Re-Inventing Education, Re-Inventing the Human

At the Re-Imagining Work gathering in Detroit over the October 28-30 weekend, you will meet individuals who, out of their own experiences in cities where industrial jobs have gone forever, have begun to make a paradigm shift in how we/they define Work.

You will also meet teachers, students and parents who, out of their experiences in schools that have become pipelines to prison have decided that we need a paradigm shift in our concept of Education.

In The A.W.E. PROJECT Re-inventing Education, Re-Inventing the Human, (Copper House 2006) Mathew Fox explains that this paradigm shift is necessary because our schools have been organized to prepare our young people to succeed in a dying empire.

Our children are not being educated to honor our ancestors or the cosmos. They are being taught to conquer the earth and to overcome those peoples who still honor the earth and their ancestors. They are being taught to value things more than relationships; in other words, to become more and more dehumanized.

To prepare young people to create the postmodern world, Fox writes that Education needs to be not only in the 3Rs of Reading, Writing and ‘Rithmetic, but also in the 10Cs of Creativity. We need to educate the whole person and not just a corner of the left-brain.

Fox’s 10 Cs are: Cosmology or Creation (including ecology), Contemplation, Creativity or Co-creation; Chaos, Compassion, Courage or magnanimity; Critical consciousness and judgment; Community; Ceremony and Celebration; Character, and development of all our energizing force or chakras from head to toe.

Rap, writes Fox, is an example of the creativity of young people. The book comes with a DVD by rapper Professor Pitt.