Regenerative Learning

Growth, nourishment, connection and communication.

Regenerative education embraces children’s and adolescents’ innate skills while paying attention to the specific and urgent needs of digital native 21st-century children. Some inflexible, unresponsive education systems function like factory farms, doggedly churning out undernourished individuals packaged and stamped with various standardised seals of approval. The notion that liberal arts programmes, in which creative ‘soft’ subjects are weighted equally with ‘hard’ academic subjects, are an alternative to mainstream schooling is outdated and unprogressive. We argue that responsive, continuously updated, flexible and well-integrated education systems are essential. Connecting education with agriculture is not merely a helpful analogy: the connection offers profound practical applications in 21st-century education.

In regenerative agriculture, depleted soil is regenerated by applying naturally derived nutrients, and soil health is maintained and protected by biodiversity above and below ground. Across the globe, successful regeneration and conservation are driven by site-specific, flexible and responsive management strategies. Below is a 3 min video that explains the principles.

Teachers in cooperative groups can act like mycelium helping students to nourish and be nourished by diverse interconnected topics. Regenerative learning is inclusive: it takes place anywhere: on city streets, in parks, at home, on the internet and strolling through a redwood forest. It is an intentional movement that knows no cultural, social, gender or economic boundaries.

Humans learn as naturally as plants photosynthesize. Children are born curious. They arrive in the world equipped with a powerpack, and a set of genetic instructions tried and tested by natural selection. Long childhoods allow time to play, question, take risks, create, cooperate, and learn. For children and adolescents, freedom and play are essential for learning. For more on this see Peter Gray’s talk The Decline of Play. Why are we diminishing playtime and determinedly educating children out of their curiosity? Given trust and time, children enjoy educating themselves. Not because they are genius, simply because they are human. Unschooling, homeschooling, and alternative schools take different approaches towards similar objectives: supporting children to grow at their own pace; giving them the freedom to follow paths that interest them, and not squeezing them into a standardised frame.

We at Rewild the Mind would like to see this practice in mainstream state-run education. Schools are vital hubs in communities; they provide social and emotional stability and offer resources that are often unavailable at home. We would like to see these community 'hubs' expand their activities into the home and into the community. Flexible working hours are becoming the new normal for parents. Why not flexible learning hours for children? Why not let learning be an integrated community-based activity? There are many, often undervalued, individuals in our communities who could contribute to our children's education. Knowledge flows in all directions and learning is a communal experience.

In nature, we learn within mixed ages groups, adults guiding from experience and children opening out fresh pathways that can benefit the group. Formal education unnaturally segregates learners into age-defined closed compartments. Of course, age-dependent mental development needs to be considered, but the current education system isolates learners into peer groups throughout the day. This thwarts social and intellectual development and can lead to lifelong ageism. “The true direction of the development of thinking is not from the individual to the social, but from the social to the individual.” Lev S. Vygotsky

A well-nourished mind needs diverse knowledge: rich in connections.

Insular, compartmentalized, fact-driven education programmes are slicing through the cords of human narratives and cutting off the flow of knowledge that links us to our past, nourishes our present and empowers unimagined futures. Separating chemistry, from biology and physics; history from geography; music from maths; philosophy from technology, and imaginative creativity from exploratory logic is preventing children from engaging with fundamental aspects of human exploration and expression. Humans are natural storytellers, dancers, engineers, designers, musicians and dreamers. 21st-century technology is offering us access to fresh information that is deepening our understanding of the universe, nature and humankind.

We are in a critical phase of human history. Our youth have inherited grave challenges. The least we can do is to provide them with a rich body of knowledge, and the time and space to develop as thinkers and creative problem solvers. This will help them to ask good questions.

We are living in the nano-bio revolution, yet many children leave school with little understanding of the quantum world and few concerns about the sustainable management of the earth's soil. This is surely unacceptable for a generation who will have to make uniquely critical decisions. Quantum mechanics are considered too rarified for young children, yet through literature, they embrace quantum superposition, entanglement, tunnelling and many worlds with joyous ease. As the Gribbons say “Science is explainable magic.” For more on this please visit our Homeschool page and see Harry Potter quantum tunnelling on platform 9 3/4 and Lyra Belacqua become entangled in many worlds.

The sun shines due to quantum tunnelling in the sun's core, and light energy is converted into glucose in leaves. This sugar feeds the plant, and the excess provides the filigree roots of fungi, which form an entangled network through which water, nutrients and information flow across entire ecosystems. Photosynthesis is the energy that sustains us, and the soil is the medium that supports us. The wonder of that is poetry in action.

Wonder is a powerful resource: sometimes squandered in education systems that are driven by standardised grades and narrow expectations.

The earth and the sky and the stars have long inspired awe and energised inquiry. Rewilding means re-exploring the stars, the sky and the soil and applying 21st-century knowledge and technology.

“I’d never heard the word nanotechnology. It came up out of the blue and I was blown away. I didn’t even know I was living in the nano revolution… it was a revelation.” Jan (15)

“ I heard about CRISPR from a friend…I was like whaaaaat… my biology teacher had never heard of it. She said I didn’t need to know about it because it wasn’t on the syllabus.” Daniella (14)

“Most of my interesting learning takes place out of class. I look for things online and my friends show me so much stuff they are interested… way better than most of the stuff we get in class.” Arseney (16)

“ I feel pretty angry, A’ level biology is really hard and half the things I learned in my GCSE bio are rubbish. Leo (17)

“ I am so bored, I thought A’ levels would be more interesting. I hate what was my favourite subject. I just want it to stop.| Eliza (17)

“ I have to drop subjects next year and make plans…but I still don’t know what I want to do…it’s so annoying.” Kira (14)

“We’ve lost so much soil. I never realised it was important. You don’t think about it do you?” Anna (16)

These representative quotes come from students with excellent predicted grades. As things stand a diligent student who is followed the world-renowned English system, either in the UK or Internationally may leave school with 8-10 GCSEs or IGCSEs, and 3-4 A levels but they will have moved through a vertically directed system with a progressively narrowing focus that is disappointingly unnutritious and very time-consuming.

There is no need to reinvent the wheel there are systems in place that could be adjusted to suit site-specific needs. In the mainstream, a student who has been educated through the International Baccalaureate system will have had a broader education aimed to support creative independent thinking. Click here to learn more International Baccalaureate The liberal arts IB programmes offer intra-school constructed highly integrated curricula that are teacher-guided and student-inspired. Through direct practice, independent learning, active problem-solving, and questioning assumptions students gain the skills to be effective lifelong learners. Progress is monitored by teacher assessment and standardised testing is introduced in the final two years. It is a prepacked version of rewilding education that has a great deal to offer. Sadly there are very few schools that offer the full programme. Click here for up to date information. Global IB programmes. Concerningly, there is external and parental pressure being exerted on IB teachers to standardize younger students' journeys.

It is common for students to take the IB as an alternative to A’ levels. The years spent teaching bright students transitioning from the GCSE’s to the IB have been salutary. A considerable number struggle: for one simple reason. Too many have had the stuffing knocked out of them by grinding through their GCSE’s and their spirit of inquiry has been dulled. It is not the children’s fault, nor is it their teachers’ fault. The exam-based system designed for another century has broken beyond repair.

Rewilding tests and assessments.

Universal standardized courses cannot offer diverse, relevant, site-specific courses to a global audience of students. Assessing students can, and should, support multiple means of expression: exams and tests predominantly assess memory. However, teacher or student-generated tests have a place and can act as a net to catch misunderstandings. Specific, unstandardized tests and quizzes can be creative and supportive.

Standardised static curricula in a rapidly changing world cannot serve the needs of 21st-century digital native children. Often following the requirements of a curriculum means that students are not kept up to date with relevant and fascinating knowledge. This is frustrating for teachers and students alike. Universal courses fail to offer diverse and site-specific relevance.

Trust teachers and students and let them develop cross-discipline connected curricula that will offer narrative and context. These can be internally assessed via multiple means to suit the needs of individual students: film, design, dance, experimentation, analytical reports, plays, cooking and of course in writing…the list is endless.

Exams are unimaginative, outdated and limiting.

We need a revolution. We want to hear your ideas: students, educators, caregivers, family members and members of the community.

For engaging and inspiring websites and youtube channels devised by helpful thinkers please click below