Advancing ‘Natural Learning’ in Education:
A Vision for the Beautiful School Movement in its Second Decade

Dr. William Spady
Senior Fellow, Beautiful School International
February, 2007

Beautiful School International (BSI) celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2006.  To honor its first ten years and to chart a pathway for BSI’s next dynamic decade, a coordinating team of leading BSI members met in Bovenau, Germany in January, 2006 to chart a pathway for BSI’s next dynamic decade – one that is bound to bring many new countries and schools into the movement.  The following represents the essence of their inspiring Vision for BSI, and some of my personal views on the spirit that underlies BSI’s humanistic appeal.

The Essence of a Beautiful School

The Bovenau team’s most fundamental philosophical premise is that a fully developed Beautiful School honors, encourages, and advances the fullest expression of Beauty, Harmony, and Inspiration in the learning and lives of all it touches.  These three key attributes – with Beauty as the grounding element and Harmony and Inspiration emanating from it – have recently been called BSI’s “Three Virtues.”  They are deeply experienced qualities representing the highest functioning of humanity in enlightened and empowered individuals, organizations, and communities of all sizes.  And they are the universal standards to which every Beautiful School should aspire and against which it should continuously assess itself.

Four Critical Stages of Development

It is widely understood by those in the movement that schools grow and evolve through a series of four distinctive, but overlapping developmental stages in fully manifesting the Three Virtues.  These critical stages involve manifesting Beauty, Harmony, and Inspiration in ever more beneficial and impactful ways:

1.	Beauty, Harmony, and Inspiration expressed in the physical facilities and 
environment of the school and its surrounding community.
2.	Beauty, Harmony, and Inspiration embodied in the social relationships and 
culture of the school and all its members.
3.	Beauty, Harmony, and Inspiration infused throughout the curriculum, 
pedagogy, and learning climate of the school.
4.	Beauty, Harmony, and Inspiration manifested in the meaning, direction, 
and life purpose that students develop from their learning.

It is appropriate that the focus of Beautiful School implementation in the early years was initially on Stage 1, the beautification of each school’s physical plant and surrounding environment because the architecture and appearance of the learning environmental strongly defines and reflects a school’s deeper philosophy and culture.  This critical first Stage was followed by pioneering Stage 2 initiatives that sought to bring more Beauty, Harmony, and Inspiration to the entire pattern of social relations within each school and its community – a genuine humanization of the culture of the school.

As important as these initial Stages were, in giving BSI its unique character and mission, the Bovenau team felt that it is now time for BSI movement to focus extensively on Stages 3 and 4 in the upcoming decade – those involving a deep transformation in the thinking, design, and implementation of each school’s learning system.  For it is here that genuine preparation for life occurs and the Three Virtues are taught, modeled, experienced, and lived in direct, empowering ways by teachers and learners.  It also here that change efforts in each school will require strong leadership and dedication.  This is critical because BSI’s emphasis on manifesting Beauty, Harmony, and Inspiration in all aspects of a school’s learning system are NOT priorities in the programs, structures, and practices of today’s increasingly standardized, utilitarian, and testing-dominated education systems worldwide.  There is much institutional inertia to transcend and overcome around what learning is and how it should best be expressed in life.  

BSI’s Two Major Paradigm Shifts

To fully realize the substance and spirit of what is implied in Stages 3 and 4, the Bovenau team felt that each aspiring Beautiful School should be prepared to undertake two fundamental transformations.  One concerns the CONTENT of what is emphasized and taught; the other is about CONTROL of the learning process.

The Content Shift

Over the past two decades the world’s government-run education systems have increasingly narrowed the range and purpose of the curriculum and its Content.  In the eyes of many observers this has generated a curriculum, philosophy, and assessment model that is overwhelmingly utilitarian.  That is, its focus is on a narrow vocation-orientated approach to learning that places a great priority on officially approved content, on logical/technical performance, and on what is loudly proclaimed to be “measurable achievement” – often simply the results of traditional, standardized paper-pencil examinations.

What is missing from this model is exactly what each Beautiful School brings to education:  a comprehensive, multi-dimensional view of life and learning that emphasizes all that is humane, creative, holistic, and expressive about the human experience.  This dramatic shift in emphasis is about honoring the human, creative, and emotional aspects of all learning in all subject areas, not simply about devoting more of the curriculum to courses in “the arts.”  Ultimately this represents a marriage of the humanistic with the technical – a holistic integration of heart, head and hands.

The Control Shift

The second major paradigm shift relates to Control of the learning process.  Traditionally, that Control lies strictly within the system and those it employs to “teach” the young.  In this deeply entrenched model the system and its employees determine what is to be taught to whom, when, how, and for how long.  They also determine what learners must do to “prove” that they have learned what is required of them.  At its core this is a model of adult dominance over children, based on the assumption that only the adults know what is important, correct, appropriate, and good.  In the end it creates compliant, disempowered, dependent learners.

BSI’s developmental Stages 3 and 4 shift the dynamic of Control strongly toward the learner in what is often called “Learner Centered” education.  At its core this model acknowledges and honors who the learner is as an individual, regardless of her/his age or educational experience.  In doing so it fully recognizes and nurtures her/his natural curiosity, deep feelings, personal interests, special aptitudes, and critical capacities – plus her/his unique “learning styles,” motivations, and aims in life.  In this model, much of what is learned is the result of what the learner explores, experiences, and discovers, rather than what is officially prescribed and “taught.”  Among its many philosophical and pedagogical roots, this Learner Centered approach recognizes that, if adulthood requires critical, thoughtful orientations to life and that people be self-directed, self-governing, and self-assessing (i.e., fully empowered) individuals, then education should do its utmost to foster those same enlightened and empowering orientations and abilities in children as they grow and mature.  So it is in the highly developed Beautiful School.

The Three Primary Domains of Education

These profound shifts in Content and Control apply to all three primary domains, or aspects, of what constitutes education as we know it:  what BSI’s founder and leader Eginhard Fuchs calls Aims, Means, and Assessment.  

Aims in the Beautiful School

This operational aspect of education refers to the larger purposes, outcomes, and ultimate learning goals toward which the model is directed.  In the case of BSI, these Aims are fully embodied in the German concept called Lebensinn.  Lebensinn embraces and integrates the notions of having a strong grasp of what life is all about in its fullest sense, a clear direction and purpose in life, a strong identity of “who one is” as a human being, and meaningful goals one wishes to accomplish in life.  

It is this highly elevated, personally generated Aim that constitutes BSI’s approach to “learning outcomes” – not the mass of specific content and skills that learners are taught in the official curriculum and on which they are assessed year after year.  From this perspective, what is “taught” in the curriculum should be a direct reflection of this larger life purpose Aim:  self-directed, self-governing, self-assessing, critically-thinking young adults functioning with Beauty, Harmony, and Inspiration in their lives.  In other words, each Beautiful School should be Aims Based, Aims Grounded, and Aims Directed, with its ultimate Aim for each and every learner being Lebensinn and the Three Virtues.

Means in the Beautiful School

The Aims of any educational model are achieved through its Means.  Those Means we know as the curriculum, its pedagogy, the resources used, and the experiences that the students have while in school.  Three things about Means are clear for the highly developed Beautiful School.  First, its Means will all be focused on and organized around its ultimate life-focused Aim for every learner.  Second, its Means will embody and embrace the comprehensive, integrated, holistic, humanistic Content inherent in the BSI vision.  Third, its approach to pedagogy and Control of the learning process will be consistently “Learner Centered,” and supportive of each learner’s unique attributes, interests, and sense of identity.  

Underlying these three factors are two powerful currents:  1) each Beautiful School’s desire to manifest the Three Virtues in everything that it does, and 2) the overwhelming importance of LOVE and caring as the motivations and energies that fuel the spirit and actions of all its members.  

Assessment in the Beautiful School

For these two critical domains of educational practice to function as intended, the Assessment system of each Beautiful School will have to be fully aligned as well.  This means far less emphasis on evaluating and reporting time-driven progress on official curriculum content through examinations and marks, and far more emphasis on documenting learner progress on their own learning goals, inner development, and sense of purpose and growth.  

One critical step toward accomplishing this end is to institute a process of “Continuous Formative Assessment” in which learners are able to track their progress and growth over time without fear of judgment and labeling.  The other is to establish a “Progress Portfolio” for every learner in which they keep examples of what they have learned, created, and accomplished throughout their schooling years – again without comparative marks, labels, and judgments.  Both can and should be tied to their expression of the Three Virtues and the development of their personal Lebensinn.

The Beautiful School as a Vehicle for Advancing “Natural Learning”

As noted earlier, the entire approach to instruction in a fully developed Beautiful School is “Learner Centered.”  There is remarkable support for this approach in a document developed by an outstanding team of learning specialists commissioned a decade ago by the prestigious American Psychological Association to examine the vast body of research on human learning and distill its key elements into a framework that could be used by educators.  The team’s findings were published in 1997 under the title Learner-Centered Psychological Principles:  A Framework for School Reform and Redesign.  

After reviewing the report’s key findings, I attempted to distill from their research what I felt to be the “essence elements” underlying their principles and recommendations.  What emerged was a simple but elegant framework that resonates fully with everything described above about a fully developed Beautiful School.  As I scrutinized their work, I kept my focus on one key thing:

What defines and optimizes learning when people are NOT in classrooms 
having to learn specific things for specific tests at specific times?

The answers lie within a framework I call “Natural Learning.”  It occurs when the following attributes and conditions coalesce.

A.	Learner CURIOSITY is natural.
1.	Learner curiosity is INNATE.  We’re born with it.
2.	The motivation to learn is INTRINSIC.  We learn what we want to learn.
3.	Learning is ACTIVE.  Learners engage and explore from all angles.
	4.	Learning results from DISCOVERY.  Learners seek out new things.

	B.	Learner CONTROL is essential.
	5.	Learning is enhanced when it is RELEVANT to one’s life.
	6.	Learning is enhanced when it is PURPOSEFUL and advances one’s goals.
	7.	Learning is enhanced when it is SELF-DIRECTED and managed.
	8.	Learning is enhanced when it is SELF-PACED.  Too fast doesn’t work.

	C.	Learning CONNECTIONS build facility.
	9.	The brain naturally seeks to BUILD MEANING based on familiar patterns.
                10.	The brain naturally seeks to EXTEND MEANING from familiar patterns.
	    11.	Connections are made and enriched through MULTI-MODAL experiences.
                12.	Connections are made and enriched by REFLECTION and analysis.

	D.	Learning CHALLENGE stimulates growth.
	 13.	NOVEL experiences stimulate curiosity, attention, and motivation.
	    14.	ENGAGING experiences stimulate curiosity, attention, and motivation.
	    15.	Developmentally APPROPRIATE experiences promote learning.
	    16.	Successful learning is VALIDATING and promotes confidence/motivation.

	E.	Learning CONTEXT defines the conditions of learning success.
	    17.	Learning is essentially SOCIAL and is enhanced by feedback from others.
	    18.	Learning is enhanced through significant ROLE-BASED activity.
	    19.	Learning motivation is enhanced through AFFIRMING feedback.
	    20.	Learning occurs best in NON-THREATENING, supportive conditions.

It is easy to see the exciting alignment between these Natural Learning conditions and the character and intentions of the fully developed Beautiful School described above.  Learner Curiosity, Learner Control, rich Learning Connections, and appropriate Learning Challenge are all supported directly by a Learning Context that promotes Beauty, Harmony, Inspiration and Lebensinn.  

May this integration of frameworks serve as a vision not only for every identified Beautiful School in the next decade but for countless other schools that seek to honor and advance the deep human qualities that will ultimately elevate and transform our world as we currently know it. 

Dr. William Spady is the author of five books on educational transformation and works as a consultant to education systems and business organizations across the world.  He can be reached at:  billspady@earthlink.net