An Education that Honours the Spirit and Captures the Gifts of Childhood

Children are naturally hungry to learn, and yet our conventional education system turns learning into work – a compulsory task decided by someone else, to be most often done sitting still and being quiet. Not only that, it uses extrinsic motivations like rewards and punishments, praise and grades, to manipulate children’s behaviour and make them feel bad for resisting their teacher’s instructions or ‘not being good enough’.

I fantasise about an education where children are free to express their natural behaviours without shame, and pursue learning in the ways that most engage them – through play, friendship and personal interests. I want children to enjoy the juicy adventure of their childhood! I also believe that if we unleash the potential of young people, they could have an enormous impact on the world to make positive change happen, now and in the future.

This is my manifesto!