Why does the education system need to change?
Why children need a different way of learning 

What children and moms have told me

What education children need

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What education was designed for

Education has always been meant to prepare children for a task, a profession, in society. The government decides what children learn and must learn. In the basic subjects children learn how to read information, communicate with each other, follow the news and manage their money. When they are older, they learn about an existing profession. What children learn mainly keeps our economy going.

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In short: school teaches children what they need to live and survive within a system. Children learn how to be good employees. They also long to learn how to be good people. A small group of children learns innovative, technical methods that bring our society into a new technical era. Education shows the norms and values of a society. So the question for every leader is: what do we find important for our children?

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Children already are someone

The most important insight for education is that children already are someone. Later is later: children already are who they are meant to be. They are the seeds that grow into complete plants, flowers and fruits. At her core, a child already is that plant, that flower, that adult who follows her life path.

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Just as flowers and plants need water and light to grow, children need education. But education for a child who grows like a sunflower is different from education for a child who develops like a palm tree. By focusing on who a child is and what she needs here and now, a child grows into who she truly is. For education this means that children can follow many more lessons at their own request. They learn exactly what they need and want to learn at that moment. That saves a lot of frustration for children, parents and teachers.

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Today's children learn in a different way

Every generation is different. The children born today have different talents and a different frequency than the souls born seventy years ago. On the outside they look much like children of the past, but their inner world and knowledge are different. Some children arrive with knowledge that surprises adults.

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Because of their different frequency, children today learn, live and communicate in a different way. They often think in images, value their own knowledge and give clear signals about how and what they want to learn. Every child brings a talent to meet a need in society, and together their talents fit like a puzzle. For education this means that every year we can look again at how children learn best and what they need to learn. Children often tell us themselves. It is up to parents, schools and policymakers to pick up these signals and shape a world that is also a world for our children.

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Learning by talent, not by age

The current system is organised by age. Yet one child reads at four, while another develops this at eight. One child learns like an owl, the next like a tiger. The order in which a child learns something also depends on her own development. When we expect every child to go through the same development at the same age, we ask some children to wait too long to develop their talents and others to learn skills they are still growing towards.

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Intelligence shows in how you make connections, how far you can look beyond the information you have, how you empathise with the views of others, how creative and solution-focused you are, and how lovingly you treat the planet, nature, animals and people. A grade mainly shows whether the material and the way it was taught fit a child's way of learning. A school system that starts from trust, knowing that children want to learn and learn things when they are ready, lets every child's intelligence shine.

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Creativity: the genius every child is born with

Every child has an innate need to develop and to show what she can do. As long as a child feels good in her environment, she keeps growing.

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A well-known creativity study by Dr. George Land, originally developed as a test for NASA and described in his book Breakpoint and Beyond, tested 1,600 children aged four and five, and again years later. According to Land, 98% of the young children scored at "creative genius" level for imaginative, divergent thinking. That share dropped sharply as they grew older, to 2% in adulthood. Land explained this by the way we teach children to imagine and judge at the same time. When we constantly judge, criticise and correct, we use a smaller part of our brain. When we think creatively, the brain lights up.

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School can offer much more space for creativity, imagination and different ways of thinking. Children then learn to trust their own ideas, and they carry that confidence into adult life.

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What children long to learn: how to be human

Children long to learn how to be human. Every day we choose who we want to be, deal with emotions, guard our boundaries and manage the energy of others. Children grow into happy adults when they learn how to heal and forgive. Families flourish when children learn at school how relationships work and how to deal with different archetypes.

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Children also love to learn about the self-healing capacity of the body, the healing power of herbs and nature, the power of language, their own energy, and practical skills such as technology, cooking, working with nature, map reading, making clothes and managing money. When children learn to be human, to handle emotions and to keep their energy in balance, they have a broad, stable foundation for life. The more stable adults, the more beautiful the society.

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LeerRijk: the education of the Matriarchal World

In the Matriarchal World, education is called LeerRijk: you become rich by learning, and school is a place to learn. Children first learn how to be human: how to handle their energy, stay in balance, and understand the meaning of words and dreams. Language, setting intentions and the power of thoughts are compulsory subjects, because the words we choose and the thoughts we have influence other people, the Earth and the universe.

All other subjects, such as physics, mathematics, construction, baking bread, healing herbs or astrology, children and adults follow when they are ready. LeerRijk is free and open to everyone, and classes are organised by knowledge instead of age. A four-year-old can learn in the same class as someone of a hundred. People learn from each other: an adult helps a young child with her emotions, and the enthusiasm of a six-year-old helps a teenager focus.

Tests are practical and take place when the student says she is ready, so there is no stress. When someone finds a subject hard, the teacher first looks for another way to learn it. If that doesn't work yet, the message is: "It is not your time yet; you have another path to walk first." Children who feel important, supported and helped perform best. The most important lesson of all is that children and people learn to live together with love and trust.