All Things Considered (ATC) Education
Because our behaviors and beliefs result from what we’re taught, a cornerstone of iC will be restructuring education about iC goals.
Proper education is the key to sustained and long term change. A key pillar of iC is to teach students more holistic and meaningful life tools in order to build more sensible, independent, and able-minded citizens. Thus iC will shift the emphasis of education from its current history/math/science-only bias to more holistic programs equally emphasizing the arts, nature, sustainability, holistic thinking, etc.
The core of education will seek a balance between the needs of getting on the business of life (history/math/science) and the need to develop a wider, more holistic, and sensible mindset including more emphasis on the enduring programs of art, nature, sustainability, holistic thinking, etc.
The goal will be to instill a greater sense of how the world works, how everything is interconnected, and our actions impact everything else.
Curriculums will be developed to support these goals which will then be incrementally implemented over the course of 1-2 generations.
Natural science studies will become the new core of education. Grade school curriculums will continue to teach basics such as reading, writing, and arithmetic but will increasingly emphasize our connectivity with, and a deep respect for the natural world. Art, natural science, and man’s deep interdependence on nature will become one of education’s prime pillars. Science will also focus on sustainable technologies.
Another key theme will be getting students back in touch with what’s real, meaningful, and essential. Students will actively plan and implement activities related to our interaction and effects on the world. Students will plant and raise food, maintain an ecosystems and rainforest within the school boundaries, and study books of nature, holism, and technology related to sustainability.
Subjects on holism and “cause and effect” studies will teach the true costs of our actions and consumption.
Junior high school and high school will extend this foundation to the next natural level.
Competition based schemes and sports shall be relegated to lesser importance replaced by admiration of the attributes consistent with virtue, service, and wisdom.
A 12-24 month national service program shall be implemented for 17-18 year olds to build a sense of social and worldly responsibility. Research, in-situ living and learning, and community service shall be its cornerstones. A key element of the program will require youth to live in natural settings to reestablish a direct connection with nature.
Such in-situ type activities will include restoring a forest, an ecosystem, or coral reef. Working on a farm or ranch will be another potential activity and will widen youth’s perspective and ability to empathize with the nature. Yet another aspect will include rebuilding communities, learning of alternate medicines, teaching youth, being camp counselors, etc.
Proposed curriculums will be developed within 2017.
If you are interested in assisting to develop these programs, please contact Jin with some of your initial ideas and/or sample works.