My heart smiled when I watched the opening ceremony of the Thich Nhat Hanh School of Interbeing and learned about the upcoming Greater Good Love Summit, organized by UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center.
Something stirred in me.
It feels like the New Education—the education of the whole child, of connection, of awareness, of the heart—is no longer just a distant idea.
It has grown into a small bud, quietly waiting to blossom.
Several years ago, when I attended the Awakened School at Columbia University, it felt more like a seed.
At that time, the spiritual education community was still small. Sometimes it even felt a little… strange. It seemed like a special community existing on its own, somewhat disconnected from public education and regular schools.
But something feels different now.
The bridge is being built.
And we are beginning to cross it.
Perhaps this is not really about bringing “spirituality” into education at all.
Perhaps it is simply a deeper understanding of what education can be.
A way of educating that sees the whole child.
A heart-centered way.
A conscious way.
A way that understands that beneath all the skills, knowledge, assessments, and achievements, there is a human being—feeling, wondering, connecting, imagining, and becoming.
I remember how, not long ago, I hesitated even to put the words “With love, light, and laughter” in my email signature.
Would people think it was too spiritual? Too unusual?
Would it make some of my professional connections uncomfortable?
And now, I smile.
Love is becoming part of the public conversation in education.
The Greater Good Love Summit says it right in its name.
What once felt like a private language of a small community is becoming a language many educators are willing to speak openly.
Maybe the paradigm shift doesn't always arrive with a dramatic announcement.
Sometimes, it simply begins with a word.
Love.
As I think about this, the faces of my TK children keep flashing through my mind.
Their pure smiles.
Their wiggly bodies.
Their enormous curiosity.
Their wild imaginations.
Their directness.
Their flexibility.
The effortless way they reach toward animals and plants.
The way they can be completely themselves before they learn to worry about whether they are doing it “right.”
How much I hope they can keep that.
I hope they don't have to spend their childhood learning to fit themselves into a system, a fixed schedule, a predetermined standard, or a narrow definition of success.
I hope education can grow around the child, rather than asking the child to shrink into education.
And suddenly, I think of Pure Imagination.
Maybe this is what education is meant to protect.
The ability to dream.
To imagine something that doesn't exist yet.
To wonder, What if?
To think it.
To feel it.
To create it.
And perhaps, little by little, to bring it into reality.
The seed was planted.
The bridge is being built.
And now, perhaps, we are watching the first little bud begin to open.
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