Is it possible to have caring education or a meaningful democracy in a culture that is fundamentally competitive, materialistic, and technocratic? What has brought many of us to this conference is the realization that our political, social, and economic problems are ultimate rooted in a cultural context—the pattern of meanings that guide our lives. The [...]
Ron Miller
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Education for a green society
There is a strong connection between the business world and the modern institution of schooling. Historians of education have explained how schools as we know them were profoundly shaped by the influence of business leaders and by educators who adopted theories and techniques from the economic realm of society. Many major turning points, new initiatives, [...]
Toward participatory democracy
As I pursued research for my book on the 1960s-era free school movement, I came across numerous references to the notion of “participatory democracy” as an alternative to modern political ideologies and practices. (1) Many of the young activists who formed SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) and other radical groups during that period of [...]
Thoughts on freedom in learning
This discussion was published in 2006 in the Hungarian journal Tani-tani. Peter Foti is a parent and educational researcher interested in democratic education. Peter Foti: We are of the same age, both of us born in 1956, what in the history of Hungary was a very remarkable date. There is a family story, that my [...]
That of God in everyone
The Religious Society of Friends has represented a distinctive dissenting voice in Western religious and cultural life since the mid-seventeenth century. Responding, in part, to the turmoil surrounding the English Civil War, George Fox and his followers turned away from established Church practices and dogmas to seek an authentic experience of the Divine. Because many [...]
Reflecting on spirituality in education
Early in my career, I attempted to define the place of spirituality in holistic education: A basic premise of holistic education is the belief that our lives have a meaning and purpose greater than the mechanistic laws described by science, and greater than the ‘consensus consciousness’ of any one culture. This transcendent purpose is a [...]
Philosophical sources of holistic education
In American social and intellectual history, the period between 1960 and 1980 will always be recognized as a significant cultural turning point, a time of intense creativity, experimentation, rebellion and integration. Mass movements for social change, such as the civil rights movement (the quest for racial justice and equality) and the women’s liberation movement, and [...]
The Montessori educational vision
We must take into consideration that from birth the child has a power in him.We must not just see the child, but God in him.We must respect the laws of creation in him.” Maria Montessori, 1935 (1989a, p. 98) Maria Montessori pursued her educational work with a spiritual consciousness verging on mysticism. Although her ideas [...]
Thoughts on a holistic curriculum
The emergence of a postmodern civilization, with its many unsolved economic, technological, moral, and ecological problems, is a global phenomenon. The degradation of the earth affects us all. The concentration of wealth and power in the hands of transnational corporations and their elite managers affects us all. Our amazing new powers to manipulate information, communication, [...]
Educating the child’s inner power
The original meaning of the word “education,” according to its Latin roots, is to lead out or bring forth that which lives within the human being. To truly educate is to nourish the unique and unfathomable possibilities that each child introduces into the world. Many teachers and most parents know this and, as individuals, seek [...]
