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PQR
Paradigm New and Paradigm Old:
Capra in his book The Turning Point (1982 p xvii) refers to;
a new ‘paradigm’, – a new vision of reality; a fundamental change in our thoughts, perceptions and values. The beginnings of this change, of the shift from the mechanistic to the holistic conception of reality are already visible in all fields…
An old paradigm is largely a set of untested assumptions, that need the light of being tested, (and may not have been valid even when they came into being).
Paradox:
Parenting:
Two of the greatest things we can give our loved ones are roots and wings.
Next to hugging your child, reading aloud is the best gift you can give – the effects of both will last a lifetime. Reading aloud to children helps
them to develop listening, speaking, reading, writing and imagining skills. It also improves attitude toward learning……
Janet Shively, Literacy teacher, Canada.
Peak experience/s: SEE Transcendent experience
Person/personhood:
This book presents a theory of the person, with a look at some of its practical implications for learning. The ‘other key’ referred to in the sub-title of this book is feeling, which I distinguish carefully from emotion, and define as resonance with being, the capacity by which we participate in and are compresent with our world. Feeling, so defined, I regard as the grounding level of personhood: within it all other phsychological modes are latent and out of it they proceed. The book explores this model and the sort of world-view it generates………. p2
By ‘the psyche I mean the human mind and its inherent life as a whole, including its unexpressed and unexplored potential, as well as what is manifest conscious development. By the ‘person’ I mean the psyche (mind) in manifestation as an aware developing being in whom all its modes are brought intentionally into play.
Heron, John (1992), Feeling and Personhood – Psychology in Another Key, London: Sage Publications p15
Personal Development:
Goals for Me (Unknown writer)
I want to love you without clutching,
appreciate you without judging,
join you without invading,
invite you without demanding,
leave you without guilt,
criticise you without blaming,
and help you without insulting.
If I can have the same from you
then we can truly meet and
enrich each other.
******
Making contact involves two people at a time and three parts. Each person in contact with himself or herself and each in contact with the other.
*******
Depression is the universe’s way of asking us to open up to more of our true selves.
Personality:
Personality is the sum of distinctive traits that give a person individuality. From the view of the SunWALK model personality is the individual admixture of developed and ‘to be developed’, names and attributes of God – love, mercy, justice, kindness etc. ‘To be developed’ is another way of saying ‘shadow side’ or ‘negative qualities’ – either way the principle is that negatives are indications of the need for growth, darkness is the absence of light.
A Baha’i view of personality can be seen in the following passage by Abd’ul-Baha;
Some one has asked a question on personality. From what source does it come? What are its attributes? What are its characteristic features or aspects?
Personality is of two kinds. One is the natural or God-given personality which the western thinkers call individuality, the inner aspect of man which is not subject to change; and the other personality is the result of acquired arts, sciences and virtues with which man is decorated. When the God-given virtues are thus adorned, we have character. When the infinite effulgences of God are revealed in the individuality of man, then divine attributes, invisible in the rest of creation, become manifest through him and one man becomes the manifestor of knowledge, that is, divine knowledge is revealed to him; another is the dawning place of power; a third is trustworthy; again, one is faithful, and another is merciful. All these attributes are the characteristics of the unchangeable individuality and are divine in origin. These qualifications are loved by all, for they are emanations of the father. They are the significance of his name and attributes, the direct ray of which illuminate the very essence of these qualifications.
As regards the personality which is the result of acquired virtues, let us take this mirror as an example: In the beginning it was a piece of black stone; now, through the process of purification, it has become a mirror and has reflecting power and displays its innate perfections so that they are clearly visible to all. The rock was endowed with a distinct individuality which acquired a personality through the process of education.
The individuality of each created thing is based upon divine wisdom, for in the creation of God there is no defect. However, personality has no element of permanence. It is a slightly changeable quality in man which can be turned in either direction. For if he acquire praiseworthy virtues, these strengthen the individuality of man and call forth his hidden forces; but if he acquire defects, the beauty and simplicity of the individuality will be lost to him and its God-given qualities will be stifled in the foul atmosphere of self.
It is evident that every human being is primarily pure, for God-created qualities are deposited in him. If man extend his individuality by acquiring sciences, he will become a wise man; if he be engaged in praiseworthy deeds and strive for real knowledge, he will become godlike. If, on the other hand, when God has created him to be just and he practices injustice, he denies his God-given attribute. Man was created to be merciful, he becomes a tyrant; he was created to be kind to all the children of men and given the capacity to confer life, but he becomes the destroyer of life.
Personality is obtained through the conscious effort of man by training and education. A fruitless tree under the influence of a wise gardener becomes fruitful; a slab of marble under the hand of a sculptor becomes a beautiful statue. The ruined places are built up by captains of industry; the ignorant children learn the secrets of phenomena under the tutelage of a wise teacher. The crooked branch becomes straight through cultivation.
It is evident that we have two modes for the expression of life, – individuality and personality, – the former becomes as the son of God and the latter the son of man. As we have shown, the personality of some is illumined, that of others is dark; the personality of some is seen in the manifestation of divine justice, while that of others is the embodiment of tyranny. The personality of some is divine guidance made visible, while that of others is choked in the veils of self and desire. That which was hidden in the capability of these souls has been made manifest; just as, for instance, when you sow a seed, that which is hidden in the reality of that seed becomes revealed and unfolded – the trunk, the branches, the leaves, the blossoms and the fruits, which are in the seeds as potentialities. A teacher brings out the potentialities of the pupils. The clouds pour down rain, the sun shines, and that which was hidden in the bosom of the earth springs forth.
The personality of man is developed through education, while his individuality which is divine and heavenly should be his guide.
Poison is harmful to man. It is the nature of man to find enjoyment in that which is gratifying to his senses; if he pursue this path he subverts his individuality to such a degree that the poison of darkness which was the means of death becomes the means of his existence and his nature becomes so degraded and his individuality so deflected that his one purpose in life will be to obtain the death-dealing drug.
What causes the change in the individuality? It comes through the acquirement of evil habits. God originally endowed man with an individuality which enjoyed that which was beneficial and shunned the drug; but man through his evil habits changes this creation and transforms the divine illumination into satanic darkness.
As long as man is a captive of habit, pursuing the dictates of self and desire, he is vanquished and defeated. This passionate personal ego takes the reins from his hands, crowds out the qualities of the divine ego and changes him into an animal, a creature unable to judge good from evil, or to distinguish light from darkness. He becomes blind to divine attributes, for this acquired individuality, the result of an evil routine of thought becomes the dominant note of his life.
May all of you be freed from these dangers and delivered from the world of desires that you may enter into the realm of light and become divine, radiant, merciful, Godlike.
All that has been created is for man who is at the apex of creation and who must be thankful for the divine bestowals, so that through his gratitude he may learn to understand life as a divine benefit. If we hold enmity with life, we are ingrates, for our material and spiritual existence is the outward evidences of the divine mercy. Therefore we must be happy and pass our time in praises, appreciating all things. But there is something else: detachment. We can appreciate without attaching ourselves to the things of this world. It sometimes happens that if a man loses his fortune he is so disheartened that he dies or becomes insane. While enjoying the things of this world we must remember that one day we shall have to do without them.
Attach not thyself to anything unless in it thou seest the reality of God – this is the first step into the court of eternity. The earth life lasts but a short time, even its benefits are transitory; that which is temporary does not deserve our heart’s attachment.
Material favors sometimes deprive us of spiritual favors and material rest of spiritual rest. A rich man said to Christ, “I would fain be thy disciple.” “Go and put into practice the ten commandments,” replied the Christ. “But I know them by heart and have always practiced them.” “Then sell what thou hast and take up thy cross and follow me.” The man returned to his home. But the rich who are attracted through their hearts have the spark and are like unto brilliant torches. BAHA’O'LLAH has spoken of the importance of their station. Certain rich ones have sacrificed their possessions and even their lives for this cause. Riches did not prove an obstacle for them and they are like unto stars in the heaven of both worlds – flames of reality.
Detachment does not consist in setting fire to one’s house, or becoming bankrupt or throwing one’s fortune out of the window, or even giving away all of one’s possessions. Detachment consists in refraining from letting our possessions possess us. A prosperous merchant who is not absorbed in his business knows severance. Divine Philosophy p. 135
Personal history; see biography:
Philosophy:
Philosophy is basically the answers given at different times to half a dozen basic questions. During the 20thC moved to extreme positions of abstraction and narrowness. This is not, for example, to invalidate the worth of say linguistic philosophy but it is to object to the intolerance that existed for anything outside such new orthodoxies that might be termed traditional or mainstream. Similar intolerance existed from time to time in art colleges toward students who wanted, for example, to paint representationally. Although it is beyond the scope of the dissertation to present any full description, it rests on the view of a more traditional or mainstream philosophical base and one that includes Eastern as well as Western ideas. It is even more concerned, via philosophy for children, to embed the basic questions of philosophy in the warp and weft of educational process from the earliest years of children’s education.
Philosophy is the attempt to gain systematic insight into central and perennial human concerns: the nature of reality, the nature of thought, the nature of experience, and the nature of value. http://www.augustana.edu/academ/philosophy/index.htm
Philosophy Perennial:
“Philosophia perennis – the phrase was coined by Leibniz; but the thing – the metaphysic that recognises a divine Reality substantial to the world of things and lives and minds; the psychology that finds in the soul something similar to, or even identical with, divine Reality; the ethics that paces man’s final end in the knowledge of the immanent and the transcendent Ground of all being – the thing is immemorial and universal.”
-Aldous Huxley http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Troy/2967/Huxley.html
SEE: Mysticism
Philosophy for Children:
In using the PFC methods teachers seek to develop reasoning and reasonableness in their pupils. That is to develop the whole mind through higher order thinking and discussion to develop creative, critical and caring capabilities. Here are some of the specific capabilities that PFC develops:
reading for meaning: understanding arguments: problem seeking: detecting fallacies: questioning: being consistent: making distinctions: seeing what’s relevant: making connections: sticking to the point: classifying: giving reasons: formulating and using criteria: seeing broader perspectives: exploring and analyzing concepts: using examples: analyzing statements: using analogies: seeing assumptions: constructing explanations: drawing inferences: finding evidence and using it to support an argument: advancing counter arguments: developing a hypothesis: exploring alternatives: seeing consequences : generalizing from particulars: active listening: fair-mindedness: verbal-confidence and fluency: being reasonable: sharing ideas: seeing different perspectives: ondedness : respecting others: intellectual courage: self-correction.
It is suggested that most of the above are prerequisites for most subjects. It is suggested that all of the above contribute to the core activities of making/creating meaning and of reflecting upon that meaning.
Philosophy for children as an authentic programme of education.
I would claim that education based on Lipman’s(1992) Philosophy for Children can fulfil Abbs criteria of authentic education and that it is in reality a holistic system of education and constitutes a holistic form of education, at least in the provision of core activities and overall framework.
PFC – the Programme and its Characteristics
Matthew Lipman, who had been professor of Philosophy at Columbia University NY, thought philosophy too important to be left to elites and wanted to make it accessible to everyone.
1 The PFC programme uses stories which are about children of the age of the pupils – from Year 2 – adult & wide ability range. Each book has a file for teachers which is an education in itself.
2 The stories raise issues to do with thinking and caring and behaviour i.e. the whole child in a social context.
3 The teacher not primarily the transmitter of information but mainly facilitator of the children’s concept development & exploration of their agenda created from response to the text.
4 The aim is to support the class into becoming a ‘community of inquiry’ using reason(ing/ableness) as foundational to the 3 ‘R’s
5 PFC is much more than just a thinking skills course – it is a complete holistic model of education. It does not supply the beliefs or the heart of the school. These, of course, come from the denomination, the ethos, the leadership, the staff, the culture and parental backgrounds BUT it provides 1) a most powerful way (along with the arts, pastoral care etc) of developing the heart as well as the head & 2) for helping link the subjects into a whole e.g. Kio & Gus is scientific but supports all subjects.
6 The programme is concerned to develop ‘higher-order’ thinking that combines criticality, creativity & caring
7 The programme Lipman has developed has being taken up enthusiastically in countries all around the world and particularly by Spain, Portugal and South American i.e. in Catholic countries.
What does a lesson consist of?
A lesson consists of three, or four, parts
Firstly the reading of a text e.g. an episode from one of Lipman’s stories – the example here is from Pixie which was the story used last year with Years 5 & 6
Secondly the children are asked to make points and/or ask questions based on their responses to the text.
Thirdly discussion follows on all or part of the ‘agenda’ created by the children.
Fourthly there can be follow-up work. In a holistic curriculum all other subjects would stem from and flow back to PFC sessions.
57 Lipman feels that philosophy should be a subject on the curriculum because it would be a model of philosophical activity so that conceptual and inferential skills can be transferred to other subjects. He also feels that it would save time - in the case of teaching causal thinking philosophy would prevent repetition of causal thinking in each subject. He also makes the point that every discipline needs ethics, every discipline needs an epistemology. Subjects are deprived of these because they avoid ethical issues. If you don’t deal with such issues in a ‘pure’ way through philosophy you have to do so in an ‘applied’ way via the subject itself. People say they will do it but they don’t…they don’t want philosophy in the curriculum because they don’t want to make way for it because that would mean shrinking those bloated subjects that are now in the curriculum. (RPs notes from video of Professor Lipman’s talk at W London Institute. Video is available from Dr Robert Fisher at the Institute.)
Physical selves:
Physical expression in the form of dance, games and sport is a vital part of the SunWALK model. By and large there is too little of such expression in schools today. Such expression can be used much more in ‘smaller amounts’. We see great potential in bringing the ideas of such bodywork specialists as Feldenkreis into the educational domain.
Within the beliefs that underpin the SunWALK model is that of belief that we are spiritual beings as the saying of Teilhard de Chardin which, in paraphrase says;
We are not Physical beings having a spiritual experience
But Spiritual beings having a physical experience.
Our mind is seen as the essential light of our soul, soul being seen as that individuation of the human spirit that is the person. Our body is an emanation of our soul-heart-mind. It radiates or wilts with our moods. If we are so talented it can produce great dance, great song. The body is composed, and therefore decomposes, a process set in motion at the moment of conception. The soul-heart-mind is not composed and therefore doesn’t decompose, but lives eternally, evolving through the worlds of God, about which we know very little.
Poetry:
The primary interests in SunWALK concerning poetry are chiefly the following;
1) poetry as the form of human language that bridges the subjective and the objective forms of knowledge
2) poetry, or the mytho-poetic, as the form of human experience, and its expression, that encounters the transcendent. In seeking to give form to the ineffable, or almost ineffable, poetry operates on that cusp between the known and knowable and the unknown and unknowable and is therefore one means, along with meditation and prayer and other spiritual disciplines that keep us aware of, and in touch with, the ultimate context that gives all else meaning; mystery. See also Mythos and Logos, Knowledge, Mystery,
‘A poet at work is involved in a double process of making and discovery, a process that at the best time is unique, unself-conscious and unpredictable. Every real poem that he makes represents a new encounter with what he knows in himself, and it survives as something at once shed and attained.’ Heaney?
Whoever undertakes to create soon finds himself engaged in creating himself. Self-transformation and the transformation of others have constituted the radical interest of our century, whether in painting, psychiatry, or political action.
Harold Rosenberg (1906–78), U.S. art critic, author. The Tradition of the New, Preface (1960).
Politics, Power & Education:
“The explicitly educational flavour of a slogan such as ‘Back to Basics’ is not accidental; nor is its special concern with the English curriculum particularly recent. The current Secretary of State, two out of three of his immediate predecessors and the present Prime Minister have all pronounced upon the subject within the past five years. In 1989 Baker commissioned a report from the Language in the National Curriculum (LINC) Group, at a reported cost of £21 million, which was shelved, allegedly, for not placing sufficient emphasis on ‘formal’ methods of teaching reading.”
Williams V., p.17, English in Education, Autumn 1994, Vol.28, No.3., NATE, Sheffield
“Power is all right as long as you don’t inhale.”
Positivism: SEE – What’s wrong with education as it is?
Belief that natural science, based on observation, comprises the whole of human knowledge. Positivists like August Comte, then, reject as meaningless the claims of theology and metaphysics. http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/
Post-modernism:
I have a dream: in my dream . . . Aretha Franklin, in her fabulous black-lipstick “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” outfit, leaps from her seat at Maxim’s and, shouting “Think!,” blasts Lacan, Derrida and Foucault like dishrags against the wall, then leads thousands of freed academic white slaves in a victory parade down the Champs-Elysées.
Camille Paglia (b. 1947), U.S. author, critic, educator. New York Times Book Review (5 May 1991)
Frame and the Mirror, The
On Collage and Postmodernism
Thomas P. Brockelman 2001 Northwestern Uni Press
If the postmodern is a collage — as some critics have suggested — or if collage is itself a kernel of the postmodern, what does this mean for our way of understanding the world? The Frame and the Mirror uses this question to probe the distinctive character of the postmodern situation and the philosophical problem of representation. Brockelman’s work is itself a collage of sorts, using juxtapositions of critics and art historical figures to conduct a debate between such figures as Karsten Harries, Gianni Vattimo, Rosalind Krauss, Immanuel Kant, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Slavo Zizek, and Le Corbusier about issues such as truth in art, perspectivism, theatricality, the sublime, psychoanalytic theory, politics, and urbanism.
More than an introduction to the postmodern, The Frame and the Mirror advances our understanding of the contemporary world by relating its features to the peculiar characteristics of collage. Ultimately, Brockelman shows how collage demands that we reinterpret modernity, conceiving of it as suspended between a loss of certainty and a new kind of knowledge about the human condition. In doing so, his work challenges many of the claims made in the name of postmodernism — and offers in their place a new and ironic view of the cultural space in which contemporary and historical events occur.
Prayer:
Prayer:
“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference.”
Praxis:
Educators are involved with praxis: acts which shape and change the world. Adult education is ‘education for use’ (Lindeman 1944: 103). Yet few educators speak of praxis. Those that do tend to link it to the work of Freire. While praxis may not form part of many workers overt vocabulary, practice, a pale derivative, did.
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Man must prove the truth, i.e. the reality and power, the this-sideness of his thinking in practice…. All social life is essentially practical. All mysteries which lead theory to mystics, find their rational solution in human practice and in the comprehension of this practice…. The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it. (Marx 1845 Theses on Feurbach: II, VII, XI) |
Theory and practice
Practice is often depicted as the act of doing something. It is usually contrasted to ‘theory’ – abstract ideas about some thing or phenomenon. In this ‘theory’ tends to be put on a pedestal. From theory can be derived general principles (or rules). These in turn can be applied to the problems of practice. Theory is ‘real’ knowledge while practice is the application of that knowledge to solve problems. In many ways, this is a legacy of Aristotle and his three-fold classification of disciplines as theoretical, productive or practical. The basis of the distinction lies in the telos, or purpose, each serves. In brief:
The purpose of a theoretical discipline is the pursuit of truth through contemplation; its telos is the attainment of knowledge for its own sake. The purpose of the productive sciences is to make something; their telos is the production of some artefact. The practical disciplines are those sciences which deal with ethical and political life; their telos is practical wisdom and knowledge. (Carr & Kemmis 1986: 32)
This way of separating areas of knowledge can be seen, for example, in the way that we might view ‘pure maths’ (theoretical), tool-making (productive), and social work training (practical).
If the form of thinking associated with theoretical activities was contemplative, the enquiry involved in productive disciplines was a ‘making’ action or poietike. Aristotle associated this form of thinking and doing with the work of craftspeople or artisans. Hence, the making action is not simply mechanical. It also involves some creativity. This making action is dependent upon the exercising of skill (techne). It always results from the idea, image or pattern of what the artisan wants to make. In other words the person has a guiding plan or idea. For example, potters will have an idea of the article they want to make. While working, they may make some alterations, develop an idea and so on. But they are restricted in this by their original plan.
SEE: http://www.infed.org/biblio/b-praxis.htm
Problematization:
Problematization is the first part of what, in SunWALK, is referred to as dialectical process or dialectical spiritualization, the multi-level dialogue being the second
Problematization, in the view of Tom Heaney, is the antithesis of “problem-solving.” In problem-solving, an expert takes distance from reality and reduces it to dimensions which are amenable to treatment as though they were mere difficulties to be solved. To “problematize” is to engage a group in the task of codifying reality into symbols which can generate critical consciousness and empower them to alter their relations with nature and oppressive social forces. Problem-posing is a logically prior task which allows all previous conceptualizations of a problem to be treated as questionable. Problematization recognizes that “solutions” are often difficult because the wrong problems are being addressed.
Heaney, Tom, http://nlu.nl.edu/ace/Resources/Documents/FreireIssues.html#Dialogical
Process:
“And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of Children.
And he said:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday”.
Gibran, Kahlil (1975) The Prophet, p.13, William Heinemann Ltd, Mayfair, London
SunWALK is a process model – it sees being human as process, and education as process. Children are in the process of growing and of maturation anyway, teachers can only effect certain interventions, and create certain environment and create certain challenges – to effect the maturation in certain, desired, directions. The determination of ‘desired’ should utilize all forms of knowing, and involve all parties with a stake in the process.
Questions and questioning:
“Education is raising questions that are worth arguing about.”
(The late Jerrold Zaccharias of MIT)
Anne: (aged 10 in a Philosophy for Children Lesson)
“If you don’t talk how are you ever going to know something. Because if you don’t ask questions you’re never going to find anything out.”
5B – 9 year old (1992-93) pupil comments from a videoed lesson: “If you don’t talk how are you ever going to know something? Because if you don’t ask questions you are never going to find anything out.” * “…not speaking is like being in a blank room and not thinking at all… it is virtually impossible to just sit there in silence for the rest of your life – you must be mentally deprived or something if you’re gonna sit there quietly.” * “If you don’t speak you won’t be able to learn properly because… you wouldn’t be able to think in your head.”
Reality:
When men lack a critical understanding of their reality, apprehending it in fragments which they do not perceive as interacting constituent elements of the whole, they cannot truly know that reality. To know it truly, they would have to reverse their starting point: they would need to have a total vision of the context in order subsequently to separate and isolate its constituent elements and by means of this analysis to achieve a clearer perception of the whole.
Freire, Paulo, (1985), Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Penguin Books, London
In SunWALK reality, though multi-faceted, is seen as realization of progressive understanding of, and living in, one or more of the following; justice, truth, beauty and goodness (not excluding other virtues!). It is also the progressive realization of oneness.
It makes sense in SunWALK to view reality, metaphorically, as onion-like, as being in layers. The onion metaphor corresponds to Wilber’s preference for a ‘great nest of being’, as opposed to the ancient notion of a ‘great chain of being’. Though from a religious point of view, or at least a Baha’i point of view, the layers are resolved into the oneness of the Infinite.
…..reality is one; it does not admit multiplicity or division. Reality is as the sun, which shines forth from different dawning points; it is as the light, which has illumined many lanterns.
(`Abdu’l-Baha: Promulgation of Universal Peace*, Page: 126)
….reality is always the same, and one. The Reality is the Truth, and truth has no division. Truth is God’s guidance, it is the light of the world, it is love, it is mercy. These attributes of truth are also human virtues inspired by the Holy Spirit.
(`Abdu’l-Baha: Paris Talks*, Page: 121)
For education it makes sense to formulate a process of deepening the grasp on reality – in relation to aims. For example aims such as the development of humanness in a positive way, or care and respect for the earth. In the case of being human the Baha’i view of reality is as above – reality is truth, truth is love and mercy and such human attributes are inspirations of the Holy Spirit. Consequently increase command of reality is increased growth in such attributes; knowing them and living them.
SEE: Mysticism and Perennial Philosophy
Maslow didn’t see deficiency needs as necessarily leading to bad things;
“Part of the teacher’s motivation to help his students may well grow from his own deficiency needs – for safety, for security, for affection, for belonging, for liking, for loving. Basic needs are part of our essence, our human nature. If we learn to accept that we have these needs – in the same sense that we have five fingers instead of six, as a fact of life – then I see no danger. The recognition that we need constant narcissistic supplies, as the psychoanalysts call them, can be the basis for a kind of modesty about ourselves, a humility. We can recognize that we are fallible human beings. Consciousness protects us against the destructive and pathogenic character of our repressions. If we don’t have to repress the fact that we enjoy affection, then there is no danger. That, of course, is the great Freudian lesson.”
Abraham Maslow, p.154/5, Facts and Feelings in the Classroom (ed. L.J. Rubin), Chapter 6. What is a Taoistic Teacher, Ward Lock Educational, London 1974
Reality as Mysticism (and v.v)
View of reality and mysticism Deb Platt
http://www.digiserve.com/mystic/
There’s a reality beyond the material world:
Which is uncreated.
It pervades everything,
but remains beyond the reach
of human knowledge and understanding.
You approach that reality by:
Distinguishing ego from true self
Understanding the nature of desire
Becoming unattached
Forgetting about preferences
Not working for personal gain
Letting go of thoughts
Redirecting your attention
Being devoted
Being humble
Invoking that reality
Surrendering
That reality approaches you through:
Grace
The teacher
You’re transformed so that you embody
that reality by:
Dying and being reborn
Seeing the light
Experiencing union
Experiencing freedom
Reason and Passion;
“Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul.
If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can but toss and draft, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas.
For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.
Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion, that it may sing;
And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes.”
Gibran, Kahlil, (1975), The Prophet, p.44-45, William Heinemann Ltd., Mayfair, London
Reflection;
REFLECTION: c.f. affectivity, feelings, emotions, intuition
Valli (1993 p. 19) says that emphasizing the role of emotions and intuition in reflectivity is a missing area – at least in the seven programmes she studied. Only one programme used the term intuition and encouraged students to use both intellectual and emotional resources in reflecting on the meaning and effect of their teaching She refers to Houston and Clift (1990 p.211) who hypothesize that ‘current definitions of reflection are strongly influenced by the Western cultural heritage, which emphasizes analysis and problem-solving as opposed to negotiation, contemplation or enlightenment… They are influenced by the importance of an analytical method that stresses objectivity and emotional detachment.’
REFLECTIVE PRACTICE as a Research Method – an eclectic approach
Whitehead concludes his foreword by saying that we should generate a living educational theory by producing descriptions and explanations of our own educational development in our professional work in education.
Rather than conceive theory in terms of as set of conceptual relations (McNiff) offers a view of theory in terms of embodied explanations for the way of life of individuals. The explanations are embodied in the sense that they are part of the individual’s practical response to questions of the form, ‘How do I improve my practice?’ It is possible to judge the adequacy of the theory through the formation of better quality questions and improved practice and understanding. Such an educational theory is a narrative in which the individuals examine their lives in relation to questions of the form, “How did I live more fully my values in practice?”(NB This also seems to me to be holistic/ethical/spiritual/moral and truly professional.)
In the course of such an enquiry, individuals can explain how they are assimilating, accommodating and integrating the insights of other thinkers in making sense of their own way of life. Such explanations will not be reduced to those of other thinkers. In other words the form of educational theory proposed in this book can integrate the unique contributions of individuals as they strive to improve the quality of their own way of life. (NB This seems to me to support the aim of encouraging the professional to develop in an authentic, autonomous and self-actualised way.)
The dialectic of question and answer permits an openness to the possibilities which life itself permits. It is not closed off by any conceptual structure. This characteristic of the dialectic stresses the importance of education as a process of transformation in which traditional theories can exist as transitional structures which are open to modification, rather then a process in which conceptual structures are imposed on our thinking as in earlier accounts of educational theory. ( NB This seems to me to be holistic in that the primary level of question-and-answer is between the professional and her/him self
Whitehead ends by extending an invitation to the reader to enter into dialogue.
Reflexive/ness
an object, thereby indicating an action that the subject does to or for itself
power of mind to reflect upon itself as object?
Religion:
In Webster’s 3rd New Int. Dictionary there are 7 lengthy different definitions of ‘religion’. Apart from the obvious naming of the great world religions, the aspect that we are most interested in here is how they speak of the same realities (see mysticism and the writings of Wilber and Huxley’s Perennial Philosophy), albeit clothed in the culture of each religion’s specific time and place – and when we try to take account of man-made accretions. As such the probable origins of the term religion – ‘ligare’, from the latin, to bind
Religion originates in an attempt to represent and order beliefs, feelings, imaginings and actions that arise in response to direct experience of the sacred and the spiritual. As this attempt expands in its formulation and elaboration, it becomes a process that creates meaning for itself on a sustaining basis, in terms of both its originating experiences and its own continuing responses.
A post-modern pagan definition by
A Mr McDermott at http://www2.canisius.edu/~mcdermot/relig.html provides 55 definitions of religion – below are The definitions of religion that speak to me as relevant to SunWALK:
4. A man’s religion, it may be said, is that set of objects, habits and convictions, whatever it might prove to be, which he would die for rather than abandon, or at least would feel himself excommunicated from humanity if he did abandon. –Bosanquet
10. Religion is ethics heightened, enkindled, lit up by feeling. — Matthew Arnold
11. Religion (subjectively regarded) is the recognition of all duties as divine commands. –Immanuel Kant
14. To take everything individual as a part of the whole, everything limited as a representation of the infinite, that is religion…. The essence of religion consists in the feeling of an absolute dependence. –Friedrich Schleiermacher
17. The religious attitude is a sense of the possibilities of existence and devotion to the cause of these possibilities. –John Dewey
22. I understand by religion any system of thought and action shared by a group which gives the individual a frame of orientation and an object of devotion. –Erich Fromm
25. Religion is man’s acute awareness of the realm of unattained possibility and the behavior which results from this awareness –H.N. Wieman
29 I define the object of religion to be whatever is perceived as a mystery and treated accordingly. –R.R. Marett
31. Religion is that conception of the nature of the world and of man which is essential to, i.e., identical with, a man’s nature. –Ludwig Feuerbach
33. Religion is the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern, a concern which qualifies all other concerns as preliminary and which itself contains the answer to the question of the meaning of life. –Paul Tillich
37. “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” – Karl Marx (I like this because of the first part – of the second part true religion is the opposite of what Marx says i.e. it is the means to a deeper sense of reality through a de-numbing rather than numbing, and if true the de-numbing leads to working for social change.)
38. “Religion is the attempt to make the truth dynamic in the soul of man… A religion that is not the expression of philosophic truth degenerates into superstition and obscurantism.” –Sri Aurobindo
41. “Religion is the art and the theory of the internal life of man, so far as it depends on the man himself and on what is permanent in the nature of things…. Religion is what the individual does with his own solitariness.” –A.N. Whitehead
42. Religion is “the ritual perpetuation of the past.” –S.G.F. Branden
43. Religion is “any system of thought, feeling and action, usually shared by a group, which gives the individual a frame of orientation and an object of devotion, regarded as a matter of ultimate concern. –W.D. Geoghegan (derivative from Tillich & Fromm)
44. Religion is “the telling of a story with one’s life.” –Michael Novak
45. “Religion can be defined as a system of beliefs and practices by means of which a group of people struggles with these ultimate problems of human life. It is the refusal to capitulate to death, to give up in the face of frustration, to allow hostility to tear apart one’s human associations.” –J. Milton Yinger
46. “Religion is a social and individual relationship, vitally realized in a tradition and community (through doctrine, ethos, and generally ritual as well), with something that transcends or encompasses man and his world: with something always to be understood as the utterly final, true reality (the Absolute, God, nirvana). In contrast to philosophy, religion is concerned at once with a message of salvation and the way to salvation.” –Hans Kung
47. “…my religion is to do good.” –Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man
48. Religion is “the consecration of the whole man, of his heart, his conduct, his knowledge and his mind.” –J.A. Froude
50. “Suppose we loosely define a religion as any discipline whose foundations rest on an element of faith, irrespective of any element of reason which may be present.” –F. De Sue
53. “[T]he term ‘religion’ designates the attitude peculiar to a consciousness which has been changed by experience of the numinosum.” – C.G. Jung
55. “Religion is nothing other than the turning of a purified soul to the true God.”–Philo of Alexandria
“Our literature is a substitute for religion, and so is our religion.
–T.S. Eliot, A Dialogue on Dramatic Poetry
RELIGION – ACADEMIC – HUMAN
Maxwell (1984) argues that if religion ‘is characterized’ in a broad way as “concern for what is of most value in human existence” then academic inquiry…. is essentially a religious enterprise (Chap 4)
In Elliott, J, (1992). Action Research for Educational Change, Oxford, OUP
Maxwell, N (1984), From Knowledge to Wisdom, Oxford, Blackwell
Research:
RESEARCH: see Reflective Practice
Moustakis gathered a range of recent investigations, personal notes, spontaneous self-reflective writings, reviewed heuristic literature and re-examined my seminar outlines. He also, he says returned to lyric poetry, autobiography and biography.
I engaged in an immersion process, open and receptive to the nature of discovery, welcoming alternating rhythms of concentrated focus and inventive distraction. I searched within my knowledge and experience for deepened and extended awareness that would further illuminate structures and essences of heuristic discovery. I found particular meaning in studies that exemplified the heuristic paradigm and provided practical methods and procedures for its operational effectiveness in investigating human experience. p 10
for the future; it implies that you check how much sense you have made of the world by seeing how well that ’sense’ enables you to anticipate it; it implies that your personality is the way you go about making sense of the world.
In heuristic methodology one seeks to obtain qualitative depictions that are at the heart and depths of a per son’s experience – depictions of situations, events, conversations, relationships, feelings thoughts, values and beliefs. p38
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