What is our Vision?

Our vision is to support the urgent creation of ‘wise community’ through large-scale community participation in personal learning & development services that are high quality, effective and credible.

Just briefly, how will we do this?

We offer the Perth community an extensive range of personal learning and development services which are widely recognised as being relevant, professional and highly effective and which are seen to represent excellent value for money.

What do we mean by a ‘wise community’?

We believe a ‘wise community’ is a community in which its individual members have the awareness and responsibility to live life authentically, abundantly and sustainably both personally, and as a society.

— Authenticity

An important part of being human is the quest to be fully and uniquely ourselves; to be authentic. “To be, or not to be?” is indeed the question!

Too often we fail to express who we really are in the world, with personal consequences being unhappiness and unlived potential, and social consequences of lost greatness. People who are fully resourceful and fully satisfied, as a result, offer their best to others in their community. Wise communities foster and support their members to be fully themselves and recognise the benefit to the individual and, ultimately, to the community itself.

— Abundance

Life is lived very differently when we take the view that there is, or can be, enough for us all and when we recognise we have an abundance of personal, social, financial resources.

Our individual and collective potential is untapped when we adopt an attitude of scarcity and neediness. When our focus is on ensuring we have enough, life is lived with an ‘us or them’ perspective and our time, focus and energy is effectively devoted to competition. On the other hand, an attitude of abundance leads to more creative, resourceful and collaborative approaches and solutions. We think in “we” and “us” terms, rather than “me” and “I” terms and our motivating questions become “How?” and “What if..?” rather than “If?” and “Whether..?”.

— Sustainability

Abundance is only possible when we see our lives, our community and society, our economy and our environment as a whole system, in which any decision made in the part affects the whole, directly and indirectly. Whether it is personal, social or environmental, every decision and action brings with it a consequence!

Often we fail to recognise or take responsibility for the full implications of our decisions, we end up with less-than-useful, often disastrous, consequences. Making decisions sustainably is all about balance. It means adopting a way of being that values; self and other; present and future; individual and community; society, economy and environment, and; local and global.

• At a personal level, sustainable decision-making leads to balanced lives.
• At a social and economic level, it leads to functional societies who experience genuine progress, social justice and economic progress which is shared by all.
• At an environmental level, it involves an attitude of conversation arising from an understanding of human dependence on our natural environment, not just now but into the future. Lose it and we lose ourselves!

Why do we see ‘learning’ as so important?

It’s quite simple really, and it’s got to do with how we see wisdom and how we see learning.

Wisdom is...

Wisdom, in our view, is about using knowledge and experience to make practical, sensible decisions that serve as many as possible, now and into the future. Wisdom doesn’t just come with time, however. It comes with reflection and self-knowledge. It comes with the capacity to observe ourselves and to assess how the workings of our own mind and heart affect the way we make decisions.

Learning is...

We see learning as a key feature of being human; we’re always learning. The issue is, how much are we learning, how well, and what are the implications of not learning effectively?

Learning is not, for us, about the simple acquisition of information, skills and knowledge, as important as this can be. Learning is, in our view, most effective when it involves reflecting on our actions and, beyond that, observing and reflecting on ourselves.

A key ingredient of wisdom, therefore, is placing importance on ‘learning to learn’ and noticing how well we are learning. It is about adopting a ‘learning approach’ to life — living life as ‘life-long learners’.

Why the ‘urgent creation’ of wise communities?

— Environmental Conservation

We believe human beings are part of, not separate to, our physical environment and that it makes practical and moral sense to take good care of our environment. Our approaches to the production and consumption of goods and services over the past 100 years in particular have had a disastrous effect on our environment — highlighted best by global climate change — and this requires urgent attention and action.

The destruction of our physical environment, including deforestation/habitat destruction, over-fishing, exploitation of non-renewable resources, pollution of air, waterways and land, and poor waste management, is simply unsustainable and unwise. Unless our attitude changes, and changes quickly, the expected growth in human population will only exacerbate this problem with increased demand for both basic needs (food, water, energy) and for consumption of modern goods and services.

— Social Progress

We believe ‘progress’ is not measured by financial growth and technological advances alone. Nor do we believe that progress has occurred while whole communities — whole nations or whole groups within society — fail to experience basic needs and rights.

Within the developed world, sections of society continue to suffer from discrimination, poverty and disenfranchisement, while for many workaholism and/or consumerism takes the place of genuine happiness. For much of the developing world poverty, starvation, poor health and disease, and armed conflict either threaten survival or deprive many of the opportunity for a life of satisfaction and happiness.

In summary

With the information, financial, medical and technological resources available to us today, why does this continue to be so?

If you’d like to get involved with us, please contact Director, Kim Lisson at kim@lifeschool.com.au or phone him on 0412 126 147.