EDUCATION AS SELF-ACTUALIZATION

It has been my experience that education is most effective when the prime directive is to do what Maria Montessori proposed in 1946, and that is to help each child discover and then release his or her full potential. The Indian philosopher, Krishnamurti proposed that education’s goal should be to free individuals from the illusion of one’s cultural conditioning so that they can think and value for themselves (Miller, 2001). Thomas Moore (1992), in The Seat of the Soul, recommends that schools strive to develop depth of feeling and imagination, instead of only focusing on knowledge and skills. I agree with each of these, and I would add that our schools should be vehicles for self-actualization. Self-actualization here is the state where one is able to accept and express one’s inner core and begin to actualize those capacities and potenti ...