Why is self growth not taught in schools?

[Daniel Lopez]

Hey guys I'm new on this forum even though I have been following Leo's work for a few years and I have learned a lot, however lately I came up with a question that seems so simple at first sight but I think can have a lot of depth on it.

The question is: Why is self growth/personal development not taught in schools?

I mean, we may be told to be good and respectful, but on a very superficial level, and even most teachers who teach us that are not very good and respectful anyway. I know it's not their fault, as they were not taught that either in school anyways, but I think we can start seeing this and make a revolution in the school system to start teaching what is really important. 

One of the reasons that this question came up to me is because I consider myself a very intelligent person, and by intelligent I mean that I used to get very good grades in school, even though I now think and intelligent person is the one who does their best to be a better person, and help others and just feel good with who they are. Anyway even though I know a lot of facts about science and that kind of stuff I felt so miserable before I started this self actualization journey, and lately the question came to me and it struck me that facts about science may be helpful sometimes, but what really matters is the inner work on ourselves.

Anyway thanks for reading my post and I would love to read your thoughts on this ♥

Edited May 13, 2021 by Daniel Lopez

[JosephKnecht]

2 hours ago, Daniel Lopez said:

The question is: Why is not self growth/personal development not taught in schools?

1. If everyone could grow/teach themselves, you would not need teachers nor schools. Schools are there to teach those who can't teach themselves.

2. Educational system is very hard to change. The current educational system is a result of the industrial revolution where most students are specialized to work as a cog in the industry. 

[Nahm]

@Daniel Lopez

I know stuff like emotions and meditation are taught in schools. (Not every school.) 

What other facets of self growth / personal development would you like to see in schools? 

[bejapuskas]

2 hours ago, Daniel Lopez said:

even though I now think and intelligent person is the one who does their best to be a better person, and help others and just feel good with who they are

@Daniel Lopez  The people who design the kind of mainstream education system do not have this understanding, but luckily there are some neo-humanists schools that teach this, for example this one in Indonesia. https://woodschoolbali.com/

[Nahm]

@bejapuskas

That’s a beautiful school. 

[mandyjw]

In my tiny elementary school our health teacher went into personal development a lot. You could tell he really liked it, and we did too. Schools are doing better, bringing in mindfulness and yoga but we have put immense pressures on teachers to use all their time to meet hurdles that standardized tests and expectations have imposed upon them. Partly due to the "No child left behind" act. Teachers now have less time to connect with kids and teach what they feel inclined to teach. Schools and teachers are also expected to pick up the slack where lack of communities in favor of highly independent family structures have left gaps. Kids need structured learning as well as unstructured learning, and self actualization requires both. I think it's a bit unfair to expect so much of schools, as other organizations, communities and individuals need to chip in. Churches have done Bible School for a week in the summer every year forever, why don't we do mindfulness and meditation schools on the same scale? I'd LOVE to volunteer for something like that. 

Edited May 13, 2021 by mandyjw

[Daniel Lopez]

4 hours ago, Nahm said:

@Daniel Lopez

I know stuff like emotions and meditation are taught in schools. (Not every school.) 

What other facets of self growth / personal development would you like to see in schools? 

@Nahm For me meditation and emotions would be definitely the most important thing to be taught, and one other thing that comes to mind is money psychology, it would be great if kids were taught how to throw away all the limiting beliefs that many parents pass on to their children, e.g. only bad people are rich 

Edited May 14, 2021 by Daniel Lopez

[Nahm]

@Daniel Lopez

I agree, great idea, money psychology is fundamental and currently a big miss from what I see. The entire category of liberating from collective beliefs is a tricky one, especially between kids and their parents. Wouldn’t want kids coming home and telling the folks how “dumb” they are, as it could add more difficulty for the kids. And parents too. If not delicate, kids could add beliefs, like their parents are “toxic”, etc. There’d have to be a class on empathy, compassion, and understanding as well. Even trickier is that words don’t teach, but I could see kids doing some role playing exercises, to at least have that experience. I could see that being impactful, kids are great at pretending. Thread smells like an array of potential life purposes. Got me wondering what else kids would benefit from. 

[Leo Gura]

Because it is way too threatening.

Serious growth requires truth, and truth undermines all social institutions and holders of power.

You can't even get Kansas to teach evolution. Never mind something like mindfulness.

[Preety_India]

Yea I always thought about this since a young age

If they can teach yoga,  then why not self actualization.

It's not too hard although it should be designed at kid level. 
 

[yetineti]

If you look around, do you see a lot of ‘hardcore actualizers’ fighting to improve themselves and be the best they can? No. Not many people like that, that I know of at least.

So who would teach this?

[Daniel Lopez]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

Because it is way too threatening.

Serious growth requires truth, and truth undermines all social institutions and holders of power.

You can't even get Kansas to teach evolution. Never mind something like mindfulness.

OMG Leo is this really you??? I can't believe it!! 

I'm not entirely sure I understand all you just said, but I will think on it deeply and make sure I understand it.

And thanks for everything! 

Love from Colombia ♥

[bejapuskas]

@Nahm  In my opinion compassion can be taught by dewesternizing the education system. What I mean by that is for example use art and literature classes to understand global issues, people's struggles, analyze them. Consume art from exotic cultures, from different artists, not just white men. Ideally in a class that involves multiple cultural backgrounds of students. Or teaching theatre, theatre can get very spiritual and psychic. But people are only concerned with the sciences and teaching how to use memory instead of imagination.

[Shin]

Education is about teaching you how to be a citizen that will uphold the current system in place.

Stage orange has science as a religion, so it's about learning things, again and again, even though they have 0 practical utility and you'll forget 95% of it a year after learning it (until you finally specialize in something in college).

It's shortsigthed and boring

[bejapuskas]

7 minutes ago, Shin said:

Education is about teaching you how to be a citizen that will uphold the current system in place.

This is very profound.

[Shin]

14 minutes ago, bejapuskas said:

This is very profound.

I don't know if you're trolling, but thanks  

@Daniel Lopez I'd add that when the country you live in will be at stage green, education will be more about how to live in harmony with your social circles and with your environement. These will way more emphasized than just getting "knowledge" for the sake of it.

I don't think it will be as systemic as you might think though, that will come with stage yellow.

[Nahm]

2 hours ago, bejapuskas said:

In my opinion compassion can be taught by dewesternizing the education system

Ya but that commute. ?

[bejapuskas]

@Nahm  True, but most people are wasting time in online classes anyways and it takes little time and CO2 to connect online. Even though it still sucks ass, international online class > homogenous online class imo.

[DocWatts]

Because our Education System was created to serve the needs of the economy, rather than to help people develop self actualization skills.