Tomorrow's Children: A Blueprint for Partnership Education in the 21st Century

by Riane Eisler

In the wake of the tragedy of the shootings in Littleton at Columbine High School and other killings of children by children, there is increasing recognition of the urgent need for a deep systemic reassessment of what we are teaching our children. Based on the multidisciplinary research conducted by Riane Eisler over three decades, Tomorrow’s Children presents a new integrated model for education: the partnership model.This model is an outgrowth of the cultural transformation theory developed by Dr. Eisler in her classic work The Chalice and the Blade. In that book, Eisler identifies a continuum of patterns for structuring relations. At one end of the continuum is the partnership model, which embodies equity, environmental sustainability, multiculturalism, and gender-fairness. At the opposite end of the continuum is the dominator model, which has marred much of our civilization. This model emphasizes control, authoritarianism, violence, gender discrimination, and environmental destruction. Eisler also shows that we today stand at a crossroads, where a shift to the partnership end of the continuum is essential for human welfare, and possibly survival. A new kind of education system is required to effectuate this shift.Tomorrow’s Children applies the partnership model to education from kindergarten to twelfth grade and beyond, providing practical guidance for educators, parents, and students. Rather than one more add-on to existing methods and curricula, it provides a systemic approach that offers a more accurate and hopeful picture of what being human means. The curriculum loom and learning tapestry Eisler presents in Tomorrow’s Children integrate three primary components of teaching and learning: what Eisler calls partnership process, partnership structure, and partnership content. The book melds Eisler’s research and the work of many progressive educators into a cohesive and compelling blueprint for the kind of proactive education children need to meet the challenges of the 21st century. As Nel Noddings, a noted professor of education from Stanford University, writes, “the adoption of a partnership model in both schools and the larger society is essential for human life to flourish.”

Genres: Feminism, Education

392 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Riane Eisler is internationally known for her bestseller The Chalice and The Blade, now in 26 foreign editions and celebrating its 30th anniversary with a new 2017 epilogue in its 57th US printing, as well as for other award-winning books. She keynotes conferences worldwide, with venues including the United Nations General Assembly and the US Department of State. She is President of the Center for Partnership Studies and has received many honors, including honorary Ph.D. degrees, the Alice Paul ERA Education Award, and the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation's 2009 Distinguished Peace Leadership Award, and is featured in the award-winning book Great Peacemakers as one of 20 leaders for world peace, along with Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, and Martin Luther King.

She can be contacted at center@partnershipway.org.
Her websites are http://www.centerfor partnership.org, http://caringeconomy.org,
and http://www.rianeeisler.com

Reviews

[Misty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most amazing book ever! Every parent, teacher, educator, or anyone dealing with children at all needs to read this amazing book that will change your mindset forever. I ave already begun to see many of her suggestions put into play in my area of the world. Indeed, this is the intuitive approach to developing a more kind, generous, creative, and productive global culture to preserve our world for many generations to come.

[Charles Goforth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not too much is new here, at least in the content that Reisler says needs to be woven into the education of "Tomorrow's Children." Which could be a testament to the growth and promulgation of ideas in her earlier book, "Chalice and the Blade."

But examples of HOW to integrate those topics for students were interesting to me. By weaving old standard classroom subjects (e.g., the three R's, science, art and music) together with more broad-viewed, holistic, gender-balanced, mutlicultural ecological and even cosmic and spiritual stuff, Reisler presents a "tapestry" that integrates into primary and secondary education, the values, processes and more highly evolved thinking of "Partnership Education."

As a general framework for those who've not read "Chalice and the Blade," think of the "Partnership" model as an urgently progressive, post-feminist, ecological plea against the "Dominator" model, the old, white male paradigm of "human nature" being violent, the oppression of women and minorities, the unsustainable pillaging of the planet, and the horrors of authoriarian tyranny in our species' history.

Reisler is trying to offer students and teachers the "analytical lens" of the Partnership / Dominator continnuum by which to better view and comprehend not only our history, but the present world and its precious, imperiled future.