
Nutrition - What you eat and what you don't eat has a massive impact on how you feel immediately after eating and over the course of a day.
Lymphasizing - I need to go deeper here but it's exercises aimed at "draining your lymphatic system" which is the system in charge of detoxifying your body. Apparently, it's a game-changer for feeling better.
Other Activities That Are Specific To You - Each of us has certain things that can instantly change our state - listening to music, laughter, screaming, reading a book, etc.
Teach Kids How To Change Their State - I'm one hundred percent going to work with my kids on understanding how they can use their bodies to get into different states and feel differently. Kid has a swimming competition - now has an arsenal of things s(he) can use to get in the zone. Kid wants to punch someone - now has an arsenal of things s(he) can use to relax and channel energy elsewhere. Kid is working on an idea - now has an arsenal of things s(he) can use to get create or increase energy.
The use of your body is taught as a way to win at sports or stay in shape as a kid. What I find fascinating is teaching kids how using the body can affect how you feel moment to moment and how to leverage the body to feel the way you want.
Practical Psychology
The idea here is to show kids that they do not need to be controlled by their thoughts and to learn skills that allow them to exert power over their thinking.
For example - in Pala, kids run through an exercise where they imagine a bird. They are then asked to share how that bird makes them feel. Then, they run through mental exercises where they are asked to change their image of the bird.
Pretend that there are two one-legged mynah birds. Three one-leggedmynah birds. Four one-legged mynah birds. Can you see all four of them?"They could.
And now let's make them change their color. They'rewhite now. Five white mynah birds with yellow heads and one orange leg.And now the heads are blue. Bright blue—and the rest of the bird is pink. Five pink birds with blue heads. - The Island
Teaches Kids How To Influence Their Thinking - This is one of the exercises that kids are taught to learn that they do not need to be ruled by their thoughts. Additionally, they are given practical tools such as the manipulation of images to learn that what and how they think is within their control.
The use of these tools is something I believe in deeply and we've covered in a variety of different articles:
Meditation - Separation between self and thoughts
Power of Words - Awareness of words to affect feelings and thoughts
Gratitude - Practice to train a certain kind of thinking and feeling
Journaling - Writing to clear the head and work through thoughts
And there are many other techniques like the one described in this example such as:
Image Manipulation - Changing thoughts to lessen their control over your thinking and feeling
Savoring - Focusing the attention to think differently and feel better
Practical psychology is a no brainer for me to work with my kids on because it teaches them about how their brain works and gives them useful strategies to apply that knowledge to feel better, work through difficult thought patterns, and achieve certain mental states.
I Want To Overhaul Education to Focus on the Whole Human
In sum, this is not exhaustive and merely an exploration of ideas that I think are worthwhile to explore with my own kids in their education. Specifically, I want to put the following things into practice:
Mindfulness - Get my kids into meditation, breathwork, or some type of mindfulness practice they enjoy
Physiological Training - Teach them how to use their physiology to influence how they feel
Practical Psychology - Teach them how their brain works and practical skills they can put into place to affect how they feel
Relationship Skills - Skills that help them build healthy and strong relationships - i.e. how to listen, how to communicate, and have exposure to different types of humans (temperament, demographic).
Mind-Body Integration - I want open classrooms that allow kids to roam and use their bodies while learning. I want flexibility in how my kids spend their time learning and working to allow a high degree of self-direction. Additionally, I want them to be asked what they're seeing and feeling as they learn to develop a stronger mind-body connection.
Mixed Age Classrooms - I want my kids to have a range of ages and development levels around them.
Practical Philosophy, Religion, and Ecology - I'm not super clear on what this looks like yet, but something that teaches them the interconnectedness of all species and the importance of showing up in the world as fully themselves.
My ultimate goal is to help my kids fully realize themselves. I started to freak out recently (don't plan on having kids for some years) because I am woefully unprepared. Good intentions and unconditional love are great places to start, but not enough in my opinion. I've continued to see how parents unintentionally pass on their pathologies to kids and create boxes around them with expectations for how they should be and a singular vision of what works in life.
Parents have it really tough because they are expected to support their kids, make them into decent humans, and they have little in the way of support for how to do that. Our school systems (the ones I've seen) don't focus on the whole development of a child and likely can't. My hope is that as I continue to explore what it means to live well, I'll have a more complete vision for what I'd expect my child to learn that will contribute to their development as whole humans.
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To Living Well,
Alvaro
Weekly Live Well Recs
Read of the week 📖: The Island - By Aldous Huxley