We need new goals for education

 In every state and in every school district, they write the vision and goals for the education of all of the children in this country.  The goals are often written in general terms and include a wide range of skills and knowledge.  However, when we ask how well our schools are doing, we automatically think about student test scores.  If the scores on intellectual skills are not what we expect, then we are upset and want a remediation program to close the gap of learning.  We put a lot of money and effort into a program to increase student math and reading test scores and we feel great if the scores improve even the slightest amount and we shake our heads if the score are still low and might try another program that is thought would increase test scores.

But, how about all the other goals in the curriculum?  There are many goals about student creativity, critical thinking, problem solving, and other higher-order thinking skills.  There are also many goals about skills in developing musical, artistic, and physical skills.  There are also goals in developing student emotional and psychological well being.  We don't tend to look to see if students are meeting these non-intellectual goals.  Student creativity or critical thinking might be below expectations for an age group but we don't do anything about it.  We should develop a remediation program to improve student creativity and/or critical thinking, like we do when test scores are low in math or reading.  We should take all the other goals for our students as seriously as we take reading and math scores.  

What is happening in schools is the devaluation of humanity.  We treat humans like they are robots who need to be programmed with data and they should be able to spew out answers.  We are humans.  Humans have feelings and emotional and spiritual needs for self-esteem and self-actualization.  

We need new goals for our children and these goals need to be the goals that we all should have as human beings.  Our goals should align with our needs.  Our needs are to grow and develop all of our skills and abilities in a holistic manner.  Reading, writing, and arithmetic have been the three basics of education for too many years.  We need new basics of education and the three new basics of education should be freedom, love, and joy.  I have written quite a bit about these basics for human life and for education.  Before blowing me off, you should read more about what I am saying.  

Look around and see all the violence, fear, and depression in our society and in our children.  When we make test scores the most important goal, then we ignore the other areas of growth and development our children need.  We get what we ask for.  We might get students who score OK on test scores but we also get students who feel left out, ignored, confused, angry, and frustrated.  We do not get students who can be self-responsible, creative, thoughtful, and happy.  Our students will not be able to think critically, solve problems, or empathize with others.  

We need to take action as soon as possible.  We should transform schools into constructivist schools based on new goals for human growth and development and we need to stop using tests as the measure for our success in schools.  Our schools are failing but it's not the test scores that makes them a failure.  The failure of our schools is our inability to create goals in alignment with our human needs.  

Education and the evolution of the human consciousness

 The reason that I write so much about changing how we are educating children in our schools is the importance of education in the evolution of our interconnected human consciousness.  I have written about the evolution of our human consciousness in which we are moving from a self-centered, egotistic mind to an other-centered, loving mind.  The world's consciousness has been evolving for millions of years and we are at a vital time in the direction our consciousness will go.  

The connection to education is that education should meet the goals of humans.  The major goal we share is the evolution of our minds.  Are we evolving into more thoughtful, caring, and loving humans?  Humans who use their freedom of choice to think of others and care about the well-being of others.  Or are we going to remain ego-centered and selfish.  Humans who do not care when others are starving or being murdered.  They might even hurt others and kill others because of their complete lack of feelings for anyone else.  

The goals for education should align with the evolution into an other-centered and loving consciousness for every child and for our world.  We need to change how we are educating our children because our present system is perpetuating a competitive and ego-centered learning environment.  I hope you will continue to read my posts and my book to more fully understand why and how we can change our educational system. 

Battle for control of our world mind

The world has seemed to have gone insane. The violence and division of mind seems to be growing.  Putin and his autocracy are trying to destroy truth and all opposition in any way possible, including the unimaginable horror and violence in Ukraine.  Putin represents the world mind of evil, greed, and indifference to anyone else.  This type of mind is the ultimate self-centered mind.  One level of self-centered mind is one in which you love yourself and no one else except a very few family but it is one that might not really care what happens to other people, however, it is one that avoids hurting someone else.  The worst type is the person that actually enjoys hurting and controlling other people.  They feel nothing when they hurt or kill another person because they are so lost in their own ego and making their ego stronger.  To increase their ego, they need power over others so their own ego feels better.  This type of ego-driven individual has chosen, because of their free will, to center thoughts on their own power ego.  The more people they can control, the more power they feel.

Look around the world today and you will see microcosms of the Putin mind.  In China, their leaders have been controlling the news outlets and information their people can access.  They use misinformation to project a lie that they want everyone to accept.  The Trump mind is very much the same.  They lie and completely distort reality to literally brainwash people.  The whole right wing groups throughout the world are doing the same kind of thing.  They want power and they want to have complete control over others.  Democracy and freedom are a threat to them so they want to destroy freedom and make everyone their slaves, literally.  China and Russia have known for many decades that freedom for their people meant people would learn what they are doing and they will not choose to be their slaves.  

What we see going on in the world is a struggle for the mind of the world.  Minds, consciousnesses, are energy.  Ego-driven minds generate dark energy, that is, energy that is cold, callous, uncaring, angry, and hurtful.  Love-driven minds generate light energy, that is, energy that is positive, caring, happy, and helpful.  The world is in a battle of dark and light energy.  Which one will dominate the most people in the world and thus dominate our world mind's growth and development?  

Our freedom and our minds are at stake in this battle.  

Thank you

 Sandy and I just got our second dose of the Moderna vaccine and the thought that keeps coming to me is thank you.  I don't know who or what I am thanking but I need to say thank you more often.  When the nurse was giving me the shot, I thanked her and told her how good the shot felt.  I said it feels like freedom.  We are all in a bizarro world with how this pandemic has effected our minds.  We have been conditioned to stay shut away from others and limit what we do, where we go, and how we interact with others.  We have a lot of healing to do, not just physically, but mentally.  We can soon be more free to do what we want to do and not feel so much tension and fear from hugging our own family and friends and even strangers.  I just want to take a minute to give thanks for our world and life.  Namaste 

Our National Consciousness

 I have not been writing anything for quite some time and a lot has happened in this country.  As I write, the House of Representatives is impeaching Trump for inciting violence in disrupting the verification of an American election.  I have been pretty speechless as I watch events unfold.  Trump clearly and in front of the world is inciting people to help him overthrow the election results and make him ruler of the world, or whatever delusion the man is under.  But as I witnessed what has been happening, and there has been a heck of a lot of stuff hitting the fan, I have been monitoring what is happening with our national consciousness.  In my book on the Probe Method: A Transformation of Human Consciousness, I outlined the evolution of our human consciousness.  Basically, we all have our own consciousness and we also have and share group consciousnesses as we grow and develop throughout our existence in the universe.  We have all heard about mob violence and that is what we saw on January 6 at the Capital Building.  Once a mob takes over, the group creates a group mind or consciousness, and the mob mind is representative of the members of the group.  This kind of mind is unfolding in front of the world and it was a very egoistic and controlling mind.  It was a mind full of hate for others.  There were symbols of the Confederate flag and Nazism at the Capital.  This is a mind of the ego, which is an ego mind we have been trying to transform into a more other-centered mind.  Our national consciousness is now being shaped and we should pay attention to this issue.  It is as important as all the other issues we face and maybe it is the most important because it is the very evolution and future of our personal and shared consciousness experience.  

Are we going to regress in our human consciousness evolution or move forward?  Our human purpose is centered around this evolution.  As individuals, we are consciousnesses evolving from ego-centered to other-centered through freedom, love, and joy as our basics of life.  Individuals meet and interact with others and we all begin to develop group minds, first with our families and then with our peers.  This group mind could be a high school club, fraternity, sports team, religion, cause, race, political view, geographic region, etc., etc.  There are millions of ways in which we group ourselves and we tend to follow the group mind when our personal mind might not do so without this influence.  We need to be aware of the power the group mind has on our own mind so we can remain independent, but we all are still going to be influenced by group minds.  A great example of the group mind, is the Republican mind.  The Republican mind has been taken over by the Trump mind.  Anyone mixed in with the Trump mind will do things that they would not do alone.  It is unquestionably clear that Trump has abused his powers as President and that he incited the minds of the people who attempted a coup on our nation.  How could anyone not admit this?  But we continue to see Trump minds making excuses and lying about it all even when they know they are wrong.

All of these group minds within one country, such as the US, will form a national mind of some kind.  The national mind is not clearly formed in the US because there are so many individual and group minds in the US that are still very ego-centered and they are not only self-centered, they are controlling and power hungry minds.  They want to control other minds and make others think and do as they say.  This is a mind that wants power.  You get power when you control the minds of others.  

So we are at a crossroads in our evolutionary process in which we can go backwards or forwards.  I hope we can take this moment in history seriously in terms of our human awareness and consciousness.  

Follow Your Dreams: A constructivist goal

 I am a big believer in the old saying, "follow your dreams."  We tell our own children that they should have some ambition in life and they should pursue those ambitions throughout their lives.  We tell our children to be yourself, to find yourself, to be the best that you can be.  We encourage our children to think positive about their future, work hard to accomplish your goals, and never give up.  We tell them to keep on going, no matter what.

We tell our own children to follow their dreams and as parents we are there to help them succeed.  This is a great message for every child and adult and this is a message we hear over and over again in the media.  We see examples of people who have been successful and they tell us that we can also achieve our dreams if we keep trying.  We are told that we can obtain our goals and we believe it.  In reality, not everyone can win the gold medal and not everyone will get the money and personal benefits of being super successful.  But, it is good to have a positive attitude about your own future, so that you don't give up.  We might not always be the winner but the game can still be fun.  

In our school system, we should also set educational goals for the children who are required to participate.  A major goal for all children should be to follow their dreams.  We want all children to have ambition and to have personal goals for their own lives.  We want to help them to be successful in meeting their goals in life.  However, presently the educational system does not encourage children to follow their dreams.  Instead, our system mandates the goals for students and discourages their dreams.  We tell them to do as they are told and we don't listen to them when it comes to the curriculum, instruction, and assessment we use in schools.  On the one side, we say you can follow your dreams, but then we don't give them any time or opportunity to do so.  We actually put up roadblocks for students so that they give up on their own dreams.  

A constructivist approach to education is a way for us to establish an educational system that is much more aligned with individual goals and dreams.  Students should be able to express themselves and their personal thoughts, feelings, and dreams about their future.  They should be involved with setting their own educational curriculum and with how they will meet their goals.  In a constructivist system, children with their parents and teachers establish their individual goals and how they will be successful in meeting those goals.  

So, a constructivist approach is the only one in which we help children to follow their dreams.  Let's change education so that we can become a nation of people who are following their dreams.  

Black Lives Matter

 I am so ashamed of so many White Americans who are still racist after so many years of Americans who have worked to make our country better, and now the big, bad racist pops his head back up.  What is happening in this administration is shameful for Whites and harmful to all Americans.  Racism is alive and still sick in America.  A free and democratic America has no place for racism of any kind.  

White Americans should all be ashamed.  Seriously!  How dare you believe you are better than anyone else?  What arrogance!  If you're not a racist, then stand up and peacefully protest, but protest like your own life depends upon it, or your children's lives.  We all have to stand up to injustice, police brutality, and racial discrimination.  There is only one way for us to react and that is non-violently.  When we react with violence, then we give them an excuse to use force, and we don't want an armed confrontation.  That would just hurt everyone.  When millions of people protest non-violently, they take power and politicians will listen and change will happen.

We have all seen in our history how peaceful protest can be extremely effective in making change occur.  But we have to be persistent and we have to stay focused on our goal of justice and equality for all.  Black lives matter.  We should make that our national motto.  Every White American should say Black lives matter and apologize in the name of all Whites for the racists who make the rest of us look bad.  

I certainly do hope and pray that most Whites are not racist.  I hope it is only a minority of highly verbal and reactive White racists who are coming out of the woodwork when our administration urges them on.  We must use our collective outrage and get out there and protest and then get out and vote the racists out of office.  We can use our voices and our votes to end racism in America in this generation.