INTRODUCTION

The aim of education is preparation for life. That said, conventional schooling has fallen short. Its primary aim has been to help young people develop practical skills — reading, writing, arithmetic, and forms of intellectual knowledge that prepare one for a job and the practicalities of everyday living. But that is only part of an adequate preparation for life. Independent learners know this. And, to a limited extent, the mainstream educational enterprise seems to be awakening to this.

What has been missing is education about values, perspectives, and context — elements of that kind of deep understanding called WISDOM. There has, for example, been little emphasis on character development and the broadening of concern beyond oneself. Little on internalizing humanity's higher values. And too little on developing an understanding of the consequences and ramifications of one's actions in a variety of contexts — family, society, ecological systems, etc. Wisdom includes factual knowledge but goes beyond it. It involves an expansion of concern in space and time. And it involves the acquisition and internalization of values and perspectives which result in decisions and personal actions that go beyond self-interest and promote the greater good.

The Wisdom Page website was started in 1995 to make wisdom-related resources available worldwide. Over the years it has grown in content and popularity. Today it is a major source of information about wisdom — what wisdom is, why we need wisdom, how wisdom is developed, wisdom education, wisdom research, and much more. Each month the website is visited some 12,500 times by 7000+ unique visitors from more than 130 countries. And each month, more than 24,000 requests for electronic documents, videos, and audio files are successfully filled.

Having many hundreds of resources available is wonderful, but what if you are someone fairly new to the idea of wisdom who simply wants to get a basic understanding of the concepts and issues? Where do you start?

To solve that problem we did a thorough review of Wisdom Page resources and carefully selected a group of appropriate text, audio, and video resources. Those resources have been arranged in four tiers representing four different levels of interest, prior knowledge about wisdom, and personal involvement. We believe that this approach is especially suited to the needs of classroom teachers who would like to introduce wisdom concepts to their students, self-motivated individual learners in their teens and beyond, and parents who would like their children to grow up not only knowledgeable, but wise. The four tiers take you step by step from a casual-interest starting point to — should you wish to pursue it — a deep investigation. Enter at whatever tier seems the best fit for you. Exit whenever you wish.

Tier 1: An Overview
A few brief resources that give an overview of wisdom essentials

Tier 2: The Basics
A more comprehensive look at what wisdom is,
why we need wisdom, and
how wisdom is developed

Tier 3: Going Deeper
More on the above — and related issues

Tier 4: Browsing for More
On to the entire Wisdom Page and its menus.
Once there, go wherever you are drawn to go.

A special note to parents who are home schooling their children. While the Tier 1 and 2 materials are not too advanced for direct-access by teenagers, we suggest that parents start by viewing the materials themselves. This way you can discuss them with your older children and think about ways of introducing the basic ideas to the younger ones. We also hope that the materials will trigger ideas of your own for wisdom-stimulating home-schooling activities. If you come up with some that you'd like to share with other parents, please Contact Us.