Education for Life Posts
Uplifting the World
Uplifting the World, One Child at a Time By Nitai Deranja The Dalai Lama has said: “If every 8 year old in the world is taught meditation, we will eliminate violence from the world within one generation.”. We can marvel at the simplicity of his statement which if realized would take its place alongside Einstein’s […]
“Quiet Bodies” by Hassi Bazan
Being with children as a mother or a teacher has been my own special path to God. I spent 30 years raising 4 active children, much of that time at Ananda village. When my youngest child left for college, I began teaching pre-school. If I had any regrets in raising my children, it was that […]
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln: Servant of God By Nakin Lenti Abraham Lincoln is remembered primarily as the preserver of the Union and the president who freed the slaves. But far less is known about his deep spirituality and devotion to God, qualities too often overlooked by modern secular historians in their attempt to assess Lincoln’s presidency and […]
Education Quotations by Paramhansa Yogananda
The following are a series of quotations from Paramhansa Yogananda selected by various teachers of Education for Life schools in Europe and the U.S. “Educational authorities deem it impossible to teach spiritual principles in public schools because they confuse them with the variety of conflicting forms of religious faith. But if they concentrate on […]
An Education for Life Approach to Curriculum
A question people often ask when first hearing about Education for Life is: “What is your curriculum?” It is the wrong question to start with, however, because it presupposes an approach that EFL, at its very core, is designed to remedy. We live in an age that values standardization. It began with the Industrial Revolution […]
Education for Life Responds to Life’s Challenges
It’s Time We Started Raising Organic Children
About 50 years ago, a small but dedicated group of people began challenging American society’s attitudes toward food production. The prevailing opinion at the time was that vegetables should be judged primarily by their outward appearance. Bigger and redder tomatoes were deemed more desirable, and so American agriculture brought in the chemical fertilizers and pesticides […]
Art of Joyful Education
The Story of the Beginning of the Ananda Schools by Michael Nitai Deranja © 1980 A Search for Direction THE PLIGHT OF modern education continues to attract an abundance of constructive criticism. In most cases this concern has been expressed in a call for new curriculum materials, better facilities, increased financial support, and more highly […]
Life Skills Booklists
What Does “Spiritual Education” Mean?
by J.Donald Walters The first public service that Paramhansa Yogananda undertook after he became a swami was to found a school for young boys. Starting in 1916 in the village of Dihika, Bengal with only seven students, he was “determined to found a school where young boys could develop to the full stature of manhood.” […]