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The Experience of Education for Life
Rose Neal is the director of Living Wisdom School here in Beaverton, Oregon. Here, she writes about a recent experience on a school field trip. I recently accompanied the 3rd-7th grades on a service learning trip to the Vedanta Retreat in Scappoose. One of our preschool families lives there and was kind enough to offer us a tour. During our visit, Megan, our host, was explaining a concept to the students and referred to the blog post about the rangoli activity (making a mandala and then destroying it the same day) and how it could be seen as an exercise in the practice of non-attachment. When Megan brought up the…
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PE with EFL
PE = physical education EFL= Education for Life Here at Living Wisdom, we are using educational philosophies introduced by J. Donald Walters in his book, Education for Life. In one chapter, he outlines a new way of thinking about how we plan curriculum. Walters suggests that, rather than plan curriculum as discreet topics (i.e. Math, Reading, History, etc.), an EFL teacher look more holistically at what needs to be learned. This is, indeed, more closely related to how actual life works. If life looked like traditional school, we would go through our days saying to ourselves, “Okay, in order to solve this problem, I will think for 30 minutes about…
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The Story of “A Cucumber Seed”
Where does the name “A Cucumber Seed” come from? It’s a story passed around in the Education for Life world, an oral tradition, you might say. And like most oral traditions, no one really knows where exactly it started. Usha claims Nitai first said this, but Nitai has no recollection of ever saying it, so we are left to focus instead on the message, rather than the bibliography. What is Education for Life about? It’s about teaching children how to be their truest, most powerful and best selves. Many schools and philosophies of education have a goal in mind. In these schools, the process of education is to train children to fulfill…
