We are a non-profit organization Humanity Integrated that is comprised of people who find themselves in the most interesting yet trying times of human evolution – the time of global crisis, which is the first stage of a profound change.
Happy to share with you this profound conversation we had with one of our favorite sages, Elisabet Sahtouris, during the Thanksgiving holidays. Hear her comment on the “ecstasy of unity and connection.” An incredible person, scholar, scientist, and a woman, from whom we draw so much insight and wisdom. An interview worth your time…
Jeffrey Wright, a unique physics teacher who is the subject of the New York Times’ video “Wright’s Law: A Unique Teacher Imparts Real Life Lessons,” is quoted by one of his Louisville Male High School students, Denaz Taylor, as saying:
I couldn’t care less about Newton’s third law. I want to teach you something to take out of school. That’s what he’s told us before. It makes me feel like he really cares about me and I know he does. He’s a good man and he will stick out of his way for you.”
Wright has won the appreciation of his students, and the video reveals the approach underlying Wright’s attitude to his students…
Schools have them for 6 hours a day, and then kids go home, and whatever atmosphere they have around for the other 18 affects them. And so, schools can change a lot, but we also have to realize that they go home to a completely different environment.”
What I went home to when I was young is very different to what some of these kids go home to, where they don’t have a mom or dad, or, some of these kids, I hear them talk about how they hear gunshots at night. I’d have a hard time sleeping or studying if I’m hearing gunshots outside my room. …
I’ve heard everything from ‘Mr. Wright I’m pregnant,’ to ‘I’ve had an abortion,’ to ‘I’ve run away and here’s where I’m staying,’ to ‘my father is beating me and there’s holes in the walls’ and you can see where the make-up is trying to hide the bruises. I mean, it’s just very different to where some of the rest of us are. That’s why one-size-fits-all doesn’t work.”
In the video, Wright tells the story of his son having a rare genetic disorder, Joubert Syndrome, and how it brought him to questioning why things happen, which led him to the following conclusion, which underlies Wright’s entire unique approach that has won him the appreciation of his students:
There’s something a lot greater than energy, there’s something a lot greater than entropy, it’s the fact that… what’s the greatest thing? Love. That’s what makes it all – the ‘why’ we exist. So in that great big universe that we have, with all those stars… who cares? Well, somebody cares about you a lot, and as long as we care about each other, that’s where we go from here.”
Linear:
involving a single dimension.”
Analog:
of, relating to, or being a mechanism in which data is represented by continuously variable physical quantities.”
Integral:
essential to completeness.”
– Merriam-Webster
When we think about the modern problems that afflict man, whether it be in regards to the individual or to society, we have a modern affliction. It is the product of poor education which has not kept up with a continually changing world. Fundamentally, the world has gradually switched from a linear path of development to an analog path of development.
For instance, on the level of resource production, it was once that a town or village was self-sustaining. It produced the goods and services which were needed in order for it to continue its survival. Now, it can be argued that even this is not linear, since a community needs the input of all of its members, in one form or another, for it to continue its existence.
Nevertheless, this type of development is relatively linear when compared to global society today which requires the input of the entire world in order for existence to be maintained.
The development of cities was a significant indicator of this direction because cities, due to the nature of their construction, are not self-sustaining. They need to have outside resources continually imported in order for the city to continue to function. For instance, the city of New York, a heightened example of this structure, practically consumes the amount of food that is imported to her on a daily basis. Therefore if imports were to somehow be halted, the city of New York, the most populated city in the U.S., would easily be put into immediate chaos if outside food were not to be imported for one day.
The degree to which interdependence has gradually increased in the world is a natural phenomenon. It is because by combining forces, life can be made simpler for everyone. However, interdependence, in order for it to be sustainable, requires mutual responsibility. Otherwise ties that were once not needed to be so closely regulated now become very much needed to be regulated in order for balance to exist.
Therefore when it comes to the modern afflictions of human society, it is no wonder that such things as depression, drug use, the breakdown of communities, unemployment, class inequality, narcissism, climate change, economic problems, and tense international relations become increasingly problematic issues. It is because education continues to teach the mindset of linear development for the individual and society.
Since education does not format itself to be in relation with the structure of human relations which now exists, it creates a paradigm of thought and behavior which is not conducive to solving the fundamental problem of modern society: The individual’s relation to others.
Myriad crises, which today combine into one overarching global crisis, are increasingly appearing to be unsolvable and more problematic because of their roots in an interconnected and interdependent global framework, without its inhabitants having had the learning or upbringing necessary for dealing with such conditions.
Therefore, today all problems are chiefly rooted in how the individual, and all individuals together, relate to one another the world over. As a result, any crises that span worldwide today, such as the global economic crisis, would need to first address human relationships, the ways in which people interrelate with one another in an analog system, because if our relationships remain corrupted, then we will have no chance of being able to successfully deal with these problems.
Due to the persistence of modern problems and their escalation, the development of “analog” or “integral” education can be a proper remedy. Therefore two paths currently exist for global society:
1. Eventually coming to develop analog/integral education as a result of continually worsening conditions in the future.
2. Properly analyzing this trend based on current and past suffering and starting the development of this new education today.
As a result, the development of an analog education is inevitable. The question that remains unanswered is when and how will it occur?
Image: “Worldcentric” by Stephen Lark on Flickr.
We need a new revolution, a massive radical attitudinal and behavioral change, if we wish to halt the race towards catastrophe and save the world for the future generations. We need no less than a ‘re-education of humankind.'”
–Dr. Lourdes R. Quisumbing, an educator par excellence who has been the first women Secretary of Education, Culture and Sports in the Philippines. Quotes in this post are from Dr. Quisumbing’s article, “Values Education for Human Solidarity.”
This calls for a paradigm shift in our educational philosophy and practice.
Instead of a rigid and compartmentalized knowledge-based curriculum, we should adopt a more holistic view of education which aims at the development of the faculties and powers of the whole person – cognitive, affective, emotional, aesthetic, volitional, behavioral; a teaching-learning approach which does not stop at knowledge and information at developing skills and competence, but proceeds to understanding and gaining insights, that educates the heart and the emotions and develops the ability to choose freely and to value, to make decisions and to translate knowledge and values into action.
The heart of education is the education of the heart.”
One cannot underestimate the role of education for international and intercultural understanding, which consists not merely in knowing more about different peoples and their cultures – their geography, history, economy, government, value-systems – but more in understanding and gaining insight into the factors and motivations underlying their behavior and appreciating their cultural patterns, traditions, customs, values and beliefs.
Human solidarity is likewise fostered by the realization and strengthening of the ties that bind us together in our common humanity: our human nature and the human condition, our common habitat and destiny, our universally shared values.”
Modern day education must espouse Scientific Humanism, a new Science with a Conscience, and a new Technology with a heart.
Valuing our common humanity, as well as our local cultural traditions, provides challenges and guides for designing civic education curricula towards responsible citizenship for our fast-changing world. …
But by values education we do not mean merely teaching about values but rather learning how to value, how to bring knowledge into the deeper level of understandings and insights; into the affective realm of our feelings and emotions, our cherished choices and priorities into loving and appreciating, and how to internalize and translate them into our behavior. Truly, values education is a holistic process and a total learning experience.”
Image courtesy of scottchan at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
In his article “Scary Pictures” Bjorn Lomborg, an adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School, who founded and directs the Copenhagen Consensus Center describes the practice of people exaggerating their findings, claims in order to make greater impact on their target audience, many times scaring them, but by doing so losing their credibility achieving the opposite effect they hoped for.
Campaigners on important but complex issues, annoyed by the length of time required for public deliberations, often react by exaggerating their claims, hoping to force a single solution to the forefront of public debate. But, however well intentioned, scaring the public into a predetermined solution often backfires: when people eventually realize that they have been misled, they lose confidence and interest.”
In truth the practice described in the article is the accepted norm today for politicians, the marketing industry and basically any issue discussed when people try to prove their right.
As the article suggests, most of the time it is based on “good intentions” the exaggerating party usually truly believes in its truth, that it wants the best for others, to the public.
Still it does not change the fact that most of the time these efforts cause more harm than good.
This practice originates from the inherent basic human nature, where each and every human being perceives a very limited segment of the whole reality, a segment which is fully filtered by the person’s self-serving calculations, how people always justify their own behavior. People consider this limited picture their truth
Human beings simply cannot behave in any other way, thus any time a single person, or even a group of people on the same opinion express a view, disclose their opinion, it comes out as a very narrow, subjective picture, many times in opposition to other peoples “truth.”
So is there no solution, and humanity will keep stumbling from one fiasco to another as people can simply not trust each other, believe other’s opinion, with 7 billion different “truths” all clashing with each other?
The only solution is mutuality.
Any planning, decision making and action has to be a result of mutual, round table like collaboration between people, which might slow down the process, but at the same time has a much better chance of success, as when people discuss things around a round table as equals, representing all relevant opinions, even the most contrasting, most opposite opinions on the subject, in between them they yield a common point that is the actual truth. By letting their opinions mingle with each other, and by focusing on reaching a mutual consensus, what remains as the collective opinion, above all subjective opinions, is the actual solution to the problem discussed.
In today’s globally interconnected world there is simply no other way of decision making and problem solving.
This is a lot more then about selling products and services. This is about the direction we are going as a culture, as a society, and as human beings.”
Many practitioners of the social sciences have performed extensive research today, which concludes the powerful influences from our surrounding environments and its affects on our choices, feelings, thoughts and behavioral patterns. One of our major sources of influence comes from digital media technology which surrounds us 24/7. Our youth generation eat, drink, play, go to sleep and wake up with it. As a matter of fact today, children and teens are the number one demographic target for spending on the latest manipulative marketing techniques.
We need in a proactive forward looking way, as a society, need to say… ‘How is this changing us? How is this changing our environment? How is this changing our society? And do we want this?'”
We need to look at this as a systematic problem, as a a social cultural problem and say we need to protect children from corporate marketing… What does this mean for our well-being? For their well-being?”
We have become a country that places a lower priority on our children’s emotional, cognitive, social, even spiritual development, then it does on training them to be consumers.This is a lot more than about selling products and services. This is about the direction we are going as a culture, as a society, and as human beings.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7d4gmdl3zNQ
This video illustrates what our future may look like, depending on the examples we give to others.
Children learn by example, and so do adults.
This knowledge is true power, but have we been using it for good or bad?
“Children learn by trying to do something, by failing, and by being told about or by copying some new behavior that has better results. This perspective is founded on the simple but central insight that children are trying to do something rather than to know something. In other words, they are learning by doing.” – Dr. Roger Schank, from Engines for Education
“The idea of public education depends absolutely on the existence of shared narratives and the exclusion of narratives that lead to alienation and divisiveness. What makes public schools public is not so much that the schools have common goals but that the students have common gods. The reason for this is that public education does not serve a public. It creates a public.” – Dr. Neil Postman, from The End Of Education
“Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.” – H.G Wells
We have a bounded rationality and a limited point of view that doesn’t see the interconnected web of relationships that make up the world…”
…says Simon Evetts, shortly into Developing an Interconnected Worldview: a guiding process for learning; a masters thesis presentation given at the Blekinge Institute of Technology in Sweden by Brendan Seale, Dylan Skybrook, and Evetts.
Considering the thesis is a team effort, individual distinction for subsequent quotes will be omitted.
To not being able to see or feel interconnection, means that we unconsciously interfere with the natural and social systems that support life. These unintended consequences lead to their systematic dysfunction. And so the inability to perceive connections is the fundamental root cause of many of the worlds problems of today.
And this is a crisis of perception.
We need to think, feel, and act in terms of interconnections… allowing us to build on and broaden our thinking for a more accurate picture of reality. This can be facilitated by education that develops both our conceptual and perceptual understanding of interconnectivity.”
- What Is An Interconnected Worldview?
- How Can An Interconnected Worldview Be Developed?
- What Pedagogical Approaches Could Enable The Development Of An Interconnected Worldview?
- How Could A Learning Experience Be Designed To Develop An Interconnected Worldview In Support Of Strategic Sustainable Development?”
Here is the full presentation of Developing an Interconnected Worldview: a guiding process for learning:
Untitled from Converge Project on Vimeo.
1) “Highlight the inadequacy of a reductionist worldview for meeting the needs of the learner to survive and thrive in ‘society within the ecosphere.”
2) “Ask the learner to diagram or become aware of the closest, most approximate connections to the learner within ‘society within the ecosphere.”
3) “Invite the learner to view ‘society within the ecosphere’ from a top or ’30,000 foot’ view.”
4) “Invite the learner to become aware of his or her subjective experience of being/participating in “society within the ecosphere.”
5) “Invite the learner to picture ‘society within the ecosphere’ as a whole, including proximate connections, the top view, and subjective experience. Then invite the learner to consider that his or her identity must include the whole.”
6) “Invite the learner to consider how he or she will care for this whole that he or she is/depends upon.”
The full thesis text can be found here.
Image: My Late Afternoon… by Universal Pops.
Finland’s experience shows that it is possible to achieve excellence by focusing not on competition, but on cooperation, and not on choice, but on equity.”
In his book Finnish Lessons, Doctor of Educational Sciences Pasi Sahlberg outlines the differences between the machine-press of traditional industrial-age education which most of us have gone under, and the educational system of Finland, which challenges accepted Western norms with great success; Finnish students rank #1 in the world in both mathematics and sciences despite having fewer school hours and no standardized tests.
As Sahlberg writes:
All of the factors that are behind the Finnish success seem to be the opposite of what is taking place in the United States and much of the rest of the world, where competition, test-based accountability, standardization, and privatization seem to dominate.”
Instead of competition, Finland decided on cooperation and mutual help as a matter of policy. Students are rarely tested. Instead, they teach each other in class. Each student gets personal attention until he is on par with the other students. This attitude extends to the teachers and schools as well:
“One of the ways that teachers improve is by learning from other teachers. Schools improve when they learn from other schools. Isolation is the enemy of all improvement.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcC2l8zioIw
And the difference is not purely academic.
Finland is a small nation of 5.2 million people, with scarcely any natural resources. The Finnish government had to find a way to remain competitive within the global economy, while also minimizing social inequality. What it came up with was the education system:
Since the 1980s, the main driver of Finnish education policy has been the idea that every child should have exactly the same opportunity to learn, regardless of family background, income, or geographic location. Education has been seen first and foremost not as a way to produce star performers, but as an instrument to even out social inequality.”
The Finnish success may also shed some new light on the global economic crisis, or as Sahlberg writes:
The Finnish story is particularly interesting because some of the key policies and changes were introduced during the worst economic crisis that Finland has experienced since World War II. It suggests that a crisis can spark the survival spirit that leads to better solutions to acute problems than a ‘normal situation’ would.”