Listen to the Children: How Empowering Students Can Fix Our Broken Schools

Today's educational system is broken, an archaic process based on a colonization that is both dulling and ineffective. We need to tap into the creative souls of children, listen to them, and acknowledge that students and teachers alike are suffering. If we approach educating our children from a life- and soul-affirming place, they will begin to thrive. Teachers, administrators, and parents are all asked to buy into this colonizing model by a compulsory government school system, and shifting it will require an awareness described in the field of liberation psychology: a clear vision of what damage the current system might be doing, and a vision of the common aims of all who wish to educate children as free thinkers from a position of love and secure relationships above all. We can do this through an educational system that focuses on the development of the whole child, one that allows for attachment, relationship, and love in education, factors that are known to be primary in the developing child.

About the Author :
Stacy Pulice, Ph.D., is the founder of The Art of Rehumanizing, sharing the perspective that kindness and human connection brings out the best in people. A mother of three, her current research centers around love, healing and emotional safety in schools. Stacy has an unquenchable thirst to integrate the many facets of human existence- from authoring think pieces on increasing community to launching a public school teaching garden fostering connection to the soil for teens. She has a deep belief in the power of self-care as an act of resistance to oppression, and seeks to expand simple practices in all aspects of life to improve our human experience. For more than twenty years, Stacy has served on numerous boards committed to fostering emotional intelligence in education. Visit her websites: www.listentothechildrenbook.com www.theartofrehumanizing.com

Review :
Now, more than ever, the core values of community, education and love are vital to our well-being and that of the planet. Stacy Pulice's work highlights the tenets of Middle School--inspiring healthy, loving relationships, cultivating the intrinsic motivation to learn, and building strong communities to demonstrate why the sacred pursuit of knowledge, both of the world and one's self, is a noble quest of the utmost importance. Brian McWilliams Headmaster, Santa Barbara Middle School __________________________ No clearer example can be provided for colonization than the attempts forced upon our peoples to forever extinguish that flame that was gifted to each of us by our Creator. No man can undo the gift of Creation. Listen to the child, listen for his spirit, listen to his heartbeat, listen to his voice, for "out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength." Katherine Whitecloud Elder, mother, grandmother, community leader and knowledge keeper from Wipazoka Wakpa Dakota Nation _____________________________________________ Stacy Pulice has written an essential book about Love; the love of humanity, the love of a holistic education, and the love of students and educators. She thoughtfully exposes the current underlying biases disenfranchising youth from a meaningful and life enhancing education and points to the four simple mindsets that can re-engage and re-animate teachers and students. Dr. Pulice offers us an educational future of an integrated and complete curriculum in which students and teachers never stop learning and become each other's allies. Dr. Jennifer Freed Psychologist, author, speaker, and co-founder/director of the highly successful teen program AHA!