I'm re-reading Carol Hoare's fact-filled IR article from Dec. 2008 coordinating LR data and UR educational achievement in the US.  Being a rapt observer of the US's LL and LR all my life, i sadly agree that "our decline as a country is apparent."

Reading through her depressing statistics gives one considerable pause....From an integral perspective, it is inconceivable that any beneficial change can come without a 4-quadrant approach.  To single out one form of education, one aspect of schooling, one remediation tool, is propping up a skyscraper with a toothpick.

Given our less-than-wholehearted ability to do any type of systemic change, what would be the best way to begin to remediate this failing system and support the students who travel in this leaky boat? 

My own experience has shown that by admitting the failure to the students instead of parceling out blame on their performance on a biology test, or disruption during a food fight in the cafeteria is to open them to participating in realistically appraising the situation.  Similar to telling a dying person the truth, there is at least the ability to adapt to the truth that has been intuited or experienced in the past, but ignored or deied.  It is far less crazy-making for them.  They are more able to participate with the teacher in attempted remediation.

About a year ago I promised to become more dedicated to this blog.  The decision sent me into a new direction which werved to take me away from this blog, and into writing a book.  But as I take sections of the book out and add new ones until I get a coherent version, I thought that i would share the redacted portions here in order to elicit comment and dialogue.

I've decided to become more dedicated about this blog as I begin thinking through my book, the ropic of which has been repeatedly validated by random books I pick up, and articles I read.  Yay...  i also know that I am a compulsive reader, about a book a day, which I hope to reference in the book, and that I would like to share with others who don't have time to read. In addition, the 4 of us from NYC are being supervised by Diane Hamilton in coming to 2nd tier leadership models and figuring out how to introduce leadership without triggering any Green reactivity to a new structure and order.

Beyond Discourse is by Alexander M. Sidorkin, 1999, takes an ontological understanding of dialogue as do Gadamer and Heidegger, as the quintessential embodiment of being human, and urges schools to introduce  children to the life of dialogue.  Today i receieved Daniel Siegel's tapes on "The Neurobiology of We", which I wanted after reading Candace Pert's books.  sidorkin references Buber and Bakhtin as well, citing I and Thou and Dostoevsky's Poetics.  He appears to be a post-modernist, but I am intrigued by what he intends to prove.

In line w/ 3-2-1 and 1-2-3 understandings of Integral, I-Thou is the miracle of We, whereas I-It becomes a subject-object  exdperience.He was interested in discovering a new and integral aspect of being human. 

Bakhtin: "Dialogue here is not the threshhold to action, it is the action itself.....To be means to communicate dialogically."

Sidorkin:  Thou art, therefore I am.

uh-oh, my puppy is reacting to the darkness and feels it is time to go to bed.  Enough for tonight.  More tomorrow.

Tonight Obama got the nomination, and tomorrow, the anniversary of MLK's famous speech, he will give his acceptance speech.  If this isn't the topic upon returning to school, there is something drastically wrong with education in this nation.  I've talked and written and blogged about the disconnect between school life and real life.  let this be a litmus test of what we are doing with and to our children.

And from what perspective do we teach about this historic move?  Hillary was fabulous last night talking about the history of the women's suffrage mevement, the fight for political/social/economic equality.  That type of historic context should be included in any lesson on Obama.

Another litmus test: those teachers of English, other humanities, world history, etc., will they talk about tonight and tomorrow?  Will they address reality in their classes?  If it is not in the curriculum, they might not.  I'm interested to hear what happens.

I'm reading a book on the agony of education, which deals with the call for students to struggle during their education,  I want to read more of the book and then comment upon it tomorrow.

Competition.  Against whom?  what? why?  How?

I cannot believe that I last posted a year ago, but given the personal severity of the year, I can understand why I had no additional energy for input here.

What I have learned on this topic is that we need to take Robb Smith's question to me to heart:  Why DO we need Integral education?  This year I hope to begin fleshing out that answer, with Beginner's Mind, wherever the tracks lead me.  I hope to offer to the readers and to myself answers that serve the larger community.  My area of specialization is k-12 and that is the area to which I shall devote my time writing and researching.

Twelve hours after arriving on the red-eye from Seattle, 22 hours after bidding the 50 participants and faculty ( and one Witness presencing as Adonia Martineau, 4 years old yet part of our core team for 3 of those years) adieu from the Next Step Integral Education seminar at Whidbey Institute on Whidbey Isl, WA, it would be impossible to affirm that I have permitted the kaleidascope of events to settle into a deep perspective from which to report.

That's never stopped me before, and while memories, sensations, emotions and understandings tetra-arise, and while the multiple voices within me are happily conferring with one another, I want to permit them all latitude to be heard.

Integral education has been my passion for over 14 years, from the first wilber book I read in the 1980s and from the time I returned to the classroom in 1992 from my law career where I had already begun to apply Integral theory as I then understood it , to the courtroom during a death penalty case.....

Dealing with changes within consciousness in Western history as I taught AP history; creating experiential exercises to integrate cognitive understanding within the bodies of my high school students; switching out of honors and AP teaching to the regular college prep students, and wondering how deeply I could affect them with Integral education taught directly and taught through, and experienced....

Shift to Don Beck's SDi listserv in 2002 where I encountered others like me for the first time.  By Sept. 4, 2003, Nancy and I decided to start a Yahoo group, I had met Ken, and Nancy did the tech work on the Yahoo group.  It claimed 114 members before we set up the Integral Ed phpbb site.

  Before long we had excited Terri O'Fallon, Miriam Martineau, Juma Wood, Matt Baker, Jenny Gidley, Jamie Wheal, Santo Nicoteria, John Gruber,  Toyce Collins, Vic Smith, Sue Stack, Gary Hampson, Nick Owen, Olen, Katie, Hannes, Micki,  Patricia Gordon, Richard, and 80 nothers who similarly had been isolated in institutions world-wide and wrote with a passion merging on the spiritual to come into community with other educators influenced by Integral theory.

The core of this group became a virtual LL and wanted closer contact; we sensed that embodiment as best we could arrange it had to be the next step in the deepening of the group.  I've read a bit on vitual groups, and although it is possible to maintain a high levvel of interaction within a group that has constructed an appropriate container that can deepen without further engagement in the gross realm, perhaps it was the fact that educators are, indeed, qualitatively different.

We might teach on-line, but many of these programs have a "meetspace" component once or twice a year, or now a FaceBook/YouTube/Skype component.  My hunch is that we wanted that next level of intimacy, as we encounter within our classrooms, to sense into the levels/lines/states/stages/types of our new colleagues.  

A conference call grew into regular calls, and once Hannes created the phpBB site, we began the serious work of creating an overview and detailed descriptions of I Ed.
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Posted: Mon Sep 06, 2004 2:05 am    Post subject: Welcome.
Dear Members, Almost a year ago, Nancy Davis and I set up the Yahoo group on integral education with the intent to see what interest there might be in forming and collecting knowledge on integral education. We had done teaching of integral in our respective educational settings, but there appeared to be no central meeting space for the generation and sharing of this new concept. Now, with the imminent launch of Integral University, we have found an exciting academic venue for our on-going research, contemplation, and formation of an integral approach to education as informed by Ken Wilber's AQAL model. The forums contained on these pages will serve as discussion boards to support the launch of the Integral Education Center at Integral University. Toward that end, and in anticipation of the March 2005 launch of the much-requested Integral Education Center, we shall act as midwives, conduits, spirits, co-creators, coaches, creative souls, compasses for one another in the furtherance of our vision, which has been proposed initially, but which we shall continue to flesh out in an emergent process. I consider our Center to be a meta (and a metta) center, all-encompassing and crucial to evolution's arrow. Toward that end, I shall dedicate myself, and I hold out my hand to all of you to shepherd our effort successfully. With deepest gratitude and boundless humility, Lynne

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Ah, but that imminent launch was postponed...and postponed...and postponed......

In the interim, we decided that we all realllly needed to meet one another, and a few of us met in Boulder in July, 2004 at the Holiday Inn.  After creating a tentative structure, we got to sit with Ken at the loft while he talked, really for the first time deeply, about his view of Integral education.  Could life GEt any better???

By later 2005 we had  created the following structure for our forum:
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Posted: Mon Jan 10, 2005 6:40 pm    Post subject: Updated Welcome: March, 2005
Dear Members, We have evolved into a most extraordinary community of learners in 7 months. We have an active, intelligent, committed, caring group of core members who are creating the Integral Education Center, and our projected launch is this summer or early fall. Ken Wilber is quite impressed with what we have all, collectively accomplished here. This Forum will become the prototype for Centers at Integral University, and our members (that includes ALL of you if you so choose) will be assisting with the educational processes and content that we are creating for Integral University. We have assets being constructed for the site, and welcome anyone who has already written an article, done a PowerPoint, on-line course, or other activity that they would like to have uploaded to the site. We are gathering information for an August, 2005 meeting in Boulder for those of us who have contributed to I Ed's construction, where we shall consider prospects for a major conference on Integral Education the following summer as part of Integral Institute's comprehensive offerings. To those of you who join us now, you are entering at the most providential time when your voice can and will be heard. We also ask both old and new members to contribute special biographies to us, perhaps detailing for us your 4 Quadrant orientations, what brought you to integral education, or other data that will assist us in embracing you into this vibrant community of learners. Please do not just sit by and follow our posts; join us in body, mind and spirit! Please feel free to email me privately. Blessings, Lynne ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2005 1:47 am    Post subject: Overview of the I-Ed Forum ?If anything imaginable were possible, what would be the nature of an ideal education?? Dear Members, We invite you to explore the site as you see fit. However, as there is quite a lot of material already and a particular site structure, you may wish to take a look at the following to help you orientate to the site. Q: What is the purpose of the iED Center? A: The purpose of the iED Center is to build a learning community that will draw together all who are have an interest in the education of the human species to appropriately integrate what is already known with what we are hoping will eventually come about. Specifically (among other things), > To define and publish integral education theory and practice, as guided by Ken Wilber?s integral approach. > To examine and map past and present educational philosophies and applications (link later) of intrinsic and demonstrated value according to the AQAL framework. > To conceive and document, through properly examined orienting generalizations, a framework of educational guidelines that optimally addresses the prime directive?the health of the entire spiral. > To provide support , direction and resources to those who have initiated or will initiate valid practical applications of integrally-oriented education. > To maintain a library of results, discoveries, observations and refinements of integral education theory and practice. > To maintain connectivity among those pursuing careers, interests or research in iED through forums, courses, events, etc. for individual and collective benefit. > To cross-reference the efforts and results of the iED group with efforts and results of other IU domains to mutually enrich the entire integral movement. > To provide hope and encouragement for those trying to survive / find meaning in / make integral changes to the current mainstream and alternative education systems. > To collectively create and maintain the conduit for papers, courses and other relevant material (AQAL and otherwise) that will form the Integral Education Center at Integral University. > To create a place for a wide ranging conversation about integral education, in which ideas and practices are shared. Q: What is the structure of the site? A: There are four forums: 1. The Integral Education forum is where all general discussion takes place on integral education. Specific discussion topics also arise here. Notably, it is a place for new members to introduce themselves and start participating in this dialogue. To engage meaningfully with the material in this site, it is very helpful for members to have a working knowledge of Ken Wilber's integral approach. For suggested essential reading, click HERE. It is our hope that members will join in the discussion by exploring the meaning and application of integral theory in education through collaborative dialogue with other members. Musings, reflections, and creative ideas related to integral education may all serve as catalysts for the development of new papers, research projects, or valuable teaching and learning materials. 2. The Contributors' Circle is the development and tracking area for articles and other media presentations being prepared for Integral Education's domain on the Integral University site (Resources under Development Forum). It is also home to current Integral Education working projects (meditations, discussion groups such as the Educational Theory Group, etc) (Projects Forum). Its products and some of its projects will be transferred to the site once opened, but the Contributors Circle will remain the work space for incubating and developing further new materials and programs for the site. As of May 2005, there were 25 members in the Contributors Circle, including 10 members of The Educational Theory Group. 3. The Executive Sangha is a working, integral learning/teaching group, coordinating, facilitating and administering this site and its evolution into the many-faceted iED Center. It consists of the director, 12 other voluntary contributing members and 3 administrative members who collectively take responsibility for the design, research and development, and day-to-day running of the site/Center. This involves, among other things, navigating and embodying the development of integral education as a new approach to education; editing contributions for publication; managing the forum/site, partly through facilitatory contributions; outreach into the wider educational community; and various other tasks that arise. A key role is to help maintain this space to enable the whole integral education group to function and grow harmoniously and effectively. As of March 2005, The Executive Sangha consists of the following members: Lynne Feldman (director) Katie Heikkinen (assistant director) Hannas Aurell (admin/technical) Katrina Owen (admin) Matt Baker Nancy Davis Richard Freis Jennifer Gidley Patricia Gordon John Gruber Gary Hampson Miriam Martineau Santo Nicotera Terri O'Fallon Vic Smith Jamie Wheal 4. An administrative forum area is available to and used by iED administrators for database maintenance purposes. The last three forums are not immediately open to new members. This has been done to enable efficient administrative and creative working spaces. Due processes, nonetheless, enable access to the Contributos' Circle and Executive Sangha (see below). This structure is organic and evolving, established to service the tasks at hand rather than the other way round. It is based on the notion of a healthy nested holarchy (rather than a dominator hierarchy), but, like all things here, this interpretation is naturally provisional and open to evolution and revision. ENTERING THE CONTRIBUTORS CIRCLE Public Members of the Integral Education forum who propose papers or projects that are accepted for development/use are granted access to the Contributors Circle. Also project participants or those engaged otherwise as contributors or editors are given access to the CC. As it is a working area, the general public is not given access. ENTERING THE EXECUTIVE SANGHA Changes to the membership of the Executive Sangha necessarily occur less frequently than changes to the membership of the Contributors? Circle. Relevant emergent dialogue between ES members and CC members may result in changes. Using the metaphor of a biological structure rather than a mechanical structure results in an organic collective process. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That meeting was held at Beaver Meadows, CO, and was a severe test for our newly constituted LL and LR. 
The challenges had to do in part with our origins outside of I-I, with folks not familiar to nor approved by Ken.  Under the old structure, this was a real concern; under the structure offered by Robb, this is not an immediate concern at all, but we had yet to learn about holarchic structuring, which created tremendous freedom within the holonic format for us all to function creatively.

Other contributing factors were my reluctance to suggest that some participants were a hindrance to the healthy development and functioning of an emergent LL, due to my hesitance to utilize masculine compassion. It was a stressful time for me, coming immediately after my aunt's death, which had a deep psychological impact, plus my triggering and engagement by and with a  member of the NY community who did not have much capacity for introspection, although neither did I in regard too our unhealthy tangling, at that moment.


2006 came with an explosaion of activity on the iEd forum, which will remain archived, so that the fascinating discussions and helpful resources will remain.  We began an impressive on-line meditation begun and facilitated by Terri that was totally extraordinary, and we adopted a holacratic structure to resolve our orientation to ourselves and to I-I:

The annual meeting for our now much smaller executive sangha was held in Nelson, BC, at an exquisite site that Miriam and Stephan had rented for the summer.  it was apparent that we core team members would travel anywhere in the northern hemisphere to be with one another.
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Posted: Sat Jul 15, 2006 12:05 am    Post subject:
I cannot express my gratitude, in this life and forever more, thru all the transmutations this Soul might take, for your enfoldment of me during the retreat. I wrote to Ken and got a lovely answer from him. He confirmed that there is a caution around I Ed b/c we have been the only center to have developed a LL separate from the structure envisioned by IU. I replied that we had moved beyond the state of whether we are volunteers or a separate group, and explained that we have adopted a whole/part philosophy, where, for the time being, we fit into IU's structures, while permitting us to continue the growth of a startlingly robust collective individualism.  Love, Lynne

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We were itching to put on a seminar, and we wanted it to be under I-I's guidance and banner, but we were concerned about whether we would be able to meet many of the requirements.  We first decided to go it alone under Stephan's and Miriam's Next Step Integral international NPO, but then were persuaded to "go for" sponsorship with I-I; thus, the showcase date was scheduled for Jan., 2007.

All but Terri and Miriam flew into Denver during one incredibly bone-numbing January weekend to work with Clint and Nicole and other I-I staffers as we wove together our ideas for the FIRST EVER INTEGRAL EDUCATION SEMINAR.  Leaving Denver after 3 days, the two groups were deeply appreciative of the others' gifts and dedication, and I was so pleased that the 2 parts of me had joined into one Big Heart.  But I-I had gone through an intensely personal and public trauma, and had just engaged the services of a temporary (now thankfully PERMANENT) new CEO, and there was some understandable hesitation to state that we would definitely be able to go out under the I-I banner.

Our weekly executive sangha conference calls thus centered around how to go forward, and not until about March was the decision finalized that we would go forward under the banner of Next Step Integral, but we would utilize all of the I-I talent and AQAL knowledge we could, to make this seminar as close to Integral theory as possible.

One gift to us was the addition of Stephan Martineau to the sangha, Miriam's incredible husband, for whom I have no adequate words.  He waas able to devote countless hours organizing what we had spent 3 years theorizing and dreaming under a coherent and feasible formula.

It seems as though this seminar just whipped itself into being, and i cannot account for the many many hours that Steph worked on this, but at last it was time to pack for our pre-seminar retreat, fly across the country again, and rejoin our colleagues.

We were blessed to have Diane Musho Hamilton and my BUDDY!!!  Clint Fuhs with us for 2 days to set the AQAL and spiritual tone that we so desired, plus to have these two integral stars with us creates a container of all 4 quadrants, and advances states evocation beyond many folks' previous experience.

Stephan and Miriam with Adonia, now a gorgeous moppet of 4, were joined by Jonathan Reams, a neighbor, along with Abigail, plus John, Nancy, Terri, me, and Patricia, in a luxurious B & B on Whidbey with a memorable view across Puget Sound.  Our seminar was sold out,and new people were showing up, it seemed, daily to see if we still had space for them.

Two days flew with physical preparations and daily meetings concerning creating and holding a 2nd tier container every moment that we were together.  Our team began to operate as one collective consciousness from the beginning, with great humor, cooperation, creativity, and cooperation.  Then Sunday ayt 12:15 our entire troup became mobile and drove to the whidbey Institute, with a bare few minutes to set ourselves up before our first participants arrived; indeed, Dennis had already arrived, and we were ON!
more later....I can tell that what wants to emerge is much different than what i intended.....

Once again I am in a rush, too much to do, read, straighten up, savor....gosh, I had expected to have more done on my book.  I'd best reserve special time each day or on the weekend to accomplish at least a good structure for my project.

For more years than i care to recall, I have been mentoring teens through a variety of travails, but of late I seem to be attracting kids with addiction issues; sign of the times??  My antenna picking up different energy that I am leaning into?

Perhaps my newfound openness to address the issues of drug usage came from that day at the Robin Ridge house when Ken and Roger Walsh sat with a house full of 20-somethings who wanted Ken's blessings in their continued drug usage.  I took notes on his wisdom, and it opened up the world to me, as usual---- the world of the user.  Having not been one myself during the sizzlin' sixties, I had a more amber orientation toward drug usage.  After all, if I could shift my consciousnesss to an altered state, why couldn't others do it as I did??  Why need exogenous additives when you could train your mind, or just "flick" it, and get as high as I wanted?

I had a ritual of putting on a yellow blouse, yellow slacks, and with my (then) natural blond hair and hazel eyes, I would "tweek" my consciousness into an altered state, and go about as if I were invisible.  No, this was not a neurotic aptitude; it was some type of ability that I just presumed everyone else could replicate.  I stayed "high" as long as I wanted, then just "readjusted" my consciousness and resumed my normal collegiate life.

That day in Boulder, Ken explained that no matter how "mindful", no matter the purity of intentions, the group would NOT achieve any type of enlightened state or mind while indulging in exogenous altered states.  There were folks from communities in the Amazon who had retired from the US to stay in intentional community and use ayahuasca for decades.  One refugee reported that the group was as dysfunctional at the end as they were at the beginning.  Ken warned the assembled 20-somethings that they could do whatever they wanted, but they should not fool themselves that they would achieve any stage shift ever.

I brought this teaching back to my students, and they began to come forward in private and in small groups to question me more.  About then, Erica was dating Steve, who was going to grad school in neuropsychobiology with a concentration on schizophrenia and the effect of drugs on psychosis.  I began talking to him and reading Scientific American about brain waves and acquainting myself with the UR areas; Stevve has become an on-going source of plain facts about drugs, and I have emailed him over the years with questions that my kids had about drug usage.  He clued me into the NIMH finding that even pot can trigger schizophrenia.

I'm going to jump ahead in my narrative to talk about the latest learning that I am doing in being the official counsel to "RR", a 16 year old addict who is now in my class.  I am pulling out all the stops to assist him.  He has flunked out of 2 private schools and 1 rehab residential school due to his multiple addictions.  Now he is here, living with another family where pot is smoked daily and often, without any hassle from the adults.  I am in touch with an Integral recovery expert, and will be looking at this as a case study of the effect of an Integral approach to teen addiction.

Much more later....

It's 12:12 am, much later than usual to write, I probably won't add much, but let's see what wants to be said.

When adults speak of the authentic self, and then remind us to acknowledge Shadow and to use our Integrity and MORAL effort to unearth it to the curative power of the Light, what do we say to a 15, 16, or 17 year old who has little Shadow and not much strata to dig through in search of one's authenticity?  How do we add ken's description of the young and the Soul into our daily interactions with teens? And how much of this is safely done in schools?

Work with Zones #1 and #2 as separately as possible, for one thing.  Deal with the inner subjective thru dream work, investigating spiritual and religious differences in their experiences, which is something I am now digging into in my research.  Deal with the inner objective to explain the constant stream of feedback that students receive daily, and contextualize it.  That gives the Authentic Self room to grow in a healthy environment, and gives the teen as best a reality check as possible before going beyond the "nurturing" confines of high school. This fosters the Individuation process, or movement toward the integration of inner and outer realities in a meaninful wholeness.  Who more than teens needs this done for them with sensitive and wise educators who have done this process themselves?  Can you imagine qualifications for this Life Course, which would be required prior to graduation: "Teacher must be in a process leading to Enlightenment, self-inquiry, or other transpersonal work".  OK, let me dream.....

Let's go Jungian for a minute, and deal with the social self/persona/ego of the conscious, mediative role that interacts with others and navigates on a daily basis, and the unconscious that represents both demon (Shadow/rejected self) and Infinte Ground of Being/heaven.  Sibylle Birkhauser-Oeri speaks to this as the Individuation process, "a psychological pattern of development that leads one into a confrontation with one's shadow side and with evil, and also involves owning up to unrealized potential". (1988, 23)  WOW----RIGHT ON!! 

Kids are fascinated with their dreams, and during these stressful years, can come upon quite a few realizations from them.  I do a Jungian guided meditation with several archetypes that I then discuss (that will be described in my book!) and each student discovers something authentic from that (perhaps) first forray into their subconscious.  For those who are interested, I offer lucid dreaming, and each year I get the right kids to go more deeply into it.  Then during the year, they come to me and we discuss their particular dreams, altho I never never present myself as a psychologist, and rush them downstairs to the child study team if their dream is not really transparent to them or to me.

And what of their Shadow?  I first teach them Freud's defense mechanisms, and I explain that these are all ways of dealing with untolerable levels of anxiety, then asked why they drank, did drugs, and they responded YES, it is to self-medicate against anxiety!!  So now they have a reason that is authentic, real, true, and just leaves the truth out there for them to deal with.  Of course I have tons of teaching stories to illuminate each of them, and I make sure that it relates to their lives, the 1/3 of their time that is rarely acknowledged in school, their lives of quiet or rowdy reactivity and energy-depleting time spent dealing with anger, jealousy, betrayal, hurt, terror, etc.

So they now understand that there is hidden wisdom beneath the mascaraed eyes and Juicy couture outerwear.  It feels to them as exciting as Lewis and Clark must have felt, exploring a new world.  But the experience is theirs, and they now have a few methods of entering into a dialogue with the hidden parts of themselves.

I add to this study of brainwaves, and they understand the UR correlates to these UL manifestations without reducing the UL to the UR.  One of my kids found KW's brain wave experiments where he flatlines his EEG on YOUTUBE, and I was able to teach from that, which just blew their minds!!!!! Ironically, I had just spent a night at a sleep lab, and had my own results for them.  Their next question was, how did he DO that??  The answer---30 years of meditation.  And being KW.

Their seeing him with active Delta waves while flatlining the others gave vent to many questions.  Here's where some of my "drug-experienced" students catch on faster than others.  Nate asked, Is that the Witness???  An "A" for him.  We then got into endogenous and exogenous altered states, which I contextualized sociologically, and then gave them KW's talk on how it will not get you any where except becoming a burnout and getting into heaps of trouble.  

I might get into a heated discussion with psychologists here, and i am going on instinct and experience only.  But when it comes to teens (and perhaps others, I don't know), Shadow, Authentic self, is where character education misses the boat.

What is the Shadow? what is considered to be the inferior part of the personality, or as Jung noted, 
"The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort.  To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspect of the personality as present and real.  The act is the essential condition for self-knowledge, and it therefore, as a rule, meets with consideable resistance.  Indeed, self-knowledge as a psycho-theraputic measure frequently requires much painstaking work extending ove a long period"  (Singer, 1973, 215).

So we are aking for teens to continue moral education while not splitting off certain aspects of themselves that might become projections, impulsive acts, or reasons to engage in dangerous behavior.

We need to explain to them that there are some parts of themselves that need to incorporate social norms and not disrupt the educational process for themselves or others.  Concrete thinkers can have this spelled out to them in cause and effect terms as THE RULES; formal operational thinkers will be able to conceptualize it as necessary to assist them in the future with their personal and career goals.  My exercise on value-->norm--->sanction makes complete sense to them, even tho they will grouse about the value.

We need to explain to them Eriksonian stages of development, and what their existential questions are.  They will have to know that guilt has a socially productive purpose, and that those without any guilt are predators.  "Who am I?" is a crucial question for them, and should be followed thru the curriculum a part of the UL, not just as part of the LR or UR.  Using personality tests are fun, non-threatening, and neutral; they help the teens understand the categories into which they fit, beyond "cool", nerd, slut, jock, etc.

We need to traverse spiritual/religious questions, which will become more and more difficult, and less and less likely to be mentioned in public schools as we balkanize education.  But I still argue that by dealing with the 4 Qs, it can be done tactfully and relevant to everyone in the class.  Then again, I did not have ultra-fundamentalists this year.  Without integration of these aspects of American life, we leave them without HEALTHY ADAPTIVE RESPONSES TO THEIR ANXIETIES!!!!!!!  Stan came to me after his operation and said that since he quit smoking pot, he has no clue how to ease his psychic and physical pain---IS THIS NOT A GREAT INSIGHT?" And if we want them to say NO to drugs, how are they to deal with their anxieties?

We need to figure out---I don't have any wise answer here at all---how to structure a public school where the kids feel free to engage these questions.  They already know that my class is a safe space, and I just know that there are other teachers who can do the same in their subjects.  We put pink triangles on the doors for safe space for gays; why not put turquoise infinity signs or quadrants!! on the doors of teachers where it is safe to discuss inner processes and thoughts.

I often speak of my course as an owner's manual to the Self.

OK, it's after 1 am, and I am getting sleepy.  Dream on....

Back to Godwin's article..."We have all of these competing parts of ourselves, and if they're all brought together on the same page, by virtue of creating a more unitaary being, it automatically creates a depth in the universe.  The more unity you have within, the more deeply you see without....Yet the downside of Western individualism, of course, is narcissism, self-absorption, and the idea that everything can be fulfilled in the h orizontal.  All we get on TV is a steady diet of horizontality, which kills the vertical.  Now we hae the search for what is being called "authenticity".  SO the richest people are the biggest lowlifes, like Paris Hilton.  I call it downward mobility.  They how their authenticity by completely overturning any kind of authority, any hierarchy.  They're what I call the vertical barbarians....."

Bravo and Yippee!!

Now page back to Ken and Andrew's discussion of authentic self.  Andrew says that he's trying to get the self to be responsible for maintaining the higher perspective that it discerns during endogenous altered state experiences thru meditation, etc.  Andrew continues,
"As I've been saying, an unusual level of integrity is required"

Ken responds that in addition to the 5 elements of AQAL, there is the self in 1st person terms, and in 3rd person terms it is called the self- system..  Ken states that the self has several characteristics:
1--it is the seat of will, intention, integrity
2--it is responsible for integrating whatever parts of the 5 elements are present
3-- it has its own structure, pattern, characteristics
4--it is the source of identity and will
5--it is the source of our defense system, which in a healthy situation is like a healthy immune system
6--it is the seat of navigation of anything that's presented to you

But Ken cautions that all of this is only the precursor to a turnaround in the self-system before it can orient itself to moving forward on evolution's arrow for the health of the Kosmos, what Andrew calls "soul integrity".

They both continue by talking about soul authenticity, and here we go right back to Boomeritis Buddhism, which i've been listening to this morning.  Let me entwine Ken's comments on this with the topic of authenticity, into the situation with Integral education.

Studies indicate that 25% of the population is now at Green; Green denies there are stages, a stage that denies that there are stages. Most public schools center at Blue/Orange, and in my school, Green is an anomaly except in the guidance and special education programs, where the mantra is to reduce all/most problems in secondary school with the UR and thus the LR regs in adopting Green wisdom, have crafted  treatment modalities and procedures within the classroom that conflict with Orange in order to mollify the Green parents and laws.

Now the place for education to go would be Orange center of gravity (excellence) which NCLB attempts to do, but with Amber belief-systems supporting it, giving reductionist and faulty awards and punishments.  Many teachers are Green, and with proper nurturing, they might begin to pop into 2nd tier.  But having them clustered in education at the top, middle, or classroom, will only lead to Boomeritis Education.

Any developmental stage above and below Green will look similar.  Pre and post verbal can easily be confused.  Pre/post conventional look alike, since they are not conventional!

Egoic rationality vs. non-rational  spirituality will look wrong.  Attempts to include postrational teaching will be confused with prerational stuff, thus permitting the study of crystals and taarot cards to being confused with vajra Buddhanature, and thus labeled as spiritual progress. And today's TIME magazine herals that the Bible should be taught in school----THROUGH WHICH LENS??

Green Stage will take from Eastern philosophies and identify that with ultimate truth. So the future and further challenge will be to clear up these problems for the 20% of educators who are at Green, and they may even meditate!  But they will interpret their state thru their stage lens. Excellence, achievement=Orange; Green=everything is enmeshed and interrelated.  Yet Mutual interpenetration is a metaphor, and not a call to end holarchies or discernment or evolution or development!

What has this got to do with 14-17, 18-20 year olds?  Their very existential questions that they must resolve brefore moving into adulthood has to do with who they are.  And more and more find Paris Hilton worthy of emulation.  I myself am obsessed with "reality TV", with a steady diet of American Idol, Project Runway, Survivor, Top Designer, The Apprentice, just for the joy of seeing something even close to real people being real people.

And what precursors of the authentic self do we see operating throughout a student's schooling?  What nibblets, as Ken puts it, of the authentic self show themselves, and how do educators deal with it now?  How SHOULD they deal with it?  What does character education really teach?  What does early religious training  such as CCD classes, bar/bat mitzvah training, really offer to them?

"The soul is not itself developmental.  It gets fuller, it gets freerm it gets wider....you can have integrity at earlier levels of development as appropriate to those levels.  you can have integrity at amber or at orange, and earlier as well.  So if you have, in the self's development, going back to childhood, those conditions that help the self become integral ata those earlier stages, then by the time it hits second tier, it's going to be more likely able to awaken as ther authentic self".

And that, dear friends and colleagues, is what I have devoted my life to explore.

I've been doing what I LOVE to do----spending hours Googling in a knowledge tree, one author/topic peaking my curiosity, sending me deeper down the rabbit holl, deeper and deeper until I come right back where I started, but now I see the trees shimmer, they are vigorous systems of coursing cellular juices, sturdy yet tendril-thin roots pushing down into the earth, nuzzling the nutrients like a puppy with his snout in the foodbowl......

I have spoken to several people who have given me excellent ideas on how best to write this book, with exercises, curricula, for me to create an entire system of Integral education.  But I don't need to be exhaustive in my coverage, which reduces my tension around the project.

I often buy WIE, but at times I've found the articles off of the topics I find compelling, except for his exchanges with Ken.  But this issue resounded with relevant articles, I bought 3 books as a result of the articles, and I am off and running with encouragement.

"Professors Without Answers" is the perfect complement to my Kosmos Journal article!  This brought me back to HERI, and I really need to get in touch with the Astins; they are doing precisely what I need to use for substantiation of my work. 

Ken's and Andrew's conversation was just wonderful, lifting me into a shimmering state of consciousness. 

"KW: What do you think are the precursors of the authentic self, the little nibblets of it showing up in childhood and getting bigger in adolescence and then flowering at second tier?......The soul is nascent in its early stages during childhood and starts to blossom later on......One thing that's obviously important is not just that cognitive component but the real capacity for integrity......So if you havem in the self's development, going back to childhood, those conditions that  help the self become integral at those earlier stages, then by the time it hits second tier, it's going to be more likely to be able to awaken as the authentic self....The point is that we can help people at earlier stages be prepared for this by helping those precursors to be in place---....I think it's great to think about these precursors, because it does allow us to think about education----an education for the authentic self."

This has been my life for the past 15 years, as each year I began to experiment with Ken's theory and gently push along the lines of incorporating Integral education into my sociology, history,  and law classes, ninja-like, while keeping the harmonics enjoyable and non-confrontational for those who are not at that stage to truly register what I am saying.

Next article, by Robert Godwin, "The Only Journey There Is", serves as background that helps us surround and highlight  the laser-like precision of Ken's words into a softer, chalky smudge that can fill in the frame of the Bigger Picture.  He uses the metaphors of the horizontal versus the vertical elements of evolution.  The horizontal is what my school considers to be education, the piling on of more and more facts, and to call that an educated person.  But the depth is rarely hit upon, and the students notice this!  They are frustrated but used to the lack of attention to the vertical depth and height of the very material that they are trying to get the kids to appreciate.  My students tell me that a work of Shakespeare might be taught by memorizing who said what lines, and only rarely is the existential import, depth and heights, of the work even touched on---gotta move that curriculum!!
(I'm tired, more tomorrow on WIE and the great articles.  I'm subscribing again!)

(back the next morning.  I have free time from about 10pm to about 10:45 when I poop out, and am no longer focusing.)

Evolution is what he refers to as the vertical shift forward, which is a really easy way of explaining Ken's more accurate typology of LR causing shifts in the LL and then reverberations all over the matrix.  He states the exact words that I just used in class last week---attachment theory, round 3!  How we are hard-wired during the 1st 2 years of life, the pre-verbal time, hard to unearth those existential dilemmas, as I call them when I teach Erikson.

Now here's a book to throw in Mel Gibson's ugly anti-semitic face (ooops, can't forget compassion/forgiveness) when he made Apocalypto.  his thesis is that those ugly barbarians were rescued by the arrival of God-fearing Spaniards who would teach them Almighty Love.  Well, Mel, read Lloyd deMause.  I've read about this but have now purchased his book on the history of child-rearing.  IT WAS HORRIBLE IN SPAIN, IN FRANCE, IN ENGLAND.  It has only been the LR techno-economic base that made child labor no longer a necessity, the change in understanding of the body's pain responses, Freud, Marx, Erikson and so on, who changed the way we look at children, and thus how Western culture treats children.  The Enlightenment plus the 20th century has made it impossible for us to empathize with or understand strapping bombs onto our young men and women and then celebrating their explosion into shards of flesh and bone.

And Godwin thrills me when he writes that our brains are, indeed, evolving:  "The more humane your child rearing and the better your nutrition, the more opportunities you have to actualize your potential".  So what is the next stage of maslow for us to offer in high school, in my hgih-functioning, excellent public scfhool?  Just the very program of Integral that I can filter into it.