Reflections on the Cycle of Conference Initiative Focus on the UN Transforming Education Summit

During World Goodwill’s recent Cycle of Conferences visualization initiative in September, seeds of living will energy were imaginatively projected into the Transforming Education Summit at the United Nations General Assembly. The initiative marked an attempt by an esoteric group to enter into the heart of the thoughtform under construction at the Summit, identifying in the thinking of Summit participants universal principles outlined by wisdom teachings throughout the ages; and then, through a process sometimes referred to as ‘subtle activism’,  ‘seeing’ these principles being energized by the ‘group gaze’.

While the UN gathering was exploring a vision of what a transformed education might look like in different nations and regions, inspiring participants to manifest that vision, and developing national and global strategies to begin the transformation, the Cycles group was engaged in deepening its esoteric understanding of future possibilities for education and educators, using a phrase from the writings of Alice Bailey as a seed to provoke intuitive and imaginative thinking: “True education is the science of linking up the integral parts of man, and also of linking him up in turn with his immediate environment, and then with the greater whole in which he has to play his part”. 

The UN Summit marked a culminating point in a massive global mobilization of educational thinkers, visionaries, policymakers, teachers, and young people. It was informed by a process of enquiry (a group reflection) led by the UNESCO Futures of Education: Learning to Become Initiative which has been described as: “A global initiative to reimagine how knowledge and learning can shape the future of humanity and the planet”. The enquiry led to an important report: Reimagining our futures together: a new social contract for education, highlighting the idea that schools and schooling at all levels and in all political and economic environments need to be transformed so that they foster, among other things, “global citizenship for human flourishing”, developing life-long skills in critical thinking that will allow “creativity to blossom”.

World Goodwill representatives attended a number of sessions of the Summit and three reviews have already been published on this blog (September & October posts). All note the role played by the Covid pandemic in the build-up to the event. Education and schooling were massively interrupted in all parts of the world and the trauma this produced for young people, parents and for society at large greatly stimulated recognition of the need to transform education.   Educators, local and national governments, students, and people of goodwill truly held the future possibilities for education in the light. The event strongly encouraged participation of young people from every region of the world, and this helped to create an atmosphere that combined vision and enthusiasm. It led to a practical focus on what can be done now to transform the scope, the quality and the spirit of education in the heavily materialistic and consumer driven industrialized societies of the global north together with the developing and least-developed nations of the global south.    

One of the primary results of an international event like this is the activation of a sense of purpose and a vision of what is possible amongst significant numbers of young people, teachers, politicians, and others playing influential roles in the future direction of education. Furthermore, countless interactions around the theme of the event will lead to the birthing of new ‘seed groups’ linking servers from different geographical regions, different professional backgrounds, and across generations into centres of shared purpose. It is through such groups that the spirit of education is being, and will continue to be, transformed. Esoteric work sees this transformation in the wider context of human affairs and human relationships becoming increasingly integrated with the energetic impulses of the great beings acknowledged by religions and spiritualities – the Christ, the Buddha, the Spirit of Peace, Krishna, the Mahdi and all the principalities and potencies of Goodness, Beauty and Truth that overshadow the cyclic evolution of planetary life.     

Cycle of Conferences participants and others seeking to observe developments in the world from the perspective of a Plan existing in the mind of God and energies associated with this Plan pouring into human affairs might like to continue their work with the Education Summit by exploring some of the following resources:

Programmes for each day of the proceedings are here; and video recordings of summit sessions can be accessed here.  There are a wide range of resources on the Transforming Education Knowledge Hub website.

Something of the spirit of the Summit can be sensed by viewing the video of the Solutions Day Opening remarks featuring:

• Amina J Mohammed, UN Deputy Secretary-General;
• Jeffrey D. Sachs, Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University and SDG Advocate; Inter-generational conversation “From mobilization to solutions; 
• H.E. Mr David Sengeh, Minister of Basic and Senior Secondary Education, Sierra Leone, Co-Chair of the Summit Advisory Committee and the SDG4 High-Level Steering Committee Sherpa Group;
•  Ms Sofía Bermúdez, SDG4Youth Representative.

A Press release summarizing results of the Summit can be seen here. The International Institute of Sustainable Development (IISD) published a good summary of tangible results at the SDG Knowledge Hub site . There is an independent report from journalist Laura E. Kirkpatrick, ‘You Owe Us’: Youths Tell the Adults at the UN to Get All Kids Back in School’ at PassBlue.com  

Mission 4.7, a group of leaders in government, academia, civil society and business working to support UNESCO’s programmes for Global Citizenship Education and Educational Sustainable Development advocates for global, national and local achievement of SDG Target 4.7: “By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development.”

Cycle of Conference participants and friends of World Goodwill are invited to maintain the point of tension around the work underway to transform education at local, national and global levels by continuing to hold this work in the light and by keeping in touch with new developments: at the UN, at state school systems around the world, and at pioneering independent school systems such as the Waldorf and Montessori Schools.