How Green School teaches Love

For far too long, maybe forever, love has not featured in school curricula. It may be at the very core of humanity but has been assumed to be something that schools do not have jurisdiction over. Sure, Kindergartens and Primary School classrooms have a sense of love. In those younger, pre-teen years of cuddles, learning through play, singing, laughter, and tears; there’s plenty of love there. But once a child matures to a stage that allows them to cogitate and communicate the more complex feelings of love, we hastily wind-back conversations and explorations of love from the school experience. The timing could not be more imperfect. Just as a child’s experience of love becomes increasingly complex and something that isn’t always fun and cuddles, it disappears from the classroom.

A teacher’s love for learning is where it all starts.

Middle School is that wild and wonderful age range of around 11–14. It is an almost inevitable roller-coaster ride of social and emotional growth. Children generally want to take a step back from the adults in their world, they are forming their own opinions, relationships become more complex and friendships become a central focus of life. It is a time that children need huge amounts of love.

Middle School is precisely the wrong time to reduce talking about, thinking about and experiencing love.

A holistic education is critical at the Middle School stage but is often diminished as children move beyond early and primary stages of learning and move into upper school. Progressive education programs are moving beyond knowledge-based to skills-based learning experiences, teachers are also starting to design curriculum with a focus on values-based learning. But how do you teach a value? How do you teach love? Part of the answer to this question is to provide students opportunities to experience love.

Read more of the original article at Green School’s online magazine BambooNews