TLDR: Teaching love as a core curriculum (or even a basic one) could be a highly effective path to transforming the world and impacting many of the core issues EA aims to address.
@Yassin Alaya in her Rational Education as a Cause Priority? post advocates for the teaching of Philosophy, Psychology, Microeconomics and statistics as core school subjects.
@TimSpreeuwers discusses How to bring EA into the classroom? and I believe may be onto something with his assignments to students of finding a worthwhile charity for him to donate to.
My hypothesis is that what the world most needs is... more love. Brotherly love is defined as "feelings of humanity and compassion towards one's fellow humans." by Oxford Languages.
While philosophy and rational thinking are great EA values, those tend to be dryer subjects that not everyone may be suited for. Love, on the other hand, is a value generally shared and desired by all countries/peoples and could be taught from early age. I get the feeling that EA's tend to frown on fuzzies, however I would argue that as it is what currently drives most people, it is likely to have a much greater impact.
Exact curriculum can be debated/researched (I and I suspect others likely would be willing to fund research/development), however teaching all humans the basics of humanity and compassion (with possible advanced classes on EA for those keen on the subject) could arguably have an enormous impact on almost all causes discussed here and many more.
If people were taught to listen to each other, care for one another, to disagree/dislike actions/opinions but to nonetheless respect/value/be compassionate towards the PEOPLE behind them, most issues we face in the world and as individuals would, I argue, become MUCH easier to address (and/or not arise in the first place). (research could be done if necessary)
I am new here (love the place, my brain's in heaven though I'll make some suggestions in a separate post), so perhaps I am missing something, but it feels like the world is AWARE that more love is needed, that we should "do something" about it, but doesn't know how to go about it.
It feels like (am I allowed to say stuff like that here? ;) ) if we could come up with a healthy, inclusive (but respectful of differing opinions), curriculum that -encourages/rewards- love but does not impose it, governments the world over would be hard-pressed to argue that "more love" is unnecessary/undesirable. As it likely would make policing much easier/less resource intensive (at least in theory, as it may spur more peaceful movements, which I read somewhere are actually more effective), even authoritarian regimes may be encouraged to adopt it.
Arguably, it ought to set billions on a path to altruism, with the more rational portion of them likely to join EA. Considering the almost limitless impact this could have over time, I would argue that even a small chance of success is worth investing in. Furthermore, any research/development of tools/curricula to help humanity learn be more loving could have very high value, even if not included in all/any schools.
In conclusion, I would love to discuss this, and perhaps gather a group/work with Effective Philanthropy to fund/help with research on the topic.
I suspect there would be a lot of challenges with this, such as how to measure/assess the impact, and the actual implementation of the project/intervention. The details matter a lot. But I also think that at its core this idea has merit.
I was just recently thinking about how reading two pieces of writing in my early 20s had a very beneficial effect on my long-term happiness. If I was building a curiculum on something like how to have a happy life or practical wisdom, I'd include these.