Back to the original plan

My art exploration semester is almost over, and I'm getting ready to dive into the books again. boo...

I would love to continue foo-farting around with my quasi-talent that may or may not improve with time. There's still so much I have not tried, such as painting, watercolor, ceramics, and sculpting. If I had discovered that making art is my passion, I could justify wasting more time to explore. But that's not at all the case. Perhaps I could come back to it when I'm in need of a hobby. But for now, I need to move on...get back on track.

The workaholic in me is anxious to get this show on the road toward something more practical. So... I signed up for a full load in the summer and again in the fall. I'm hoping to finish my BA by the end of 2011.

Oh... and remember when I said I would only post original images from now on? I take that back. I change my mind. I've decided I don't need to put myself under strict guidelines. The rest of the world gives me enough of that already. Sometimes I'm better at finding what fits instead of coming up with original stuff. Hey, we all have to know our limitations, right? There's nothing wrong with taking short-cuts when I need to. Whew! That's a load off my mind!

I was torn about the art thing up until just now, but now I feel so much better!

Onward!

Yay! :-)

UPDATE: Umm... yes, you guessed it. I'm rethinking my plans again. Gosh, this just seems like my last chance to get it right, and at the end of this journey, I don't wanna be "should-ing" all over myself (to steal someone else's clever phrase).

I know I'm putting myself in danger of looking very flaky when I share so much of my indecisive pacing back and forth in my head, but this is MY space. I will have no shame in showing my uber-flaky, fruit-cake-y, scatter-brainy, wishy-washy, and cringe-worthy side!

To make long story short, I am reconsidering the art thing, along with the psychology thing, which will perhaps turn into an Art Therapy thing... Then I will have the best of both worlds AND also be able to somehow make a difference in other people's lives, which, contrary to what I thought, is more important to me than anything else. Funny...as I write those very words in this moment, they became more true than ever before.

What is higher education?

Okay... the image is an inside joke, representing Professor Teeth. Don't ask. Anyway, on with the rant.

During class, I often have so many questions and so many thoughts about what is being presented. I always want to explore other perspectives... other points of view. Even if I agree... and especially if I agree strongly. Two weeks ago, I posed a question to my history professor via email about a passionate lecture he gave... but it was not well received. Obviously, he knows much more about the subject being taught than myself. My only goal is to learn to think better. I was not looking to challenge him. I was looking for some bouncing back and forth of thoughts. But a professor who doesn't want to discuss another possible point of view with a student? Hmm...

The psychology class is another doozy. There is just so much material to be covered, and the information gets presented from the text book as if that is the way it is. The professor is willing to listen to questions, but there is a tight agenda for each class and, as a matter of fact, for the whole semester, and serious discussion is not possible.

Then there are the classes where we spend hours upon hours to write a paper, and it sits in the professor's inbox for weeks on end or we get it back with a letter grade and very little feedback. What meaning does a 4.0 GPA have when there is no satisfaction of having grown and matured in my thinking?

In each class, we are told that we should think critically. Yet there is not enough allowance (in time or attitude) for discussion or any serious questions to explore another view. I started college for the opportunity to think with other thinkers. But instead, I'm just getting more high school at an accelerated speed. Perhaps this will change when I get to the university? when I get into upper level classes...?

Is it just me?

Reward without effort

Today I'm wondering if there is any value in receiving an award if there was not much effort put into the achievement.

There was an award ceremony yesterday at the high school. My son is an honor roll student who gets his grades with little or no effort (a concern of mine, but back to the point...) It did not mean much to him that there was such a ceremony and, therefore, shrugged it off as not important. Contrary to what other parents may think, my husband and I agree with our kids and do not push them to attend the events if they are not particularly proud of their accomplishments.

On the other hand, when he worked hard at memorizing his lines for a dramatic performance and put every effort into researching and practicing his part, he was extremely proud of his work and ecstatic about the praise and the attention he received.

Call me old-fashioned or even cold-hearted... but honestly, should kids be constantly rewarded for their innate abilities or skills without putting in any extra effort? I agree that encouragement is always important, but there is a clear difference between encouragement and under-deserved reward. Shouldn't the "C" that was received after hard work be more deserving than the "A" which came easily? In addition, do our kids really need to be showered with medals and trophies at every turn and have all their material wishes granted on every holiday? Shouldn't exceptional rewards follow truly exceptional efforts?

I don't know... I could be missing something, but it just doesn't make sense to me...

A New Chapter - My 'not-so-secret' Secret

I have a secret shame. Or…shall I say I’ve HAD a secret shame?

But before you jump to conclusions, let me just say that I was raised in a different culture with a different mindset. Some of my friends are puzzled at this shame of mine. They don’t understand why I am so embarrassed by it. But in my family, it is something to be ashamed of. It is what I value the most in life above all else, perhaps even above love (if you can imagine that). Having it means having freedom, in so many ways. And in my immature foolishness, I passed up my first opportunity to get it. Then life happened for about 25 years. I have no complaints, mind you... but there has always been that one source of regret, my secret shame, in the back of my mind.

Then... about six months ago, I asked myself what's preventing me from going after what I've always wanted. I could not come up with one convincing answer. So I challenged myself to go for it.

What is it, you ask? It is… shhhhh… education!

Yes, I became a full-time college student at age f...(uh, never mind…it’s just a dumb number). I’m taking the maximum course load allowed, and my first semester is almost over. I still have to pinch myself every other day to make sure I’m not dreaming. Who would've thought that all I had to do was make up my mind and just do it? I’m like a kid in a candy store thus far, and holding a 4.0 average. Yay! Everybody do the dance!!

If I plan it just right, my daughter and I will be graduating from college at the same time, with my son a few years behind us. Now, if I can just get my husband to sign up for some graduate courses, the whole family could be going to college together. Wouldn’t that be something? A family who gets educated together, goes broke together… something like that… :-)

I'll keep you posted. ;-)

Howard Gardner: "Five Minds for the Future"

I have recently had the pleasure to read "Five Minds for the Future" by Howard Gardner, a professor of Cognition and Education at Harvard Graduate School of Education. His book, "Multiple Intelligences" was featured on one of my previous posts.

In the "Five Minds," Howard Gardner addresses the need to cultivate the minds of tomorrow in this age of technology and globalization. He lists the five minds as follows:

1. The Disciplined Mind
2. The Synthesizing Mind
3. The Creating Mind
4. The Respectful mind
   
5. The Ethical Mind

He takes each of the five minds and discusses them at length, including the challenges that we face as we look at the future of education.

And why do we need to take a proactive stance? Gardner begins by pointing to the following facts:

• Individuals without one or more disciplines will not be able to succeed at any demanding workplace and will be restricted to menial tasks.
• Individuals without synthesizing capabilities will be overwhelmed by information and unable to make judicious decisions about personal or professional matters.
• Individuals without creating capacities will be replaced by computers and will drive away those who do have the creative spark.
• Individuals without respect will not be worthy of respect by others and will poison the workplace and the commons.
• Individuals without ethics will yield a world devoid of decent workers and responsible citizens: none of us will want to live on that desolate planet.

Reading this book, I could not help but recall a recent TED video about the rapid progress of science and technology that will cause what the speaker, Juan Enriquez, calls the big "reboot":



Now... my take on all this?

I think if (that's a big if) we, as a global community, can achieve the delicate balance across the elements listed in the book, perhaps humanity still has a chance at a bright future. There's a lot of think about...

Outdoor neighborhood family room, anyone?

I've been reading about ideas regarding the future of children's education over at Peter Gray's blog "Freedom to Learn." One of the commenters there has a blog of his own called Playborhood. On one of his posts, he talks about his plans to design an "outdoor family room" in his front yard where the neighborhood parents and kids can stop by anytime to just hang out.

This sounds like a very interesting and a wonderful concept in theory. But will it work? What do you do with that one annoying neighbor who's loud, boisterous, opinionated, eats all the food, drinks all the beers, and does not have a clue? What do you do with the cliques that will inevitably form? What do you do with that one kid who none of the kids want to hang out with? What do you do with the few women whose main goal in life is to gossip and spread rumors?

Not to put a damper on the plans before they even get off the ground, but I foresee so many of the same problems that seem to surface in any organization, such as church.

There will be the ones who are "in" and who are "out."

Is it just me? Am I just being negative?

By the way, Playborhood is a wonderful blog. He has some great thoughts...

Guest Post: Millennials and the Meaning of Life

This is a guest post by Ruthie:

I work as a teaching assistant at a large Midwestern research university, where I also attend as a graduate student.

Last week, in a meeting with one of the professors for whom I work, the touchy topic of the Millennial Generation arose. The professor lamented the fact that the new generation of students seem entitled, self-important, and perpetually plugged in. Realizing that I’m 23, she quickly added: “Not you, of course.”

But she’s right—the new generation of 20-somethings, myself included, are beginning to see education as a right and not a privilege—and they have never known a world without instantaneous communication. I had my first cell phone at 15. I can hardly remember life before the Internet.

We are, some say, a generation adrift—devoid of purpose or meaning in a poststructuralist, postmodern world. We have been taught that culture is relative, that truth is subjective, that the self is a social construct.

The logical conclusion of these base assumptions, paired with an ever-evolving spiderweb of technology, has led our generation to be more image-conscious than any generation that came before. The very hearts of our identities are shaped by people’s perceptions of us—we are self-indulgent, cripplingly open about our private lives, even narcissistic.

In a lab section that I lead on Fridays, several of my students were required to take the VALS test as part of a marketing assignment. We discussed their lifestyle categories, and I asked them if any of them had ever taken the MBTI assessment. To my surprise, many of them had, and their responses and comments about their categorization within the two tests were among the most enthusiastic and interesting I’d seen all semester.

This, I think, is because we are a generation that prides itself on individuality—we see it as the highest good, the most sought-after goal. The students in my lab section are like the rest of us—dying to know themselves at some true, essential level, apart from social constructs and other people’s perceptions. Looking for meaning within the ephemeral and the subjective.

And so the meaning of life for the Millennial generation is expression—the only way to validate a fleeting existence limited by perception.

We are experiencers and consumers, learning to craft our public images via Myspace and Facebook, seeking to better market ourselves to universities and prospective employers. But in the context of a brave new 21st-century society, I think most of us realize that neither consumption nor personal experience can give us ultimate, transcendent meaning. Our lives, both public and private, are particular to us, and one day both they (and we) will be gone.

I believe this is what we’re afraid of. We, who have spent our lives immersed in instantaneous technology since infanthood, are afraid of fading away unnoticed. We are afraid that our tiny voices will be swept away in the mad torrent of this information age.

We are afraid of becoming obsolete.

And so expression—the validation of our existence by preserving it in some form—in pictures, Myspace and Facebook pages, blogs, journals, music and art—has become the highest good, the purest form of meaning.

I hope the older generations can forgive us our flightiness and our narcissism, our iPods and our text messages.

We, like every generation that came before, crave permanence, fulfillment and meaning—meaning that, for many of us, can only be attained through expression.

"Multiple Intelligences" by Howard Gardner

From the book Multiple Intelligences: New Horizons by Howard Gardner:

I believe that in our society we suffer from three biases, which I have nicknamed "Westist," "Testist," and "Bestist." "Westist" involves putting certain Western cultural values, which date back to Socrates, on a pedestal. Logical thinking, for example, is important; rationality is important; but they are not the only virtues.

"Testist" suggests a bias towards focusing on those human abilities or approaches that are readily testable. If it can't be tested, it sometimes seems, it is not worth paying attention to. My feeling is that assessment can be much broader, much more humane than it is now and that psychologists should spend less time ranking people and more time trying to help them.

"Bestist" is a thinly veiled reference to David Halberstam's 1972 book The Best and the Brightest. Halberstam's title referred ironically to the figures, among them Harvard faculty members, who were brought to Washington to help President John F. Kennedy and in the process launched the Vietnam War. I think any belief that all the answers to a given problem like in one certain approach, such as logical-mathematical thinking, can be very dangerous. current views of intellect need to be leavened with other, more comprehensive points of view.

When he refers to assessments in the second paragraph above, he's referring to tests such as IQ and the SAT.

He proposes an individual-centered learning environment that takes the multifaceted view of intelligence, based on findings from the cognitive science and neuroscience.

I see Jung written all over the cognitive portion of it, don't you?

Gardner's theory began with seven very different but equally important intelligences:

• Musical Intelligence
• Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence
• Logical-Mathematical Intelligence
• Linguistic Intelligence
• Spatial Intelligence
• Interpersonal Intelligence
• Intrapersonal Intelligence

He later added an eighth:

• Naturalist Intelligence

He also looked at a ninth intelligence, calling it Existential Intelligence (has to do with the spiritual and the big questions of life), but did not have conclusive findings. (yet!) ;-)

Learning to Shift Our Preconceived Mental Models

Here's another video that you may find interesting:

Jonathan Drori: Why we don’t understand as much as we think we do


It seems that I've been stuck on this theme for some time now. The more I dig, the more fascinated I become. Although this video mainly deals with our misconceptions about science, I think the same concept applies to all other aspects of life.

The following points especially stood out to me:

• We learn through experience more than from the teachers in a classroom.


• Once we have stored information in our minds, we look for evidence to reinforce our misconceptions.


• There are people all too able to provide that evidence and/or to create other barriers to new and accurate information.


• Neither we nor our children are empty vessels, as we are constantly gathering and accumulating data.


• Our early mental models are extremely persistent and difficult to shift.

I think we can apply this to just about every bias or pre-existing idea we have regarding race, culture, religion, gender roles, politics, tradition, and even our idea of God.

It's true that it is extremely difficult to look at any new information with a completely clean slate without any preconceived notions we have learned through someone else teaching us. hmmm...

I think the key is to always try to think and experience things for ourselves.

Two Types of People

I've been dragging my feet and coming up with excuse after excuse for over 20 years why I'm not doing anything with my life. First, it was my marriage, then it was the house, then it was the kids, then it was the money... etc. etc. etc.

One of my favorite things to say is: "You need no stinking credentials to do what you want to do." Uhhh... but the reality is, yes you do. We live in a world today where education and credentials mean everything (well, enough to be dismissed if you don't have them). Isn't that what we tell our kids?

I've concluded that there are two types of people who say, "You need no stinking credentials...":

1. Those who have the credentials


2. Those who are too lazy, too stupid, or unable in some way, shape or form to get the credentials.

If you are not in either category, then you have no right to say it. I hereby revoke my right that I always thought I had. I will get those stinking credentials, if it's the last thing I do.

And several years from now, after I've worked my a(**) off earning that right, I will stand proudly before you and say,

"You need no stinking credentials..."

Sugata Mitra's "Hole In The Wall" Project

I watched a TED video of Sugata Mitra, wherein he talks about his Hole In the Wall project. A 20-min video with a speaker that is less than dynamic can be a challenge. However, it's well worth a look. He has some fascinating ideas.

Sugata Mitra's "Hole in the Wall" experiments have shown that, in the absence of supervision or formal teaching, children can teach themselves and each other, if they're motivated by curiosity and peer interest.

He points to the following conclusions based on his "Hole-in-the-Wall" research:

• Remoteness affects the quality of education


• Educational technology should be introduced into remote areas first


• Values are acquired; doctrine and dogma are imposed


• Learning is a self-organizing system

He introduces the word "Outdoctrination," and he outlines his vision for:

An educational technology and pedagogy that is digital, automatic, fault-tolerant, minimally invasive, connected & self-organized... to address remoteness, values, and violence

During his speech, he quotes a scientist (whose name escapes me now) who said to him,

A teacher that can be replaced by a machine should be.

My own opinion on this is that a good teacher passes on his/her passion to the students. From my point of view, that's the only upside of having a human teacher. If that cannot be provided, well... yes, a machine will suffice.

Awesome research for the future of education...

Freedom to Learn

Ah! I'm in love again! This time with this man. His name is Peter Gray, a research professor of psychology at Boston College and a specialist in developmental and evolutionary psychology. One of my readers, Allison, pointed me to his new blog (as of last month) in one of her comments.

In his first post, he writes:

Everywhere we turn these days we find pundits and politicians arguing for more restrictive schooling. Of course they don’t use the word “restrictive,” but that’s what it amounts to. They want more standardized tests, more homework, more supervision, longer school days, longer school years, more sanctions against children’s taking a day or two off for a family vacation. This is one realm in which politicians from both of the major parties, at every level of government, seem to agree. More schooling or more rigorous schooling is better than less schooling or less rigorous schooling.

Then he goes on to say:

Whatever happened to the idea that children learn through their own free play and exploration? Every serious psychological theory of learning, from Piaget’s on, posits that learning is an active process controlled by the learner, motivated by curiosity. Educators everywhere give lip service to those theories, but then go ahead and create schools that prevent self-guided play and exploration. Every one of us knows, if we stop to think about it, that the most valuable lessons we have learned are not what we “learned in kindergarten,” nor what we learned in courses later on. They are, instead, the lessons that we learned when we allowed ourselves the luxury of following through on our own interests and our own drives to play, fully and deeply. Through those means we acquired skills, values, ideas, and information that will stay with us for life, not just for the next test. And, perhaps most important, we discovered what we most enjoy, which is the first step in finding a satisfying career.

His other posts that follow are just as refreshing and invigorating. He digs into the subject of education as if I had written the exact words myself (only if I were as smart or articulate as he is.) Man, it feels good to see my thoughts and feelings in words written by someone else. And the blog is named "Freedom to Learn." How can I not love it?

Be sure to bookmark it and check it often.

I wish there was a way to get all of their (the ones I fall in love with) brains together and make something happen. I mean, really turn things upside down...

Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

Last week, I fell in love with David Keirsey. This week, I'm in love with Sir Ken Robinson. This talk is from Feb 2006. Why haven't I seen it before? What an awesome person with an awesome vision for the future of education! He speaks my heart. This is what I've been trying to say for the past ten years, but did not have the right words...

In his hilarious TED speech, he touched my heart in places that were longing to be touched. I thought I was fighting a lonely and ineffective battle. But here's someone who is actually well respected and trying to make a difference. Bravo, Sir Robinson! (The video is 19 minutes but well worth it. Learn something, will ya?) :-)



One thing he said, though... When he was talking about women being better equipped to multi-task... I don't think that's a man/woman thing. I tend to think it's an S/N thing or SJ/NP thing. I am definitely not a multi-tasker, but my husband is. Any thoughts on this?

You can also listen to his lecture he gave in June 2008 at the award ceremony where he was awarded the Benjamin Franklin Medal by the UK's RSA (the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce).