Brains Inventing Themselves
Brains Inventing Themselves
Brains Inventing Themselves
In her 2010 high school valedictorian speech Erica Goldson courageously said: The
majority of students are put through the same brainwashing techniques in order to
create a complacent labor force working in the interests of large corporations and
secretive government, and worst of all, they are completely unaware of it.
This book shows professors, teachers, parents, and interested citizens how students
can become aware and reach higher levels of consciousness.
SensePublishers
TCSE 78
Conrad P. Pritscher
ISBN 978-94-6091-706-6
Brains Inventing
Themselves
Choice and Engaged Learning
Conrad P. Pritscher
Conrad P. Pritscher
A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
vii
Acknowledgements
ix
Foreword
xi
Prologue
xvii
23
43
57
5. Wonder
77
87
95
101
105
111
119
131
145
14 Complex measurement
153
159
v
TABLE OF CONTENTS
171
195
Notes
207
References
215
Index
219
vi
Pritscher has the gift of taking philosophical complexities and making them clear.
As a teacher, I understand exactly what I need to do. This book is exciting because
it is not only about theory, but also about action. I understand that to become a
good teacher I need to become a learner, and act like a learner at all times. My
mind needs to be open and I need to guard against closed mindedness. The book is
not only interesting and worthwhile for what Pritscher has to say but he also has
the unique gift and talent for picking the wisest of thoughts from prominent
thinkers that in turn make us more profound and wise beings ourselves.
Carlo Ricci,
Professor, Nipissing University, Canada,
Author and Editor
Journal of Unschooling and Alternative Learning.
Deftly navigating a course between the Charybdis of rigid standardization and high
stakes testing and the Scylla of narcissistic individualism, Pritscher draws on a
synergistic blend of Eastern and Western philosophy, empirical research and
personal experience to advance a compelling vision of education guided by the
transcendent values of open and collaborative inquiry, responsible individuality
and caring community, reciprocal respect and social justice. It is an absorbing
vision where the potentially centrifugal forces of individual freedom and passion
are both nurtured and constructively channeled by the dynamics of informed
dissent and rational democratic discourse. Once again, at his best, Pritscher is
characteristically know-ledgeable and nuanced, compassionate and clairvoyant,
catalytic and convincing.
Tom Kelly,
Associate Professor of Education and Coordinator of
Adolescent and Young Adult Teacher Education Program,
John Carroll University.
In my work as a child therapist I constantly strive for a capacity I call receptivity.
Conrad Pritscher takes this very idea, and in a prodigious journey through science,
philosophy, spirituality, and education he makes the case that we should assist
teachers in cultivating a receptive disposition so that they may become open, and
hence preserve the precious openness that constitutes a childs imagination. Conrad
argues for a mildly disorienting education experience, one that tolerates uncertainty
and ambiguity, and one that accepts and builds on a childs need to know. Conrad is
not nave to the ways of the world, and he understands all too well the importance of
docile bodies and obedient minds to the functioning of a technocratic society.
However, in the great tradition of Ivan Illich, Paul Goodman, Maxine Greene and
so many others, Conrad can imagine a life otherwise, and we are fortunate that he
has written this book so that others may partake of this vision and begin their own
journeys toward undiscovered places and undreamt of possibilities in their own
vii
lives, and hence in the lives of the children they can touch through parenting
and particularly through teaching in receptive, skeptical, critical - yet always
hospitable ways.
Michael OLoughlin,
Professor, Psychology and Education, Adelphi University.
Michael OLoughlin, is author of The subject of Childhood (2009) and
editor [with Richard Johnson] of Imagining Children Otherwise (2010).
Conrad Pritscher presents here a revolutionary vision of the future of education.
We are taken on a fascinating and elegant exploration of physics, neuroscience,
mathematics and philosophy, all in the service of the wonder and promise of the
new mind. Teachers must read this book, not to make tinkering reforms to schools,
but for the chance to recast themselves and their students as authentic learners,
eager to lead freer, more extraordinary lives. Pritscher hopes for a paradigm
shattering event, a punctuated moment that will profoundly alter compulsory
schooling. With this book, the transformation of our discourse on learning has
already begun.
Steven Taylor,
High School English Teacher, Bolton,
Ontario, Canada.
The premise and insights are fascinating!
Rick Ayers,
Professor, San Francisco State University.
I am amazed, delighted and in awe!! What a wonderful job stringing together so
many of the key concepts that are so fundamental to true education and are now
overlooked by our education policy makers, publishers, administrators, parents,
etc.... You have an amazing command of facts, resources, key ideas. And I am
amazed at how you have succeeded in communicated so many ideas Ive struggled
to communicate for decades. I LOVE YOUR THOUGHTS & WORK!!! Jon
Madian, Author 509 493 1898
In this far-reaching and thought-provoking book, Pritscher pinpoints precisely
where schools go wrong; pushing children to accumulate data is pointless, since
children can access data as well as anyone at the touch of a button. Pritscher argues
instead for the re-invention of education as the exquisite development of multimodal inquiry and open-minded interpretation, as children engaging in continual
wondering and in creating their own connections. Every educator needs to hear
Pritschers message.
Kellie Rolstad,
Professor, Arizona State University.
viii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ix
FOREWORD
How should we live our lives? How can we become more open-minded? How can
we become our own oracles? How should we raise children? What does education
look like and how can we approach that vision?
Once again Pritscher does not disappoint. In this book he tackles profound and
substantive questions and provides laudable insights. Once again, after reading this
book from Pritscher I have come away enlightened, wiser and inspired. In part, this
book addresses and provides ways to act in response to insightful questions about
how to live, Pritscher writes, Included in that how to live, is how to live
interestingly, how to live remarkably, and how to live in important ways (that
which students could profitably be freed to study) (p. 124). Is there anyone who
does not or should not grapple with these most central questions?
Do you know that feeling when you come to the realization that what you
thought was the case is not the case? Imagine now having that happen over and
over again. That is exactly what it feels like to read Pritschers book. It challenges,
redefines and the best part is that you come away with a sense of hope and
goodwill, a sense of confidence and a desire to act because you know that the
world can be better and you now know what your part in making this happen is.
Pritscher makes the point that acting as if we know things that we do not, works
against our abilities. This argument put forward by Pritscher needs to be taken
seriously if we are truly interested in what he calls comprehensive thinkers (p.
11). If we are interested in education, rather than training, we can no longer pretend
that we know more than we do.
In preparing us for what his book is about, Pritscher tells us What follows is an
attempt to provide conditions, not for new categories, but to open minds to the
possibility of the power of knowing more tentatively: knowing with less certainty:
knowing in a way that may help us know more by being more receptive to what
now seems near impossible (p.10). If we want to move from training to education
and from schooling to learning we need to open our minds rather than continue to
close them. Throughout this book Pritscher offers ways toward becoming more
open minded.
The book is not only interesting and worthwhile for what Pritscher has to say
but he also has the unique gift and talent for picking the wisest of thoughts from
prominent thinkers that in turn make us more profound and wise beings ourselves.
He challenges us to open our minds and embrace discrepancy, which he defines
as an event that varies from a students expectations (p. 31). Discrepancy is not
something to fear, but is a unique opportunity and gift to approaching open
mindedness. For example, to reach a point where one understands that something
can be and not be is to approach open mindedness. Discrepancies are not
necessarily conundrums that need to be solved but opportunities for growth,
creativity and imagination.
Pritscher has the gift of taking philosophical complexities and making them
clear. For example, when he compares bishops to teachers, clarity emerges. He
xi
FOREWORD
quotes Time Magazine, bishops see themselves as teachers, not learners: truth
cannot emerge through consultation (p. 50). In writing this, as a teacher, I
understand exactly what I need to do. This book is exciting because it is not only
about theory, but also about action. I understand that to become a good teacher I
need to become a learner, and act like a learner at all times. My mind needs to be
open and I need to guard against closed mindedness.
In making the connection that wisdom is acting, Pritscher hits on what is the
most important result that mind opening has to offer. Whether we are thinking
about acting as a learner, as a way to understand something, or whether we are
thinking about acting as a way to bettering the world, it needs to be through acting
that this happens; ultimately acting is the key. In other words, in the case of the
former, the best way to learn something is to do it, to act out a genuine situation,
and in the case of the latter the best way to better the world is for each of us to act
better. So, this highlights the importance of acting.
Education is not the same as schooling and if we are interested in open
mindedness, our schools need to change. Pritscher writes, We need more
confidence in our judgment in order to remove the outdated thinking our schools
and universities often generate (p. 100). We need to have the courage to open our
minds beyond what is already there. We cannot simply continue to replicate and
train in absolute ways, but we need to embrace uncertainty. By doing this, If we
accept uncertainty, perhaps we can become more educated. The free atmosphere is
quite uncertain, and accepting that uncertainty helps one become educated, rather
than merely trained (p. 104).
We cannot continue to see people as objects, cogs and resources to exploit, but
we need to see them as ends in themselves. We need to embrace Pritschers
assertion that One is freer when one is ones own authority, and, paradoxically,
one learns to be ones own authority by being ones own authority. One cannot be
ones own authority when one is constrained (p. 104). Similarly, if we want
responsible adults we need to give children the freedom to be responsible. We
learn to be responsible, by being responsible, not by being coerced or bribed or
punished into conforming to a discourse that may or may not be best, but merely
habitual.
We need to understand that indoctrinating people into thinking a certain way
works against open mindedness and ultimately against our best interests. To move
forward we need diversity and innovation and creativity and imagination, not the
status quo; especially, when we take a second to reflect on what the status quo is
for so many people, beings and nonbeings within our world, universe and beyond.
Pritscher writes, Rather, a fuller and more just democracy could more easily
develop where differing views will be heard when unhampered by the social
pressures to think in a certain way. Some fundamentalist rgimes tend to promote
social pressure to think in a certain way (p. 108). This clearly works against open
mindedness, and ultimately our best interests.
After all, Certain absolutes in our history have turned out to be not true (the
earth is not the center of the universe, the atom is not the smallest particle, the
universe is not only composed of matter and energy) (p. 111). For any of us to
xii
FOREWORD
xiii
FOREWORD
FOREWORD
By Carlo Ricci,
Author and Editor of JUAL (Journal of Un-schooling
and Alternative Learning) (Un-schooling is student directed learning)
http://www.nipissingu.ca/jual
xv
PROLOGUE
Harvard researchers recently were able to reverse the aging process in mice. British
mathematician, Roger Penrose, claims evidence suggests that what we think our
universe may be but one in perhaps an unending, coexisting succession of
undetectable universes. If Penroses evidence is not noise or instrumental error, it
could radically change the way we think about our universe.
A New York Times editorial asks: What do we do about these possibilities?
The answer: To marvel at them and be reminded, once again, that we live in the
universehowever we define itthat contains more wonders then we can begin to
imagine.
Sir Arthur Eddington said: The universe is not only stranger than we imagine.
It is stranger than we can imagine. Ray Kurzweil predicts that in less than 20
years we will have machines with the equivalent mental power of human beings.
Ten years after that, machines will be 1000 times smarter. Kurzweil predicts we
will have 1000 times more technological change in this century than the last. The
first hundred years of technological change will occur by 2014. The next hundred
years of technological change will occur by 2021. Faster change will occur after
that.
Schools and universities are not preparing students to live in a time of rapidly
accelerating change? Do we have time to wait to change what happens in our
classrooms when rapidity of change is accelerating?
Average students in free schools showed they improved on national
standardized tests at two and a half times the national rate. (Education Revolution,
August, 2010.) Free schools, in an ungraded atmosphere, encourage students to
explore what the student finds remarkable, interesting, and important. They are not
tuition free.
Mathematicians have created an infinitesimal to help calculate. An infinitesimal
is too small to measure. Wouldnt it be nice if philosophers, psychologists,
educators, other scientists, and ordinary citizens were attempting to create the
opposite of an infinitesimal; something too large to measure which may amount to
an educators equivalent to a mathematicians zero. This educators zero could help
educators accelerate higher level learning the way the invention of zero, near 750
CE, accelerated operations in math.
These recent findings and projections in some fields have not yet been noticed
by many who operate classrooms in schools and universities. Often unconsciously
running through school activity is an obedience to authority frame. This frame
holds that it is fine to be free as long as one obeys authority. This frame may need
questioning since throughout the ages, the common thread of great thinkers has
been that education is that which helps people become freely self-directing (their
own authorities). As Thomas Jefferson suggested, education is that which will help
one decide for oneself what will secure or endanger ones freedom. As Albert
Einstein said, education is that which helps one think something that cant be
learned from textbooks.
xvii
PROLOGUE
Even in the light of traditional state tests which reveal the achievement range of
seventh graders is from grade 3 to grade 13, our National Governors Conference
believes there should be national standards of content. Forty States already bought
into that idea. Might it be helpful to notice that most fields now contain a virtual
infinite body of content? Recently, discovery of planets in our galaxy moved from
1 to 500: and the satellite Kepler finding a possible 1200 more.
Within the last year astronomers have projected the universe contains
300,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars. (Many more than previously projected).
Paradoxically, one astronomer predicted that the same number of human cells now
exist in all humans on earth. Another astronomer suggested that our universe may
be tilting, indicating another universe with gravitational pull.
Many teachers and professors for well over a hundred years have operated on
the basis of mastery of content as a major goal of schooling. Many teachers and
professors dont see themselves as dispensers of information yet that is what they
are. They often do not notice the information is often unasked for. Nor do they
often notice the unconscious coercion when students are forced to follow the
obedience to authority frame, even if it prevents students from developing their
own, possibly more illuminating frame. Controlling students is often a common
mindset in schools and universities which continue to promote the dispensing of
information. The dispensing of unasked for information makes many teachers and
professors the equivalent of, as William Pinar mentions, mail carriers.
Neuroscience has recently revealed the neuroplasticity of brain cells. Brains can
invent themselves. Remodeling of brains can be facilitated by schools and
universities. Reversing negative conditions produced by earlier debilitating
experiences is an aspect of brain inventing. What may be done to accelerate that
positive inventing so as to prepare for rapidly accelerating change? As an IBM
advertisement reads: It is time to ask smarter questions.
What is worse than being blind to something? David Segal mentions Eric
Haseltine, who has worked for both Disney and the National Security Agency,
draws on the findings of evolutionary psychologists to explain to corporations why
they are often unable to see opportunities that are right in front of them. (Haseltine
said) Although we like to believe we know what is going on in our brains, we
know almost nothing about what is going on inside them, he says. Were not only
blind to certain things, but were blind to the fact that were blind to them. That
is changing.
xviii
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skills. Education deals with the difficult to define, and therefore, difficult to
measure, broadly fluid events such as brains inventing themselves, self-direction,
open inquiry, love of learning, self-awareness, and honing judgment. Because of
schools needs for accountability, the difficult to measure events are infrequently
considered. Temporarily reducing some overly clear accountability will increase
higher level accountability in the long run.
Wise people often know the making of a variety of gains involves some risktaking. Wise people also know the greatest gains arise from the investing in ones
own brain. This writing illustrates the need for intelligent, wise risk-taking when
dealing with difficult to define events. At the heart of education are difficult to
define events, such as open inquiry, and brain self-invention. As was said about
pornography, we know it when we see it. The same may be said for open inquiry
and brains inventing themselves.
Jaron Lanier, partner architect at Microsoft Research said: To the degree that
education is about the transfer of the known between generations, it can be
digitized, analyzed, optimized and bottled or posted on Twitter. To the degree that
education is about the self-invention of the human race, the gargantuan process of
steering billions of brains into unforeseeable states and configurations in the future,
it can continue only if each brain learns to invent itself. And that is beyond
computation because it is beyond our comprehension. Learning at its truest is a
leap into the unknown. The unknown is often neglected because it is seen as
nonsense.
Self-invention of the human race starts with each of us self-inventing ones self.
Inventing ones self is also beyond clear definition because it is an ongoing
process. It is difficult to measure but there are clues that can help us move to notice
it. Lanier is saying much including aspects of brain invention through moving from
nonsense to sense. Self-awareness is increasing consciousness. Some creative
students are sometimes seen as anarchist, especially when seen by those who
closely follow the obedience to authority frame.
Sue Shellenbarger of the Wall Street Journal stated: Americans scores on a
commonly used creativity test fell steadily from 1990 to 2008, especially in the
kindergarten through sixth-grade age group, says Kyung Hee Kim, an assistant
professor of educational psychology at the College of William and Mary. The
finding is based on a study of 300,000 Americans scores from 1966 to 2008 on the
Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking, a standardized test thats considered a
benchmark for creative thinking. (Dr. Kims results are currently undergoing peer
review to determine whether they will be published in a scholarly journal.
Creative students tend to have above-average spontaneity, boldness, courage,
freedom and expressiveness, Dr. Kim says. So they sometimes behave like little
anarchists.
Also described here is the un-risky narrowness of many schools and universities
when they overly train at the expense of developing self-directing, open minded,
inquisitive students. When the process of brain inventing/eager learning is
paramount, the honing of judgment and self-direction may be securely had with
wise risk-taking. The risking relates to developing the semi-unknown self6
CHAPTER 1
and synapses. Begley said: Both neurogenesis and synapse formation boost
learning, memory, reasoning, and creativity.
Begley reports on three ways to help build new neurons: 1. Exercise, 2.
meditation, and 3. playing some complex videogames. She said: Exercise gooses
the creation of new neurons in the region of the hippocampus that files away
experiences and new knowledge. It also stimulates the production of neuron
fertilizers such as BDNF, as well as of the neurotransmitters that carry brain
signals, and of gray matter in the prefrontal cortex. Exercise stimulates the
production of new synapses, the connections that constitute functional circuits and
whose capacity and efficiency underlie superior intelligence.
As students move to higher levels of consciousness, they often move toward
becoming their own authority. Teacher direction shifts to student direction.
Teacher structuring shifts to student structuring. Responsibility for student learning
shifts from teacher to student. Teacher choice moves toward student choice.
Teacher classroom management moves toward student self-management. (see
Taylors note on p. 254). A brain inventing itself helps one become ones own
authority. Hermann Heidegger thought a teachers job was to assist students to find
out on their own. Einstein thought an educator is one who helps students think
something that cant be learned from textbooks.
A students brain inventing and level of consciousness partly depends on what
the student experiences in classrooms. What students experience partly depends on
school and teacher goals. Van Rossum and Hamers research includes empirical
studies on epistemology, student thinking, teacher thinking, educational policy and
staff development. They have developed a six-stage developmental model
indicating qualitatively different ways students and teachers view learning and
good teaching. They have reviewed research from many disciplines and their study
underpins the empirical evidence of over 650 students and teachers. Unique ways
of meaning making and brain invention are shown in these six levels of learning
and knowing.
This writing provides ideas on how to develop students higher level learning,
imagination, and awareness. It elaborates on an integration of what is considered
multi-faceted intelligence with emotional/social intelligence. Multidimensional
experience is also discussed. Being ones own authority is here used as the power
to influence or command thought, opinion, or behavior. Becoming ones own
authority goes with inventing ones own brain. This inventing helps one create
elements of a successful, happy life where one is in command of ones self, and is
not easily fooled, or manipulated.
The van Rossum and Hamer six ways of learning and knowing are characterized
by increasing complexity of thinking. Teachers and professors when covering
content, often ask students to operate at the two lowest (least complex) levels of
consciousness. The fourth level of learning and knowing is called self-authorship.
This fourth level is tantamount to John Deweys self-direction which includes
brain self-invention.
Van Rossum and Hamer state there is ample evidence to show that higher
education is not attaining its own stated goals of education (self-authorship). The
8
same may be said for K-12 schooling. Van Rossum and Hamer say one explanation
could be that many teachers in higher education have not themselves reached the
minimum required way of knowing thus preventing those teachers from
constructing a path for students to be educated at that self-authorship level
(probably also true for K-12). Canadian scholar, David G. Smith stated: Why does
so much educational research today seem so unenlightening, repetitive and
incapable of moving beyond itself? Wisdomly, the answer must be because it is
paradigmatically stuck, and cannot see beyond the parameters of its current
imaginal space.
This lower level teaching and learning may occur because many current
professors and teachers were heavily influenced by B.F. Skinner and his emphasis
on conditioning/training. As a result of paying attention only to what can be
easily sensed, many professors and teachers do not now pay attention to
mindfulness, wonder, eagerness to learn, and self-direction. What cannot be
directly sensed is difficult to measure and clearly define. Events such as openness,
and love of learning also fall into that difficult to measure category. As a result,
schooling and much university classroom activity deals primarily with training
rather than developing higher levels of consciousness. This early excessive training
also keeps some teachers and some professors at lower levels of consciousness.
The van Rossum and Hamer epistemological model: provides clear signposts
on the developmental education highway and has proven its worth as an instrument
for curriculum design, measurement of epistemological development and as a tool
for staff development. These ideas are included in their book, The Meaning of
Learning and Knowing, Sense Publishers, 2010.
LEARNING AND INNOVATION
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second. Pratt mentioned that the brain is firing 40 million times a second for
unconscious/subconscious events. Another brain researcher said 98% of what a
person is doing is unconscious.
Much schooling at all levels often deals with isolated parts where the phi is low.
The van Rossum and Hamer research shows when learning at levels 4-6, there is
increased consciousness. They say that many teachers and professors do not teach
for increase in consciousness because their training has led them to think and act at
the lower three levels (with more isolated parts and less phi).
Tononi thinks Simply linking all the parts in every possible way does not raise
phi much. Networks gain the highest phi possible if their parts are organized into
separate clusters, which are then joined. Dr. Tononi said he does not think it is a
coincidence that the brains organization obeys this phi-raising principle.
It is interesting to note that one researcher stated that one human brain, can
make more connection combinations than there are elementary particles in the
universe. The brains 200 billion neurons can make trillions and trillions of
connections. Tononi says his model explains why epileptic seizures cause
unconsciousness. Unconsciousness arises from many neurons turning on and off
together in a synchronized manner. He says: Their synchrony reduces the number
of possible states the brain can be in, lowering its phi.
There is much less brain synchrony, more disorder, when one counts back from
100 by sevens. The disorder/lack of synchrony, may be a condition for the brain to
make more connections. When one is dealing with disorder/complexity/perplexity/
functional discontinuity, there is often a gap in ones knowledge structure. The
mental gap occurs as a result of a discrepant or perplexing event. One is often
motivated to close the gap because of mild discomfort in not knowing. The brain
first deals with the disorder (nonsense- less brain synchrony) perhaps allowing for
more phi (more connections), one or more of which may close the mental gap (to
make more sensesee a bigger picturea larger chunk of reality).
Learning at the 4th level on the van Rossum and Hamer scale often occurs as one
openly inquires to build a concept or set of concepts to explain a discrepancy.
When one inquires, one gathers information in searching to satisfactorily explain a
discrepancy. Attempting to make connections, at first perhaps in a semi-chaotic
way, throwing out mental lines, (in the Deleuze and Gautari sense), not
randomly, but also not highly ordered, so that a possible connection may be made.
When teachers and professors are willing to allow students to be wrong, there is
some repair of our nations schools and universities. About repair, psychotherapist
Ruth Bettelheim recently said: Our classrooms are outdated, functioning like a
mid-20th-century factories Contemporary neuroscience has confirmed that
childrens learning is largely dependent on inherent interest, emotional
engagement, social interaction, physical activity and the pleasure of mastery.
F. Scott Fitzgerald said: The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability
to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the
ability to function. Schools and universities would generate higher level learning
with a both/and open mind rather than an either/or (right or wrong) closed
mind.
10
An open mind is an inquiring mind. The circles below signify concepts. The
smaller circles signify low level concepts. The lines connecting the low level
concepts to a higher level concept (larger circle) signify the process by which
concepts are related (throwing out lines). Open inquiry throws out lines in all
directions (experiments) and when connections are made, a higher level concept is
formed. The larger the circle, the bigger the chunk that is understood. The top
circle does not signify an endpoint, but rather, the point from which more lines are
cast in order to create yet higher level concepts, reflecting larger chunks of reality.
The process by which concepts are related requires higher level cognitive
functioning than the remembering of the concepts which the function generates.
There is no end to open inquiry. The process is infinite and not fully
understandable or conceptualizable. The process is continuous as in John Deweys
notion of education as the continuous reconstruction of experience. Brain
invention involves the continuous reconstruction of experience.
11
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most fully accelerate brain self-invention. The 6th level includes self-direction
and personal development. The 6th is near the highest form of learning often
coupled with the highest form of knowing. The highest form of learning is either
unknown or cant be said. Learning may be limited by time: otherwise learning is
infinite.
The 6th level provides conditions whereby students can grow in self-awareness
while being their own authorities. Their 6th level goes beyond Bloom and other
hierarchies to integrate more than the cognitive, affective, and psychomotor
domains. They do not mention that their 6th level of learning and knowing has
many parallels to what Zen learners and Zen teachers do (and do not do)more
later. Most university and K-12 classes do not deal with the 4-6 levels of learning
and teaching. Transforming schools and universities may occur if they did.
The American School Board Journal (May, 2010), said:
Those with a vested interest in the education of American youthin other
words, everyone who has reached the age of reasonshould read this book
and share it with others. (The book is Kelly Gallaghers, Readicide.)
Gallagher argues that American schools are furthering the decline of reading.
Specifically: He contends that the standard instructional practices used in most
schools are killing reading by much of what they value and do.
Gallagher seems to be accurate. Had he extended his analysis to most teaching
of most subjects, K19, he may even have more potential to transform schooling.
Taking what he says about reading and applying it to school and university
learning generally, one sees that many schools and universities value the
development of test-takers over the development of lifelong, inquisitive learners
who love learning while inventing their brains.
He mentions a number of events including the notion that schools, and I might
add many universities, lose sight of authentic learning in the shadow of political
pressure mandating the requirement of low levels of thinking so that students avoid
thinking for themselves. The Midwest Book Reviews states: Readicide, is an
intriguing look at many possible solutions to the problem of the decline of reading
in American schools. (September 2009)
What Gallagher is saying in Readicide applies to what may be called,
mindicide. About 40 years ago, Silverman wrote how schools murder minds. By
extending Gallaghers thought about reading to most subjects, one can notice
mindicide. Applying these ideas to those who wish to lengthen the school day, or
the school year, we may say that if we are murdering minds with what we are now
doing in classrooms, by lengthening the school day, or school year, we will be
accelerating mind murdering.
The van Rossum and Hamer writing about the meaning of learning and knowing
helps us see that we can teach and learn at levels 4-6, which include higher orders
of consciousness. Teachers and many professors follow a mindset that tends to
avoid natural learning for its own sake to help students become their own authority
thereby reducing potential brain invention.
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Because content is growing so rapidly, and because we cant tell exactly which
content students will need to solve problems and live harmonious lives in the near
future, let us consider not teaching to the test. Developing student resourcefulness
and self-direction will better help students adjust to presently unknown future
demands.
Susan Engels psychological research found: There is also scant evidence that
these tests encourage teachers to become better at helping individual children; in
fact, some studies show that the tests protect bad teachers by hiding their lack of
skill behind narrow goals and rigid scripts. And there are hardly any data to suggest
that punishing schools with low test scores and rewarding schools with high ones
improves anything. The only notable feature of our current approach is that these
tests are relatively easy to administer to every child in every school, easy to score
and easy to understand. But expediency should not be our main priority when it
comes to schools.
COMPUTERS NOTICING FEELINGS
Clive Thompson, Wired, November 2010, notes that computers are beginning to
know what we are feeling. Computer scientist Beverly Wolf states that software
was 80% accurate in sensing students moods. She says if the student is in trouble
emotionally or is frustrated, theyre not going to learn. These projects are still in
the lab but Thompson says gadgets like smart phones are crammed with tech
thats right for detection. (seemingley implying ones mood). Thompson knows
that moods are not always clear and that humans are often confused by moods, but
he thinks computers eventually will accurately sense human feelings to help people
learn. Will they be able to help students to openly inquire and grow to love
learning? Probably yes.
Wired Magazine, Dec. 2010, said: The lesson is that our computers sometimes
have to humor us, or they will freak us out. Eric Horvitznow a top Microsoft
researcher and a former president of the Association for the Advancement of
Artificial Intelligencehelped build an AI system in the 1980s to aid pathologists
in their studies, analyzing each result and suggesting the next test to perform. There
was just one problemit provided the answers too quickly. We found that people
trusted it more if we added a delay loop with a flashing light, as though it were
huffing and puffing to come up with an answer, Horvitz says.
Except for classes that are clearly designed for training such as, how to fix
washing machines, or repair a laptop computerlet us primarily focus attention on
developing the students love of learning and open inquiry by providing classroom
conditions whereby students can more readily invent their own brains. Students
often will become self-directing if their teachers are, and if their teachers are free to
avoid teaching to the test, and are free to use a wide variety of teacher tools of their
choice.
An example of an apparent misunderstanding of inquiry is shown in a Marion
Star article about Ohio State University professors who conducted a 2010 summer
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teams are often the ones that get stuck most often. And ambitious teams get stuck
all the time. The difference between failure and breakthrough is per- severance.
Functional discontinuity need not make one feel overwhelmed or exhausted but
simply stuck. Being stuck and open inquiry are, unfortunately, avoided in
university distance learning lecture classes as well as most K-19 classrooms.
May what Ilan Shrira said be used as evidence of mindicide of university
teaching? He teaches developmental psychology to 300 (distance learning) at the
University of Florida. He said he chose his field because of the passion of a
professor who taught him as an undergraduate. But he thought it unlikely that
anyone could be so inspired by an online course. NY Times reports: Univ. of
Florida: Like most other undergraduates, Anish Patel likes to sleep in. Even
though his Principles of Microeconomics class at 9:35 a.m. is just a five-minute
stroll from his dorm, he would rather flip open his laptop in his room to watch the
lecture, streamed live over the campus network...
Across the country, online education is exploding: 4.6 million students took a
college-level online course during fall 2008, up 17 percent from a year earlier,
according to the Sloan Survey of Online Learning. A large majorityabout three
millionwere simultaneously enrolled in face-to-face courses, belying the popular
notion that most online students live far from campuses, said Jeff Seaman, codirector of the survey. Many are in community colleges, he said. Very few attend
private colleges; families paying $53,000 a year demands low student-faculty
ratios...
Colleges and universities that have plunged into the online field, mostly public,
cite their dual missions to serve as many students as possible while remaining
affordable, as well as a desire to exploit the latest technologies. At the University
of Iowa, as many as 10 percent of 14,000 liberal arts undergraduates take an online
course each semester, including Classical Mythology and Introduction to American
Politics.
Mindicide kills higher level brain function. Learning at the 4th level on the van
Rossum and Hamer scale often occurs as one openly inquires to build an
explanation for a confusing discrepancy. When one inquires, one uses information
in searching to satisfactorily explain a discrepancy. At first perhaps in a semichaotic way, throwing out mental lines, (in the Deleuze and Gautari sense), not
randomly, but also not highly ordered, so that a possible connection may be made.
When a higher level connection is made to a discrepancy there is more order
(sense) but not necessarily enough order to close the mental gap created by a seminonsensical discrepant event. Using groups of concepts to consciously throw out
lines in many directions (exploring) may make a higher level connection, creating
more brain development, while forming a bigger concept or bigger chunk of
reality. Other higher-level connections/chunks may be connected by continually
throwing out more lines, (testing various possibilities). There is a greater
integration of more separate parts (more sense from nonsense) when brains
function at higher levels.
As Gandhi said: There is no way to peace. Peace is the way. So too with
inquiry. There is no way to inquiry. Inquiry is the way. If we trusted ourselves and
18
our students, we would provide less coercion and more freedom to facilitate open
inquiry. Listening to a distance lecture on a computer screen tends to avoid
student open inquiry while often producing zombies who are obedient to authority.
These open inquiry goals require teachers trust of students and students trust of
the teachers. Trust is a part of ones character, and about this Einstein said: Most
people say that is it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it
is character. May we say that it is not intellect that makes a great teacher, but
rather, character which includes trust and openness?
Coveys, Speed of Trust, which Christian Sarkar wrote about, states that trust is
a function of both character (which includes integrity) and competence. If teachers
and university professors trusted students, they would more often do what is done
in free schoolsnot tuition free, but where students are free to explore, in an
open, ungraded atmosphere, what the student finds remarkable, interesting and
important. What is said by Covey about the trust dividends for business probably is
true for student learning in schools and universities.
Covey states: Trust is the one thing that affects everything else you're doing.
Its a performance multiplier which takes your trajectory upwards, for every
activity you engage in, from strategy to execution. If you look at the nature of the
world today, a foundational condition in Thomas Friedmans book, Flat World, is
the presence of trust. In issue after issue, the data is clear: high trust
organizations outperform low-trust organizations. Total return to shareholders in
high trust organizations is almost three times higher than the return in low trust
organizations. So we assert that trust is clearly a key competency. A competency or
skill that can be learned, taught, and improved and one that talent can be screened
for. Trust is missing in school and university classrooms. In ancient Greece,
where school was a place to play with ideas, trust was present. That is probably
also true for ancient China and Japan.
About high trust organizations, Covey reports the following: Information is
shared openly. Mistakes are tolerated and encouraged as a way of learning. The
culture is innovative and creative. People are loyal to those who are absent.
People talk straight and confront real issues. There is real communication and real
collaboration. People share credit abundantly and openly celebrate each others'
success. There are few meetings after the meetings. Transparency is a practiced
value. People are candid and authentic. There is a high degree of accountability.
There is palpable vitality and energypeople can feel the positive momentum.
Cooperation is more valued than competition when trusting is high.
In low trust organizations (most schools and universities) Covey reports a
culture that reflects: New ideas are openly resisted and stifled. People often feel
unproductive tensionsometimes even fear. Mistakes are covered up or covered
over. Most people are involved in a blame game, badmouthing others. There is an
abundance of water cooler talk. There are numerous meetings after the
meetings. There are many undiscussables.
People tend to over-promise and under-deliver. There are a lot of violated
expectations for which people make many excuses. People pretend bad things
arent happening or are in denial. The energy level is low. Facts are manipulated or
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distorted. Information and knowledge are withheld and hoarded. People spin the
truth to their advantage. Getting the credit is very important. Grading students is
giving credit. Traditional schools and many university classes reflect a low trust
culture whereas free schools reflect a high trust culture.
What kind of trust does the state of Texas School Board have when, as reported
by the New York Times, March 2010: After three days of turbulent meetings, the
Texas Board of Education on Friday approved a social studies curriculum that will
put a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks, stressing the
superiority of American capitalism, questioning the Founding Fathers
commitment to a purely secular government and presenting Republican political
philosophies in a more positive light. In a 2010 survey of North Carolina teachers
about trust and respect, 69 percent in 2010 vs. 70 percent in 2008think that there
is an atmosphere of trust and mutual respect in the schools. Thirty one percent of
the teachers do not see an atmosphere of trust in schools. This is part of the school
problem, but what is unstated is the mistrust administrators and teachers have for
good and effective student learning, without requirements, grades, degrees, and
without the pleasure of engaged learning. More support for the natural benefits of
trust are seen in Dr. John Tierneys research. He found: Markets dont work very
efficiently if everyone acts selfishly and believes everyone else will do the same.
You end up with high transaction costs because you have to have all these
protections to cover every loophole. But if you develop norms to be fair
and trusting with people beyond your social sphere, that provides enormous
economic advantages and allows a society to grow. I project the norms of
trust which may be stated are formed after people risk trusting. NY Times
(editorial 6/9/10): Unless the court US Supreme Court) veers from its determined
path, there will be no limit to the power of a big bankbook on politics, said
Tierney.
Competitiveness breads mistrust. Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman
thinks: But lets not kid ourselves: talking about competitiveness as a goal is
fundamentally misleading. At best, its a misdiagnosis of our problems. At worst, it
could lead to policies based on the false idea that whats good for corporations is
good for America.
Trust is noted in a Kirsten Olsen workshop where she showed how several adult
and young adult learners healed themselves from wounds of schooling, and what
connections this has to an emerging new ideas on pleasure in learning. While we
know that choice, novelty, a sense of control, and the right amount of challenge are
associated with pleasure and flow in learning, it is projected to we can educate
ourselves to better focus on pleasurable experiences in learning to optimize
engagement, appetite and attention around class activity. What are some basic
techniques for creating more optimal cognitive states for learning?
Evidence of mistrust is noted when Tripp Gabriel reported: The extent of
student cheating, difficult to measure precisely, appears widespread at colleges. In
surveys of 14,000 undergraduates over the last four years, an average of 61 percent
admitted to cheating on assignments and exams. A Florida university uses
movable video cameras during tests to focus on possible cheaters. Giving students
20
the choice to study what they find remarkable, interesting, and important eliminates
this widespread problem.
Mohandas Gandhis statement: There is no way to peace. Peace is the way,
may be extended to include: There is no way to trust. Trust is the way. A good
teacher, among other qualities, may be one who trusts; even those students who lie.
Trust and high level student learning is rarely a first consideration for teachers
and school administrators. An example of student learning, not being a major
teacher concern, is noticed in a book for beginning teachers. The book opens:
Your teacher training may have provided sound theory and a collection of
instructional techniques, but its often the practical details that can make day-today survival difficult in your first days, weeks, and years of teaching. Notice, first
and foremost is teacher survival rather than self-directed student learning, or just
plain student learning. A close look at teacher and school administrator concerns
shows that frequently, concern for student learning is secondary to ease of
administration and control of students. Developing self-control/self-direction is
difficult under such conditions.
Very different from survival is teacher revival of enthusiasm as teachers
participate in a SEL (social and emotional learning) program. High trust is present.
NY PS 112 reported an 11% increase in overall achievement after using the social
and emotional intelligence program which generates and promotes high levels of
trust among participantsteachers and students, teachers and teachers, and
teachers and administrators. PS 112, reported an 11% increase in overall
achievement after using the social and emotional intelligence program.
Texas school districts are attempting to improve their methods of engaging
students in science learning. They have the hope of raising students science scores
on standardized tests. An article stated that experts say hands-on activities are the
best way to teach science concepts. The article also says the teachers did not have
intensive science backgrounds or the time and resources necessary to develop and
teach hands-on lessons. Our needs for certainty lead us to teaching definite science
concepts, when science is much more than a set of concepts, and includes many
uncertainties. Their goal is to have students score well on easily scored and
measured standardized science tests. Such a goal may arise from failure to see
science as a process. As Nobel laureate, Percy Bridgeman said: Science is nothing
more than doing your damnedest with your mind, no holds barred. Science is
inquirythe process by which concepts are related supported by finding adequate
evidence.
As Gloria Steinem said: The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not
to learn, but to unlearn. Author Kathryn Schulz, in Being Wrong, states that
knowing, as in knowing concepts, is ultimately, belief backed by strong evidence
including other expert opinion. Unfortunately, too often the expert opinion now
holds the teaching of science is teaching of science concepts when perhaps more
accurately, the teaching of science would be better equated with developing a
students ability to openly inquiry.
Self-direction arises from education which is beyond training. Bran Ferran,
Co-Chairman and Chief Creative Officer, Applied Minds, gave an example of
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self-directed, imaginative intuiting (and free thinking that cant be learned from
textbooks) when he said: This is what I mean by the idea of Einsteinthe
potential for an exceptionally creative individual to inspire unlimited generations
of children to become great contributors and role models themselves, over and over
again. It is the intellectual equivalent of the nuclear chain reaction which might
very well be the most powerful force most of us will never experience.
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Try not to become a man of success but a man of value. Albert Einstein
Alice asked the Cheshire cat: Tell me please, which way ought I go from
here? And the cat replied: That depends a good deal on where you want to
get to. Where one wants to go can result from a fundamental value
judgment. Fundamental value judgments are impossible to logically refute. If,
however, as Einstein suggested, there is agreement on certain values and
goals, an exchange of ideas is often useful for determining the manner by
which these goals may be met. We use logic on the values (givens) we hold.
The values themselves are most often pre-logical. Unstated school goals now
are training students to obey authority so that our economy flourishes by
providing trained workers for corporations. Schools and many university
classes are not often developing students to be self-directing, open-minded
generalists who make discerning judgments.
What values do schools hold when schooling is for more schooling? A Dec. 2010
ASCD Newsletter said: Elementary schools promote college as the end goal.
While education is for more education, it is unfortunate when training is often the
primary goal of schooling, that schooling seems to be for more schooling. San
Diego and New Haven were mentioned in that article. It helps to educate instead of
only train when goals of developing self-direction, love of learning, and open
inquiry are primary. Of course some training is needed to be educated, but
education has been neglected because of excessive training which fosters more
certainty because of easier measurement.
As Gallagher stated about readicide: The standard instructional practices used
in most schools are killing reading by much of what they VALUE and do.
School problems may arise from excessive training and an imbalanced
valuing of the obedience to authority frame. If a group values high degrees of the
obedience to authority, then their schools often promote conformity and certainty,
thus reducing risk-taking. Frequently, following the strict obedience to authority
frame, one shows one has made an unshakable fundamental value judgment from
which inflexibility often results.
What puzzles some scholars is that the great thinkers throughout the ages from
pre-Socratics to Plato, from Aristotle through the Renaissance, and to today, seem to
foster education with open inquiry rather than high degrees of obedience to authority.
The obedience to authority frame promotes only static security whereas the open
inquiry, self-direction frame promotes growth and positive development. While I
cannot prove the obedience to authority frame contributes to excessive learning of
trivia, many of a powerful elite group seem to want more static security than growth.
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his new book, The Great American Universities, Jonathon Cole, former provost of
Columbia University, held that the great American universities are great because
they are built with the right structures arising from right values. Cole talked about
the importance of free inquiry and academic freedom for university professors, but
he did not speak of developing student open inquiry, love of learning, and selfdirection. He implied university professors are to continue to dispense information.
Such dispensing, when it is the primary classroom activity, often reduces student
inquisitiveness, freedom, self-direction, and open inquiry.
If questioned, Cole might say that the stated values of student love of learning,
open inquiry, etc. are givens and need not be stated. However, they are not givens
and they do need to be stated because university professors and K-12 teachers often
do not have developing student love of learning, open inquiry, and self-direction in
their plans for lessons. As was said, if there is agreement on certain values and
goals, an exchange of ideas is useful in determining the means by which these
goals may be achieved.
Our values have shifted so that we now, first and foremost, want big
corporations to be content. Everything else, including what goes on in schools and
university classrooms is often designed to serve big corporations and a powerful
elite.
Cole spoke of open, free communication, free inquiry, and peer reviews in
hiring, promotions and firing professors, but he did not mention such freedom for
students. Preventing student freedom is coercion which many teachers and
professors do not notice because it is so common. As Carlo Ricci said: Youth are
the last oppressed group.
The APA Monitor reports on the University of Michigan fall, 2010 semesters
theme of What makes life worth living? The article states that positive
psychology research shows that work, love, play, and service to others makes our
lives rich and fulfilling. They state it is not material goods that fulfills us. The
Baltes and Staudinger research on wisdom also alludes to these qualities of
wisdom.
The University of Michigan is offering special courses, workshops, lectures and
other events under this theme. Christopher Peterson, Ph.D., who is directing the
semester, along with two other professors, states this topic of what makes life
worth living is a way to teach students about positive psychology and for students
to think about what makes them truly happy. The University will also host art and
poetry competitions around that theme, and student dance groups will offer related
workshops and free performances. Their intention is to encourage an alternative
spring break that involves service. The Univ. of Michigan seems far ahead of
many educational institutions.
Peterson states: There is, of course, no single answer to the question of what
makes life worth living, our hope is to underscore the importance of the question
and a variety of possible answers. The Austrian writer and poet, Barronness Marie
von Ebner Eschenbach said: To be content with little is hard. To be content with
much is impossible.
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It helps to notice that many teachers and university professors are often fond of
disseminating single answers to problems. Those single answers are often found
only in very simple, often disconnected and trivial problems. Such dissemination
often goes with training (not education).
Times are different but schools often remain the same. Recent findings show
what is now called dark flow causing an unexpected gravitational attraction of
matter beyond the observable universe. An astrophysicist said this would possibly
indicate that the laws of the universe are not universal throughout the universe as is
now thought. Physics and Cosmology are now full of wonder and potential change.
Wouldnt it be wonderful if school and university classes were similarly full of awe
and wonder about what makes life worth living, and about what higher level
learning might be.
My interviews with numerous university and K-12 students reveal that the
current activities of universities and schools show that grades and degrees are far
more important than developing student love of learning, open inquiry, finding
what makes life worth living, and development of self-direction. Until grades,
degrees, and learning for jobs are outgrowths of student open inquiry, student love
of learning, and student self-direction, our universities and schools may produce
unthinking, conformist, order followers who may not know what makes life worth
living.
A semester observing one of these great universities revealed (with about half
the classes) a continual distribution of the products of professor research. In other
words it was the research and much of the same old distributing information that
makes universities great according to Cole. Development of self-direction has
waned with the distributing of information as the primary goal of teaching.
Diane Ravitch and Chester Finn, former conservative thinkers with the U. S.
Department of Education, have recently changed their thinking. Ravitch recently
said the No Child Left Behind Act now seems to be used for testing for its own
sake: She said: Accountability, as written into federal law, was not raising
standards but dumbing down the schools. She now thinks schooling is becoming
overly market-based (that sounds like making big corporations content).
Finns thinking has also changed. He recently said: Standards, in many places,
have proven nebulous and low, Accountability has turned to test-cramming
and bean-counting, often limited to basic reading and math skills. Finn, when
talking about the old public school system said: I say lets blow it up. A partial
blow up could give teachers significantly more authority. In a recent survey of
43,000 Maryland teachers, 75% feel they have little authority. Once the teachers
have more authority, they would be in a position to grant more authority (freedom)
to their students.
Ravitch has come to believe the No Child Left Behind Act is perpetuating
a cramped, mechanistic, profoundly anti-intellectual definition of education.
William A. Harris, President of the Ohio Council for the Social Studies recently
said: Most people know that if its not tested, its not taught. Harris
teaches history and government at Cedarville High School in Cedarville, Ohio.
26
He said: Its the continued marginalization of social studies that were seeing, not
only in our state, but nationwide.
Let us consider how to be more conscious of the products of our school and
university classes. School and university structures arise from what we value. More
consciousness of what is occurring in classrooms, at all levels, can help students
invent their brains. This greater consciousness amounts to learning to think
something that cant be learned from textbooks. With better noticing, much will
fall into place. Van Rossum and Hamer elaborate on this. As does Re-opening
Einsteins Thought: About What Cant Be Learned from Textbooks, and Einstein
and Zen: Learning To Learn.
In Mind and the Brain, Sharon Begley and Jeffrey Schwartz say: Through
mindfulness you can stand outside your own mind as if you are watching what is
happening to another person rather than experiencing it yourself. Mindfulness
requires direct willful effort, and the ability to forge those practicing it to observe
their sensations and thoughts with a calm clarity of an external witness. One
views his thoughts, feelings, and expectations much as a scientist views
experimental datathat is, as a natural phenomenon to be noted, investigated,
reflected on and learned from. Viewing ones own inner experience as data allows
(one) to become, in essence, his own experimental subject. Notice the need for
willpower in what they say. Schools and universities could profitably allow and
encourage students to be their own experimental subjects, and attempt to more
directly develop willpower (an aspect of inventing ones mindful brainl). This best
occurs in a freer, ungraded, responsive atmosphere.
Some of what is experienced when one is ones own experimental subject
cannot be counted. As Rick and Bill Ayers state in Teaching the Taboo, schools
promote a flat world where things get counted, or, as one notable education scholar
and professor told us, everything that exists, exists in some amount, and so
everything must be measurable. We asked him about love, hope, beauty, joy,
imagination, and possibility, and he said we were being foolish. The measure of
man is the impossible ideal, the mis-measure of humanity the inevitable outcome.
Regarding the use of words, outdated training has led experimental
psychologists, more than clinicians, to want excessive certainty/clarity much as
Rudolph Carnap and the Vienna Circle wanted excessive certainty many years ago.
Such an excess may have prompted Albert Einstein to state: Modern science
when measured against reality is primitive and childlike. About certainty, Einstein
said: The laws of mathematics insofar as they are certain, do not relate to reality,
and in so far as they relate to reality, they are uncertain.
While ignoring evidence is a problem, doing ones damnedest with ones mind,
at times, may help one ignore what may be primitive and childlike. To be
excessively certain, one may robotically follow research findings without
considering other nuances difficult to verify. This writing offers some evidence and
notions which will help one notice that what was evident may not now be as
evident as it once was. Let us put on hold William Shakespeares thought: There
is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.
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What Richard Rohr calls our original sin (mistake) has implications for what
goes on in school and university classrooms. Noting the mistakes generated by the
original mistake may help one more powerfully learn to know one knows, without
someone else telling one he or she knows. Part of the original mistake is to
overemphasize the classical/intellectual side and de-emphasize the artistic/romantic
side. Schools and universities are now overemphasizing with extra governmental
assistance for teaching science, technology, engineering, and math. Imbalance
results.
Even some prominent conservative critics, like Finn, recently stated that we
have neglected disciplines other than math and science. This over-emphasis on one
side is an imbalanced negative condition. Allowing for more uncertainty and doing
reasonable, calculated risk-taking can bring about a better balance so that more
quality learning and living may be had by all within a reasonable time.
There is little risk in being certain. Taking risks provides an opportunity to be
wrong. Kathryn Shultz (Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error) states:
Far from being a moral flaw, it (being wrong) is inextricable from some of the
most humane and honorable qualities: empathy, optimism, imagination, conviction,
and courage. And far from being a mark of indifference or intolerance, wrongness
is a vital part of how we learn and change. Thanks to error, we can revise our
understanding of ourselves and our ideas about the world.
When we want to be certain we often hold fixed absolute standards by which to
judge rightness and wrongness. These absolute standards have been heavily
rejected by a variety of researchers. The more certain scientific standards are, the
more easily they are falsified, which makes verification easier and more certain.
This often leads to scientism.
These social standards often relate more to values and taste. Schultz states: We
all know that matters of taste are different from matters of fact; that standards of
right and wrong apply to facts but not to preferences. We often forget that we
have preferences for some facts over others. Many teachers and professors have
preferences for those that are more easily defined and measured. (those with which
we can be more certain aboutone type of stemscience, technology,
engineering, and mathas they are often taught. The old school mindset continues
to promote that which is more certain. (laterfor stem cell type of stem learning.)
Our schools and universities have trained us to be enamored with certainty. We
have been trained to believe being wrong is bad. This writing offers views from
variety of sources fostering powerful learning and knowing as being more
tentative. Research shows that if we focus excessively on security, little growth
arises. When one is slightly less secure ortaking more calculated risks, we can
move towards greater growth and development. Taking risks is a vital part of how
we learn and change. This can be done while still maintaining adequate security.
An example of an old school mindset is Mike Anderson in his book about
teaching, (ASCD Internet Site) states: Its important to make sure we are clear
about what kind of goal setting we mean here. We are talking about clear,
meaningful, observable goals. If a teachers goal is to, (according to Anderson)
make science lessons more inquiry-based so that students have more academic
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self-direction, and open inquiry) seen on teachers or professors daily lesson plans.
Those quality goals are sometime stated in school systems printed material more
for show than for helping students become more self-directing. The No Child
Left Behind Act often inhibits the promotion of wonder, self-direction, and open
inquiry. It promotes the obedience to authority frame.
The excessive un-asked-for teacher-telling continues often because teachers and
professors have a habit of telling students what teachers and professors think
students need to know. Society expects that, teachers and professors often expect
that, and students are programmed to expect that they are to listen to un-asked-forinformation (as though a student would not know unless the student was told).
Teaching to the test has become common. This teaching to the test continues when
recently it has become clearer that almost any discipline includes an almost infinite
amount of information. Subtle, intricate and willful use of information, rather than
simply remembering information is that which helps people capitalize on curiosity,
developing a love of learning, self-direction, and open inquiry.
A variety of recent research on brain function and learning indicates other ways
teachers and professors can better help students extensively and intensively learn
when rapidity of change is considered. Dr. Cohen Kadosh, Current Biology,
(11/5/10) thought transcranial direct current stimulationmight be helpful to the
20 percent of the population that has moderate to severe numerical disabilities
dyscalculia. Daniel Ansari, a neuroscientist at the University of Western
Ontario in Canada, told National Geographic News he doesnt expect the treatment
to be available anytime soon. And, he said, It doesnt necessarily show that it
improves school-relevant learning skills such as arithmetic.
Developing curiosity, love of learning, self-direction, and open inquiry, are
difficult to define and measure. Developing curiosity et. May may be considered
massively fluid partly because of measurement difficulties. Those goals have been
neglected by schools and universities. The desire for certainty often contributes to
teachers and professors avoiding nonsense because being certain has been
programmed into teachers and professors. As a result, what occurs in many school
and university classes has changed little in over 100 years.
Politics have changed yet Political Science scholars state they never would have
guessed the fall of the Soviet Union would come about as it did. It made no sense
before the fall. It was inconsistent with the paradigms they held. The fall of the
Berlin wall was a punctuated moment which caused a shift in thinking. Shifts in
thinking cause people to do things differently. Many teachers and professors might
now consider whether a shift in thinking would be helpful for an increase in
powerful learning. We are approaching a punctuated moment, yet we have been
trained to wait for others to do something about it.
Newness here and there has rarely been found in schooling. What experiment
about teaching and learning would equal what Nobel Laureate, Dr. Sam Ting, said
about an upcoming physics experiment? The discovery of a single atomic nucleus
heavier than anti-helium could mean there was an anti-star or maybe a whole antigalaxy somewhere. Searching for something unusual like an educators equivalent
to a mathematicians zero would be exciting.
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Mezirow applies this to adult learning. My experience with adults, high school
students, and middle grade students has demonstrated that disorienting dilemma
applies to students as low as grade three, and perhaps even grade one at times. He
says that this disorienting dilemma helps you be critically reflective of
assumptions you have acquired. Wrestling with confusing ideas may help us
question the present assumption that schooling helps increase our ability to
function well. The opposite may be true when schooling dispenses information
before students have questions. Jerome Bruner found that young students can learn
concepts in an intellectually honest way (concepts formerly taught in graduate
schools), if the concept is placed in terms of young students limited vocabulary,
and if the concept is related to what they already know.
Barbara Strauch, NY Times, reports on Kathleen Taylors brain research.
Taylor is a professor at St. Marys College of California. Strauch says: One way
to nudge neurons in the right direction is to challenge the very assumptions they
have worked so hard to accumulate while young. With a brain already full of wellconnected pathways, adult learners should jiggle their synapses a bit (what a
disorienting dilemma and functional discontinuity domy note) by confronting
thoughts that are contrary to their own. The brain is plastic and continues to
change, not in getting bigger but allowing for greater complexity. What she says
of adults can apply to children. Jiggling synapses/dealing with nonsense is a way a
brain invents itself. Jiggling by suggesting that education as process is more
powerful than delivering static content is helpful.
How many advances can a human brain make? What are the farther reaches of
thought? Many years ago, O.K. Moore explored the upper limits of human learning
with his Responsive Environments Laboratory. His students were ages three and
four, (perhaps some were age two). Moore had three teachers per student and very
expensive computer systems. Money was no object in his exploration of the upper
limits of human learning.
As you notice what he reports of student achievement, ask yourself by what
grade in school these students achieved that much. He said of their achievement: 1.
they had a genuine thirst for learning, 2. they would create their own assignments.
3. They had a mastery of punctuation and spelling. 4. They had a vocabulary that
excelled that of most college students.
If you were to guess they achieved that much by the fifth grade you would
probably be amazed. They did, however, achieve that by the time they entered the
first grade. First grade is correct. Learners and teachers were in a freer, responsive,
environment. They studied what was naturally puzzling to them with the assistance
of three teachers per student and expensive equipment. Their learning, at times, had
the effect of dealing with the process of mildly disorienting dilemmas. These
disorienting dilemmas were functionally discontinuous, and the function was the
process of creating a greater continuity (conceive a bigger picture while being open
to further expand it). Their social and emotional lives were studied and they were
found to be emotionally well adjusted with their extraordinarily high achievement.
This is strong evidence of the power of the human mind which we have not yet
adequately explored in schools and universities partly because of teachers
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primarily delivering content. Brain researches, as far as I know, have done little
about studying student freedom to learn, in an ungraded environment with fMRI
scans while students are openly inquiring (a process). Demanding more
requirements (national standards that more than 40 states will usemore coercion)
does not generate more achievement in developing higher level thinkers. Schools
and universities have not tried disorienting dilemmas/functional discontinuity on a
wide scale, perhaps because schools and universities are too interested in being
certain and overly accountable in a trivial, often inconsequential manner. Business
leaders have found that relinquishing control and giving employees considerable
autonomy can boast innovation and success. The Harvard Business Review
(digital) 2/3/10 reports:
In chaotic times, an executives instinct may be to strive for greater
efficiency by tightening control. But the truth is that relinquishing authority
and giving employees considerable autonomy can boost innovation and
success at knowledge firms, even during crises. Our research provides hard
evidence that leaders who give in to the urge to clamp down can end up
doing their companies a serious disserviceWeve found that contrary to
what many CEOs assume, leadership is not really about delegating tasks and
monitoring results; it is about imbuing the entire workforce with a sense of
responsibility for the business
Relaxation of control can benefit any knowledge company, but particularly
in certain circumstances: when the organization begins to miss opportunities
because it cant understand or respond to market demands; when work is
impaired because employees feel excessively pressured and harbor
dissatisfaction; and when crises imperil the business. Then mutualism is the
best way to unleash the power of employees creativity. (Note again the
earlier mentioned research on trust). A.D. Amar ([email protected])., Carsten
Hentrich ([email protected]) Vlatka Hlupic ([email protected].
Creativity of students has been found to be lacking at least since 1990. (Even in the
1950s and early 1960s the American Psychological Assn. President, Guilford,
noted the appalling neglect of creativity. Liberal arts study has a tendency to
increase creativity. Partly because of less emphasis on creativity, Roger Baldwin, a
Michigan State University researcher has shown the number of liberal-arts colleges
dwindled from 212 in 1990 to 136 in 2009. It seems that students and universities
are not trusting the liberal arts, and the generation of big ideas to help them in their
job efforts. Part of that lack of trust arises from the elites avoidance of (the
difficult to measure) process and big, mind transforming ideas. This avoidance
helps program students and citizens to maintain the status quo which avoids
education as process.
Free schools which do with students what these advanced business leaders do
with the employees, find that students are more successful and more innovative.
Teachers and professors could profitably learn from some innovative business
leaders and Nobel laureates.
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categories are often created in attempts to describe or explain. Too often schools
and universities teach us to think that if we name it we know it. We can name
everything universe, yet do we know it? Physicists say that we now know less
than 5% of the universe. As far as we know, the universe has no middle or no edge,
but notice the difficulty in conceiving an event with no boundaries. Conceptions as
we know them, have boundaries. Process is unbound.
Todd May, The Lemon-Calhoun Chair of Philosophy, Clemson University,
states in his Gilles Deleuze: An Introduction: Consider the possibility that there is
more to our world then we can perceive, and more than we can conceive. Suppose
the world overflows the categories of representation that the dogmatic image of
thought imposes on it. This is not to say that our particular categories are lacking
something that other, better categories would give us. Our imagination must go
further than that. We need to consider the possibility that the worldor, since the
concept of world is too narrow, things or being or what there isoutruns any
categories we might seek to use to capture it.
In the past, bigger and better categories have helped us describe and explain
more but as May remarks: Our imagination must go further than that. What
follows is an attempt to provide conditions, not for new categories, but to open
minds to the possibility of the power of knowing more tentatively: knowing with
less certainty; knowing as a process that may help us know more by being more
receptive to what now seems near impossible. As Sir Arthur Eddington said: The
universe is not only stranger than we imagine; it is stranger than we can imagine.
Recent research offers hope for improving student learning. Recent findings in
neuroscience and in a variety of fields indicate some relatively rapid change is
needed in what we do in schools and universities, if our brains will develop fast
enough to adapt.
Those who have used high-quality voice recognition programs have experience
with machine learning. Machines are already learning to learn. The New York
Times reports: the most advanced models are fully autonomous, guided by
artificial intelligence software like motion tracking and speech recognition, which
can make them just engaging enough to rival humans at some teaching tasks.
Researchers say the pace of innovation is such that these machines should begin to
learn as they teach, becoming the sort of infinitely patient, highly informed
instructors that would be effective in subjects like foreign language or in repetitive
therapies used to treat developmental problems like autism. But this development
is still in its infancy.
Progress being made with quantum computing indicates that within five years
we may have more powerful quantum computers. With their ability to learn, some
day in the not-too-distant future quantum computers will be 1 million times more
powerful than the ones we now use. With their increased ability of learning to
learn, it is difficult to predict how humans may use them. In 2011 affective
programming is making gains to make computers more sociable.
By 2049, Ray Kurzweil predicts, Man will become one with machines. His
book the Singularity Is Near, prompted a group to create Singularity University
(SU).
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the earliest supercomputers, built in 1976. For the record, it performs 2.5 times 1015
mathematical operations per second.
These predictions imply a need for tolerance of ambiguity. Intolerance of
ambiguity generates an excessive emphasis on specialized concepts, avoidance of
process, and the need for certainty. This emphasis occurs because the complexity
of generalized thinking has forced leaders and citizens to be uncertain about the
existence of congested complexities (big ideas and processes often considered
nonsense by those wanting certainty).
Complex thinking is often considered to be chaotic and nonsensical. Until
recently, behaviorists had many of us believing that only if something could be
directly sensed did it exist. This implied that mind, beauty, intent, wisdom,
openness, and quality did not exist in any public sense.
Schools and universities have been excessively intolerant of ambiguity
because of an original mistake; the need for certainty. Were schools and
universities more tolerant, they would consider what CEO Dev Patnaik said as
reported by Nipun Mehta: Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They
Create Widespread Empathy, he argues It is not the lack of innovation that
hampers companies, but the empathy gapthe chasm between employees in
organizations and the people that they serve. Companies, he said, do a good job
of stamping empathy out of employees, then are surprised when employees make
poor decisions or try to sell things that people dont need. Schools and
universities often do the same.
The opposite of intolerance to ambiguity is promoted by the use of functional
discontinuity (a mind-opener). Functional discontinuity puts a gap in a students
knowledge structure. (Mental gaps may temporarily be considered nonsense.)
The seemingly nonsensical functional discontinuity is a condition for the process of
open inquiry in a freer, responsive, ungraded environment.
Less certainty is noted in pass/fail grading. The NY Times reported that
Harvard and Stanford, two of the top-ranked law schools, recently eliminated
traditional grading altogether. Like Yale and the University of California,
Berkeley, they now use a modified pass/fail system, reducing the pressure that law
schools are notorious for. This new grading system also makes it harder for
employers to distinguish the wheat from the chaff, which means more students can
get a shot at a competitive interview.
Steven Tedesco, Journal of Unschooling and Alternative Learning, Volume
5, Issue 9, Fall, 2010, states: The arguments presented reveal how disturbing
and damaging grades are in education in general, not to mention in higher
education. By reflection on my personal experiences, I have had a chance to
explore how grading in a terminal degree program has already conditioned
me to act, speak, and participate in ways which I would not if grading didnt
exist. Through my reflection and with the support of relevant literature,
I have come to conclude that grades serve no purpose in terminal degree
programs whatsoever.
38
I think that the most fitting end to this discussion is to read the words of Paul
Dressel who elegantly reveals the utility of grades: A grade can be regarded
only as an inadequate report of an inaccurate judgment by a biased and
variable judge of the extent to which a student has attained an undefined level
of mastery of an unknown proportion of an indefinite amount of material.
(Dressel, 1957, p. 6)
Nipun Mehta reported: How Nonsense Sharpens the Intellect. Mehta reports
Alexander Hafemann said: In a series of new papers, Dr. Proulx and Steven J.
Heine, a professors of psychology at the University of British Columbia, suggests
that, paradoxically, this same sensation (experiencing nonsense) may prime the
brain to sense patterns it would otherwise missin mathematical equations, in
language, in the world at large. (They argue these findings) are variations on the
same process: maintaining meaning, or coherence. The brain evolved to predict,
and it does so by identifying patterns.
When those patterns break down the urge to find a coherent pattern makes
it more likely that the brain will find one. What is made functionally
discontinuous (through noticing a discrepancy, an anomaly, disorienting
dilemma, or paradoxical, or perplexing situation) can generate a larger
continuity). J. Richard Suchman also found that to be true years ago as
reported in his Illinois Studies on Inquiry.
Hafemann also wrote: Brain-imaging studies of people evaluating
anomalies, or working out unsettling dilemmas, show that activity in an area
called the anterior cingulate cortex spikes significantly. The more activation
is recorded, the greater the motivation or ability to seek and correct errors in
the real world, a recent study suggests. the idea that we may be able to
increase that motivation, said Dr. Inzlicht, a co-author, is very much worth
investigating.
Functional discontinuity generates moderate perplexity, mental stuckness, and a
sense of wonder from which open inquiry arises. To help remove constraints
surrounding the outdated obedience to authority mindsets in many classrooms, and
to help notice the value of self-directing mind opening and awareness
enhancement, a condition of functional discontinuity in a freer, ungraded
environment could profitably be given much attention. As Ralph Waldo Emerson
said: People wish to be settled. Only as far as they are un-settled is there any
hope for them. Moderate unsettling (providing a condition for a student to notice a
mental gapa discontinuity) can function to help generate open inquiry. Later,
one may notice a peaceful unsettling helps one be more peaceful in an openly
semi-settled way.
The use of functional discontinuity when teaching is secular, yet some of the
goals could be interpreted as trans-empirical. (Some hold that a trans-empirical
goal is nonsense), perhaps the opposite of the obedience to authority type goals. Is
finding meaning from experience, at times, seen as arising from experiencing
puzzlement? Some goals and outgrowths of this kind of teaching are the generation
of that which explains discrepancies, or helps one better accept unexplainable
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Increase the tendency to let things happen rather than make things happen.
Have frequent attacks of smiling.
Have feelings of being connected with others and nature.
Have frequent, almost overwhelming, episodes of appreciation.
Have the tendency to think and act spontaneously, rather than from fears
based on past experiences.
Have an unmistakable ability to enjoy each moment, and to make the best out
of each experience.
Lose the ability to worry.
Lose interest in conflict.
Lose interest in interpreting the actions of others.
Lose interest in judging others.
Lose interest in judging self.
Be compassionate to self and others without expecting anything in return.
The power of stem quality 1. (increase the tendency to let things happen rather than
make things happen) frequently permits the other eleven stem qualities to arise. It
is an example of being peacefully natural. It is difficult to be a natural because
schools, universities and society often pressure students to be more than they are,
or other than they are rather than use their natural power to learn to be
increasingly self-directing. A self-directing person invents his own brain and
accepts what is (that cant be changed) as it is, without a need to change it.
A way of looking at being a natural learner, rather than one pressured to change
by outside authority, is a precisely stated outgrowth of stem quality 1. Amplified
by Deepak Chopra in the notes section.
As was mentioned, the other less educational version of stem teaching is also
understood as, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. An ASCD
report said: But creative types are working valiantly to turn STEM into
STEAMwith the A standing for the arts. At the Boston Arts Academy, for
instance, the arts are infused in every subject. While creative pursuits are often the
first to go when budgets are cut.
Elizabeth Stage, the director of the Lawrence Hall of Science at the University
of California, Berkeley, said: Whats central about science and how that
overlaps with technology, engineering and math, should be considered. Dr.
Stage thinks its a false distinction to silo out the different disciplines,
(STEM of science, technology, engineering, and math) and would much prefer
to focus on what the fields have in common, like problem-solving, arguing
from evidence and reconciling conflicting views. Thats what we should have
in the bulls-eye of our target. (More like process.)
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About our values, Nicholas Kristoff reports: We are now (summer 2010)
spending more money on the military, after adjusting for inflation, than in the
peak of the cold war, Vietnam War or Korean War. Our battle fleet is larger
than the next 13 navies combined, according to Defense Secretary Robert
Gates. The intelligence apparatus is so bloated that, according to The
Washington Post, the number of people with top secret clearance is 1.5
times the population of the District of Columbia. Meanwhile, uing from
evidence and reconciling conflicting views. Thats what we should have in
the bulls-eye of our target. (More like process.)
from the College Board says that the United States, which used to lead the world in
the proportion of young people with college degrees, has dropped to 12th.
The goals of peace and goodwill among men are often held by educated people.
As Einstein said: Nothing that I can do will change the structure of the universe.
But maybe, by raising my voice I can help the greatest of all causes - goodwill
among men and peace on earth.
Rick and Bill Ayers say: Schools that claim to reflect the American values
also deny kids the right to speak, submit them to endless surveillance and
unreasonable random searches; they insist that no one fight in school even as the
school itself is militarized and turned into a race of war recruitment As education
is increasingly framed as a commodity purchased in the marketplace rather than a
public good and the human right, is reduced to a social Darwinist model of
competition, sorting, and external criteria for success, and is desperately enacted in
classrooms across the country. We are told repeatedly that we benefit from the
greatest democracy and the greatest amount of freedom that makes us the envy of
the world, while in our schools we see the iron hand of authoritarianismmore
intrusive, more demanding, more concerned with the tiniest details of education.
We often look for certainty with numbers. Numbers can be counted, but as
Einstein further said: Not everything that can be counted counts, and not
everything that counts can be counted. Within the other stem learning, math is
overly pushed at the expense of literature, music and art because math, it is often
thought, provides more certainty than literature, music and art. Einstein, however,
also said that the laws of mathematics, insofar as they are certain, do not relate to
reality, and insofar as they relate to reality, they are uncertain. Godel proved
nothing can be proved.
Evidence will later be provided to show that schools and universities do what
they do more for the economy than for higher-level student learning. The economy
functions well when things are more certain. In the past, yes, but not today. Enter
greater risk-taking. It is often the need for certainty that prevents schools and
universities from taking risks to develop higher-level independent thinkers. Process
cant be counted. Logic is not one but many. This year more information more
information will be distributed than there was in the last 5,000 years. What to
ignore is learned through education rather than only training. Information overload
generates poor decision-making.
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