Conrad P. Pritscher - Böcker

This book makes a strong case for free schooling, comparing the mind of Albert Einstein – who said much – to Zen conscious practice, which says little but encompasses everything. Examining the work of brain researchers, neuroscientists, physicists, and other scholars to illuminate the commonalities between Einstein’s thought and the Zen practice of paying attention to one’s present experience, the book reveals their many similarities, showing the development of self-direction as a key to fostering compassionate consideration of others and to harmonious, semi-effortless learning and living. Examples demonstrate that students who choose to study what is interesting, remarkable, and important for them tend to become more like Einstein than students with the rigid school curricula; students who are free to learn often demonstrate empathy, and less rigid rule-following, while involved in the process of imaginatively becoming their own oracles and self-educators.

This book illuminates what must always be at the heart of powerful schooling and authentic learning. Its focus is on free learning, with an emphasis on early East Asian thought as a vehicle through which learning may emerge. The volume describes learning as helping the learner become more conscious, more aware. As such the authors explain how quality learning encompasses all learning that is chosen by the learner. It is non-judgmental and their idea is that if learning is done by choice then direct harm will be mitigated because quality, willed learning is not just about the individual, but includes others — it is community focused as well as self-determined. In the first part of the volume the authors look specifically at how quality willed learning can inform the state and how it can protect the rights of children. The second part looks at what quality willed learning can mean to leaders. In the last part the authors look at what it can mean for teachers and finally what it can meanfor the learners themselves.