Why "education" needs rethinking.
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Lately you might think of me as the “regenerative avocado lady” based on most of what I share online these days, but in my past life, I devoted myself to a different field: education.
When I was in graduate school for psychology, I studied the ways our public school system suffers from a colonizing mindset, and through research discovered how this harms not just students, but also teachers, administrators, and parents – the whole educational ecosystem. What’s worse, it ultimately limits our human potential to flourish and thrive.
More on this below...
My personal "classroom" these days.
When we’re kids, we connect with our environment using all our senses (everything must be touched and tasted!), and learn at a profound rate through embodied, interactive play. We make abundant use of make-believe and imagination, with wonder and curiosity and lots of trial and error. Time has a sense of flow as we entune with our world, and spontaneity is natural. Fully engaged, we trust our own subjective experience as a way of knowing.
This is sharply contrasted when we get to school: we are taught that play belongs outside the classroom, memorization replaces imagination, and knowledge comes from an outside authority. Time is segmented, and mistakes begin to come at a cost. As a result, we can lose our connection with nature, our innate wisdom, and our ability to imagine possible futures.
A process of separation between our inner and outer life can create alienation from self and the natural environment, and the goal of learning becomes abstract productivity and conformity devoid of true meaning.
A rock at the ranch that reminds me to listen more closely to the Earth as my teacher.
It took a near death experience in 2019 for me to really rediscover my own connection to my nature and to Mother Nature. As I healed my body from a big physical trauma, I began to notice how the land at my family’s avocado ranch was seeking healing alongside me, and I started to look for more ways I could facilitate its regeneration process.
But 2019 was just the beginning. Here I am nearly four years later, and my relationship with the earth continues to grow more complex, more familiar, and more intimate – as all relationships do.
It’s a process. Kind of like a composting process. There is so much new information to take in all the time, and I don’t just mean practical Earth science research via YouTube videos, conversations with experts, articles, courses, and all the other resources in which I’ve immersed myself. I also mean the more subtle but profound learning I can glean from mindful presence with any corner of the property, using every single one of my senses to take in the (ecological, mycological, emotional, spiritual) data.
It takes time to let it all stew and brew. I have to give myself plenty of quiet contemplation time to just digest it, if I want to transform the mess of input to “mulch” that will support new growth. But insights come, dreams reveal, and synchronous events happen that move me forward to the next understanding and the next practice to try.
Our culture, and certainly our education system, focuses so much on perpetual productivity. We tend to glorify the value of a successful finished product, with one right, direct way to get there. But no experiment is substantial or sustainable if we don’t give it time to continue revealing itself to us, like planting seeds in fertile soil. In nature, there is no ending, no A+ exam, no final paper; there is only perpetual evolution, awareness, and continuous learning, oftentimes following a winding path.
That’s all for now, but I’d love to hear from you, too. What does this conversation bring up for you?