Growing Great Human Beings

At Enhancing Learning we have been been busy writing up our approach to share it more broadly than just the families who are able to attend our inclusive play centre. It is tricky to prioritise the writing side of things when we enjoy the play engagement so much. This is an excerpt from the book so far - setting the scene for what our book Growing Great Human Beings is all about.

What is a great human being?

If you have chosen to find purpose in your own life as a nurturer (someone who actively wants to nurture the progress of children who come into your sphere of influence) we would encourage you to reflect on what growing great humans looks like.  

The definition of a great human being will be different for everyone. It is a concept driven by personal preferences, shaped by the values you were raised with, moulded by the cultural expectations of the society you mostly engage with. The interaction of these three layers - personal, value and culture must vary from person to person as well. That is the diversity needed for growth.

If you are raised by a family who encourage you to question past ways of doing things and encourage you to look for the best in everyone, it may shape you to trust your personal instincts to discard notions of cultural ‘success’ and identify a lifestyle you would like for yourself and your children.

If you are raised in an atmosphere of high group expectations and a defined target of success being related to money, social status or ‘smarts’ then this may have even diluted your personal preferences and created a sense of always striving to be better (either better than you are now or better than others around you).

Human beings do seem to strive to change things. This is a reflection that we are a part of the natural world. Nature evolves and changes over time so it is a critical internal sense we all have.  But the reason we wish to change things gets clouded by a view of what ‘better’ looks like. What seems better for some people (AI that can check your spelling and grammar) is detrimental to others (losing the natural flow of their writing based on prescribed ‘rules’).

We are also mixed up around the concept of 'better' equating to 'happiness'. As if happiness is a destination that can be reached only after constant striving. 

But children can teach adults so much about what in means to be a (human) being. They tap into the source of their personal preferences without the cloudiness of family values and societal expectations.

If you are reading this book then I sense that you are an advocate for letting children ‘be’ and for challenging the very definition of success that is currently handed out by our society in the form of expectations, measurements, advertisements and influencers.

At Enhancing Learning we aspire to four key priorities as part of Growing Great Humans:

• Communication
• Problem Solving
• Creativity
• Literacy and Numeracy

For us, a great human being is one who can communicate their preferences and ideas in a way that others can understand and who can engage in the communication process in a way that seeks to achieve more and more clarity of another person’s perspective. Disharmony is created by misalignment between people’s thoughts and how they are expressed. Conflict arises from poor communication and “miss”-interpretations.  Growing great communicators is key for increased harmony.

A great human being is one who can problem solve when an issue arises. That can seek through trial and error to address a problem with more and more success. A person who can also appreciate that one solution to a problem may trigger others issues later on down the track (our chapter on system thinking is key here). The capacity to problem solve is critical for the development of strategies to counter complex issues arising in our current societies.

A great human being can come up with not just one solution to a problem but many ways of attempting to solve it. These are our critical creators. They are driven by their own personal preferences to make things (anything) not because society says you should make it (to sell) but because making those things or doing those things brings you more closely to the euphoria of joy and peace. Creativity is not limited to making things (although our current society is pretty obsessed with ‘things’). It is also the creativity of constantly striving to adjust how you play a sport or how a team works together or bringing a group of people together in a joyful collaboration.

Finally, academic skills are a part of being a great human being. Access to information through the skills of reading and sharing your messages remains important. Written information exposes people to more vocabulary, bigger thoughts, and new ideas at a faster rate than we can have verbal conversations.  It is the speed of the message that nurtures growth of our thoughts. Making this accessible for all is important. Numeracy skills as a life skill to nurture and protect yourself are part of being a great human being who can plan the life that will bring them the most joy (recognising that security brings us joy) and understand how numbers work for both financial and creative purposes.

We consider these four critical skills that nurture great humans to carve their own personal pathway to feel fulfilled as a adult. We seek to support the development of these four skills and the factors that nurture them.