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He’d had one job, in high school, though if he were honest he’d admit that it was his dream. He was an ice cream man. He never really understood how he got the job, but he scooped and drove and rang the bell like no other. On the job, he proudly wore a vintage suit he’d found at Goodwill for five dollars. He felt as though this is a how an ice cream man should be—well dressed, kind, benevolent, and jolly. The kids used to come running down the block to line up for him and he’d play games with them in the baking summer months as the melted cream ran down their sticky faces. He remembered all their birthdays.
Once, he had come down his usual corner and no kids were running toward him.
“Stevie! John! Xander!” he had yelled his favorite’s names and rung his bell.
Xander and Stevie walked out from behind one of the houses and invited him back. It turned out that Stevie’s family from China–her entire family–were visiting and there was a huge party in their backyard.
He’d gone back, eaten way too many crab legs, and just listened to the fast paced Chinese being spoken around him. Of course he couldn’t understand a word, but somehow the jokes were still funny and the stories still sad, and he’d sat there just absorbing the energy and the sounds.
Then he started getting too popular, and kids from the surrounding neighborhoods would come to his route. They told him stories of the other ice cream men, who were cruel and sharp tongued and had once, Billy told him with real tears in his eyes, ran over his cat and laughed. He didn’t believe this, because he believed in ice cream man honor, and he knew that young children sometimes made up stories and forgot that they weren’t real.
However, his views on his fellow ice cream men began changing one morning when he came to the ice cream truck warehouse to unplug his car and get started. Someone had unplugged his electric cord, the one that kept the ice cream cold and hard.
“What the fuck!” he’d yelled.
“Hah, looks like da guys are playing tricks on ya. Did y’do anything to piss ‘em off?” the manager inquired.
He’d brushed it off as a one-time episode but that entire day he couldn’t help noticing the vicious glares from the other ice cream men as they passed each other on the intersections. Images of Billy’s dead cat flashed in his mind.
The next morning as he was pulling out of the warehouse he felt a firm tug on his truck. Upon inspection, he’d found that the electric chord was tied around his tailgate.
“That coulda killed ya!” the manager had exclaimed from the dark shadows. “If that snapped you woulda been fried! The entire trucks metal. Death trap.”
He’d lived his life upon the virtue of ice cream man honor. He’d had faith in the ice cream man honor. But an ice cream man had nearly killed him.
He was almost murdered by an ice cream man.
So he left and never came back.
Today after school, I had a conference with Mr. Watson about my Senior Independent Project next year. He’s going to be my advisor for the project and help me formulate my plan of action. We thought the little chat would go on for about ten minutes, but the conversation was flowing and the interesting ideas were spilling out so easily that we ended up talking for almost two hours.
The conclusions that we came to are interesting to me, not so much because they propose a solution of any kind, but because they pose essential questions that I need as a basis for my project, as well as for education at large.
What types of roles are the teachers expected to play in a classroom? What roles should they play to maximize learning and inspiration? Should teachers formulate a syllabus and push that syllabus on the students regardless of whether it fits their learning style? What is balance? Is it ironic that the people we connect with about education and learn from online have no direct relation to the traditional school? Should they? How can we communicate better the idea of technology in learning to teachers who are clueless about it? What kind of connections are students asked to make in class? How can we make it easier for students to a) find out what they love to do and b) actually get to do it in class? … etc.
The conversation brought up some other topics, including the styles of teaching that are used now, and the styles of teaching that we think work best in classrooms. One idea that has been a close personal love of mine is I love is meta cognition. I was introduced to meta-ing my own thinking this year in Ideas in Western Literature, and the addiction to the critical thinking wheel and meta cognition soon being out of control (just kidding. Sort of).
In case you’re not familiar with meta-cognition (and I feel sad for you if you’re not, for it has been a solace of warmth for me in the most cold, constipated hours), it’s basically looking back on your own work, and critically thinking about your conclusions. In other words, it’s developing self-consciousness about your thinking and reasoning, testing it, and constantly probing it for assumptions and implications. Meta cognition is being aware of the way you think. And the critical thinking wheel aka Good Ol’ Critty, is this:
Clarity: How can I elaborate? How can I illustrate what I mean? What examples can I give?
Accuracy: How can I check on that? How could I find out if that is true? How could I verify or test that?
Precision: Can I be more specific? Can I give more details?
Depth: What factors make this a difficult problem? What are some of the complexities of this problem?
Relevance: How does that relate to the problem? How does that bear on the question?
Logicalness: Does all of this make sense together? Does this first paragraph fit in with the last? Does what I’m saying follow evidence?
Significance: Is this the most important problem or the most central idea to consider?
Breadth: Do I need to look at this from another perspective? Do I need to consider another point of view? Do I need to look at this in other ways?
Fairness: Is my thinking justifiable in context? Are my assumptions supported by evidence? Is my purpose fair given the situation? Am I not distorting concepts to get what I want?
The critical thinking wheel is literally one of the best tools I’ve ever been given as a writer, and as a thinker. The same goes for meta cognition. Finally! Something that just tells me in plain language what critical thinking is, and how I can do it. No more mysticism around the oh-so-exclusive critical thinking club. It’s easy, once it’s spelled out for you and it’s practiced. These are the basic building blocks that students absolutely need, but often times lack, in the advancement into more engaged learning.
In my ideal world of critical thinking, meta cognition, and connections, school for me would be like this:
All of the department heads for my classes would talk together, and come up with some sort of general outline of subject matter that they all want to cover (for example, a timeline of history that they would all follow, so we learn about the time periods together in English and Social Studies). My classes wouldn’t be the same, of course, but the connections between them would be more obvious. The connections are important, because life isn’t usually separated into English, Social Studies, Math, Science, and Foreign Language.
There wouldn’t be separate homework for each subject, but instead the first collective assignment would be to make connections between all of my subjects, and then write about it (perhaps on a blog). After writing about the different connections for a while, this is when the meta cognition assignment would come in. I would be required to meta cognate the connections I made in the first assignment, and connect it to more things, like my own life or some bigger issue that is important to me.
Once I’ve written about this (again, on the blog), I would begin the super fun part. The culmination of all of this thinking would end in a project where I took the ideas from the previous two assignments, and then PRESENT THEM IN ANY MEDIUM I WANT. For me, this would mean making some sort of art. I could make video, a painting, a collage, etc etc etc. The point is that I would be using the knowledge gained from all of my classes, apply critical thinking to make connections, meta cognate those connections and connect them even more, and then DO WHAT I LOVE TO EXPRESS IT! My dream come true.
A blog would be a great way to express these ideas and the mental voyage, because it would be so individual and different for each person. I agree with all those teachers that say schooly blogs suck. I don’t think these blogs would suck, though. These blogs would be interesting because everyone’s connections and final project would be their own creation—just an expression of unique ideas in a form that they are passionate about. It would become a place for students to grow as critical thinkers as well as just plain writers. They could make it their own homebase where they would throw out crazy ideas, and then meta cognate them. Feedback in the form of comments would be great help them on their thinking-journey. Posting their final project would be really cool too.
I’m not sure exactly what I’m going to do with these ideas yet, but I definitely want to explore and ask questions in this direction. I also want to discuss meta cognation and applied critical thinking in the context of a sustainable education. Just the idea of total sustainability, on all levels, is fascinating, especially when we ask what that means in the classroom, and in life. What needs to be changed in schools to make them truly sustainable? On what levels?
Anyways, I must close this up before it gets too late. I have a big French test in a couple of days, and I need to study my subjunctif tense some more. I’m really exited, though. I’m excited and happy.
In class the other day we watched the famous experiment by Milgram about human obedience. The first time I saw this film (I was in a ninth grade anthropology course), I was shocked, upset, and all the other emotions that basically everyone feels after watching it. The second time, I still felt these things, but to a much lesser extent. The third time I saw this, I was numb. I had gotten used to the idea that some people obey authority without questioning it, and that the nervous laughter of the subjects didn’t mean they were sadistic.
I can get all philosophical on you and ask “what is free will?”, or get all AP Psych and say, “Why was I numb/used to the scary ideas put forth in this video the third time I watched it? What would Maslow have to say about this?”. But I’ll save that for another time when I’m not dead tired from having stayed up all night watching a French interpretation of Romeo and Juliette in the Hawaii Opera Theatre performance.
The post-Milgram discussion in class was illuminating (almost like being turned to the light–sorry, everyone in the class is now Plato obsessed). We started by asking these questions:
1. What is society (the collective)?
2. What is an individual?
3. What is the obligation of a society to an individual?
4. What is the obligation of an individual to society?
Here are some of the answers that we came up with:
1. Society
=A group of people who believe in similar things (social norms, the same rules)
=A group of individuals tied together by a common thread
2. Individual
=one person
=has self serving interists–> survival
=one self operating mind
=personality traits (unique?)
3. Obigations of society to individual
=to not make the individual compromise so much they desert society
=provide secure environment
=no contadictions
=structure, order
=NONE?
=no contradictions in social rules, laws
=predictability
= safe, content, entertained (Teacher: “What, like the Colosseum?” Student: “Didn’t you hear? Reality TV is the new Colosseum.”)
4. Obligations of individual to society
=obey social norms that garauntee the safety of society
=contribute something to sustain society
=keep it alive (which is in our own interest)
=civil disobidience
=NONE?
We had a really long discussion on what we thought “obligations” meant. Did it mean that the individual or that the society HAD to do something? Do obligations equate to no free will?
We decided that obligations simply meant that in order for society to survive, they needed to be done. A person doesn’t HAVE to do them–they can run out and join Thoreau at Walden Pond if they want.
Another interesting point that was brought up was the idea of social norms. Are social norms merely the middle of the Bell chart?
Anyways, that’s it. I have TONS more stuff to write about, all inspired by Ideas in Western Literature.
Looking for a quote about Tom Robbins, I found this blog. Reading through her posts, I found one about “unschooling”. What could this be? It sounds very…cool.
I googled it, and found this quote on unschooling.com:
“‘I am beginning to suspect all elaborate and special systems of education. They seem to me to be built upon the supposition that every child is a kind of idiot who must be taught to think. Whereas, if the child is left to himself, he will think more and better, if less showily. Let him go and come freely, let him touch real things and combine his impressions for himself, instead of sitting indoors at a little round table, while a sweet-voiced teacher suggests that he build a stone wall with his wooden blocks, or make a rainbow out of strips of coloured paper, or plant straw trees in bead flower-pots. Such teaching fills the mind with artificial associations that must be got rid of, before the child can develop independent ideas out of actual experience.’ — Anne Sullivan” [Ann Sullivan was the teacher of Hellen Keller]
Wikipedia was also helpful with its definition:
“Unschooling is a form of education in which learning is based on the student’s interests, needs, and goals. It may be alternatively referred to as natural learning, child-led learning, discovery learning, delight-led learning, or child-directed learning“
That’s basically what I was talking about in my Students 2.0 post about thinking. It shares a lot of qualities that I described in “neo-education”.
Blogging in class is unschool. One example would be the story of a very beautiful, amazingly intelligent, and incredibly humble young girl from Hawaii who started a blog for her English class two years ago. Sure, some of her posts were assigned by her teacher, but she was able to make the space her own. Through this, her learning became about her diverse interests (including film, art, poetry, sustainability, fiction, and photography), about her personal growth in the world, and about her goals in life. She started her self-directed learning. You could say she got unschooled.
Ok, you guessed it; that story was about me. When I actually think about how this blog has changed me, I get this immense feeling of pure joy. It sounds really corny, I know. But I feel like I’ve evolved, or grown closer to the Sun (like in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave). My chains have been shed, and my head has been turned to the light. My writing has improved, and on a deeper level, I’ve become a critical thinker.
On my most recent post on Students 2.0, a commenter, Mr. R, invited me to Skype into one of his class discussions. He’s doing the student blogging thing with his middle schoolers. After checking out some of his students (Kelly, Aron, and Macy) I’ve become hooked. I really want to hear what they have to say. I want to read their poetry, look at their photographs, and read their short stories. I want to inspire them like they’ve inspired me.
I see unschooling being done. I love it.
Later: As I was looking for a picture, I found this blog. It’s a wonderful post about what Doc learned from unschooling.
These are some of my wildly grasping musings after reading Plato’s Allegory of the Cave and after reading part of “Dead Certain: the Presidency of George W. Bush.”
Mr. Bush told author Robert Draper that the administration “didn’t spend a lot of time planning” for widespread sectarian violence in Iraq.
The president said he believed post-war violence would be minimized by removing Saddam Hussein and by “the idea of people being in a position to be kind of free– the universality of freedom concept.”
How do I define this supposedly universal concept? What’s my thought process?
According to Plato, a free man is someone whose reality is not controlled by another person. A freed man is able to see clearly what absolute beauty is; and because he has grown accustomed to the sight of the upper world, so to speak, he is not bound by any chains. His reality is not dictated by the shadows that he sees on the wall before him, he’s free to make his own decisions about what he observes.
My definition of freedom is based off of what Plato talked about, but with differences. I think that freedom ultimately starts off from a very personal root. I guess that would be one freeing oneself from the chains. Freedom of the mind (being unbound from the chains) is the essence of freedom. When you can see, understand, and define your own reality independently one has reached true freedom. Some factors make this very difficult to achieve. For example, influences that affect us 24 hours (like the internet and television) have a huge influence on how we think, even if we don’t directly connect our choices with what we’ve seen on MTV. Being able to see these influences is a big start, though. Identifying, and especially critically thinking about the information that we process is a big step toward freedom. Questioning what we think we know, and how we know it is essential.
From this type of freedom—a freed mind—grows other variations. Having the freedom of mind is one thing, but being able to act upon thoughts inspired by the free mind is another thing. Having freedom of thought (aka mind) and freedom of will are different things, but both are both considered types of freedom. Freedom of thought is the root of freedom, and freedom of will (acting upon the thoughts) is the next level of freedom. I saw this type of freedom limited in a movie called Persepolis*, about a young girl named Marijan growing up in Iran. After the revolution in Marijan’s country, women had to wear headdresses, and alcohol and music were banned. There were many other limitations enforced on the people. Traveling was restricted, and meetings about politics were illegal. The main character and her family rebelled against the government, and made wine, bought Iron Maiden tapes, and questioned the logic of head dresses. They weren’t allowed to act upon their thoughts; they weren’t free.
But there’s a problem with this, because if everyone had complete “freedom”, then anarchy would ensue. So one question is where can the government make restrictions while still allowing for freedom? This relates to a discussion we had in class about morality and ethics. Is it ethnocentric to have a universal set of morals (those morals, of course, being our own)? Should/does each culture have a different ethical standard? Is freedom a moral of sorts? Can it be lumped together with integrity, honesty, respect, etc?
The “universal freedom” that Bush talks about exists in freedom’s purest form, freedom of mind. Freedom of the mind is like a person letting themselves go from the chains. That part is the same for everyone. Everyone is bound by the same chains. The action of unshackling yourself is universal. The part that ISN’T universal is what a person chooses to do once they are freed from the chains. Do they go up to the light? Do they decide to stay down in the cave? Once they go to the upper world, what do they do? Do they go for a swim, get a tan, start a fire, have sex, climb a tree, eat, use the bathroom, etc etc etc?
Can “universal freedom” be forced upon someone? In Bush’s case, he tried but failed, I suppose, with Iraq. We know that it’s possible to ensure freedom of will upon a population, though. We have something like that in America, and it seems to be successful. What the population chooses to do with that freedom of will is a different story. Once freedom of will is achieved, do people automatically get freedom of the mind? Looking at America as an example, I don’t think that freedom of will equals freedom of mind. In a few cases out of a thousand it does happen; but most of the American people mindlessly gulp down information that they are forced fed, and their reality is created and defined by the newest “reality” TV show. Despite the fact that that’s true for many people, there are still many cases of people with free minds. The examples of these people are obvious because most times people with freed minds seem to be very successful.
This brings me back to my definition in the beginning: freedom of the mind is a very personal thing. The whole point of it is that you reach it on your own; you free yourself from other people. If those other people were able to give you freedom of the mind, that would defeat the whole point. Freedom starts with the freedom of the mind, and then later becomes the freedom of will. You can have one without the other, and you can have them both at the same time. You can only achieve freedom of mind by yourself, and it can never be taken away by someone else; freedom of will can be achieved by yourself, or by others, and it can be taken away by others (technically). Freedom of choice is part of freedom of the mind, and that can never be taken away, again technically (blackmail, torture, and the like sometimes control people’s choices).
The only type of “universal freedom” that exists is the freedom of the mind. Other types of “freedom”, especially the type the Bush talks about (i.e. the type that involves government), are not universal, because according to our different cultures and morals, will end up different. This has to do with laws and policies of that government. For example, if a man came to America and wanted to pee on the street, that person would be arrested because it’s illegal here. But if the culture they came from allowed that, then he would think his freedom of will was being taken away. Freedom of will is affected by social norms, so that makes it subjective. Freedom of the mind, however, is relatively objective. Or is that in itself a contradiction?
*originally a graphic novel
This is a PSA I made last year with the help of another Punahou student. We made it in about two days, which explains some of the rough edges. In general, though, I think it’s concise and gets to the point we were trying to make: the little things we do add up. I know that my school is a front runner in sustainable education, but we still waste energy in pointless ways. Like it suggested in the video, turning off the lights when no one is in the room, not using an insane amount of paper towels, fixing dripping faucets, turning the air conditioning off occasionally…these are all things that are simple, and just make sense. And they save money (for those of you without moral compasses that need extra motivation).
Just thinking of this reminds me of a story I heard on NPR last weekend. It was about a man who wrote stories about the Great Depression. His parents were poor, and from their experience with the Depression they became obsessive about turning off faucets and lights trying to save money. He ended up inheriting this tendency, and now his children think he’s nuts.
His children are my generation. It’s somewhat ironic that we actually do need to turn off lights and faucets, not to save money, but to save energy. Wastefulness, however glamorous, is never a positive thing.
My generation is wasteful, though. It really does drive me crazy to watch my consumerist peers go mental at post-Christmas sales, or new shipments of fashion to the big corporations that strip the soil of nutrients, salinate the soil, and exploit child labor. It is literally disgusting to know that the brand new shiny clothes we’re wearing are not only filled with toxins, but are made by oppressed peoples just trying to make a living for their families.
It makes me want to wear red and start chanting the Communist Manifesto.
The most tragic part is that I know I’m a filthy hypocrite. I suppose I’m not the worst of them out there, but I can’t say that I didn’t buy that new Lucky jacket I wanted, or that new bag from Red or Dead. I’m a consumer. I’m a teen.
In my own defense, I try desperately to fight this urge to burn cash, and sometimes I win. Or I channel my buying power to something green. For example, I buy organic fair trade jeans and t-shirts, and bamboo materials (which are better for the environment). I also buy my produce from local farmers, and I buy meat that’s organically fed and free range. I’m getting better at turning off my lights, taking shorter showers, and raising awareness. I catch the bus. I try.
I guess that’s all I can do.
But it’s not that hard. Making simple, environmentally-conscious choices really do change the world.
1. How does growing older, and learning more, change a person?
This is a question I’ve thought about for a while, because as I grow older, I see myself changing, but I haven’t been able to see a pattern in the change. I know that there is one, and I know that if I do enough research I can find one. I want to study the effects of experience (“wisdom”?) on people.
2. What are coincidences and how do they affect us?
In my day-to-day life, I see strange things happen that I know can’t be coincidences. For example, I might think something one day, and the next day something in the form of my thought will come to me in a surprising way. I want to explore the possibility that the mind controls reality.
3. Do I need to have a specific goal in my life in order to achieve something?
This is important to me, because, traditionally, people have always had goals and they have accomplished them and…queue the music…they’ve overcome. So what I’m wondering is: in order for my life to be validated, do I need to have a dogma of sorts?
One that I follow strictly and end up with some sort of result?
4. How does a thought form (what are its sources and what shapes it)?
I recently reread 1984, and there is this one idea that keeps popping up in my head. It’s the idea that the words that we learn, and the things that people teach us (i.e. you), directly shape our thoughts and ideas. In 1984, they attempt to integrate Newspeak into Oceania, with the purpose of limiting people’s vocabulary so that Big Brother can control their thoughts. What are my limitations? If I recognize them, is that action alone enough to get rid of them?
5. How can I become more conscious of my reality and myself?
Like the model of the eye looking at the brain, I want to learn how to zoom out, and look at my own thought processes, and eventually my whole world. I want to become in tune with my higher Self (or subconscious, or whatever name you chose to give it). I want to get to know myself so thoroughly that I will never question another decision in my life because I will know without a doubt that it is the right one for me.
I observe a place around me that is filled with cement and tall metal things. I observe a rainbow in the sky when it rains. I observe the inside of my I lids. I observe an ocean that is blue, green, and sometimes brown. I observe men wearing aftershave on television telling me what I should believe. I observe teachers telling me that there are finals coming up next week. I observe that my schedule is filled. I observe mouths moving. I observe a messy bedroom. I observe a small red circle on my face. I observe undereye circles in the mirror. I observe a hamburger. I observe a coke. I observe my yoga instructor upside down. I observe someone who is too young to die and too old to have fun. I observe a life. I observe a soul. I observe…
This afternoon I went surfing with my step dad, Mark, and my friend, Phil. The ocean was extremely beautiful, in a dark way. The sky was clouded over and the sea was deep, dark blue, but very clear. I paddled out on my long board, shoulder muscles aching but refreshed by the cold water.
As soon as I got out into the line up, a peaking wave came toward me, it’s white water opaque and it’s body dark blue. I rode it in, the water rushing under me as I tried to balance on the board. Paddling back out through the slightly foggy afternoon light, I thought about how many people have died in this ocean, how many millions have had the life crushed out of them, or how many burnt carcasses scattered.
At first this thought scared me a little. But that feeling quickly passed, and was replaced with thoughts of how the ocean was like a soup of endless death and life. Human death, animal death, and mostly animal life. It brought new meaning to the ocean, for me at least. What I once thought of as a childhood friend, an entity that always brought me joy, changed at that moment to something more holistic and pure.
The ocean has seen the Earth from the very beginning–even before Pangaea. It has seen me since the very beginning, and my mother before me. It encapsulates an unlimited amount of death as well as life. It kills but also brings forth life. It damages but also creates. It is the essence of duality.
This reminded me of duende, something DJ Nocturna told me about. Duende is a form of spiritual awareness popularized by Nick Cave. All that has black light has duende or all that has black sound has duende. It is the enigmatic yearning of the soul.
It is said that duende is felt when the self is imperiled and pushes against its limit, when death is possible. At this, I think of myself being pushed under the water by a dark and ominous wave. Pushed under so far that I don’t know which way is up or down. Inside me there is black and outside me there is black, and my human body is no longer there. Nothing is real, nothing exists, but my mind and the swirling power of the ocean. My lungs burn and my mind screams for oxygen. I fight for life.
Here is duende. I feel it rush through my veins, fulling my insatiable yearning for life. I grasp and pull my way to the surface. As the blinding light reaches my eyes, I know that I am alive.
