Parent University: Lifelong Learning Through Love & Play

It’s no surprise that the love, learn, play framework for flourishing clicked for Michael as soon as I introduced it at the very start of our interview. What followed was a beautiful and perfectly apt metaphor for the framework that Michael effortlessly conjured up.

Parent University, too, runs deeper than it may seem to its participants. That’s because everything its participants can possibly need is taken care of quietly behind the scenes. For each of its monthly events, which have seen as many as 500 attendees at once, a cast of all-volunteer instructors is recruited to teach classes on exactly the subjects parents ask.

But under the surface of learning that is Parent University’s undeniably overt focus is a deep ocean of love that manifests itself in small but hugely impactful details. Breakfast and lunch are provided at each event, as is childcare and chartered bus transportation, so that every parent—no matter the circumstances—can participate for free. The only barrier to entry is a willingness to show up on a Saturday morning and learn.

If love is the ocean upon which Parent University sails, play is the motor, the wind, the current that propels it forward. Michael has often reminded me that the fun, whimsical atmosphere echoing throughout the halls at Parent University events is no accident: it is a deliberately calculated, critical component of the organization’s programming.

Michael’s signature sense of humor, and the many prizes that are raffled off throughout the course of Parent University events—ranging from restaurant gift cards to a brand new laptop—set the tone for injecting play into the communal act of learning. But it is the chorus of laughter, victorious cheers, and emphatically waved winning raffle tickets that prove how it is the parents themselves who deeply understand and buy into the sense of play that can accompany learning for its own sake.

And I’ve been lucky enough to witness and be a part of this twice: once as a participant, and once as an instructor.

Parent University is a beacon of hope that, importantly, illuminates an important systemic problem that Michael says has existed at least since his years as a student many decades ago. That problem is a means-ends inversion, in which learning is treated as a means toward some socially scripted reward as opposed to a rewarding end in its own right. Michael wants his organization to be part of the solution to this means-ends inversion, which is a clear hindrance not just to lifelong learning but to the state of flourishing that such an approach to learning facilitates.

Midway through our interview, the conversation shifted toward Michael’s own engagement with love, learning, and play, describing himself as someone who has not only loved learning since childhood, but has always derived immense joy from it. Michael also described how his fascination with science, in particular, having studied and worked as an electrician for many years, informs his views on the relationship between learning and play that is such an integral part of Parent University.

Michael also sees modern science as a discipline of knowledge that validates love as a fundamental feature of our reality and who we are as human beings. Today, Michael’s sense of spirituality is another crucial piece informing his views on love and interconnectedness, but this wasn’t always the case. And Michael is not shy to point out that just as religion can be a force that brings people together, it can also be misinterpreted and wielded to do just the opposite.

When asked to elaborate more on the Baha’i faith and his relationship to it, Michael told me the unlikely story of how he first came across this global but lesser-known religion. It was from a young white man standing alongside him in the pledge line of a black fraternity at Savannah State College, then an HBCU (historically black college or university). 52 years later, Michael says his Baha’i faith has been “the most dominant force” in his life, “the driving force” behind all the good he does for his community and the world beyond.

For Michael, the Baha’i faith is all about unity and service. These two manifestations of love are not only what matter most to Michael, but what he sees as the ultimate purpose of humanity. For him, status and money—which have certainly been necessary for Parent University’s operations over the past 26 years—are just helpful means toward the ultimate end of spreading more love, learning, and play.

Finally, I asked Michael to say a few words about a good friend, spiritual brother in the Baha’i faith, and supporter of Parent University: Rainn Wilson, the actor and comedian best known for playing Dwight in the US version of “The Office” TV series. In recent years, Rainn has used his platform, not to advance his Baha’i faith specifically, but to facilitate conversations on meaning-making and new ways of engaging with spirituality that can better fit our modern world.

Michael noted that Rainn’s podcast Soul Boom works because he brings an element of play to the discussion of otherwise serious topics, very much paralleling the way Michael approaches his work with Parent University. The message is clear: play is deeply intertwined with love and learning, three things that Michael says “can always be used to elevate us.”