Gaia Community: Los' Blog

One Year Later.....

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 23:54:03 -0000

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.

First-ever Integral Education Seminar

Sat, 18 Aug 2007 00:55:10 -0000

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
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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.....

The Teen Addict/User

Sun, 27 May 2007 02:04:05 -0000

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....

Authentic Self, Pt. 2

Fri, 06 Apr 2007 05:16:10 -0000

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....

Authentic Self

Sun, 25 Mar 2007 18:24:46 -0000

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.

The BIG Picture

Sun, 25 Mar 2007 03:22:32 -0000

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.

Spiritual Mentoring Pt. 3

Thu, 22 Mar 2007 16:34:39 -0000

From "Holistsic Junction" (edited)
"What does a SPIRITUAL MENTOR do? Spritual Mentors are individuals who use their intutition and spirituality to help and influence others. Spiritual mentors have skills to interpret dreams, help persons determine life's purpose, assist individuals how to use ...methods and tools and can also teach others to meditate for health and overall well being.

Spiritual mentors help individuals achieve spiritual growth, heightened awareness, mind clairity, and inner peace. A spiritual mentor can be a personal support and individualized cheerleader of emotions. Spiritual mentors can help persons to find solace, hope and can enhance daily lives of people whom they mentor."

Why do I even bring this up as a role for educators to assume? I don't, and would not want anyone not so called to take up this exemplar. But I feel called, have shown some proficiency at it over the years, and find that I can indeed make long-term impacts on certain students who at that pivotal time of senior year have no one else to turn to.

How does a student present? It depends, and I will be describing how I have embedded my senior sociology classes with Integral theory and praxis, and where I introduce topics that qare likely to generate interest and a response from students at that stage of exiting and entering the next.

So what precisely might we be asked, and how much can we or should we even attempt to involve ourselves with?
There is translation and transformation, and the overwhelming number of students approach us for translation, how to fit in better, how to change exterior behaviors that will help them fit in with their target peer group. These are most easily dealt with, and there has been enormous amounts written for the teacher. transformation, however, is a trickier matter.....

Take Victor, who i identified quickly in his freshman year. He was sent by the school paper to talk to me about being a teacher. he was to make up 5 questions. His first one was, "How do you see teaching evolving in the future?"
BINGO!
I told him that I knew something about him that perhaps had never been told to him before...I've done this "reading" on students for well over 10 years, and if witches were still burned at the take, I'd have been dragged off and lit aflame....I told him that he tendss to see things that een adults cannot discern in a situation or argument; that he gets frusstrated when things are so obvious to him but not to others; that he has trouble relating to his peers, not just due to his IQ, but to some other quality that even the kids with higher GPAs can't follow him.

After his jaw dropped, I told him that when he feels alone, that no one can see him or the reality that he sees so clearly, to come see me.

Weeks later he reappeared, and I sat there with the knowing smile of the brilliant savant teacher/guide, and he began to tell me his problem...except i wasn't listening deeply, I was awash in my own egoic special-ness, so i kept interrupting him and telling him what he was thinking, feeling, and about to say...All the while he kept trying to interrupt me, but i just plunged on..."I know what you are going to say, let me say it for you"...until he finally broke thru my own trance and blurted out, "No it has nothing to do with perspectives!! I just want to find out how to get laid!!!"

Brilliant lesson for me....listen deeply first...let the student present and then let him talk about what his presentation means to him before taking up your own desire to discuss what you want to tell him to do!

At this point I want to place my curriculum and explore how each lesson now tracfks to a specific part of AQAL, and I can predict fairly well what that will trigger in the student who is ready to exit his current stage.

A natural query comes up when I begin to explain the evolutionary track of humanity, and I state that we have some inklings as to where that ar might be heading. Those who want to know this specific information will make themselves known to you, so just keep a sharp eye out, and you will connect with them. They are fascinated with understanding the faculties available to a human being (including "higher" faculties.

Another type of inquiry arises when we discuss the similarity between animal/mammalian similarities and humans. The question as to the full depth of the human being (from animal-like to Divine, especially when describing the triune brain, and some of the theories surrounding serial killers.

Those students who are already involved with their religious traditions will ask how the natural (or Divine) laws or principles can be aligned with human functioning.

Still others have begun to experiment with independently acquired information or practices where they have experienced interesting results that they need put into a healthy context, and the mentor is aksed how the heat that arises in the friction between old and new habits is managed or endured.

Indicating that a path exists is often enough, and then to permit the student to come ack at her own pacre and her own inclination to check in at critical points. Significant spiritual growth can occur only when we have understood and transcended all the primary obstacles, whether they are set by culture, society, biology, psychology, or even conventional religion, and .

"Realization is a Transmission. Various apparent efforts can be made to serve it, but no one can Transmit or influence others with anything other than the state of Realization or the limit of existence that is real for that one. Everyone transmits. All of you are transmitters. You reinforce these limitations in one another and you transmit them to one another. Each one of you emits invisible forces that are locked up in limited messages that reinforce the same limitations in others ". This is from Adi Da's website,  and reinforces what I wrote earlier, that no educator/guide/teacher can ever fool herself into believing tht she is transmitting mor than she is; the Shadows will flow with her. In a sense, high school might be an ideal time for this, since an extended amount of time with one teacher does not occur any longer, so the amount of transmission received is more than the student would otherwise receive, and unexpectedly so, so that the Shadow is not invested with anything of the magnitude of a guru or spiritual master........
(not done yet)

Teachers as Spiritual Mentors, Pt. 2

Thu, 22 Mar 2007 04:59:03 -0000

Here is the challenge----I could write a long book about the manner in which I mentor my 12th graders, and I do quite well, thank you! However, I am at a particular stage of ego functioning, with a certain number of experiences behind me, so what might be the lessons that I could impart to others, reading my book? To mentor from where they are developmentally, and to appreciate that they are not at other levels, below or above them. They and I need to be humble in our understanding of our particular perspective, and to give up overselling our abilities. This humility, this restraint in placing our understanding as the Truth into the heart of our young colleagues, is a discipline that I am constantly aware that I must practice. The concommitant caution is that the mentor must treat his mentee from a Wilber-Combs-type matrix, with the student's stage of development plotted against the teacher's. Thus it is impossible to give a laundry list of "how tos" in this touchy area.

And of course there is the LL and LR of the school and community. I tread very very carefully in everything that I do, since I have a loud and well-funded group of Evangelicals who have attempted to get high-funcitoning teachers fired and the Humanities course curriculum entirely re-written from a "Christian-centric" perspective. When my students demand daily meditation, as much as my heart tells me to go along, I know that I will run into trouble somehow, even if I language it as stress reduction.

I am using Susanne Cook-Greuter's action-logics for the teachers, and will deal with the levels of the mentees tomorrow.

Let's take a moment with the Opportunist:--if this person sits with a senior after reading the tales that I tell of what goes on in my classroom, his understanding of the situation, and his particular interpretation will be quite different from mine. It might be tempting for him to disparage the young seeker, and to label higher moral reactions as lame and weak. I doubt that anyone at this level of ego development would be interested in taking on the role of spiritual mentor, unless assigned to do so, or to label the student in some way from her moral perspective. Needless to say, the relationship would not mature, unless the student were susceptable to criticism, and too insecure to understand that the label was an act of selfishness on the teacher's part.

Diplomats would also be preoblematic in this role, and their responses would most likely conform to the status quo of the school. Students who were at the Concrete level of cognition would find confirmation of their understandings as long as they conformed to protocol or rules. A circuit would be developed that would be of use to the entering Concrete thinker, but such association would not help the student face paradoxes or stretch their perspectives.

Experts are probably in abundance in high schools, as memorization and understanding of their particular subject matter are of paramount importance. They often dazzle students with their arcane knowledge, and since the educational system privileges these individuals, in many instances rightly so, with objective information prized as productive for high stakes testing.

Interested in perfection, they would encourage the seeking student to adhere to the specifics of his chosen path, or recommend different paths quite objectively with pros and cons stated in 3rd person. I find that Experts do not possess good discernment, and it is this very quality that is most sought after in the questioning student. Which path is right? better? what of my dream? I don't want to hear about REM sleep and brain wave patterns and the latest article in the Economist; I want to enter my UL zone # 1 and #2 to come to a deeper touching of my own interior. Where is the Bigger Picture? why can't you help me see it? Students usually report frustration over the long and detailed recounting of objective knowledge that they receive from these well-intentioned educators.

Now to the achiever: the student might receive a "plan" for spiritual or religious learning from this teacher. But I have found that they do not listen deeply to the undercurrents of what and why the student is seeking, and tend to accept the presenting quetion, which is rarely the deeper reason for the questioning, growing, and stretching. They want very much to solve the problem, to give an answer, but poften cannot bring themselves to just sit and be the vessel who listens deeply and thus intuits the sacredness of the student's requesnt and longing. The achiever would likely direct the student to the best books to read, which is of value, but often ultimately leads to frustration, as the deeper search is never herd nor addressed.

When non-rational paths are asked about, it is likely that they will dismiss the transrational, committing a pre/post fallacy of ignoring the trustworthy transrational paths. I have had this reported to me by my students, and I then have to explain what the adult's perspective was, and why the Left-hand path was marginalized or dismissed as ridiculous. I don't believe that the 17 year old has the capacity to analyze what the Achiever has done, and thus might give up in frustration, or in the rational belief that his feelings and intuitions are false.

The Individualist is in a far better position to deal with the seeking student. he usually knows about postmodern beliefs and revels in relativism, which can be freeing and of great benefit to the exiting formal operational student. These are great teachers, and they tend to be magnets for the seeking students. They play wonderful mind games, throw out gret hypothetical situations, can quote the latest and most fascinating test results. The Individualist would be an ideal mentor for students of the type that we are dealing with, and thee are enough of this stage that a school is likely to have a ffew on faculty. It is never a secret as to who they are---just look at what type of student shows up voluntarily after class to just sit, learn, lsten, and play!

(more tomorrow)

The True Self, pt. 1

Wed, 21 Mar 2007 02:57:54 -0000

Last night's entry got lost in cyberspace, and I really liked it, too. Won't be able to recreate it, that moment is lost, there has been new movement, new forms bubbling up into awareness.

I began yesterday's lost entry with the invitation to anyone reading this who might like to engage me in conversation over anything I've written, to get some feedback, I'm at lawteach@aol.com. I've tried to get conversation over metacognition going at my HS, but no takers, really. I suppose it is too novel an encounter for most to want to give up time to it, yet when we begin to touch on really key questions, people always say how much they'd really love to have the time to get into the topic.

I've been fascinated by Nathaniel Branden's discussions about the True Self, and self-esteem, and how that has been circumvented by today's society. Neither self-resonsibility nor self-esteem can be given; it must come from the individual, says Branden; yet the individual is embedded in a LL, and that LL can sabotage the accrual of the elements of both.

One of my top students told me once he graduated that he felt like a fool that he had never cheated. The culture made honesty look purile, soft, and lacking in initiative and drive. Don Beck gave us a scale, which I can't at the moment locate, about the layers we go thru when effectuating true change: it starts with just mouthing the words (like AA's "as if" suggestion), and it ends with deep memetic/values change. So if the deep value is "strive-drive", dog-eat-dog, hypercompetitiveness, then my moral student was deviant and felt that way! Branden certainly acknowledges this.

Branden then continues:
---Young people are most likely to learn self-responsibility from adults who personally exemplify it in their behavior.

---Young people are most likely to learn self-responsibility if their parents and teachers require it.

I believe that the overwhelming number of teachers exemplify and demand self-resonsibility; it is the second concept that seems lacking, and one that is difficult for the school to deal with, unless, like our local elementary school, it acknowledges that the HS is embedded within the community holon, and cannot direct self-resonsibility when this is not a true value of the parents. An important observation that I have struggled with is the either/or, adversarila nature of the vast number of parent/teacher meetings. I myself gird for such encounters, figuring that the good vs. bad divisions are already determined, and that i will be pushed into that mold. I try to rearrange the environment, but if targeting begins, it is difficult to reverse. I will need to learn some new methods, since I've experimented with many over the years. thank goodness, I am rarely involved in this type of encounter, since I refuse to consider myself in an adversarial relationship with my students.

"Children are unlikely to learn self-responsibility from adults who are passive, self-pitying, prone to blaming and alibis, and who invariably explain their life circumstances on the basis of someone else's actions or on "the system." Such adults do not teach self-responsibility, and if they do pay lip service to it, they are probably not convincing."

So how does the community change this social ethos that abounds, the victimhood celebrated in media and literature? what will happen as the schools change from Orange into Green? from diplomat and beyond? I have often held that Orange parents push Green morality onto the teachers, making us feel as tho our powerful positions make it impossible for us to ethically even consider reprimands against students. And the UL reactions of students are also held against us, since if we make the student "feel bad", we are again seen as the victimizers and the powerful oppressors.

"In nature, if we behave irresponsibly we suffer the consequences not because nature is "punishing" us but because of simple cause and effect. "

This is my cry now, and I tell the story of erica's life-lesson as I was instructed to teach her when she was a 10th grader at Dwight-Englewood. She had gotten her history final date confused, and slept thru it on Tuesday, thinking it was on WEDNESDAY. When the school called to ask why she missed it, we both panicked, and I asked that she be permitted to take it that afternoon; I was denied. Her teacher, the department chairman, the principal and the headmaster stuck firmly to their refusal. The headmaster then taught me a very important lesson, that if I failed to rescue her this one time, causing her to get an F on the final and a C for the course, she would never miss another appointment in her life.

She's 27, and she has never missed another appointment in her life!

OK, now how do we effectuate that change in insight for parents and administrators, against the competitive ethos of today? I've become obsessed with "Intervention", the series that has gotten hotter on cable. I see the changes--or NOT--that can result from lack of rescuing and lack of co-dependency. Now who is going to hold interventions for children who aare lacking in self-responsibility because they have no real sense of their real SELF??

"This brings us to the subject of culture, political philosophy, and social policy."

Teachers as Spiritual Mentors, pt. 1

Sun, 18 Mar 2007 21:58:35 -0000

I long ago questioned the difference between a "regular" teacher and a "spiritual" teacher if one is Integral. From another article in Encounter magazine, my question is re-explored. This article concerns James MacDonald's embrace of Jung's collective unconscious, although I am indebted to Ken for his re-examination of this phrase.

I would have to look at the article written by Kathleen Kesson, Vol. 16, No. 4, thru the AQAL lense, since her article is post-modern, and thus almost but not quite Integral. When she speaks of MacDonald's individuation process, we need to take it one step beyond, and rename it Integral: to expand the boundaries of conventional thinking about the professional development of teachers to include the integration of inner and outer realities into an Integral framework.

Unfortunately, by having to langauge her article about Jungian archetypes to the methodology of the LR, she's weakened her thesis considerably. By keeping with Ken's 8 indigenous perspectives, by looking at zone #1 and zone #2, we can clarify her attempt to persuade us of the need to include the zone #1 experiences in teacher professional development.

Too bad that she has no acquaintance with AQAL, since her plea, while laudable, is weakened by her confused argumentation. She mentions the fragmented sense of the psyche, quoting from Fordham 1966:
"To be whole means to become reconciled with those sides of personality which have not been taken into account.... no one who really seeks wholeness can develop his intellect at the price of repression of the unconscious, nor, on the other hand, can he live in a more or less unconscious state." p. 77

An interesting observation is her advocacy of confronting the Shadow as a result of having to compromise the Self with cultural norms. Both teachers in training as well as HS-aged students should be introduced to this concept, since their personas veer away from their authentic selves as they conform to the edicts of their sociocultural groups. The Shadow, when suppressed, finds its own expression, often with dire, uncomprehensible ways to the youth, who then retrets into a sense of failure at his core.

Quoting Singer, 1973, 215, he sttes that the shadow is a moral problem, since it takes considerable moral effort to become conscious of it. How interesting!! This brings us full-circle to character education. The gross body needs to conform behavior on Kohlberg's line,, but the subtle body needs to account for Shadow on a higher moral level, 5 or 6.

Now back to spirituality: "Spirituality is a dynamic, exploratory process and religion is a structured form that emerges to contain, and to some extent, control the process"., 27. Great quote. I can see that any spiritual content runs head into the Blue-coded religions as anathema, as opening the door to heresy. So how to enter it into a public school realm?

Thru the back door, perhaps, within such courses as psych, soc, creative writing, art, music, and other blended courses that permit the 4 Qs. Yet, by introducing the 4 QS, and the 8 perspectiv es, it is possible, I berlieve, for the individual to have the space, permission, and guidance for experimentation within the inner, zone #1, dminesions that can lead to spirit unfolding.

And why not permit this within the substance abuse program? Wouldn't parents prefer that kind of exploration over substances to achieve the same inner voyage??? And what if IS is explained to parents/administrators at progressive schools??

How might we do this? I agree that beginning with teacher-training programs, we could open up those students to experiment with zone #1 and to see the benefits to themselves, and their expanding container of care, as transferable to their students.

How wonderful if we could explain AQAL to all educators, how great to permit them to self-reflect, to journey into their own depths.

"Jung believed that the relationship between teacher and student was of primary importance to teaching and learning". Fordham 1966, 111. Great observation as well. And what IS the subtle effects of the unconscious mind of the teacher on the student??? How's THAT for a critical question on ttest score results?

(not done yet, more later)

Love

Sun, 18 Mar 2007 04:07:58 -0000

I am alone this weekend, a blessing as it were, providing me with extended meditation periods, reading/writing/thinking/being time, and as I am snowed in until tomorrow, a great excuse to cocoon and figure out my Next Steps.

I've had an intense life, as any who know me here probably have heard all about it. For 3 years I tried cutting myself off from those old memories, and lived in bliss from today and tomorrow. But, as ken always says, Shadow comes and bites you in the ass, which it did, quite frequently, including just this past few months. I see now the energy that builds to throw me off course and to set me into a defensive posture. Susanne and I discussed my defensiveness, but it will take much prodding and poking and pushing before I can dig deeply enough to unearth that reactive response and replace it.

So on Bert's recommendation, I have registered for the Quadrinity process, which seems to be another leap forward such as I had at Spectrum. It will be for a week this summer, and I am willing to forego the Omega workshops for this, more instensive process.

But this got me to thinking back to education, and I am reading about negative love by the founder of the Process.

"Whereas love is a disposition to give, born of abundance, 'negative love" is wanting to receive, rooted in deficiency"--Naranjo.
Robert Hoffman, the crator of the process, who died in 1997, uses the duality, the Trinity (body/mind/soul) and the Quadrinity, which is the Integral model, and he references Ken here.
He then begins with the Emotional Self, and lists the negative and positive patterns, and then does the same with the Intellectual self.
Our spiritual self is but perfection, light, non-programmed, similar to Essence of Aalmas.
He then brings in Bowlby's attachment theory---how fantastic! I just read and downloaded his theory today! Aaaah, synchronicities, tuned into the Universe, to direct us. I'm in the stream at the moment.

Bowlby's attchment theory highlights the critical nature of the baby's attachment to the mother/primary caretaker, for survival benefit. This fear of abandonment shapes the baby forever. Any leave-taking, lack of direct caring, is seen as this non-loving quality within the child. After all, every child is egocentric (ha! here we go with Piaget, I am becoming circular in where I'm roaming these days....), and thus takes everything personally, from a 1st P perspective alone. "If the parent is not dependable, they will not develop this inner guide".

He then talks about Horney, one of my first teachers, back in 1975. Horney categorizes how basic anxiety gets hold of the child:
--direct or indirect domination
--intolerance
--erratic behavior
--lack of respect for child's needs
--lack of guidance
--disparagine attitudes
--too much admiration
--lack of reliablre warmth
--having to take sides in parental arguments
--too much/little responsibility
--over protection
--isolation from other children
--injustice
--refusal to keep promises
and then he goes onto Alice Miller, where the child believes that all of this is for his own good.

So to end the separation with our parents, we adopt their attitude about us, unconditionally, completely, innocently. So we try to repeat these attempts and to become like our parents, to get love by recreating these patterns that they inflicted upon us, and when folks in our adult lives turn against us even with us trying to fit into our parents' mold, we are doubly upset, feeling that our best attempts to gain love have backfired, and our contract has been broken unfairly.

How do we repeat these patterns?
1--by Adopting their negative treatment of us, by being self-critical, critical of others,
2-- Adoption + Rebellion = Conflict of push/pull behavior, acting out the adopted behavior one time, the opposite the next

And then there is TRANSFERRENCE, which I can vouch for having done repeatedly.

So how do we see this in ourselves and our students? Easy. At first, when following these negative patterns, and then being told that we can find releas from their dictates, we and our students can experience invalidation, cynicism, and skepticism. Isn't that what we all see when we approach our students about the possibility of change? When we try to tell them that they might just have potential? They are being told that they have to defy their parents, upon whom they still depend.

I need to revisit this entire dynamic now, to stop the negative patterns that have followed me into adulthood. But it also speaks volumes to me about my seniors, who believe that they really have a true sense of themselves now, while they still live with thir parents. When I talk to them about their UL and LL, they want to know why no one obthers to explain this to them. Their health classes deal with sex and AIDS, but not with their self-senses, with what they are going thru. My hs would nevere permit me ot teach a unit on BEING ME--THE SENIOR YEAR. Boy, would I love to model that.

OK, another issue to meditate upon, to figure out how to bring this idea into being.

Forgiveness

Sat, 17 Mar 2007 20:08:31 -0000

In order to collect my thoughts on the wide-ranging scope of Integral education, I've begun by responding to the arbitrary reading that I do, which is extensive, but after reading something, I then go onto the next book/article, and promptly forget how it caused me to react. So I will try to read/respond here, a great way to articulate what resonates or registers with me.

I'm re-reading articles from "Encounter" magazine, Vol. 19, No. 3, a progressive, holistic educational magazine that does contain some excellent insights that should be included in any i Ed articulation. This article, called "Forgiveness in Progressive Education", by Frank Pignatelli, resonates on the level of my resentment about my split life, the boundless life of body/mind/Spirit, and then my constricted life at my school. As I have abandoned ridiculing my bureaucratic superior, and honestly pray for his happiness with no malice in my heart, I feel that I need to go further into forgiveness, so I have chosen to absorb this article's message for all who stand in my shoes.

"In today's world, progressive educators face forbidding obstacles".

Yes, indeed. I have suffered physically and psychologically, with debilitations to my spiritual self that needed to be addressed in the strongest terms to get me into a growth phase again, instead of an injured victim stage of reacting.

I have contemplated holding a little salon in my room for others who suffer these constrictions, but I wonder if any feel that moved to meet and discuss it. I could call it World Cafe, Plato's Cave, somesuch....I've considered this for several years now. http://www.theworldcafe.com/ details how to start this, and I am now aware that this is what I have been searching for, altho I've known about it since it started. http://theworldcafe.com/cafetogo.pdf OK, I am now committed to starting this at my school Monday. i always need to be proactive when I am feeling victimized, and writing this blog has triggered that healthy responsiveness within me. I'll set it up for Thurs.

"All too often, experientially based, nuanced teaching gets trumped by cautious, scripted, and closely monitored routines. The multiple ways teachers can assess student learning are pushed aside for reductive and simplistic standardized tests. Progressive teachers feel they are constantly making compromises, and the strain can linger and erode their sense of competence. In this climate, I believe forgiveness can play a critical role in sustaining a teacher's commitment to progressive teaching practice".

Spoken from my heart. This summarizes everything that I have experienced, all that is within this blog, even the part about having "no choice" but forgiveness, or else my soul will sour! Frank captures my Righteous Rebel alter ego in stating that:

" Progressive school reformers and advocates necessarily ground claims for change as a matter of social justice. What is at stake and what compels action is a breech of fairness. Typically, this lack of fairness, this injustice has to do with the misallocation of both material and human resources...."

Now this is where post-modernism and Integral have a nuanced difference, since I would add differences of cognitive and moral development as just as critical as gender, race, and class. But yes, that is the gross injustice, speaking to my advanced students and seeing how their souls are crushed, how they have to fight back or sink into depression, how Blue codes cause them to be discounted as obstreperous students.

And then there is the reaction of those of us who are truly caught between our mission, our innate sense of social justice, and the reductionism of the school hierarchy.

"To negotiate and survive, teachers need a sense of personal agency....As agents, individual teachers affirm for themselves ....that they matter as persons---evven in school settings driven largely by standardization."

He refers to Pat, who specifically chose to teach at a traditional school, and was aware that she must not bear discernible resentment. Perhaps my own situation is different, since I came to my stage changes while teaching, in a sense unaware of how discordant I actually was, until I began my spiritual path.

"In the face of extremely powerful forces, teachers...can benefit from sharing their difficulties with other teachers....Beyond venting, social solidarity also helps marshal the courage to fight back....Historically, teachers have always found ways to be creatively subversive when confronted with models of reform they do not accept".

Of course, there is no reform model at my school, or at others, so the subversive quality would have to be of a different bent,.
I'm hungry, going to make lunch, then continue this article....

Concrete vs. Formal Operational Thought

Thu, 15 Mar 2007 22:14:23 -0000

Haven't been writing recently. Had to do grading, was quite ill for 2 weeks, had to work on my Integral Buddhism presentation which took me 6 hrs. to go thru the 5 elements of Integral theory, but was a big success, so I am told....

Today I did Piaget, did not go further into vision-logic, etc., but did get out my comment that in Piaget's time, kids went thru concrete operational thinking by the time they were 11, now 75% of high school seniors are still at concrete level, and no one seems to be upset about this. I've Googled this, can't find anyone doing research on it. Anyone know who might be at least slightly curious about this statistic???

My favorite usual suspect is high stakes testing, HSPAs, and the concrete level that seems to substitute today for "education" and "intelligence". Then my kids tell me that at the end of each chapter in their various text books there are questions to answer, concrete identification items, followed by "Critical Thinking" questions. Each student affirmed that their teachers never assign those! Now I know my kids aren't AP-level seniors, but golly, they have brains, many are really keen thinkers, they are all going to college, and some are down-right top-notch students. So why never give them critical thinking questions??

I told them that my fondest dream for them was to have their minds completely blown next year by a prof who just shakes up their world and makes them really unsettled, enough to dig into a matter and not come up for air for a while. Wasn't that the cool thing about college/grad school??

I was reminded of my jurisprudence class in law school when the prof asked, if we could ensure world peace by the killing of one theoretical stranger, would you order that? OK, sure. Then what if we up the number to 5? to 10? to 100? to 1,000? see how this gets messy?

Another thing that frustrates me, is that the Supervisor-no-longer-called-The Tick equates verrrry quiet classes with good, productive classes, whereas mine periodically buzz with curious teens turning to neighbors to figure out their thoughts on my questions. Ah, that hum! Delicious!! Happened today when I read them the story of the Evangelical pastor who theorized that if homosexuality is biologically determined, then surely there is a way to treat the "damaged fetus" in utero to prevent this condition!! Boy, did the class erupt over that one. Good eruptions, little synapses firing. Gonna be great dinnertime discussions tonight. "Hey, Mom, if you knew I'd be gay when you were pregnant, what would you have done about it??"

I also told them about my little assignment in the fall that is my simple diagnostic as to whether they are still at the concrete level. The one where they have to describe a day in the life of a NJ teen as seen thru the perspective of an alien who cut every classs in Earth Sociology 101, where I give them points on their wrong responses. And I explained why I did not grade them if they could not do that perspective.

I cannot wait to retire, friends, so that I can spend full-time writing and speaking out about these puzzlements to folks. Of course I will dearly miss my seniors, my favorite cohort in the world, living in liminal space, in free-fall, I know their states and their stages, I could stay with them forever. OK, how about I get to be a guest speaker? No, that wouldn't help. I love that they are MY seniors.

Classroom management

Sun, 25 Feb 2007 03:25:38 -0000

Riffing off of Robert Marzano's book on class management (2003), here are his general findings, and then I'd like to put these into an Integral context.

1--The key determinent affecting student behavior is the teacher;
2--Effective teachers are effective with all level of students in their classes. teachers considered 'effective" are responsible for a 52% increase in achievement; those teachers classified as least effective had students who increased 14% over the years.

What characterizes these effective teachers?
1--they have a wide array of instructional strategies at their disposal, know when to use which strategies
2--Effective teachers are skilled at identifying and articulating the proper sequence and pacing of their content, and can introduce new information in different formats
3--both of the above are built on a foundation of effective classs management

So what leads to/constitutes effective class management? The use of rules and procedures
1-- the proper use of rules and procedures, if used at home as well as in school, help students behave better and thus learn more. Schools could decrease disruption by 29% if the school and home cooperated on rules and procedures.

2--but rules and procedures should not just be imposed on students. Most importantly for Integral purposes, is that their design must include explanation and group input.

This is precisely what I have been doing, although it is not recommended or noted as an effective means of achieving the much-valued management. Rules and procedures are LR phenomena, and it is thus easy to understand why the LL must be involved in their formulation. But what are the constituent parts of the holon involved in rule/procedure creation?
-the federal and state governments
-the local school board
-the administration of the particular school

Now shift to the holon in Room 222, my classroom. I must impart the LR rules/procedures to my students, which is suggested to be imposed on the first day of school. My seniors are inured to this process, since they are used to being ignored in the meaning-making processes or even having the rules/procedures explained to them. I have explained to them that each norm comes from a Value(LL) , and I have them discern the value involved in each rule. We then move to how that Value has been translated into a Norm, and then the Norm enforced by positive or negative sanctions, which we also examine.

In most cases, once i have explained how the Rule (LR) came about and why, then there is more "buy-in" by my students. That is the LL meaning-making part of class management that I find woefully absent in so many other classes.

I also conduct class meetings every Monday where the students gather in groups of males and females (more about this later), Taking a page from holacracy, I have the students discuss their feelings but to report back to me, by one person from the 2 groups, with the beginning, "This class would work better if....", thus taking the comments out of 1st or 2nd P, and placing it into 3rd P language. Their recommendations have been spot-on, and I have taken each one of them to heart. I also get to state my wishes, and they have been mature and compliant wiwth mine as well.

I honestly believe that this type of approach is what would be involved in Marzano's book.

Developmental Approach to Discipline

Thu, 22 Feb 2007 01:56:21 -0000

I was re-reading Thomas Lickona's newsletter, "The 4th and 5th Rs: Fall, 2006)" just as I was reviewing "Classroom Management That Works". I love doing this type of research, with the tangential similarities and differences ready for me to uncover. In Lickona's paper, he cites "7 Ethical Tests":
1--the Golden Rule (reversibility)
2--The what-if-everybody-did-this test
3--the parents test-how would my parents feel if they found out that I did this?
4--the religion test--does this go against whyt my religious faith teaches?
5--the conscience test: will i feel guilty afterwards?
6--the consequences test--will I get bad consequesnces from doing this?
7--the front-page test--how would I feel ifr my actions were reported on the front page?

Can you guess where I'm going with this?

What if there were an understanding of Kohlberg, of the unintended consequences by using these or other tests without understanding the developmental level--cognitive, moral, interpersonal, intrapersonal--of the student.

What if the very simple tests were included with the CATs? What if teachers were trained/exposed to the ways in which effective classroom LL/LR work together to make disruptions infrequent? and when students do violate the group norms, they do reassessment and self-inquiry? It has worked incrediblyw ell for me, in that it does not impose guilt. It is normative, it empowers the students to problem-solve. I hae a LONG way to go to have perfect class management, since I do get too loose with my seniors. But I have had a chance to experiement each year wwith what I am TOLD to do with students, and what I know intuitively will work.

In contrast, there is Maurice Elias' great book, Promoting Social and Emotional Learning, which is co-authored by Rachel kessler, too.
[I'm sleepy, will return to this topic tomorrow a.m.]

Eros and Agape in Education

Wed, 21 Feb 2007 00:47:45 -0000

This will be a major area for me to address, the spiritual aspect of educating/teaching/whatever gerund one decides to use. It is what draws me, what keeps me alert and present daily, for the moment when I can assist the unfolding, the moment or process of discovery, as the teen sees in himself that area of Eros that sparkels with the Sacred.

Oh, really! How ridiculous to think that is what you have seen. Geez, you got the kid's heart racing and you now think you've seen Soul?? Anyone can get a student worked up and reactive, especially with a charismatic act. It's why they cheer at football games. Give me a break.....

Then let me reframe this. I can assist in creating a classroom experience the same way that transpersonal trainers and religious individuals can create STATE EXPERIENCES within many in the audience. So I can help create an extraordinary STATE EXPERIENCE for them, then I label what it is, the ascending of EROS, that life-force that includes the sexual, which they all can indetify with, but to put it into the subtle or causal, rather than just the gross body. Once explained to them while they are experiencing it, I can embody Agape to lead them thru it, to embrace them safely and permit the experience to ripen and resolve in an energetic arc.

And to let them know exactly what they have experienced and why. Once it is named, it is understood.

Disjointed Teaching Rationales

Mon, 19 Feb 2007 17:40:22 -0000

A short entry right now. I am following creation myths as the prelude to developing my module on teaching myths that need to be examined, where the meta-narratives, and other significant narratives, are embedded within plain sight that might need to be re-examined, and I am looking at a site about teaching creation myths. For a short intro, here's what they suggest:

"Recent demographical changes in the world have created new social realities in which multiple cultures are coexisting side by side....They are all exposed to a "grand narrative" that emphasizes western culture and religion as the acceptable norm while dehumanizing and marginalizing non-western culture and religion....We...must illustrate to our students the value and validity of multiple religious perspectives in which one is no more valid that the other but that all are equal in value and legitimacy". www.csupomona.edu/tassi

I see that they are studying Indians, Cuban myths, Phillipine stories, Laos, Chinese, King James Bible. What about the myths that are not so safely in antiquity? It seems as tho the study of creation myths is important as we seek to identify what strains of cultural DNA to respect or to at least not marginalize, but aren't these a safe way of dealing with cultural diversity? what do creation myths really teach the students?

Is the study of ancient Chinese myths really relevant as a means by which to give our students an understanding of the present-day western mythos? How on earth is meaning to be made by students of all of this? I know how mine attempt to do so.

"What silly stories", they comment. Now only the bravest or foolheardy will say, well what about the myth of the guy who died and then his coffin was empty 3 days later and the folks claimed he rose from the dead, and some other group claims that he showed up in North America and proclaimed it the new Zion?

How are students to link this interesting cultural anthropological tour of ancient stories with the fellow in Indonesia creating madrassas for the purpose of teaching hatred of the US/West? Isn't it really the same as the precious primitive with his cute stories and darling handiworks that we feel so smug encountering?

Then how to use creation myths in teaching? By getting students and adults to notice patterns, universal truths, how one society builds and borrows upon another. The entire celebration of Christmas vs. Channukah makes me outraged, when people claim that they should not have trees in public schools since the Jewish kids will feel offended. By a tree that has no significance to the King James Bible, that was a Teutonic ancient symbol?

How about teaching that the Pieta traces back to ancient Egyptian and other cultures? What will happen when students see the overlay of strata of cultures? Oh no----EVOLUTION.

Well, I've been handling it that way for years. Tell them I am not teaching physical evolution, just cultural evolution, and let the disorienting dilemma sit there and bubble for a while....

Writing an Integral Education Book

Mon, 19 Feb 2007 04:00:46 -0000

I have an oceanic feeling toward this project, not yet gestated properly at all. I think what I shall do is decide on various chapters, then prepare articles, one or more per chapter. That way i can see if it forms a totality. Interesting how Ken writes----just sits down and it comes from the Ground of Being, as he channels it. Not a bad way to go. Unfortunately, I have to do it the old fashioned way. I always counsel my students not to begin writing until they have an outline, and I will try to do the same.,

I'm enchanted with the idea of "transcend and include", and the module i began for Denver on myths of teaching. How many traditions have been brough forward unconsciously that either hinder or add nothing to the concept of teaching/education? With higher order cognition, with evaporation of shadow, what begins to emerge from the curtains? I will dive into the latest information on the entire area of education/teaching to touch even a tiny corner of what we might actually be looking at/towards. The post-modern approach to teaching math was an interesting diversion that I could not use in my last paper, and I'd like to tackle now. I'd also like to run things past Katie and see what she can add. Also, must get in touch with Sean about the AQAL Journal. And thus I enter the discipline of writing, which should be augmented by an increase in contemplative time and beginning of yoga.

What is it that propels me to share? That liminal moment when one of my students "sees", "gets", "feels" the connection with the superordinate goal, that it offers something far more impressive than anything he's ever known. Maybe I'll write to some of my darlings and ask them how that moment effected them. The possibility, potentiality, openness, nondeeterminativeness, Agapic love of the future that will embrace the Erotic striving, the desire to interpenetrate and to crack open the finite into the sparkling effervescence of the Not-Yet.

Who is my audience? anyone. everyone. Written on many levels with different offerings that can appeal to a variety of souls. I'm sure that the ILP group will add to my musings, so I can now see it not as a text, but as my expression and interests.....I admired whawt Nick owen did, and would like to see his book become better known, and his methodology adopted for the general audience. Here's an article that bears closer scrutiny:

Does virtual education work differently for younger children in the school setting?
For elementary school kids I've seen several different models. One example is having an entire online curriculum available in a computer lab or in a classroom. A teacher working with the students is able to assess where those students are [in terms of the curriculum]. They might see that some of the students are performing well and some of the students are a little behind. In a traditional classroom, there is no way, in the time that the teacher has, for personalizing instruction for each of these students. But by using this technology the teacher can split students up, even in the first grade, and have them work through the curriculum based on their achievement level so they can progress at their own rate.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4633126/

Now this is a privileging of the LR, the techno base, that tends to devour and to devalue the other quadraants, but put into perspective, this type of utilization makes so much sense. Imagine a psychograph for each student, their CATs put into a program that assigns modules just for them, BUT so that their abilities tetra-evolve, not just rote or lowest common denominator. A child with difficulty being creative, assigned modules that spark a tetra-arising step forward on a very deep level...deep ecology....deep education.

We know that what happens in the classroom is only 1/3 at best of what is being "learned" in that school. There is of course the "hidden curriculum", but that still speaks of the teacher/student/institutional relationship, not the true activity within the LL. So what if we actually demonstrrated what was being "learned"? Let the Emperor show himself at last, let the great 800 lb. gorilla in the hallway show himself, whatever other metaphors you can make up about the hidden, unmentionable within the school. It reminds me of what Don suggested to us. Let the kids chart it for us; they know what is actually happening. Hmmm...interesting experiment. What happens from the minute they awaken to the minute they go to bed? Really? Has anyone ever ever tracked that except for teen movies and a few adolescent novels??

If you look at the school from a quantum perspective, every iota of space alive with messages, communication, nothing sterile at all, wow, it's as overpowering as a NYC street at rush hour.

But that is just a small part of the process, within the human lifespan. Corporate learning, personal growth, self-help, Oprah, churches, such a great cauldron of learning.

To PhD or not to PhD, that is the question

Sat, 17 Feb 2007 20:32:30 -0000

My mind feels suspiciously like a bird being taken home from the pet store in one of those small boxes with airholes. You can't see the poor thing, but you know it is flapping its little wings against the box from all 6 sides, but it is only going where you are taking it.

What a silly concept, worrying about what I am going to do in June,2008. We might have all been extinguished by avian flu, washed away by the great NY tsunami of 2007, or busy with door to door fighting against Saddam Obama bin Laden's supporters who slipped into this country over the decades as gardeners, now only to be attacking us with pesticides for which they have licenses, no less.

What did I expect me to do, hold my breath until June 2008, the great hallelujah date when Lynne no longer has to be obedient to her massah? No matter how often I flap my little wings in a frenzy, I am still being taken in a steady direction to the unknowable and fictional "tomorrow", over which I have very little control.

I have been toying with the idea of getting a Ph.D., first just to qualify for the privilege of teaching Integral, and then as a stop-gap to "what do I do now" syndrome. Allan Combs just invited me to apply to the PhD at CIIS, which would be 2 full years of study plus writing a dissertation. So that means that I would be a PhD by the time I am ready for assisted living.

Well, so what? I will be called Doctor as they redo my plastic Depends.

Seriously, tho, this entire inquiry has alot to do with seeral frustrated aims and goals, and looking at it from Big Miond/Big Heart, it isn't so stupid. I seem to be drawn to scholarly writing and just want more and more. I've self-educated way past my MA and JD, so it won't be a shock tow rite more, which will only give me better writing skills with which to write journal articles. So my path might well be in writing, altho I sooo dearly love to teach and present. Maybe they will let me do a module here and there at I-I.

As the Baby Boomers begin to "retire", I know we will redraw the landscape, and I will always be the first to do whatever it is I ma doing right now. Second/third careers, exercising another part of themselves, getting more involved in transpersonal issues as mortality winks at us, kicking and screaming inside our botoxed bodies (hey, not me! I've still got the brown hair I did after I had Erica).

And if I begin now, the school can pay for it, right? Must check on that. That would really make my last year profitable. $9,000 paid for by NH. We'll see.

I'm going to go into myself more to envision where I would love to be in 5 years, altho where I will be tomorrow is in God's hands.

So what do people think about a 62 year old beginning a PhD??????

Righteous Rebel Must Reform

Sat, 17 Feb 2007 06:26:21 -0000

**Advisory--I have no ax to grind here, no false self to promote. The warts come out with the halo, I have nothing to lose but another turn on the wheel. So if you are looking for wisdom, perhaps you can read some between the lines here. I'm just going to write about what I am currently feeling and how I am attempting to change, to act in closer alignment with my abilities. If you can learn anything here, it is from my own struggles, my own attempts to ferret out what I need to address, as fearlessly as possible.

I really must learn to take a breath, count to 100, in Etruscan, if possible. Of course, I don't know Etruscan, but isn't that the point?
When I am at school before my classes, I am blissfully PRESENT, and embody a very different worldview than I do when "within" the school culture. Sitting at lunch with my wacky and delightful collegues, when I am at a faculty meeting, or just drifting by them in the halls, I am a different person, the woman who is cynical, caustic, and flippant, to avoid being mistaken for one of the non-questioning ones. I also have an aversion to naivete, and perhaps that is part of the ordeal for me here as well.

The faculty, with a few delightful exceptions, just want to do their days' work, very well, I might add, then get on with the job of living their real lives. I tried that route for many years, but the more I opened up to the larger picture, the less able I was to suppress my insight and need to be creative. I actually believed that the hierarchy was interested in simple means by which they could more efficiently and more honestly deliver education. But I was ordered out of the office, told that they were sick of my ideas, and I now realize, of course, that I was too many stages ahead of them.

But in the clasroom, PRESENCE reigns, bliss occurs, my reason for being alive shines forth from my very soul.

This "acting out" among the other teachers must stop, frankly, and will be placed as an important issue for me when I return to school. I do not feel healthy when I retract into "us vs. them" thinking, and my last blog did just that. Do I hate this person? Absolutely not! Do I wish him all good things in his life? Absolutely yes!
So what's up?

Feeling back into that state, I was doing something that I consider basically false, misleading, anti-evolutionary.....grading, which I now do scrupulously according to the regulations of my school, and perhaps Righteous Rebel came out when I posted this past blog.

A second personality for Los?? Nah, just my Paradox Name according to Bert.

When I attended the Integral Leader seminar in August 2006, my beloved Bert Parlee led us in a transformative exercise with paradox. I won't go into the entire exercise (maybe later??) but it involves embracing and dealing with the paradox of what/who we are/manifest. Bert chose my name, Righteous Rebel, since I only rebel for a higher developmental cause.

So what must I learn from the Blue Tick below? To not denegrate another in this way. To learn to BE PRESENT while with the faculty, in a new way, via different behaviors, How might I be able to stand in this role of faculty member within this particular authoritarian system, to engage my honesty without demeaning myself or others?

Well, tonight I took a first step. I have 1 1/2 years before I retire. I began writing a book. I want to finish it on the day I retire, and submit it for publication at that time. Integral education. An insider's view. The Good, True, and Beautiful as practiced and as possible.

Righteous Rebel must reform.