University of Colorado

Colorado Springs




Robert Painter







A Look At Other Schooling Techniques and How we can Use Their
Ideals to Benefit Our Schools









Introduction to Social Psychology
Kate Lane
11/11/2009
When the overwhelming majority of Americans think of
school, they envision a room with a chalkboard, desks, and a
teacher standing in the front of the room while lecturing and
asking questions of their students. People do not often
realize the existence of the many sundry methods of learning
that different cultures around the world utilize to explore
our infinite universe of knowledge. This writing will examine
and analyze a few of the world's learning styles and focus on
the relationship between teachers and students.
In the United States, our accepted normal schooling style
creates, in most cases, a very distant relationship between
teachers and students. I attribute this to our longstanding,
culture that we derived from England. Starting almost as soon
as we can understand the words coming out of our parent's
mouths, we are taught to be skeptical of strangers and not to
place very much trust in people until we know them quite well.
In America's classrooms children place slightly more trust in
their new teachers than they would for a complete stranger.
Since there are usually not very many opportunities for
children to get to know their teachers, the utilitarian and
largely uninvolved relationship between students and their
teachers remains.
One culture who practice a much closer relationship from
teacher to pupil is that of the Sufi. They are prevalent in
the Middle East and most commonly practiced in Iran, Iraq,
Turkey, and India (Avadis-Rostamian, 2002, p.1). Sufism,
based on Islam, focuses on a establishing the most simple and
direct connection with God. A Dervish is someone who is an
apprentice to a Sheik. Sheiks have the most direct connection
with god that is possible in this religion. Dervishes, as
teachers, take on one student at a time, who are called
Mystics. Mystics, as people who want to be Dervishes "make an
unconditional commitment to the teacher to go where the
teacher goes and learn along the way" (Avadis-Rostamian, 2002,
p.1). This commitment creates a virtually unbreakable bond
between Dervish and Mystic.
There is a school in England called Brockwood Park School
which was founded by Jiddu Krishnamurti in 1969. It combines
some of the mystical elements of Sufism and spirituality with
our traditional, classroom schooling method. His philosophy
which guides the rest of the school's goals is to "educate the
whole human being" (Krishnamurti, 1969,p. 1). This alludes
that there is much more to learn in life than the traditional
cold, hard facts that we, in the United States, have become
accustomed to. Their course schedule includes all of the
basics we would find in an American school system, but
includes unique forums such as K time,(an introduction to
Krishnamurti) ecological building, piano, guitar, and sound
recording (Krishnamurti, 1969,p. 1). Especially with K time,
these unique classes are all built around educating the person
in more than the informational aspects of life. There are a
lot of unique courses, however, included are all of the
necessary courses needed for qualification into other schools
and then university.
Sufism is mainly practiced in cultures that are less
scientific and more open to mystical ideals, making it easier
for Mystics to take the oath to do away with their previous
lives and give complete devotion to following their Dervish
and absorbing all information that there is to offer. This,
is in great contrast to the distant relationships students
share with instructors in the United States. In fact, in this
country, when a student or their parents feel they need more
personal attention they must hire a tutor whose job it is to
give individualized attention to each of their clients.
Clearly, Sufism has the strongest bond between student and
teacher, but Brockwood Park School is quite good at this as
well. It fosters a very strong community with a group of
about 100 people all living together with a very low teacher
to student ratio (less than 5 to 1). Students and teachers
often interact in their free time, much like in Sufism, and it
is not uncommon for the teachers and students to have outings
to local museums, or shops. This both provides an opportunity
for the students to get to know their teachers and increases
their exposure to culture and spirituality.
One major fallback of American education is our lack of
holistic material in the classroom. This is mostly because we
have decided that God has no place in our classrooms, however,
the ignorance of our own spirituality in the majority of
adults does not foster any sort of spirituality in the
classroom. We try to jam as much information(mostly useless)
as possible, down our children's throats during the twelve
years they are forced to go to school. This creates a
negative environment for our kids who are far too often heard
complaining about school. Brockwood park school and Sufism
both understand the importance of their students learning what
is necessary to get by in our modern world, but stop once that
criteria is fulfilled and focus on self-improvement,
spirituality, and a connection to God. Although we Americans
have decided that God has no place in the classroom due to
conflicting beliefs, it is important and beneficial for
everyone to be aware of our own spirituality and to ponder the
existence of something greater and more universal than
ourselves as individuals.
In recent years, American schools have taken an effort to
cater to individuals while keeping the rest of the class
focused on the lecture. With the increasing presence of
teachers assistants, all of the students can seek out
additional help with someone who they may know or look up to
more than the teacher. The existence of teachers assistants
started with their placement in classes which included
students with minor classifications such as ADHD or dyslexia.
While assistance to the teachers certainly helps to streamline
the process of cramming more information into the minds of our
youngsters, there is not an improvement in students rapport
with their instructors.
There is a lot to be done in this country to improve our
student-teacher rapport and in turn improve our education
system as a whole. While uneconomical, smaller class sizes
can certainly benefit student-teacher relations while making
it easier for kids to learn and less afraid to ask questions.
In the long run, smaller class sizes would make up for the
financial loss on behalf of the government with smarter and
more competent students graduating out of high school and
greatly improving the state of our society.
One of the philosophies of the Brockwood Park School is
"To learn the proper care, use and exercise of the body"
(Krishnamurti, 1969,p. 1). Recently, an increasing number of
American schools have removed recess from our children's daily
schedules. While physical education has been in our schools
for quite a while, kids are forced to give up free playtime
outside for an indoor education on a series of rules we call
sports. On top of all the rigidity in the rest of the school
day, this lack of play stifles the children's creativity even
more. It is socially and creatively important for the kids be
able to invent games and make up their own rules or to just
run around and have a good time. To move forward as a school
system our country needs to guarantee at least half an hour of
free play to all of our students. This will foster
creativity, sociability, and fitness in America's youth.
As Americans we should take pieces of other, more
effective, learning styles from moth the Sufi and the
Brockwood Park School. To move toward better student-teacher
relationships and in turn a happier and more effective
experience for our pupils, there needs to be smaller class
sizes, guaranteed play time, and the continued existence of
teacher's assistants. Overall, these measures will improve
our children's experience and once they graduate, they will be
happier, smarter, and more capable of handling the rest of
their lives.

Works Cited
Avadis-Rostamian, J. (2002). Sufi Teachers and Redefining the
Student-teacher Relationship. Csun.edu,
http://www.csun.edu/~ja2321/Paper1.htm
Krishnamurti, J. (1969). Education for Creative Living in
Challenging Times. Brockwood.org,
http://www.brockwood.org.uk/philosophy/index.htm