An evolutionary view!

Taking a longer-term perspective on education

It is interesting at times to reflect on education in the broader context of evolution.  The pre-frontal cortex is a relatively recent innovation, as such we, as humans, have not yet learnt to use it very well.

Since civilisations emerged, we have used our advanced capacities in rivalrous ways – a sort of survival, or domination, of the fittest.  This has led to a situation where our current civilisation is self-terminating, we are destroying the very substrate on which life depends by maintaining the status quo.

Our current measures of success – wealth, power, fame - seem slightly bizarre in this context.  Better would be to have no definition of success for the self that is not success for the whole (including the ecosystem, too).

Zagros mountains

We can do this, we need to re-orient ourselves away from rivalry and towards cooperation.  Not “nice to have” cooperation but the real thing, grounded in participants who are, at their deepest level, seeking connection to something beyond themselves.  People who are sovereign agents, able to think and act for themselves and use their time and energy in meaningful ways, not distracted nor diverted by extrinsic motivations.

Our education systems have a major role to play in developing young people with these capabilities, not just because society needs them now but for this much longer time-frame where evolution itself becomes conscious.

See my new book Why we Teach for some of the steps that we can take now to move us in this direction.  You can download a pdf version of the book here.

John Corrigan is an expert in helping individuals to bring their whole of mind to their daily life and increase their effectiveness and the effectiveness of those around them. This expertise scales from the individual to the team to the organisation. At the core of this work is the practice of encounter.  Earlier blogs can be found here.

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