What is the right education?

It is a winter evening in Edmonton, Canada, deeply below freezing. I have two more days to write for byronchild [Kindred] and no readers’ questions to answer. I wonder what questions anybody could have. I can think of some that have come up with my boys lately. Like, my son Kris does not want to play the guitar. He wants to play the drums. His former violin teacher says that he has real talent for the violin. I feel I need to insist that he develops this talent. Actually it is not I who thinks that, but my mother. Kris says that the moment my mother talks about him having to play the violin she turns into… Do you remember Bilbo Baggins, the first hobbit who took care of the ring in The Lord of the Rings? He was such a lovely person. But the moment he wanted to take the ring back from Frodo his face turned into such an evil looking creature for just a few seconds. I wonder what ideas in my life make me turn into such a creature.

Another question I could ask would be something along the lines of home schooling versus ‘normal’ school. We have taken Kris out of school this year. He had the opportunity to travel with me, and later his dad, and so we thought he would learn just as much that way. I had school projects for him. He had to compare Canada, Switzerland and Australia, the three countries he was visiting, their political structure, their wealth and so on. I noticed that I learned more about it than he did. It was clearly more my interest than his. I insisted he do some reading every day and some spelling. He did it because he had to. He really lit up though when he had the opportunity to take a diving course in Byron. He did not mind studying for that at all.

I met up with him again in Maui. One day he spent six and a half hours in the ocean without a break, in huge waves riding his boogie board. By the end of the day he had blisters on every finger. He was exhausted and totally fulfilled. He told me that he had to listen to the waves so carefully all day so as not to get crushed but carried. Even now, back in Canada, he says that every night he is back in those waves.

I wonder if he had hit that place of abundance and unity that can arise out of nowhere. That space of utter perfection that some call ‘flow’ or ‘the zone’, because when you are in it, action is effortless and always unerring. You are deeply connected with everything, you are everything, you are whole.

This month he is going to a school based on the Sudbury Valley principle. A school with no curriculum, no classes. Rules are made by teachers and students alike. The basic rule everyone agrees on is to treat oneself, each other, the building, etc. with respect. There is trust that every human being wants to learn and given the opportunity will. The system has been tested for 25 years with great results. This particular school is new. I feel a bit uneasy when I go there and see the kids play computer games. At first sight it does not strike me as a place of great creativity, but neither do ‘real’ schools for that matter. The kids seem relaxed and quite confident. Kris is testing it out to see if he can really learn something there, as he puts it. The other day I looked in his schoolbag and saw a driver’s manual. He was going to study that! He will be 14 years old soon and here in Canada that is the earliest driver’s test age. Somehow that wrinkled up driving manual instilled quite some trust in me.

On the other hand my son Kiosh is writing final exams every day this week in his ‘normal’ school. He thrives on finding out with just how little effort he can get the marks he wants.

Which is the better approach?

I don’t take the above questions lightly and I feel that they need to be seen in the right perspective.
What is clear to me is that the moments we are in ‘the zone’ are what make our lives real lives.  That seems to be our first nature. My deepest commitment is to be available to that. To become more finely and deeply aware of that in everything, also in the way I am with my boys. It is such a small thing really, coming out of this moment only. Why don’t we let that determine the rest!