Principles of Effective Education

Effective education is based on the following principles:

• Creating a relationship of trust: The relationship relationship that children have with adults impacts their overall character development. Children learn by example, and their relationship with their teachers affects affects their personal, social and academic development. 
• Connecting learning with the child’s experience: Children learn best with learning is related to their interests and experiences. 
• Acknowledging the ways in which children learn and develop:  Children learn and develop when, for example, their own individual ways of learning are acknowledged. 

These principles can be observed wherever good education is at work. They can give us a common basis beyond methodologies and pedagogies to work together for educational change. We recognize and welcome the fact that specific applications will differ in different settings, cultures or countries, but by uniting around these principles and making them the core of our work for educational change, we can achieve the outcomes that we are all looking for.  

We can observe as educators that the educational outcomes we are all looking for are implict in the principles themselves. Our main work is to make the link between these principles and outcomes by creating the right learning environment that supports them. Such an education makes sense, whether one’s attention is on developing the person, or on a results-driven education. It also makes sense on every level, from economic opportunity to world security.

On this website, you will find resources elaborating these principles and their outcomes, with suggestions for the kind of learning environment needed to achieve them.