Vibes

When you realise that the external environment does 90% of heavy lifting when it comes to any form of change, education, or learning, you start looking at schools differently.

Because when choosing a school for your child, you can of course consider a million and one things that will affect your kid’s education:

Rules
Sports
Exams
Results
Welfare
Reviews
Facilities
Class size
Pedagogy
Languages
Homework
Credentials
Curriculum
Student mix
Academic rigor
Years in service
Etc etc etc etc etc

But the more schools we visit in Chiangmai, the more I realise, it’s all about the environment.

Environment environment environment.

But I prefer to say vibes. It sounds so fluffy, but it sums it up better than environment. It’s the way a place makes you feel when you enter it. It’s just like cafes. Some cafes are great for coffee over conversation. Some feels calm and quiet for a solo espresso. Some are just confused and chaotic and you leave it feeling out of sorts.

The same for schools.

And when you spend 8h or more in one place, the environment starts to do some heavy lifting on your mind, body and soul indeed.

If I enter it and I feel calm, relaxed, safe, cosy and ready to learn, that’s already a great school. Everything else is a bonus. (Of course this assumes that most schools are not far off in terms of curriculum and content. That parity is hygiene level now, really.)

Problem is, schools these days—especially top schools—are anything but calm, relaxed, safe and cosy. They are frantic, rushed, psychologically unsafe and uncomfortable. Basically just stressful. No one can learn well in a stressful state. Now imagine spending every day in this environment, for ten years. That’s hell on earth.

So, trust me on the vibes.

This post was about schools, but it’s not really just about schools.