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Core Knowledge Area Module Number 3: Principles of Organizational and Social Systems

Breadth: SBSF 8310 Theories of Organizational and Social Systems

Depth: SBSF 8320 Current Research in Organizational and Social Systems

Application: SBSF 8330 Professional Practice and Organizational and Social Systems

Ph.D. in Education and Leadership, Self-Designed

Faculty Mentor & Assessor: Amie Beckett

Andrea Bowe

Walden University

March 2007

Core Knowledge Area Module Number 3:

Principles of Organizational and Social Systems

Breadth: SBSF 8310 Theories of Organizational and Social Systems

Ph.D. in Education and Leadership, Self-Designed

Faculty Mentor & Faculty Assessor:

Amie Beckett

Student: Andrea Bowe

Walden University

March 2007

Please feedback! Thanks! Andi Bowe
scitechgrantconsultation@yahoo.com

Design by TEAMS methodology



Dynamic Systems Design: Click here for a short tour by slide pictures of one of the Design by TEAMS PowerPoint Project Presentations.


Breadth KAM III

Depth KAM III

Back to Top: Application KAM III

Learning Agreement KAMIII

Abstract Breadth KAMIII

Abstract Depth KAMIII

Abstract Application KAMIII

Table of Contents

 

Introduction 1

Breadth: SBSF 8310


SBSF 8310 Theories of Organizational and Social Systems 4

     

1. Variables and principles of open systems 4


     

2. Bio-synchronicity in open systems 27


     

3. Bio-synchronicity as the foundation for creativity in the natural world 35

Conclusion 46

References 52

Introduction

      The task of comparing, synthesizing, and integrating theories of

whole systems with the organizational and social aspects of education in

the 21st Century will be addressed in this scholarly treatise, using

principles and perspectives defined by chaos theory, systems theory, and

quantum physics. The Breadth section will address the need for a new

perspective by examining

the theories of Bertalanffy, Laszlo, Maltz, Vygotsky, Jung,

Brofenbrenner, Senge, and others, as they relate the organism

as a living matrix to organizational and social systems. These

principles and functions informing open, living systems will be

described, analyzed, and synthesized in three parts:


     1. Variables and principles of open systems


     2. Bio-synchronicity in open systems


      3. Bio-synchronicity as the foundation for

           creativity in the natural world

      The principles of general systems theories were

developed by Bertalanffy, Laszlo, Wood and others,

while Brofenbrenner developed ecological systems

theories. Senge studied the fifth discipline, the science of the

learning organization itself, examining creativity

and self-esteem. Gleick analyzed chaos theory and

quantum physics was addressed by Einstein and

mathemeticians like de Broglie and Maxwell.

Vygotsky, Maltz, and Jung studied the way learning

and development are affected by cognitive abilities

and positive feedback. All these ideas will become prime ingredients

informing the efficient and cooperative re-design of the educational

organizations that will need to be made available in the 21st Century.

To implement an increase in student engagement, 21st Century educators

will utilize the principles of whole systems. Organizational and social

aspects of education in the 21st Century will be synthesized and

integrated with this theory of living systems. New perspectives and

paradigms await.

     Systems perspectives have gained further prominence

since the advent of the Internet. The Internet has permitted

greater awareness of global interconnectedness, as

well as individual empowerment. The expanded access to

technology and commerce the general public was provided in the 21st

Century by the world wide web, described by

Friedman (2005), guaranteed that the economics of a

global marketplace leveled the playing field,

so that anyone with internet access could possess

the same information as any corporate giant of

the 20th Century (Friedman, 2005). Schools that

provide access to relevant information,

employ student choice, and

provide effective feedback loops

will grow and evolve with their

stakeholders, making the transition to a

global perspective accessible to all

all (Brofenbrenner, 1969), (Santrock,1994), (Senge, 1990), (Senge,

Cambron-McCabe, Lucas, Smith, Dutton & Kleiner, 2000).


Breadth: SBSF 8310

Theories of Organizational and Social Systems


     

1. Variables and principles of open systems


      One of the most important challenges facing 21st Century teachers

is the need to broaden the scope of education to include recent advances

in the areas of chaos theory and quantum physics.

How can the 21st Century curriculum

be adapted to synthesize and integrate these emerging sciences? How can

creativity and bio-ethical behavior be encouraged in the student

population? How will self-motivated learners accessing less-traditional

learning modes, such as simulations and distance learning online, be

affected by changes to both the curriculum and new ways of assessment

that are more in tune with these new perspectives and understandings?

How can the creatively chaotic, but also harmonic, behavior of viable and

open systems be adapted to reform education?

      The answers to the questions addressed above will

be found in the analysis and comparison of the

theories described below:

      1. Systems theories as described by 20th Century scientists such

      as Ludwig von Bertalanffy and his student,

     Erwin Laszlo (Laszlo, 1972),

     (Bertalanffy, 1952), (Bertalanffy, 1972), (Bertalanffy, 1975);

      2. Sociological and ecological systems theories proposed by Urie

     von Brofenbrenner and his peers;

      3. Quantum physics perspectives theorizing

     on the nature of reality itself.

      4. Chaos theory, as illustrated by Gleick (1987).

      The dichotomy or paradigm that will most affect educational

excellence in the 21st Century learning environment may perhaps best be

illustrated by addressing an ongoing debate over the millennia between

two conflicting and contradictory ideas:

      1. The concept of a universe that is static and unchanging, and

      2. The thought of the universe as mutable, chaotic,

     and ultimately determinable

     only by the observer, their intentionality, and

     their own beliefs and those of their cultural system.

      These two perspectives have been present in varying degrees

throughout human history. In ancient studies of philosophy that

considered the origin of life, history shows the conflict between these

two points of view. Perhaps the easiest debate to understand was that of

the Greek philosophers. Some were eleatics; some were vitalists. For

instance, Heraclitus of Ephesus was a vitalist.

He spoke of the quality inherent in

creation that he called Panta rhei, or everything is in flux. He was arguing

against a rival philosophy, that of Parmenides and his school of

eleatics, who taught that only a static being was real and that all

changes were illusions. The eleatic premise implied a causal universe.

Taught as doctrine by most 20th Century educational institutions, this

school of thought saw a space-time

continuum where everything was fixed

and defined. The vitalist premise emphasizes

that everything is mutable, chaotic,

and ultimately defined by the observer's own belief system.

The vitalists believed in a quality inherent in the

soul, a vital entelechy that imbued creation with a force that developed

ever more complex organisms that were whole, rather than toward an

organism relegated to simpler parts, as Darwinism

and Neo-Darwinism originally supposed.

      The eleatic notion of a causal universe,

a space-time continuum seen as fixed and unchanging,

became a chief tenet of the mechanistic science of the

industrial age. In direct contrast, the vitalist was the term attributed

by the early Greek philosophers to the ideal perspective of the quantum

physicist, where everything is seen to be mutable, chaotic, and defined

not by static and unchanging laws, but by an unknown set of rules.

However, these rules or principles were found by observing what Ludwig

von Bertalanffy, one of the founders of General Systems Theory, called

open systems. Early in the 20th Century, he described what he referred

to as organismic biology, or the theory of open systems. He described

these systems as capable of change both within and without, as feedback

allows changing responses, growth, and adaptation. His lectures and

texts established a framework for understanding relationships between

quantum physics and organic social systems. Quantum physics now

approaches the idea that Bertalanffy first credited to organisms in the

early twenties.

      It was Erwin Laszlo, Bertalanffy's student, who asserted

that Bertalanffy wrote the first, and still valid,

path-braking formulations of the theory of flow-equilibrium open

systems. Systems build up into higher and more intricate patterns of

order, showing that even these non-equilibrium steady states have a

built-in potential for a purpose that cannot be described in terms of

evolution or Darwinian theories (Bertalanffy, 1975), (Laszlo, 1972).

     Open systems are not closed or

static systems. They include any system

that is capable of growth and experience that produces change within the

interior of the system. This quality explains the intimate and direct

contact between the human organism

and the material world, including the

social, cultural, and organizational systems which the individual

inhabits. Although the actual function of this interaction might be

hard to define, it is this theory of open systems that affords the most

opportunity to arrive at a 21st Century view that admits the tenets of

quantum physicists and the science of sympathetic vibration to the

forefront of scientific thought and research

(Johnson, 2001), (Strogatz, 2003).

      Most advances in science have come about through coincidental

juxtapositions of knowledge from several separate sources. Even without

what is referred to in scholarly journals and texts as knowledge and

scientific inquiry, truths may be reached by many varied paths.

Philosophers and physicians through the ages have attempted to define

knowledge as a base from which to infer the wonders of creation. In the

17th and 18th Centuries, the men now called empiricists, Berkeley,

Locke, and Hume, made an attempt to conduct

a dialogue revealing some of

the tenets and principles that informed the philosophies of education

and social interactions over the centuries, dialogues that are available

from Taylor (1974) in abridged form. An essay

by John Locke concerning human understanding, and

David Hume and George Berkeley's dialogues,

reveal how man imagined how the application of the

disciplines of philosophy, logic, and intuition played their parts on the

scene of the educational play (Taylor, 1974), (Locke, 1947).

Reason and intuition seem to be two contrasting viewpoints

that echo the dichotomy of the Greek ways of seeing

reality and creative empowerment.

     How did the 20th Century human

view creativity? This can be analyzed by examining the work

of several renowned healers and philosophers who

studied the human mind and its mysteries. Unleashing human creativity

in a natural context can promote both spiritual healing

and the joy and increase in self-esteem found as necessary

ingredients in a good recipe for healing or learning.

This creative human was described

my many successful healers in the last

century. The belief that one could be healed, a successful outcome that

is often encouraged and multiplied exponentially in effect with the

focus and intent of the doctor or healer, was found by Maltz, a world-

renowned healer and plastic surgeon, to be the greatest variable in

medicinal healing. Maltz (1960) observed

that it was intent itself that facilitated healing. He called the

quality of feedback, combined with intent and positive interaction, by

the term psycho-cybernetics, because he found

it was the human brain and

its perspectives and belief systems that determined reality for each

individual, irrespective of the primary diagnosis. The term cybernetics

was coined by Weiner (1948) to indicate the qualities inherent in open

systems that are defined by feedback. Maltz used the Greek word for

soul, psyche, and combined it with Weiner's term to indicate the

combination of intellect and feedback

he found necessary for healing to

occur.

      Psycho-cybernetics is an open system

that creates positive faith in creative healing and allows

the individual to learn how to create this

faith in their lives and also to share with others the wonders of

natural healing. He found that elements of creativity are only accessed

in a situation where self-esteem and differentiated learning are more

important than mechanistic measurement. This implies the missing

variable in research using artificial laboratory experimentation to be

the human factor. As quantum physics shows,

the importance of creativity

in imagination, thought, and emotion

cannot be overlooked. Two variables

needed for creativity to flourish are choice and freedom.

Choice and freedom thus become primary motivators.

To include these variables in the design of a

new curriculum for educational excellence will ensure the renewal of

lifelong learning as the primary goal for all

stakeholders, students and teachers alike (Maltz, 1960).

      Another example of a great healer on the psychological scene in the

20th Century was Carl Jung. Carl Jung saw the distinction between

organic and inorganic matter and the distinction between mind and body

as not static, or absolute, but as dynamic and protean. He replaced

Freudian analysis with the science of dreams and cosmic ciphers. The

psychology of the undiscovered self became the base of Jungian

psychology. He believed all beings are born

with the ability and propensity to

evolve toward completeness. He began a science of cosmic ciphers that,

unlike the behaviorally conditioned animalistic human controlled by

media input and manipulation, admitted the tenets of mysticism and

magical interface that were ignored or disregarded by the followers of

materialistic goals. His views were developed and expanded as his

students and disciples tested his ideas in action research and

documented the results. As Jung saw the child from birth in a state of

undifferentiated wholeness that begins to transform and grow from this

seed into a fully differentiated, balanced, and unified personality, as

in the case of Jesus or Buddha, he also saw this striving for

self-realization, or consummate selfhood, as inborn, or archetypal. Jung

stated that patients only achieve inner harmony by integrating all

elements of their personality. A universe informed with the undisclosed

but potentially potent intent of the individual self or soul was seen by

future Jungian psychoanalysts as the most important ingredient in

healing (Jung, 1933), (Jung, 1957), (Hall & Nordby, 1973). Also, Jung

saw himself and his place in history only when he connected to the

natural world. Swan (1992) described Jung's feelings of connection to

the natural world as indicative of a quality called Unitive Bonding.

"Unitive Bonding:...Feelings of bliss, awe and wonder....

In The Old Ways, eco-poet laureate Gary Snyder wrote

'When I was young, I had an immediate deep sympathy

with the natural world,...an indefinable awe.'

Carl Jung reported that, while standing on Mt.

Kilimanjaro...he saw himself as part of the ongoing

pageant of life, a link in the continuing

evolutionary chain connecting past, present, and

future. This perception forever after gave his life

a sense of perspective, showing him his place

in history" (Swan, 1992, p. 240-241).

      In addition to Jung and Maltz, Erich Fromm (1956, 1961, 1990) was

another psychologist who investigated the connection between love,

sanity, and governmental policy in the 20th Century. Fromm's work

helped to visualize the inner workings of emotions and attributes of

mind as they interact and effect social reform or conformity. Allan

David Bloom (1987), another philosopher commenting on social reforms,

wondered if we have "...so simplified the soul that it is no longer

difficult to explain? To an eye of dogmatic skepticism, nature herself,

in all her lush profusion of expressions, might appear to be a

prejudice" (Bloom, 1987, 43). How and why does a

connection with the natural world reawaken the

human soul and change hearts of stone to hearts of

flesh that can practice the golden rule? Mathematicians

and physicists have explored these connections in terms of pure logic,

pure intuition, and a combination of both viewpoints or paradigms.

      German scientist J. von Neuman (1932) wrote about the

mathematical foundations of quantum mechanics and this work was

translated and published in America in 1955. Forming a basis to

interpret the brain in mathematical symbols, he hypothesized that all

the behaviors of the brain are described by Schroedinger wave equations

(Neuman, 1955). In the middle of the 20th Century, researchers in many

diverse disciplines arrived at theories that suggested this infinite

variability and plasticity of human experience. Einstein (1950) and his

now famous Theory of Relativity was the result of his own studies of

both ancient wisdom and the work of the brilliant mathematicians and

scientists who came before him. Every scientist that cared about human

social interactions invariably turned to philosophy, as the truths that

manifest from the crucible of experience, not the limitations of prior

knowledge, are often found to be the true learning centers of the human

experiment. Using the work of scientists from Faraday to

Max Planck, (who first described ER, or

electromagnetic radiation and quanta, the workings of gravity and

electromagnetic forces, though seemingly not linked in mechanistic

physics, were used and developed by Einstein to show the failures of the

then-current emphasis on the theories of mechanistic sciences. He

applied mathematical research from Maxwell, de Broglie, Schroedinger,

Faraday, Planck, and Lorentz to arrive at a practical theory of relativity.

      Maxwell evolved three equational roots. The first root is familiar

and still entered in the textbooks given out in physics and engineering

classes, but the other two roots were removed from the texts back in the

1930's. However, these two roots may actually be perfect models of

biological and spiritual wave forms, not spurious as previously decided

by some scientists. For instance, the root of zero might be the result

of positive and negative electromagnetic waves that cancel each other

out, the Human Body Electric, not just an indication that nothing is

there. This could correspond to the wave form we know as the human

organism, an equilibrised organism existing in a steady state (Becker,

1985), (Quigg, 1997). "...organismic

conception....In living systems, we find an enormous

range of levels of organization....In

contrast to the second law of thermodynamics which

prescribes that physical processes proceed in the

direction of increasing probability and uniformity,

the living organism is maintained

in a state of fantastic improbability....The

principle of selection is not a physical

law...complicated molecules will disintegrate. In

the realm of physics and chemistry there is no

principle saying that certain systems tend to

maintain themselves; that a 'survival of the fittest'

or a transition to higher order and organization

takes place" (Bertalanffy, 1975, 117). How do Maxwell's equations

describe this improbable, unexplained transition to higher order?

When something is unexplained, than the viewpoint

or paradigm must change. Yet, 20th Century science

often ignores or discards what is underdeterminable

in conventional terminology.

      The other root Maxwell derived was also mysterious but interesting:

The square root of minus one! In terms of the Lorentz equations and

nonlinear particle physics, this could explain thoughts and how they can

affect reality, as documented in a Japanese scientist's electron

microscope photographs of water molecules after words or thoughts were

attached, experiments recently highlighted by the movie that created a

niche for itself in the first few years of the 21st Century:

whatthebleep.com. Using the popular movie format, this film made

available to the general public current theories of quantum physics, in

a form they could understand. Many groups and scientists around the

world collaborated on this picture, illustrating

the way cooperation and synchronicity can produce

an educational and technological interface.

      The only rule of true science is to put ideas to the test of

experience. A quantum physics perspective

admits even unknown variables

to a recipe for global awareness. Bertalanffy and his peers

may be credited with actually having come up with the term general

systems theories, but they have existed as long as

there has been a universe. The qualitative nature

of chaotic and self-evolving neuroplasticity as a

perspective on consciousness and understanding were described by

Bertalanffy, whose lectures and texts helped to prepare for quantum

physics and how its premises will change the world of the 21st

century.

      Scientists and mathematicians throughout modern history have

created many new lens and filters through which to view systems

theories, from Lorentz and Maxwell and Schroedinger and de Broglie,

through Einstein and into the realms of quantum physics

and theories of chaos, synchronicity, and emergence.

Many philosophers become healers; many scientists and

physicians become social critics and agents of change. This is a natural

outgrowth of the synthesis present in organizations when they are not

static, but are instead capable of changing within. Both structure and

function of successful businesses

and schools must become open systems,

allowing feedback from the stakeholders they represent. Healing the

places where the system has become

stagnant or unwieldy then becomes a

natural process of simply letting go and letting it flow.

      Other action researchers also examined theories

of open systems by studying how and why children actually learn,

using feedback and direct observation in a tradition

now called action research. The Swiss researcher, Jean

Piaget, and the Russian psychologist, Lev Vygotsky, made an impression

on the mind and actions of 20th Century teachers. Vygotsky, who died in

1934, based his work on two key ideas. First, he proposed that

intellectual development can be understood only in terms of the

historical and cultural contexts children experience. Second, he

believed that development depends on the sign systems that individuals

grow up with: the symbols that cultures create to help people think,

communicate, and solve problems. His ZPD or Zone of Proximal

Development is based on the idea that development is defined both by

what the child can do independently, and by what the child can do when

assisted by an adult or more competent peer.

      The ability of the child to attain information within the zone of

proximal development was also found to be affected by the adult

or peer and their faith in the child. It is this feedback, when positive

and encouraging, unconditional and non-judgmental, that increases

self-esteem in the child and affects subsequent abilities to use the

zone of proximal development with that adult. The process of using adult

or peer groups in interpersonal relationships, modeled after Vygotsky's

Zone of Proximal Development, has survived the test of

constructivist learning, as educators used the translation of his work

into English in 1978 to work toward using these ideas to challenge

the accepted teaching methods of the time.

Piaget studied his own children

and described certain stages he observed in their development. However,

perhaps because his very study of the children and his own ideas and

biases affected the research, these stages have been found by further

research to be mere arbitrary designations. Instead, further research

found that the child seems to undergo many stages at once. There is not

only no clearly defined growth to a stage defined by concepts, but also

there is no clear reason to separate

children into categories of age (Jensen, 1998).

Schools that grow are able to evolve and change along with their

students. As Senge (1990) noted in The Fifth Discipline,

the school that can offer both positive

feedback techniques and the opportunity for children to impact

their own environment, may be the best vehicle for

positive social change in the 21st Century (Senge, Cambron-McCabe,

Lucas, Smith, Dutton, & Kleiner, 2000), (Senge, 2000).

      Piaget and Vygotsky influenced more than

one generation of American and Canadian educators. They were

alike in considering the young child to be constructivist learners.

Piaget emphasized that the whole child was an active, cognitive

constructivist and solitary little scientist in their own right (Piaget,

1952)! Vygotsky's theory also described the child as an

active, interactive, and sociocultural constructivist (Vygotsky, 1978).

The National Research Council held

that both Vygotsky and Piaget studied "...a new science of learning: its

focus on the processes of knowing, where ...even young infants are active

learners" (Bransford, Brown & Cocking, 2000, p. 10). The process of

acquiring knowledge is called constructivism when hands-on

teaching precedes book learning.

      The ability to establish trust between educators

and students was one of the major factors for growth that

Vygotsky delineated in his theory of a Zone of Proximal Development.

Another educator who saw the necessity for an open

and responsive system of feedback, trust, and

communication among stakeholders was Erik Erikson.

As another innovative educator whose ideas affected

20th Century education in a positive and

dynamic manner, Erikson (1980) explored the

quality of trust and described how psychosocial theory relates social

environment to psychological development. For this educator, it was the

quality of trust and open feedback loops

that most affected the learning experience.

When learners knew they could trust their teachers, then positive

feedback created interpersonal relationships that caused learning to

flourish. Trust and open systems became the nourishment

necessary for human development, just as

correct nutrition is necessary to grow

a human cell or a human brain that will even be capable of attaining its

highest potential. Theories of cognitive development and their relation

to constructivist pedagogies, and a comparison of psychosocial and

Piaget-influenced concepts such as cognitive constructivism and

developmentally appropriate instruction, are all necessary ingredients

for a recipe of renewal needed to guide educational reform.

      Other researchers from the 1990's into the 21st Century,

such as Wiggens & McTighe (1999) and Tomlinson(1999)

have all observed that the best design of

curriculum follows backward from the big picture. Belief in the

student's potential, as well as the use of Vygotsky's ZPD to engage and

implement learning, creates feedback loops necessary for the growth and

maintenance of any open system, from socio-cultural

to organizational structures.



     

2. Bio-Synchronicity

      Brain-based research implies that all individual beings have a

capacity for synchronous behavior (Jensen, 1998). What is

behavior that is bio-synchronous? It seems to be related

to several different disciplines and viewpoints. It

may be considered both an adverb, as in the behavior

of fireflies, or a noun when referring to a functioning

relationship with the biosphere of the planet.

From social learning theories to theories of chaos and

open systems, many individuals have approached these

ideas in different ways.

The capacity for interaction with the environment as

a function of living systems was studied by sociological systems theorist, Urie

Brofenbrenner. Over several decades spanning the end of the 20th

century, he hypothesized an ecological

systems theory to explain the world

as it interacts with the individual at the center. Ecological systems

theories like Brofenbrenner's offer research from many sources as input

for a system that has a perspective that is centered in the individual

and their immediate environment. As many ideas that work are

inter-disciplinary, so Broffenbrenner's is a sociocultural view of

development which consists of five environmental systems ranging from

the fine-grained inputs of direct interactions with social agents to the

broad-based inputs of culture and historical contexts.

The five systems are

micro-, meso-, exo-, macro- and chrono-systems.

Here is a short summary of ecological systems theory:

5 systems or environments affect the individual and

their interactions with their environment:

microsystem: setting in which an individual lives

mesosystem: relation between microsystems

or connections between contexts

exosystem: experience in social areas where individual has no active role

macrosystem: culture in which individual lives

chronosystem: patterning of environmental

events and transitions over the life course

of the sociohistorical conditions in which the individual lives

(Brofenbrenner, 1969, 1974, 1975, 1979, 1993, 1996).

These theories were developed over the course

of many years of socio-cultural investigation.

      Urie Brofenbrenner has written a compelling theory. It focuses on

the individual and their relationships, both familial and cultural, and

describes the interactions as the boundaries of the individual

experience. As more and more children in America become the nation's

innocent victims of the greed of a few who control American politics at

home and abroad, what will be the long-term result (Payne, 1996/2003)?

Violence begets violence. The media sets an

agenda and the news follows this agenda.

No mention of compassion mars the media's lies.

Disregarding the truth and ignoring the long-term effects

and the consequences believing in lies will have to future generations,

let alone those now on the planet, social and

educational systems in 20th Century schools became

like prisons, rather than purveyors of the

knowledge needed to protect the fourth to the seventh

generation to come! The children are being exposed to

violent behavior on an everyday basis. Even a cartoon of violence can

create the tendency, especially in the very young child, to create their

own violent behaviorism, according to 21st Century researchers (Daly,

Wilson & Vasder, 2001).

      What is the answer to evolving more

compassionate and open systems that can attain to

bio-synchronicity? The research of many educators

found that one of the most powerful

predictors of a teacher's impact on students is the belief that what the

teacher does actually makes a difference. As this is true for teachers,

how much more will it be a viable choice for the students in the

earliest years, from birth to four years old, when the most growth and

learning occurs, when brains and selves are still in early stages of

development?

      Nutritional deficiencies caused by processed foods, chemicals in

the environment, and poor eating habits

be at fault for a lack of awareness of all the

many factors affecting human development and

bio-synchronous behavior. Many miracles

are happening with the use of water rehydration therapy, the removal of

processed foods in the diet, and the addition of missing ingredients

found in seaweed and cod liver oil to the daily intake of most American

children. Another alarming trend was pointed out by Restak, whose

research shows a rewiring of the brain in children living in the age of

game boys and immersion in television. Restak (2005) explained how the

natural world and its functions are clearly being left behind. The

garden as an art form; dance and song and the joy found in a natural and

unpolluted world: these are some of the most important ingredients for

growing whole and healthy children. These variables have been, if not

actively ignored, at the least relegated to the sidelines of human

endeavor.

      These many and varied approaches to understanding the human

condition illustrate some of the new studies examining how the wired

generation has been adapting brain functions to the new technologies and

global interfaces of the 21st Century (Marcus, 2001), (Restak, 2003).

Bio-synchronous behavior is becoming a

necessity for survival of all species,

humans as well as animals. The relationship between the

human organism and its planetary biosphere is becoming

clearer, as research reveals innate patterns and connections

that previously were considered coincidental or unrelated.

For example, another prominent science that emerged in the last half of

the 20th century was connected to Chaos Theory, a coincidental

evolution in a science that had, at its inception, no name. Gleick

(1987) traced the evolution of this theory. The definition of chaos theory

was the examination of a new perspective

that came from many disciplines.

Crossovers between disciplines were the stuff of

which the theories of chaos, synthesis, and

networks were created.

      The way that bio-synchronicity is

maintained both within the living organism and the living

bio-sphere is the same and echoes the work of many 20th Century

theorists. The ability of the living organism to

have the intent and belief in

the possibility of healing and renewal is how every open system

remains capable of change and growth, the two factors

most affecting bio-synchronous behavior patterns.

Although the concepts were

pointed out by visionaries and scientists like Ludwig von Bertalanffy in

the first half of the 20th century, the physics of chaos theory did not

come to fruition until the early 1970s, as several disciplines began to

merge and create a new paradigm or perspective. The new paradigm sees

organisms as vital forces, capable of unprecedented and miraculous

occurrences dependent on the expectations of the researcher and affected

by their very thoughts. Thus, scientific experimentation, once thought

to be a correct way of conducting research, shows a potential difference

in the laboratory and its artificial experimentations and in action

research performed as a constructivist model of learning and experience.

Both physics and thought are de Broglie wave forms capable, like the

butterfly in the Lorenz equation, who flaps its wings and creates chaos,

of an unknown and perhaps unknowable pattern, except through direct

experience and memory.

      Dr. Christopher Carter Humphrey (1973) published a controversial

little book in Stillwater, OK. He offered the theory of

psychonics, a study in synchronicity that developed the historical

knowledge of quantum mechanics

and offered an interpretation that might

explain these mathematical formulations in terms of the natural

phenomena of the human experience. Using the four elements of

geometry, quanta, particles, and de Broglie vibes, embedded in the

four-dimensional geometry of space-time, he developed the science of

psychonics by analogy to physics, expanding the de Broglie theory to

include cosmic quantum mechanics and de Broglie radiation as well as

standing waves. According to Humphrey, the world of physics in the 20th

century included three basic particles inside the container of

space-time: the electron, proton, and neutron. They interact via four

different quanta of action.

      The de Broglie vibes (atomic quantum mechanics), determine the

possible states in which matter and energy may exist, and the

probabilities and conditions of transition from one state to another.

Humphrey gave an analog to each of these four elements in his science of

psychonics. The new geometry was a

five-dimensional hyper space-time and

explained precognition, levitation, apportation and what he referred to

as HSP, or Higher Sense Perception, the ability to see auras or energy

fields. He named a new quantum called a

nouon (ESP interaction) and used relativity theory

to explain these phenomena. His was one of the

earliest and most detailed accounts of the inclusion of psychonic

formuli in a world informed by a Sacred Geometry

that included both sound and light.

In fact, space-time is written as a hyphen because it

is one thing, not two.

      The universe is four-dimensional and time really exists, according

to relativity theory. Time and space are not fixed and independent, but

vary with velocity, acceleration, and mass. Only the combined

four-dimensional distance between events (and other four-dimensional

quantities) remain invariant. In physics, space and time differ by only

one thing. When figuring out the four-dimensional distance between two

events, the squared time factor is subtracted rather than added. In the

same way as physical particles may be created from energetic quanta, so

psychonic particles are created (often called crystallization of the

light). Psychonic matter does not have a fixed de Broglie wave

vibration , but can change it on nouonic command, and can receive de

Broglie vibration, producing a nouonic output. Psychonic particles are

sensitive to the frequencies present at their creation. This is the main

way physical and psychonic matter interact. Therefore, Life forms an

open system within a matrix informed

by both mass or matter, and thought

or higher vibration.

      The viewpoint or paradigm of the observer

can intimately affect the observation. For instance, Goethe

looked through a crystal prism to examine the quality of

light. Others let light create a prismatic rainbow as it shone through a

crystal, and discovered wavelengths. Each discovery, merging with

others, led to more and more discoveries, like the spiral DNA and the

functions and qualities of dynamic systems. Humphrey also predicted a

world-wide telnet in 1973, very similar to the world-wide-web that 21st

Century students now take for granted (Humphrey, 1973).

      Quantum physics has just revealed, in the last half of the 20th

Century, how little we really know. That 95% of the universe is "dark

matter," meaning that we do not know what it really is, indicates that

metaphysical approaches to education and learning that value creativity

and the positive inspiration and feedback techniques that characterize

the living, viable system may be the only way to creative and chaotic

harmony. The microcosm is the macrocosm

down to the smallest, invisible

detail. Is the Earth a Labyrinth or

holofield? Is human intent, emotion, thought, and will more powerful

than ever imagined? In addressing the human condition, Ludwig von

Bertalanffy cited the As-If theory by Vaihinger. This theory says that,

even if man cannot attempt to visualize an infinitely changing symphony

of creatorship, he must at least act as if this being of Infinite

Goodness exists, as a force or drive toward evolutionary consciousness

of Love, because society needs morality and the ability to care for the

least and most helpless. In a community of conscious participation with

nature and each other, contributing to the healthy growth of a living

and open-ended system of education that uses choice and positive

feedback, the whole will become more than the sum of its parts.

      Recognition for competing scientists based on compliance with

political agendas, instead of an emphasis on rewarding synthesis among

the disciplines, has resulted in less and less new ideas and effective

levels of cooperative information-sharing in the current scientific

community. The spread of chaos theory in this scientific community

reflects the very theory it describes. The network of world scientists

were helped along with Chaos Theory by Joseph Ford,

who was employed at the Georgia Institute

of Technology. Ford was what Barabasi (2002) would call a hub,

or a place where many nodes connect. Ford

believed that nonlinear dynamics

was the future of physics and he became a

clearing house for information exchange on this exciting new science.

At the same time, University of Santa Cruz doctorate student

Shaw and his colleagues began to research a strange,

owl-shaped function on an oscilloscope, becoming

very excited as they saw the possibilities. They had

to turn their raw enthusiasm into a scientific program. They sought ways

of connecting theory and experiment, a "...gap that needed to be closed"

(Gleick, 1987).

      The laws of chaos theory may remain somewhat

insubstantial to scientists who still wear the blinders of

superstition. The industrial age was a closed and controlling system. It

took the work of many scientists crossing disciplines to arrive at the

theory of chaos. What has come to be called the Butterfly Effect was,

according to Strogatz, "...the most familiar icon of the new science, and

appropriately so, for it is the signature of chaos. The phrase comes

from the title of a 1979 paper by Lorentz called 'Predictability: Does

the Flap of a Butterfly's Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?'

The idea is that, in a chaotic system, small disturbances grow

exponentially fast, rendering long-term prediction impossible"

(Strogatz, 2003, 183). Lorentz first published his work in The Journal

of Atmospheric Science. It was cited only a few times in ten years, but,

eventually, it became the symbol of the new theories of chaos.

Lorentz was both a mathematician and a weatherman.

This is a good example of how synthesis among

disciplines is achieved.

     In order to evolve true quantum physics

understandings of universal constants, it

was necessary in the 20th Century to cross disciplines and synthesize

qualities drawn from many mathematicians and scientists working in the

realm of a theory that had as yet no name and therefore had no teachers

except natural experience. Chaos theory, ecological systems theories, and

psychocybernetic models of functioning organismic systems emphasize

intent and choice over any other factor as indicative of intelligent and

brain-based functionality in human co-existence with the biosphere

(Brofenbrenner, McClelland, Wethington,

& Moen, 1996), (Santrock, 1994),

(Gleick, 1987), (Bertalanffy, 1952), (Maltz, 1960), (Laszlo, 1972).

Living for the status quo at the mercy of government grants that stifled

rather than encouraged inter-disciplinary functionality, scientists and

administrators became fundraisers instead of academicians.

      The dynamic systems beginning to

be studied in the 21st century will transform previous educational and

organizational structures in society, using feedback to effect

educational excellence. Bound by the owl-like shape of a transform on an

oscilloscope, theories of chaos offer periodicity and emergence

(Johnson, 2001), (Strogatz, 2003), (Barabasi, 2002), (Gupta, 2000).

      Synchronicity can only occur when both the variables of choice and

freedom are combined. Motion that is at once graceful and controlled,

while still maintaining infinite flexibility, has potential to bring the

human heart into a bio-synchronous mode utilizing principles already

employed in the philosophies of ancient Greeks. It is the variable

called phi, or 1.6, that such models as Heart Math have proven to exist

as a potential harmonic that the heart of any human or animal reaches

when content and appreciative of the indefinable quality called Life.

When the opposite occurs: fear, anger, stress, hate, etc, the heartbeat

is seen to fight itself, and actual harm appears to affect the organism

(Childre & Martin, 1999).

      Even in a city, the echo of synchronicity is seen. Just as the

periodicity of fireflies gathered in the trees along the river and the

integrity of the bio-synchronous behavior that includes cells, brains,

ants, cities, slime molds, and software reflect the unfailing ability of

Nature to attain higher-functionality, so ever-more complex systems

unite and harmonize to become a whole that is somehow, mysteriously,

more than the sum of its parts (Strogatz, 2003), (Johnson, 2001),

(Gleick, 1987). Johnson described this miracle in the following quote:

"... evolution of this new science, suggesting the

problem of the pacemaker to be the conflicting

difference between mechanistic, Darwinian concepts

of evolution and the new paradigm of functionality

as the adaptive behavior of choice for the organism.

In August, 2000, in Japan, Toshiyuki Nakagaki

announced he had trained an amoeba-like organism

called the slime mold to find the shortest route

through a maze. Software and video games of the 21st

century are designed on the principles observed in

the slime mold population" (Johnson, 2001, 22). Only the peace and quiet

and sounding music of natural surroundings can create a place of

sanctuary, where the behavior toward a higher order

observed in the slime mold can be

accessed by humanity on a macrocosmic scale.

The emphasis on the 20th Century idea that some are created

better or more talented than others can

now be seen, according to Restak, as just another

fallacy of egoic materialism (Restak, 2003). Instead, it is

the very act of choosing one path through a reality

in a state of constant change that becomes the motivation

to react to feedback from other humans. This

feedback creates an open system. Open systems create the feedback loop,

and the potential ideal of the mentor/

teacher/giver. When the human attains to

synchronicity with its biosphere, is not abundance and fulfillment the

result?

      One indication of this was research from Berry (1977). He

provided not only a frightening picture of urban blight on the minds and

hearts of Americans who left the

rural farming communities, changing the

face of America and her society forever, but also hope in the form of

research done in Peru in a valley that reached from sea level to 14

thousand feet and recognized seven different regions of agriculture that

span the ecosystem of the US from Texas to Alaska. Here was the

biodiversity at the heart of America and the globe. It was not the

agri-farms, with pesticides and commercial fertilizers, that are at the

heart of the American dream of life, liberty and the pursuit of

happiness. The small family farms were the way of life that embodied the

ethics of husbandmanship that granges and unions tried to emulate. Is

the small family and community farm also an endangered species in need

of immediate and far-reaching changes to law to prevent their loss

forever (Berry, 1977)? Tomorrow's children will either create models and

lifestyles that function as open systems capable of feedback, or will

reap the whirlwind of environmental degradation.

      As the socio-historical conditions have changed and evolved, so

have theories that can adequately address the issues that are raised by

the 21st Century advances in understanding. Unlike the mechanistic

approach of the 20th Century, the truth that reality as we know it is

static and unchanging only because we believe it to be

will free the 21st Century brain to explore new and previously

unknown ways of relating to a mutable reality.

As physicians and psychiatrists such as Maltz and Jung

have shown, disregarding accepted knowledge and learning, the

21st Century human may escape the industrial curse of greed and waste

and turn to harmonic means of survival. This follows in the tradition

of Leonardo da Vinci, in the "crucible of experience" (Wood, 1992).

      Since all functional organisms appear to be separated

only by natural phenomena coded by Galois polynomials

that include innate patterns, could the human belief

that paranormal activity is unusual or abnormal be

at the source of the continued inability of the "normal" human to

perceive the interconnectedness of Life? Not unlike the holodeck on the

spaceship of a Star Trek episode, our brain is the computer controlling

our experience of reality. The wonder is not so much in how this is

done, but in how unaware we are of how our sense input is interpreted by

our minds. From meta-cognition and the development of critical thinking

skills, to healthy and sustainable lifestyle choices, the children of

the 21st Century must face far-reaching changes. Degradation, the

misuse of non-renewable resources, and the absence of the right and

responsibility to share and care for all on a global scale, has created

consequences unimaginable to the 20th Century industrial mind (Ellis,

2001), (Daly, Wilson & Vasder, 2001).

     

3. Biosynchronicity as the Foundation for Creativity in the Natural World

     Philosophers, artists, and scientists over the centuries have seen

that reflection and hunches produced more advancements than logic.

Inclinations and interests, as was the attraction of the guilds and

craftsman's unions all through the ages, were more directly linked to

reality and interpersonal experience. The mastery was accomplished by

learning from a master, and allowing a poor try to become a good try

with experience and built-in motivation. Learners saw the finished

product or craft of the master and adapted by experience to create their

own unique version of the craft. This constructivist approach caused

metacognition to flourish.

      Daniel Perkins, in 1984, offered the "snowflake model of

creativity" to describe and define six characteristics common to the

highly creative individual. The catalyst, he decided, was the challenge,

enjoyment and satisfaction of the work or Project itself. Desire to

learn made available a pre-cognitive capacity to expect, and, in the

long view afforded by quantum physicists, ultimately to accomplish,

great expectations, producing great things! Depression and suicidal

tendencies have been found to be present in

alarming statistics developed from the study of

20th Century educational institutions. Replacing stress and grades with

brain-based learning modes may correct previously misguided attempts at

helping children learn and grow. Especially found in those most at-risk,

children raised in generational poverty

comprise a growing percentage

in America at an alarming rate, (as per statistics gathered by

researchers in the 1990s), learned helplessness may only be reversed by

giving back what has been stolen from the young child in the inner city

from early childhood: inspirational and musically-informed integration

with the natural world (Broffenbrenner,

McClelland, Wethington, Moen &

Ceci, 1996).

      How and why these generations may

escape the impoverishment of 99% of the world by

1% of the population, using the light of truth to

replace misunderstandings and cultural bias and allow it to become a

thing of the past, will be the problem confronting the children of the

21st Century. The six characteristics indicative of creative people

that were hypothesized by Perkins have been stifled in inner cities and

concrete jungles. These qualities are most often found in children

allowed to experience a natural world, not far removed from a

potentially magical, musical universe where anything is possible.

The six characteristics are:

A commitment to a personal aesthetic,

excellence in finding problems,

mental mobility,

willingness to take risks,

objectivity,

and inner motivation.

      These six characteristics or creative urges outlined by

Perkins are stifled when symptoms of learned helplessness are present in

the population; the natural world may have ceased to exist for children

and adults raised in a concrete jungle (Vygotsky, 1978), (Santrock,

1978/1994). Exposure to woods,

nature, ocean, unpolluted stream, or waterfall, even a

community garden site, and mural paintings seen to unite

rival gangs in shared Projects of some kind that benefit everyone: All

these types of endeavors launched by the stakeholders themselves

can help restore the qualities of creative children to those who

have lost hope (Payne, 2003), (Louv, 2005).

By being treated, not as little miracles, but as

behaviorally-conditioned animals, children have little to look forward

to in the 21st Century, unless the teachers of tomorrow can reverse the

tendencies of a mechanistic society to degrade and de-value the whole

child (Berends, 1986), (Jensen, 1999).

      According to Pinker (2002), children in

20th Century schools were still

held subject, as blank slates (tabula rasa), to stimulus-response (SR)

stresses of grades, homework, detention, schools, and teachers who

allowed no feedback from the student members to affect positive changes

benefitting all. In addition to these and other brain-shrinking tactics

of an educational system designed

in a mechanistic society, these children are

being given drugs like Ritalin at younger and younger ages and

at an alarming rate (Pinker, 2002).

     No other generation has seen fit to raise

their own children in such a drug-polluted

culture, where the emphasis on money in media

and politics steals the future from our children

as this generation has stolen America from its own citizens

in the name of a marketplace of greed and degradation.

Poverty rates in America have too quickly risen

and rates for children under five receiving Ritalin have increased

over 300% in the first few years of the 21st Century

(Payne, 2003), (Restak, 2005), (Louv, 2005). This alarming

trend must be reversed immediately before irreparable damage is done to

a precious and irreplaceable resource: the coming

generation (Manning, 1996), (Schneider, 1989).

      Creative visualization (Gawain, 1995) may be

one new perspective or paradigm that embodies the neuroplasiticity of

the human brain and the science of psychocybernetics and cosmic ciphers

and the ability to effect change through thought and belief. The

realization that quantum physics has offered the previously mechanistic

world view of the 20th century, a materialistic and degraded society

plagued with suicide, violence, and other indications of something

seriously missing in the modern world, is the key to a cosmic

regeneration and Renaissance in thinking and

acting as a community and a

global entity. Without natural bio-feedback, the human organism does not

function well. In nature, feelings of unitive bliss become available.

This peace and quiet and harmony is no longer available in most cities

that have denied musical and central places to gather and trade. In a

marketplace of wisdom and musical synchronicity, infinitely variable and

entertaining, true happiness may be reached, but only by relinquishing

control. While still allowing cultural safety and protection in the form

of morals embodied and integrated with culture by the time a child is

five years old, a valid path to conscience and spiritual awareness

might be found, leading to harmony.

      In the 1990s, two other researchers added to the growing body of

knowledge concerning new sciences synthesizing previously separate

disciplines. F.L. Bates (1997), integrated social systems with ecology

and politics. Bales (1999), offered his research in social interaction

and theory and measurement data. All these scientists foresaw the

growing need to combine and overlap separate disciplines to create

synthesis that can include all stakeholders.

      No one can learn anything s/he does not really want to know.

Evidence is mounting on the side of the Greek vitalists, that

anything may become possible

when cooperative endeavors are guided by

bio-synchronous and eco-conscious habitat creation, as suggested by

David Holmgren (2004), one of the co-originators of the permaculture

concept. This describes an ecosystem where humans and

wild creatures co-exist in harmonic surroundings that encourage

bioethical behavior. Tompkins & Bird (1989)

also described the cutting edge in

agricultural innovations. In the plight of the small farmer, whose

absence in this 21st Century has become The Unsettling of America, one

may view the plight of everyone who will not deny their heritage and

connection to a universal nature. Here is the base of a true economy and

a universal fulfillment and interpersonal relationship with the Earth.

It is a symphony of Nature changed forever when not understood and

balance is fought over instead of maintained as a sacred trust for

future generations. The small family or community farm may become

an endangered species through economic

policies based on graft and corruption (Berry, 1977)!

      A tool using positive visualization for goal-setting and the

building of self-esteem necessary for whole children to learn and grow

will create an organizational system of educational excellence that may

storm the global web with the joy of creation. The human brain and the

whole child become both experimenter

and experiment. Remember Maltz,

who, in a long experience as a healer

and world-renowned plastic surgeon

at the forefront of his craft in 1960, when he published

Psycho-cybernetics, stated that reflection and hunches produce more

advancements than logic. If this is true, then it points out a

perspective on quantum physics that permits action research without

involving artificial laboratory conditions that are invariably known now

to be affected by the biases of researchers.

      This interaction is the homology or history and meaning of a

concept. Such functions may be applied to a black

box, using block and flow diagrams that indicate the necessary feedback

loops. In light of the ability of open systems to effectively interact

with ever-increasingly complex levels of technological innovations in

the 21st, new paradigms allowing more inter-generational learning will

be needed. Just as extrapolating the effects of a butterfly's wings

becomes a matter of describing variables that are not apparent or

traceable with current scientific techniques, so the ability to utilize

the awareness of the observer as an integral facet of the system and

perhaps its most important variable will be subject to harmonic

synchronicity. Determining relativistic responses of the environment to

the previous bias of the researcher will set free an

imaginarium (a term for a new synthesis of information sharing),

to serve humanity as a whole new wave form,

generating a different reality and one more in tune

with the advances of theoretical determination

expressed by philosophers and echoed and amplified by physicians and

psychologists like Jung and Maltz.

      Only in experiencing once again, as a rebirth, the childlike faith

and trust in a miraculous world, will the human turn from violence,

hatred, or numbness to creative flow and harmony. Oneness is a fact in

quantum physics and so is the fact that creation is a wave form; until

there is an observer, then the wave becomes a particle. Choosing,

through belief, one path through an infinite set of possibilities, and,

seeing, to create reality as particles of matter, this is the flow of

quantum flux and chaos theory. Yet there are infinite perturbations and

possibilities inherent in these new paradigms that include systems

sciences of the 20th Century. These paradigms

lead to a truer understanding

of these miracles of bio-synchronous behavior, like

fireflies along a river on a summer's night.

"Does use and exertion of mental power gradually change the material structure of the brain, just as we see, for example, that much used muscles become stronger? It is not improbable, although the scalpel cannot easily demonstrate this" Quote from Samuel Thomas Soemmering, 1791(Restak, 2003, ix).

      As a new and more effective tool for

learning and teaching, quantum physics, informed by systems

theories, will become the new paradigm; synthesis

and self-esteem will become more important than grades.

Creative, whole, and happy children are always excited to learn, if the

reality of their environment provides enough interesting stimulation and

positive feedback from the earliest possible age (Berends, 1983).

      Using technology and software,

children's work may follow them with

portfolios of hands-on, constructivist learning that is automatically

scaffolded by using student choice as the inner motivation requiring no

outside interruption to participation. There are some small successes

across the nation that demonstrate how

easily one may adapt to Projects

designed backward from a big picture,

Science of Open Systems SOSLearning Centers that

are available to any age or

level of mastery. There is a small school in Tucson

that has successfully conducted education as multi-age Projects for

twenty years. Each day, the child of any age chooses three Projects to

complete, with access to ask for help from any other age bracket in the

school, which spans K-12. Edutopia magazine is another example of how

some great artists like George Lucas of Star Wars fame uses technology,

children and the "big picture" as a basis for learning and schooling.

      Teams are a matter of everyday life. Individuals can stay

interested in learning and therefore utilize their own potential to do

great things if the principles of cybernetic feedback are understood

and applied. Neurological growth would be

assisted by radically changing the

diet of free breakfasts and school lunches to include seaweed, fresh

sprouts and access to carrot and wheat grass juice, an ongoing, daily

emphasis and inner and outer focus on healing the whole child (Berends,

1986), (Rose 2003), (Rubin, 2005), (Batmanghelidj, 1995), (Becker,

1985), (Weil, 2000). Sacred Geometry exists everywhere in the natural

world and informs the child's brain with wisdom and intuitive

understanding, emerging from the very

awe and wonder this wilderness of

creative chaos provides free of charge to the last child in the woods

(Schneider, 1994), (Louv, 2005), (McGuire, 2001).

      Perhaps we have ignored and lost previously accepted knowledge and

wisdom in the race for industrialization. According to Urie

Brofenbrenner and his colleagues (1996), the rich and poor are farther apart in

America than anywhere else in the civilized world.

In the US, 20.4% of young children live in poverty,

the highest percentage among all developed

countries. This is documented by Payne (2003)

and in the tables she compiled from the data

made available by the US Census

Bureau through 2001. In Japan, the world's biggest spender

on civilian research and development, the people are growing in

equality. According to Brofenbrenner et al. (1996),

falling incomes for the poor in America and the rising

number of American children raised in generational poverty is

probably the result of a misguided takeover of

America by economic and military interests, not in a growth of

compassionate democracy, as is truly needed on the global scene today

(Brofenbrenner et al., 1996)

      In an article by Putterman (1995), sound is seen to generate

light and to produce the holofield of experiential matter.

Discoveries and inventions in the 20th Century demonstrated

that the universe was a function of music, not merely mathematics.

Looking at a rainbow, one can see the place where the colors change.

However, can anyone see into the place or interval where the change

occurs? Also indicative of human lack of awareness is the fact that each

of the eyes has a blind spot that is ignored or never even seen by the

brain!

      This lack of awareness is true for other levels of reality as well.

If the human brain without conscience or love becomes the only guide,

logic may sour the child who is denied the miraculous access faith

allows to other realms that mechanistic science has no eyes to see. Only

the human heart that has been loved can give back that love and

responsibility to honor others. It is this focus that will be necessary

to use a lens of synchronous harmony to

redeem and re-sound the depths of purity for a fragile ecosphere called

Earth (Strogatz & Steward, Dec. 1993), (Targ & Katra, 1998).

      Advances in integrative medicine and brain-based research have

contributed to the improvement of both physical and psychological

health. Jensen (1998) wrote about the connection between teaching and

the brain. Teachers are beginning to incorporate his research in the

design of new curriculums. Existing paradigms have imposed artificial

and ambiguous limitations on human potential, especially in the area

most important and most ignored by 20th Century educators, the very

earliest years of the childhood experience, from birth to Pre-K.

      Many recent texts published in the first few years of the 21st

Century have explored the connection between children's growth into

humans and their need for interaction with the

natural world (Louv, 2005). The need and

ability of the human organism to adapt to technology

innovations will be explored in the Depth and Application sections that

follow (Restak, 2005).

Conclusion: Reforming Education as a Methodology of Sync:

21st Century Learning as a Viable Organizational System

      The subject of this treatise was the comparison and integration of

20th Century philosophers and scientists in the diverse fields of

psychology, human interaction within social and cultural systems, and

theories of general systems, chaos, emergence and synchronicity, with

21st Century understandings of education that embrace the concepts of

wholeness within the individual. In the Breadth

section, relationships that have informed the

development of education and social systems in the 20th and 21st

Centuries were discussed, compared, and contrasted.

     Design of 21st Century learning centers, utilizing whole

systems and technology to implement

the increase of student engagement,

can be synthesized and integrated by applying principles of open

systems. Becoming bio-synchronous

through music and rhythm, dance and

creative play, even the youngest child may produce a Portfolio of

creative interaction. Assessment through Portfolio and simple

rubrics is not far away. Aid in designing self-motivated and

differentiated curriculums to stimulate the renewal of education is

available online in various Design by TEAMS methodologies.

      The ideal of cooperative rather than competitive growth may help to

create learning systems that can become much more miraculous than any

individual minds could comprehend. Centers of learning

might evolve new paradigms on an inner voyage

of the 21st Century generation toward truth, grace,

beauty, and peaceful eco-existence and co-maintenance of a precious

biosphere.

      A chance to join a member-owned cooperative or a small family farm

or ranch, on BLM or Forest Service Lands, using bioethics and

permaculture to restore both human dignity and ecosystems, such

solutions are necessary to restore the balance of the earth and the

balance of compassion to human endeavors (Holmgren, 2004).

Catastrophes such as Hurricane Katrina in 2005 may help

motivate humanity to realize that band-aid solutions

will no longer work in a 21st Century world.

Bringing back small farmers and cooperatives might be found as one

solution to poverty and hopelessness, by providing both

permanent homes to those willing to move back from the urban to the

rural lifestyle and also alternative educational opportunities, with the

inclusion of internet access and technological innovations to the rural

lifestyle. Organizations such as Habitat for Humanity have tried to help

restore homes to those who have no resources to

afford their own, but their efforts have been made very difficult.

Without donations of increasingly expensive real estate, homes

cannot be built, despite many willing workers and donated

materials in abundance. Also, the right and the ability to share

and care for all has not been manifested, although we

would run out of hungry people before running out of

surplus food on this planet,

if money was used wisely by those who care,

despite rumors of wars and greed-spawned shortages. Thus, volunteerism

has been stifled and philanthropy has not repaired the gap.

      Cooperative farmsteads may offer urban children the

sanctuary of an escape to the woods, as well as having an opportunity

themselves to renew the wild places, restoring the habitat while

accessing the natural world in all its mystery and wonder. Using

easily-renewable resources such as rice-bale houses, America may once

again become the farmer's dream, a breadbasket to the world, replacing

agribusiness with organic and creative soil restoration based on

centuries-old principles (Berry, 1977), (Tompkins & Bird, 1989).

      Education may be simplified using the idea of dynamic systems that,

linked and in sync, become more than the sum of their parts. This can

implement widespread changes to both the individual and the cultural and

social systems in which they exist. Due to the miracle of harmonic

synchronization that is as true for the brain as it is for a simple cell

or a complex city's social interactions, community and schools may one

day offer more programs producing natural and creative visualizations.

These programs would provide a stimulating inter-generational learning

environment more in tune with the

qualities of music, dance and rhythmic

aperiodicity seen in the simple firefly as well as in ant colonies,

slime molds, brains, cities and software (Wiggens, & McTighe, 1999),

(Barabasi, 2002), (Strogatz, 2003), (Johnson, 2001).

      As another creative writer/educator, who saw the early childhood

experiences as most important to future development, Polly Berends

(1983) wrote: "...it is important to learn to see beyond the senses...On a

material plane this faculty of looking beyond is usually called

imagination. ...the transition from a material to a spiritual concept of

reality must be made in consciousness" (Berends, 1983, p. 171).

      Every learner has an innate and personal language or semantic that

offers a lens through which to view the world. This lens is often

infinitely varied and changes with experience.

"...some 2500 years ago, Alcmaeon of Croton,

an associate of the Pythagorean school of philosophy,

proposed that conscious experience originates in the

stuff of the brain" (Schwartz & Begley, 2002, 23). What is language but

the desire to communicate the experience

of consciousness? Without interpersonal relationships

the human community becomes only a machine

for producing consumers of goods no one really

needs or wants (Noll, 2005), (Oshry, 1996). Brofenbrenner's ecological

systems theory and Siegel's view of interpersonal development both

describe the individual as their central focus. The need to include the

culture and environment of the learner in the breadth of the curriculum

may be approached by allowing that very learner and their own interests

to shape the curriculum as they participate in it.

      What constitutes happiness? Perhaps happiness is a process rather

than a goal. Therefore the voyage of interpersonal experience itself

must become the necessary focus for attaining educational excellence, as

proposed by many researchers who chose to explore the miracles and

mysteries of the human brain (Ornstein, 1997). This is a lifetime

commitment. The ability to grow and the

opportunity to change and evolve to

higher levels of bio-synchronous behavior, like fireflies gathering

on a hot summer's night, may be the next stage of evolutionary growth. A

Renaissance-like renewal will bring miracles every day to the soul who

is allowed to sing their own unique part in the midsummer night's dream,

along a trail of musical river walks and talks, breathing the pure,

unpolluted air humans were meant to enjoy, filled with the eternal song

of Nature in bio-synchronous chaos and infinitely entertaining variety

(Holmgren, 2004), (Louv, 2005). Peace and abundance to her satisfied

children who have once again learned to walk the Earth/Heart Labyrinth

with awe and wonder and

expectations of ever-more miraculous universes

to come: four billion or more tiny circuits called humans in a matrix

about to evo-love (the next step in

planetary evolution: toward harmony, not

decay), to a new reality, no longer bound by any expectations except the

love and renewal granting every human a Sanctuary: The temple of the

heart of unconditional and unending

Love for a Planet and a Song (Targ &

Katra 1998), (Pond et al., 1996)!

      This is a future where happy and creative children are once again

honored and their innate link with nature is nourished and fulfilled.

Emerging from the cocoon of industrialization and economically-separate

nation states, the global human may begin an infinite cosmic journey

unlike any in its history: the journey of self-discovery and harmonic

synchronicity, salvaging the planet and every species on it with the

Love and Music that has informed humanity since the beginning of time

(Friedman, 2005), (Barabasi, 2002)! Through

behaviorism and media blitz, through fear and threat of detention or

lower grades, through ignoring of natural nutrition and conscious

choices, the shrinking of our children's growing brains was created at

every opportunity. From unhealthy school lunches to standardized tests,

a mechanistic society has realized untruth in a practical world (Rose,

2005), (Rubin, 2003), (Walker, 2001), (Weil, 2000).

      The concept of a shared vision is one that

has been proposed for over a decade as an

answer to creating communities that can evolve.

In a community of individuals committed to conscious

participation with nature and each other, contributing

to the healthy growth of a living and open-ended

system of education that uses choice and positive feedback, the whole

will become more than the sum of its parts.

The concepts and perspectives on general systems

theories, chaos theory, and quantum physics presented in

the Breadth section will be further explored

in the Depth section. Changes in educational methodologies

will be analyzed and compared. Teams, a natural part of life,

and student choice and interests as functions

of living systems that allow growth and feedback

will be the subject of this investigation

into both cognition and the anatomical and

nutritional basis for intelligence

(Reiss & Marino, 2001), (Ornstein, 1997), (Le Doux, 2002),

(Vertosick, 2002). The Depth section that follows

will address this need for a new perspective in

socio-cultural and educational excellence.


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Please feedback! Thanks! Andi Bowe
scitechgrantconsultation@yahoo.com

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