Let's Climb

We can all go higher

Unblocking ego development must be a goal for education.

Jean Piaget stimulated the understanding that children grow through specific stages, making meaning at increasing levels of sophistication each time. Robert Kegan brought these ideas to a higher degree of development in "The Evolving Self", published in 1982, proposing that "personality development occurs in the context of interaction between the organism and the environment rather than the internal processes of maturation alone."

Both researchers saw adulthood as the end point for such development and it was only through the work of researchers such as Jane Loevinger (in 1987) that it was proposed that the development of meaning continues in a staged way throughout our life time.

The focus on left hemisphere dominance that our education systems promote has blocked this development process for many adults beyond school. Bringing the right hemisphere back into balance will help to unblock this development pathway, allowing more and more adults to reach levels of development that are needed as the future becomes less and less certain.

Our current education systems were designed to create conforming adults, not those who could think and act on their own, yet that is just what we need at the moment. We need our young people to be confident, collaborative and creative, lifelong learners.

Personality (or ego) development is a major part of this.