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Science:
Posted via web from sunwalking’s posterous
Self:
1 self as an individual = individuated human spirit
2 self as heart-mind heart-mind = consciousness + re-callable material + stuff that isn’t recallable such as pops up in dreams
3 self as (true) personality – that unique admixture of the names, attributes and qualities of God, and their negative opposites, that is our personality. The negative opposites = the positives in urgent need of development.
4 self as ‘egoic mind’ = that desperate bundle of fears and defensiveness that gives rise to the continuous internal and external chatter known as the monkey that sits upon the shoulder of each of us – proportionate to the extent that we don’t rest in inner stillness
5 self as an illusion – ultimately self is an illusion because we are all part of Self – God emanating as the human spirit within Creation as a whole
Self-actualization:
Growth in the realization of the unique set of potentials that each person has. Nurturing this growth , along with the economic and other needs of the groups to which the individual belongs, is the aim of education.
The term comes from A H Maslow whose hierarchy of needs was developed in the 1940s and 50s. Critics have said that Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Human Needs
The Need for:
Self-
Trans
cend
ence
Self
actualization
(realization)
The need to
become everything
that one is capable
of becoming. The
need for self-fulfillment,
self-expression & creativity.
The Esteem Needs
The need for
self-respect &
the respect of others:
for competence
independence,
for prestige.
The Belongingness & Love Needs
The need to relate meaningfully
to other people:
the needs for friendship
and affection, for belonging to a group.
The Safety Needs
The needs for physical & psychological
safety & security; for shelter & freedom
from attack on the body or the personality.
The Physiological Needs
These are the needs for air, water food etc. necessary to
keep the body in a state of healthy equilibrium
denies the ability of humans to act nobly – that is to sacrifice the sacrifice the satisfaction of lower needs for the sake of a higher category of need. But such criticism doesn’t take into account the very distinction that Maslow developed between ‘growth motivation’ and ‘deficiency motivation’ – and the distinction is made via an imaginary experiment in which it is pointed out that a person who has starved for two weeks loses their hunger after a few minutes of having a sealed plastic bag around their head! Of course safety needs can be cast aside if a parent sees a child in danger etc., but in general lower order needs have to be satisfied in order to pursue higher-order needs. This why justice in development is vital – extreme subsistence farming denies people all but minimal and snatched opportunities for development in the arts etc.
The whole purpose of Maslow’s work was to develop a psychology of human nature that aided the process of maturation, maturation toward what he called ‘the self-actualized human being’. The overarching characteristic of the self- actualizing person he saw as “more efficient perception of reality and more comfortable relations with it.” This of course is virtually identical with the notions of Mysticism and of Perennial Philosophy presented here. The concern that they share is development toward Reality, and reality is defined as development in being, thinking and acting in the light of such higher-order virtues as justice, truth, beauty and goodness.
http://vassun.vassar.edu/~lowry/P106/maslow1.html
Maslow’s approach the problem of what is self-actualization is to talk about the special, driving needs of the self-actualizers. They need the following in their lives in order to be happy:
Truth, rather than dishonesty.
Goodness, rather than evil.
Beauty, not ugliness or vulgarity.
Unity, wholeness, and transcendence of opposites, not arbitrariness or forced choices.
Aliveness, not deadness or the mechanization of life.
Uniqueness, not bland uniformity.
Perfection and necessity, not sloppiness, inconsistency, or accident.
Completion, rather than incompleteness.
Justice and order, not injustice and lawlessness.
Simplicity, not unnecessary complexity.
Richness, not environmental impoverishment.
Effortlessness, not strain.
Playfulness, not grim, humorless, drudgery.
Self-sufficiency, not dependency.
Meaningfulness, rather than senselessness.
http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/maslow.html
Being is a potential, a capacity, which is written in the very finest patterning of our psychic structure. It is mysteriously encoded within our innate humanity. And, as Abraham Maslow points out in his pioneering work Toward a Psychology of Being, as a capacity it is also a need, and therefore an intrinsic value. Just as our physical capacities to see and hear, for example are transformed into needs in the same way. We shall discover that as our capacity, Being is transformed into our highest need, and therefore our highest value. This is neither an external nor an internal value. It is a value which has to be lived. It can only be actualized dialectically through interacting with our environment. Here is Maslow;
“Man demonstrates in his own nature a pressure toward fuller and fuller Being, more and more perfect actualization of his humanness in exactly the same naturalistic, scientific sense that an acorn may be said to be ‘pressing forward’ being an oak tree, or that a tiger can be observed to ‘push forward’ being tigerish, or a horse toward being equine. Man is ultimately not moulded or shaped into humanness, or taught to be human. The role of the environment is ultimately to permit him or help him to actualize his own potentialities, not its potentialities. The environment does not give him potentialities and capacities; he has them in inchoate or embryonic form, just exactly as he has embryonic arms and legs. And creativeness, spontaneity, selfhood, authenticity, caring for others, being able to love, yearning for truth are embryonic potentialities belonging to his species-membership just as much as are his arms. legs and brain and eyes. “
Hamilton p 132 in Earthdream
Self-knowledge:
“And a man said, Speak to us of Self-Knowledge.
And he answered, saying:
Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights.
But your ears thirst for the sound of your heart’s knowledge.
You would know in words that which you have always known in thought.
You would touch with your fingers the naked body of your dreams.
And it is well you should.
The hidden wee-spring of your soul must needs rise and run murmuring to the sea;
And the treasure of your infinite depths would be revealed to your eyes.
But let there be no scales to weight your unknown treasure;
And seek not the depths of your knowledge with staff or sounding line.
For self is a sea boundless and measureless.
. . . . .
Say not, ‘I have found the truth’, but rather, ‘I have found a truth.’
Say not, ‘I have found the path of the soul.’ Say rather, ‘I have met the soul walking upon my path.’
The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed.
The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.”
Gibran, Kahlil, (1975), The Prophet, p.48-49, William Heinemann Ltd., Mayfair, London
“I do not know myself and God forbid that I should.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
That my known self will never be more than a little
clearing in the forest.
That gods, strange gods, come forth from the forest into
the clearing of my know self, and then go back.
That I must have the courage to let them come and go.
That I will never let mankind put anything over me, but
that I will always try to recognize and submit to the
gods in me and in other men and women.
D H Lawrence Corgi Modern Poets in Focus Ed Dannie Abse p 13 Corgi 1971
Self-understanding: c.f. reflectivity, teacher development, meaning-making
“What place, if any, should self-understanding as part of reflectivity play in the development of a teacher?” Valli, (1993 p. 15) acknowledges,
the theme of self as teacher which includes personal teaching styles, themes or theories; professional growth or as one programme put it, ‘an effective teaching personality (Clift, Houston and McCarthy, 1992) The focus here is on reflection for self-enlightenment: confronting the self to examine feelings and emotions about teaching, students and the school setting (McCarthy, et al ., 1989)…..This theme suggests a strong developmental perspective: the personal construction of meaning in becoming a teacher
People construct meaning even if you don’t ask them to, so you may as well ask them to, especially if it helps in the process of creating confidence and if it improves the take-up, albeit a critical take up, of public theory as well as helping facilitate reflection on teaching experience. With Valli I would suggest that students be urged to draw upon personal knowledge to transform or reconstruct their experience. I would include as part of reflection in initial teacher education work on significant or critical learning/educational events in the individual’s life as one way to access personal theories, as well as a way to become more conscious about the effect of such experiences on how we see education, learning and learners now.
‘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).
Semiotics:
the study of signs and symbols, esp. the relations between written or spoken signs and their referents in the physical world or the world of ideas Collins Concise Dictionary p1222
“All knowledge is a semiotic affair.” Umberto Eco OU programme EH207
Service - service ethic – service learning:
Service is other-centredness in action. It is the indispensable need to nurture the desire to be of service to others, what some call other-centredness and what Professor John Hull gives as the simplest of all definitions of spirituality, “To live for others.”. It is a (the?) core ethic
‘Service learning’ is now well established in the US, and in small amounts has a long history in the UK. The main problem lies in the organization of substantial on-going opportunities for large numbers of pupils. However the value can be extremely high to the individual’s development. The SunWALK view is that schools can do, and often do do, much more toward establishing a service ethic than is represented by the number of gardens dug, or dogs walked. Service of others within the school community, helping your fellows, raising money, the messages that come through school assemblies, the content of visiting speakers etc. – all these help to instil the service ethic – but some real, challenging, experience is also necessary.
Soul: an individuated expression of the human spirit, that we call a person.
The Concise Oxford Dictionary’s definitions two to six (p 1095) include the following:
moral and emotional part of man; intellectual part of man; animating or essential part; person viewed as embodying moral or intellectual qualities; emotional or intellectual energy…
Soul mind and spirit however are seen in Baha’i teachings as three modes of engagement of the one human reality as in;
it (Human Reality) is the same reality which is given different names, according to the different conditions wherein it becomes manifest. Because of its attachment to matter and the phenomenal world, when it governs the physical functions of the body, it is called the human soul. When it manifests itself as the thinker, the comprehender, it is called the mind. And when it soars into the atmosphere of God, and travels in the spiritual world, it becomes designated as spirit.
Star of the West 7.19 (March 1917):190
Spirit:
Spirit is seen as the universal, single, reality behind everything. From a Baha’i perspective – “…. all parts of the creational world are of one whole.” BWF 364. ‘Behind everything’ suggests a level of which we can conceive. That level of which we can conceive is itself an emanation of that which we cannot conceive, but which we hint at as the Godhead, or for Tillich, Ultimate Being. Spirit manifests at various levels – 5 levels in Baha’i teachings – plant, animal, human, the spirit of faith and the Holy Spirit. From a Baha’i perspective we should also recall; “Nature …… is the Will of God as manifested in the world of being.” TAB pp. 141-142.
Energy is spirit at a particular level – equine spirit is both the horseness of the horse and ‘that particular horse’. Granville, who lives in retirement next door to us, is both a champion Cheltenham hurdler and an expression of the ‘spirit of horse’.
Energy and matter are, or can be, interchangeable. Spirit and form are interchangeable – particularly via human consciousness in artistic media, but also in the meaning that is made and the conversions or transformations, back and forth, between energy and form, and energy and meaning – as Heaney describes. In SunWALK all material forms are seen as spirit set aside for the purpose of being some ‘thing’ – a rock, a tree, a horse, a person, a thing a person makes. All however ultimately belong to one singleness – “All that exists is God.” AB in London p. 22.
Some aspects of physical reality are apparently rapidly and continuously in states of transformation, like a river or human consciousness, some are in apparently permanent and unchanging states like mountains. Ultimately both are eternal and in permanent change.
In the SunWALK model we are primarily concerned with spirit in two forms. Firstly human as that which distinguishes humans. Secondly the higher-order spiritual qualities that believers would call the names and attributes of God, love, justice, mercy etc, that are potential and attainable through effort, and which are part of what is meant by humanity being ‘made in the image of God’.
A summary of the Baha’i theological background is presented in the next few paragraphs.
Spirit is seen as a single, ultimately mysterious reality, mysterious because we can never grasp the whole. It makes more sense to capitalise Spirit when referring to the whole, and to use a small ‘s’ when referring to a level of spirit such as animal spirit or human spirit. All of Creation is levels of spirit within Spirit – levels of reality are nested within the whole, as Wilber would say, like Russian dolls. Spirit as matter and spirit as energy are interchangeable. All is spirit. This object is spirit set aside for the purpose of being a tree. This object is spirit set aside for the purpose of being a human being. This object is spirit set aside for the purpose of being stone, shaped by the spirit set aside for be Michelangelo to be the boy David. The forest that burns is spirit set aside for the purpose of being trees that are transformed through the agency of fire to become ash and free energy. The levels of spirit, and reality, in this world range from the mineral, the plant, the animal, the human, the Holy Spirit and the Godhead. Baha’is use the term God but not in any anhropomorphic way. In fact the Baha’i teachings are closer to the spirit of Buddhism than they are to anthropomorphism. This in the sense that every prayer contains names and attributes of Go which themselves simply point to the infinite impossibility of knowing the Godhead – as in The All-Knowing. The All-Wise, The All-Mighty the All-Merciful, the Ever-Forgiving, the Omniscient etc. The capitalisation, and the transforming of the phrases in to compound adjectives, indicates that that which is being referred to is impossible to comprehend, because they are qualities in infinite form. They are sign-posts toward the totality of all that is, the Whole.
Creation is seen as an emanation of that unknown, unknowable reality, called God, or Allah, or whatever name any particular community has within their language. Humans can know of God, so the Baha’i teachings state, in the sense that we can know of the heat and light of the sun, but we cannot directly approach the sun or embrace it. In Baha’i understanding the impossibility of the finite human knowing the infinite God is overcome through the intermediary of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit exists both as the energy that emanates from God that sustains the reality (and mirage) of this world but also has fuller expression via its appearance in one of the great Messengers that appear from time to time – Krishna, Buddha, Moses, Christ, Muhammad, Baha’u’llah – who ‘inject’ into this world a fresh potentiality and stage in human evolution. Metaphorically the light and heat correspond to the illumination of God’s knowledge and the warmth of God’s love – that are expressed via the ‘sun’ of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit in its origin is the fullness of God but, like transformed high voltage, is ‘stepped down’ via two means. Firstly the infusions of power that come from the Messengers of God are graduated according to the evolution of human consciousness from age to age, Secondly human capacity being finite, and error-prone through attachments to lower realities, can only experience ‘breaths of the Holy Spirit’, inspirations that can be misshapen by the imperfections of the individual and which need checking against the perennial teachings of the Messengers of God and against science.
The imperfect, error strewn use by humanity of each of these infusions of power requires a renewal every 500 or 1000 years. The infusions are like the coming of spring and some whither on the vine, or at worst become cancerous, as in the case of such 20thC monsters as Stalin, Hitler, Idi Amin, Pol Pot etc. At the beginning of a period following the coming of a Messenger (or High Prophet or Manifestation in Baha’i terminology) great energies are released, as in the coming of spring, and society is transformed – a new world comes into being – as in the case of the centuries following the coming of Muhammad, or since the middle of the 19thC. Eventually humanity’s capability to stay with, and respond to, the original message diminishes and a fresh infusion is required. It is important to note that the Baha’i view sees the founders of the great world religions as expressions of the one Holy Spirit, and therefore accepts the divinity of the Messengers that established those religions as one and the same reality, but not all of the man-made accretions that have come to stick to those Revelations.
That level of spirit we call human is single – as it says in Baha’i writings;
How resplendent the luminaries of knowledge that shine in an atom, and how vast the oceans of wisdom that surge within a drop! To a supreme degree is this true of man, who, among all created things, hath been invested with the robe of such gifts, and hath been singled out for the glory of such distinction. For in him are potentially revealed all the attributes and names of God to a degree that no other created being hath excelled or surpassed. All these names and attributes are applicable to him. Even as He hath said: “Man is My mystery, and I am his mystery.” (Baha’u'llah: Gleanings, Page: 177)
However that human reality, human spirit, is seen as typically engaging in three primary ways – in caring, in creativity and in criticality – in community. The development of such higher order qualities as love, justice, mercy is in Baha’i theology seen as a process that takes place when we reflect the names and attributes of God. Baha’i teachings do not subscribe to the notion of original sin, but humans are not seen as necessarily and intrinsically good. Goodness comes via good experience in family and community and then increasingly through volition.
Cosmologically spirit is seen as the characteristic, and defining, ontological and behavioural relationships within a particular order of reality. The levels of reality are seen as mineral, plant, animal, human and Divine as the Messengers of God, and Divine as the unknowable Godhead.
In the case of plants they grow and reproduce. In the case of animals they grow, reproduce and move around. In the case of saintly people they acquire a majority of higher order qualities c.f. lower order ones.
However lower order forms can inform us via the interaction between our knowing the abstract general and the radiant particular. For example the spirit of a horse is the generalized horseness of a horse, as well as the particularity of, in my case, Granville who was champion Cheltenham hurdler, and who lives next to my house. Usually intensity in the generalized knowing of horseness requires experience of one or more particular horses. If I want to know the horseness of a horse I do not play with the abstraction of horse in my not very horsey mind, instead I go and feed carrots to, and talk to, and pat, Granville, and his boss, the mare Millie. The other thing I do is read the poem Foal by the poet Ted Hughes – that takes my experience of horse way beyond my abstract notion and in fact way beyond the pleasures of my interaction with Granville, as only a great poet can do. But the poet does that through my having my abstract notion and my particular experiences, and his use of metaphor in describing his sensation, imagination and vision created through the birth of a foal. Good or great poetry is so powerful because it connects ‘the matrix of feeling and knowing in the particular and the general’, of the poet, with ‘the matrix of feeling and knowing in the particular and the general’, of the reader. I hold the view that where Buber is calling for the I-Thou relationship he is in effect call for the poetic relationship as I have just described it.
Spirit as (cosmic) energy:
SunWALK is ‘spirit as energy-energy as spirit’ model, as demonstrated in the water fountain metaphor, which happens to demonstrate Bohm’s whirlpool metaphor (see below) as well as the dynamics of the interiority of being human. The teacher is seen, at best, as more of an artist that a scientist and crafts-person, though s/he should be these as well. As an artist s/he works with the medium of the human spirit – as caring, creativity, criticality and community, plus dialectical method and high-quality information.
In SunWALK all is seen as spirit and matter is seen as spirit set aside for the purpose of being, a tree, a horse, a person or whatever. So the following passage from Broomfield, relying on Bohm, is accepted in the sense ‘matter is spirit’ not in the sense of consciousness is a function of matter by and of itself. Matter is the servant of a greater purpose and within that greater purpose was always the potentiality for human consciousness.
Broomfield describes Bohm’s overarching hypothesis of undivided wholeness in flowing movement he has pointed science back to a recognition of consciousness as inherent in the material universe;
Bohm’s argument, in a nutshell, is that we exist on a seamless reality, which is in constant flux. In this flow, this holomovement, things can be seen to form and dissolve – to unfold into manifest existence, the explicate order, and then enfold back into the implicate order. “If you’ve ever seen a whirlpool”, he says, “you’ve seen how the water gushes up from the centre , then falls out and down and around to come up again through the centre and over, the movement in the whole being both simultaneously outward and inward.”
Broomfield, John, (1997), Other Ways of Knowing, Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions Int.
Spiritual development:
The following notes taken from a
Whatever is to be agreed about the nature of spiritual development it must 1) take account of the values of the broader society, 2) avoid the divisive and idiosyncratic interpretations which plague much discussion about spirituality and 3) must promote an openness which leaves no room for indoctrination or the unjustifiable promotion of specific religious beliefs. It must not be isolated artificially from other aspects of children’s development, such as moral or physical….
…some of the main items I would expect to find if a school were to report on its approach to the spiritual development of a child.
1 Looking inwards: personal identity and individual development
developing a sense of self and of identity within a group
personality and behaviour
educating the emotions
developing qualities of character
developing the conscience and the will
2 Looking outwards: some spiritual responses to life
creativity (the practical exercising of the imagination, which often involves drawing on one’s
inner spiritual resources.
contemplation (prayer, worship, meditation, silence, reverence, awe, a sense of the sacred).
commitment (the act of the will which ties one to one’s family, to one’s beliefs, (community?)to one’s
profession or to abstract principles like truth and beauty, indeed any for of loyalty).
quest (human struggle and achievement, the search for meaning, the search for something beyond
ourselves; for some this may involve ceremonies and rituals, for others personal religious or quasi-
religious experience, or the search for meaning through metaphor, ambiguity and myth).
Children would be encouraged to consider each of these elements as significant dimensions of what it is to be human, and to explore the resonances, if any, with their own lives.
One would expect to find such learning going on in the informal curriculum, including the school ethos, pastoral structures and learning by example, in structured activities like sport or circle time, and everywhere in the formal curriculum, particularly in art, literature, music, health education, drama, dance, PSE, collective worship and RE. Often. however such work in the spiritual domain is haphazard and uncoordinated.
Dr Mark Halstead, Director, RIMSCUE Centre, University of Plymouth TES 18.12.92
Spiritual education c.f. spiritualizing education:
SunWALK prefers spiritualizing education, as opposed to spiritual education, since that verb form emphasises process, experientiality and action. Such process-centredness, coupled with the other elements in the model lead, in our view, to an avoidance of the problems cited in this passage by Sloan;
“There is a tendency then for the spiritual to remain merely at an attitudinal level. The necessity is never taken up to develop spiritual insight with a rigor and specificity that can have real and detailed implications for the curriculum, for pedagogy, for our understanding of child development, and for our grasp of the social-communal tasks of education.”
Douglas Sloan, (Foreword) The Renewal of Meaning in Education
Spiritual education:
“This blending of everything into one mass tends to create a generalized concept of the spiritual that can speak, for example, of the educational importance of reverence and wonder, but that can never move to draw from these generalities more than the bare minimum of concrete guidance for the actual tasks of education”.
Spiritual Development
“Spiritual development relates to that aspect of inner life through which pupils acquire insights into their personal experience of enduring worth. It is characterized by reflection, the attribution of meaning to experience, valuing a non-material dimension of life and intimations of enduring reality. ‘Spiritual’ is not synonymous with ‘religious’: all areas of the curriculum may contribute to pupils ‘ spiritual development.”
OFSTED’s Framework of Instruction
Spiritual quality;
A quality, a state of being an behaving, such as being loving, merciful, kind compassionate, etc. For most believers such qualities are seen as the names and attributes of God, in whose image we are made.
SEE Spirituality
Spirituality:
In every moment of genuine love,
we are dwelling in God and God is dwelling in us.
~ Paul Tillich
Spirituality in SunWALK is seen as the source of the will to act morally.
So what exactly is Spirituality Michael Lerner. http://www.ru.org/lerner.html
Spirituality is a lived experience, a set of practices and a consciousness that aligns us with a sense of sanctity of All Being. It usually involves:
• an experience of love and connection to the world and others,
• a recognition of the ultimate Unity of All Being, and through that, of the preciousness of the earth and the sanctity of every human being on the planet,
• a conviction that the universe is not negative or neutral but tilts toward goodness and love,
• a joyous and compassionate attitude toward oneself and others,
• a deep trust that there is enough for all and that every human being deserves to share equally in the planet’s abundance and is equally responsible for shaping our future,
• a sense that the world is filled with a conscious spiritual energy that transcends the categories and concepts that govern reality and inclines the world toward freedom, creativity, goodness, connectedness, love, and generosity,
• a deep inner knowing that our lives have meaning through our innermost being as manifestations of ultimate goodness of the universe (or, in theistic terms, through our
connection to and service of God).
This is what spirituality is about.
Religions on the other hand, are the various historical attempts to organize a set of doctrines, rituals, and specific behaviours that are supposed to be “the right way to live.”
Some religions may embody spirituality. Many have encompassed spiritual moments or spiritual practices at one time or another. But many religions have little to offer today in the way of spirituality, except in isolated corners of their traditions.
EXTRACT This article was printed in New Renaissance, Volume 10, No. 2 and was excerpted, with permission , from Spirit Matters by Michael Lerner. The editor of Tikkun magazine, and author of the acclaimed book The Politics of Meaning, Michael Lerner has been described by some as America’s pre-eminent Jewish intellectual, and by others as one of the most significant spiritual innovators of our time.
The development within an individual’s feeling, thought and behaviour, of higher-order qualities, or virtues, through action, reflection and interaction with others. Believers in (at least) Judaism, Christianity, Islam and the Baha’i Faith would refer to such qualities as reflecting the names and attributes of God. Just action indicates the state of just being. Loving action indicates the state of loving being. Wise action, including possibly wise speech, indicates the state of wise being.
Spirituality in terms of the human spirit, is the development of capabilities derived from engagement in caring, creativity and criticality, in community, – preferably a balance of all four. Spirituality beyond that which is intrinsic to the human spirit is concerned with a relationship with one or more sources of inspiration and guidance. For most religionists this is with one of the ‘Messengers’ of God, but SunWALK, in order to be more inclusive, recognizes as a spiritual source any person or source that nourishes the individual in the process of transcendent spiritualization.
Humanists, I suppose, would see that process as development of higher-order qualities. ‘Believers’ (at least Jews, Christians, Moslems and Baha’is) would see that process as growth in being made in the image of God.
The definition Prof. John Hull gave, in a conference I attended, in answer to the question, “What is spirituality?” was, “To live for others.” Although it would be easy to savage this statement with lots of ‘yes, buts’ and ‘what about ifs’ it makes the essential point – more good is likely to come from lives that are (healthily) other-centred than from lives that are self-centred.
The great Rebbe A J Heschel similarly identifies our very humanity with such other-centredness;
“ Human is he who is concerned with other selves. Man is a being who can never be self-sufficient, not only by what he must take in but also by what he must give out. A stone is self-sufficient, (hu)man(s) (are) self-surpassing. Always in need of other beings to give himself to, man cannot even be in accord with his own self unless he serves some thing beyond himself.”
p. 138 Heschel A. J. (1971), Man is Not Alone, New York: Octagon Books
Drawing on Wilber (1983, 2000) and Rothberg and Kelly (1998) John Rowan at a conference sponsored by the British Association for Counselling, at Rydall Hall Cumbria March 2001, described five definitions of spirituality;
1) spirituality as peak experiences or altered states
2) the philosophical definition that sees spirituality as the highest levels in any seriously pursued realm of develop, such as science, art, philosophy sport etc.
3) the religious definition that sees spirituality as a developmental line, pursued through meditation prayer, ritual, contemplation as so on. Unlike some religionists Rowan would not want to be exclusive and points to Tillich’s notion of ultimate concern.
4) spirituality as the sum total of all of the highest levels of all the developmental lines
5) spirituality as an attitude (such as openness, trust or love) that we may or may not have at any stage
Spiritualization:
Process that nurtures spirituality. Spirituality in terms of the human spirit, is the development of capabilities derived from engagement in caring, creativity and criticality, in community, – preferably a balance of all four. Spirituality beyond that which is intrinsic to the human spirit is concerned with a relationship with one or more sources of inspiration and guidance. For most religionists this is with one of the ‘Messengers’ of God, but SunWALK, in order to be more inclusive, recognizes as a spiritual source any person or source that nourishes the individual in the process of transcendent spiritualization.
Humanists, I suppose, would see that process as development of higher-order qualities. ‘Believers’ (at least Jews, Christians, Moslems and Baha’is) would see that process as growth in being made in the image of God.
STORY, NARRATIVE and MYTH – HERE
Taxonomies of Caring Creativity and Criticality: SEE Caring Creativity and Criticality
Teacher/s:
Studies of teachers at work have shown …. over 1000 interpersonal exchanges in a single day. Ted Wragg Education: An action guide for Parents BBC Publications1993
When is a teacher not a teacher but merely an agent in someone else’s communication? The current concern about the de-professionalization of teachers, the turning of teachers into mechanisms for firing Utilitarian bullets is described by Miller (1992, p. 7) as a “tide of technicism, reductionism and conservative political and corporate agendas” a climate in which we find the goals of, “cultural uniformity and economic competitiveness”.
Teacher Education:
Can piecemeal change ever be effective? Valli (1993 p12) points out that piecemeal attempts fail to influence the perspectives of teacher candidates and that a more intense, coherent framework is necessary. What we need is one or more countries, or regions, that are willing to apply the holistic perspective thoroughly and whole-heartedly.
MECHANISTIC VIEW OF THE ROLE OF THE TEACHER
Issue: Characteristics
View of education: Utilitarian, instrumental, positivist
Control system: Centralised bureaucratic regulation, plus social market forces:
Teaching profession: Technical delivery system for prescribed curriculum
Initial training system: Subject knowledge plus basic classroom skills, minimum competence criteria
Professional induction: Socialization plus skills reinforcement. Some protection from overload desirable to consolidate classroom competence
Professional development: New or additional competencies, based on imposed change & identified school needs.
Career development: Hierarchical differentiation, based on role definition and increased responsibility.
Quality control: Appraisal, performance criteria and quantified outputs.
Motivational system: Individual self-interest, material reward plus compulsion/sanction
from Roger Aspland and Geoff Brown Keeping Teaching Professional in
The need for a synergy from three focuses; experience of teaching, personal theories and public theory.
From the range of concerns expressed by writers in the field of initial education of teachers there stands out a particular web of relationships that centre on three focuses; experience of teaching, personal theories and public theory. (see Diagram 1).
Diagram 1
.
Past———————Now——————Future
Professional
experience
Teacher as a
reflective
whole-person
developing
Group Process/es
Personal Theories Public Theories
College/School inputs
Diagram 1 – A student-centred model for teacher education that seeks synergy
from the relationships between three focuses; professional experience,
personal theories and public theories
Effectiveness, and student satisfaction, I suggest comes from how well the three focuses are combined in the process of the student’s overall personal and professional development. However such a tripartite conceptual framework could be treated highly mechanistically instead we need to consider what elements might permit a programme to be holistic in scope as well as and spiritually and morally founded.
Authenticity in the models we present of Human Nature, Education and Learning in teacher education.
What constitutes authentic learning and teaching for the initial education of student teachers or for the professional development of teachers? I would say that it should be characterised by a worthwhile notion of human nature, a worthwhile notion of education and a worthwhile notion of bringing human nature into the educational process of learning. In each case what is worthwhile depends on what we focus and why and for how long. I suppose it would be possible to use holistic ideas toward materialist goals (in which case the only certainty is that someone will). The only safeguard is to recognise that values need upholding and spiritual principles need applying. An interesting model of the application of the spiritual principle is to be found in The Promise of World Peace, a guide of holistic blueprint for the peace-making process, which was issued by the Baha’i International Community in 1985. The document says,
‘There are spiritual principles, or what some call human values, by which solutions can be found for every social problem. Any well-intentioned group can in a general sense devise practical solutions to its problems, but good intentions and practical knowledge are usually not enough. The essential merit of spiritual principle is that it not only presents a perspective which harmonizes with that which is immanent in human nature, it also induces an attitude, a dynamic, a will, an aspiration, which facilitate the discovery and implementation of practical measures.’
The gradual clarification of what holistic education means in practice, as well as the strengthening of its theoretical base needs to include research and development on how the spiritual principle harmonizes with the immanent and induces attitudes, dynamics and will that facilitate the discovery and implementation of practical measures. Although the roots of the holistic education movement go back through time, and through various progressive movements, the modern movement stems from the late eighties and the 1990s. One significant date was 1990 when eighty educators gathered at a retreat near Chicago and after three days of meetings issued the Chicago Statement on Education’.(see Miller 1992)
Teaching:
a) Arranging activities that engender desirable development in being human in the world with others, plus b) what ever technical education the pupils needs to earn a living and be of service to the wider community. The latter needs to take place in the context of the former.
Teaching: In looking at pictures do not tell children what to see but what to look for. Aunt Jane
Two Views of Teaching literature (or anything else for that matter?)
Jack Jill
Jack values…. Jill values…
knowledge (as information) interpretation
accepted good taste developing appreciation
informed admiration informed analysis
admiration transmitted values critical response
factual context the relationship between text & context
emulation creativity
accepted reading negotiated readings
Jack believes… Jill believes…
texts have stable meanings readings are provisional
other readings are deviant readings are diverse
Jack sees teaching as….. Jill sees teaching as…
exposition intervention
the transmission of heritage the cultivation of independent literacy
the organised transmission of knowledge enabling access to the culture
teacher as custodian teacher as expert
teacher as model teacher as guide
teacher as elucidator teacher as tutor
Jack hopes for a curriculum which… Jill hopes for a curriculum which…
contains a prescribed canon allows choice and tailoring
is historically organized is organized for student progression
is classical is catholic
Jack wants to foster… Jill wants to foster…
obedience integrity
awe criticism
conformity independence
Englishness identity
A note from my own teaching experience;
Today with 7P (a composite ‘today’) –
a snatch of time from the author’s own chalk-face
Teaching 7P, and most other classes in my school, is more akin to taking a husky team on a journey than any notion of transmitting information – thank God.
Their incredible raw energy washes over me - some of them think so fast they seem to know answers before I’ve formulated the question. Others are thinking in a different time world and I cannot slow down enough to pace them. Overall though, to shift the metaphor, there is a Niagara of energy. I just manage to hold on and resist or shape the flow, and, from my meagre efforts, they respond with so much, so much growth and development in so short a span of time.
They keep me in line. They keep me going in the direction I want to travel. They are so noisy, and I shout too much (no carpet, and wall tiles, which according to my wife ought only be seen only in tackier public lavatories – neither of these help the noise level). Somehow they know, instinctively perhaps, also like huskies, that I revel in their growth. They bring astonishing minor masterpieces. They respond positively to whatever I manage to get right and put up with my deficiencies much better that I tolerate their deviations. They teach me forgiveness, they are forgiving. Almost without exception they come to me, day after day, with bright and cheerful faces – they have astonishing bounce-back-ability. They are, as the man said, life’s longing for itself.
After twenty-five years of teaching, in all sectors, even though I’m more than ever interested in the development of thinking , creativity, moral and spiritual development, it is the singleness, the unity, the whole of what it is to be human that strikes me each day – a unity we all express as pupils, teachers, parents and friends – head and heart, belief and volition, action and reaction. In contrast so much of what is done in education is fragmentary and fragmentising. And more than the singleness there is the mystery that we remain – to ourselves and to each other, the mystery that includes divine or satanic potential, yet-to-be-realised qualities and the pain, struggle and joys of each individual’s journey, so far.
TTT (Teacher Talk Time)
Keep TTT in an appropriate ration – which usually means reduce it!
Theory:
“What do people think, and feel, about education and teaching before they start their initial education as teachers? Tann (1993) discusses eliciting student teachers’ personal theories as a way of increasing the effectiveness of initial education since Zeichner (1981, 1987) has pointed out that regardless of the underlying philosophy of the course, teacher education programmes are a “low impact-enterprise”.
McIntyre (1993 p. 44) takes the view that novices, in contrast to experienced practitioners most need to gain access to ideas from other sources,
reflection on their own experience being primarily useful to them for the important but limited purpose of motivating and enabling them to see the need for these ideas from external sources
Given the right kind of process it is surely possible to balance the development of the articulation of personal theories with growing ability to make use of public theory – the right kind of balance between the two should produce synergy.
“How are theory and practice best related for students?” The action research way of seeing teacher development as knowledge creation as described by McNiff (1992, 1993 ) seems to me to have a great deal to offer for the initial education of teachers, albeit with adjustments made to take account of the differences in experience generally and experience of teaching in particular. Firstly if colleges don’t instil a love of learning and of research most will never be enabled to gain such an affection. If colleges don’t manage to bring experience, personal theories and public theory together, in ways that serve the practical needs of the student and that leave her/him with a life-long appetite to grow and develop through the experience-reflection-research-experience cycle, no one else will. Russell (1993) makes the point that reflection is for action not for reflection. He says ‘being reflective serves little purpose if it does not involve, in central and essential ways, changes to teaching as well as development of thinking about teaching. The same of course applies to lecturers and, dare one hope, the ‘mentors’ in the schools.
Thinking:
Deep thinking is attainable only by a man of deep feeling.
S T Coleridge
Thinking and reflection skills as a/the central purpose of education Miller (1992) virtually equates holistic education with learning how to learn. I am happy with this providing it means learning how to learn through the development of the affective , and the volitional and the social and spiritual aspects of self as well the cognitive. One criticism of the thinking skills movement is that some of its advocates neglect these other aspects of development and concentrate to exclusively on cognitive development.
Lipman’s programme (1992), now taught in many countries around the world, seems to me to unquestionably be a moral , and in the widest sense a spiritual education programme although for reasons of American religious sensitivities those terms never appear. As so often is the case terms have to be defined or understood in their context . When Miller talks about learning how to learn he doesn’t mean in a narrow cognitive way. Lipman says something almost opposite, but means almost the same.
On the BBC programme Socrates for Six Year Olds he says, ” I think you are watching a major change in the nature of education because if you could get education to centre on thinking instead of learning then you are preparing for a very different world.” I am not sure some parts of the educational world are yet focused on learning, however I am sure that he is right. Learning is so often seen as ‘things’ ‘out there’ to be ‘acquired’. Lipman sees reflection as consisting of affect and cognition.
A pupil -“learning to think is like learning a trade or how to drive a car.
You pick some things up but you do better if you’re trained in the procedures.”
Thought by DH Lawrence
Thought, I love thought.
But not the jaggling and twisting of already existent
ideas.
I despise that self-important game.
Thought is the welling up of unknown life into
consciousness.
Thought is the testing of statements on the touchstone of the conscience.
Thought is the gazing on to the face of life, and reading
what can be read.
Thought is pondering over experience, and coming to
conclusion.
Thought is not a trick, or an exercise, or a set of dodges.
Thought is a (wo)man in his wholeness wholly attending.
Six Thinking Hats
The Six Thinking Hats is a method for doing one sort of thinking at a time. Instead of trying to do everything at once we ‘wear’ only one hat at a time. There are six coloured hats and each colour represents a type of thinking.
White Hat: Facts, figures and information. What information do we have? What information do we need to get? (Critical)
Red Hat: Emotions, feelings, hunches and intuition. What do I feel about this matter right now? (Caring and Creative)
Black Hat: Caution. Truth, judgement, fitting the facts. Does this fit the facts? Will it work? Is it safe? Can it be done? (Critical)
Yellow Hat: Advantages, benefits, savings. Why it can be done. Why there are benefits. Why it is a good thing to do.
Green Hat: Exploration proposals, suggestions, new ideas. Alternatives for action. What can we do here? Are there some different ideas? (Creative)
Blue Hat: Thinking about thinking. Control of the thinking process. Summary of where we are now. Setting the next thinking step. Setting the program for thinking.
(Critical?)
De Bono E (1992), Teach Your Child to Think, Viking (Penguin) London
De Bono points out (p. 75) that his ‘hats’ are not to categorize thinkers but are to enable people to use all types of thinking. By Critical, Creative and Caring I am not referring to types of thinking but major modes of being. Nor do I mean disposition i.e. a person’s usual temperament or frame of mind or a tendency, inclination or habit. I mean a state of being partly defined by the kind of thinking e.g. the creative might show higher levels of alpha rhythms and the critical might show higher levels of beta rhythms but the mode is also defined by how the mind is engaging with an object, e.g. a text, and within what context or purpose.
Tradition:
Tradition is the living faith of the dead. Traditionalism is the dead faith of the living. Chadwick?
No principles however true, are any good when they are misunderstood or stupidly applied. Nothing is right by virtue of its origins, but only by virtue of its results (?) A stifling tradition is bad and a ‘great’ tradition is good. Innovation that brings improvement is what we all desire; innovation that impoverishes the mind and the chances of life is damnable. Above all institutions, the school is designed for only one thing – fruits. But nowadays we despise the very word cultivation. Unweeded soil undoubtedly grows wondrous things that nobody can predict. Such things we have in abundance, but it would be a rash man who would call them a harvest.
Barzun, Jacques (1991), Begin Here: The Forgotten Conditions of Teaching and Learning, Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press
Transcendent experience:
“an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable
than any other satisfaction. CS Lewis
Experience that enables the child/adult to approach the ‘ocean of mystery’. Such experience is described as awe or wonder.
“The larger the island of knowledge,
the longer the shoreline of mystery.” Huston Smith
In Huston Smith’s metaphor when we walk to the edge of our knowing we are confronted with the ocean of mystery, the unknown or, for believers, God. One of the characteristics of this experience is that we lose our ‘ego boundaries’, our sense of being a separate self – in becoming one with the ocean (or landscape, or great work of art).
In ‘returning’ from such an experience we have, initially, feeling, not thought. The feeling subsequently can be transformed into thoughts and actions, though the thoughts are rarely likely to provide a wholly adequate account of the experience – hence the ineffability that poets try to capture, in vain, but often with exquisite results.
It is interesting that the Baha’i writings state;
“the core of religious faith is that mystic feeling which unites man with God.” Lights of Guidance p. 544
The Baha’i faith also teaches the principle of ‘harmony in diversity’. Within limits (defined primarily by that which causes harm to others) diversity should be maximised for the simple reason that that is how development occurs, how potential is released, how society, as well as the individuals, are actualized. This linking of freedom and the actualization of development exists in the following passage by Abdu’l-Baha;
Just as in the world of politics there is need for free thought, likewise in the world of religion there should be the right of unrestricted individual belief. Consider what a vast difference exists between modern democracy and the old forms of despotism. Under an autocratic government the opinions of men are not free, and development is stifled, whereas in a democracy, because thought and speech are not restricted, the greatest progress is witnessed. It is likewise true in the world of religion. When freedom of conscience, liberty of thought and right of speech prevail–that is to say, when every man according to his own idealization may give expression to his beliefs–development and growth are inevitable.
Abdu’l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, 197.
In SunWALK art is seen as virtually the same as the mystical in respect of the individual becoming one with the ‘ocean’. This is seen as true both in respect of the aesthetic, and also in respect of the creative process. Appreciation of a piece of art can ‘absorb’ us, we can ‘lose ourselves’ in it. But equally we can ‘lose ourselves’ in the creative process.
The close similarity between the mystical and the aesthetic-creative
Truth:
In SunWALK there are three ways to truth; 1) the objective (science Wilber’s IT voice), 2) the interpersonal/social (morality, Wilber’s WE voice), and 3) the subjective (creative expression, Wilber’s I voice).
Unifying principle/s:
Given that fragmentedness is one of the chief deficiencies of contemporary education the question arises, “What is, or ought be, that which makes of the parts a whole?”
The answers in the SunWALK model are:
The process of spiritualization as a) the development of caring, creativity and criticality – in the light of higher-order principles, b) if you are a ‘believer’ the higher-order values are development in the names and attributes of God. In both a) and b) development in justice, truth beauty and goodness is the case.
SEE: What’s wrong with contemporary education?
Utilitarianism:
Utilitarianism versus Holism:
“Its father as calls me Sissy , sir,” returned the young girl in a trembling voice, and with another curtsey.
“Then he has no business to do it,” said Mr Gradgrind. “Tell him he mustn’t. Cecilia Jupe. Let me see. What is your father?”
“He belongs to the horse-riding, if you please sir.” Mr Gradgrind frowned, and waved off the objectionable calling with his hand.
“We don’t want to know about that , here. You mustn’t tell us about that, here. Very well, then. Describe your father as a horsebreaker. He doctors sick horses, I dare say?”
“Oh yes, sir.”
“Very well then. He is a veterinary surgeon, a farrier and horse-breaker. Give me your definition of a horse.”
(Sissy Jupe thrown into the greatest alarm by this demand.)
“Girl number twenty unable to define a horse!” said Mr Gradgrind, for the general behoof of all the little pitchers. Girl number twenty possessed of no facts, in reference to one of the commonest of animals! Some boy’s definition of a horse. Bitzer yours.”…………………..
Bitzer,” said Thomas Gradgrind. “Your definition of a horse.”
“Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth, namely twenty-five grinders, four eye-teeth, and twelve incisive. Sheds coat in the spring; in marshy countries, sheds hoofs, too. Hoofs hard, but requiring to be shod with iron. Age known by marks in mouth.” thus (and much more) Bitzer.
“Now girl number twenty, said Mr Gradgrind. “You know what a horse is.”
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