My grandmother and mother went to school in one room with all of the kids from nearby farms. The older kids would teach their peers. In that way, everyone was a teacher and a learner.
The difference now with regenerative education is we can reward and validate this learning without the need for a central school or institution.
This shift unlocks potential.
Now, any place on the planet with at least three people is a “school.” When someone learns a new skills, they can teach two others (in-person or online) and validate this activity. No diploma or registrar required. Since students can learn online from teachers around the world, there is no limit to what someone can learn within a specific geography.
By building a regenerative lens into education, communities see immediate benefit.
As soon as a learner masters a new skills, it is shared with others.
- There is no time delay or waiting years for the student to graduate and join the community.
- Before that person leaves for the city, they share their knowledge with the community.
The One-Room Schoolhouse Model is already being explored by people like
Bodo Hoenen of
Dev4X, which worked with schools in Tanzania to show that self-directed learning could lead to peer-to-peer learning.
Additional experiments are needed to build out this model. However, the regenerative economics movement can, and should, be applied to education.