This morning, I watched a group of children waiting for the school bus. Their laughter, their backpacks almost too big for their small frames, stirred something bittersweet in me. For a moment, a heaviness washed over my heart. I thought of the world they are stepping into—a world that doesn’t always feel safe, supportive, or designed for the unfolding of their deepest selves.
It’s easy to see how the structures around us shape these young ones. Our schools so often seem built to prepare children only for the machinery of society: to find jobs, to fit roles, to keep the wheels of the economy turning. Rarely do they pause to ask: What is the soul capable of? What unique light is waiting to unfold here? What wisdom is already alive within this child?
And yet, even in that realization, another truth rose up in me: the soul cannot be silenced. No matter how rigid the structures, the light within us insists on shining. It may be buried, it may be ignored, but it never disappears. Every child carries it. Every adult carries it. Within each of us lives a spark that yearns to grow—not just into function, but into fullness.
Perhaps we cannot rewrite the curriculum overnight. Perhaps we cannot shift entire systems with the snap of a finger. But we can create living classrooms of the spirit wherever we go. A kind word to a stranger. A smile that says “I see you.” A patient ear that allows someone to feel truly heard. These small moments are not small at all. They are lessons in love, in presence, in the courage of authenticity.
When we live this way, we become teachers without titles, walking textbooks of compassion and joy. We model another kind of education—one that reminds people of who they really are. In that way, the world is already shifting, one heart at a time.
So today, may we remember: real education begins not in institutions, but in us. Each of us is both student and teacher in the school of life. Each of us carries the capacity to plant seeds of wholeness in one another. And each act of love, however simple, is a page in a greater curriculum that cannot be erased.
The children at the bus stop reminded me this morning: the soul will always reach toward light. May we live in such a way that we make the reaching easier, for them and for ourselves.