Brain Food by Janika

What is Genius?

2012-01-18T11:39:00.003-06:00

This is not based on an assignment but a brain development and parenting discussion group.

The answer to where genius comes from starts with Bandura's solution for the age old nature-nurture debate. There are 3 mutually influencing factors. Environment, person, and behavior continuously shape who we are, what we think, how we respond to our environment, and how our environment responds to us. He called it reciprocal determinism. But this 3 way feedback has multiple levels of processing. On the neurochemical level, nutrition creates the environment in which conscious thought (individual person) translates into the neural impulses of physical reaction. Then the history of reactions creates preferred neural pathways and consistent responses.

Because I am often surprised by the brilliant things my brain comes up with, I am very interested in the concept of genius. My brother in 4th grade had a 138 IQ and was in the Gifted program at school. I did not qualify. The savant genius has a singular skillset--a narrow range of neural responses. This is not my favorite definition of genius because it excludes me. I am not exceptional in any one thing.

I have a theory of how the brain works in four neural networks: spiritual, intellectual, physical, and emotional social. Each operates based on need-based drives. Personality is an expression of needs focus. Bonita's creative friend has spiritual genius because he has found the greatest satisfaction in meeting and fulfilling the spiritual needs of himself and others (believing, inspiring, creating). The entirety of my theory is about satisfying my personal need to compile and understand the world around me, reflecting an intellectual genius.

But then, it was not enough for me to keep coming up with philosophies and theories, I had to have something physically tangible to prove my intelligence (to myself). That need was manifested in my invention, Skembox (look it up on Facebook) which is a multi-use toy that serves as a playhouse, boat, bus, spaceship, or kitchen playcenter, desk, or bookcase ad infinitum. Also on the physical side, I am a ballet dancer and choreographer specializing in group formations.

A business genius has to combine at least two types of genius, but the most motivational leaders have spiritual genius--vision and faith (in God makes it better but faith in what you are doing is mandatory). The other essential element in a visionary leader is emotional-social genius. The ability to satisfy personal needs for attachment and human interaction on a slightly higher level.

Every single form of genius can be developed and improved by any individual--except where there is physical damage or limitation within the neural network, but even that can be overcome with enough will and belief, but that takes spiritual genius to begin with.

Therefore, my idea of the ultimate genius is one who employs the most neural networks in satisfying all four types of need. Wholebrain goodness. :-)

And like all people (broad generalization) who seek to define genius, I make it as slanted toward my own personal traits as possible. It is not that I want to be a genius, as much as I want to know why I don't seem to think like other people in my immediate association. Am I that special? Can other people learn to be as great as I am? What sort of obligation does being "gifted" bring? Etc.

Melvin said Genius comes from deep within self--being aware of that takes interpersonal intelligence. Let's say genius is special aptitude in perceiving, defining, or transforming internal or external environments. So we have six categories. Internal refers to intrapersonal or self-knowledge. So the categories are 1. internal perceptive (deeply evaluates self), 2. external perceptive (keenly interested in observing any particular aspect of the environment; notices details; these are the philosophers), 3. internal defining (is able to explain and translate personal behavior and recognize patterns in others, 4. External defining (these are the theorists). 5. internal transforming (driven to improve personally, perfectionist; loves calendaring, organizing, and getting things done, inspires change in others) 6. external transforming (these are the inventors who translate knowledge into tangible objects, projects, or systems.

I would place those categories in degrees so that external transformative is the sixth and highest form of genius because it employs more networks of the brain--besides that, life is an experiment to see if what you think and believe can be physically verified. That is why (or because) the brain is set up in the reciprocal feedback system I talked about earlier. Environment-->Person-->Behavior = Belief -->Action-->Habit.

Geniuses are people who can honestly evaluate the results of their beliefs and habits and change their ideas, actions, and environments to correct errors and improve self and others. Genius can be learned by people of integrity. Integrity can be learned early in life much easier than late in life.

Virtuosity in any artistic discipline is a fifth degree genius because it requires consistent, honest evaluation of skills. Note the root words virtue and disciple. But the virtuoso can recognize this singular focus as a key to further intelligence. The interconnections of the brain allow the singular genius to increase genius by applying awareness to other talents or developmental issues.

Once again, learning the discipline of developing personal talents in early life (when neural pathways are the most plastic and early habits can create lifelong, nearly automatic responses) sets the stage for a much greater range of achievement than if it is learned in later life. It is the integrity of honest self-evaluation, and the morality of delayed gratification that builds genius. Perhaps I will talk about evil genius in this context at some future time. Suffice to say, genius or talent can be used for good or evil, and when children learn the difference between the two they will be better equipped to use their gifts for good.

The value of early childhood development of intelligence is inestimable, and the unique traits and innate abilities we have are born of God and given to edify ourselves and others. We are given the abilities we need to navigate through our life circumstances and learn personally about the purpose and meaning of life as individuals.

Brain Based Education Reform

2011-07-15T11:15:00.003-05:00

Educational Needs
Education reform requires a comprehensive plan that meets the physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual needs of students and teachers. This is essentially a brain-based approach because each of those needs are perceived and fulfilled within distinct, needs-related neural networks. In order to successfully develop and implement education reform we must understand the functions of neural needs networks, have a generalized pattern for learning that is highly customizable, create tools to facilitate integration and individualization, and successfully apply our plan and tools in the classroom (or other learning environment).

Functions of Learning and the Brain
Learning generates activity and change in the brain. This requires input, processing, and output. There are six types of processing. They are: filtering/attending, sequencing, action, association/assimilation, categorizing/discriminating, and representing. Each network uses a primary set of learning mechanisms, but most of the networks utilize the majority of the processing mechanisms. The more mechanisms are activated, the more profound learning will be. All of these processes used together generates the capacity for problem solving.

Physical learning uses the body to move through dimensional space, record sensory information, and perform repetitive action (throwing a ball, playing an instrument, writing). Sensory input (the beginning of all learning) is the jurisdiction of the physical network. The physical network provides all input and does some filtering and attending. It also generates sequences of movement to take action. Therefore, sequencing, and action are the primary mechanisms of physical network learning as is filtering and attending.

Note the difference between network processing mechanism and input. We are focusing on step two of learning—the processing. Input is step one and output is step three. Later we will discuss how looping or overlapping this learning cycle in multiple networks creates amplification because of the integrative overlap of functions within and among the networks.

The intellectual network is driven by the need to model and organize sensory input. As such, it attends sensory input that relates to usable knowledge such as word sequences, charts and maps, and sound signals. As a result, it forms chains of logic through their primary processing mechanism of sequencing and associating. However, any conscious verbalization (internal or external) of the six forms of processing is a highly cognitive activity. In other words, anything we learn that we can mentally store and can explain has passed through the intellectual network.

The emotional network is driven by the need to form or understand relationships between self, others, and environment. Therefore it attends input about interactions and relationships such as tone and inflection, pheremones, body language, and touch. As a result, its primary processing is associative and categorical/discriminatory. What things belong in what groups? Where do I fit in as an individual? The emotional network does much of the cross-network integration as it associates multiple inputs into experiences, but there will be no words to explain it since it does not necessarily pass through the intellect.

The spiritual network has the need to understand meaning, form ideals, and pursue purpose. As a result, it is the primary network of representation. It attends input related to art, beauty, and values as it generates meaning for symbols (to include language), ideals, and visions. The other main processing mechanism is to categorize and discriminate between good and bad.

We can consciously generate depth of learning by using the dimensions of the learning triangle. Alfred Bandura’s concept of reciprocal determinism (Hergenhahn, 1997) is the foundation of learning. The learning triangle is a graphic I developed to demonstrate and expand the application of input, processing, and output. The input of environment is processed by the person with behavior as the output. Each affects and causes the other in an inseparable feedback loop and constitutes learning. This is layer 1.

Layer 2A is environmental learning. It is emotional or relational in nature. Sensory stimuli are the input. Need and utility are the processing, and reinforcement is the output. The person is a deeper layer of that feedback process (lets call it layer 2B) with situation being the input (D), personality being the processing (E), and maturity being the output (F). This loop creates identity learning. Layer 2B is spiritual in nature. Layer 2C is behavioral learning. It has the input of action (D), the processing of belief (E), and the output of habit (F). It is physical in nature. So where is the intellectual learning? It occurs on Layer 3BD, meaning within 2B—the processing of personality. The input of need preference (G), the processing of need analysis (H), and the output of need efficacy (I) is intellectual in nature and it informs and defines personal identity. This demonstrates how individual and personal learning really is.

Hopefully you can see that each of the layers is an elaboration of the original feedback triangle. Note that any of the other aspects or layers of learning that can be consciously explained or defined have passed into the depth of intellect. Even more importantly, note that intellect is not reached without depth.

Environmental learning on level 2A is a model of operant conditioning. This widely used paradigm of mid-century education (Jensen, 2008) when replaced by the learning triangle model of education is clearly revealed to be lacking in depth and ineffective in educating the whole child.

In Piaget’s view on the depth of feedback processes within systems “As children resolve the conflict that exist between cognitive sub-systems, psychological structures develop into increasingly broad and integrated wholes” (Constructivist Theories 2005).

The Plan
The following is a model for state and local curriculum and course development. It is a comprehensive, but fundamentally different approach to education that would require a large cooperative team to fully develop. Once done, it could be implemented in a relatively short period of time while being designed for continuous improvement. It can be generated as a grassroots movement or be mandated and facilitated on the national level. However, it should probably be implemented as a whole rather than in stages. All of the training, tools, and resources should be available when the program is presented in its entirety. Otherwise, discouragement and skepticism might derail the program.

Assess multiple dimensions of learning and teaching styles and match students to compatible teachers. Learning styles have several dimensions, but they can most easily be categorized according to need preferences (3BDG). Each individual has a tendency to more readily utilize one neural needs network over another. We can tell what these preferences are by the activities and associations a child gravitates toward. A physical child gravitates toward movement and activity. He is a kinetic and spatial learner. An intellectual child is drawn to reading and writing. An emotional child gravitates toward language and social transaction. A spiritual child constantly asks why in pursuit of meaning. These are examples of an extensive array of traits and preferences that must be evaluated and associated with specific needs networks.

Teachers who share a student’s traits and preferences should be her primary educator. But she should also be given ample experience with teachers and students of different preferences and abilities to expand their learning experience and develop the whole brain. This should be done after she is secure and confident in her learning ability. She must consciously be introduced to alternative approach teachers as a challenge to her current way of doing things.

Parent/Student/Teacher course selection. One of the most powerful motivators for education is personal choice. We must ensure the right of students, parents, and communities to select curriculum, courses, and lessons that are in line with personal, familial, and community values. Even from elementary school, a child can be given choices regarding the subjects he wants to study. If he is interested in sports, then all of his required learning should utilize that theme in instruction. In addition, his parents have the right to select the lens of values through which his educational subjects are taught.

Of course, this is not possible in the current education system. I will show you in the tools section how it can be possible, even with minimal structural overhaul.

Appropriate student collaborative grouping. Much has been said about the value of cooperative learning (e.g. Viilo, M.; Seitamaa-Hakkarainen, P.; Hakkarainen, K., Feb. 2011). However, this is a two-edged sword. It is not appropriate or effective to pair students with those they do not like or to randomly group them. When students are grouped with a teacher by shared learning styles, values, and subjects, emotional need satisfaction is amplified, peer-bonding is increased, and emotional tension (like personality conflict) is reduced.

Present subjects four times; once in each of the needs categories. We must engage all six forms of processing in layers within each of the networks. This generates inter-network connectivity--meaning brain flexibility and plasticity--in addition to generating a more comprehensive and dimensional understanding of lessons learned.

Each lesson should be taught on a weekly lesson plan with the same concepts (simple or complex according to student capacity) taught each day of the week with the approach and emphasis being on a different one of the four needs. If there is a fifth day of the week, that lesson can be focused on integration of all the week’s learning.

Utilize learning triangles (dimensions of input/processing/output feedback) for integration. As teachers we can generate inputs and monitor outputs. However, if we understand an individual student’s processing we will be better able to measure their success and influence future processing. With in-depth individual knowledge we can plan far more effective inputs. How do we know a student’s thought processes? We have to ask her. We have to create projects, assignments, and activities that allow her to securely reveal her preferences, understanding, and personal meaning—if not for teachers, administrators, and legislators then for her personal benefit. Her sense of efficacy will grow as she recognizes the value of her own input and processing in classroom output.

The Tools
Assessment and matching software. Software must be developed that calculates dimensions of compatibility and need. This concept is parallel to the programming used by dating websites to match potential mates. In this way, administrative class selection is not arbitrary or based on parental demands, giving preferred students to preferred teachers, or trying to evenly distribute “problem children.” Students will be able to learn from the best teacher for them alongside the best classmates for them.

Lesson plan/course-credit database and search engine. (State level first if necessary, national level ultimately.) It would be impossibly time consuming for a teacher to create a separate lesson plan for each of her students for each day of the week. That is why this plan could never be possible previous to this century. The way to facilitate individualized lesson plans is to provide all teachers access to a database where they submit and search for lesson plans within a network. Finding relevant lesson plans will be facilitated by search tags associated with development level, needs focus, topic/theme, subject, value, and curriculum.

To save time and simplify, individualized lessons do not have to be fully open-ended but can be a choice among 3-6 themes by which students group themselves with students of similar interest, while all classmates are studying the same topic. In this way, the integration lesson can include students from one group sharing the subject with their theme to students of the other groups.

The more schools that implement this at once, the bigger the resource pool will be for teachers getting started. It will probably best to give the students their course selections before summer vacation of the coming implementation year so that there will be time for lesson development. Teachers will get a summer bonus for the time they spend in the first year of the program. However, the real bonuses will come as teachers are paid for high quality lesson plans that are downloaded, utilized, and positively reviewed by other teachers, students, and parents. Their art and creativity can and should be rewarded as any other patent, copyright, or trademarked professional

Each lesson will be categorized according to course and curriculum requirements and will be permanently and nationally tracked. This will be a great benefit to students who move a lot. This system makes it so that credit can be awarded on an individual pace rather than a rigid grading period—though a certain number of lessons per week should be required. However, this structure allows a student to take more lessons from different angles if he does not thoroughly understand the topic or subject—while keeping learning novel and avoiding diminished efficacy for not “progressing” with classmates.

Community and business resources. Business professionals and community members may also be invited to submit reviewable lesson plans in their areas of expertise, using the standard format. They may be compensated for download and use of their lessons or courses. Furthermore, parents can submit adaptations and applications of existing lesson plans. They may not be compensated unless they are a certified teacher or a business professional writing in their area of expertise.

Continuous stream of human intelligence and creativity unleashed When students, parents, teachers, and administrators are given the ability to provide real and practical input from the perspective of individual processing, and affect output, it will generate a feedback loop of amplifying intelligence and creativity. Further, the sense of efficacy and cooperation within a community will grow. This is the way to generate political empowerment and participation in a democracy. This was the purpose Thomas Jefferson envisioned for public education.

Applications
Using a student topic choice of baseball, a parental value choice of right versus wrong, and a teacher lesson choice of the brain in a state curriculum choice of science we can utilize our tools to form a comprehensive lesson plan.

Physical sample lesson: Parts of the brain.

Interview sheet pre-exposure. How does your brain learn to play baseball? What part of the brain learns the rules? What part of the brain identifies the ball? What part of the brain directs your arm to throw the ball? What part of the brain maps out the playing field? What part of the brain determines the force you have to use to throw that ball to your desired location?

Brain model and labeling: Label the parts of the brain model and properly reassemble.

Physical activity. Throw baseball to friends from different distances. Did you consciously think about throwing it harder to the friends who are farther away, or did you just do it?

Intellectual Sample Lesson Computer activity 1: Reading on functions of brain parts followed by cross-lateral part column and function column matching—relating all functions to baseball.

Computer activity 2: Worksheet. What are the names of at least three famous baseball players? What position did they play? What were some of their averages and biggest accomplishments? Finding and remembering those things requires cognitive function. What parts of the brain are most helpful for that?

Social/Emotional Sample Lesson Computer activity: Fight or Flight neurochemical activity reading.

Journal activity: Why do you love baseball? Who are your favorite people to play it with? Who taught you how to play? What part of your brain helps you feel that way? How do you feel when you are running to a base and the baseman in front of you is about to catch the ball? What do those feelings make you do? What happens to the rest of your body during and after that?

Social activity: play an abbreviated game of baseball.

Spiritual Sample LessonGroup discussion (among students who have selected the baseball learning theme for the brain unit): What are the rules of baseball? What are the consequences for breaking the rules? Why do people play sports and games? To what parts of the brain do these questions apply? Come up with a baseball metaphor for life. How is the brain like a baseball? How is the brain like a game of baseball?

Arts integration: Sing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.” Write new words to it about the parts or functions of the brain.

Essay: What does baseball mean to you?

Conclusion
We must facilitate genuine learning that is relevant to all of a students needs. With a clear picture of what those needs are and a whole plan (rather than a piecemeal one) to make it happen, change should not be nearly so arduous as it has heretofore been. A whole plan that uses the whole brain can make whole communities and children more fully realize their potential.

References
American Educational Research Association (2001, Apr 10-14). An integrated hands-on inquiry-based cooperative learning approach: the impact of the PALMS approach on student growth.

Constructivist theories. (2005). In Cambridge Encyclopedia of Child Development. Retrieved from http://www.credoreference.com/entry/cupchilddev/constructivist_theories

Hergenhahn, B.R. & Olsen M.H (1997) Introduction to theories of learning, 5^th ed. Prentice Hall; New Jersey.

Jensen, Eric (2008). Brain-based learning: the new paradigm of teaching 2^nd ed.. Thousand Oakes; Corwyn Press.

Purdy, Noel & Morrison, Hugh (February 2009). Cognitive neuroscience and education: unraveling the confusion. Oxford review of education 35:99-109.

Varma, S. & Schwartz, D.L. (June 2008). How should educational neuroscience consceptualise the relation between cognition and brain function? Mathematical reasoning as a network process. Educational research 50:149-161.

Viilo, M.; Seitamaa-Hakkarainen, P.; Hakkarainen, K., (February, 2011). Supporting the technologically enhanced collaborative inquiry and design project: a teacher’s reflections on practices. Teachers and teaching: theory and practice 17:51-72.

The Need To Learn

2011-05-05T21:43:00.002-05:00

Introduction

Why and how do we learn? What do we need to learn? Human and animal physiological structures are wired for leaning. It is clear that the brain and nervous system with all their microstructures and functions give us the capacity to sense stimuli and respond, learn from those responses, and adjust behavior accordingly. This allows us to survive and adapt to our environment, or alter our environment to suit our needs. This sort of bidirectional feedback between environment, personal need or meaning, and behavior are the functional operations of learning. Bandura described this as reciprocal determinism. We can take our understanding even further if we replicate his model onto a synthesis of 1) his concept of situational behavior with 2) Piaget’s concept of developmental growth, and 3) the classical concept of personality. That combined with my concept of Quadrifacet human needs constitutes a truly encompassing theory of learning. All of these things occur within the biochemical structure of human physiology and can be observed in action from the micro to macro levels.

Learning Functions and Feedback

Bandura’s concept of reciprocal determinism can be visualized as a triangular graphic. The following triangles represent deeper levels of the functioning mechanism in each of the learning factors above. They are visual representations of the synthesis of cognitive, behavioristic, and holistic schools of thought made in neurophysiological terms. The diagrams all follow the same form with the right corner of the triangle representing input, the left representing processing and the top being output. Therefore, our definition of learning is: processing that synthesizes environmental inputs and/or behavioral outputs. Analysis of these reactions produces changes within primary neural networks (spiritual, physical, emotional, and intellectual). Those changes can catalyze further changes in, or integrations with, other primary networks.

The Identity Learning triangle goes into Bandura’s Person triangle. It summarizes Piaget’s concept of schema. Whom a person perceives their self to be is an ever-changing product of their personality, given situation, and their maturity, which personality and maturity we will explore further in a moment.

Behavioral learning goes in the behavior triangle in Bandura’s learning triangle. What a person believes guides their actions and what they have done and observed has shaped their beliefs. This combination has formed habits, which have ingrained certain beliefs and altered the structure of their lives so as to limit their sensory experience within their habitual environment.

The Environmental Learning triangle fits inside Bandura’s environment triangle. As you can see, it contains many of the concepts of advanced behaviorist thought. What is useful or of need is what is most readily perceived of all environmental stimuli. The learning state is one of seeking the reinforcement of need satisfaction or aversion from need deprivation. And within the stimuli triangle we must recognize as Piaget did that “How an organism interacts with its environment will depend on the kind of cognitive structure available to the organism…The cognitive structure that exists at any given moment sets the bounds on what can be assimilated by the organism” (Hergenhan 1997).

Personality is an individual’s pattern of processing and behavior that is determined by the individual’s need efficacy, need analysis and need preference. Preferences can be spiritually, emotionally, physically, or intellectually focused. Need preference is the priority a person places on any one or combination of those needs. Need efficacy is a person’s sense of capacity to meet his or her own needs or the person’s access to or influence over those with power or resources. Need analysis is the ability to perceive and evaluate the four facets of need and the states of satisfaction achieved through personal thought, action, and/or experience.

Individual Needs

While evolutionists maintain a narrow view of physiological survival and assume all learning is based upon the physical needs of nutritive sustenance, protection, and survivalist procreation, there are other needs that are inherently wired into human physiology. All the needs are manifested in specific physiological regions of the body and form an integrated systems network, which drives the organism to fulfill those needs. The system must learn how best to fulfill those needs. Hence, learning is vital to our survival and well-being.

Quadrifacet Needs

All learning is motivated by the drive to satisfy any or all of the four areas of human need. Intellectual brain networks are what we primarily associate with learning. The body parts and neural networks associated with the senses are connected to various cerebral regions to process and interpret, filter and associate external sensory stimuli. The primary need of the intellectual network is to receive, process, and interpret external sensory stimuli. This allows us to sense the outside world and form cohesive concepts of objects, persons, and sensations, as well as to associate cause and effect, and remember sequences of events and perceive time. Memory is a very important aspect of the intellectual network.

Physical brain networks allow for the functioning and movement of all physical activity and are primarily regulated in the cerebellum, brain stem, and spinal cord. The primary physical needs are for nutritive sustenance, protection and defense, and reproduction. The association of physical networks with emotional networks produces drives to satisfy physical needs for food, physical work (building protective structures and coverings, etc), fighting/defending, and copulation.

What of the impact of the physical needs network interactions with other needs networks? Robert Brummer notes the powerful connections of the “brain-gut axis” “describing the bidirectional communication pathways connecting cognitive and emotional centers in the brain with neuroendocrine centers, the enteric nervous system and the immune system” (p.98).

Emotional brain networks are motivated by the need to function in a system larger than self. Cooperative sociality is the ultimate power to expand system functions. These functions are developed and improved in infant-parenting interactions that develop or inhibit the efficacy of future social interactions.

Swain and his colleagues (2007) have recently done important work in expanding John Bowlby’s attachment theory of a “universal human need to form affect laden bonds” (p.263). Their research shows that people with organized attachment patterns showed increased activity in the right amygdala, left hippocampus, and right inferior frontal gyrus. Areas of social and emotional empathy activation are in the medial prefrontal cortex and the temporal cortex.

Spiritual networks are responsible for abstract and symbolic learning in specific regions of the brain. It is the spiritual need to conceive idealizations and manifest them that promotes goal setting, symbolic learning, and artistic creativity. Language, art, and, of course, religion develop spiritual learning. However scientific method also develops spiritual learning networks. Scientific method is a hypothesized ideal and an ordered goal for verifying idealizations, which is nearly the definition of spiritual learning. However the distinction between scientific and religious learning is that science must be verified by reconciling the external sensory stimuli of the intellectual network and religion must be verified by the interpretation of internal sensory experience, which can only be verified by the person actually experiencing it. One can report the experience to others, and they can believe your report, but until they have the experience themselves, it is not verified.

Spiritual and emotional network integration processes internal sensory stimuli and operate subconscious to the processing of external sensory stimuli within the intellectual brain network. Sandra Blakeslee (2008) describes the neural network of transcendental spiritual experiences associated with meditative bliss or out-of-body sensations. While this can represent a culmination of spiritual need satisfaction, it is not the definition of spiritual satisfaction.

Only when the intellect is integrated with the emotion and spirit are we capable of understanding our complex and even contradictory approaches to satisfying our multiple needs. Spiritual learning primarily helps us to meet our spiritual and emotional needs and intellectual learning helps us most in meeting our physical needs and intellectual needs. However the more thorough our integration of learning, the more integrated our satisfaction of varied needs will be, and thus it will be all the more satisfying. (I talk about Needs Network Amplification in my social psychology paper, Social Networks.) Integrated satisfaction can also manifest as self-empowerment, performance pride, or a sense of unity or completion. These psychic outcomes of integrated action, thought, and emotion are processed spiritually and emotionally.

Cognitive Processes

Cognitive activities, or methods of processing include (any or all of these at once) association, categorizing/discriminating and filtering/attending, sequencing, action, and representing (abstractions, language, and symbols). Although Tolman labeled these processes as learning it is more useful to think of them as processing mechanisms that lead to learning. Furthermore, none of these processes exist independently. They operate as a whole program.

I have simplified Tolman’s terms. Association is what he referred to as cathexes. This is the joining and synthesizing of inputs, the forming of wholes from the endless parts of information.

Tolman made two categories out of equivalence beliefs and drive discriminations when the same operating process is at work for both concepts. Categorizing is discriminating between what satisfies and what does not, what belongs together and what does not. We could say, more specifically that it is association processes which allow us to connect things and categorizing processes which allow us to distinguish them. Categorizing is very important in helping us filter or attend environmental or internal stimuli. Stimuli are categorized as presently important for filling needs, or not. My stomach is providing internal cues that I need to eat, but I have chosen not to attend to it because I have a greater present need to capture these mental concepts before I forget them.

Sequencing is equivalent to Tolman’s field expectancies. The sequencing process gives us the concepts of time and cause and effect relationships. Sequencing does not occur without memory in some form. This brings up the question of what memory is. For now, we will define memory as the cellular/microcellular storage of outputs, processes, or inputs. To clarify: learning is the synthesis of processes and memory is the storage of that synthesis. From simple assembly of sound waves or light images into a single sound or object image to the complexity of learning an operatic aria and performing it, sequencing and memory have vital interaction.

Finally, I believe that Tolman’s concept of field cognition modes could be better described as representing. Analog, abstraction, language, and symbols are forms of representing that allow us to correlate other learning experiences, share them, clarify them, and give meaning to them.

Tolman was correct for labeling motor patterns as learning. It would be confusing to include action as a process like I have with the other things he labeled as types of learning. Action is a learning output formed from the inputs and processes. Action further provides feedback because it is a way to test cognitive propositions. That is why it is a critical part of learning feedback. Motor processes include physiological operations that allow seeing, touching, tasting, etc. With this understanding we can see, even on a micro level how the output of action further facilitates sensory input for further analysis and action in the critical cycle of feedback.

All of these learning feedback processes must be catalyzed by valence states, or needs (similar to drive reduction or cognitive disequilibrium) that must be properly interpreted by the animal to correctly meet vital or tangential survival needs. In all higher functioning animals there is the capacity for one need to override or take priority over another need. This is a function of filtering processes.

For humans, however, the complexity of needs creates conflicting signals about need priorities. Further, the interrelated circuits can cause ambiguity in interpreting valence states and the underlying needs that may or may not be satisfied in a given situation or series of causal and personal relationships.

The Physiology of Learning

What, Then, Is Learning? Learning is the integration and interpretation of stimuli into any of the physiological needs networks in such a way as to help an organism meet any or all of its Quadrifacet needs. Any learning helps us to alter our behavior in order to adapt ourselves to our environment to satisfy our needs or it helps us to adapt the environment itself to suit our needs.

The primary translation of this concept in evolutionary thought is focused on strictly physical needs. Adding the three other classifications of need allows us a more comprehensive understanding of human behavior and motivation.

How Do We Learn? Learning tools include categorization, sequencing, memory, analysis, and practice. Memory is an important tool for integration. It allows us to associate the varied stimuli of past experience so that we can create catalogs of experiences and place them properly according to category. Sequencing, of course, is impossible without a memory of what came before.

Physical experiences are translated into abstract meaning in the spiritual network (analysis). That meaning is applied to future physical experiences that have been categorized into groups of similar meaning and can be repeated or avoided based on the remembered sequence of events associated with the experience. If the proper meaning or significance of an experience is ascribed to it as meeting, or not meeting one of the Quadrifacet needs, a person can effectively learn how to meet their needs. However, in a culture that does not clarify these needs, it may be especially difficult to glean the most satisfying meaning from our experiences and seek those experiences which most effectively satisfy our needs.

What Do We Learn? We learn what generates positive and negative valences. Positive valences give a reinforcing sense of satisfaction. Negative valences produce a sense of dissatisfaction or negative reinforcement. We learn that satisfaction reduces our sense of need, or that we have obtained what we need. These sensations occur on the biochemical level and are interpreted in conscious thought and subconscious processing.

One thing that we must learn, but do not do so naturally is that there is a difference between the sense of satisfaction and the satisfaction of an actual need. This was demonstrated by Olds and Milner (1954, cited in Hergenhan). When rats were artificially stimulated in reinforcement centers in the brain without receiving any necessities, they preferred the immediate gratification, but had very rapid response extinction because there was no integrated network reaction from the stimulus. This is false satisfaction. Drug induced responses and any sort of addictive behavior are the result of this mechanism. Recall how this reinforcement interferes with infant bonding in cocaine addicted mothers. False satisfaction, then is the generating mechanism for addiction. Filling a need with a false satisfier induces increased use of the satisfier for an increased sense of satisfaction, but because it does not satisfy a genuine need, no quantity of it will ever generate genuine satisfaction.

We must further understand that any physical need substituted with a spiritual need, for example will never satisfy that need. Substitute satisfaction will not signal dissatisfaction, but it will fail to fully satisfy. Therefore, those unaware of their specific needs will be left to feel that if they did more of the same thing the need would somehow be satisfied. While this does not require any form of addictive behavior, it does tend to produce maladaptive behaviors.

Therefore, we must understand that temporary or partial satisfaction may indicate an incorrect form of satisfaction. For example, one could test how satisfied they are with a non-nutritive food and note that they continue to want more of the same type of food and still be only partly satiated. Testing the hunger contrast when eating nutritious foods should produce fewer episodes of hunger—especially in conjunction with proper hydration. However, there would need to be a period of extinction where the habit of responding positively to the sensation of a stretched stomach becomes disassociated with the sense of satisfaction.

We must also learn that there are some actual needs that can satisfy one facet of being at the expense of another facet of being. When this is the case, a non-contradictory method of satisfaction must be sought to achieve genuine well-being.

Thresholds

There are three kinds of threshold: 1) stimulus threshold 2) response threshold and a processing threshold. Normalizing mechanisms set the threshold within narrow parameters or comfort zones. There is not time to further develop these concepts here, but the theory is not complete without at least mentioning the impact of thresholds.

Conclusion

Learning is motivated by the biochemical induction of satisfaction valences. Those valences enable integration of information (stimuli) across spiritual, physical, emotional, and intellectual networks with the system goal of achieving overall satisfaction, which produces biochemical balance and genuine well-being.

References

Blakeslee, Sandra (April 2008) Flesh made soul: a new theory in the neuroscience of spiritual experience. Science and Spirit 19:26-31.

Brummer, R.J. (May 2005). Nutritional modulation of the “brain-gut axis.” Scandanavia journal of nutrition 49:98-105

Hergenhahn, B.R. & Olsen M.H (1997) Introduction to theories of learning, 5^th ed. Prentice Hall; New Jersey.

Swain, J.E. et al (2007). Brain basis of early parent interactions: psychology, physiology, and in vivo functional neuroimaging studies. Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, 48:262-287.

The Whole Brain: Satisfying Integrated Networks of Human Need

2011-03-08T21:35:00.005-06:00

Introduction
Neurological disorders can instruct us on specific functions of the brain and nervous system. However, if we do not have a reasonable understanding of integrative system functions, we are much less likely to address the root causes and what can be done to prevent or even cure the disorders. I propose a multi-dimensional theory of encompassing needs and their impact on the structures and functions of the brain. Physical, spiritual, intellectual, and emotional brain functions each have associated and interdependent needs. They require synchronous and balanced satisfaction in all areas to achieve physiological wellness. I will discuss the physiological impact of the satisfaction or deprivation of those needs in a systemic context.

Individual Needs
I have posited in other papers the role of fundamental human needs in producing individual well-being as well as the impact of those needs in shaping human sociality from family life to global politics and economics. Now I get to the functional origin of all those complex systems, the human mind.

Each of our needs categories has a different region and/or network of operations within the central nervous system. Our physical needs are indicated, sought, and satisfied via our physical brain networks. We all know that we need food, clothing, and shelter to survive. Also, in order for our species to survive, we need to procreate. We are biologically imbedded with the drive to survive. Most every area of biological research has addressed these complex interactions of our physiological compulsion to eat, “nest,” procreate, and defend. However, on the microcellular level, we also have the physical need for adequate structures for biochemical and bioelectrical processing. Foreign or genetic interference with these processes can manifest a spectrum of illness and disorder.

From an evolutionist perspective, those needs are responsible for our species-specific traits and behaviors. However, those are not the only needs that influence our traits and behaviors.

Emotional brain networks are motivated by the need to function in a system larger than self. As, per Systems Theory (Bertalanffy, 1965) all molecules and organisms function within a system. Humans, as part of those systems function toward increasing the order of those systems. Natural, open systems, such as ecological biology reproduce, perpetuate, expand, and evolve systems effectiveness.

Cooperative sociality is the ultimate power to expand system functions. These functions are developed and improved in infant-parenting interactions that develop or inhibit the efficacy of future social interactions. Swain and his colleagues (2007) have recently done important work in expanding John Bowlby’s attachment theory of a “universal human need to form affect laden bonds” (p.263). They detailed the complex interactions of the mesocorticalimbic and the nigrostriatal dopamine systems in reward behavior motivating responses to infant cues such as crying. They are “important in activating healthy maternal reward and motivational circuits” (p.268). These circuits, however, can be “hijacked” by cocaine use, which substitutes all those emotional responses, and minimizes the natural intrinsic rewards. Lack of appropriate emotional response from his addicted, unresponsive mother reduces the child’s future capacity to respond emotionally to others.

People with organized attachment patterns showed increased activity in the right amygdala, left hippocampus, and right inferior frontal gyrus. Areas of social and emotional empathy activation are in the medial prefrontal cortex and the temporal cortex.

Spiritual brain networks form and respond to idealizations, which are responsible for planning, setting goals, inquiry, and all forms of symbolic creativity. We all have the spiritual need to imagine, believe, and create. The ultimate satisfaction of this need is to imagine one thing, believe in it, and see the fruits or evidence of that belief manifested in physical creation or experience. The motivator for that satisfaction is the deeper, spiritual need to understand abstract ideals via interpretation of internal sensory stimuli translated to outward reality.

The ideal of the perfect self is universally acknowledged to exist outside of self. Therefore, spiritual experiences often include the suppression of self-awareness and a connection to a transcendental self of an ultimately idealistic nature. Johnstone and Glass (2008) created a basic model of spiritual activity in the brain where “individuals may experience transcendence (feelings of universal unity and decreased sense of self) by minimizing right parietal functions through conscious effort, as in meditation” (p.871). The also proposed the need for further understanding the role of the thalamus’ attentional abilities and the emotional impact of the limbic system in spiritual experiences.

Emotions are internal stimuli, which the spiritual network has a need to comprehend and integrate, so emotional and spiritual needs have many overlapping circuits.

Simply put, we need ideals to become real. Balanced satisfaction of this need produces evolutionary effects. Dissatisfaction produces intellectual reinterpretation of ideals.

Intellectual brain networks have the primary need to understand and apply knowledge through chains of logic based on the analysis of external sensory stimuli (versus the internal sensory analysis of the spiritual network). Spiritual inquiry and creativity is an independent precursor to intellectual knowledge or intellectual knowledge can motivate spiritual inquiry. When used in a cycle of discovery, spiritual, physical, and intellectual knowledge, effectively integrated produces understanding of universal ideal.

On a more basic level, our intellectual network gives us sound and analysis necessary in language, sight analysis for vision and recognition, numbers and logic, and all of our conscious learning and interpretation of the world around us.

Physiological Impact
The satisfaction of each of these needs can be monitored through analysis of inductive valences. Dissatisfaction or deprivation causes negative valence in proportion to the force of potential need an experience produces. Need-satisfying stimuli and experience has a positive valence. The integrated satisfaction of all needs creates a continuous chemical-electrical circuit with an uninterrupted current. There are tremendous dampening and inhibiting mechanisms to maintain equilibrium and a sense of well being so specific valences are easily confounded and difficult to research. However, understanding this circuitry reduces the number of potential reactions into these categories.

Integration
Each of these networks is still part of the larger network of the mind. The corpus collosum is the primary integrative body of the brain. Because each of the needs networks, themselves have inter-brain connectivity, defects in the corpus collosum can affect the capacity to have single needs acknowledged or satisfied. The negative effects are amplified when cross-network amplifications are inhibited by impaired connectivity. Lynn Paul and her colleagues (Apr. 2007) have drawn vital connections to malformations of the corpus collosum and a number of psychiatric problems such as autism, A.D.H.D., schizophrenia and bipolar.

Many experiences and expressions emerge from integrated functions of the different networks. I will call this Needs Network Amplification (NNA). Trust, for example, is based on the need of the spiritual network to believe, which is then connected to the emotional network need for interpersonal attachment. The need to believe in something becomes the need to believe in someone, which is then amplified with the need to belong with or connect to an intimate social network. This integration can then be attached to the physical bonding networks of sexual function to form the very powerful romantic love. When faith and sociality are combined (trust) with intellectual networks we have a high-valence learning environment or a powerful spiritual orator.

What of the impact of the physical needs network interactions with other needs networks? Robert Brummer notes the powerful connections of the “brain-gut axis” “describing the bidirectional communication pathways connecting cognitive and emotional centers in the brain with neuroendocrine centers, the enteric nervous system and the immune system” (p.98). This model offers explanations for the high comorbidity of affective and psychiatric disorders with GI disorders. This also hints at the nutritional components of human physical need with the intricate network mechanisms which allow serotonin formation across the blood-brain barrier.

The more integrated the needs-satisfaction network, the more powerful the effect on well-being will be (both positive and negative). If any part, of any of the networks is impaired or underdeveloped, substituting behaviors take place. In this state, the integrated networks are activated, but the valence is low, so satisfaction is only minimally experienced or not at all. These minimally satisfying substitutions do not signal a need for change, they signal a need for more of the substitution to satisfy. I suggest that this mechanism is the source of addiction in all its forms.

Conclusion
There is much more to discuss and study in detailing the integration and satisfaction of physical, emotional, spiritual, and intellectual needs networks. The impact of needs network application is expandable to all forms of human experience. Understanding the impact of needs conflict and satisfaction will offer infinite insight into affective and psychiatric disorder with new directions in therapeutic technique. This is in no way a complete or comprehensive explanation of physiological needs manifestations, but it sets the stage for my own future research and development.

References

Brummer, R.J. (May 2005). Nutritional modulation of the “brain-gut axis.” Scandanavia journal of nutrition 49:98-105

Johnstone, B & Glass, B (2008). Support for a neuropsychological model of spirituality in persons with traumatic brain injury. Zygon 43: 861-874

Paul, Lynn et al (Apr 2007). Agenesis of the corpus collosum: genetic, developmental and functional aspects of connectivity. Nature reviews: neuroscience, 8: 287-299.

Swain, J.E. et al (2007). Brain basis of early parent interactions: psychology, physiology, and in vivo functional neuroimaging studies. Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, 48:262-287

A Little Insight

2011-02-07T07:40:00.002-06:00

Reviewing much of my work and recalling interactions with teachers and students, I have noticed that the things I have written do not at all reflect the immense struggle and agonized thought that has gone into generating these writings. I have struggled to conform to assignments and have narrowly touched on the required topics and nearly rejected my instructors' assignments to write a paper for my own purposes and have still received exemplary grades because even the teacher does not recognize my rebellious internal conflict.

Though I feel like I am going against standard knowledge or opposing perspectives--being non-conformist--my objective is to bring all knowledge into conformity with a single philosophy. It is a harmonizing philosophy. Maybe that is why the conflict cannot be sensed. Maybe it is the diluted emotional nature of intellectual language. Know this, as easy as this is to read, it has not been easy to write.

The Power of Need: Foundations of Social Structures

2011-01-24T08:53:00.007-06:00

Power manifests both individually and socially and it can be productive or dysfunctional. Social and individual power structures are dysfunctional when they do not effectively meet individual needs or even exploit the individual. The source of power arises from the dependency that need creates. What one person cannot do, or cannot provide, nature or other people must provide. The more a person is able to provide for himself, the more powerful he is and the less dependent he is upon others. Nonetheless, the interdependent nature of human needs requires some level of human interaction.

Individual Power. The centers of individual power are charisma (includes talent), intelligence, strength, sex, skills, and tools. Status influences access to individual power centers. The individual has the power to form and select groups of association, which will affect power status and the ability to influence social structure. This power arises from the ability or the perceived ability to provide needs or perceived needs to others. The more fundamental the need he provides, the more powerful he or the organization he creates will be.

Thye, Willer, and Markovsky offered proofs for these relationships with Status Value Theory, which is a synthesis of Status Characteristics Theory and Network Exchange Theory, which is derived from the highly mathematical Game Theory. “The experiment showed that status broadly impacts the use of power and related phenomena in negotiated exchange…The implication is that power is driven more by the social influence of high status individuals than by [material utilitarian benefits offered]” (2006).

The individual must be understood as the powerful center of sociological structure. For, as Locke postulated, no government authority has legitimacy if the people do not consent to its authority. Leaders may be brutal and dictatorial, but they can only rule as long as people are willing to tolerate that sort of authority. As the history of nations shows, the people will attempt to overthrow oppressors and powerful individuals mobilize uprisings.

Social Power. The three centers of social power are family, government, religion, and business. In addition to creating a structure for the fulfillment of individual needs, social institutions facilitate or limit individual power for the benefit of competing individuals or groups. These power centers compete with one another to provide individual needs, or perceived needs to people and groups. This power becomes dysfunctional when it exploits one group to their harm for the benefit of another group or individual. Furthermore, an organization, which seeks to provide all human needs by monopolizing power centers into one ruling force, has immense potential to abuse power and become dysfunctional. Therefore, individuals and masses are wise to require that government not have sole control of religious, business, or educational centers of power to preserve individual power and liberty.

Family. Family culture is the location of cultural development. Cultures, like children, are profoundly influenced by the experiences of their early development. Personalities and patterns of behavior become ingrained which can become very difficult obstacles to overcome in developing into a successful community or nation on the world stage.

Multiple studies conclude that maltreatment of children creates deleterious long-term effects on children, thus impacting society as they mature (e.g. Maschi et al.). I propose that individuals and families are the constituents of nations and governments. Therefore, study of the patterns and practices we see in families can be applied to social institutions and cultures for increased perspective on healthy and unhealthy child as well as cultural development. Child maltreatment is defined neglect as well as physical, psychological, and sexual abuse. Social maltreatment parallels these categories in the form of inadequate social structure, economic exploitation, civil rights abuse, and A-group domination of relatively helpless B-groups, respectively.

Children who are victims of maltreatment spend a lifetime trying to overcome the negative effects and rarely develop their full potential. Exceptions are the result of intervention from outside the family. Tina Maschi and her colleagues drew the correlation between child development and social work. “Social work prevention and intervention strategies should actively address post-trauma emotional, behavioral, and social residue that has been consistently shown to negatively affect youths and their families and communities” (2009). Likewise, other cultures or outside groups have a moral responsibility to intervene on behalf of the citizens of abusive governments or members of dysfunctional social structures.

Actor Functions. Each power center has actor functions by individuals, bureaucratic leaders, and masses. Every religion, government, business, and family has a founder or a very small group of organizing individuals. Therefore, the individual is the phase-one actor function. As an organization becomes established, policy and procedure becomes the ruling force as enacted by bureaucratic individuals as a phase-two actor function. The third phase of actor functions is massification. This is when individuals are no longer individuated, and the individual becomes expendable in a group organization. At this point individual needs and acknowledgement are minimized in the organization and individual actions become removed from personal and accountable thought. In this phase, only when the masses act as a unified group, will individual needs be acknowledged within the organization.

Power Keys. Power keys can be used to the harm or benefit of individuals and groups, cooperatively or competitively. Because all power forms can all be activated by economic resource allocation, money is a power key. Money itself is not a power, but how groups and individuals use money affects their power. Likewise, the control of information and ideas is a power key. The capacity to produce and distribute materials and products also affects individual and group power because it is the ability to meet human needs. The final power key is authority. General acceptance of structure (norms and laws) and leaders creates social legitimacy and gives the actors within social structures the power to function.

Influence and Force. There are three forms of power: influence, force, and withholding. Influence is the ability to shape thinking, behavior, and social development through ideas, products, distribution, and physical contact (loving or violent). Force is the coercive application of influence—the application or threat of negative consequence for non-compliance with a powerful individual or group.

Vehicles of Influence. The vehicles of influence are used to manipulate pleasure and love. They are physical contact, media, and education. People with high power status exert more influence because of their ability to persuade others by virtue of their position. By the same token, they can create status by exerting influence. Creating status or exerting influence is achieved through communication media, whether face to face and group communication, recorded audio, print, electronic media, and video. The more access a person has to the variety of media, the more extensive his influence will be. All forms of influential communication can be used to educate. Therefore, the power of media is the power to educate or distort; to inform or misinform. Non-verbal communication in the form of physical contact or activity-associated bonding increases the influence that communications and education have. From a handshake, to maternal bonding, to sexual intercourse the human need for human contact brings the power of influence to those who satisfy those needs.

Meaning. The vehicles of influence can be summarized as the power to generate meaning. How needs are defined, interpreted, and met controls human ability to satisfy needs successfully or dysfunctionally. False meanings bring false satisfaction, which creates dysfunction. There is much to be said about the social significance of meaning that is beyond the scope of this paper. I will suffice with a summary by Michael Hughes:

Evidence is presented that people experience lowered affect in some challenging and stressful situations that simultaneously generate meanings that enhance the quality of their lives, and that experiences of high affect along with impoverished meanings produce low quality of life. This strongly suggests that meaning may be a more fundamental dimension of life quality than is affect. Meanings may also enhance the quality of life by motivating people's involvement in activities that promote social integration and the quality of social relationships (2006).

Vehicles of Force. The vehicles of force manipulate pain and fear. Military and police force, or the threat of use of force is a strong means of social control. It can be useful and effective in controlling the behavior of large groups. Their presence is one of the primary ways a government fills the need for individual protection. The possession of strength or weaponry by individuals, groups, and governments increases force capacity. However, force is the power most easily abused. When force is used to suppress a group of individuals, to their harm rather than protection, a powerful group or individual is performing dysfunctionally. Fear of force is the primary use of force, as the threat of inflicting pain or death tends to minimize the need to actually inflict it. Terror is an extreme form of fear that can be used by smaller groups to gain an advantage against the superior strength of dominant groups.

Withholding. Because needs (both actual and relative/perceived) drive all human interaction, withholding from individuals and groups can be a means of exerting power as much as providing needs. As noted earlier, an individual’s ability to meet needs affects power status. Groups who prevent other groups from receiving or meeting needs are exerting dominating power.

Transition
The three schools of thought in contemporary sociology fail to acknowledge the full spectrum of human social interaction as a whole process, from the micro to the macro and from history to the future. Transitionalism seeks to understand the formation of social structures through complex interactions of individuals, families, and institutions as originating from human needs conflicts and resulting power sources, both functionally and dysfunctionally

The power of change originates with ideas in the form of ideologies, or in the form of production or products (invention) through any of the vehicles of power by any of the institutions of society. This is similar to W.F. Ogburn’s view of material and non-material culture (Schaefer 2008). All ideas and actions originate from powerful individuals. (They are powerful because of their ability to generate and implement ideas.) The workings of society which sociology tries to understand are based on dynamic conflict between competing interests and conflicting ideologies among centers of power. There are two types of transition: revolution and evolution.

Revolution is marked by punctuated conflict between the dominant group and the sub-dominant group seeking a dramatic change in a concentrated time. When the sub-dominant group becomes dominant, the punctuated conflict that polarized the groups remains intact. The lack of inter-group cohesion creates a cycle of revolution.

Evolution. Meanings change as different individuals and groups express and implement ideas. While the changes may be dramatic, the conflict is less punctuated by group-against-group interaction and a variety of subgroups adopt new meanings and applications to form new cultural norms. This is accelerated through multi-cultural amalgamation.

Transition my fail, in which case, a living culture will decay and expire. Examples of such are the Roman and Egyptian Empires. While we still have many elements of their culture in Western Civilization, they are historical in their influence and not vital (living) elements in a continuing culture. Nonetheless, cultural descendancy (genetic and cultural heritage) has a powerful impact on the formation of new societies.

Stages. There are four phases of transition: stasis, discontent, resistance and resolution, which takes one of three forms: schism, amalgamation, or extinction. Social stability is temporary. No matter how well or balanced needs are met, even in a perfect world, there will be people who would become discontent with perfection (because perfection never includes self-centered indulgence). Therefore, competing ideologies will emerge. The selfish individual will miss the connection with society and seek to create a group that believes in and supports his selfish pursuits. Because no individual wants to be a pariah, he will proselyte his resistance bringing a rebirth of deviance and conflict. Eventually the deviant culture will become so successful in its proselytizing efforts that it will become the dominant culture. If the ideas that culture promotes do not support the universal truth of balanced needs fulfillment, it will destroy itself, and the culture will become extinct.

Conclusion
While human needs in the four categories of spiritual, intellectual, physical, and emotional are universal, the power to meet and/or distort those needs and their meanings creates conflict within social structures which are formed to meet those needs. Organization consistently arises from individuals who utilize personal power to form social centers of power or institutions, which evolve bureaucratic and mass functions distinct from the individual(s) original intent. Those actor functions have the ability to perform functionally to meet needs or dysfunctionally exploit needs in imbalanced power transactions.

This paper has not elaborated the specific needs or the totality of their implications, but provides a rich field for future work that diverges from relativistic culture and narrow conflict models in sociological thought.

Freedom in Compulsory Education?

2010-11-18T06:31:00.004-06:00

Michael Goodwin, in discussing the freedom to fail, applies the issue of entitlement to education, in that high school, degrees are given to those who have not mastered basic skills. I agree that unearned diplomas devalue the currency of education as much as a government bailout does the economy, however, there is a much deeper issue here.

Education today equates standards, or sameness, with fairness and the myth of equality. All men are created equal in the eyes of God, but they all have unique traits, abilities, interests, and ambitions. To avoid philosophical contradiction we must clearly distinguish equality of opportunity from material, intellectual, or biological equality. What if somebody wants to be rich and somebody else does not? Shouldn’t they have the right to decide that for themselves?Should people have freedom to personally excel or to refuse “progress” dictated by others?

Brilliant, ambitious, resourceful, or talented people are born into every social strata. Education will benefit America best when those people are given an equal opportunity to excel to their potential. However, in the contemporary system, children are all expected to meet a singular standard, which does not challenge the gifted, while burdening the moderately capable in subjects which are minimally relevant to the variety of student interests and potential vocations. How different would education be if students were given the opportunity to achieve their own maximum potential?

If children are taught based on their interests and abilities they will be motivated to learn and be much less likely to fail. Should they be sheltered from the consequences of their decision to reject their maximum potential? Failure for the sake of failure is no noble principle, and public educators are right to do everything they can to help a student succeed, but the right to determine one’s own destiny is the heart of American freedom. If your pursuit leads to failure, you have the right to learn from it and try again. If you do not learn from your failures, you will never be able to achieve your greatest potential. The problem with the notion of failure in contemporary education is that it is labeled as an end result, not a means to learning. We must teach children to fail early and fail often, in the pursuit of success—according to their own conscientious desires for and definitions of success.

Education, like government, should be of the people, for the people, and by the people. The less our government reflects that philosophy, the less our public education system will mirror citizen independence, and the more compulsion will be required in compulsory education. Compulsion is the opposite of freedom. When governments hinder the flow of knowledge or proscribe demanding educational goals (such as standardized tests and consuming curriculum) to the general population, they restrict natural human liberty. We only need the freedom to fail if it is part of our freedom to determine our individual destiny as parents, students, and educators.

Academic Repression

2010-10-17T08:10:00.007-05:00

As a thirty-eight year-old woman I am still working to get a college degree. For many years I avoided getting a degree because I did not feel like I needed a formal school environment to learn or a piece of paper to prove--to myself or anyone else--that I was an educated person. My thoughts and attitudes are evident in a discussion I had with my sociology teacher after an impassioned posting I had written for assigned class discussion. (A form of the original posting assignment is the blog post titled Utopian Realism.) His comments sparked some of the repressed animosity I have toward academia and modern education and science practice and philosophy.

Thank you for your comments Janika. Please remember that the discipline of sociology is one of the social sciences, like history, psychology, or economics. Issues of social class are as fundamental to the discipline of sociology as the personality is to the discipline of psychology. All people have different views on these issues, but few examine them at the level of a college student. Our discussions in the class are academic, and the focus is on gaining a better understanding of the material, and is not aimed at influencing beliefs.

When you read your textbook, please notice that there is no discussion on what is "right" or "wrong." Various theories are discussed (conflict, symbolic interaction, functionalism) but none of the theories are "right or wrong." Theories simply represent the different ways we perceive the world, and our perceptions of the world will generally follow one of the theoretical perspectives. Our biases are generally formed by our world view, and one of the objectives of the class is to help students in recognizing their own theoretical perspectives, and the social forces that goes into shaping their perspective.

My response went something like this:
Thank you for your response. The way I see it, all sciences, even biology and astrophysics (a particular favorite of mine) are filled with people who have a biased belief. We are all seeking answers to questions about life and we all have specific goals in our pursuit of understanding. I will not pretend to be unbiased.

Whatever the "objective” of the class I have my own objectives for my education. My original purpose in returning to school was to study physical sciences and be a secondary school educator because I love science. Scientific method never refers to theories as "ways we perceive the world." Theories are something we are supposed to form from conclusions based on thorough testing to deem them right or wrong. However, because academia is as dogmatic as religion, and scientists are as emotionally attached to their theories as a zealot, they revise and append where they should re-orient and abandon inconclusive or incomplete theories. Re-defining the word "theory" in sociology is the ultimate example of this.

Pre-computer age sociology could not come close to rationalizing the complex equations and computations that data-based sociology requires. Because no theories could really be proven, could not really be classed as a science. Therefore, the approach you mention was appropriate to that time, but only qualified sociology as a pseudoscience. We have moved far past that. However, our entire course never required us to even read about data gathering and statistical method.

Science is the physical means of discovering universal law. I reject moral and cultural relativism. Universal truth is to be discovered by every person of every culture, and none of them have the whole of it. Studying all of them helps us uncover the pattern of foundational truth. Observing the results of personal and social behavior verifies or discredits the validity of the beliefs that undergird cultures. Strong, productive, and lasting cultures are made so because their philosophies and practices utilize some portion of universal truth (both ideological and scientific).

This, to me, is the purpose of sociology. That is nothing like anything I have read in the textbook. But it is what motivates me and makes me able to retain the quantities of knowledge that such a pursuit requires. I am not concerned about who agrees with me or how I am graded, but by sharing my ideas, I hope to open minds to non-standard perspectives and hope to find other students who challenge my perspectives with their own well-developed thinking.

As adults with significant life experience this format is for us to learn from each other as much as from our instructors. I want my fellow students to have the best quality education possible, regardless of the ascribed status of the university. We do not have to act stupid because we are getting and online education instead of a Harvard education.

You are right. Issues of social class are fundamental to our discussion here. I do not belong to the class of elite professors from prestigious universities who elevate themselves with their "peer reviewed" pompousness like the ancient priest class of middle civilization. I am a free and independent daughter of the information age. I don't care if I have a degree, but I will get one, so that, should my husband become unemployed again, I will be able to help my family, because I belong to a society that expects certain things, and I conform where I must.

Those who don't believe in absolute truth will never find it. Those who do believe at least have a chance of finding it, should it really exist. I will keep looking

I responded further to another student's reply.

My problem is not so much what we are supposed to talk about but the hidden curriculum evident in what we are NOT supposed to talk about. We read about family this week. That is the vital and fundamental unit of society, but not a single assignment in the whole course addresses it. Sociology is nothing without a firm understanding of familial impact on the greater society. If however, the importance and impact of family is minimized in education, it elevates the status of education as the fundamental unit of society and cultural cohesion. From a conflict perspective, it is about a power struggle for dominating control over the development of young minds.

And what about religion? That is another center of influence and power. If our education does not reinforce the value of religion while pointing to its own importance, it is again reinforcing its power as the central influence in our lives and minimizing religion's importance and impact on social development. The text pointed these things out, but we are not to discuss them to reinforce that learning. It is like the pundits after the State of the Union Address. We all listen to it, but then they spend two hours telling us what we heard, reinforcing the points they want us to remember, sometimes undermining (by skipping over) some of the most important statements the President was trying to make.

Knowledge is power. Who is directing the flow of information? How can we take responsibility for our own education to retain (or gain) our free and independent status?

Economic Ecosystems: Balancing Interdependant Globalization

2010-10-01T09:38:00.002-05:00

Introduction
Natural systems tend toward increasing order. I will demonstrate how human production, trade, and economy are consistent with the evolution and development of natural ecosystems and the degree of inevitability of increasing global interdependence of the human ecosystem. The dynamics of fluctuation and stabilization found in natural systems can also be applied to patterns of human economy and social developent. This is because man is a part of nature and subject to its laws.

Historically, primitive human thought, production, and economy has been viewed as fundamentally different from current motives and modes. Because of this Heath Pearson (2007) states that anthropology, psychology, and economics which were once part of the same field of study have become totally disparate fields, “creating a discursive vacuum within which Homo paleoeconomicus [the anthropological primitive man with little real sense of capitalistic awareness] has proliferated without contest.”

General System Theory (GST), on the other hand, provides the hope of a common foundation upon which all sciences can build for a more throrough understanding of the processes which lead to the evolutionary development of social and economic systems. GST was first outlined by Ludwig von Bertalanffy (1969). “There are systems of equations describing the competition of animal and plant species in nature. But it appears that the same systems of equations apply in certain fields in physical chemistry and in economics as well” (p.33).

I will discuss how human economic systems limit themselves through competition while expanding through cooperation allowing for growth and increased complexity

Competing Forces and the Balance of Power
Just as ecosystems experience dynamic equilibrium in predator-prey populations, historical capitalist economy experiences fluctuations in supply and demand. However, pre-industrial theorists could not have concieved the power of human innovation in production and distribution to alter naturistic and economic eco-systems. It was not until cybernetics and information technology began to be studied that we understood the power of networks and the teleology of natrural systems; that systems could “learn” and had “purpose;” that the end was greater than the sum of its parts; that despite the appearance of randomness, systems tend to increase order (Bertalanffy).

However, the process of increasing order (meaning structure, law, and peaceful cooperation) in civilization, economic development, and politics is nothing like straight-line progression. There are cyclic paterns of accelerated growth, stasis, decline, and dormancy, or even system death which fertilizes the birth of new systems as evidenced by the rise and death of Roman, Egyptian, Mayan, and similarly once great empires and kingdoms, of which only vestiges remain. Yet the monuments of their existence inspire contemporary cultures to build on rediscovered knowledge.

One of the dynamic agents of these cultural cycles is resistance. The strength of one force in an ecosystem generates an equal and opposite reaction. In socio-political contexts the primary resistors are man versus nature, man versus man, and man versus self.

Man v. Wild
The impact of humanity on naturistic ecosystems and global environments is evident even from upper-atmospheric orbit. Though much is said about the negativity of this impact. Few are bold enough to assert that man is an evolved part of nature, endowed by nature with the capacity to utilize and improve upon natural systems. There is a tendency among humans to exploit, deplete, and pollute naturistic systems in adverse ways. Plant and animal populations may even become extinct. However, we must be wise and note that nature has the power to balance these extremes. In fact nature itself has wiped out populations and caused extinctions. Even the tragedy of massive cataclysms such as tsunamis and earthquakes operate to refresh human and animal population.

Another balancing feature of Nature is the natural human endowment of observation and conscience. Humans have evolved to become aware of negative impacts and take corrective action. Buffalo populations nearly wiped out by nineteeth century hunting was recognized and limited by conscientious humans to the point that there are, again, massive herds of wild as well as domesticated bison.

But is man versus wild a zero-sum game where one's gains are another's loss? Is human use of natural resources inherently negative? Or is there a symbiotic flow of needs and fulfillment among humans and nature? I will discuss cooperation and expansion with more detail in a later section.

Man v. Man
Man versus man dynamics are the focus of those with realist perspectives. It can also be defined as idea versus idea. War for the sake of war does not occur within society. Even bar room spats among individuals are not without an initiating ideological conflict. Carl von Clausewitz proposed that “war was merely one means states might employ to achieve objectives set by political authorities” (Viotti 2007 p.166). He acknowledged that military capabilities were multiplied by moral factors—a nation's motivating belief in the justice of their cause, hence their will to act upon it.

The competing interests of diverse states which realists note to be the source of power conflicts are balanced by interdependence among those same states for trade, security, and resources. The extending reach of trade and communication networks is an expanding global ecosystem which has increased that interdependence over the last century. But is there an inevitability to this expansion?

Judith Simmer-Brown (2000) asserts that even modern consumerism in a global economy is not inevitable and can be moderated by better understanding the causal relationships between government subsidy, “market demands,” and corporate prowess then understanding individual responsibility to be prudent consumers.

To say that global markets have nothing to do but expand and increase international power and influence is to reject history as a teacher. Corporate and governmental control of global markets which tend to manipulate conditions and control consumer activities (for consumer “benefit and safety” or not) face increasing consumer resistance with increased power. As seen in past revolutions, individual powerlessness gives way to collaboration among individuals who become a collective resistance movement. The cycle continues as the resistance movement becomes the dominant power, and can eventually become the oppressor to be resisted, kept in check, or overthrown.

As stated earlier, even failed systems can become the fertilizer for new systems which increase order in larger systems. For example, the expanding power and threat of Nazi Germany was the catalyst for worldwide war. It was defeated and that system failed. But Hitler's catastrophe (and immorality) increased human awareness of the need to protect against such destructive powers and philosophies. International security collaborations became standard among powerful nations. Rules of engagement were refined, and preventive measures taken for future security. Thusly, international order increased.

Man v. Self
It is important to note that all systems are made up of individuals, and that there is conflict even within the singular human being. Psychosocial needs may be in conflict with physiological needs. Spiritual needs to act in good conscience conflict with physical satisfaction at the expense of others. (For further discussion on individual human needs and interests, please see the post titled Human Happiness.)

One individual may seek to subject others to his will according to the satisfaction of his ego. Another individual may motivate others to reach for a higher standard of living to improve a community. The global powers which exist are manifestations of individual actions proselyted and submitted to. If no individual chose ego over conscience; to manipulate and subject his fellow beings to his authority for selfish gains, global power structures would be quite different. Because the inner-struggle exists, however, individuals must band together to create shared standards out of self-preservation to regulate the exercise of individual self-interest.

Cooperation and Expansion
The struggle for survival, power, and independence, however, is not the sum of human experience. Just as ideas are a source of conflict, they are key in maximizing the functions of our socioeconomic system. Classical idealism emphasizes natural law as binding upon and applicable to all humanity. The quest to discover those natural laws and culturally codify them has led to progress in Human rights agreement and defining standards within the international community.

Unlimited Resources
The observation of technological and informational explosion in the nineteeth and twentieth centuries lead Paul Zane Pilzer (1990) to conclude that technology controls both the definition and the supply of physical resources. Human ingenuity is the natural resource. All the materials are of little worth until we make something of them. When it becomes scarce, we find a way to transport from where it is not scarce, we find a way (or better way) to manufacture it, or we find a substitute.

In this way, humanity can become a creative partner with nature in the evolution of ecosystems or it can be a destroyer. At the very least, we are armed with the idea that whatever the human condition, we have the power to change perspectives and solve the problems that would seem to threaten our continued existence

Isolationist Utopia(s)
Now we return again to our question about the inevitability of global interdependence. We have increasing interaction, exchange of ideas and goods with people and companies who would have been out of reach just a few short years ago. But does the ability to interact imply a requirement to interact? I would say, no indeed. It is possible to have a primarily self-reliant ecosystem contained within a relatively small boundary. The diversity of human belief, preference, and social goals, in fact, lends itself to localized communities or collaborations (to include non-local internet or religious belief systems). People gravitate towards like-minded associates. Historically they are like-minded because of tribal-familial commonalities. But today we can create communities on Facebook and followings on YouTube where we can participate in or even generate a niche culture.

It is imperative to remember that the human mind cannot be forced. The only effect is resistance. Therefore, the paramount need of human society is to allow free intellectual intercourse among individuals and the right to associate with like-minded people. Within their pocket communities they can discover the ideas which lead to peace, prosperity (in whatever definition they value) and determine the actions which will help to maintain that peace within their community. As long as belonging to that community is voluntary, if there are social laws that a person subscribe to a certain set of beliefs, the laws are just. Anyone who wishes not to associate with that group has the freedom to disassociate. In our global mobility, we are free to seek a new community. Those communities allow us to establish Zion in our own image. Being banished does not carry the same weight it did in less mobile times.

Globalization, being the spread of capitalist consumerism, is marked by each generation redefining its adolescent image then carrying it through the generation as part of a new cultural standard. Just as American baby boomer youth were defined by the inception of pop culture, the trend continues today among youth in India as described by Ritty Lukose (2005) consumes traditional Indian culture. *On the other hand, I have had many associates (some of my faith, and many of other faiths) who, because of religious conviction chose to abstain from modern American culture, whether by refusing to own a television or by refusing to allow their children to be indoctrinated by secular education. Many of those people have also rejected fashions and trends that are viewed as immodest and have chosen instead to manufacture their own clothing. Others have chosen to grow and preserve significant quantities of their own food. Because it is increasingly common and easy to purchase all the necessities of life and want significantly more than necessary from all quarters of the globe, does not mean that it is the only way.

Though such a statement may seem to promote primitive lifestyles, unlike cultural anthropologists who tend to romanticize primitive cultures and wish to preserve them, I see future cultural diversity as being a result of diverging convictions solidifying group associations. We simply have more options.

Scott Shershow questioned the competing romanticism and cynicism of globalization. If “a culture is already an adaptation, won't it continue to adapt? How can these local cultures be, on the one hand, seamless, pristine, and fragile and, on the other hand, the vital product of cultural cross-pollination?” (Shershow 2001). This is the “inevitability” of ecological evolution. Cultres will simply change and adapt over time. We have no idea what those changes will be, how or when they will manifest, or what triggers will motivate those changes. (For further discussion see the post titled Utopian Realism.)

Conclusion
Opposing forces of nature and human economy help to maintain a dynamic balance between predatory or powerful nations in cycles. These cycles tend toward increased order in socioeconomic systems. However, this increase in order must be taken over the long-view, understanding that particular ecosystems can fail but that the failures may contribute to the success of other systems which are better evolved.

However the most powerful force is not competition, but the power of ideas to unite groups. Localized power helps to maintain safety and protection from governments, which tend to increase in size and power without a significant system of checks and balances. If a state does not interfere with belief systems and beneficial practices and assembly, mini-cultures can create little pockets of utopia.

Globalization is a powerful force, and may seem inevitable, but it is no manifest destiny

Cultural Engineering: The Rise and Demise of Stable Governments

2010-10-01T08:25:00.003-05:00

Introduction
Living in an unavoidably global, capitalist economy, nations are having to come to terms with how to adjust their economies, cultures, and government structures in a way that will make them successful at home and competitive abroad. The success and stability of national governments in the past have been concurrent with a national, unifying, cultural identity. However, when that culture becomes over-defined and inflexible (proud), or on the opposite side, try to appeal too broadly to disparate factions it will not be able to keep up with modernization and effective governance. Thus, it will eventually decay. I will explore the historical patterns of how the world developed with the hope of finding a key to helping developing nations have a culture of successful governance.

There seem to have been many methods of governance, which have resulted in economically and socially successful nations. Is there an underlying pattern and how can that pattern be used to help developing nations become successful. While western governments are founded on liberal democracy, individual rights, and free trade, nations like Japan and China provide evidence that such are not inextricably entwined with successful economy and stable government.

Child Development Theory of Nations
There is no such thing as cultural relativism. What is wrong for one nation is wrong for another. Like successful families, there are certain ways to do it that provide a solid emotional and socioeconomic background for the citizens. Nations, like children, are profoundly influenced by the experiences of their early development. Personalities and patterns of behavior become ingrained which can become very difficult obstacles to overcome in developing into a successful nation on the world stage.

Multiple studies conclude that maltreatment of children creates deleterious long-term effects on the children, thus impacting society as they mature (e.g. Maschi et al.). I propose that individuals and families are the constituents of nations and governments. Therefore, study of the patterns and practices we see in families can be applied to governments for increased perspective on healthy and unhealthy child and national development. For the purpose of this paper, parent is equivalent to government and child is equivalent to citizen. Please note that the metaphor I am applying is not that people of a nation are children, but that developing nations follow a pattern of development much like the stages of childhood, and in most cases the pattern is of a dysfunctional family.

An infinite array of parenting styles are capable of producing successful, or at least productive adults. Styles of parenting become an integral part of a cohesive family culture. Likewise, distinctive styles of governance provide a foundation for a distinctive national culture. In my reading of Roskin’s Countries and Concepts, especially in the Patterns of Interaction sections, the lesson that stood out most to me was the distinctive and lasting the impact of the past on nations. So while there is no such thing as cultural relativism, there is a value to cultural diversity, and there is more than one right way to rule a nation.

Universal wrongs, on the other hand, parallel with child maltreatment, which refers to neglect as well as physical, psychological, and sexual abuse. In many third world and developing nations, governmental maltreatment of citizens parallels these categories in the form of inadequate government structure, economic exploitation, civil rights abuse, and government domination of relatively helpless citizens, respectively.

Children who are victims of maltreatment spend a lifetime trying to overcome the negative effects and rarely develop their full potential. Exceptions are the result of intervention from outside the family. Germany and Japan received such intervention after World War II. American troops and civil officers occupied those nations to oversee the post-war rebuilding of defeated governments and economies. They became some of the world’s greatest success stories.

Germany was dramatically overhauled, as the previous leaders were excluded from government. They were able to synthesize the democratic principles that were being forced upon them with a proud historical culture to create a system that was uniquely their own. Japan had even more leeway to create a government in their own image because they had not committed the same level of atrocities that German leaders had. The result was an explosion of Japanese culture and progress. It was empowered to rewrite its history and create its future.

It remains to be seen how the U.S. intervention in Iraq will play, but it seems now that the people have gotten a taste of democracy they are not likely to relinquish it. However, they still lack the government structure so critical to young nations’ development and which makes democracy functional. These things take time.

Limitations and Liberties of Governments
Many questions remain. How much power should government have? What is a comfortable economic level of human subsistence? Are cultural leaders (religious, political, and economic) responsible to set baseline subsistence standards or should people have freedom to excel above others or refuse “progress” dictated by others? Are industrial and technological development even necessary? These questions must be answered by individual countries, according to the dictates of their conscience, so long as they avoid inadequate government structure, economic exploitation, civil rights abuse, and government domination of relatively helpless citizens. Tina Maschi and her colleagues drew the correlation between universal human rights established by the United Nations and their application to children. “Social work prevention and intervention strategies should actively address post-trauma emotional, behavioral, and social residue that has been consistently shown to negatively affect youths and their families and communities” (2009). Likewise, other nations have a moral responsibility to intervene on behalf of the citizens of abusive governments. I do not believe in socialized parenting or in globalized governance. We cannot simply take a child away from its parents because we think they are bad parents. There is legal procedure that must be followed and evidence that must be gathered. Then social workers must teach parents effective and loving parenting strategies. Likewise, we do not have an unequivocal right to step in and take over a failing government. Then the goal is not to control that government, but to teach it how to become a successful government with its own unique style.

Non-Western Development
In my Cultural Anthropology class I was critical of romanticizing historical cultures of indigenous peoples that prohibited them from modernizing on their own terms and creating a current culture that was still uniquely theirs. Scott Sheershow posited if “a culture is already an adaptation, won't it continue to adapt? How can these local cultures be, on the one hand, seamless, pristine, and fragile and, on the other hand, the vital product of cultural cross-pollination?” (Shershow 2001).

In my global socioeconomic perspectives class I was critical of the assumption that globalization of economy and internationalizing government was inevitable or to be aspired to. Judith Simmer-Brown (2000) asserts that even modern consumerism in a global economy is not inevitable and can be moderated by better understanding the causal relationships between government subsidy and corporate prowess then understanding individual responsibility to be prudent consumers.

So, is there a middle ground between the expansion of government in a global society and some sort of tribal pastoralism? Can Muslim nations, for example, preserve their religious and cultural identity and still be a vital and modern nation?

They must separate individualistic freedom from progress, culture from modernization, and liberalism from democracy, following the path of Japan and China in non-western modernization. In Japan, individual rights are valued in the context of the good of society and not as an entity themselves. Ann Waswo described Japanese tradition as a modern invention. “Cooperativism” was the center of that invention “in which the individual placed the welfare of the whole above his own selfish interests…would be a uniquely Asian spirit, untainted by the evils of capitalism or the insidious doctrine of individualism” (1989).

China is still has a way to go toward becoming a “good parent” but their actions in recent decades have shown that they understand that there is some advantage to allowing some freedom and responsibility to its citizens in the form of economic openness. Ken Miller expressed concern over China’s growing power in the world market, but also noted that its potential to abuse its power is tempered by its self-interest in continued economic success. At this point, Most of Chinas FDI comes from state-owned enterprises. Although individual businesses are increasingly taking the initiative, all large investments are still coordinated by government institutions…Virtually all overseas investment by Chinese companies requires some level of state approval” (July/Aug 2010).

That should be a boon to authoritarian Middle East leaders, to know that they, like Chinese leaders, can still own the bulk of their economies while allowing the people to use their wisdom to direct their own affairs and increase their personal well-being to the benefit of the national economy. And like Japanese cultures, they can use technology to invent their own traditional modern culture. Such distinctions could still allow the people of Muslim nations a level of freedom and prosperity they do not now enjoy. Of course the inhibiting factor for the leaders is an at least sub-conscious understanding that “children” who are given a little freedom and responsibility become anxious to move out from under their “parent’s” control. Hence, we see the pattern of democracy following economic prosperity.

No one has executed a perfect form of government. Those who have come close have not been able to maintain it. Because of the cyclic nature of national cultures, no success is permanent. Nonetheless, the most successful and lasting governments are those who separate, political powers as well as financial and religious powers, from the fundamental operation of the government to minimize (or at least compartmentalize) ever-present corruption

The Empire Cycle
"Western” governments are children of Greek and Roman culture. While those empires no longer exist, they laid a philosophical groundwork for succeeding nations to adopt and adapt. The process of increasing structure, law, and peaceful cooperation in civilization, economic development, and politics is nothing like straight-line progression. There are cyclic paterns of accelerated growth, stasis, decline, and dormancy, or even death. Like Roman and Greek culture, Egyptian, Mayan, Persian and other once great empires and kingdoms inspire contemporary cultures to build on knowledge lost and rediscovered.

Likewise, the human life cycle parallels the pattern of nations. Each empire represents a generation that is born, matures, reproduces, (through conquest and colonial expansion) and then withdraws and decays. The United Kingdom represents an aging empire whose nation continues to exist but whose strength and vitality is in decay. Perhaps it will be replaced by the Empire of the European Union. The United States represents an empire at the back side of its peak. As it tries to be too many things to too many people, it will begin to lose (is beginning to lose?) its cultural identity and, hence, its national vitality.

Other empires are smaller Reichs, which come and go with repeating cycles of coup and rebellion. Their instability is the model of child development and maltreatment where the abused become the abusers previously described

Conclusion
While there are absolute standards which all governments must be expected to uphold, Western and American style governments present only one possibility for how to govern and create a national culture. When anti-western and developing nations separate progress from westernization they will be able to overcome reluctance to embrace change and become successful in their own national homes

Utopian Realism

2010-08-15T07:59:00.005-05:00

Imagine a society in which there are no social classes- no differences in people’s wealth, income, and life chances. What would such a society be like? Would it be stable or would its social structure change over time? How could you apply Max Weber’s theory to this scenario?

The question posits the potential reality of a utopian society. Utopia has existed in pocket communities through the history of the world. Such have been primarily short-lived because of dynamic interactions among individuals and and social influence. However, there is a pattern of success that can be discerned and replicated. The fundamental principles of a successful utopian society are: 1. It must be a small, isolationist community 2. It must have a strong spiritual and philosophical motivation to promote the well-being of all of its members. 3. It must be voluntary. 4. The community must have the authority to expel members who do not adhere to its tenets. 5. It must have a power-balancing structure such as council or consensus governance.

There is a society with no difference in wealth, income, or life chances. They can be observed in pocket communities throughout the eastern United States. They are Amish communities. Every person must labor for their sustenance without the advantage of technology, minimizing the haves and the have not’s. These communities have remained mostly unchanged for over 200 years. They avoid the inevitable human conflict by remaining isolated communities who see themselves as a cohesive group separate from the “outsiders.” The conflict is between “us” and them as they ever struggle to remain aloof from the encroaching “them” of commercialism and godless technology. So the first key to utopia is isolated cohesiveness.

The only successful utopian or semi-utopian societies have been religiously based on a belief that there is a divine being who esteems mankind with no respect of persons and who requires goodly actions that promote the welfare of those divinely created beings. Those who do will be sanctioned with temporal and eternal rewards. So the second principle of utopia is that it must be founded on a strong religious belief.

There was an early American experiment called the “United Order” in early Mormon communities where everyone was given equal plots of land and freedom to choose vocation. Then all of the goods and profits were voluntarily given to the bishop who oversaw the distribution of these goods (not being allowed to take any for himself) by inspiration according to the needs of families in the community. The order was short-lived but the legacy remains in the Church Welfare Program supported by voluntary member (and non-member) contributions called fast offerings which allow distressed families to shop at the “Bishop’s Storehouse” for basic food and hygienic necessities while they get back on their feet.

So the third principle of utopia is that it must be voluntary. Anybody has the right to leave the community, and should the community fail to meet its goals it must not try to coerce its members into compliance, leading to the fourth principle that the only punitive power that community truly has to preserve itself is to expel those who refuse to comply. This is not possible or enforceable in a national government (it has a hard enough time with immigration, let alone regulating who is allowed to live here based on the consistency of their beliefs and practices.

We know that Marxist-Leninist communism, which operates under coercion and brutality “for the benefit of society,” utterly fails to equalize classes, as the ruling class uses its power to enrich itself and afflict underlings because corruption is inherent in power, creating a cycle of coups and revolutions where the brutalized become the brutalizers. Principle 5, therefore, is: a utopian community must be established and ruled by consensus to avoid the concentration of power and potential abuse.*Because utopia begins with a belief, a community of people must live in a nation where the people have freedom to proselyte their belief and hope of a better world. Those who agree must have the right to gather together, whether in non-local and internet based or a separatist commune.

In studying the various sociological perspectives I find that I relate to them only minimally. I am developing my own perspective which I will call transitionalist. The overarching principle of social studies is change over time. The interactionist perspective is about meanings and purpose among cultures. Conflict theory is about the struggle between the haves and the have not’s. Functionalists focus on institutions and structures. The transitionalist theory (I’m making this up as I go) posits that various groups give meanings and have purposes for creating institutions and structures which sub-groups try to undermine with different meanings and purposes until they become the dominant group, making society and its structures ever-changing and dynamic. From this perspective, Max Weber’s view of multidimensional stratification provides important distinctions about class, status group, and power.

Universal truth is to be discovered by every person of every culture, and none of them have the whole of it. Studying all of them helps us uncover the pattern of foundational truth. Observing the results of personal and social behavior verifies or discredits the validity of the beliefs that undergird cultures.

This, to me, is the purpose of sociology. That is nothing like anything I have read in a textbook. But it is what motivates me and makes me able to retain the quantities of knowledge that such a pursuit requires. The cultures which are not founded on true principles will fail much quicker than those have found a portion of universal truth. The decay of such societies can be traced to changing belief and deviance from the principles that were once valued and made utopia possible. This happens because the rising generation will often resist the utopia they live in.

Those who don't believe in absolute truth will never find it. Those who do believe at least have a chance of finding it, should it really exist. I prefer the comfort of absolute truth. I reject moral and cultural relativism. Create your own culture. Be true to your beliefs. Start in your own home. The success of that culture's ability to grow without conflict and self-sustaining, long-term success will help find the underlying reasons for that success and verify or refute the validity of the principles that make the society cohesive.

Human Happiness

2009-11-04T21:48:00.003-06:00

Lying to oneself damages the integrity of the whole self. Individuals can successfully navigate the complexity of life’s competing “values” through careful attention to the presence of harmony or conflict and contradiction among the four branches of self: intellectual, spiritual, emotional, and physical. Utilizing these checks and balances in the context of the whole self within the greater whole of society and environment opens the door to universal truth.

What is Integrity?
Integrity is “an undivided or unbroken completeness” and “moral soundness” (Word Net Web). The individual has four areas of need: spiritual need to connect to something higher than self, intellectual need to understand self and environment, physical needs of protection, sustenance, and procreation, and the emotional need to love and be loved.

To achieve an unbroken completeness of self all these needs must be met without contradicting each other. The way to determine moral soundness is to honestly note conflicting need satisfaction. Physical desires toward self-gratification are often in conflict with spiritual needs to help others and commune with a higher power. Physical desires must be kept in check with an understanding of genuine physical necessity (as opposed to want or desire) to achieve balance.

Convincingly lying to oneself requires complex alterations of belief patterns, intellectual justification or exception, behavioral masking, and emotional suppression or exaggeration to the hurt of the whole self. Maintaining integrity, on the other hand, requires emotional, spiritual, and intellectual honesty in the context of physical necessity. Integrity is the key to true happiness and satisfaction.

Affirmation of Truth
Integrity includes a commitment to discovering universal truth; not only acting to the best of your knowledge, but increasing your knowledge so you can become your best. Acknowledging the possibility of the existence of universal truth is the beginning of that quest. Evaluating knowledge, sources, and people then experimenting on the information or conclusions affirms truth.

Experimentation must include the whole self. First intellectual study and reason must be applied. Then revelation through meditation and/or prayer must spiritually be sought from the author of universal truth (God, the Universe itself, whatever). Then when all other tests have passed, physical action must be observed and evaluated for the value of its consequences. When done in this order, error and harm are minimized. This method fulfils Hume’s concept (1854) of Utility. He states, “The utility resulting from the social virtues forms, at least, a part of [human] merit” and is one source of universal approbation and regard. “Concerning the bounds of duty, the question cannot, by any means, be decided with greater certainty than by ascertaining, on any side, the true interests of mankind."

However, utility is not the sole determinant. “Reason and sentiment concur in almost all determinations and conclusions”…That which renders morality an active principle with virtue as happiness and vice as misery “depends on some internal sense or feeling which nature has made universal in the whole species.” Hume asserts, however, that discernment of sentiment is enhanced by reason.

further assert that revelation is the spiritual manifestation of truth via internal sensory experience, such as feelings of profound peace, bursts of intelligence, excited resolution, or a humble sense of conviction. These experiences are often described in terms of sentiment and emotion. However, they are distinct from human emotion in that they originate outside of self and can most accurately be called sensibilities of conscience.

Honesty is Necessary and Paramount
These sensibilities are universal to the human species, but are easily altered by rationalization and self-centered gratification. For this reason truth is only acquired by acknowledging sensibilities of conscience with integrity.

There can be no success in reconciling disparate needs and desires within self or within community and ecology without a willingness to admit wrongdoing and a desire to change negative character traits or actions. Shawn Floyd noted this difficulty in discussion of Aquinas’ moral philosophy (2006).

"Poor upbringing and the prejudices of society can further undermine a proper view of what human fulfillment consists in. Whether we can make competent judgments about what will contribute to our proper fulfillment depends on whether we have the requisite intellectual and moral virtues. Without those virtues, our intellectual and moral deficiencies will forestall our rational perfection and the attainment of our final end."

The discomfort of change and the stinging admission of error prevent many from honest self-evaluation. Rather than achieve genuine happiness, it is common among humans to simply seek temporary relief from discomfort through avoidance (via substance use, seeking pleasure, busy but empty ambition, manipulating or persuading others to share altered view of wrongdoing, etc).

The Greater Whole
Satisfying spiritual, emotional, and intellectual needs connects us to the world outside of self. When you focus on self-gratification you do not give others within your influence or responsibility the emotional concern they need. They become resistant to or resentful of giving you the concern which you need. Relationships contract, increasing self-centeredness. Now, two parts of the whole are damaged. Conversely, when you give constant material, emotional, and intellectual support to others without giving essential sustenance to self you minimize personal capacity for continued support of others. For example, one who has not acquired knowledge cannot teach. One cannot give what one does not have.

Beyond individual needs, there are ecological and societal needs. Ecological needs are prudent usage, cyclic change, and restoration when necessary. Humans are an integral part of nature with the power to dramatically change it and utilize it. We have an intellectual need to understand the elements and processes of nature. This knowledge not only allow us to more effectively utilize those elements and processes for our physical benefit (food, clothing, shelter, etc.) but it also gives the satisfaction of knowledge and understanding for its own sake. Prudent usage allows continued study and preservation for further use. Nature operates on cyclic change. When humans damage those natural cycles and balances it is necessary to restore them to the best of our human ability. Otherwise, we inhibit nature’s ability to provide us with resources to meet our needs. Systemic interdependence requires wholeness.

Societal needs are to pool information, skills, and labor for increased effectiveness within the system and establish order for the protection and sustenance of the whole. Society must mediate between self and nature to ethically balance usage of human and natural resources. All of these elements constitute the whole.

Hierarchy of Wholeness
Human dignity is paramount in all ethical decisions. Integrity requires that one individual recognize his own value as being equal to the value of all other human beings. To minimize the value of others is to minimize the value of self. Therefore one standard should be able to be applied to all people. This is an expression of Kant’s (1785) assertion that the way to judge moral issues via categorical imperative is to “act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law” and secondly to “Act that you use humanity [self or others]…always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means.” These two rules preserve human dignity and establish priorities. Kant discussed man’s tendency to make exception to absolute law. To act in integrity is to minimize exception. This increases the likelihood of non-contradicting satisfaction.

Wholeness requires that if one part is harmed, the whole is harmed. If one part is causing harm it must be suppressed for the benefit of the whole. Those acts which simultaneously improve happiness for self, others, and harmony with natural laws and entities are imperative. Contradictions must be resolved in the context of a prioritized whole.

Harmonizing Truth Via Freedom
There are pitfalls of human error when people are given freedom to test and explore the world of truth and morality. However, it is essential for people to have the opportunity to make and learn from those mistakes because the path to eternal, unchanging truth is uniquely personal. The “enlightened” cannot transfer their experience to others. They can only share wisdom and insight hoping to inspire others onto the path of discovery. But even those who follow a particular “prophet” will learn bits of truth in different ways from those they follow.

Finding truth is a process of progressive discovery. Only by free and open discussion and association with other people can varying threads of the tapestry be woven together in the beautiful and intricate work which is all things true.

As stated the moral code is universal and can be discovered by all. Differences occur because clear standards and methods of discovery have not been widely distributed and are countered by contrary philosophies. However, differences in moral perspective must be resolved on an individual basis by free discourse and exercise of conscience. Coercion contradicts unity. Ethical progress will be slow, but possible as those with differing ethical standards are allowed to share analysis and reasoning with the goal of understanding absolute truth. Cultural contradiction must be resolved by individual conscience through free association with religions, organizations, and schools of thought. There must also be freedom to share and disseminate information and ideals. Ideological conflicts are likely to exist in perpetuity. However, it is in the common ground across all cultures and religions that we can be confident that we have found something universal and worth holding on to throughout the generations. Unfortunately for human peace, each new generation must renew the discovery process and make their own mistakes. Such is, however necessary. Good parents and teachers are the only hope, but provide no guarantee.

Conclusion

Wholeness of personal being in the context of interdependent environmental constituents is integrity. Only by honestly evaluating those relationships of personal need can we balance and subject desires to the greatest good. The greatest good is our complete satisfaction and happiness in this life within our associations and amongst our surroundings, as well as within ourselves. It may well be that the achievement of this balance will secure divine approbation, earning post-mortal rewards. If not, we will still attain peace and satisfaction in this life, which may be reward enough. The rest is delicious gravy.

References

Floyd, Shawn (May 23, 2006) Thomas Aquinas: Moral Philosophy. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://www.iep.utm.edu/aq-moral/#H4

Hume, David (1854). Of the General Principles of Morals. The Philosophical Works of David Hume 229-335. Little Brown and Company 1854: Boston.

, Immanuel (1785) Fundamentals of the Metaphysics of Morals. Translated by T.K. Abbott.

Stewardship in the Environment

2009-10-15T11:52:00.003-05:00

This post is a response to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Environmental Ethics entry and an assignment for my Ethics and Social Responsibility class.

I am deeply disturbed by the ten0 dency of environmental ethics discussion to center around anti-humanism and narrow stereotypes of Christianity. In rational arguments these tenets do not hold up to a realistic view of the relationship between man and nature and the influence of theology in that relationship. We must first understand that environmental ethics is the study and discussion of man’s proper behavior in relation to nature. Therefore, by definition, environmental ethics must be anthropocentric. Then we must recognize that from both anti-theistic evolution and theistic-religious perspectives that man is a part of nature. Man has a responsibility as a conscientious, highly-evolved being, and/or as God’s designated stewards to improve and preserve nature for nature and for self. There is no need to devalue humanity to save the wild. Nor is it necessary to assign human significance to plants and animals.

Anthropocentric by Definition

Environmental ethics is the study of man’s proper behavior in relation to nature. The ultimate conclusions that must be reached by decentralizing human responsibility in ethics are that either 1. Man is insignificant and has no moral environmental responsibility (hardly an ethical philosophy) or 2. Nature is more important than man and his only responsibility is to limit human experience for the good of nature.

However, the reality is that humans are a significant part of the whole ecology with a level of agency which empowers environmental change which is not possessed by other species. To quote Peter Parker’s uncle, “with great power comes great responsibility.” However, because we are not an all-knowing part of the whole, we are as likely to harm nature in our attempt to preserve or improve it as we are to help it. Therefore, any drastic measures by the extremely powerful, but highly ignorant humans (yes, even the intellectuals and researchers) is risky and unadvisable.

Nonetheless it is our obligation to be responsible stewards of earth and its resources for utilitarian reasons (our own survival and that of our descendants) and because it is our duty as the sole conscientious actors in our global eco-system and because the value of prudence is morally imperative for every human regardless of individual status, global population, or economic benefit. As Douglas Woodhams (2009) noted, species conservation is “important not only from for utilitarian and human-centered benefits, but also for innate and theocentric values that integrate biological understanding with conviction in the moral virtue of biodiversity conservation."

Stewards by Divine Design

According to Judeo-Christian theology, when God created Adam and Eve he gave them the commandment to “Dress this garden. Take good care of it” (oral tradition). Eve was the “mother of all living” in the command to “multiply and replenish the earth,” meaning to make use of its resources and renew them. There is no scriptural example where God condones extortion and overuse of earth’s resources. However, there have been scriptural instances where people who did not honor their stewardship were condemned (see the parable of the talents: Luke 19:11-27). As God’s creation, we have the responsibility to the rest of his creation to honor his work and serve his purposes, which includes the preservation and care of those creations, from our human neighbors to our city water supply according to the demands of our divine conscience.

Stewards by Natural Selection

According to evolutionary theory, humans have generally evolved from hunter-gatherer societies to agrarian economies because nature does not readily provide for growing populations. (I discuss population control alternatives later.) Humans are capable of producing the food they need instead of relying wholly on nature, according to evolutionary theory, by the natural process of selection based on survival of the fittest. If the evolutionary process created such ordered thinking as humans possess, then it has generated the capacity to make controlled changes with no specific purpose other than survival in the context of the global ecology. Natural selection does not support stasis but change over time. Therefore, it is human responsibility to guide that change over time to the benefit of the whole.

Negative Consequences of Anti-Anthropocentrism

Any attempt to minimize human importance in the environment leads to very unethical philosophy which minimizes the importance of man and justifies genocide to save the planet. Follow with me some critical flaws of non-anthropocentric environmentalism. Paul Ehrlich’s 1968 book “The Population Bomb” gave popular rise to the idea that limiting human population was necessary to sustaining a healthy planet. Is it a coincidence or consequence that four years later Rowe v. Wade established abortion as a legal method of population control?

The hypocrisy of the liberal platform is that all living humans are entitled to life-saving health care to extend their time on earth and continue to “deplete” its resources and/or exploit nature for remedies to their ailments instead of being allowed to die. Further, war is seen as an ultimate evil, when it has the potential to successfully reduce human population. War on the unborn is concluded to be the most ethical method of population control.

Is it any wonder that homosexual union, which has no power of procreation is avidly supported in this group. Homosexuality, if the philosophy is thought through thoroughly is a moral imperative second to the higher good of committing suicide. We cannot ethically call for the extermination of populations, but we can take personal responsibility for our own actions. The best way to reduce our own carbon footprint is to rot in a box. The misanthropy and self-loathing that the philosophy engenders certainly does not promote ethical behavior which promotes the well-being of self or mankind.

Orrin Judd reviewed Ehrlich’s book (2000) and concluded that “Ehrlich’s thesis, like creationism, is impervious to scientific evidence because it is based, not on science, but on faith. He and many on the Left simply prefer the environment to man and want there to be less people.” Judd notes that, though population growth spurts and slows, human ingenuity manages to develop methods and technologies which promote human sustainability. He also points out that 40 years after the publication of his book Ehrlich is still alive and depleting resources suggesting that he believes he deserves to be one of his proposed one-billion people who should be on earth, or he does not take his own thesis seriously.

Note on Exploitation

Christianity is often blamed for exploitative philosophy which damages the environment and promotes sexism and racism (Stanford 2008). However, if we examine more thoroughly, we will see that regardless of the philosophical origin, man has a tendency to exploit nature and humanity for personal gain. According to Ben Stein (2008) Hitler’s views were rooted in secular Marxism and evolutionary elitism. He thought he had an obligation to eliminate from the world the “weaker” human elements to advance the evolution of mankind. Also it is interesting that Christianity is blamed for the oppression of women. Yet since the rise of the “feminist movement,” society has become increasingly tolerant of the sexual exploitation of women. Although often flawed in practice, Christian doctrine regarding women is one of interdependent stewardship. The man cares for the woman who gives birth to the man whom she nourishes and cares for. The way traditional Christian values are misrepresented and over-generalized is irresponsible in intellectual discussion. Because they have been used by men to exploit does not mean that the foundational premise is bad, only that, as was also true in the case of Hitler, a partially valid philosophy can be distorted for power and gain when the general public is less than thorough in their ethical evaluations. Again from Woodhams, “Rather than disregard faith-based values, the science community would be wise to embrace an integrated discussion and contribute to healing an epistemological rift.” Stewardship is the key to that integration.

Conclusion

Humans, as a powerful element of nature, have the responsibility to exert their natural mental capacity and conscience to utilize their power with restraint and prudence for the benefit of self, society, and the living organisms with which we co-exist. Ethics without man in the center is not ethics at all. The delicate balance of human ethics avoids exploitation and extremism while increasing human and environmental well-being. This is not exceptionally challenging from a moral perspective, as we are all part of an interdependent eco-system. The great challenge is for the individual. Each human must learn to act as a vital and independent part of a coherent whole. That is easy when we truly understand our responsibility, dignity, and purpose as human beings.

References

Judd, Orrin (17 May 2000) Worst 50 Books of the Century. Intercollegiate Studies.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (rev. Jan 3, 2008) Feminism and the Environment

Stein, Ben (2008) Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Premise Media Corporation.

Woodhams, D.C. (Jun 2009)Converting the religious: putting amphibian conservation in context. Bioscience 59, 463-465.

Personal Philosophy of Education

2009-09-29T07:49:00.009-05:00

We the teachers in order to form a more perfect people, stimulate young minds to pursue lifelong learning, promote just and rational thought and citizen participation in a prosperous democracy must establish a curriculum for the education of America. Standardized, “one-size-fits-all” curriculum of mainstream public education mandated by the government and administered by the government is in direct contradiction with the democratic principles on which our nation was founded. Therefore, I will work within the existing system to promote a student-centered integration of core curriculum with a constructivist design.

What is a Philosophy of Education and Why Does It Matter?
A philosophy of education sets the underlying belief and purpose which guides our actions as educators, administrators, and legislators. When we understand and unify our shared philosophy we are able to develop a cohesive curriculum and concise approach to pedagogy. However, this shared philosophy, as I see it, does not require teachers to utilize the same methods or a standardized curriculum delivery.

The purpose of public education in the eyes of the Founding Fathers is to create an informed citizenry to sustain a strong nation. Thomas Jefferson’s educational policy was one of academic excellence and equality of opportunity. According to Pulliam and Van Patten (2007), he was not “a supporter of strong federal government, and therefore, his efforts to improve were on a local and state level.” So it must be with education. Knowing how to read is important for citizens to become informed of current issues and political leaders. Understanding political and legal processes as well as laws and the foundational values of those laws is vital to sustain rights, freedom, and citizen participation within the nation. These are the only requirements for education which the national government has any right to specifically mandate. All other issues are of local or individual concern because American society is composed of many distinct cultures with varying and even competing values. Individuals must maintain the right to choose the manner in which they will contribute to the national economy. This national concern in regards to individual will and vocation can only properly be addressed by the government offering a broad range of studies from which a young student may choose.

Values and priorities tend to be regionally or locally accepted and should be taught in local school systems with strong parental input and oversight. Of all the rights protected by the U.S. Constitution the most vital is the right to exercise individual conscience. Extreme progressive education as a social agenda inhibits parental control over children’s moral, spiritual, and intellectual education.

Then who should decide what is learned and how it is taught? The answer is: those who are intended to benefit from it. A student will receive no benefit for something he does not want and refuses to use. Therefore compulsory curriculum does not serve the average student. Like the government itself, government mandated and publicly supported education must be of the people, for the people and by the people. This notion was supported by Ronald Regan during his administration where he severely cut back federal power to allow the states more authority by minimizing federal restrictions on educational grant money (O’Connor & Sabato.) We could use another dose of that in future presidential administrations.

Student-Centered Integration
As a teacher, it is my job to help students relate to the material in a way that motivates them to learn. However, it is my hope that each student would come to my class already motivated to learn because he personally chose to be in that class. To focus that interest and make the learning stick, a teacher must show a student how the new knowledge relates or applies to real world experience. This is an assertion of pragmatist philosophy. According to Dean Webb, Arlene Metha, and Forbis Jordan (2007) Charles Sanders Pierce was a mathematician and logician who “regarded learning, believing and knowing as intimate parts of doing and feeling and lamented that educators often ignored this important relationship."

I believe as a science teacher that the best thing I can do for my students is to teach them to see life as a series of hypotheses and verifiable experiments. For example, character education could be emphasized by noting that we do not have to experiment with drugs to know what their effects are. We have already established the damaging effects of that experiment, so there is no need to replicate it. On the other hand, we can utilize scientific method as we observe the actions of people we admire and who are successful and record our impressions of what behaviors contribute to their success in an effort to replicate their achievements, or at least develop a hypothesis for happiness and success which we will likely spend our lives testing and honing.

Condensed Basics As Integrated Electives
The weakness of student-centered progressive education in the past has been a lack of curricular focus. The swinging pendulum of school reform never manages to integrate the best of both approaches (student focus versus curriculum focus). I believe there is a way to reach a middle ground. Early education should be the time to condense basic curriculum to assure a solid foundation for future learning. The key difference with an integrated student-centered approach is that the child picks the primary subject she wants to learn and the teacher uses that primary subject to build divergent subject knowledge upon.

For example: the child’s primary subject is reading. To introduce number concepts the teacher utilizes stories and books which emphasize ordinals and number concepts such as Eric Carle’s Rooster’s Off to See the World. A child who chooses math as his primary subject could integrate writing by telling a story about his favorite number family. Note here that every class or subject is an elective according to the child’s perception but the curriculum is standard for all students. It is just integrated in a child-specific way. The beauty here is that the teacher still has an overriding pattern of education which requires only minor adaptation to tailor to each student group because there are only so many subjects the young ones can choose from. Further, students will naturally choose the subjects for which they have an aptitude which indicates learning style preferences. Students with similar preferences being grouped together will multiply the effectiveness of each students learning.

Once the basic foundation is laid, students should have increasing elective opportunities. The key here is not leaving the student to decide what the curriculum is, but to let the student choose among the essential and elective curriculum studies which are offered. The underlying weakness of post-modern student-centered approach is that it assumes the student is the sole authority in a culturally and morally relativist world. It undermines the absolutes which provide a secure sense of reality for young people. Such relativistic philosophies, given too much credence, lead the student to wonder about the point of learning anything when nothing is real.

Teaching young people that there is such thing as reality and that they can experimentally verify it and share their experience with others who will report similar results makes learning significant and life meaningful. Students with purpose do not suffer from existentialist uselessness. Meaningful lives do not end in suicide. The number of suicidal, angst-filled artists, musicians, and poets who subscribed to post-modernist philosophy attests to the underlying tragedy of its fatalistic tenets. Please let us not teach these things in the school.

Teacher Assessment
It is very important to know what a student is retaining and where she needs more training. Assessment is the only way to do this. However, the student should not perceive testing as the ultimate goal or achievement. Acquiring knowledge should be the goal. Understanding should be the achievement. Students should see the test as a learning tool. For that reason, I am a proponent of open book/ computer tests. There is too much knowledge in the world to stick in any one person’s head. Knowing where to find it and how to use it, on the other hand, is a vital life skill. I would construct tests where the answer might be obvious but the question and answer together teach or reinforce a relevant principle.

High stakes national testing serves a limited purpose. I think SAT’s are an effective filtering method to determine which students are best-suited for colleges who use similar testing methods and achievement-based curriculum mandates. However, I question the methods and effectiveness of those colleges as much as I do the testing.

Every Child Gets Ahead
The No Child Left Behind Act has a legacy of controversy over what student needs are being met and how the mandates of the law meet those needs. The title sounds like it is a student-centered initiative when it is, in fact, a blanket requirement for all students to learn one curriculum. In Howard Smith’s review (2008) of a volume of essays edited by Christine Sleeter, he noted that each chapter seemed to contain a set of core values and beliefs which were “1. Standards and testing alone cannot create meaningful change in schools. 2. Standards, like instruction, must be linked to the needs and realities of the learners. 3. Effective education is a dynamic process that must recognize and include parents, teachers, and students as stakeholders." Smith further highlights a concern of Darling-Hammond, “Will standards and tests built upon a foundation of continued inequality simply certify student failure more visibly and reduce access to future education and employment?"

Though, statistically, the income of the average college graduate is greater than the average high school dropout, we cannot assume that college is the only path to success. Therefore, my classroom will be a laboratory for success that does not exclude the non-college bound. Students will be taught to relate learning to a variety of life-relevant experiences and occurrences. For example, a student who says he does not want to go to college who is interested in construction would be asked to explain how a particular principle of physics applies to a particular piece of construction equipment (such as why a backhoe cannot be operated without setting the support legs).

My classroom is not a place of equality it is a place of achievement. Each student is recognized for his own level of achievement and is challenged to exceed his own expectations without concern for the progress of other students. Material will be organized and taught in group settings where quick learners are given the opportunity to move swiftly through the material and study it more in depth as a group. Slower learners are grouped to allow them to take their time getting through essential material. Each student will be given teaching opportunities within the classroom to reinforce her own learning and share her unique perspective.

The hidden curriculum here is that regardless of the pace at which each person learns, they each have something valuable to contribute. Further, students will be able to imply that equal opportunity to learn does not mean every student has to learn the same things at the same time. Most importantly they will learn that opportunity may be equal, but what each person does with their opportunity separates them from each other, and that is good because each person is doing their best. Disparaging or marginalizing other students will not be tolerated.

Conclusion

Just like all studies I have undertaken, I see philosophy of education as having a number of conflicting views and approaches which I seek to integrate and reconcile. That is the very skill I wish to teach to my students. They must be given the opportunity to determine their own courses, personally relate the information they are receiving while trying to integrate and synthesize divergent views and subjects. Young people are so much smarter than they are often given credit for. When we as teachers believe in their ability to comprehend our complex world we empower them to utilize practical application methods and develop a love for lifelong learning. Absolute truth for absolutely capable students will make the world a much more intelligent place.

Universalist Perspective

2009-09-08T07:29:00.002-05:00

Introduction

The dynamic between the individual and his role in society is molded by early education. How that dynamic is interpreted or criticized has been classed into three perspectives: functionalist, conflict theory, and interactionist. They each have different answers the questions: Who controls what is taught? What is the intent of the teaching? How does what is taught affect the individual and his or her place in society? None of these perspectives, however, adequately addresses these issues in their whole context.

Analysis

Functionalists see education as “essential for an orderly and efficient society” (Webb p.199). Thomas Jefferson could be classed in this philosophical perspective. He promoted education to prepare young people to be responsible citizens of a democratic society. It is a top down view of the dissemination of information for the benefit of those without information. While the intent is justified and admirable, the content of education is dictated by those in power.

Which brings us to the conflict theory: Jefferson did not promote public education for girls, Indians, or slaves. Knowledge was to be disseminated to those deemed worthy of the ruling class (white male democracy). This justifies the conflict theory perspective that the educational system perpetuates social inequality (p. 189). And while conflict theorists opposed the hidden curriculum of capitalist class reinforcement, the tables have turned in modern education where the hidden curriculum reflects socialist principles of government-mandated equality, which undermines individual achievement and identity.

Which brings us to the interactionist perspective: the individual is seen as being influenced by the models of socialization that exist in the microcosm of classroom and school, which by grading and achievement stratification, perpetuates socio-economic stratification.

None of the perspectives address who has the authority to distribute knowledge and how it should be delivered. Truth is free and independent of the agents of dissemination. We live in the information age. Human beings have never had the access to knowledge that we do now. And yet, people are unable to afford formal post secondary education. Because the government sanctions the restriction of knowledge via university accreditation, the government must fund formal education for those who wish to go but are unable to afford it. Furthermore, people like myself, who have read textbooks from used bookstores and made learning a lifelong pursuit are not viewed as being educated because we lack a government authenticated degree.

I enjoy taking classes and am willing to pay for knowledge because I am a capitalist and believe that those who have taken the time to gain knowledge and record or share it should be compensated for their time. However, not having formally completed those courses required by a particular school under their specific format prevents me from being fairly acknowledged for my own independent studies and research. As a result, I lack the formal degree which prevents me from getting a job which would potentially alter my economic status.

For example, for each paper I write at Ashford, I am required to cite a minimum of two sources from scholarly journals. On my last final I was marked down from a perfect score because, even though I met the citation requirements, the instructor assumed that I, as a non-degreed student, could not have formulated the ideas I presented and asked me to give references for my own original words—written before I even did my research.

The reference requirement sends a subtle message that only those with a degree have the authority to credibly speak on a given topic and they must do it through the medium of an obscure journal which is only read by people in that specific field. However, opinion reinforced by opinion does not make it fact, nor should it establish credibility, lest when a president says “And that’s not just my opinion, there are many others who feel this way” naïve students perpetuate the error in logic that “Professors say A, therefore A.”

There is a value in formal authentication of personal study. Yet, the great thinkers of the past were only great because they studied and drew conclusions no existing book could teach them. Newton did not learn his theories at university. He learned them from the universe and THEN taught them at the university.

For the government to assume authority for the restriction and/or sanctification of information through curriculum agenda undermines the most basic elements of democracy. I am applying Lockean and Jeffersonian philosophy of social contract theory to knowledge and education. Jefferson held that public education would promote a “natural aristocracy of virtue and talents and eliminate the artificial aristocracy of wealth and birth” (Honderich p. 428). The power of an educator to teach is derived from the consent of the learner. Each man (woman and child) has the divinely appointed right to learn and to choose the nature of that learning. Education must be of the people, for the people, and by the people; from the bottom up, not the top down.

Teaching children from a young age that they must accept what the government has deemed necessary and beneficial for their education contradicts the principles of democracy. It reinforces the power of the state and disenfranchises individual conscience. Many political scientists and social commentators lament the apathy of the American voter. I tell you, we learned apathy in twelve years of mandatory schooling where we were unequivocally taught to work within the system.

As you can see, I relate profoundly to the conflict theory contention against the “prestige hierarchy of schools” (p. 199), and subscribe to a critical view of the hidden intent of public education. However, I also subscribe to the interactionist philosophy that top-down education is not solely responsible for conditions within public school systems, but that teachers reinforce students’ self-perception through their daily activities which has an immeasurable impact on the course of the person’s life.

Bringing it full circle, the course of the person’s life must be acknowledged as uniquely his own. When school is used as a medium to reinforce the value of individual choice in the context of his responsibility to society (functionalist premise) he will more readily acknowledge the consequences of his actions and make responsible choices that will, more often than not, lead him to be a productive and conscientious citizen within his community and the nation.

Conclusion

Clearly, my views do not represent any of the described philosophies. Though attitudes from each theory are present, my perspective warrants its own classification. Therefore, universalist perspective can be stated thus: Knowledge is free to all who endeavor to learn. When governments hinder the flow of knowledge or proscribe educational goals to the general population they restrict natural human liberty. Public education must facilitate perpetual learning in a modern and changing society to prepare the individual for a lifetime of learning by providing resources and teaching study methods. This is the key to a strong democracy and a productive economy.

References

Honderich, Ted (1995). The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. Oxford University Press

Webb, D.L.; Metha, A; & Jordan, K.F. (2003) Foundations of American Education 5th ed. Pearson, New Jersey.

Poverty and Education

2009-08-31T08:37:00.003-05:00

This summer I went to Idaho with my mom and had her tell my children about some of her childhood experiences as we passed her old neighborhoods. She noted that in the 1950’s she changed schools seventeen times in seven years because her dad was a migrant farm worker “like the Mexicans are now.” In other words, it was her father’s profession which was the subject of “Harvest of Shame” by Edward R. Murrow which was, perhaps, the first shot of the “war on poverty” during the Kennedy-Johnson administrations.

Money was thrown into educational programs with the justification that educated people could overcome poverty. The trouble with the philosophy comes in understanding what specific knowledge, skills, and traits actually contribute to financial stability. The Vocational Education Act of 1963 took steps towards acknowledging that classical education could not fully provide for the needs of an increasingly specialized workforce. However, as is seen in present day statistics on socioeconomic status, education is only as effective as respective cultures will allow them to be. Regardless of race or sex, there is a culture of poverty which perpetuates the conditions which social activists have fought so fervently against.

There are endless statistics on the relationship between education and poverty, but I think we lose sight of real people when we focus on those things. My grandfather was never a wealthy man, but he was a hard worker. His diligence and effectiveness helped him move into positions of responsibility and increased pay. No government program or handout benefited him.

My mother graduated from high school and entered a two-year junior college then transferred to a four year university. She left just short of graduation because her new husband got a job teaching in another state to provide for her and his newborn son. Thirteen years later, she returned to school and completed her degree. Statistically, she was a poor daughter of uneducated parents, but they taught her more than the school system ever could. It was their work ethic and religious training which gave her the strong sense of self (despite being born with a major facial deformity, being rejected and misunderstood by peers, and misdiagnosed by the state as being mentally retarded, despite above average intelligence) that gave her the desire to pursue education.*Those who have no desire to learn cannot be benefited by compulsory programs and government initiatives. Those who have no will to act upon the knowledge they have been given are no better than those who have had no such opportunity.

Those who value their food stamps, TANF, WIC and disability disbursements will protect the circumstances which qualify them for such programs. To be clear, I have used these programs in times of economic distress, however, I saw them as a stepping stone, not a long-term condition. I did not expect myself to be poor forever. *The war on poverty is, in truth, the imposition of standards of education which may not reflect, or may even be in direct opposition to, cultural values. To this day, Native American school participation and performance is lowest on reservations. Textbook authors describe the cultural conflict as one of linguistics and learning styles (Webb p. 206 5th ed.). However, I think values are the core of the issue. It is not that learning and wisdom are not valued, but that white man’s learning is not wisdom.

In fact, within memory for many living on tribal lands is government policy which, between 1953 and 1973 “terminated the legal status of various tribes, ended services to them, and refused to recognize their treaty rights” (O’Connor p. 150). It could be concluded from a cultural perspective that the 1966 passage of Title VI of the ESEA including programs for Native American children could be construed as another attempt to control and devalue Native culture.

The elders, who are traditionally respected in Native culture could be expected to perpetuate this interpretation of events to the younger generation. As a result, Native American children may not see “white man’s” book learning as having any relevance to their lives. Remember that children must relate new information to their existing knowledge base for it to be effectively retained and recalled.

The deeper questions are: how important is it for them to assimilate? What is the value of national standards if they undermine cultural values? Why are the tribes not given more jurisdiction and input over the education of their own children?

If members of all subcultures had control over (or at least significant input into) the education of their own children, how different would education be? Would children finally be able to excel? Could they do so, not despite their racial and ethnic differences, but because of them, in fields which are of genuine value for themselves and their communities? There would certainly still be socioeconomic classes, but each group would be living by the standards they value.

Native American children may not see book learning as having any relevance to their lives. Remember that children must relate new information to their existing knowledge base for it to be effectively retained and recalled.*It is not the government’s job to dictate what class a group belongs to, nor to compel them to leave it. The only thing which will eradicate poverty is the sincere desire of everyone living in it to get out. When the individual takes the initiative to change his own circumstances, he develops the capacity to learn how to do it. If he does not want to learn how to get out of poverty, he will continue the behaviors which perpetuate it. A man (or child) cannot be compelled to be happy.

(This is an argument about compulsory curriculum and individual/micro-social agency, not so much about who should be poor.)

One student in the class for which this assignment was posted was a proponent of the programs enacted in the War on Poverty during the mid to late sixties despite concluding that poverty still existed. I responded:

The fact that poverty still exists suggests to me that the programs did not effectively address the underlying causes of poverty. Perhaps you have seen the title of the purple covered book Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kyosaki. It is about his mentoring by a minimally educated but highly successful property developer in Hawaii who taught Kyosaki how to actually make money and be successful in life. His dad, on the other hand, was a "poor" college professor who insisted that the key to success was getting a good education. But there was no prosperity in his father's life.

If the goal of education is to get children and families out of poverty, then we need to verbally address the issue of their desire to change their own circumstances. Then they need to have more vocationally oriented freedom to explore or reject courses according to their personal interests. Right now, children are being taught to sit in desks and accept assignments rather than being taught to take initiative and personal responsibility for their own choices. That is the opposite of "accountability" to national standards, which are driven by perceived lack of achievement of average American students compared to other nations and the need to maintain a competitive edge in the global market.

The premise of that philosophy is flawed in that modern education fails to address the actual demands of the global market. The thing about competing in the global market is that the market is infinite. Because the global market is so vast and diverse, its demands cannot be consolidated into a concise curriculum. Therefore, the key to our success lies in diversifying, not standardizing what children are able to study. Those who have the desire or capacity to excel should not be held back from achievement under the crippling guise of equality in education. And they should be able to learn it a lot more efficiently than the current 18+ year model. College should not consume the most productive years of youth.

Education Reform Part I

2009-07-21T12:06:00.001-05:00

Educational History for a Radical Future

Education from the bottom up is the only way to effectively address the core needs of all parties involved, the most important being the student and the parent. Those needs can be thoroughly addressed by taking the best of generations of educational theory to create increased motivation of the whole child to learn in accelerated stages through a functional approach to behaviorism, transforming the swinging pendulum of reform into a rolling snowball of genuine progress.

Educational Intent

What is Education?

Any environment which increases knowledge and understanding, physical ability and stamina, or spiritual enlightenment and improvement can be deemed a learning environment. How anyone's senses and sensibilities are attuned can make any environment a learning environment. Education would be the sum of experiences and environments which have altered the intellectual, physical or spiritual capacities of a human being. To improve in any or all of these capacities is a primary goal of human existence and necessary to the happiness of all.

What is the purpose of education?

The purpose of education as defined above is to improve human life. What is the purpose of public education, more specifically, and what are its limits? If its purpose is to prepare young people to be productive members of society, then education should include topics which are relevant to modern society. However, American society is composed of many distinct cultures with varying and even competing values. Therefore, the constraints of a national education culture must be very broad and encompassing to leave subcultures room to develop and maintain their identity. National standards must only be bare essentials of education. Details must be independently and locally controlled.

Whom should education serve?

Who should decide what is learned and how it is taught? The answer is: those who are intended to benefit from it. A student will receive no benefit for something he does not want and refuses to use. Therefore compulsory curriculum does not serve the average student for whom education is administered. Is it ethical for the national government to attempt social engineering through compulsion in education? The notion seems to go against all of the principles of individual freedom upon which the United Sates was founded. Like the government itself, government mandated and supported education must be of the people, for the people and by the people.

The Elements

National Standards, Local Input

The intent of public education in the eyes of the Founding Fathers is to create an informed citizenry to sustain a strong nation. For that purpose, knowing how to read is important for citizens to become informed of current issues and political leaders. Understanding political and legal processes as well as laws and the foundational values of those laws is vital to sustain rights, freedom, and citizen participation within the nation. These are the only requirements for education which the government has any right to specifically mandate. All other issues are of local or individual concern.

Finding a practical implementation for reform which includes national interests and allows for local development is the challenge. Larry Cuban was summarized thus, "Reform movements give too little credence to the fact that schools are situated in communities and those communities have tremendous impact on both what happens in a given school and what happens when schooling is finished for individual students." Essentially, we are talking about a learning culture. The assessment continues, "Because schools perform multiple roles in society, they cannot be reduced to simple fixes or recipe-mode solutions" (p.178).

Because having skilled workers, technicians, and a variety of businesses is vital to the national economy and welfare, it is in the government's best interest to support local and individual initiatives to develop skills and knowledge which contribute to professional fields. Therefore the government should support programs which develop and support local/community education goals and programs.

Parental Directive

Of all the rights protected by the U.S. Constitution the most vital is the right to exercise individual conscience. Extreme progressive education as a social agenda inhibits parental control over children's moral, spiritual, and intellectual education. The home school movement is a response to that infringement of parental right and an assertion that state education is a power that needs to be kept in check.

Since parents are the primary educator, whether by proactive choice or negligent default, their contribution to educational values and curriculum must be invited and respected on a local basis. Children will learn more thoroughly when ideas and information are reinforced in the home environment. When parents are a part of the process of selecting curriculum, they and the children are empowered to maximize and reinforce learning. The objective, more accurately then, is for schools to reinforce parental values and learning goals in the courses selected by the community of parents in which the child resides. A plan for integrating a technology program outlined in this paper will make that sort of educational niche-ing practical and functional.

Student Choice and Accountability

As Herbart determined (Pulliam 2007), learning is most effective when associative (p. 65). When a student chooses subjects for which she has an interest, she is far more likely to relate learning to actual experience. This then gives the child a broader and more lasting base of knowledge to build further knowledge upon. Therefore, after basic reading and mathematical concepts are understood (by about second grade) children should have more freedom to move independently through subject matter at their own pace. How this can be achieved will be addressed later.

Teacher Assessment

Allowing the student to be an active participant in the nature of his own education requires teachers who are empowered to exercise creativity and have well developed problem solving skills. Teachers are, therefore, the most crucial element of successful public education. They are the mediator between the parent-student dynamic and the local-national government constraints. The success of public education hinges on the teacher's ability to balance those demands. The teacher must recognize a student's ability, or lack thereof, and adjust situations and methods for optimal educational benefits to the student's specific needs.

As James Bryant said,

If we want our students to learn, then we must move away from this need for a theory or method that will reach the masses and understand that all education is an individualistic exercise and must be geared toward the individual. We cannot answer the demand of pedagogy and transform our students unless we know their needs as people and do not assume their needs as a race or a class or a gender (p.163).

The teacher must, therefore, be able to assess the student's abilities through testing, observation and record the results. Teachers must be given freedom to develop those methods in order to apply their minds most effectively to meet the needs of their students. Peer review and collaboration with other teachers will increase the professionalism of assessment methodology.

Education Reform Part II

2009-07-21T12:03:00.001-05:00

The Plan

Increased Motivation of the Whole Child to Learn in Accelerated Stages through a Functional Approach to Behaviorism

The stages of development outlined by Piaget can be accelerated by systematic introduction of advanced concepts in any child who is motivated to learn. Jerome Bruner held that the key to teaching a child these advanced concepts was to integrate them on a level to which the child could relate in subjects for which the child has interest (Pulliam p.70). In order to achieve this, the whole child must be understood, as noted by Gestalt psychologists. The child's needs defined by Maslow include security and self esteem progressing to self-actualization (p. 73). Nothing could contribute more to these needs than allowing the child clear choices within basic constraints so that he may have the sense of accomplishment which comes from setting his own goals and having full responsibility to achieve them with the full support of a caring teacher who recognizes his abilities and helps him set achievable goals through a plan they have developed together. This approach is very functional. It requires the teacher and student together to engage in an activity, discover a problem, gather data, form a hypothesis, and test their understanding (p.66).

As the behaviorist John B. Watson noted, we do not have the right to project our thoughts and feelings onto a child as educators (p.67). Breaking from that philosophy however, we know that we can ask a student about her feelings or reasoning. The functional approach above can help teachers better understand and affect the behavior of their students by increasing the child's awareness of self in context with larger concerns in concentric fields of awareness (classroom, to school, to community, to nation, etc.) through maturing stages of development.

Self-Directed Work

We will increase student's motivation to learn when we understand from their own mouth what motivates them. In order to accommodate varying motivation in a large body of students, material must be presented in a variety of ways, and the child must be allowed to choose the method by which she learns.

For example, a young elementary student is required to learn a certain set of math facts. He is given a choice to use a computer program. He may do an art project where a certain number of objects are drawn and organized to represent those facts. He may partner with another student in repeating a physical activity such as jumping rope where their combined effort represents the facts (i.e. his two jumps plus her two jumps equals five). He could perform an experiment with manipulatives to reveal the underlying number patterns of the facts. Repetition of any number of those, or like, activities would provide behavioral reinforcement and ensure that the information was assimilated by the child on a variety of functioning levels. That effectiveness is increased when the child is given a choice to express his preferred methods and has a sense of personal control and responsibility for his education.

This method emphasizes self-directed work in station, group, and paired activities. This allows the teacher time with individual students for assessment and guidance. Supervision of learning activities can be done by a team of teachers and/or parent volunteers among young students. Supervision should be decreasingly necessary as students mature and take responsibility for their chosen educational pursuits.

Once fundamental skills are mastered (language, basic math, scientific method) as determined by teacher assessment (within broad national guidelines), the student should have the opportunity to chose her topics of study and work through them at a semi-independent pace, being grouped with other students having the same interests. This student independence will blur the lines of grade by age. Therefore adaptations of classroom structure will have to be evaluated an made.

Government Intervention

Students with behavioral or learning difficulties may need more supervision, but are likely to respond favorably to alternative methods of learning (kinetic, dimensional, and active) when given the option. However, it may be necessary to make special accommodations for the students who do not respond. Because each situation varies, teachers and school leaders must be given full freedom to adjust to those needs and work creatively to solve their own problems. Should they be unable to find adequate solutions, it becomes teaching community's responsibility (including parents as part of that community) to seek resources outside the school for necessary funding, staff, or program ideas. Ideas created for such specific situations should not be extrapolated to apply to broader situations as a matter of public policy. A resource of a public sharing network of educators can help teachers and school officials find solutions already discovered by educators with similar circumstances. There is no need for national legislation and policy for small scale situations, except to make information available for all concerned parties.

Students, educators, parents, and community members within an educationally challenged community have the right and responsibility to recognize the problems within their own community. Should the above method not produce the results they desire, they can request government or legislative help where their specific needs are addressed. Again legislation for the benefit of that community must not be adopted as a matter of course for the national community, only distributed via sharing networks to other regions which are free to adopt similar measures specifically tailored to regional concerns.

This approach will avoid the downfalls of widely criticized standardized testing which Christine Sleeter evaluated thus: ""If the knowledge and skills taught in the curriculum and the assessments used to determine whether students have acquired them are not transformed, tests and accountability efforts will often reinforce and perpetuate the racial, ethnic, and class stratification within U.S. society" (p. 188).

Education Reform Part III

2009-07-21T12:00:00.001-05:00

Technological Tools

Technology affords us the opportunity to develop education tools which can supplement and far exceed traditional pen and paper, book and lecture learning. Rather than trying to regulate the content of the World Wide Web, the government should develop a separate education network, which, over time will have, say, its own peer-reviewed version of Wikipedia and downloadable courses and lessons by subject and age group which will be developed and submitted by educators and rated by other educators and students who use them. Courses which receive a certain rating or above can be completed for credit which would be tracked via social security number. In this way, government quality control is entirely organic and from the bottom up. Further, students transferring from other schools in our highly transient society would be anchored by the network and programs. Students could continue to work on projects at an independent pace.

Again, local classrooms are the starting point. A teacher with a student-specific concern is free to search available lesson programs or write his own to use with the child and submit to the program. Credit for that lesson is established by that teacher's education credentials and the recommendation of one or two other teachers from that school and an administrator. Some of the programs could be self-contained—able to be completed entirely on the computer by the independent student. However, many of them will include three-dimensional activities, projects, or discussions to be completed by the student or in groups and would be observed or evaluated by the teacher who would submit his assessment in the program.

This integrated approach to education technology has been shown effective by Sulsic and Lesjak. In their research, the report Ally's finding that "ways of teaching, as well as testing and assessment methods are much more important than the use of ICT (information and communication technology) in education" (p.43). They continue to report on Dagger and Wade's finding that dropout rates in strictly online education were because of lack of student participation in the learning process, confirming the importance of teaching methods in online curriculum. Their own study focused on delivery and student feedback with the conclusion that "Blended learning which involves different teaching strategies than those in traditional education improves study effectiveness and represents a suitable course deliver for part-time students, mainly due to temporal and spatial adaptability of the study process" (p.44).

The pattern I recognized in their data was that students in required courses consistently had a more negative experience, regardless of delivery and teaching methods than did students who were in elective courses, which validates my assertion that students will be much more motivated to learn when it is a subject of their choosing.

Graduation requirements would include only the most basic national requirements. State and local high schools would determine additional quantities and specificities for credit completion with a high proportion of elective credit. This tool would be available to all citizens including home schooled students and adults of any age, making high school graduation possible for anyone of any age. Early graduations among self-paced, achievement oriented students would allow for a greater number of professionals and college graduates at an earlier age.

The G.E.D would be the fulfillment of national requirements and graduation would be achieved through the high school of the communities to which a student belongs and could be completed by adults from home with the option of meeting with an adult high school education specialist, either in person or through the network.

Fiscally speaking, perhaps courses would be without charge up until the age of 18. Afterward credits would cost as any for credit college course. Students are then motivated to complete graduation before they are 18, and or complete as many courses as possible up to that time. A limit of a certain number of no-fee credit courses above high school graduation requirements might be acceptable for the sake of education expense and government budgetary considerations. Any courses after that would be completed through accredited colleges, who would also be a very important part of the education network and continue its use. Current financial aid, grant, and scholarship funding would be applicable with some necessary adjustments.

Program lessons submitted and approved would be copyrighted. Teachers whose lessons, articles, and studies are downloaded and highly rated by students and other teachers would receive bonuses proportional to use and effectiveness or demand. This will encourage and motivate quality education and self-regulating professionalism.

As noted, post-secondary level courses would continue through colleges and universities who would develop their curriculum in like manner, with the students continuing to pay per credit hour. Again, the goal is to encourage student-teacher initiative, therefore the specifically proscribed courses must be limited to a certain percentage of required credit hours. This will also prevent conflicts with teacher-university self-perpetuation by requiring the use of program materials generated strictly by their own faculty.

These courses should not be limited to academic study but include vocational training developed by vocational professionals in cooperation with the education community. This will allow educational and vocational training to meet the demands of a fast-paced technological world.

Conclusion

A peer reviewed, national education network provides a national standard which can be developed locally with parental community input. The network would be personally utilized by individuals in counsel with education professionals who are empowered to address each student's specific needs and help them meet their educational goals. This integrative approach will allow freedom for teachers to develop new teaching methods and increase their professionalism by monitoring the results and effectiveness of such endeavors among peers. This slow, organic change from the bottom up would open the door to radical and continuous reform with genuine progress, not just a "progressive" label.

Individual students will be motivated to learn which will multiply the effectiveness of educator's efforts. Parents will be empowered to participate in their children's education, creating reinforcement for learning methods and subjects, which will further multiply effectiveness. It will strengthen diversity by allowing local and regional cultures to build on existing strengths while maintaining access to national quality.