How can we best educate children for the important roles they will play to ensure we have functioning democracies, equitable societies, and a healthy planet? Such changes in education, should they come, will mean that students learn to be solutionaries – people who provide ideas and blueprints for positively transforming societal institutions and structures?

Meaning: because their learning and actions make a difference
Confidence: because pursuing and achieving positive goals reveals what they are capable of
Knowledge: because a solutionary practice involves investigation, connection with stakeholders, and learning from experts in various fields
Essential thinking skills: because becoming a solutionary requires the development of critical, systems, strategic, and creative thinking
Joy: because making a difference in one’s community and world feels great

June 10, 2020 by Zoe Weil, Common Dreams and Pyschology Today: The Answer to All Our Problems: Envisioning new and better post-pandemic schooling. May 15, 2020 SHARE https://humaneeducation.org/sections/view/resources

Promising to solve all our problems is surely hubris, but transforming schooling comes close to being a panacea for the world’s ills, and there’s no better time than the present to envision and plan for post-pandemic schools. Some may think it’s too soon to talk about what schools might look like on the other side of COVID-19. After all, teachers, children, and families need support for remote learning during the pandemic right now. But if we don’t talk about what schooling could be – how transforming educational approaches would be great for kids, great for teachers and families, great for communities, and great for the world – we won’t pursue fresh ideas or adopt new frameworks when kids return to their school buildings.

Just as we’re paying a heavy price for not heeding warnings and changing our food systems (which likely would have prevented COVID-19 as well as several past epidemics), we will continue to pay the price for not using the time and insight that this pandemic affords us to consider how our educational system could be so much more relevant, engaging, and meaningful. In fact, given that the educational system lies at the root of so many other societal systems that we’ve created, failing to take this opportunity to examine schooling and transform it wisely means failing to effectively address every other problematic system that emerges from “educated” minds. Our political, economic, energy, healthcare and production systems, just to name a few, could be dramatically improved by a generation that was simply educated differently.

There are many critiques of schooling, but they often miss deeper core issues. For example, it’s not just that many students are graduating without necessary skills in literacy, numeracy, and science; it’s that even if they graduate with exceptional skills, they will not by design or purpose be prepared for the important task of solving local and global problems through the professions they pursue.

It’s not just that bullying is a problem in school; it’s that our daily lives are inextricably connected through the global economy to institutionalized brutality, injustice, and environmental devastation, and we do not learn in school how to be kind and responsible in a world in which our everyday choices impact other people, animals, and ecosystems across the planet.

It’s not just that students aren’t performing up to the standards that have been set for them; it’s that the standardized tests we rely on for assessment are often inadequate, outdated, unrelated to our students’ (and, therefore, our society’s) true needs, and compete with the time required to help young people develop fundamental skills in critical, systems, strategic, and creative thinking.

It’s not just that there is an achievement gap; it’s that the achievement gap is nested in an opportunity gap and income inequality gap, as well as within structural forms of discrimination. We can’t address a gap without addressing the systems that perpetuate it.

It’s not just that there is ineffective teaching; it’s that so many public school teachers are required to “teach to the test” and are rarely educated or prepared to teach about the interconnected global issues that are essential subjects in order to help build a healthy future.

It’s not just that so many schools aren’t succeeding at achieving their stated objectives; it’s that many of their stated objectives are no longer the right ones for today’s world.

So what’s the answer to all our problems? We must adopt a bigger purpose for schooling than “preparation for global competitiveness,” and that purpose should be to educate young people to be solutionaries, eager and able to address real-world problems and solve them in ways that are good for themselves, other humans, other species, and the ecosystems that sustain all life.

To reach this goal, we need to value teachers as the transformational leaders in society that they are. We must prepare educators to bring real-world problems into their classrooms in age-appropriate ways, using modalities that engender deep intelligence, practical optimism, abundant compassion, and effective solutionary skills.

Schools can become places where students gather not only to collaborate with each other and their teachers, but also where technology allows them to reach beyond their neighborhoods and nations to learn from people across the globe. The buildings and grounds can provide the physical spaces for artistic and scientific creativity to develop and be showcased, and where ideas and innovations come to life. As we have seen during COVID-related remote learning, huge numbers of children have no access to technology and other crucial resources at home, leaving them academically behind their peers, and in many cases isolated and discouraged. Schools can and must even this playing field, which means that school funding should not be constrained by property taxes. A child’s address should not determine how much money is spent to educate them.

Schools should be hubs of connectivity and collaborative learning, without bells and regimented subjects. Instead of offering numerous disconnected classes each day, schools can integrate subjects such as social studies, language arts, math, science, art, and global language learning into interdisciplinary real-world learning experiences that are designed to help kids solve problems worthy of their solutionary efforts.

During this pandemic, students are endeavoring to learn in vastly changed learning environments. This is a perfect time for them to dive into solutionary work to solve problems they care about, using a solutionary process, and to spend this otherwise isolating time collaborating with peers doing work that matters. In doing so, they will likely experience:

Meaning: because their learning and actions make a difference
Confidence: because pursuing and achieving positive goals reveals what they are capable of
Knowledge: because a solutionary practice involves investigation, connection with stakeholders, and learning from experts in various fields
Essential thinking skills: because becoming a solutionary requires the development of critical, systems, strategic, and creative thinking
Joy: because making a difference in one’s community and world feels great

This 90-second video describes how we can actually solve problems if we bring a solutionary lens to our challenges and paints a picture of a positive future for kids and communities.

So, let’s put on our solutionary glasses and make this vision a reality. When our children return to their school buildings, let them find a new system starting to take root—a system that will not only help humanity avert future crises but will also offer young people an education rich in meaning and purpose. Let school become the place where students learn what it takes to create a future in which all can thrive. If we transform schooling in this way, we’ll create an educational system worthy of our kids and the world they will both inherit and shape.

Why 2020 Could Turn Out to Be a Transformative Year

2020 could turn out to be one of the most transformative years of our collective lives, marking the turning point when unjust, destructive, and inhumane systems began to be toppled and transformed.

Let’s imagine historians looking back at 2020 and describing it as the year when these societal systems began to change in earnest. (Photo: Pixaby)

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the sheer awfulness of 2020.

First came the bushfires in Australia. They burned more than 72,000 square miles (nearly the size of Minnesota) and killed more than one billion animals.

Next came COVID-19, which (as of this writing) has infected nearly eight million people and killed nearly half a million, with the U.S. experiencing more deaths than any other country.

Then came the videotaped murder of George Floyd under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer – following closely on the heels of other racist acts and murders in the news – which led to an outpouring of rage, riots, and protests in communities across every state in the U.S., with more than 10,000 people arrested in fewer than two weeks.

And yet, despite all this, or rather because of it, 2020 could turn out to be one of the most transformative years of our collective lives, marking the turning point when unjust, destructive, and inhumane systems began to be toppled and transformed.

The changes are starting already.

Hundreds of thousands of white people are embracing Black Lives Matter across the globe, speaking up in ways they never have before, with a new willingness to learn about white privilege and the impacts of persistent racism not only within law enforcement and the prison system but also within the systems of education, healthcare, food, city planning, infrastructure, politics, and economics.

The chant “Defund the police!” has gone from a rallying cry to the beginnings of reality, with the Minneapolis City Council voting to transform law enforcement in their city, starting with police department defunding. In New York and Los Angeles leaders are looking at their police departments with fresh eyes, fresh ideas, and changing budgets. Every day new policies are put in place to end police brutality, and this is just the beginning.

What might COVID-19’s positive transformations look like? Three months of remote learning have led to long-overdue discussions about the purpose and system of schooling. Teachers, parents, and school administrators are asking questions such as: What is important to learn and why? What thinking skills do our children most need to develop? How can we best educate children for the important roles they will play to ensure we have functioning democracies, equitable societies, and a healthy planet? Such changes in education, should they come, will mean that students learn to be solutionaries – people who provide ideas and blueprints for positively transforming societal institutions and structures. It is solutionary thinking that enabled Minneapolis city council members to cast their vote this week to create new systems for safety and protection in their city. Without the work of thoughtful systems thinkers who shared innovative approaches for keeping the city and its citizens safe, council members might not have felt confident to cast that vote.

COVID-19 may also lead to the transformation of our food systems. Stories about the impacts of meat-eating have abounded during the pandemic, introducing people to the stark realities behind the flesh they consume. People working in slaughterhouses (euphemistically referred to as meatpacking plants) are contracting COVID-19 in large numbers, and many are dying. President Trump deemed meat production “essential,” but surely it is not, and exposés of the industry during the pandemic are revealing much more than the health hazards in slaughterhouses. Factory farming has been unambiguously implicated in previous epidemics, and the animal “wet” markets in China remain the likeliest cause of COVID-19. People are also learning that eating meat in the quantities we do in the U.S. increases the incidence of heart disease, strokes, diabetes, and some cancers; is a primary contributor to climate change (remember those bushfires?); and is horrifically cruel to animals.

We could well look back at 2020 as the tipping point when people finally began reducing their consumption of animals and animal products as a way of preventing future pandemics, protecting the environment and wildlife habitats, addressing climate change, and saving more human lives each year from preventable diseases than were lost due to COVID-19.

One potentially positive outcome from the COVID-caused recession is that the economic upheaval has also resulted in a head-spinning shift in economic thinking from some of the biggest beneficiaries of capitalism, who are beginning to re-examine their long held beliefs and discuss economic reforms. This paves the way for solutionary thinkers in economics to have their work reviewed seriously and embraced by those in power who’ve refused, until now, to consider changes to our economic system that could effectively address inequity, poverty, and environmental devastation.

Politics is facing a reckoning, too. With much trepidation surrounding the upcoming presidential election (Will it be hacked? Will it be fair? Will Black people continue to be disenfranchised through voter suppression? Will people be able to vote by mail during the pandemic?), and with citizens speaking out by the hundreds of thousands day after day in the streets of our towns and cities, we may be looking at the largest voter turnout in living memory. And with every subsystem within politics under scrutiny – lobbying, gerrymandering, campaign finance, and the two-party system itself – there’s new hope for a solutionary overhaul.

So let’s imagine historians looking back at 2020 and describing it as the year when these societal systems began to change in earnest. This could be the legacy of an otherwise awful year. Achieving these outcomes won’t be easy. In the midst of dazzling examples of growing awareness, generosity, and action, we are also witnessing divisiveness deepen, hostilities grow, and threats to democracy gain traction. The interconnected systems that perpetuate destructive and cruel practices are tremendously difficult to transform and will surely require our best selves. We must meet this time of great change as engaged, compassionate, well-informed people who harness our anger, sorrow, and fear toward what may be the most important work of our lifetimes.

If you’ve been hesitating to use your three Vs – Voice, Veto, and Vote – consider this your moment. Use your voice to speak clearly. Veto destruction and injustice with how you spend your money. Vote like lives depend on you, because they do. While we cannot bring back those lost to bushfires in Australia, a global pandemic, or years of oppression, we can bring about change. We have the power to make 2020 the year that ushered in a new era of peace, equity, and respect for all life. This is our moment. Let’s get to work.

Zoe Weil is the president of the Institute for Humane Education (IHE), which offers online graduate degrees in comprehensive Humane Education; solutionary-focused programs and workshops; and an award-winning free resource center. Zoe has given six TEDx talks including her acclaimed “The World Becomes What You Teach.” She is the author of numerous books, including: The World Becomes What We Teach: Educating a Generation of Solutionaries (2016); Most Good, Least Harm: A Simple Principle for a Better World and Meaningful Life; Above All, Be Kind; The Power and Promise of Humane Education; and Claude and Medea (2007). Zoe is the recipient of the Unity College Women in Environmental Leadership award and was a subject of the Americans Who Tell the Truth portrait series. Find her on Facebook and follow her on Twitter @ZoeWeil.

Why 2020 Could Turn Out to Be a Transformative Year

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