Look around at what the world is made up of.
There are ‘things’, like stones, which can move only at the behest of some other force. There are plants that turn to the sun and shape themselves to reflect their environment. There are animals, wild or domesticated. And there are humans, yearning for connection and purpose, for autonomy and the expression of their will, to consciously get better at something.
E. F. Schumacher, in his book A Guide for the Perplexed calls these the four Levels of Being, drawing his inspiration from St. Thomas Aquinas.
The major way he defines each level is as follows
mineral: atoms
plants: atoms + life
animals: atoms + life + consciousness
humans: atoms + life + consciousness + self-awareness.
Life is a magic force, is it not? It cannot be manufactured, but it can be stifled or destroyed.
We can manufacture many things, and they all sit at the mineral level. All of them are devoid of life (yes, I know this is becoming muddied with AI).
An interesting point Schumacher makes is that it is possible to travel backwards through the levels. So, self-awareness can be taken away but one can still be conscious. One can lose consciousness but still be alive. And life can be lost, with only the materials one is made of remaining.
Now, it strikes me that we have constructed an entire education system that views children as minerals to be moved as we desire through a curriculum.
The life force that moves them, that animates them, is ignored.
All that matters is that we get that pile of kids from there to there.
I don’t like this. Do you?
Some people do. I heard a horrific story today of a school where even five year olds are guided through a regimented programme of explicit, standardised instruction after explicit, standardised instruction, all sat in rows and nice and orderly. The school gets fantastic results.
— Piles of kids moved from there to there —
It’s the ‘high standards’ crew’s wet dream. People fall over themselves to visit and be inspired.
But this is education reduced to its mineral form, the lowest of Schumacher’s Levels of Being.
You know what I think? In amongst all the glossy PR those kinds of places pump out there needs to be some honesty about what they’re sacrificing in the pursuit of standards and academic excellence.
It’s this: the life force that stirs within those kids.
They might as well be stones.
You can only treat kids like that for so long.
You can only stamp their life force down for so long.
But, if you stamp it down for too long you sacrifice the opportunities those kids have to get to know themselves, to understand who they are, for the development of self awareness.
That’s a pretty high price to pay for good test scores.
But equally, those of you who employ pedagogies like play need to be honest as well. You need to stop comparing yourselves to the high standards crew. They get those great results because they sacrifice everything else for them.
You don’t.
What makes you think you can get those same results without that degree of sacrifice?1
I’m going to follow this trail for a while. I think play offers a way to access the higher levels.
I’d love to have your input as I do. So please, comment away: ask questions, open up avenues for thought I’ve missed, challenge me.
There’s actually a ton of evidence that says pedagogies that are more ‘holistic’ in their approach - that attend to those higher levels of being like self-awareness - actually lead to better academic scores too. See Guy Claxton’s latest book The Future of Teaching and the Myths that Hold it Back, for example.
Trouble is, we’re not talking about evidence here. We’re talking about beliefs.