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A Letter to All Stakeholders in Education

To our students, parents, support staff, teachers, executives and all others with a vested interest in both education and the actual care of our sacred children.

It would be fair to say the education system in Australia is a mess.

And I suspect there would be many countries and places around the world who would say the same thing about their own education system.

Here, in Australia, we are witnessing a second – and new - type of stolen generation.

The first was one of physical displacement.

The current one, however, is characterised by the loss of childhood and the decimation of our children’s psychological health.

Many educators have either left the ‘system’ – this word will become more essential to the conversation to come – or are planning to leave.

One teacher informed me one of the most regular conversations she has with other teachers concerns the question, ‘what are you going to do next?’

Referring to what they will do when they exit education.

Conversely, the presence of counsellors and psychologists –people charged with safeguarding the psychological health of people - in educational environments is on the rise.

Even education’s leaders, the principals of our schools, are reporting psychological distress with unprecedented volume.

And these are the adults of the system.

Imagine what such a system must do to the fragile and developing minds of our youth.

Actually, we don’t have to imagine.

We see it day in day out.

Anxiety, depression, suicide, numbness, substance abuse, risky social and sexual behaviours, a sense of hopelessness and self-harm.

And these things are prevalent in what we would consider the ‘good’ schools.

What a shame education is not a direct reflection of the school websites and social media pages we witness online.

Or the pumped-up assemblies.

And school magazines.

If education reflected the world that is marketed to us it would be an amazing environment.

However, the websites are not real.

But the suffering of children and educators is.

The mental breakdowns are real.

The scars on the arms and legs of our students are real.

And there is no coming back from a successful suicide attempt.

I can recall vividly working in a school where staff were told explicitly not to speak of any of the negative things that were happening in the school.

So, what is the problem?

Some might argue that education is not the problem. That it is the parents or society who are at fault.

But that is just a blame game.

If education were to look truthfully in the mirror it would see it is a direct reflection of the society and world to which it belongs.

It values image, reputation and economics before the dignity and care of its most sacred components – the children and teachers.

Education has done to our children and teachers what big business and economics has done to our earth.

And what the personal development industry has done to the sacred psychology of humanity itself.

Placed unsustainable and unrealistic expectations and demands on them which can only lead to one place – physical, psychological and energetic burnout.

I am wondering if inhumane is too strong a word to describe the system we have created.

I looked up the definition.

It means ‘without compassion for misery or suffering: cruel.’

Other definitions said inhumane meant, ‘cruel to people or animals in not caring about their suffering or about the conditions under which they live.’

I don’t think we betray the latter definition by altering it slightly to say, ‘conditions under which they live or work.’

In my opinion, the key word in this second definition is conditions.

Websites aren’t real. But the conditions and expectations people work under are.

Which is to say, environments are real.

Education has become a toxic environment which values business and economics, marketing and brand creation over the creation of environments which are conducive to a genuine experience of growth and care for all participants.

Our world loves to attack big business – an example would be mining companies – for putting profits before people.

And yet, the industry charged with the care and development of life’s most sacred and fragile ‘product’, has done the same.

Of course, I use the term ‘product’ with sarcasm, but that is exactly what our children have become.

You’ll hear it repeatedly when a flashy principal announces to the world, ‘it’s a business!’.

Is that not the same mindset that has inflicted untold suffering on our earth, its creatures and on our own humanity?

You see, education, instead of going against the ‘trend’ of the world in economising everything and turning our sacred life into a marketplace, played along wholeheartedly.

And everything comes at a cost. And the cost of economising anything, is the soul.

Or its soul.

That is what ‘selling the soul’ means.

Anytime something sacred is turned into a product, or where business and economics are valued over the care of whatever it is that is sacred, the ‘soul’ has been sold.

The education system we created became less about building meaningful personal relationships and allowing adequate time and space for genuine learning and growth and more about measurement, results, expectations and public perception.

Brand building over love and care.

What we see in the world of education is exactly what we asked for.

And it perfectly reflects the wider state of our world.

Business and brand over love and care leads to only one place.

The desecration and violation of all things sacred.

Understand, what I write is not sourced in right and wrong. But in what is real and on the nature of life and existence itself.

If we create environments and conditions which will lead to suffering, then suffering must ensue.

The current state of education is particularly damning for Christian and catholic schools and schools of other religious persuasions.

If God – or Jesus – were truly your guide, then you would not have played along in the economising of education.

You would not have participated in the creation of an environment that was harmful to its occupants.

You would have stood against such a trend with the courage and respectful defiance demonstrated by Jesus.

But, alas, even poor old JC is a victim of our marketplace approach to education.

Jesus and God have been used as branding and marketing tools by institutions that have betrayed and rejected the ‘way’ of life they encouraged us to live.

Jesus – and God for that matter - are not present in the environments constructed by contemporary education.

But they shed tears of anguish at what we have built.

How’s that, hey?!

God, Jesus and our sacred children – reduced to marketing tools in broken environments.

Last Friday, in Canberra, there was a teacher strike.

Why?

For better pay and better conditions.

Better environments.

Or perhaps safer and more caring environments might be a better way of putting it.

There is great irony lying beneath the toxic and commercially centred world of education we have constructed.

Travel around any school and you will likely see posters which advocate a ‘growth mindset’.

And posters which advocate a sustainable lifestyle.

If it were not so tragic, it would be hilarious.

The unsustainable mess we have created has been built under the banner of a ‘growth mindset’ while educating our students that we should be participating in a more sustainable and kinder world.

Um…sure thing.

You see, taglines and phrases like ‘growth mindset’ and‘ sustainability’ have become an integral part of looking and sounding impressive to the outside world – regardless of what is really going on.

Our world loves making noisy declarations about the things we value and stand for and yet, look at the physical, energetic and psychological mess we have created.

Again, the portrayal of things is not real.

What is real is what is happening.

My ‘business’ is called Phusion Living.

But that is not a business name. It is the nickname for the philosophy of conditional expression, a philosophy I wrote based on my frequent communication with God and life.

Here one says, ‘I will put conditions on MY expression and demands so that I honour life as sacred.’

It is the way of life where one strives to live in a manner that is supportive of life and its needs, and which keeps all life sacred.

Here, economics does not come first. There is no ‘selling of the soul’ because it is the soul of life this way of life aims to preserve.

We did not have to build the world we created. Just as we did not have to build the education system we created.

But in both we valued and invested in the same things –business, economics and branding – and got the same result.

A burned-out world.

And a burned-out world of education.

Phusion living stands for one thing in education.

The creation of growth environments.

Environments which, rather than destroy, support the physical, energetic and psychological needs of teachers and students.

Building growth environments is about creating something real. Something of substance.

A place where the fragile psychology of our students is tended to and adequate time and space – without the use of ridiculous terms and phrases such as potential, best version of yourself etc. – is allocated so skills and processes are learned thoroughly.

In a growth environment, there is no rush.

Every student is loved, respected and cared for wherever they are at – because they are the student.

There is no need for them to be any different to earn a teacher’s respect.

In a growth environment the student being ‘better’ is not the goal of the educator, it is respecting the student and creating the right environment for that student to grow.

It is in building such an environment that the teacher and school trust that growth will take place as it needs to.

And at the appropriate tempo.

The beauty of a growth environment is this – the term ‘growth environment’ has no place on the walls of a school, nor should it ever be used as a marketing tool.

No school should ever boast, ‘we believe in growth environments!’ The boasting itself is more reflective of the world that is about to be dismantled.

No, it is not a tagline!

Schools will either be growth environments - environments conducive to growth, or they won’t.

If I take a plant and place it in an environment that completely contradicts its needs, it suffers and dies.

Why would a child be any different?

Why would a teacher be any different?

Why would life itself be any different?

And why would anything want to exist in such an environment?

Well, we are seeing they don’t.

Not the child. Not the teacher. And not the life we belong to.

Adding psychologists and counsellors to schools without changing the environment in which participants operate does not represent the care of our children.

It is more damage control.

The fact many schools are now becoming more like clinics is perhaps the most damning indictment of education today.

Even if the world outside a school’s walls has gone mad, a school does not have to.

Surely, the responsibility on our schools to become slower and more grounding experiences for our children increases when this is the case.

If our world does slow down, where does this leave our children?

They don’t know ‘slow’.

How do they ‘return’ to something they haven’t experienced?

That, perhaps, terrifies me more than anything.

Should this happen, our youth will be asking, ‘wait a minute, you destroy me, at my most defenceless and vulnerable, with your abusive environments and ridiculous expectations and then suddenly decide you got it wrong!’

And they would be right.

Our world loves to be ‘high’.

Peak experiences, excitement and grandeur and impact and inspiration.

Even at primary school the attachment to being ‘high’ and always engaged in activities that reach maximum excitement and stimulation is being built.

Where does that leave a bored teenager?

Or a teenager who begins to experience a lack of self-worth?

Or one who begins questioning the point of anything?

Where does it leave them?

In a very dangerous place. That’s where!

I often wonder if schools had embraced and set about building growth environments, when I first began my crusade, are their lives that might have been saved?

Would there be more scar-free arms and legs?

Would professionals be flocking to education to build a career, instead of running away?

History will show the demise of education perfectly mirrored the demise of our world as it stood.

That which was sacred was sold out in an economic and business centred world.

Education took the same world – and the same buzz-phrases and taglines - that were destroying the psychology of adults and planted them in schools.

I started ‘phusion living’ in 2015, when the world was heading towards collapse.

You see, conditional expression – and the concept of growth environments – are not reactions to the collapse of education and our world.

They were designed to prevent it.

The notion of conditional expression is not founded on the premise that we should start caring for things when they have been violated and destroyed.

It is founded on the premise that we should not want unreasonable harm to come to any sacred aspects of life in the first place.

And in conditional expression all life is sacred.

The reality is this: I can go into a school and speak of building growth environments - environments which defy economics and any other motivation which might be applied to justify the construction of harmful spaces for our teachers and students – and be dismissed.

And then there will be protests and complaints about how bad education has become.

Seven years I have been advocating for a more loving and caring approach to education and a more caring approach to life.

What a seven years it has been.

No longer can we have it both ways.

If a school is going to add psychologists without altering the environment in which they are required, then by their own admission, they are a dangerous and, perhaps, abusive environment.

Lacking in compassion for the misery of those who exist there.

Again, this is not about right or wrong, and it is not about judgement.

It is as it is for the plant.

Every plant will have specific needs if it is to ‘grow’ in a healthy and sustainable manner.

It requires a growth environment to receive the nourishment and support essential to its development and health.

It will be provided with such an environment.

Or it won’t.

I write this letter to all stakeholders of education, so all stakeholders – including parents and our wider communities – are aware of the concept of a growth environment.

This is a line in the sand.

Schools must either now work towards the development of growth environments – environments which genuinely meet the needs of a developing child and the teachers within their walls – or they won’t.

But you will no longer be measured by your website and public relations campaigns.

You’ll be measured by the growth and sense of wellbeing experienced by those you are meant to care for.

Don’t make the claim you ‘care for and develop the whole-child’ if you don’t.

When our world and education were already in the process of collapse and conditional expression first appeared on the scene, there were those in the world of education throwing all their eggs into the ‘Asian Century’ basket.

The motive for this was economic.

Asia was going to be the economic centre of the world, and we needed to prepare our students to cash in on it.

How’s that looking now?

At the same time, Phusion Living was asking schools to take greater care of our students and teachers, and to question if the direction humanity and education were going in, was in the best interests of life itself.

Of course, the answer was no.

And we now know life collapsed.

Along with the psychology of our children and teachers.

People do not leave growth environments in droves. Nor do they not want to enter them.

Education is as it is because it values the type of growth that leads to the destruction of anything sacred.

And don’t think for one minute life has consented to the world we have built.

Not in the context of education.

And not in the context of the greater life we belong to.

This letter has not been written to incite anger and further protests.

But rather to invite education into a patient and compassionate approach to change.

Our world is an abusive one. That is a fact.

It is just what happens in a world that values business, economics and individual greatness and importance over keeping life sacred.

Every industry has done this.

So, pointing a finger in one direction almost guarantees that same industry is guilty of the same abuses for which they are attacking another.

Just in its own way.

An abusive world fuelled by judgment and retribution is an ugly world.

So as education transforms it can be a gentle and loving process. Or be founded upon the outrage that mars our world today.

And nothing will change – because the energetic reality of it will not have changed.

It should also be a more silent process.

Any loud and charismatic leader of education should be humble and quiet.

Why?

Because they led us into this mess in the first place.

They embraced and quarterbacked the creation of a destructive system.

So, they don’t get to be front and centre of the recovery.

That would be like Harvey Weinstein advocating for the better treatment of woman.

I recommend they don’t do themselves and others such a disservice.

You see, being loud and on-trend is the way of our world.

Even if the noise one makes is contradictory to the noise one made three years ago.

That’s the difference between conditional expression and the way of our world.

Our world loves to be at the forefront of whatever the trend of the day is.

Conditional expression does not bow to any trend that threatens the physical, energetic and psychological health of any life – and of all life.

I will leave it there!

What has been done, has been done.

But what is yet to come is a blank canvas.

For education.

And the world.

We can build a new world with conditional expression, where we all live the life that puts life first, or cling to the old one, where business and economics are our greatest priority.

When I hear stories of a child I once knew, committing suicide, or of a child whose life has gone off the rails, I do wonder what might have been.

What if the world of education began building growth environments seven years ago?

Would that child be alive?

Would that child have avoided addiction?

Would that child be less anxious?

And so on.  

No education institution can control the role parents and wider society might play on their students.

But they can control the environment and learning experiences they offer a child.

And what we create will either be supportive of their growth, or it won’t.

To those with young ones just entering or soon to enter the world of education, what do you really desire for your child?

The time and space to flourish and grow, and explore what a meaningful life might look like for them?

Or the risk they will become a statistic?

Undoing psychological trauma is not easy.

And many of our stolen generation are not even aware of a feeling called peace and contentment.

As one student I mentor once said to me, ‘I would not even know what it feels like to live without anxiety.’

How telling.

Many children of today feel more at home with anxiety than they do peace and contentment.

Over to you!

In honour of all that is sacred!

Tim

PS A post-script for religious schools.

I mentioned religious education earlier. I just thought I would add a footnote to make one last point: Guess who the greatest ambassador of conditional expression is?

That’s right.

Jesus.

He said we should honour all life as sacred through the way we treat it. And that we should make this the priority that exceeds all else.

Jesus does not support the education world we have created.

But he does support the creation of growth environments and the psychological care of our students and teachers.

If you are going to reject the development of growth environments, that is fine. But don’t disrespect a man who gave his life for life, by using him to draw people into an environment that contradicts everything he stood for.  

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Yours in 'making all life sacred!'

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Tim

NOTE: This piece is about education but the Phusion Living concept of growth environments is something I apply to my work with businesses and sporting organisations and with the individuals I mentor.

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Click here to contact me about bringing the philosophies of growth environments and conditional expression into your organisation.

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Click here for the full conditional expression philosophy.

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Click here for the full conditional expression library.

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