Slow Education -Learning The Core Values Of Success In Life
Imagine students leaving school with a strong sense of self and their place in the world
Hello out there - in a rushed world,
Here comes your weekly permission to Un-rush and Stress Less.
Timeless insights and impulses on how the power of slow helps you grow - in a rushing world crushing your life
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INSIGHT
Each Child At their Own Pace
The pace of life is getting faster. Education must be able to cope with rapid changes to meet the needs of society and the future. Everyone is subject to the constant need to develop new skills and acquire new knowledge. But is rushing to acquire knowledge in the shortest time the answer?
The concept of slowing things down, in the sense of combining slow and fast in a balanced way, has entered many areas of life, including education.
Let’s enter at an early stage: kids, youth, and school education. We already see that regular education and curriculums primarily focus on achieving outcomes quickly, on their quantifiability, credit points, contact hours, and the quantity of fresh content. These systems are less focused and not about the learning process itself. The emphasis is not on quality, depth, and long-term development.
In other words, the current school systems are designed to prevent learning. The best way to ruin education for your children is by turning it into a rat race. Speed, stress, pressure from the overall educational system, and peer pressure – all of this fosters anxiety, incapability to focus, hating to learn, and insecurity.
There is a school in Germany (Alemannen Schule/School) that took the slow approach. It figured out how to create a learning concept for kids that makes them happy learners, great students, innovative and creative thinkers, self-confident and not-stressed-out students.
Each child at their own pace.
The principal of this school had to fight for his vision for a long time. He was even threatened with dismissal. Ten years later, his ideas became reality. The school concept is so successful that it was awarded the German School Award in 2019.
A school that was about to close has become an inspiration for educators from all over the world. The Alemannenschule can no longer accommodate all the children who would like to learn there. The principal has proven that a school of the future is possible if it adapts to the new challenges and integrates digital learning into everyday school life as a matter of course so that everyone enjoys learning.
Focusing on learning as a process instead of just the result can help create activities that encourage learners to think, try new things, and either do well or fail. It also helps them work together and talk to each other.
Students become active participants, not passive recipients, they are engaged in continual thought, critical questioning, discovery, and action. This helps form empathetic, caring, and compassionate personalities who value learning.
Slow Learning is a mindset that can reshape every aspect of education. It respects the pace and rhythms of each child or young person. It promotes calm reflection and encourages you to experiment with creative ideas, work in teams, figure out things on your own, ask hard questions, and try to understand instead of just memorize things.
In this way, time is transformed, providing an opportunity for learning to resonate with students as the learning activities flow naturally.
Slow Learning encourages people to recognize their potential, develop it, and translate it into action, they become self-confident and self-motivated. Students gain a strong sense of self and their place in the world.
Slow requires time. Time to think deeply, talk more, explore, reflect, engage, and enjoy learning. Such a view of time, one that is more subjective, personal, dynamic, and supportive of the connection and engagement with learning and learners, connects education with meaning and authenticity.
“People are set up to fail if they envision what they want to do before they figure out who they are.” – Ruth Barton
IMPULSES
Curated stories on the topic of slowing down and stressing less, designed to open up new ways of looking at why you should give yourself permission to un-rush.
A New Model Of School, A Beacon For The Future Of Education – The Green School
The educational model of the Green School has become a global movement in education, with schools in Bali, New Zealand, South Africa, and Tulum. Their ‘living’ curriculum educates for sustainability through community-integrated, entrepreneurial learning, in a wall-less and nature-immersed environment. The school is based on a vision of a holistic learning community, and they strive to champion a new model of education that nurtures the whole child, giving them agency in their own lives and learning so that they can thrive with purpose in our ever-changing world. The graduates have a sense of readiness, maturity, and confidence about them.
Icelandic People Know To Slow Down With Reading – Especially In Winter And Christmas
Iceland has long, dark winters, which are times ideal for devouring books.
Especially around Christmastime, Icelandic people slow down and on Christmas Eve they get all cozy with hot chocolate and reading their books. They have a culture of giving books as Christmas gifts and, as in many European countries, presents are given on the night of the 24th, after a nice dinner with the family. Afterward, they dive into their new books.
The long-standing literary tradition of Iceland and the economic situation during the Second World War, when paper was one of the few things not rationed in the country, are the sources of this Icelandic custom. Thus, books became and stayed the Christmas gift of choice. From mid-November on, bookstores are flooded with new books, and newly published books are listed in an annual Journal of Books, distributed to all households.
Slow down for reading. “Reading is a way to consume people’s experiences, to learn something timeless and then apply it to your life.”- Shane Parrish