A Call to Action: Alternative Education
Part One: The Problem
I feel sad and worried for the current generation of children and you should too. Especially if you are a parent of a young child or are hoping to have children! Not only are we seeing an epidemic of Autism, hyperactivity and childhood behavioural disorders but the scientific research is more and more indicating what is actually responsible for this epidemic!
Tracey Woodruff, Phd. In the Department of Reproductive Sciences at UCSF makes the following statement “Our findings have found that many chemicals do indeed accumulate in the fetal environment and are absorbed at greater levels by fetuses than by the pregnant women themselves! This may have significant consequences for the fetus(notice the careful language. It’s more like “undoubtedly have significant consequences” as we can see it all around us!)Many of these chemicals are known to affect development(and to be cancerogenic and neurotoxic at the same time.)”A few worrisome candidates for the role of “childhood destroyers”-polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs),organochlorine pesticides(OCPs),polybrominated diphenyl ethers(PBDEs) , perfluorinated compounds(PFCs) mercury and lead. Many of these have been detected in the U.S. in 99% of U.S. pregnant women-according to the NHANES(National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey of the CDC) data!
”Contrary to previous research” Woodruff writes: ”we found evidence that several PCBs and OCPs were often higher in umbilical cord samples than in maternal blood samples! And you thought McDonald’s was bad for your children lol. This is the legacy we are leaving for our children! They emerge toxic from the womb! And our governments are asleep at the wheel. If you think they are underperforming with the pandemic, their approach to these problems, which are somewhat more subtle, is way worse! Please notice here that these studies are not even attempting to factor in the toxic effects of EMFs(cellphones and Wifi and G4 and G5) nor the problematic issue of vaccine injuries and the immunological problems due to multiple assaults on the immune system caused by over- vaccination. Not only are we not out of the woods but the woods are getting denser by the moment!
Now on top of all this, we add in a schooling system that is completely out of sync with real children’s needs and hearts and you have a recipe for disaster-a disaster we can see all around us. Especially in the public schools-although private schools are barely any better! If someone had designed a system of education in order to make children stressed, miserable and out of touch with their true nature(‘fitra’ we call that in Sufism) they could not have done a better job! Keeping young children-especially boys- penned into their seats in a classroom, formulating academic goals and standardized testing are all formulas for generating misery! Then we hire teachers who are often more interested in having a dependable career than in taking care of children, professionalizing what should be one of the ultimate human activities-sharing the knowledge we have gained in our lifetimes. Add to that having academic researchers designing curriculums in the boardrooms of the Ministries of our governments. All of this should be anathema to real educators and human beings. But we have come to accept this as normal!
In addition to this toxic brew, there is an orientation, still after all these years of contrary research like that of Howard Gardiner and Daniel Goleman, to training the mind alone. Mathematical and verbal skills, period. There is no training of the heart, of the soul, of empathy and compassion. And there are almost NO practical skills transmitted. That is the state of the education nation.
It is not only Western thinkers like Rudolf Steiner and John Taylor Gatto and Howard Gardiner (father of multiple intelligences) that realize how wrong this is. One of the great Islamic scholars of our times Habib Ahmad Mahshur al-Haddad r.a. made the following statement with regards to education in the Islamic world. ”The beginning of the decline of the Islamic world started with the elimination of the teacher-student relationship in the Islamic world and its replacement by institutions and the professionalizing of the teaching profession. This is now a Universal problem!
As our politicians, including the “good ones” like Bernie Sanders harp on about the need for everyone to get higher education in order to be fulfilled in life, we have to seriously wonder “what they are smoking” lol The entire Epistemological (excuse the Greek lol) enterprise is flawed at its core. The idea behind it all is that Truth can only be known from the outside-via facts(“data-driven” they call it) and the logical, systematic analysis of these facts(“data- crunching”).That is what they believe to be the royal road to Truth and that is what governments try to use to come to the right decisions. In the philosophical world this is known as Empiricism or Scientific Materialism or “The Age of Enlightenment”. And it is fundamentally wrong-corrupt to the core.
So if you find that our governments are confused and the Truth of what is going on escapes them on a regular basis,it is not simply about greed as most intellectuals believe. It is also about ignorance-the ignorance of Philosophical Materialism. And that is precisely what our schools are trying to transmit to our children. No wonder they are unhappy. Because it’s the inner that is primordial! That is what determines our well-being, not the outer. And that is why the Prophet of Islam saws prayed for ‘afiya’(well-being) not for more wealth and more data lol.I will leave it here for now. The second part will address the beginnings of solutions-what we can do about this sad state of affairs inshallah.