Evolving Education – Where Booking a Family Holiday during Term Time Took Me

As a proponent of finding one’s inner power and expressing our authentic selves, being called into the Assistant Principal’s office at my children’s Primary school at the age of 46 - and getting told off for booking a family holiday in term time - was an interesting experience.

I know this issue comes up time and again in the media, I know some countries – like the UK – actually fine parents for doing this, and I know there are arguments on all sides, but I feel like the arguments are happening at the wrong level.

What is the purpose of education? I’ll start with the dictionary definition; it’s a process of learning new skills, values, beliefs and habits. It’s fair to say that government-run education systems are about indoctrinating children into society.

The question in my mind is therefore what kind of society do we want to create?

For my part, I am not concerned about our future generations, as my recently published article Our Future is Bright – Why Worry? attests; it may be worth a read for a different point of view if you hold any fears about it yourself.

I'm certainly not worried about a breakdown of society and the traditional constructs and systems as we know them, they are long overdue and inevitable in my view. I'm excited to see the changes brought about by these new generations. So how can we best support them in that?

In our country, by law a child has to be in a system of education between the ages of 6 and 16, or the parent has to have been granted an exemption (usually for home schooling). There is no choice in the matter and, as I was taught, we are to feel that having an education is a privilege.

Now compared to some of the historical alternatives, and perhaps even some of those we see in countries today, I can see why the educational process I went through myself was an improvement upon those.

However, in my lifetime the rate of change on this planet has accelerated and, with the ushering in of the technological era and meteoric rise in consumerism, I believe the resulting constant and overwhelming bid for our attention is birthing another era – the age of meaning.

With knowledge at our fingertips, there is less thirst for it.

My daughter said to me just the other day “why couldn’t we just be born knowing how to read and write, then we wouldn’t have to go to school?” I’m going to come back to that thought later in the article. First let me tell you what happened.

My kids attend a school we chose primarily for its setting and general philosophy. I love the natural environment in which it resides, the fabulous adjuncts (like a programme that develops children’s auditory processing skills) and the fantastic teachers my children have had the good fortune to experience.     

The school seems to attract quite a contingent of those of us who have moved here from other countries, so it has quite a multi-national demographic in terms of the families being taught there. New Zealand itself is a country of immigrants; even those we might call indigenous are thought to have arrived perhaps only as far back as 800 years ago.

Thus most people here can track their ancestry to many other places in the world, and so wanderlust is part of the culture. The ‘big OE’ (overseas experience) has been a part of the Kiwi way of life for a long time.  Whereas when I worked in the UK, it was unusual for companies to grant an employee an extended leave of absence for an overseas trip, it is quite commonplace here.

And this has been reflected within the school culture too, travel and experiences oversees were encouraged.

However, last week the school announced a new process for planned absences. Given we are about to embark on a family holiday (that the teacher has known about since February), I found the new process includes being invited into the office and told not to book such a thing again.

While, certainly in New Zealand, there is no discrepancy in the Ministry of Education's eyes between persistent absenteeism and an absence due to a holiday, I feel there is a huge difference in the two in terms of developing a child's will and the effects on their education.  There will also be quite a difference in overall actual attendance across the year.

It is quite one thing to take measured absences, another to just decide not to bother going to school.

​In the past the ministry hasn’t published individual school absence rates on their website, but perhaps there is a move to push up attendance levels? I was not given a clear answer.

However, neither the intent nor content of the conversation with the school about our family holiday has dissuaded me from the choices we have made nor persuaded me that it's actually my child's interests that are really of concern. 

My children will have a wonderful opportunity to spend two unadulterated weeks in nature, spending their days with parents more fully present than they can hope to have at home with the demands of school and business.

With the way school weeks and terms are currently structured, intense blocks of weeks followed by similarly intense weeks of holidays, quite aside of any financial implications, would any of us really choose to go somewhere at a time (in school holidays) that is likely to be ridiculously busy and full of frazzled people trying to let go of overwhelm?

Now a road paved with less intensity and burn out, shorter school days, shorter weeks and less holidays, more of a natural rhythm and balance, this is something I would support for children and teachers alike.

That said, I can well understand the challenges for a teacher constantly having children absent, having experience myself in the realm of adult training and having managed hundreds of staff for many years. I know it is a rare thing to have a ‘full house’. Absenteeism in the workplace is as prevalent as it as at school, and – I think – for the same reasons.

We inherently feel our freedom within, and are less and less willing to conform to systems that do not allow us to express this. I see people now in swathes quietly and passively rebelling against that which we could call authority, so it was interesting (and perhaps somewhat unfortunate) when the assistant principle mentioned a book he’s been reading The Spoilt Generation: Why Restoring Authority Will Make Our Children and Society Happier by Dr Aric Sigman.

Although I suspect my views and Dr Sigman’s do not differ as substantially as one might think, it’s the deliberately controversial use of his chosen terminology that would set many of my generation against it. The inference is that we’ve ‘gone soft’ in our parenting. While I would acknowledge that we are a generation of parents now having to figure out ideal boundaries for things that were not even thought of when I was a child,
I’m not so sure Dr Sigman’s terminology would attract us to his methods.

In fact, if you’ve read any of my articles you will know I am not an advocate of blindly following any particular system or method for anything. I advocate for people finding their own power, their own answers, within themselves. I therefore hold a vision for an evolution in our education systems (and society more broadly) that would seek to guide a child to look within for their answers.

Much of the help I offer is to people who – like me - are trying to retrieve that sense of authentic self, and have no idea after years of effectively being told ‘others know better’ how to even hear their own inner voice. And I watch as those who've suppressed it are consumed by cancers and other diseases that arise from being so detached from the essence of who they are to even see the connection to the causation, which is usually years of suppressed emotions. It is a fascinating topic.

As to where this leads, I'm not so sure about a spoiled generation, over-stimulated yes. Hence we are now seeing generations of children being born with sensory processing sensitivities and disorders.

But if I circle back to my daughter’s question, about wishing to have been born knowing how to read and write, I think this is a topic worth exploration and research. I had a grandparent exclaim to me recently their awe at their infant grandchild quite obviously being able to understand so much despite not yet being able to talk.

This is well known in child development terms. But what if it goes beyond this? I have read enough accounts of human capability over the years that would lead me to believe that is is quite possible that all that has ever been thought, said or discovered to this point is held in our collective consciousness, and therefore does not need to be retaught again and again, it simply needs accessed.

As I wrote in What We Wonder About Creates Our Future, I am left to wonder at how technology has increased connection significantly yet decreased presence just as significantly. I wonder when people will begin to understand that technological connectedness is a crude replica of the connection that exists to everything when we are able to be fully present within ourselves. And I wonder when the masses will tap into that state of presence and connection, which is infinitely more powerful.

I also wonder when we will treat education as a lifelong journey rather than an obligatory 10 year slot that one should see as a privilege. I wonder when we will wake up to the inherent intelligence in our newborn and help them to access it rather than thwart it each step of the way?

And I continue to wonder at the magnificence of a world that allowed me to bring this conversation to the table, it is a beginning. For all that you might agree or disagree, I believe our systems of education hold far more potential than we are allowing.

Rather than focusing on attendance or methods and a curriculum that perpetuate a society ill equipped to meet the present, never mind its future, we should be taking a huge step back and asking questions that lead to an evolution of the whole thing.

If what you read here resonates and you’d like a fresh perspective (and only that, it’s not advice you have to take or act upon) on a situation in your own life, feel free to contact me or click here for further information. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog