At a time when the need for quality education is increasing, the U.S. is witnessing alarming numbers of young people who fail to complete high school. “Zero-tolerance” policies are pushing students out of school at faster rates. The culture of standardized testing is most demeaning to low-performing students, and even the ones who stay can lose their motivation to learn. High numbers of students display chronic disengagement in school, failing to see any intrinsic value to their studies.

How will school reach these students? By giving them what they want to learn. By building with them a welcoming environment. By providing the space for these young people to understand their identity, experience community, and gain useful knowledge about the world.

Young Spirit Foundation is a nonprofit organization designed to help teachers and schools respond to their students’ basic needs for wisdom and connection. The Foundation has a changemaking purpose. Its strategy is to provide a principle-based model which can then be adapted to any educational setting, across boundaries of economics, culture, ethnicity, and nationality.

Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, the Foundation sees an opportunity in the rich diversity of an urban setting to make young people aware of themselves in a tapestry of traditions. Its mission is equally focused on all schools, whether seen as high-performing or low-performing. The measures of success and failure should be defined from the perspective of each individual student and family. Young Spirit Foundation is concerned with the question of what it means to learn, to succeed, and to thrive as a human being. This is a question of philosophy and action.

Young Spirit Foundation is articulating a set of core principles to refocus education on the values that matter to a healthy individual and a healthy society. Through the application of these principles and their related practices, schools can engage a long-term process of change toward less violence and alienation and toward greater peace and happiness. The Foundation is forming partnerships with a wide range of organizations to promote a common vision of wisdom-based education.

The Foundation is currently engaged in the following projects:

- A public charter high school to test and demonstrate the core principles
- Education workshops, seminars, and conferences
- An affiliate network of schools based on wisdom and connection
- Events and opportunities for young people to reach across their boundaries


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