Stories may have been the first form of school. Story can mean “storehouse,” a place where wisdom and important ideas are stored when people have forgotten them. People used to turn to the wisdom of stories when there was nowhere else to turn. The problem now is not just that people have forgotten important things; but also that too many people believe they are in essentially opposed stories.

A story that comes to mind when I consider the intense dilemmas of the current school crisis is the German fairy tale called “The Spirit in the Bottle.” The critical scene in the tale occurs when a young student wanders alone in a great forest. After no longer being able to attend school, he offered to help his old father gather wood. Against the father’s warning, he left the beaten path and strolled off looking for bird’s nests in the treetops.

While looking up expectantly, he heard a strange voice calling: “Let me out. Let me out.” Eventually, he tracked the voice to a small bottle hidden under leaves, amidst the roots of an ancient oak tree. Peering into the bottle, he saw something like a strange frog jumping up and down, insisting to be let out. As soon as he pulled the cork out of the bottle, a spirit appeared that was almost as big as the tree. Once freed, the spirit did not thank the youth; rather it threatened to ring his neck because it had been locked up for so long.  

Being a quick learner, the student claimed not to believe that such a huge spirit could have been inside such a small container. He wanted proof and the spirit or genie agreed to shrink and reenter the bottle. The youth quickly stuck the cork back in and the genie was trapped again. At that point, the spirit promised to give him a great gift if he would only pull the cork out again. The student considered that if he could trick the spirit once, he could likely do it again. 

Released a second time, the genie gave the youth a piece of cloth that looked simple, but turned out to be a remarkable gift. One end of the cloth could turn common metals into silver and the other end could heal almost any wound. With his newfound gifts the student was able to help his old father. Eventually, he went out into the world and became a wise and renowned healer.

There are many ways to look at a story, as many ways as the lives of people. On one level, the tale is a strong reminder of the ancient idea that each person has a calling in life. The idea that the youth had wandered far from school and beyond parental guidance when he heard the call may be more important now than ever. The psychological fact that facing up to a crisis can help reveal our inner resources is certainly pertinent now. There is also the sense that in critical times, life itself can be the school we need as vital learning can also come from direct encounters with nature and the spiritual levels of being.  

Typically, the dilemma of who we are supposed to be in the world is solved in too narrow a way for the complex issues we must face. In a time of increasing uncertainty and radical changes, the education of students may have to change radically as well. One of the few ways to find a meaningful path through the confusions of life is to follow the light of one's inner genius. In its original meaning, genius is the inner spirit of each soul born; it is also the most resilient and creative part of each person. 

There is a lesson in the fact that the youth was looking up to the treetops for signs of birds when the life-changing call came from the ancient roots below. On that level, the story suggests that the spirit of learning itself may have become radically reduced in size and trapped in little containers.

If we limit ourselves to common expectations and simply practical goals we may lose the chance to awaken deep inner resources and find genuine ways to help transform the world.

I know that for parents, teachers, students, and school administrators the current issues of education can seem impossible to solve and the decisions unbearable to make. Even when decisions are made, they can be subject to change or reversal at any moment. In terms of the coronavirus pandemic, the economic collapse and the education crisis the angry spirit is well out of the bottle and has turned out to be enormous and dangerous.

The collective crisis now involves facing up to great threats and finding ways to reveal hidden resources as well as healing capacities. The wisdom of the story includes the sense that true revelations come when we are not only “thinking outside the box,” but are also off the usual map. As in the story, one of the tricks involves the need to become quick learners. Like the clever student, we may have to trick ourselves out of the immediate fears as well as the usual expectations.

As if embodying that greater spirit of education, the poet Robert Frost said, "I am not a teacher. I am an Awakener." This is a time for waking the genuine roots of humanity. Any insistence on going back to the way things were before may cause us to miss levels of inspiration and genuine learning that are waiting to happen in all areas of nature and culture. 

The German poet and philosopher Johann Wolfgang Goethe, who likely knew the tale of the spirit in the bottle, stated that: "There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give to our children. One of these is roots, the other wings." The story suggests that the roots involve the deep spirit of education that often gets lost within the practicalities and rudiments of learning. The wings might best be understood as the extension and expansion of each child's inner spirit, the awakening of each student’s core imagination, and the revelation of their natural gifts and way of being uniquely present in this world. 

These are unprecedented times and like the young seeker in the old tale, we are caught between a world that was and another world just coming into being. An old term for a betwixt and between state is liminal, as in “a threshold or the bottom of a doorway.” We are standing on a threshold in a time of radical change and potential transformation on earth. The great uncertainties are deeply troubling; yet the very uncertainty of our situation makes things more possible, not less so. Liminality is the necessary condition in which the deep potentials of life can be touched and tapped again. 

Old myths and stories often depict how the obstacles we face and the losses we suffer either cause us to grow bigger lives, or else become smaller people. Either we connect to the deeper roots of imagination and become greater vessels for genuine visions and the flow of life, or else we shrink and become trapped in ever smaller patterns and fearful containers. 

The young student became a true seeker and then became a vessel for the spirit of transformation and healing trying to enter the world through him. Like him, we are either becoming greater vessels for the flow of life or else we are shrinking and unintentionally making the lives of our children smaller as well.

In the midst of all of the confusion, what waits to be found again is the genuine spirit of learning and the deeper roots of education. It was Goethe who also wrote: “Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.” Despite all our fears, this is a time to think and dream and imagine boldly. For, the great issue has always been, as in the story of the youth and the spirit, a matter of our courage to awaken to a greater sense of meaning and purpose and our willingness to genuinely change our lives.

Painting: "Osprey Flying" by Manuel Sosa