The first Education for Life School began in 1972, in a converted chicken coop at Ananda Village.
On Saturday, the parents helped Nitai Deranja, the school’s 26-year-old neophyte teacher-director, clean the 10- by 18-foot former avian domicile and egg factory, and on Monday at 8 a.m. Nitai rang the school bell for the first time.
What happened in the ensuing fifty-plus years was a miracle.
Fast-forward to the 2020s. The director of the Living Wisdom School in Palo led parents on a tour
At the conclusion of the tour a parent exclaimed, “But these kids are too happy – they can’t possibly be learning!!”
Her upset is understandable, given the prevailing assumptions about education that have dictated the form and function of schools since the Industrial Revolution.
On another school tour, a parent echoed the first parent’s sentiment, indignantly exclaiming, “School should NOT be fun!”
Again, her dismay was hardly surprising, given her own school experience, and the widely held prejudices of modern education, which imagine that what counts in school is Academics, writ large, and nothing else.
And, of course, academics shouldn’t be easy – or, heaven forbid, fun – because easy and fun equate with lowered standards and expectations – obviously!
But if school should be hard, and if our schools are delivering education at its hardest and finest, why are they so obviously in trouble?
Why are one-third of the students demotivated, another third bored out of their minds, and a third able to keep up, with some effort?
Why has the pandemic dissatisfaction of two-thirds of the students turned schools into hotbeds of rebellion?
Why are schools routinely plagued by guns, drugs, exclusion, cliques, bullying, and outright crime?
Why have student suicides reached an all-time high? A report from the Yale School of Medicine concluded: “Despite recent downward turns, suicide remains a leading cause of death for young people, ranking as the second-leading cause of death for ages 10–14 and the third for ages 15–24.”
Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Youth Risk Behavior Survey indicate that within a given recent year roughly 20.4% of high school students seriously considered suicide, and 9.5% attempted it, indicating significant emotional distress.
Why are armed guards and metal detectors now a presence in the halls of so many schools?
There are thousands upon thousands of wonderful teachers in our schools. They, like the children they are divinely commissioned to care for, are limited by the system.
A case, not untypical, was a kindergarten teacher in California who was much loved by her students and their families. In the end, she could no longer bear the strain of being forced by the system into an approach that she knew, from her long experience, was cruelly wrong. The school district had told her that her kindergartners would no longer be allowed a morning playtime break, because it interfered with the government-mandated guidelines and goals for their academic progress. She left the school, amid loud parent protests in the local media, which the system chose to ignore.
Even though Education for Life was hatched in a humble chicken coop, the EFL schools have solved ALL of the problems besetting schools today. They simply don’t exist in an EFL school.
The first thing people notice when they set foot on the campus of these revolutionary schools is the happy atmosphere, followed by the stunning sight of students treating each other with unfeigned, unforced respect and kindness.
Next, they notice the students’ maturity, poise, focus, and confidence.
Finally, their mouths drop as they see students so enjoyably engaged with their schoolwork that they do not want to be disturbed or distracted.
This website isn’t about high-flown theories conceived in the lofty halls of academe or the corridors of power. It’s a report from the front lines of educational reform, where the grades are great, the students are happy, and the graduates excel in high school, college, career, and in their personal lives.
Do yourself a favor. Dive into this website at random. Don’t start with Chapter One. Open it at any page and begin reading.
We believe you’ll want to continue. That’s because EFL is REAL. And it’s jaw-droppingly inspiring.
It isn’t based on theories, or empty, often dangerous sloganeering for votes.
Nor is it about outworn, thoroughly disproven and patently false cultural notions about what happiness and success actually are, and how we can achieve them.
This website is about a hard-won, deeply disciplined, compassionate approach to education that puts each child’s needs first.
Children are not all cut from the same mold. How can we educate our children truly, without first getting to know their unique abilities and needs?
How can children discover the joys of academic mastery, if we fail to engage the enthusiasm of each one, at his or her level, and guide them into small, deeply satisfying successes every day?
How will we stamp out the roots of cliques, criminal bullying, and cruel exclusion that now infest our schools – much less actual crime, alcohol, and drugs – unless we introduce the children to the deep satisfactions of self-respecting behavior, and of relating meaningfully to others’ realities by giving them the precise words to understand and enjoy listening, empathizing, and relating with compassion?
When we bring one-hundred percent of the child to school every day – body, heart, will, mind, soul – and when we refuse to slam the door on anything but their rational brains, we are able to create a school environment where decency, compassion, inner strength, enthusiasm, and confidence prevail – and where every child can thrive academically and personally – and win.
This is the true meaning of “No child left behind” – where we educate the children individually, lovingly and compassionately, starting exactly where they are.
EFL is not an easy answer. It requires energy, discipline, and a profound commitment to the welfare of every child, at every level of their being.
Glance at the chapters and the section headings, and dive in!