We, the homo sapiens who inhabit Earth, are collectively Nature reflecting upon itself. As Nature reflects upon itself, we have discerned the nature of opposites — the nature of negative and positive ions of different elements bonding together to form uniquely different and more complex elements which in turn bond with other simple elements or with other complex elements to form yet another unique element of higher complexity and so forth and so on in a process Jacob Bronowski dubbed “stratified stability.” This process of stratified stability over time, change upon change, lead eventually to us, the homo sapiens who collectively form the consciousness of Nature. This consciousness reflects the light and the dark side which constitutes the individual in which human consciousness resides and, therefore, is also an expression of a union of opposites.
Humanity is the result of the resolved tension between the opposites at play within the individual. If humanity is the distinguishing attribute between the human creature and all other animals then there is a measure along a sliding scale that reads on one end “animal-like-behavior” and “distinguishing humankind behavior” on the other side. The direction and magnitude toward one side or the other within the individual is determined by the resolution of the tension between the negative and positive elements; between the dark and the light side, and the choice to flip or not to flip the Decision-Making Coin. To consciously turn the Decision-Making Coin to the Exploiting or the Nurturing side is a significant move toward the humanity side. However, this initial move would be minimized, perhaps even to the point of being insignificant, if the individual chooses to turn to the exploiting side most of the time. Moving away from the randomness of the Decision-Making Coin toward consciously acting is the result of one’s awareness, one’s reflecting upon that awareness and finding meaning in that reflection thus expanding one’s consciousness. Increasing awareness, continuing to reflect and find meaning in that reflection creates a feedback loop that will continue to expand consciousness as this feedback loop continues to hum along.
Each individual in his or her life has control of only those choices within their individual circumstances. Some individuals are in situations that afford them more influence upon the lives of others, and therefore the resolution of the tensions between opposites within those individuals have a greater potential to influence (taint) the coloration of the consciousness of some other individuals. Having the potential to influence is not the same as directly controlling the consciousness of another individual. Ultimately every individual has the absolute control over his or her own choice. However, depending on the circumstances, the given choice of a given individual may be extreme in the consequences of that choice. There have been times that an individual has sacrificed much and has had to endure much because he or she consciously decided to reject the negative or dark side only to endure the animalistic harshness employed by the power of the individual in opposition.
What has been said about the individual is easily transferred to a collective of individuals. The old adage, “birds of the same feather flock together” is a succinct encapsulation of this sentiment. Individuals who gravitate toward one side or the other along this sliding scale tend to reinforce each other and are more comfortable among other individuals of similar persuasions. If the great majority of individuals gravitate toward the randomness of their lives, then the congregation of individuals along the sliding scale of the negative or positive side or the dark side as opposed to the light side is fairly fluid according to the nature of the randomness. As more and more individuals choose to act more consciously in their Decision-Making, then movement of the collective organization toward the dark side or the light side is more stable and less fluid. In this fashion, it can be understood that the nature of the collective consciousness of humankind is akin to the nature of the individual’s consciousness.
Humankind understands that, in general, animal behavior is less conscious than human behavior. With this understanding, it is likewise understood that, as the individual moves more toward conscious Decision-Making regarding what action to take, he or she moves away from animalistic behavior and toward the humanity side. This last statement only means that a conscious choice is made. The individual could consciously choose to act animalistically. The individual could consciously choose to exclusively exploit at all times or certainly choose to embrace exploitation as the driving motivation of all decisions made consciously. Such an individual would have consciously chosen to act narcissistically. Such a choice while having some movement toward the humanity side would have a greater magnitude toward the animal side of the sliding scale resulting in a cumulative loss of humanity. This condition is similar to an individual who chooses to nurture as much as is humanly possible but still chooses to be omnivorous. While some movement slides toward the animal side, the magnitude of movement is overall toward the humanity end of the scale.
Just as the soul, or the fate, or the character of the individual is the result of the tension between the opposites within his or her soul or character, so too is the character (or soul) of the collective of individuals the result of affirmed principles formed as the consequence of the tension between shared opposites of the group. Just as unresolved internal tensions and strong opposing forces within an individual causes anxiety and anguish to the point of facilitating the individual to travel down a path of self destruction, so does unresolved tensions and strong opposing forces between groups of collective individuals within the greater society to feud and war will facilitate the same tendency toward self destruction of that culture or society.
Is this not the reality in which humankind currently exists? Must it be so? Are we locked in this perpetual struggle until all energy is spent and we submit to self annihilation? What recourse does the individual (or society) have?
Nature reflecting upon itself is dependent upon the individual. All hope rests with the individual. The hope of the future is that the individual develops into the best human person that he or she can become. To say this another way, the hope of the future is for each individual to achieve the greatest level of humanity that he or she can achieve. Humanity, therefore, resides in the individual and not in the collective. If the collective exudes humanity, it is because of the humanity that radiates from the individuals within the collective. If the collective exudes humanity, it is because of the humanity that radiates from the individuals who occupy positions of influence and/or power within that collective. This is why the single most critical responsibility for any collective of human individuals working together is the facilitation of all individuals to become the best human being above all other animals of the Earth.
This requires a robust educating as opposed to a training of each and every individual. This educating is not about discovering the one area in which the individual demonstrates a natural inclination for remarkable performance and focusing that educating exclusively on that area alone. Emerson warned about such a narrow development during his American Scholar speech on August 31, 1837, which I repeat here for your convenience:
“Man is not a farmer, or a professor, or an engineer, but he is all. Man is priest, and scholar, and statesman, and producer, and soldier. … The state of society is one in which the members have suffered amputation from the trunk, and strut about so many walking monsters, — a good finger, a neck, a stomach, an elbow, but never a man. … the scholar … In the right state, he is, Man Thinking. In the degenerate state, when the victim of society, he tends to become a mere thinker, or, still worse, the parrot of other men’s thinking.”
The advent of specialization had advantages and promoted advancements for society; but it, also, created detrimental factors. While specialization facilitated an individual becoming highly skilled in a particular task, it also facilitated individuals ignoring the development of the many, many other necessary tasks required to exercise the responsibility for the maintenance of freedom and independence by yielding all critical decisions to “experts” thereby facilitating the prolonged naïveté of the individual adult. Recall that naïveté is the lack of knowledge whereas ignorance is turning your back on the knowledge that you process.
The hope of the future is the Individual Thinking and not the individual who is a well trained functioning cog in an economic machine or any other narrowly defined entity like lawyer, doctor, scientist, politician or economist etcetera. The hope of the future is not an excellent finger or stomach or elbow or even a brain. The hope of the future is a whole person, fully functioning, developed to his or her highest potential and endowed with all the humanity that distinguishes humans from all of the other animals of Earth.
Over the 25 years of my professional career as an educator I have observed the focus upon high stakes testing of students as a means to evaluate the progress of students which then is used as the determination of the quality of the schools responsible for educating those students. I have come to believe that there are many fallacies in this process of high stakes testing as an assessment tool to measure student progress. A full accounting of the weaknesses that inhabit our current educational system would require at least one full volume of text if not a multivolume collection of texts.
There was an anecdote recorded in the biography of Malcom X about the art of persuasion. Malcom and his teacher were sitting in a diner. Malcom’s teacher noticed a glass of water on the counter that had two or three cigarette butts and ashes tinting the water. Obviously this glass of water was used as a makeshift ash tray. Malcom’s companion asked the waitress for a glass of water but emphasized that he would like a very clean glass into which his water would be poured. To emphasize his wish he asked the waitress if she could please make sure that the glass was sparkling clean. The waitress affirmed that it would not be a problem. Once the waitress returned with this very clean glass of water, Malcom’s teacher reached over and placed the glass of water substituting as an ash tray next to the very clean glass of water and asked, “Now, Malcom, which glass will you drink from?” The obvious response was the very clean glass of water.
To paraphrase, the lesson taught ran something along lines of: “You do not have to disparage the faults of the dirty glass of water. You only have to place a perfectly clean glass of water next to it and the individual will easily choose correctly.” This was a lesson that, once encountered, I embraced as extremely sound. While I still have difficulty in always applying it, I seek to follow it as often as possible. At this point, in this reflection, an opportunity to do just that offers itself and I shall attempt to comply with my best effort.
Contemporary educators have a choice to make. The age old Intelligence Quotient (I.Q.) has a competing theory describing human intelligence. With Dr. Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences (M.I.) which he developed around 1983, a new approach to educating the individual emerged. I first became aware of Dr. Gardner, a professor of education at Harvard University, by reading his Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences. I read two other titles of his and from there forward attempted to integrate my understanding of M.I. into my educating practices.
I.Q. is a single measure of an individual’s intelligence which does not render as much information about a student (other than rating a given student’s intellectual prowess according to his standing within the group of his or her peers). M.I. rates each individual based on several unique intelligences. At first Gardner identified the following seven:
1. linguistic
2. logical-mathematical
3. musical
4. spatial
5. body-kinesthetic
6. interpersonal (intelligence about others), and
7. intra-personal (intelligence about one’s self).
Each intelligence had to have a unique neural pathway in order to be considered an intelligence. This was the compelling criterion that motivated me to accept Gardner’s assertions that each was a unique intelligence. Number 8, naturalistic intelligence (the classification and understanding of nature), was added later to the list. Before I retired from teaching, a ninth intelligence, existential intelligence (the intelligence to wrestle with the questions of why we live and why we die, etcetera), was being considered and evaluated. At the time of my reading about existential intelligence, Dr. Gardner had not determined if this was in fact a separate intelligence. I recall that he had not discerned a unique pathway for this ninth intelligence. Not being bound to prove my position, I fully embraced existential intelligence as a bona fide ninth intelligence without his stamp of approval.
Having been an experienced middle school classroom teacher for many years before I read Dr. Gardner’s texts, I had read about middle school students demonstrating the ability to excel at mathematics while struggling with language arts. Other middle school students demonstrated the opposite tendency where they excelled in language arts but struggled with mathematics. The frequency of my experiencing this phenomenon allowed me to relate to and embrace Howard Gardner’s findings.
The Critical Skills Institute presented to me through Antioch/NewEngland Graduate School and M.I. presented to me via Dr. Howard Gardner as well as other educating issues like educating over training constitute the very clean glass acquired to be placed along side another glass containing I.Q. scores, high stakes testing, training and narrowly defined areas of learning (the four core curriculum areas of English, math, science and history), compared to the 12 areas of focus defined by the Critical Skills Institute. I choose to drink from the former, very clean, glass.
No doubt, as I am still breathing and my mind is still functioning, my reflecting behavior has not come to an end. However, it is time for me to bring this session to a close.