The Power To Change the World

If you are not busy changing the world, then you are busy keeping it the way it is.

            Recently I found the above quote which I think is profound.  It provides a good introduction to the topic of this post: the role of faith in education.  I said in the last post that I would discuss how we can mine the gems within us.  We need power to do this.  The first of these powers is faith.

            Education means to lead out, or to bring forth, what is present within.  Mostly “educators” try to force what they think is valuable into a mind that they consider empty.  But even the smallest child is a complete human being, as the acorn is a complete oak tree.  The powers and abilities of every individual need to unfold as the mighty oak unfolds from its tiny seed.  Leading the process of unfolding the potential human being into an actual one is the role of the teacher.  Teachers are entrusted with the opportunity to entice all those latent powers and capacities of children into the world.  If they do not trust their charges, but rather trust their teaching materials, their administrators, or other social authorities to bestow all answers, then they lead their students not into the light of self-knowledge, but rather into the dark dependencies of impotence.  They become, however well-intentioned, oppressors with velvet gloves who do not even trust themselves.  But if they trust their children’s souls, because they trust their own, then they are leaders in empowerment.  They are transmitters of faith. 

            Children go to school to learn math, science, language, art, a whole host of things.  Learning these subjects is supposed to prepare them for life in society, to get a good job, etc., and this is true so far as it goes.  The problem is that it does not go far these days, if it ever really did.  For what comes out of the child is not really science, art, language, athletic prowess, or mechanical skill.  What comes out is the child’s spirit through the forms of science, art, language, athletics, and mechanical skill.  What comes out is power, vision, feeling, intuition and destiny—what the child already knows but does not know that he knows.  Learning is tools for this self-discovery and for service, not to become some cog in a social machine.  Now the good teacher leads the child along the path of development to independence by love and nurturing, because he has faith in the child’s ability to know himself and to contribute to an ever-advancing civilization.  How do we know if we are doing well in this sacred task?  Thomas Moore asks: “Are we making little replicas of ourselves, or are we leading forth what was planted in eternity?  Are we cramming what we judge appropriate into the child, or are we loving this new stuff we glimpse in the fresh being in our charge?”  Educator, Stanwood Cobb, makes the great point that: “Education shares with religion the important task of perfecting human nature on this planet.”    

            Faith, education, and religion are always together and faith plays the same role in both.  By faith I do not mean a belief that has little evidence, but which is nevertheless supported by religious or other authority. We should put no faith in any education or religion that asks us to trust it blindly.  I mean faith as both a psychological attitude toward life and as a power of action in life.  Founder of the Anisa educational model, Daniel Jordan, wrote that: “Basically, faith refers to an attitude towards the unknown or unknowable which ultimately enables one to approach it in a way that something more of it becomes known.”  Further, he says, “faith means a loving of the unknown or unknowable--an attraction to whatever is unknown and a capacity to approach it.”  But the unknown is also all those infinite potentials within ourselves that we have not yet tapped and trained and expressed. 

            There is a sense in which one can measure the vigor of a civilization by the amount of real faith its members have.  Where there is much faith there is a corresponding lack of fear.  Where fear of the unknown, the transcendent, the spiritual, or the new predominates, an anxious, fretful, conformist and defeatist attitude reigns.  What do your schools teach their children about the unknown, to love it or to fear it?                      

            As a power of action faith is the reaching toward the future, the transcendent, and the unseen.  It fires the imagination and is the driving power behind discovery.  Faith makes reason reach beyond itself toward transcendence by risking itself in encounters with the unknown.  When human development is grounded in real faith it is energizing and invigorating, inviting souls to dare the impossible. 

            But faith must, too, be tested by experience, else it is connected not with imagination but with the imaginary, slides from yearning into a mere wish, is not a striving for new truth but is holding fast to old slogans.  With experience and testing faith becomes knowledge. There are, then, two kinds or conditions of faith. There is the faith through which one strives to grasp the unknown, the transcendent, and to mold the future.  There is, also, a faith based on experience and past events that resolve into recurring patterns allowing for prediction and valid expectations. This form of faith is tied to memory and the tried and true way of doing things.  This second form of faith has lost social power today when the tried and true is itself in upheaval and change—just look at North Africa.   

            I started this post with a quote about changing the world or keeping it as it is.  Faith is one power we need to change our world.  Lack of faith is what keeps us busy keeping it the way it is.  Let me ask you:  Do you like the world as it is?  Many will say, No!  OK, but how are you spending most of your time?  Remember: If you are not busy changing the world, then you are busy keeping it the way it is.

             

A Mine Rich in Gems

            

Regard man as a mine rich in gems of inestimable value. Education can, alone, cause it to reveal its treasures, and enable mankind to benefit therefrom.

            Last post I shared a few thoughts on some possible meanings and implications of Baha’u’llah’s statement that the human reality is a supreme talisman with the universe enfolded within it, but that an improper education deprives the individual of “that which he doth inherently possess.”  One implication is that we exit such an “education” less than we were when we entered, regardless of whether we have landed a good job, are learned in all the branches of science, or are in a position of social influence.  In his book, The End of Education, Neil Postman puts the point this way: “All children enter school as question marks and leave as periods.”   I believe that without true self-knowledge we are not fully human, for we alone of all creatures have the capacity for self-knowledge.  Such knowledge includes perceiving oneself as a spiritual talisman.  Another metaphor Bahá’u’lláh uses for the human reality is that of a “mine rich in gems of inestimable value.”  Here He puts the relationship between human nature and education in a positive way.  That is, education can alone cause it to reveal its treasures and enable mankind to benefit therefrom.  I will freely and gladly acknowledge that in many places education does an adequate job of bringing forth our physical and mental treasures and that mankind benefits from these.  But...

            Let us take a step backward in order to leap forward.

            Among those inner gems of inherent powers and faculties which an improper education deprives us of mining, and so mankind cannot benefit therefrom, is the faculty of accurately recognizing divinity.  I wrote about this faculty in a previous post, calling it the Spiritual Intelligence.  That divinity exists in some form is not in question.  For example, psychologist and self-styled “Jewish atheist” Jonathan Haidt, writes in The Happiness Hypothesis: “My claim is that the human mind perceives a third dimension, a specifically moral dimension that I will call ‘divinity’….  In choosing the label ‘divinity’, I am not assuming that God exists and is there to be perceived.  Rather my research on the moral emotions has lead me to conclude that the human mind simply does perceive divinity and sacredness, whether or not God exists.”

            Without proper knowledge of ourselves we lack any clear understanding of the Divine or even our own divinity, believing God to be, at worst, non-existent, and, at best, but humanity’s best image of itself.  Knowledge of the human reality and knowledge of God is the same thing, and forgetfulness of God is the same as forgetting our true self.  Baha’u’llah writes: “And be ye not like those who forget God, and whom He hath therefore caused to forget their own selves. In this connection, He Who is the eternal King…hath spoken: "He hath known God who hath known himself.”  To say that knowledge is the same is not also to say that beings are the same.  For example, we can know a lot about someone by looking at their photograph, by reading their letters, by talking to their friends, even to him.  In this way you build up a picture of him as a being.  But all your information and insight about him are not the whole reality of the person, even though all you heard, saw, and read was true.  So, his true being and his "being in your mind" share some truth, but his true being is far vaster than what you know of him.

            To say that divinity exists as a dimension of human experience, but that a Divine Being does not need to exist to perfectly embody that dimension, is, for me, half of a complete thought.  In this context, education is an improper education not because it fails to perceive a dimension of divinity, for even atheists will freely witness that, but because it balks, for lack of a certain kind of evidence, at moving to the logical conclusion of the objective existence of the Divine.  To say divinity exists whether God exists or not is like saying that the painting exists whether the painter does or not.  We can see the illogic in that.  In truth, the painting is proof of the existence of a painter.  But without proper training of our inner faculties half-truths are taken to be the whole truth.  This failure of thought has been spiritually catastrophic.  Bahá’u’lláh wrote: “It was intended that at the time of the manifestation of the One true God the faculty of recognizing Him would have been developed and matured and would have reached its culmination. However, it is now clearly demonstrated that…this faculty hath remained undeveloped and hath, indeed, degenerated.”  

            A proper education will teach students to bring forth (i.e. educe) the wealth of rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and diamonds of the earth.  But it will enable mankind to benefit therefrom because proper education will also bring forth humanity's true wealth, the inner gems, such as love, knowledge, justice and unity, deposited within the “ideal mine” of the human reality.  If we do both, we will no longer be deprived of what we inherently possess, but will bring those inherent riches forth so that mankind may benefit therefrom.  The effort of balancing in dynamic equilibrium the outer and inner aspects of human life is joyful education.  How do we mine those inner gems?  That subject will be the content of the next few posts.

Who are you, really?

Man is the supreme Talisman. Lack of a proper education hath, however, deprived him of that which he doth inherently possess.

(Tablets of Baha’u’llah:161)

            What does a teacher see when he or she looks at the students?  What does a parent notice about their children?  Who do you see when you gaze in the mirror?

            Many theorists of human nature, seeing a newborn, would argue that human beings are inherently poor, weak and helpless and some forms of education, often tied to religious indoctrination, subtlety prey on that debilitating idea, keeping people in a state of psychological dependence on outer things, other people, authority, and circumstances of crisis. 

            Bahá’u’lláh counters this bit of crushing psychological nonsense with: “I created thee rich, why dost thou bring thyself down to poverty?  Noble I made thee, wherewith dost thou abase thyself?” The divine Educator is bewildered that people think of themselves as poor and needy.  Bahá’u’lláh Himself never became enmeshed in the abusive, choking tangles of learned impotence that many people experience.  He never lost sight of the truth that He was and we are created rich.  How rich are we?   Baha'u'llah asserted: “Dost thou reckon thyself only a puny form when within thee the universe is folded?”   How can the universe be enfolded within each of us?  Let’s go back to the word, “talisman" in the opening quote.

            We often think of a talisman as a kind of lucky charm.  But this is a trivial understanding.  “Miraculous work” is an approximate translation of the Greek “telesma” from which we derive talisman.  The talisman is an emblem or symbol into which can enter cosmic power to perform miracles.  The talisman is traditionally crafted to attract the Elixir of life which can transform both the material and the spiritual worlds.

            Every thing is a talisman, but the human reality is the supreme talisman because it is composed of all the qualities of God.  “The world, indeed each existing being, proclaims to us one of the names of God, but the reality of man is the collective reality, the general reality, and is the center where the glory of all the perfections of God shine forth -- that is to say, for each name, each attribute, each perfection which we affirm of God there exists a sign in man.”  But in relation to the creation the same relation holds.  The Bab wrote: “Verily hath God created within thyself the similitude of all that He hath fashioned in creation, that thou mayest not be veiled from any effulgence.”  The universe in all its fullness is enfolded within the human spirit as the vibrational equivalencies of all created things which are attributes and names of God.  Thus the human reality is a powerful magnet that can potentially attract the whole creation, but only if it is properly and fully magnetized.    

            The talisman which is the human reality can be magnetized either by material or spiritual vibrations.  In today’s materialistic civilization it is magnetized almost entirely by crude material energies and coarse physical vibrations.  So we have little awareness of the higher harmonies of spirit.  To be spiritually magnetized the soul must enter the charged field of the Word of God “inasmuch as these holy verses are the most potent elixir, the greatest and mightiest talisman,” and enter into relation with one of God’s Messengers, for the Prophet of God “is in truth the Supreme Talisman and is endowed with supernatural powers.” 

            There are practical implications for education in all this abstract philosophy.  The most important question anyone can ask is: Who am I?  Second to this is: What is my purpose?  These are questions that, as I have stated, education must help students address.  Baha’u’llah admonishes that “man should know his own self and recognize that which leadeth unto loftiness or lowliness, glory or abasement, wealth or poverty.”   

            We must not be confused here, or settle for less than the best answer when seeking to truly know ourselves.  Each of us is full of unlimited creative intellectual potential and imaginative capacity.  It is some of those same creative mental potentials that Bahá’u’lláh means by our riches.  But I also think that Bahá’u’lláh means something far beyond these potentials of mind, so that even the best of current intellectual education is a poverty of self-understanding of ourselves as spiritual realities.  

           There is clearly, in Bahá’u’lláh’s mind, a difference between true education and much of what passes for education today which is, from a spiritual perspective, really a “lack of a proper education” for it deprives us of what we inherently possess, namely, our spiritual endowments.  Any education is an improper education if it deprives people of knowing about the spiritual dimension of the world and themselves.  Much of secular, public education everywhere does precisely this.  It does this by distorting the nature of spirituality, marginalizing its importance, or obscuring its value completely.  If current education deprives us of what we inherently possess then we exit such education less than we were before we entered.  For, Bahá’u’lláh is not just saying that improper education deprives us of part of ourselves.  He is saying it deprives us of the most important part; not any one of our faculties and abilities but knowledge of our essence.  It does not mistakenly prune some of our buds and branches, but severs our root.   

            The next time teachers look over your classrooms, or parents see your children, or you look in the mirror, try to see the supreme talisman: that reality holding a universe of riches within it; that soul into which can enter cosmic power to perform miracles; that being crafted to attract the Elixir of life which can transform both the material and the spiritual worlds.  It changes your thinking about them and yourself abruptly.  Ask yourself:  How can such miracles as these be taught?  What content should they study?  What methods used?  I know.  I've done it, as teacher, parent, and self.  It is difficult to maintain the thought, I admit, and I have often failed.  But like anything else, practice makes it not only better, but also easier.  There is another metaphor for the human reality that Baha'u'llah uses, a mine rich in gems.  I'll share some thoughts about that next.     

What's Wrong with Education?

             Education is in deep trouble, as many already know.  But education's trouble is part of the same trouble afflicting society everywhere.  What is wrong?  I think that, by and large, we have lost both our sacred foundations and our spiritual goals.  Hence we have little idea of the moral and intellectual powers that flow from the former that enable us to achieve the latter.  We have become so secularized in our thinking, so material in our aims and purposes, and so self-concerned in our living that everything else goes to rot.    

            But these outward troubles are the external consequences of a more profound malaise, the end result of inner changes in the sense of purpose of traditional human life, a darkening of vision and a felt loss of cultural continuity and community with nothing to replace these. Over the past few hundred years there has occurred in the inner life of humanity, starting with the people of the west, a displacement of a transcendent or spiritual understanding of human life by a militant this-world materialism.  This displacement has been responsible for the alienation and moral drift that characterize contemporary existence in the industrialized world and increasingly everywhere, for the material world is nothing solid to stand upon. Recently a Facebook friend sent a post quoting Einstein as saying: "Relativity applies to physics, not ethics." 

            People feel that from family to neighborhood to nation, the moral fabric of their lives and their sense of belonging to community and participating in a shared civic life is unraveling.  Yet they fail to see, or don’t wish to acknowledge, that this feeling of alienation is rooted in their own wrong values about human existence. This erosion of a sense of inner meaning is one of the chief anxieties of our time.  The poet, T.S Eliot, in his poem, Burnt Norton, characterized the daily lives of such people as: 

Distracted from distraction by distraction
Filled with fancies and empty of meaning

Tumid apathy with no concentration 

            

           In spite of all this, it remains true that children get educated.  But, from a spiritual perspective, given our current mode of thought and life humanity has strayed so far from its essential nature that the child in learning what he is taught is actually miseducated; for though he may know a great deal, he has no moral grounding in anything higher than himself or society.  Without the spirit he becomes soul-sick.  The psychologist, Maslow, put it this way: “Without the transcendent and the transpersonal, we get sick, violent, and nihilistic, or else hopeless and apathetic.” 

          Progressive educator, Stanwood Cobb, raises questions and answers that are worth pondering for education: “The place of the spiritual in education—has it any place?  Should it have any place?  If Spirit is a reality, it is the unchanging, eternally creative force behind all phenomenal existence.  Which, then, is more worthy of study—material existence as created from the plane of Spirit, or the Spiritual Creative Force upon which all phenomena depend for their existence?  Thoughts an Education and Life p.9  

Meaningful Experience Needed in Education

            The last few posts have discussed how human beings are hardwired for pleasure and to engage with work and with others.  While pleasure and engagement can easily be associated with feeling the height of joy and ecstasy, meaningful experience has also the dimension of depth.  We all know that some of our most meaningful experiences come from pain, sadness, even despair, so long as we can work through them with the attitude that “some good can come out of this.”  Dennis Prager, in Happiness is a Serious Problem, writes: “Happiness can be attained under virtually any circumstances provided you believe your life has meaning and purpose.”  The philosopher Nietzsche wrote: “He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how.”  Perhaps some of you read Brent Poirier’s recent article in the Huffington Post: “Processing Personal Pain -- A Baha'i View.”  I highly recommend it.       

            It seems to me that more people than ever seem to lack enduring purpose in their lives.  Meaninglessness is the worst sort of hell.  It comes, in part, from shrinking from exploring life’s important questions.  Education must equip students with both the tools and the opportunity to wrestle together with the great questions.  There is so much pain and misery in the world today that for schools and teachers not to help students address these questions borders on the criminal.  But, with few exceptions, our education does not address these questions in any meaningful way. 

            But it is extremely important that it do so because, as I said, meaningfulness has the added benefit over both pleasure and engagement of providing reason and explanation for pain and suffering.  Having a reason for suffering can educe the strength to get through it.  People are better able to handle life’s tragedies if they feel there is a reason for them.  Indeed, to keep engaged in important work under great duress, or to welcome some pain as inevitable to the process of growth, thereby turning it into a pleasure—“I like the way it hurts” as one friend described it to me—are two of the hallmarks of spiritual maturity.

            There is growing scientific evidence that the healing antidote for the pale sickliness of soul that many feel is deep conversation.  Deep conversation not small talk makes people happier.  This may sound counterintuitive, but that is because we are taught that pleasure is happiness.  Yet people who spend more of their day having deep discussions and less time engaging in small talk seem to be happier, partly because they seem better able to cope with life’s challenges.  A March 17, 2010 New York Times article titled Talk Deeply, Be Happy?, reported on a small study published in The Journal of Psychological Science by Matthias Mehl, a psychologist at the University of Arizona.  In the study, 79 college students — 32 men and 47 women —agreed to wear an electronically activated recorder with a microphone on their lapel that recorded 30-second snippets of conversation every 12.5 minutes for four days, creating what Dr. Mehl called “an acoustic diary of their day.”

            The happiest person in the study had twice as many substantive conversations, and only one-third of the amount of small talk as the unhappiest. Almost half of the conversations the happiest person had were substantive, while only 21.8 percent of the unhappiest person’s conversations were substantive.  Small talk made up only 10 percent of the happiest person’s conversations, while it made up almost three times as much –- or 28.3 percent –- of the unhappiest person’s conversations.

            Teaching and pedagogy should be consistent with these scientific findings and with higher human nature, so that nature is nurtured and not neutered.  The greatest work that anyone can do is to become, through authentic engagement with something greater than oneself, someone greater than oneself.   The fruit of this effort is self-actualization of our divine potential. 

            A perceptive Japanese author, Toshiko Toriyama, wrote in her wonderful book, Kenji’s School: Ideal Education for All: “As long as the divine potential of each individual remains unmanifested, the transformation of this earth into heaven, or in other words, the appearance of a world that has attained true prosperity, is impossible.”

            I would love for readers to post comments relating personal experiences of meaning, or to share their thoughts about this topic.

Engaged Learning

In this post I will write about two examples of engaged learning, one long-term, one short-term.  These were successes and I am proud of them.  But even “failures”--and there have been many--can be a spur to make learning better.  But we often must take a risk and avoid pat formulas, the safe path, over-reliance on texts.  There is no textbook on life and learning that I know about, so lessons, too, should not be textbook bound, though they can be textbook-based.  For me, all textbooks are just one more resource to use.  They are not sacred scripture.              

I was asked to do a long-term substitution at the local high school in the ESL (English as a Second Language) program.  The point of this class, I was told, was to prepare the twenty or so students, many of whom were newly arrived in the country from Mexico, to pass the state English examination (AZELLA).  All of the students were primarily Spanish speaking. Though some had lived many years in the United States, their homes were Spanish-speaking.  These spoke well, but reading and writing were, generally, poor.  All had relatives in Mexico whom they visited at least once a year. 

            The ESL students were segregated with me from the rest of the school in the mornings: 8 AM –11:30 AM.  Of course, their instinct was to speak Spanish, because that was the best language for all of them.  The textbook provided was for me a nightmare of well-intentioned but mind-numbing short readings about irrelevant topics, with reading, writing and speaking exercises at the back.  I had faced such “obstacles” before in Japan, where, if possible, the texts were even worse.  I refuse to use such books.  So I went into my first university class in Japan and said: ‘You see this!”  I held-up the textbook.  All the students dutifully held it up.  Then I threw it in the wastebasket.  Their collective gasp may still be reverberating through the universe.   But we had a great time after that.  OK, back to my Arizona highschool.

            I manfully tried for about a week to use the textbook, but I couldn’t.  The students were unresponsive, bored, or resentful.  Me, too.  Some were just plain homesick.  So the second Monday I drew on my bags of tricks from Japan.  I walked in and told them this wasn’t working, so we were going to do other things.  What, exactly?  Well, I wasn’t quite sure myself, but, like life, we would kind of make-it-up as we went along.

            Some things I knew: they all loved and knew about Mexico; they wanted to be in the United States, but language held them back; many of the boys loved soccer; the girls loved boys and shopping; school was less than a fun way to spend your day.  That’s a pretty good curriculum.

            I allowed them to bring in a Mexican flag and in the morning we would often repeat the equivalent of the Mexican pledge of allegiance—after translating it into English.  I had them translate some of the school’s documents into Spanish, so they would not get in trouble for violating rules.  Every morning on the front whiteboard I wrote a conversation that I had created with some words missing, some poor punctuation, mis-spellings, etc.  They had to write and then fix the conversation.  They could help each other.  Then we went over the conversation together and fixed every mistake.  I played current music and we wrote out the lyrics, then I gave them the full lyrics and listened again.  So much of learning language is learning its rhythm.  I had them write stories of their lives in Mexico.  They drew pictures of their homes in Mexico and labeled everything.  They wrote poems—some quite good.  They did projects, drama.  One young but very shy artist had freedom to draw on the other whiteboard at any time.  I got short English readings off the Internet about Mexican history and culture, or about well-known Mexican-Americans.  They were familiar with these subjects, so the English was the only thing they had to learn.  The boys often made weekly reports of their soccer exploits.  The girls would speak of their work or shopping.  I taught them English phrases for these things.  Again, they knew what they were doing.  They just couldn’t say it in English.  I talked in Spanglish for them, for comedy relief.  They would teach me Spanish--also for comedy relief.  I taught them some words in Japanese.  They loved that.  

             Occasionally I took them outside, where they could look at Nature, play soccer, put on their make-up, etc, and all in English.  They memorized the Gettysburg Address.  It is not just short, but also it is masterful English.  Lincoln was one of our best writers.  Always use examples of the best of a language.  Try not to dumb it down.  I gave them opportunities to do other subjects—math, history, science—if they a test coming up in that subject, and we would do it in English.  They could help each other, but try to help in English.  And some times, usually the last afternoon of the week, would be Spanish time.  They needed a break, and so did I.

            Meanwhile, the AZELLA test grew moldy on the shelf.  Test-day was approaching and there were about 6 students whom I felt had a chance to pass it.  It was a difficult test and I knew from the get-go that the ones recently arrived from Mexico would never pass this year.  But I had hopes for the 6.

            Long story short: 5 of the kids passed.  It was, the principal said, an unprecedented number.  The regular teacher returned and I had to turn over “my kids” to her.  But we remain friends.  When I go back for an occasional one-day substitution many will seek me out to say hello.          

The other story is about a small group of football players.  I was called in to "substitute teach"—something of an oxymoron—a history class.  These guys were not history buffs, to say the least.  So the object of their time in this class was to create as much mayhem as possible.  The “lesson” given to me was about the signers of the Declaration of Independence.  Students were to read the chapter and do the questions at the end of the chapter.  These guys, all sitting together of course, immediately got to work whispering, throwing wads of paper at the “nerdy” kids, asking to go for a drink of water.  The usual stuff I did during high school.  So I went over to them.  Their faces were set for a confrontation.  I asked them what they liked to do.  They said “Football.”  I asked, "How did your team do this year?”  It seems they did poorly, and the blame seemed to them to be the coach’s lack of creative play calling.  “Do you guys have ideas for plays?, I asked.  “Hell, yeah!”  I ignored the profanity.  “OK.  Then each of you design for me one offensive play and then design the defense to stop it.”  They did not believe me.  So I repeated—very slowly for their now stupefied brains—my instructions.  They blinked, looked at each other seeking for guidance.  They had obviously just met the Mad Hatter.  Slowly they got paper and pencil out, looking at me the whole time to detect some sign that this was a clever set-up.  But I walked away.  They began to buzz earnestly, but in low voices: X’s and O’s appeared on their papers.  They were engaged in meaningful and pleasurable learning and sharing.  Time flew by.  Near the end of class I asked to see their work, which they showed me.  It wasn’t bad.  I told them: “Show this to your coach.”  One howled as if I had bitten off a chunk of his arm.  "He'll never listen" they chorused.  I said with some heat, "If you guys are serious about football, then be pro active and fix your situation.  Don’t come into my class with your frustrations and take it out on me and the others.”  Class was dismissed.

            I don’t know if they showed the coach their drawings.  I hope so.  My point was not just to create a quiet classroom for the more academically-minded.  I did not care if they ever knew who signed the Declaration of Independence.  I cared about getting them to live their life, which was, in good part, centered upon football.  Use student interest to build lessons.

            I would love to read reactions to these examples, and for others to give examples of engaged learning.   

Engagement

            Thanks to a wonderful response to the blog so far, and answering a suggestion of some readers, starting this week I will post twice weekly: Wednesday and Saturday.  I deeply appreciate everyone’s kindness for reading these thoughts and to those, especially, who made suggestions and left comments.  I truly hope this space can be one where many feel free to share their thoughts, hopes, knowledge, wisdom, and experience.

Engagement

            I want to briefly discuss two kinds of important experiences for education: engagement with work or creative activity, and engagement with others or social engagement.

            Engagement with work is what many artists and creative people experience.  It is also intrinsic to competitive sports.  But anyone can experience it if one feels a sense of being attuned to one’s activity.  Engagement is a higher state of energy than normal and here one experiences his or her own self-directed transformation.  In higher states of energy, one’s being is more integrated, the work is more coherent, and inspiration flows, so transformation can be more self-directed.    

            Work is educative in that it is a place where we can pour forth ourselves.  The best work is felt as a calling.  The Bahá’í Writings say: “The best of men are they that earn their livelihood by their calling.”  Our innate gifts, what the Bible and psychology calls our “talents”, can point us in the general direction of our calling.  But the individual calling is a calling to vocation.  It “educes” us, for the first half of a “calling” is one’s inner potential calling out for fulfillment.  When a calling is discovered or revealed we respond, often involuntarily, with something like: “That’s what I want to do!”  That thrill we feel is because a profound reciprocal spiritual relation is now made conscious.  We are now connected with something greater than ourselves.  This connection releases tremendous energy and connects the heart and mind with hidden springs of life.  I believe such connections are part of the universe waiting to be made manifest: like water and thirst.  In one of his poems, the Persian poet Rumi beautifully described the sensation of thirst as “water calling to you.”  The felt call to vocation is the connecting answer.  How much we accomplish is partly up to us, but I like what Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote: “Every calling is great when greatly pursued.”       

            What comes out of oneself is one’s education, for the word education means “to bring forth.”  What is put into real work is oneself.  Work is the receptacle of self and a shaper of the public self—often the first question an American asks a new acquaintance is: “What do you do?”  Work is a great source of joy if one is engaged: mere drudgery if not.  To be joyful and meaningful, work must be intrinsically rewarding.  And when work is intrinsically rewarding it is closer to a child’s play.

            People do not just seek engagement with work, but also with each other.  We yearn for connectedness on many levels.  If connectedness with work and others is simultaneous, as in good project-groups, energy is almost limitless.  We are, as one important document put it, literally Hardwired to Connect.(Check this out!)  

           Connectedness is fueled by the essential need to both give and receive love.  Love and acceptance come naturally to the human heart.  Children do not need to learn to love, though they must learn appropriate expressions of love, but they absolutely must be taught to hate.  

            Most people have experienced engagement and connectedness at some time.  Psychologists call that sense of engagement “flow” and athletes “being in a zone.”  In the heightened experience of engagement, time often seems to slow, the senses sharpen, both colors and moods are clearer, the world seems to glow and pulsate with life--it feels wonderful—like being in love, for that is what it is!  The downside of engagement comes when it is sought for its own sake or because we are addicted to feeling good--in love with being in love.  If he loses inspiration the creative person will often seek it in pleasure or some other compulsion to keep good feelings going. 

            Of course, one doesn’t want to come down.  But it is inevitable that it occurs.  Yet, it just here, on the downswing, that the meaningful or purposeful experience, in school, at work, or in social interaction, can keep the spirit moving ahead.  Having a purpose makes work, education and life meaningful.

            On Saturday’s post I want to fulfill the promise of specific examples of engagement in education.  Next week I will present some thoughts on meaningful experiences.