Learning How to Love Ourselves and Others: A New Education
A long read — but worth it, I hope
There is a bit of a story behind this piece. It is an expansion of some of the content in my recent article about curriculum reform, with more justification, research and theory. I wrote it for a competition called Nine Dots, which rewards original, creative thinking to tackle contemporary societal issues. I spent many, many hours writing and perfecting this piece, fired up by my own ideas. The prize was a rather large sum of money and a book deal.
I missed the deadline.
I cried. I’d poured so much time, heart and energy. into it. The deadline was 11.59am, and I mistakenly thought it was 11.59pm. An easy mistake. This consolation did little to ease my state of agonised frustration. But within a day, I was over it. Life is spattered with struggles, disappointments, mistakes, unfortunate events and cases of bad luck. They are unavoidable. What you are in control of is your reaction. After the initial emotional distress — even though it was hard — I forced myself to be mindful and focus on the fact that I had actually still benefitted from the process of writing this and crystallised some of my thoughts about education and human nature. And of course, I couldn’t let my work languish in my saved Word documents, which is why you’re here now, about to read it.
Potential
Leaps in technology, scientific knowledge, economic understanding and medicine are continually maximising convenience, economic growth, material variety and our lifespans. I find all of this ostensible progress somewhat meaningless. The resulting unsustainable, excessive way of life is not only degrading the planet but — ironically — making us feel empty. I find myself pondering the question, is there an alternative?
Historically, change is driven by causality, a culmination of long-brewing pressures, and “human nature”, which dictates we are competitive and self-interested. Change rarely happens simply when something new is tried. More commonly, attempts at bringing about change from the bottom up involve violence and destruction (the French Revolution springs to mind). Most of us merely observe, complacent and uncritical, as the world ages. Free will can seem like an illusion, and that’s a comfortable, absolvent idea.
We can break the pattern of endless cause-and-effect, and move beyond constraining narratives of human nature. Societies tend to organically self-improve, but this is not always in our best interests; we are the improvers. All of us. We need to unite as human beings with a common interest to improve society and our quality of life, regardless of age.
Humans have enormous potential — to be monsters or to be incredibly compassionate and self-aware — because we are so easily moulded by our environment and experiences. The sheer fact of diversity among people is testament to this. As a writer, an educator and a young person, I have harnessed my positive potential to propose an alternative which could help unleash that of the world. Education is one environmental condition we can change, and realising this may enable us to kill several birds with one huge, radical stone.
We need far more pluralism: a culture of ideas — and it doesn’t matter if they lie within or outside the existing frameworks. I am here, writing a blueprint to change the world, just because I can. It might not be the perfect blueprint, but we can get there eventually if enough voices contribute. In the past, revolutions have to be consolidated through violence and repression, and it takes time for the new framework of values or ideology to be accepted. What I am suggesting is not an overthrow of the current system, but a radical rework, proposed from the bottom up, and implemented from the top down — if said proposal receives enough attention and popular support.
Too much
From the perspective of global development, the world is “progressing” faster than ever, and we should undoubtedly celebrate the achievements of relative world peace, more freedom and tolerance, a global life expectancy of 73, a literacy rate of 86.3%, and a decline in extreme poverty from 70% in 1950 to 10% today.[i] But concurrently, in Europe, the Americas, China and Oceania, consumerism and technological progress have spiralled out of control. And unless other nations forge their own route, factors like Westernisation and tourism threaten to uproot traditional cultures with one whose toxic by-product is shallowness and excess. This process has already begun to take place, most evident in countries like Thailand, Egypt and India.
Our natural environment is chronically decaying as we use up the world’s resources to sustain our unsustainable culture. The youth are acutely aware of this problem, but also most susceptible to the traps, having been born into this world and knowing no different. In general, the dominant paradigm values intelligence, materialism, tradition and money. This manifests in homes, schools and workplaces, programming us to be in constant competition and stuck on autopilot as we overspend and over-expect; overeat and overthink; overstimulate and overwork ourselves. We are in a permanent state of war with time itself as we battle to be productive, yearning for satisfaction. Many of us experience a simmering frustration about our inability to simply be content. We are anchored to our personal technology. Addiction is endemic as people — consciously or subconsciously — search for quick fixes: wine, cigarettes, skin-picking, socialising, masturbation, Valium, workaholism, TV, sugar, marijuana, Instagram, cocaine, shopping. Most can identify a handful of ‘naughty vices.’
Yet what everyone is searching for, even if they are not aware or wouldn’t admit it, is purpose, human connection and love. Everything else is distraction or practicality.
The huge, radical stone
Nelson Mandela’s maxim, education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world, is often dismissed as a cliché, but I doubt most have fully grasped the potential of this idea. Compulsory education can be used to create a new collectively conscious culture, through the promotion of individual development. We need to reflect on the content of what we teach, focusing less on knowledge and assessment, and more on awareness, wellbeing and how to access our inner tools.
I am someone who has benefited from the education system in its current state. I attended a grammar school and performed well in my exams. I enjoyed the experience and engaged fully with the content of the curriculum simply because I love learning. But I am one of a fortunate handful, blessed with great parents and an innate curiosity.The majority do not engage with school in the same way I did — but I believe they would if they had less to juggle and if they were also learning skills and tools which enhanced their wellbeing and allowed them to grow as individuals.
A society’s values are transmitted to new arrivals via education and parenting. Values tend to evolve organically but it is possible to hack the point of transmission and foment more authentic values: love, honesty, compassion, relating. We need a reformed education whose purpose is building resilient, empathetic, self-aware individuals who can raise the next generation, rather than churning out numbers and exam results. Skills like mathematical logic, scientific knowledge and how to write essays are important and necessary — as are qualifications — but they are practicalities. Education should encompass more aspects of the human experience.
In 1943, American psychologist Abraham Maslow conceptualised a set of humans’ fundamental needs. These have been fashioned into a pyramid by those who followed in his footsteps:
Education in its current state does little to teach pupils how to fulfil most of the needs beyond the second rung of the pyramid. Critics might argue that it is not the responsibility of schools to help fulfil psychological or self-fulfilment needs. But if it is within their capacity to help encourage this sort of individual growth, it can surely only be a force for good. An education centred around needs like love, relating, intimacy, esteem and respect will allow people to reach the stage where they can engage in self-actualisation.
Dividing the curriculum into two equal parts seems reasonable. We can retain a range of core subjects, but students can exercise more choice and develop expertise in particular areas of interest. An extra curriculum for wellbeing goes hand-in-hand with academic learning; a UK research report from 2012 found children with higher levels of emotional, behavioural and social wellbeing perform better academically and are more engaged.[ii]
The work of Claudio Naranjo, a spiritual teacher, writer and psychiatrist, complements my own. He was a pioneer of the Human Potential Movement and argued for educational restructuring, proposing “an extra curriculum of self-knowledge, relationship-mending and spiritual culture.”[iii]
Naranjo passed away in 2019, at the age of 86. I am 20. We have both observed the same problem and suggest a similar remedy. Naranjo had decades of practical and academic experience in social psychology, personal development, meditation and education; I am simply a young, curious and driven woman, and the winds of change are more palpable to me. I feel overwhelmed, and sometimes helpless, and I know I am not the only one. But perhaps I shouldn’t use that term ‘winds of change’ because it implies we cannot alter their direction. We can, if young and old choose to work together.
Small-scale educational reform initiatives have been attempted before, and we should draw on these to generate a national model. Naranjo founded the SAT (Seekers After Truth) program: in his words a “university for love and global consciousness.”[iv] In the UK, there are ‘laboratory schools’ for educational experimentation — for example, the University of Cambridge Primary School fosters “a culture in which empathy, respect, trust, courage and gratitude are explicitly and implicitly taught.”[v]
The task of reforming the curriculum should be undertaken by a large and demographically balanced commission. A vanguard — meticulously recruited — would receive training before leading the way as headteachers. The only way to lead is by successful example, the hope being that the rest of the world will follow. This curriculum could enable the evolution of a slower culture of mindfulness, minimalism and love, promoting respect for our planet, each other and ourselves.
Diagnosis
We cannot medicate the illness without a precise diagnosis. I shall attempt to illustrate my argument that the problem of excess underpins our present malaise, beginning with an anecdote: a scene I observed a few months ago, during that strange, summery lockdown hiatus — when I spontaneously decided to treat myself to a burger.
As I sat munching my rather bland and unsatisfying meal, remembering why I so rarely frequent McDonalds, a gaggle of young teens clustered around the next table caught my eye. One boy, with gel-spiked hair and dark, moody eyes, was crying quietly to himself. The others were bent over their phones, their faces blank, oblivious — perhaps wilfully so: I couldn’t tell. One of the girls was facing away from the rest of the group, scrolling furiously. Her pin-straight blonde hair hid most of her face. Another girl, chubby and pink-cheeked, attempted to energise the group and instigate conversation. She came over to the hiding blonde girl, placing an affectionate hand on her shoulder. They spoke briefly, but the blonde girl struggled to peel her eyes away from her screen. I observed the group hungrily, simultaneously fascinated and saddened. I locked eyes with the angry, watery-eyed boy, and he felt that I felt his pain; I wanted to give him a hug. The kids got up and left, not as a group, but in ones and twos. I glanced down at my half-eaten, disgusting-looking burger. The bright white lights and primary-coloured plasticity of the room suddenly became too much. I felt suffocated, and I had to leave too.
Cycling home, I remember I couldn’t get the unsettling scene out of my head. It felt like a piece of theatre heavy with meaning and symbolism: some sort of social critique. These kids were only seven or eight years younger than me, but they seemed to live in another world, lost and disconnected.
Sometimes, when I get sucked into my mobile phone, or my anxiety, or I start listening to the scratchy voice in my head telling me I’m not being productive, I feel how those kids looked. Usually, I catch myself. I meditate, I switch off my phone, I write down my thoughts, or I go for a walk and breathe in nature, which I know how to appreciate. Imagine if these simple tools, and others, were taught in schools and encouraged by parents? More useful than quadratic equations, I would contend.
These tools are available to us — and even normalised in some Buddhist cultures — so how have we fallen so deep into this hole of excess and resulting dissatisfaction?
Overall, we are spending at an exponential rate (see figure 2 below — and note also the dramatic dip in 2020). Globally, annual middle-class spending is expected to grow from about $37 trillion in 2017 to $64 trillion by 2030. Most of this will be driven by emerging economies such as India and China.
Advertising is increasingly effective — and insidious. Consumerist culture is founded on the callous and unsustainable concept of keeping people in a constant state of wanting more, to the point we are never satisfied. Adverts are the ultimate enabler of this. As Netflix’s horrific documentary The Social Dilemma reveals in painful detail, the economic success of social media giants lies in advertising. We submit to garish, unsettling or irrelevant adverts for the privilege of scrolling through pictures and posts which give us a temporary dopamine hit but — according to numerous studies — ultimately make us more anxious, sad and stressed. Despite my crystal-clear awareness of this, I still scroll through my Facebook newsfeed daily.
We are shackled to our phones and computers. Generation Z have never known any different, and indeed many don’t have any particular inclination to throw off these chains. An article in the Canadian Medical Association drawing on several studies found the majority of young people in the developed world engage in heavy smartphone use and media multitasking, with resultant chronic sleep deprivation, and negative impacts on cognitive control, academic performance and socioemotional functioning.[vi] These effects will be starkly, irreversibly apparent once those kids I watched through frightened eyes grow up into adults.
We are not aware of our potential, stuck on an accelerating, teleological train of economic growth, scientific and technological ‘progress’, blind to the lush, peaceful world beckoning through the double-glazed panes — if only we could tell the driver to stop or slow down.
Technological advances in the West have been exponentially generating and enabling this fast-paced, screen-based, consumerist culture. As New York inventor Ray Kurzweil has cheerfully pointed out, “Technology goes beyond mere tool making; it is a process of creating ever more powerful technology using the tools from the previous round of innovation.” These advances are outrunning us, weakening our capacity for societal and individual development.
Technology in itself is not the problem; it is how we are mindlessly adopting it and integrating it into our lifestyles without considering the consequences. Developments like the invention of the printing press, the steam-driven locomotive, the computer, A.I. and the smartphone have, over the last few hundred years, improved communication, education, quality of life, freedom and equality of opportunity, inviting the view that technological advances guarantee improvements to our quality of life. But convenience does not equate to happiness.
Modern technology is generationally divisive, hampering the all-important goal of bringing together old and young minds in the decision-making process. The latest tech soon becomes ‘outdated’ and the youth are always one step ahead, driving an awkward wedge between the generations. The Swedish Prime Minister, sixty-three, recently admitted he had never purchased anything online. A new set of values and skills taught in schools could help to create bridges, generating timeless wisdom which can be passed from child to parent to child.
We want more, more, more but actually, we need less of nearly everything, except love, kindness and meditation.
Mindfulness, minimalism and capitalism
Not even 10% of the global adult population meditate. Even fewer teenagers do. Yet meditation is such a simple, pure antidote to our present malaise. Researchers from Johns Hopkins University analysed nearly 19,000 meditation studies and their findings, published in 2014, suggest that mindful meditation can help ease psychological stresses such as anxiety, depression, and pain significantly.[vii] Imagine if meditation became as normal as drinking water.
I recently stumbled across an article titled 150 Buddha Quotes That Will Make You Wise (Fast), and it seemed to exemplify such a laughable irony about the warped, faddish way mindfulness is adopted in societies in the developed world. The Buddha would be horrified by this gross distortion of his life and work, at this shallow, baseless idea that spiritual enlightenment is something that can be achieved ‘(fast)’.
We need to reclaim mindfulness from the clutches of consumerism — and respect its origins in southeast Asia. The conception of mindfulness the general public is exposed to is tainted by its commodified state and its effects are often limited because of that.
All this might lead us to the conclusion that capitalism is the problem. However, capitalism has its uses in maintaining high standards of living, sustaining our economy and promoting individual enterprise. It is not intrinsically evil. The problem is that a system of intrusive advertising and lucrative, exploitative business has emerged because this is what will make the already-wealthy profiteers the most money. It has been allowed to emerge.
What we can do is temper capitalism’s effects with educational and cultural regeneration, reinforced by more restrictions on advertising and exploitation. Support for small, local enterprises over big business can be prioritised. Capitalism is not alive and thinking; it is predictable and malleable, and compatible with minimalism. Compassionate values and a focus on the internal (what we are and how we feel) rather than the external (what we have and achieve) will reduce the desire for excessive consumption and encourage people to live minimally and be charitable, puncturing the heart of consumerism and tackling the environmental emergency.
A new education
Naranjo’s simple axiom, we have the world we have because we have the education we have, is a perfect starting point for grasping our potential to reshape the world and its values through education. Currently, the education system sustains individualism, competition and academic success for its own sake, essentially providing a stepping stone to a job or university.
I propose the following new curricular areas:
- Mindful meditation: the main practical foundation of what follows; teaching young people how to meditate and why it is important is essential.
- Mindful communication: how to talk so others will listen; how to listen and respond so others will want to communicate with you.
- Emotions and relating: how to process emotions, express them in a healthy, productive way and understand those of others; how to sustain healthy, lasting relationships, express your needs and meet those of others; understanding sexuality; identifying toxic relationships.
- Caring for others: active education about the suffering of others around the world and how to support the most vulnerable members of the local community. Participation in charitable schemes could even be part of the curriculum.
- Self-care: how to look after and love yourself; how to connect with nature; the importance of daily physical exercise; nutrition; managing personal finances; attention to your mind and body’s needs; reflective journaling; education on the risks of extensive smartphone and social media use.
- Parental communication: parenting is perhaps the most crucial life skill, yet we are given so little guidance. Young people should be educated on how to build trust and manage conflict with their children; how to meet their needs; how to strike a balance between discipline and love. Even for those who don’t want to become parents, these skills are transferable.
Elements of this curriculum should be taught from a young age, building up the skills each year. Children can develop their emotional intelligence in the same way they develop their arithmetic skills. Crucially, it shouldn’t be introduced abruptly at the start of secondary school, or some pupils will fail to engage with it. The curriculum will not be examination-based; the ideal is that children won’t need competition and formal assessments to incentivise them to learn.
Ripe for change?
The world is always ageing, edging closer to its expiry — and so are we. One person’s life is around 0.000365% of the total lifespan of homo sapiens so far. This doesn’t have to make us feel uncomfortable or nihilistic. Instead, it should remind us that we are all simply human beings navigating this strange world we find ourselves in, and that age does not matter so much.
Mindfulness is not a panacea. My proposal needs to be critiqued and improved, and then implemented in conjunction with others — but it feels like a good place to start. We must collectively and pluralistically problem-solve to maximise human happiness and tap into our raw, limitless potential to make the world a better place. In this accelerating, ever-changing changing world, humanity must be strong and focused, not flailing and lost.
We must stop and be mindful. We must think critically about the meaning of progress. We must decelerate. Coronavirus has forced us to confront the idea of mortality. It has encouraged us to spend less, respect collective interest, protect the elderly and — paradoxically — connect more. It has broken the rat race and may be the perfect catalyst for change.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if future historians could see 2021 not as a year of death and tragedy, but of change and realisation?
Endnotes
[i] Figures from Our World in Data, at https://ourworldindata.org/
[ii] Leslie Morrison Gutman & John Vorhaus, The Impact of Pupil Behaviour and Wellbeing on Educational Outcomes, Institute of Education, Childhood Wellbeing Research Centre (University of London, 2012)
[iii] Quote taken from Claudio Naranjo’s autobiography at https://www.claudionaranjo.net/navbar_english/autobiography_english.html
[iv] Details of the SAT programme at https://www.naranjo-sat.com/?pg=satprogr_e
[v] Quote from https://universityprimaryschool.org.uk/about-our-school/our-vision-values-curriculum/
[vi] Elia Abi-Jaoude, Karline Treurnicht Naylor and Antonio Pignatiello, ‘Smartphones, social media use and youth mental health’, Canadian Medical Journal Vol. 192, Issue 6 (2020)
[vii] Hub Staff Report, John Hopkins University, Meditation Effective in Treating Anxiety, Depression, Hopkins Research Suggests (Jan 2014) See https://hub.jhu.edu/2014/01/08/meditate-to-reduce-depression/
