What is a Soulful Education?

http://www.sec-ed.co.uk/cgi-bin/go.pl/article/article.html?uid=42963;type_uid=2

So i have been spending the last few weeks exploring this question, as it is at the heart of the event we are running next June.

To me, soulful means - deep, relevant, useful, personal, passionate and values driven. As many as one in five young people will suffer from mental ill health during their teens, so something is definitely missing from the support they are offered in society.

Yes, young people are more sophisticated and technically savvy, yes they are exposed to more information, media, pornography, all sorts, but they are still people and people search for meaning, for connection and for a sense of self.

How far would you say the current education system takes care of this?

One could also argue that soul has no place in education. That this should come from outside hobbies, from the family, from religion. But young people spend 30 hours a week in school - do they deserve for this to be a staid, disciplined, unquestioning environment? Are we preparing them for a world of work that feels just as dry?

The article above is about Passeageworks, an organisation devoted to developing programmes that meet the spiritual needs of teenagers. I came across it via the hugely inspiring work of their founder, Rachel Kessler. By allowing young people to develop their own curriculum based on their "Mystery Questions" - the questions of their hearts, she found that they had a very deep desire for transcendence, connectivity and an understanding of relationships, philosophy and life itself.

The organising of our "Soul in Education" conference is putting us in touch with such a lot of interesting and inspired educators.
From Kiran Sethi and the Design for Change programme, that empowers youth to solve the problems of their communities ( including teaching their parents how to read and write), to the work of Graeme Whiting at the Acorn School - where there are no Alevels or GCSES yet no student has ever been refused a University place.

If you know of any soulful educators, please do get in touch and share their work with us.
If you'd like to join our steering group for the conference, please do get in touch and
If you know of a venue or venue partner, in the education arena, please do let us know!

With best wishes from an inspired office. Erica x