Most of our current dominant human systems and ways of being are misaligned with the planet’s capacity to support life as we know it and at odds with a thriving more than human world.
The Problem Beneath the Crisis – The Metacrisis
The mechanistic and anthropocentric ways of thinking and being that have generated these extinctionary systems are being used to try to solve the problems they have created. Although many agree that rapid changes are needed, focus often remains on exteriors such as technologies, political structures, economic drivers, or social action.
The Need
The transition towards regenerative cultures will require not just a change in behaviours and structures, but a transformation of what it means to be human in the world. This involves an intentional transformation of individual and collective human interiors. Education is strategically positioned to contribute to this needed transition in human consciousness and human culture. However, much of education currently operates uncritically within the dominant societal paradigm, even perpetuating many of these moribund systems by creating a culture of dependency on them.
The Work
The work before us is to prioritise whole human development within the context a highly interconnected more-than-human ‘living world’. A living world that bends towards relationships of collaboration, mutual benefit and emergent novelty.
To do this we must reimagine sense-making that works constructively in the parallax of complexity and simplicity. We must encourage meaning-making that draws together ancient and current knowledge, understanding and wisdom. We must practice choice-making that authentically lives us into more integrated ways of being. Both exterior and interior (objective and subjective) ways of knowing must be included. The dominant educational focus on science, technology, engineering and mathematics must be integrated with the development of values, meaning structures, ethics, virtues and spirituality.
The Movement
Across many fields of study and practice, awareness is growing of the needed quantum leap in human consciousness. Work in integral studies, transition towns, developmental psychology, nature-cultures, closed loop design, mysticism, permaculture and post-metaphysics all call for more integrated ways of thinking and being in the world. The articles, videos, posts and events on this website are intended to explore the role of education in this crucial stage of human becoming and the continuing story of life on Earth.
The Heart
The concept of other-orientedness, seeing connection, integration and relationships rather than separation is at the heart of this work. My approach is therefore grounded in a practice based on love, humility, wisdom and discernment.
Twelve Articles
Twelve articles exploring this topic can be accessed from the dropdown menu. https://wintersimat.com/articles/
Conscious Educators Video Series
This video series explores a number of topics within the theme of reimagining education within a larger purpose: whole human development towards more integrated ways of being in a thriving more-than-human world. https://wintersimat.com/podcasts-media-links/
Workshops & Consultancy
Please use the contact page to book workshops and education consultancy. https://wintersimat.com/contact/