Am I an Activist?

Am I an activist? People keep asking me this question. And so I ask, what is an activist?

It seems to me that an activist has two lives; an internal life full of self inquiry, study of the world and reformation of process; and an external life in which the internal life is given to action, to form and purpose.

I have a very active internal life. It comes naturally to me; my upbringing cultivated a natural curiosity resident in my very core. It lead me to choose philosophy and biology in college, two fields where questioning reigns supreme. I am not naturally a shy person, but it is fair to say that I am more comfortable in an observer’s role. I enjoy watching the world (internal and external) unfold around me. I enjoy the paradoxes, the interconnection, the self-similarity in nature, myself and my fellow beings. And I am quite observant.

I am not, however, a natural shit stirrer. Maybe that’s because I was raised by two of them and I have observed what happens to shit stirrers—they often get left holding the shitty end of the stick. So, I prefer the role of bridge builder, diplomat, mediator, moving behind the scenes and then watching the play unfold.

Can one be both a behind the scenes person and an activist? At first blush I would say no. An activist has to be willing to be outspoken, to fly in the face of the oppressor, to rage against the machine, to create big waves loudly in order to organizes and motivate, to be a shit stirrer. And I am not that person. But, in sitting with this question I have really tried to look at the essential nature of activists. There are two essential elements to every activist I have ever known, or read about. First, an acceptance of change as consistent and seen as an opportunity, something to be embraced not repelled. Two, a deep, undying love for humanity. Other than that, there are as many ways to be an activist as there are being on this marble.

So, am I can activist? Yes. Hell yes! And do you know what? So are you. For you would not be reading this if you did not think change was possible, likely, even necessary, and if you didn’t care deeply about your fellow beings. So what are you waiting for? Permission? Give it to yourself. Go do something, make something happen. How? What? When? Those are really6 great questions and a great place to start your self-inquiry. Me? I am doing this: www.summainstitute.org and if you are ever in Portland, Oregon, come sit with me and we can swap shitty stick stories and celebrate our unique activist expressions!

Wisdom not Knowledge 2

What is wisdom? Is it the accumulation of knowledge? Does it spring from experience or accomplishment? Is wisdom in our thoughts? In our hearts? In our navels?

Wisdom is not a disembodied intellectual concept. Nor is wisdom a rarefied set of honed skills, standards, or objective truths. Rather, wisdom is a whole being experience of self, spirit, and being.

Wisdom is always inclusive of our emotions, body, brain, and heart along with the whole evolving history of our interpersonal relationships and personal development. Wisdom is built on and emerges from the foundation of self-knowledge—relational to any age and stage of growth.

Qualities of adult wisdom involve integration of all aspects of self. Other qualities of adult wisdom involve individuation of the self in service of the wholeness of being while simultaneously being connected to the greater good. All of these factors together yield an experience of integrity and meaning that serves purpose.

However, wisdom is not a perfectionist goal or rarefied awareness. Rather wisdom is available at any age of development when a person is able to access and act from their inherent developmental capacities available and within the boundaries of individual context.

What brings forth wisdom? The path to wisdom emerges in relationship. The relationship between parent and child is one such context in which wisdom can emerge in both adult and child simultaneously. We call this wisdom-based relationship.

Wisdom-based relationship is not primarily cognitive; rather, it is visceral, empathic, and a kind of knowing that is a fundamental connection between I and thou (adult and child). The experience of wisdom in relationship lies in an open appreciation of the other which moves beyond personal interests. It is our ability to see and feel our children’s consciousness in ourselves and relate to our child in his or her language, meaning, and developmental moment.

One beauty of parenting is that nurturing well-being in our child stimulates increased well-being and the development of wisdom qualities in us as adults. The method involves conscientious relationship to nurturing development in the child coupled with self-observation and reflection.

Your conscientious use of Natural Learning Relationships has the potential to bring forward wisdom-based relationships with your child. The result is delicious moments of meaningful relationship that last a lifetime.

The decline of thinking outside the box

While IQ scores are indisputably on the rise, American creativity levels are bottoming out. Analysis of the results of the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking suggests that the creative abilities of American children have been spiraling downward for almost 20 years. The Torrance tests analyze young children's ability to come up with original ideas and put them into practice. Kyung Hee Kim, an assistant professor at the College of William & Mary School of Education, found that scores on Torrance tests taken by children up to 6th grade between 1968 and 2008 showed a steady decline after 1990. That's a serious issue at a time when creative thinking is among the most desperately needed skills in the American workplace. A recent study found that 85 percent of employers concerned with hiring creative people say they can't find the right applicants. Kim blamed America's standards-obsessed schools for creating an environment in which creative thinking was not nurtured. "Creative students cannot breathe, they are suffocated in school," she said. "Then they become underachievers." http://theweek.com/article/index/219002/are-americans-smarter-than-ever

I thought it is interesting that although IQ test scores have risen…in the last century [my note: for what is asked on IQ tests…which one could argue is cultural and socioeconomically driven…] Creativity is declining…that is, read on. [my note: now why this is happening is not known, but let us not forget the rise of pharmaceuticals in the last 20 years…some attribute this decline to more hours in front of TV…but I attribute the whole thing to lack of RELATIONSHIP with the child’s developmental needs]

Co-curricular

I came across a new term today: co-curricular, well new to me. Now as my husband will attest, I make up words all the time. It is part humor, part just how I think and partly that I am just the world’s worst speller. So when I first read this term, I immediately thought, oh my goodness, this is it! This is how we can talk about the co-created curriculum that we will feature at the Summa Academy. Other people are talking about how to birth curriculum in relationship with the student, the teacher and the family--co-curriculum –how wonderful and what a perfect way to express the idea.

Anyone who knows me will also tell you that I am a bit of an optimist, and often give people a little more credit than they are often due (at times). Well unfortunately this was one of those times. Imagine my disappointment when I Googled [why does spell check not recognize this as a word yet, sheesh] the term and found out that it is used commonly to mean “complementing but not part of the regular curriculum.” Blah. Not interesting. When I was a kid we called these electives. Why invent a new term when that one did just fine?

Okay, get over the disappointment and put my thinking cap on… I need a new word that represents the idea that curriculum can and should be co-created by the student, the teacher and the parent, in relationship to the student’s natural talents, stage of development, areas of need and individual passions. I know we are not the first to think of this, and it is a brilliant concept, so let’s create a new word so that we can all find one another (hello # on twitter) and bring this great concept forward. The keys seem to be curriculum, create and relationship. How about Creacurrucularship? Too long. Co-curricularship, I’m liking that one. Or relacreaculum. What do you think?

Starting school

Okay so many of you have already sent your little ones off to Kindergarten, but for us, it has not started yet. Yesterday I finally sat down to fill out the enrollment papers for my daughter’s Kindergarten year. I admit it, I had been putting it off as long as possible, and I am usually not a procrastinator. But, as an educator myself, I was apprehensive about peering under the hood of another school’s process. How could they possibly live up to my admittedly super high, reasonably so, expectations?

Most of it was to be expected, emergency info, vaccine info, pick-up procedure agreement, etc. And I am fine with this, logistics are necessary. But one form stuck out to me… the family questionnaire (hear foreboding music in the background). This form is the only one where you can offer information about your child. This is your space (two pages) to tell them about your child, who they are, your hopes and dreams for their school year and most importantly to me, your expectations. Two pages! How on earth am I supposed to relay my child, and my expectations for the school in guiding her developing consciousness, in just two pages?!

Saddled with this ridiculous challenge I sloshed my way through their questions. When I came to the last question, “what are your expectations for your child’s year?” I could contain myself no more; I unleashed my mama-bear and wrote the following poem:

I expect you to treat her with the utmost care and appreciation

I expect you to guide her through her challenges

I expect you to teach her how to be in relationship with her own power, by you being in relationship to yours

I expect you to learn from her

I expect you to help her to see other options when she gets frustrated, without making her feel bad for not knowing them in the first place

I expect you to be engaged in your own learning and self-reflection

I expect you to care more for the process that the outcome

I expect the classroom environment to reflect the learning you hope to inspire in the children

I expect you to enjoy her and to enjoy yourself in the process

I expect you to be patient with yourself as you learn how to relate to her

I expect you to encourage her, showing her new avenues for learning

I expect you to engage her on every level

I expect you to watch all the children and to pay attention to the interpersonal dynamics amongst them, offering guidance when needed, but not overpowering their learning.

I expect you to love her as all teachers ought to love their students, for the greatness that resides in each of them, that greatness which pours out of them when they are nurtured appropriately

I expect you to learn as much or more than you teach

I expect you to teach in time with the rhythm of all the children in your class

I expect you to deliver the right information, at the right time, in the right way

I expect you to relax and have fun

Is that too much to ask?

Be a builder or be a leader?

I have been thinking a lot about what it means to lead Summa Institute. What does it mean to be an Exeuctive Director? What am I trying to do? What do I want to inspire and how do I do that?

Recently I attended two education conferences, the NW Holistic Education Conference on Orcas Island at Salmonberry School and the AERO conference in Portland. At both conferences I met amazing people doing incredible things and I began to think about my role and what I am trying to do with Summa Institute. I began to deeply participate in the question that drives this blog. And an idea took root and has been growing in me over the last few weeks. It is this: I am not leading, I am building. I am a bridge builder. A bridge is built by first seeing a need (we have to have a way of crossing this body of water – and not by boat); then a plan for the bridge is created, what kind of bride is it?; when it comes time to build the bridge, one side is fixed and the other side is variable (you never know exactly where the bridge will land on the other side until you start to build it).

The need: a fundamental change in the way people relate to themselves and the other people in their lives. A need to be in relationship to consciousness, to allow it’s un-obstructed manifestation through each of us, as each of us.

The bridge: is NLR, no question.

I recently became a part of a really interesting group of people at Cooperative Catalyst (this is related, I promise). This group of people have come together to “change education as we speak”, sounds like what I want to do. While reading a post there I came across this post reference and I was struck, he said: “Here's the problem in a nutshell. What leaders "lead" are yesterday's organizations. But yesterday's organizations are broken. Today's biggest human challenge isn't leading broken organizations slightly better. It's building better organizations in the first place. It isn't about leadership: it's about "buildership", or what I often refer to as Constructivism. Leadership is the art of becoming, well, a leader. Constructivism, in contrast, is the art of becoming a builder — of new institutions.”

And so, my friends, I am coming to realize that I am not a leader, I am a builder, a builder of bridges. I am building a bridge from where we are today (a society in relationally confused hell), to one in which we care for our children and ourselves by being in relationship to consciousness, the way it is talked about here.

Baby steps

Okay, so by now most of you know that we are not in fact opening the Summa Academy this fall. Yes, that's right the building fell through, again. Why it has been so hard for us to find a building is something I am still struggling with. It just makes no sense to me, this is a city for crying out loud, isn't there one small building that is just right for us. Hell, at this point I would settle for mostly good. Alas, it is not here now, so we keep looking.

In the meantime, I have decided it is time to take an interim step, one that will get us a little closer to the ultimate goal of opening the Institute. We have an office, which is part of a wonderful space called the Warehouse (a project of Portland Green Parenting). Here we have a 300SF space that has room for small meetings, a play corner for my girls (now 5 & 2!) and a desk (with an enormous printer that my husband got donated) for me to "work" at. It is wonderful. I can come in with the girls and work while they play and there are so many great people who come through. The Warehouse houses a cafe, a community room (where we are holding parenting courses), Daisies and Dinos a children's resale shop, and Know Thy Food a bulk food buying coop. If you are ever in the hood, stop by, I am not holding regular business hours at the moment, but you might catch us on Tuesday afternoons. It feels great to have a space and I look forward to whatever comes next!

Oh and like us on facebook, if you have not done so already. http://www.facebook.com/summainstitute

Guest blog: Ba Luvmour on the Gardner fallacy

I have often struggled with the work of Howard Gardner and The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. I sensed something amiss but I thought: “What’s not to like?” Each of us does have a blend of different intelligences. He rails against the stupidity of IQ tests and their brethren. Gardner even went as far as to point out that to dramatically emphasize verbal-linguistic skills and logical-mathematical skills at the expense of music, art, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal and intrapersonal skills is cultural genocide. And living at the cutting edge I wanted to use Gardner’s Harvard pedigree to substantiate progressive education.

My primary locus for research is fieldwork. I used Multiple Intelligences in two ways. As the director of a small charter school I instituted several ways to apply the theory including learning stations, integrated curricula, and extensive teacher training. In whole family experiential learning programs we at Summa used a Multiple Intelligence analysis as part of our assessment in order to customize the program and optimize family well-being. I also referred to it positively in my book, Optimal Parenting.

But something always bothered me. I knew Gardner was a logical positivist and therefore of the old paradigm. But so were Piaget and others and I know there is much to preserve there. And that was my confusion. As I turned my attention to the comparison between the old and new paradigm I realized that Piaget’s work, like Natural Learning Relationships, is an epistemology. Gardner’s work is a theory.

The Fallacy

Then, due to the invitation from Paul Freedman, Josette and I met Kirsten Olson and her husband Richard Ellmore as we were guests and speakers at the Salmonberry School on Orcas Island. Kirsten’s delightfully frank comments on her experience and as a student and colleague of Gardner, and particularly the social uselessness of The Theory, catalyzed my understanding. Gardner is an interpreter, a statistician, a theorizer based on select data and spun into a thoughtful web.

But he knows nothing of epistemology. He knows nothing of how children know themselves and their world. Theorists crunch data (often with little concern for the biases of the person doing the crunching) and then superimpose their results on existing conditions.

Piaget called his work genetic epistemology. Though he used a logical positivist framework, he also often cited his experiences with children as validation. Unfortunately, due to the reductionist framework he failed to adequately address the social and emotional life of the child. He also ignored what Maslow called The Farther Reaches of Human Nature and the work of Jung and transpersonal psychologists.

Natural Learning Relationships, an ontological epistemology, includes all of these critical human qualities—spiritual, aesthetic, social, emotional, cognitive, and physical.

The Negative Consequences of The Theory

Multiple Intelligences is a theory and includes none of these qualities, not even those pioneered by Piaget. It does not account for social influences that draw forth certain intelligences while suppressing others. It says nothing about relationship between adult and student. Gardner does not take the time to attempt to correlate child development with the various intelligences.

Here’s the irony. While redressing inequities about the way society perceives intelligence, Gardner has created new and possibly more damaging inequities in the way children are known. Most telling, relationship and curriculum is still top-down, only now adults have The Theory as a new justification for their agenda. Appreciation of the critical organizing principles of the developmental stages of childhood including Rightful Place, Trust, Autonomy and Interconnectedness, which Gardner fails to do, cripples the value of his work.

Kirsten talks inspirationally about how school wounds children. I add theories unexamined in the light of the whole child.

Abandon the old paradigm. It hurts, wounds, and leads to boatloads of unnecessary suffering.

Spring Cleaning

Okay, so it has literally been ages since I posted here. What can I say, I fell out of the blogging spirit for a while. But I am back! So, let’s catch up shall we?

This is what has happened in my life (definitely in brief):

1. 1. My eldest daughter turned Five
2. 2. I entered a 6 month trial as Executive Director of Summa (www.summainstitute.org). Finished the trial and passed the “test” with flying colors. Was voted in unanimously by the Summa board of directors as Executive Director and was offered the permanent job. Accepted said job.
3. 3. Found a building and lost a building (“lost” is an interesting concept here, I didn’t lose it, it just didn’t come together for any number of reasons. In this case, it was because the owners decided to sell it to someone else.)
4. 4. Found another building and lost that one too (in this case it was because the owner could not see the social value of what we were doing as worth the investment he would have had to make to get us into the building – his loss!)
5. 5. Successfully navigated the loss of a board member under somewhat sticky circumstances.
6. 6. Found another building.
7. 7. Successfully navigated the signing of a Letter of Intent with the owners of building mentioned in #6. This was no easy feat – it took a marathon meeting in which I refused to leave the table until we had reached agreeable terms and signed the thing. Sometimes lessons from my five year old are helpful in the business world! A side Thank You from the bottom of my heart to our commercial real estate broker, Sara Daley, I thank my lucky stars every day for bringing us together.
8. 8. Have begun the process of working with the city of Portland to get the necessary permits for the building so that we can open our school there THIS FALL!!!!!!

So, have to pause here – yes, you read that right – WE ARE OPENING OUR INSTITUTE THIS FALL! So if you are interested in attending now is the time to let us know. We will be hosting info nights for families within a month or so. So keep up with us via facebook, website, or tweet (or this blog). More to come soon…