Spiral Dynamics and education [Podcast 6]

The desperate need to transcend "Green" Swedish pedagogy
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In this episode Nick Drummond and Mats Edin discuss the model Spiral Dynamics and the desperate need for headmasters and teachers in Sweden to transcend 40 years of entrenchment in the unhealthy "Green" egalitarian (every perspective is equal) swamp.

"Green" Swedish pedagogy is preventing kids from moving into the "Blue" system and further along the Spiral. "Red" is romanticised by "Green" as being fully mature.

From "Greens" perspective "Blue" is not a necessary system through which an individual centred in "Red" has to pass through. Because from "Greens" perspective nobody has the authority to tell anybody else what to do!! Edin and Drummond see very few Swedish teachers being able to create a healthy "Blue" teaching environment, while those few teachers who are able to express strong healthy "Red" and "Blue" are looked down upon by their colleagues for lacking empathy, for being too rigid and authoritarian and for not showing any love and compassion. When "Green" has power it is politically incorrect to judge, to push, to demand, to insist on develop, and to say that maturity is vitally important. "Green" says: "Are you valuing people!? Are you saying that some people are better than other people!?" When "Green" is leading there can be no higher truths or comparison between truths. There is nothing more important than an individual's feelings and emotions, no higher purpose than "me feeling good".

"Blue" is seen as being too restrictive, and too authoritarian, while "Red" is seen as a true expression of authentic individual freedom.

When "Blue" morality is not recognized as being a necessary system that EVERYBODY has to pass though, then headmasters and teachers who are centred in "Green" sanction students centred in "Red" - from preschool age and up - to do whatever they feel like doing, whenever they feel like doing it, and without anybody having to take any responsibility for the results. Life conditions become so bad that the Green system either collapses or transforms.

When "Yellow", the seventh level system, awakens we become interested in asking the integral design equation: How should Who Teach Whom to do What? "Yellow" has the advantage of being able recognise vertical plurality - the ablity to distinguish between levels of depth and to unblock blockages along the Spiral.