All over the world the education of children is listed as a political priority. Countries recognise that the future is dependent upon children growing up to be successful adults. But what sort of success are we advocating? Something that promotes and celebrates us as self-motivated, happy, fulfilled individuals in touch with ourselves, our communities and the larger world? Or something that comes intricately bound to external expectations, that supports the few and damns the many, that cultivates the likelihood of low self-esteem and manifests in a deprivation of meaningful life purpose and contribution.

There is a growing and rapidly spreading call for the transformation of current learning systems. The evidence for such transformation is coming from the diverse fields of the cognitive sciences, cultural anthropolology, developmental and humanistic psychology, the biological and social sciences and evolving brain studies. As John Abbott, President of the 21st Century Learning Initiative, says "the Western model of education, in light of the needs of the needs of the late 20th century, is largely 'upside-down and inside-out'. Indeed it is interesting to reflect that so many of our current models were derived out of an 18th century perspective where children were seen as empty vessels in need of filling and the content of the then prescribed knowledge was predominantly linked to the needs of the workplace. Intelligence was seen as being largely innate and learning abilities to increase as children grew older. The process of learning was seen as being dependent upon instruction and reliant upon extrinsic reward systems. Learning increasingly therefore became something that was valid only when formally taught and easily measurable. Previous to this time children were dynamically connected to their communities and knew work only as something that had meaning and purpose and was intrinsically connected to their family and community life. The introduction of the formal schooling system not only comprehensively divorced children from family and community but went on to separate and segregate by age and gender.

Traditional schooling systems, therefore, have been predominantly created by people who were unaware of the extraordinary diversity and potential of human learning. It is only recently that we have begun to truly understand that we are each and every one of us a unique individual with innate predispositions and unique ways of perceiving and interacting with the world. We now know that there are a number of different 'intelligences' that include: linguistic and logical-mathematical (the styles of thinking measured most often on psychological tests), musical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic (including large and small motor skills), interpersonal (an area of strength for teachers, social workers, and politicians), intrapersonal (self-knowledge), naturalist and what is now being termed spiritual or existential. In most countries school has focused almost exclusively on language and logic and has developed complex paper-based systems to measure attainment. The individual abilities of children according to these measurements are clearly identified and broadcast and children therefore soon learn to label themselves as a success or a failure according to the outcomes.

We are also seeing considerable growth in our understanding of the emotions and the part they play in how we feel about our learning. Daniel Goleman started the debate with his book 'Emotional Intelligence' but numerous other investigators have gone on to expand his theories and EQ is now a hot subject for most modern educational thinkers with courses and seminars springing up in every major city. EQ suggests that we simply cannot divorce emotions from thinking, that our every thought comes with an emotional attachment according to our experiences and expectations of the world, and that negative attachments severely hamper and obstruct learning processes. Many key individuals are now challenging this situation and looking for alternatives. Like many others Howard Gardner, Professor of Cognition and Education at Harvard and author of 'Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences' is calling for a much simplified curriculum with students able to study in a more personalised way, and in vastly greater depth, topics that really interest them. As he says, why should we continue to ask children to memorize vast amounts of information when it is increasingly easy to carry all the data we need on a single CD or palm pilot? It is intelligent thinking and feeling skills that we need to nurture in our students which will then give them the ability to interact with the world in positive, creative ways. And it is the whole world that they need to learn to interact with for we no longer live in isolated communities and cultures, but are increasingly merging into one gloriously multicultural global community.

We must stop seeing learning as something that begins when you enter school as a young child and which stops when you leave, or something that you only do when you are made to and avoid at all costs when you have free time. The word school actually comes from the Greek word 'scholea' which ironically means leisure as the Greeks felt that the best use of leisure time was to study and that one could only become truly human by devoting time to self-development. It is becoming increasingly apparent that we are fundamentally 'designed' to be natural learners and that it is only when our natural curiosity and flow of learning is obstructed that we turn away from this core part of ourselves. The joy of learning that we see in very young children doesn't actually go away - it is eroded by the extraordinary constraints that we have erected for ourselves. And fearful, frustrated, unfulfilled individuals, whether children or adults, are what go to create the make or break of our societies.

So maybe the time has come for us all to insist that the joy of learning is re-instated as a fundamental human right which should go forward into all constitutional agendas. Such a right should be supported by the information that is now rapidly coming to light as a true 'Science of Learning' based upon our own natural human processes. We are lifelong learners, designed to be curious, innovative, questing individuals. That is what has made the human race so dominant upon this planet and it is that which, if successfully harnessed, could be our saving grace.

"You are not a black hole that needs to be filled; you are a light that needs
to be shined."
-Alan Cohen

Copyright Wendy Ellyatt. 2001