Society is about “being up to date” now in the 21st century where we’ve surpassed the Global Village theory of Marshall McLuhan. I think we as humans are now all in a Global Classroom. By classroom I do not literally mean a physical classroom that you find in an institution; by classroom I mean being in a space and time for people to come together with the will to learn and grow as human beings.

A classroom setting exists for learning. It consists of students and a designated conductor who generates contents to generate production in the classroom setting. Students see themselves as competition. It’s inevitable. If someone in my class impressed everyone in the room including me, I’m going to be influenced and so will the teacher. The “teacher” isn’t the leader — which is the most common misperception we have in the classroom. The “teacher” is also a student as well as the manager who provides direction — whether it be through a course syllabus or their own guidelines on stirring students’ potential.

We students (which also includes the “teacher”) learn from each other and sometimes unconsciously envy each other because we “think” that it’s about competition, just like nations think it’s about competition. We are all students; we are all teachers. We separate ourselves from one another, we create groups, we form bonds, we segregate others, and most times we really miss out on the very purpose of what a classroom is and what it can provide. The fact that we are in this classroom and we are amongst people with differences, people with different perspectives, people with creativity, opinion and voice, is what makes this generation significant and unique.

We think so much about ourselves and polish our ego or sulk in them. When all that really matters is acknowledging and accepting people for who they are and not for what they appear to be. A classroom is about disagreeing, it is about debate, it is about dialogue, it is about perspectives and what it’s not about is who is right. It is about leaving what actually happens in a classroom in a classroom, and taking the knowledge and experience away and applying it accordingly. That is the problem we have encountered in this Global Classroom of the world.

It is unfortunate to see nations invade other nations without having any right to do so. That is called lighting up the match of war for the purpose of gaining something for their own so called country (greed) without caring one bit about the people who live in that country who are the country (citizens). Let’s start learning in our classrooms and lets stop looking at our differences as reasons for separation. We love those adrenaline rushes and we love being angry, but we will go home eat dinner, go to bed and start a new day, without that anger having any affect on our behaviour. That is called practice. We need to practice.

I might be publishing this soon in an upcoming book David Barringer is currently compiling content for.