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Abstract
Education is no longer about teaching stuff, but about qualifying the student for exploration. A full understanding of the world takes understanding of science, philosophy, art, literature, culture, and religion and only with a deep understanding of the central themes of human existence can life be lived happily and in balance with the global eco system. We explore in this article how education for the new time must look, and how quality of school life can be measured in this context. Approach/objective: To give a conceptual outline of what constitutes the good education that develops the fundamental human qualifications needed for our collective survival on the planet. The qualification of the student includes the student's ability to explore own Ego, consciousness, social/love ability and come to a sufficient understanding of the structure of physical, mental, social, sexual and spiritual health and disease to lead a happy, well-functioning life. Material: Exploration of the relevant theories of human needs, quality of life, intelligence etc. relevant for evaluating the quality of school life. Choosing based on these the 11 questionnaires that constitute a valid measure of quality of school life. Result: The Quality-of-School-Life Questionnaire with 11 questions in three categories: Q1-Q3: global evaluations, Q4-Q7: students experience of the teacher and the lessons (objectivistic measures), and Q8-Q11: students report on own state (subjectivistic measures). The rating scales and psychometric properties of the questionnaire are similar to QOL10.
Keywords: Education, teaching, school, quality-of-school-life, happiness, intelligence, understanding, creativity, interest, inspiration, safety, affinity, focus, activity, engagement, importance, experienced value
Introduction
Children go to school. Everybody seems to agree that this is a good thing. But what is the purpose of it? What is it we hope to accomplish by sending our children to 12 or 18 years of private or public education? The world is changing so fast that the landscape of knowledge, even the way we collectively look at the world change radically in 20 years. And every intelligent human being can, supported by the educational films and videos on the internet, teach him or herself to read and write, learn science, culture and math for example. So the old-fashioned idea that school is for learning is obviously not true anymore.
Education as we know it today was initiated...