No Ringing Bells

Question: At an ordinary school, the lesson begins and ends with the ringing of a bell. How should it be at the “Wisdom of Life” school?

Answer: There shouldn’t be any bells at all in the school.

When the children and the educators decide together that the topic has exhausted itself, the lesson ends and the break begins. Then, during break time, the students can continue to discuss the issues that came up during the activity in the classroom.

Afterwards, a new lesson will begin on a new topic.

The lesson may take a quarter of an hour or an hour and a quarter, depending on whether or not the children and the educator feel they have to go further. In this way, people get used to being able to express themselves and work through the issues they are interested in to the full, without stopping in the middle.

Conversely, when there is an obliging timeframe, a person tends to shun responsibility and simply wait for the lesson to end.

When there is no timeframe, the child feels that the problem didn’t disappear at the end of the lesson, but that he or she must still work it out, because we forever exist within the perfect nature.

That sensation makes one treat one’s life differently. It builds within us a completely different approach to life—one that says, “I am in Nature and in my society, and I must resolve my problems by bonding with all the others.”