The mission of the Living Wisdom Schools is to rescue children from a system whose weaknesses have become abundantly clear, in the form of pandemic bullying, an alarming number of student suicides, and children rebelling and acting out their frustrations with drugs and violence. Over their 50-year history, the Living Wisdom Schools have demonstrated that educating the whole child - body, heart, mind, and spirit - far from neglecting the children’s intellectual development, actually achieves the opposite effect.
By engaging the whole child in the learning process, vast reserves of energy and enthusiasm are released to fuel the highest accomplishment, leading to exceptional test scores and high school and college grades. There’s a strong, growing interest in Living Wisdom School among parents, which is wonderful and reason for rejoicing. If you are seeking a school for your child, why not arrange a visit to Living Wisdom School? We’re sure you’ll love your time here, as so many other parents have in the thirty-three years of our school’s existence. You can use the Contact form, or give us a call at 650-462-8150.
Educational methods were adapted to the needs of children during each stage of their development, as the primary focus naturally shifted from the body (Pre-K and K), to the feelings (grades 1-6), will power (grades 7-12), and mind (college).
In the Living Wisdom Schools, the teachers lead the students in practicing heart-harmonizing methods daily. In the classroom and on the playground, the teachers pay constant, close attention to the quality of the children’s interactions. At Living Wisdom School the teachers have long experience helping each child succeed daily at his or her own level. The result is a very happy school “ship” where the children are enthusiastically engrossed in meeting their academic and personal challenges.
Currently there are eight Education for Life schools in America and Europe. The Palo Alto school has 70-75 students in nine grades, K-8.
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Recently, I visited the Palo Alto Living Wisdom School in my role as the school’s web manager, to video a pair of talks by the school’s emeritus director, Helen Purcell, and longtime middle school teacher and present school administrator Gary McSweeney. (Helen Purcell served as director of Living Wisdom School for more than 30 years.
The Importance of Positive Psychology
Shawn Achor ended up teaching the most popular course at Harvard, on the principles of positive psychology. Achor realized that when it comes to success and happiness, our traditional assumptions are backwards. Most people assume that they will be happy after they’ve achieved material success.
Shawn Achor would confirm that the happiness principle is not only valid for Harvard students but for successful people in all fields. The traditional expectation that happiness is a reward that we can expect to enjoy after we’ve achieved success, defined as a good job, a beautiful home, an impressive income, a trophy spouse, and a shiny car, was simply wrong.
You Don't Find Happiness, You Create It | Katarina Blom | TEDxGöteborg
Achor, a psychology major, soon noticed a trait that set the most successful students apart. He realized that the Harvard freshmen who were most likely to excel were not those who buried themselves in the library stacks, grimly determined to grind out good grades. The most successful students were the happiest and most socially engaged. They interacted with their peers, formed study groups, continually asked questions, and approached their studies in a spirit of joyous adventure.
To put it differently, our brains are wired so that happiness and success go together. The qualities that are essential for success - will power, planning, and perseverance - are localized in the same brain area where upbeat, happy attitudes reside. Neurophysiologist Richard J. Davidson, Ph.D., director of the Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience at the University of Wisconsin, is one of the world’s foremost experts on the prefrontal cortex.
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At Living Wisdom School, the children are led in brief daily periods of meditation, using ancient meditation techniques that are designed to relax the body, uplift the feelings, calmly focus attention, and direct energy to the prefrontal cortex. When Davidson and his team studied Tibetan monks living in India, they tested one elderly monk, a lifelong meditator, whose scores on left-prefrontal-cortex activation were the highest they had ever seen, reflecting the tremendous positive energy and joy his practices had brought him.
The Role of Energy and Heart-Brain Communication
Since approximately 1900, every significant invention has been based on a growing awareness that the fundamental reality of creation is energy. Think of the marvels of modern technology, and the vast array of devices that aid us in our work and at home. The changes brought by the new awareness of energy are not confined to the Living Wisdom Schools. As hinted earlier, they are sweeping the globe.
Heart rate variability in positive and negative emotions (courtesy of IHM)
The heart and brain communicate continually through the nervous system, thus the heart’s powerful positive or negative, harmonizing or disruptive messages are carried instantly to the brain, where they either enhance or interfere with our ability to remain cool and concentrate. Harmonious feelings enhance mental focus, calmness, health, performance, intuition, and the frequency of spiritual feelings.
Integrating Spiritual Principles and Individual Attention
The teachers in the Living Wisdom Schools understand that universal, non-sectarian spiritual principles are priceless keys for finding success and happiness in our lives. In Narani’s classroom, “spiritual education” means encouraging all aspects of a child’s nature, with happiness as the constant goal. One of the strongest attitudes I see in our teachers is a very, VERY deep respect for the children. Our role as adults and as leaders is extremely important, but at the same time we understand that these are souls, and they’ve been here before.
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They were old and they knew a lot, and while those past experiences may not be in their conscious memory, these souls are still very worthy of our respect, and of being treated in a kind, fair, and respectful way. I remember a meeting that we teachers had with Swami Kriyananda, the founder of Education for Life. He said, “Always look to the consciousness behind anything that y...
Parents often question whether devoting time to individual attention doesn’t somehow steal energy from the academic subjects. We also assess our high school students’ progress using the Iowa Test of Educational Development. We invited Palo Alto LWS graduates (2011-2014) to share their high school and college grade-point averages.
Last year a little girl from New Zealand visited our class. She was a first grader in a typical school where they moved the kids ahead quickly. She was in my class for two weeks, and she did fine. But after she left we got a call from her parents, telling us that her teacher was extremely puzzled. At first I couldn’t imagine what I had done. In fact, I hadn’t done anything more than I was doing with the other kids. We simply spend lots of time with books, and we sit down and read together.
Of course it wasn’t as if I could have taught the girl to read in only a couple of weeks. But then it occurred to me that there might have been a degree of academic pressure at her school, whereas at Living Wisdom School we cover a great deal of ground in academics, but there’s always a warm, friendly feeling to it.
Adapting to Modern Educational Needs
It wasn’t until the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century that government officials and manufacturers decided that schools should be run like assembly lines to train children to be good laborers and factory managers. The first seven were all “soft skills,” such as the ability to empathize, cooperate, and contribute harmoniously. When Google decided, 15 years after its founding, to re-examine its practice of hiring only job candidates with outstanding grades from top-tier universities, they were surprised to find that technical knowledge was eighth among the factors that predicted success in a high-tech business environment.
Example: Tony Holler was an honors chemistry teacher and track and football coach for thirty years at Plainfield North High School in the greater Chicago area. When Tony transitioned his teams from old-style coaching methods to practices that emphasized the efficient use of energy and were short, fast, and fun, his teams won the state 4×100 event, the prestige event in track and field, four of the next six years. Thus, in sports training, the needs of the individual were subordinated to rigid, one-size-fits-all methods.
Then a miracle occurred, when a forward thinking young captain, D. Michael Abrashoff, took over Benfold and put energy-based principles in place. Abrashoff was convinced that the key to turning the ship around would be the happiness and success of each crew member. He talked with each of Benfold’s 300 sailors and gave them freedom to do whatever it would take to improve their departments, even if it meant bending the Navy’s rules. The result: within months, Benfold was beating the Navy’s best ships in at-sea trials.
tags: #enlightenments #psychic #of #lincoln #park