education

“Lightning does not travel in a straight line.” – Benoit Mandelbrot 1924-2010

Fractals
The famous mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot is recognized as the founding father of fractal geometry. He let the other guys work with the straight lines and he let everyone know that nature favors the rough over the smooth.

Some people have had clear, straight paths – they were born to the right families, attended the right schools, joined the right clubs – things have pretty much worked out for these people. That path is not so clear anymore. Moving forward, fortune will favor the brave and the rough (and those with well-invested inheritances). Que sais-je? Not as much as you think. The sheer horsepower of arrogance and belief will no longer be able to outpace knowledge and reality.

Fractal geometry says that the world moves in fits and starts. Incompetence and self-importance born of well-timed greed will fall before complexity. If you’re rough around the edges, you may just make it.

“Even when we sit on the highest throne, we are still only sitting on our ass.” – Michel de Montaigne

“When I was young I asked my mother, ‘What will I be’”

Doris Day
Que Sera, Sera

We were sitting at the dinner table tonight, eating our Paleo meal of fried whiting, avocado, callaloo (Trinidadian dish), and plantains (roots and tubers are kind of ok), when my son asked what I thought he could be when he grew up. After singing a couple of bars of the song (no one was shocked since I have it on my IPod) I explained that I was was more interested in who he could be.

At 9, he already has peers and others giving him strong hints about their expectations for how he’s supposed to fit in. Dinner time is the perfect time to instill in him his responsibility to be a positive deviant.

Bullying
Bullying has captured the national attention. Some tragic incidents have caused a reexamination of how parents and schools can keep kids safe. The use of the Internet and social media sites have made it easier to attack victims and complicated the search for a solution.

Sources
Bullies are not a new phenomenon. Bullies are sometimes created out of their own fear and insecurity. Some are predators. Lt. Col. Dave Grossman talks about the world being divided into lambs, wolves, and sheepdogs. Most people are sheep. They are kind, gentle, and productive. Then there are the wolves who prey on the sheep without mercy. Sheepdogs live to protect the flock and to confront the wolf. If you have no capacity for violence, you are a sheep. If you have the capacity for violence in pursuit of your ends and engage in it with no remorse, you are a wolf. If you have the capacity for violence and combine it with a deep love for your fellow human beings, you are a sheepdog. While I think there are more gradations, I believe this is a helpful outline when examining the problem of bullying.

The Real Enemy
The normal prescription for victims is to get teachers and parents involved. it is important to bring the physical and emotional violence to light but this is usually not enough when a predator is involved or when the group mind has taken over. In talking about the human mind, Primo Levi said that: “Many people – many nations – can find themselves holding, more or less wittingly, that ‘every stranger is an enemy.’”
The stranger, the enemy is kind of complicated in the case of bullies. I believe that many bullies are created as a result of their estrangement from their essential natures. This is coupled with an estrangement from Nature. This mirrors a pervasive national numbness of spirit and somatic deadening.

My Theory
I also believe that we are sacred, individual creations of God. We descend into purgatory or worse when we lose contact with this sacred essence. Those who live in this wilderness of the spirit hate those who maintain its essence.  For bullies, the keepers of the sacred flame are the “strangers” and the “enemies” that Levi talks about. They are a mirror and reminder of what was lost. Our current existence does not provide them with guides on how to regain what was lost. The bullies among us default to anger and hatred. In a paraphrase of a quote on power, Rosabeth Moss Kanter pointed out that “absolute powerlessness corrupts absolutely.”

I like to think that I have the soul of poet. With this disposition, I was fortunate to go to a school where open bullying was frowned on. I have been in other situations where my “sensitive side” could have been a liability, except for one thing – early on, I learned that there were times you had to kick someone’s ass and be prepared to have your own kicked, in defense of protecting your spiritual core. I was raised to be a “sheepdog.” I was taught to protect myself and others.

Solutions
Communities and cultures need to be developed where bullies are not tolerated but the problem cannot be legislated away. Theodore Roosevelt said that his father taught him to be tough as well as kind. His father believed that if Teddy was tough enough, people would not long laugh at his being kind. Victims need to be given tools. This needs to start with what Timothy Gallwey called “The Inner Game.” The tools of sports psychology and things like Neurolinguistic Programming could help with building mental toughness – confidence, resilience, positive self-talk, relaxation, motivation, and creating well-formed outcomes. This would be combined with physical skills that would help the poets among us explore the intersections between physical and moral courage. Even Gandhi understood that violence could sometimes be morally required.  Learning basic skills of self defense – based in boxing and some form of grappling – would provide confidence and a sense of agency while the adults figure things out.

At the same time, the bullies who have not achieved predator status need to have chances to rediscover their sacred purpose. They need to be coached and guided to appreciate the miracle of nature and to recognize the sources of their actions. This is not possible with the current factory model of schooling.  Decisions will have to be made.

My children have inherited my poet’s soul. My job is now to teach them how to protect that soul and the gifts that God has given them. My prayer is that they will add the job of “sheepdog” to their resumes.

Theory of Everything
The Theory of Everything was originally an ironic description of the links that connected all known physical phenomena. It also claimed to be able to predict the outcome for any future experiments that involved the physical world. Science no longer regards it as an ironic over-generalization. It is now regarded as a legitimate path to the truth of the way things work. It is in that spirit and new awareness that I introduce my theory of everything.

Education, Food, Personal Development
This post is just an introduction to a few of the things I will be talking about in some future posts. The main topics are education, food, and personal development. I will talk about these in the context of personal justice. I will be sharing my thoughts and those of others who are more cogent and insightful in the respective areas. A couple of these people are Kenneth Libby with his Schools Matter blog and Robb Wolf who talks about the Paleo lifestyle in his podcast and blog.

Oh! By the way, these thoughts were prompted by some recent musings on the world of diversity. It is becoming increasingly clear to me that issues of economic justice are purposely ignored. In this country, it is poor people who suffer. Topics like affirmative action and diversity have become convenient diversions to ignore those who are not even in the game.

Food
Big agriculture receives its subsidies and it’s poor people who reap the harvest of diabetes, high blood pressure, and other lifestyle diseases ( read anything by Michael Pollan for some of the politics)

Education
The wealthy advocates of the charter movement pretend that high standardized test scores are a sign that the achievement gap is being closed and that poor children are receiving the same quality of education that their children are receiving (rant avoided for now).

Personal Development
This Howard Thurman quote sums up my thoughts in this area: “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

These three areas are not just “feel good” subjects. I believe they are the key to our strength as a country. Cultural autism (for more on this, read “Last Child In The Woods,” by Richard Louv) has removed us from our natural environment, contact with our true natures, and the things we have in common as a human community.

More to come.

Specific
Actually, it’s important to set your goals with your “senses.” Another leg of the “Well-Formed Outcome” model is the use of specific language when defining your goals. During the recent training that I conducted at the Leadership School for sergeants in the Baltimore Police Department, having the participants get specific with their goals was one of my biggest challenges. I got responses on short and long term goals like: “I want to get a government job.” “I want to retire and get a different career.” “I want to have the best squad in the city.”

Vague?
There are several problems with being this vague. One is that you have no guideposts or markers to let you know if you are moving closer to or further away from your goal. It’s important to aim for the bullseye and not just in the general direction of the target. Without enough specificity, there is also the danger that you will end up getting things that you don’t want.

Senses
This is the time to bring in good questions and our senses. We experience the world through our five senses. To create strong internal experiences, we also bring our senses into play. We remember things that have a strong emotional impact. Our “servo-mechanism” (as Maxwell Maltz called it) is strengthened by sensory information. So, when setting a goal, ask yourself what it will look like, feel like, and sound like when you have achieved it. Use these same sensory markers to determine if you are moving closer to your goal.

Your Story
The best writers use sensory language to make their stories or information come alive. When you are writing the story of your life, make sure that you use all of your senses so that you can hit your mark. The more you live in the world of your senses, the more the world will come to life for you.

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