Reimagining the Education System, Remembering Who we Truly Are, and Learning from our Children.

Sarah is a former astrophysicist, meteorologist, and winning ultra-runner, who now lives, works, and writes from a beautiful off-grid narrowboat based on the inland waterways of England and Wales.

She’s a coach to mission driven women, helping them to live and lead from a place of powerful, embodied presence, so they can create the life and legacy they deeply long for. You can contact her via her website:

https://www.sarahlkent.com/

I can remember sitting in a school assembly at the big secondary comprehenive I attended, and being told that “these are the best years of your life”.

They weren’t, but perhaps they could have been, if I’d been allowed to study and learn everything which lit me up from the inside out.

The woman I interviewed for this weeks dream asks how we might create the best conditions for human beings to flourish. After a career as a teacher, she recognises that the greatest barriers to children’s growth may be found within the assumptions adults have inherited about learning, success and human potential.

What if education was not primarily about filling minds, but actually about creating the conditions in which people can become more fully themselves?

She has a vision of a global support network born of countless human connections, through relationships built on trust, generosity and shared learning. One person remembers who they are, and in doing so creates space for someone else to do the same.

Perhaps this is one way towards the flourishing future we hope for - simply through cultivating environments where others as well as ourselves can flourish.

This week I’m offering these questions to you for reflection:

💡 Where in your own life have you been encouraged to grow into someone else’s expectations rather than your own natural strengths?

💡 What do you need to unlearn, so you can grow into your true shape?

Make yourself a brew, sit down for a few minutes, and enjoy reading the story of this woman’s dream. The following words are all her own, from an interview held in March 2025.

With love, Sarah xox

I am a recovering teacher, and I’d like to share my dream of the way I would like education to change. That’s what gets me up every day and gets me to do my PhD.

I became a teacher 28 years ago because I believed in the words of Christa McAuliffe, “I touch the future; I teach.” I really resonated with that, so I started teaching languages. I taught across all of the levels, from nursery all the way to adults and everything in between.

I signed up to be a teacher because, as Nelson Mandela said, education has such a potential for change.

We can change the world through education.

But I gradually came to the realisation that the current schooling system in England is harmful. There’s a lot of research on that, and Clive Harber wrote a book about it called Schooling is Violence. I left my job at the University of Bristol as director of French language provision because I couldn’t be part of this harm. I could no longer be part of the system and be complicit in this.

I dream of a system where we allow children, from the minute they’re born and conceived, to grow into their unique selves, so that they can share their gifts without having to be damaged by us.

My dream is simply for us adults to allow the unique ecosystem that is a child to develop and grow without us interfering, just like letting acorns grow into magnificent oak trees.

When you watch a newborn, you can see the beauty, the awe and the wonder. You look at them, and you just go, “wow”.

But as they get older, the social conditioning comes in. That’s where a lot of the harm comes from.

In a way, the biggest thing that is missing in education is the spiritual piece. As human beings we are constantly doing and thinking, and we’ve become focused on the head and the body. We never really look at the heart and its power.

A lot of the work I do now is around the lack of well-being in education. Part of the reason young people are damaged is because the adults are damaged.

We all grew up in the hands of adults who knew we were acorns, but who told us we were plum trees instead. And then we spend our whole lifetime trying to undo it all.

I often joke that I’m slowly but surely getting back into my natural shape. It has been quite a journey, and it shouldn’t be necessary. We could just grow into our natural shape from birth, if we were allowed.

So my dream is also to empower adults to grow back into their natural shape, through their own unlearning and unschooling. So they remember who they truly are, so they’re thriving and flourishing. I’d love to create a platform where people can do this healing journey.

Rupert Spira talks about Beingness, the aspect of pure consciousness that is simply being aware of itself. It’s from this place of Beingness that you can really be of service. You live with honesty, integrity, reasonableness and the kindness of generosity, because that’s the nature of the Beingness. This is the gift our hearts hold, and that’s why we need more heart in education. It’s the missing piece.

We live in a society that is saying nothing about the heart. We hear about power and justice. But there’s nothing about love. Where’s the love? It’s like love is missing.

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That love, that heart has to come from us adults, so we need to take that healing journey. We have to go back to our roots and to realise who we are. To question whether we are an oak tree, or a plum tree, or something entirely different?

This is why I want to create a platform where when the student is ready, the teacher appears. And when the student is truly ready, the teacher disappears. I’ve already connected with hundreds of people, and my big dream is to create a mycelial-like support network.

I love the image of our planet at night, when you see the lights of all the cities. It’s such a beautiful, powerful vision of us on this blue planet.

Imagine there is a support network where all of those lights are. You could be anywhere on the globe, pinpoint a particular area, and connect with people through this network. You would be able to ask for what you’re seeking, and connect and collaborate with others through the network.

The premise of what we’ve created in the Western world is completely contrary to who we truly are.

In a world where we all connected with and lived as our true selves, we would live in a very different society where, unlike the current neoliberal capitalist society, we wouldn’t have to fight to put food on the table. Nature is abundant, and it can provide what we need.

Our focus won’t be only on the thinking or the doing. It will also be on the Beingness. Slowing down and being present. We will return to truly knowing how we are all connected – imagine human society as a vast forest.

Creating a new ecosystem for humanity is important. It’s the foundation of everything. But I see how we can do it, and the reason I really believe that it’s possible is because it’s so simple.

I feel hopeful that if not in my lifetime, then maybe in my boys’ lifetime, things will be very different. I believe children are definitely not wanting the current life and system that we’ve created.

Part of the problem is that we have a system that has been made by men, for men.

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So, in a way, it’s all bringing more of the balance. It’s like bringing the yin to the yang.

But you have to do that in a way that is gentle, because most people will be very defensive, and they won’t want to listen.

That’s why I want to create this platform, this mycelium-like support network, where you simply meet people where they’re at and help them from there. We’re all on a journey. It’s about slowly remembering who we truly are and reclaiming our original shape.

I always remember those words; I teach because I touch the future.

If only we could learn from our children.

Imagine what kind of future that would be.

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Interview March 2025

I want these dreams to continue to be freely available, so If her story nourished or inspired you, please do consider sending something back to support the project. For those who already do (you know who you are!) so much love & gratitude.

🌸 Keep me supplied with strong tea as fuel for me to continue the work of the Dreamworks Project which I run in my spare time.

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