REAL LEARNING FOR THE REAL WORLD

Q. Granted, the children are happy at RMS. But the hours in nature and the loving environment are just too idyllic. How will such children ever survive in the real world?

A.  Observing nature’s kingdoms, we see that the higher the intelligence quotient in the animal kingdom, the more likely the offspring enjoy prolonged maternal care and guidance. Elephants lavish tender, loving care on their young. The whole herd celebrates each new birth and greets the newborn. First year calves stay in constant touch with their mother, even walking under her in the traveling herd. A nine year old still spends half the time within a few yards of the mother, 5 or 6 years after weaning.

   Elephants are known for the lifelong bonds of affection that strengthen the herd. Even the group that splinters off to form the nucleus of a new herd retains the sense of kinship. Communicating with calls beyond our ability to hear, the herds approach from miles apart to gather at a familiar watering hole. At the destination, the matriarchs are the first to trumpet an exuberant greeting, and run for the tender trunk caress of a long lost relative.

   While the intelligent matriarch relies on the accuracy of her memory to lead the herd to watering holes, humans have new levels to consider in the guidance of our young. We have been gifted with intelligence that grasps abstract concepts; that includes an imagination capable of conceiving new possibilities; that ponders and reflects on one’s own existence and relationships.

   Human generative intelligence can design and redesign its own social systems. Understandably, the initial approach to schooling was in schoolhouses for learning the three ‘r’s, not otherwise covered in farming or subsistence living. Later two working parents necessitated a place to house and educate children during the day. A century later smartness is often judged by exercise of the memory, accompanied by pride in markers that mean little in the totality of life.  Like muscles that require flexing, invaluable traits that foster high intelligence, including a fertile imagination, enthusiasm for whole brain/body challenges, and the individual will to forge new pathways, atrophy in seated confinement.

   Like baby elephants our children learn best in the livingness of life, encouraged by the whole herd. A new challenge beckons: how to fold the learning of children into the warmth of community, the accessibility of wild nature, and the vitality of meaningful experiences and projects. The goal is to massage vitality into the soul, heart, brain, body intelligence in sync. Atop the graves of grades and scores for children, let new markers measure the system’s proficiency in finding the key to each child’s enthusiasm for a unique, fulfilling path. In this case independently derived goals drive the learning. Coupled with the richness of experiential imprints, the memory becomes a resource for real human brilliance to meet pressing social and ecological challenges.

   Graduates empowered by real learning can greatly impact the real world.