Andrea Bowe Page 0 5/6/2007
Core Knowledge Area Module Number 3: Principles of Organizational and Social Systems Depth: SBSF 8320 Current Research in Organizational and Social Systems
Ph.D. in Education and Leadership, Self-Designed Faculty Mentor & Faculty Assessor:
Amie Beckett
Student: Andrea Bowe
Walden University April 2007
The concepts and
perspectives on general systems theories, chaos theory, and quantum physics presented in the
Breadth section will be further explored in the following paper. The
focus of the Depth section will be to investigate research on radical
changes in educational methodologies to include teams, a natural part
of life, and student choice and interests as functions of living
systems that allow growth and feedback. Open systems that grow and change
with this 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 will address this need for a new
perspective in socio-cultural and educational excellence by preparing an
annotated bibliography of at least 15 recent texts or articles that address
ways and means 21st Century educators have incorporated technology,
constructivism, and teamwork into both new curriculums and new ways
of assessment (Karpov & Bransford, 1995). From metaphors to portfolios, from design workshops to
simulations, the use of constructivism or hands-on learning centers may
be the answer to increasing student entry into STEM: Science,
Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, especially in the minority and
female populations ( Ansary, T. Many kinds of smart. Retrieved March
7, 2007 online Journal:: http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/columns/?Article=multipleintelligences.
What constitutes
intelligence and how is it measured? This is one of the questions addressed by this columnist and
author of over 37 books on the subject of multiple intelligences. He
also considered the many different ways intelligence is measured. Several
ways in which standards are found to be unnecessary and measurements of
intelligence are arbitrary are documented. Is it wise or sane to
continue to teach in the ways that were accepted by an industrial age
bent on destructive tendencies that cannot be supported by the Earth's
biosphere? From the 21st Century, these theories will be
important considerations if children are to be given the best input for
intelligent and metacognitive behaviors to be implemented in the
classrooms of the future. A critical
analysis of this study of the nature of multiple intelligences, as mentioned by education to include all types of learners. If music and art, not mathematics and language,
are the true reality, why do we continue to use outmoded
methods and test procedures that test nothing but one kind of intelligence or skill level? The whole child needs both self-esteem and the ability to
have a positive and interactive affect on its own ecological system. How can
ideas like No Child Left Behind fit the idea of
multiple intelligence and the ability to master that must be allowed and encouraged first as a
poor try, so that later mastery may result? These and other thoughts come to mind in examining the
basis for measuring intelligence and how this base
will shift and change to embrace new paradigms that may well
leave old viewpoints behind. This type of intelligent action
will be a function of schools that promote learning,
not students that are programmed to believe only what their teachers want them
to, whether it be true or not. Most grading systems today are based on old understandings, not on the truth behind quantum physics and brain-based research. This article was very important to analyze in terms of the differing ways intelligence may come to be measured in future schools. It was concise and to the point and brought into focus the wide range that intelligent action can take. Cooper, P.G. (Apr-Jun 2006). The changing nature
of the educational process. This article
points out some of the most important ways that teaching must change to include the new
technologies if the lack of nurses and a lack of proper
training endangers the 21st Century health system. Phyllis G. Cooper is a nurse herself, and she uses her experience to point
out how this lack can be remedied. Many nurse leaders
concerned with the changes that technology has caused and
how and why the educational process must change
along with the science may benefit from this article.
Cooper stresses the need for beginning with very early childhood educational methods, as even infants
are seen to progress using the new games designed for them by the new technologies. Elementary through high schools are still
teaching in traditional ways, using book, lecture,
storytelling, power point, video or computer. These ways of teaching are mostly
learning experiences defined and managed by the teachers and student input. This creates a lack of
self-motivated learners. Increasing feedback and utilizing simulations can renew interest in entering the health
profession and other professions with immediate need of
skilled learners. The
fact that there are technology-based toys for infants, providing early learning experiences in many
areas, including art, music, general knowledge and critical thinking
skills, means that the new technologies provide opportunities for
problem solving and little constructivist learners to have immediate input
and response. The reward of more and more complex toys and levels of
complexity make intrinsic motivation available without the stress of age
levels and grading curves. Ms. Cooper specifically addresses these kinds of
toys in her article. According to
Cooper, the fact that the children learn at their own pace is even more significant. She defines mastery
learning as defined in 1971 by Block and she shows how this
technology-based learning is not defined by age, as schools have been in the
20th Century, but by the basic premise that, given enough time and
experience with the information or skill to be learned, most people
will be able to master the skill. This occurs best when there is no
time limit set for acquiring the skill and supportive experiences are immediately available to the
learner. The technology
age creates a natural environment for mastery learning because children of all economic
divisions have access to toys stimulating early computer learning. Words are
not even necessary to attain mastery of technological interfaces, as
"point and click," "drag and drop," and "up one level"
enter the language of the 21st Century child, who can implement technology with the
intuitive or psychocybernetic capacity to master the computer
with clues from avatars and clip art faster than any adult who has not
been immersed in the digital age. Cooper also
points out what happens to the learner who becomes frustrated when encountering interfaces that are
not as quick or interesting as the media blitz in which they
live and breathe. Modernization of teaching methods does not mean
just using computers. It means a redesign of the entire educational
process, so that the child entering the educational system is not asked to
give up their joy and metacognitive skill level merely to fit into
established patterns of learning.. The Multi-tasking or M generation will require information processing merged with entertainment and
technology. Using teams and simulations are also described
as a professional and interesting addition to
teaching and learning. The conclusion
Cooper draws will impact not only nurses. The challenge of creating a sufficient supply of
nurses is the same challenge of creating a sufficient supply of
teachers in all disciplines. Directly relating this challenge to
utilize technological advances to encourage and excite young learners
with the need to find low-cost alternatives to traditional systems of
learning will advance the educational system. Daly, M., Examining the
undisputed link between income inequality and homicide rates, these researchers documented how
many Canadian and American cities and schools have suffered the
effects of children raised in generational poverty, who spend every day
with symptoms usually attributed to veterans who have seen combat
duty. Survival becomes the only important knowledge base for these children, who
often do not literally know if they will sleep in a real bed or in the
back seat of an old car on the road to somehow escape another day of
domestic or inner-city violence. Income inequality is seen as the
primary reason for inner-city violence. To respect the child is to encourage the child. Following the child from
two and up within a matrix created by the child and parent in
concert, teaching teams by simulation on a computer interface that can be
isolated from outer influences or access, children can be protected
as well as stimulated. Even a very young child without words
understands the hands-on motivation of game boys. "Point and
click" and "up one level" are understandings absorbed from technological
interfaces that are as familiar to the child in the industrialized
world as the connect-the-dots coloring books were to the baby
boomer generation. Computers are mastered easily by the 21st Century
child with home access. Sharing technology with even the poorest
homes is a goal set by such corporate giants as Microsoft. Poverty
hastens a lack of interaction with capable peers in middle class
or rich homes, and could inhibit later ability of the child to enter that
arena of public schools as other than a combatant for survival. The
access to technology provided in the digital age may well solve some of these
inequalities, as income can be generated online without
startup funds, and a global internet provides an opportunity to
become an editor, musician, or blogger with free email
and web pages available to anyone who has a library card or a friend with a computer. If inner city
violence can be solved with more global and cultural equity, then even those
raised in generational poverty have a chance at success in the global sphere.
Successful accomplishments are a guide to a
self-esteem that will allow the individual to achieve the potential
available to all. Emoto, M. (2005, Trans. into Emoto, M. (1999). Messages from water [Mizu
kara no dengen]. In the very first
years of the 21st Century, a group of scientists coordinated their research on quantum physics
and created a modern underground movie revealing the tenets of
quantum physicists to the general population. Six different countries
contributed footage. The pictures of a water molecule from an electron
microscope after freezing by Emoto reveal how the words or emotions of the
human organism affect water. Love is a word that creates a beautiful
snowflake-like molecule. Hate creates ugly and misshapen molecular forms.
These two texts and offerings from the Japanese scientist and
photographer who documented electron microscope photos of water molecules
shed more light on the realm of the microcosmic particle and how it can
be significantly affected by the very thoughts and emotions of
the observer. If the human body is made up primarily of water (the brain is
75%, the body 70% sea water), then it follows that the most important
ingredients for life, water and salt, would be subject to natural laws
of living systems, i.e. that the tendency toward chaotic synchronicity
is not a breakdown into simpler parts, but rather a buildup to more and
more complex organisms. Anyone who wishes to observe how much the
interaction of what Humphrey referred to as nouons proceeds in a changeable
world, simply look at these intricate pictures of a simple molecule. "Water has
memory and carries within it our thoughts and prayers. As you yourself are water, no matter where you
are, your prayers will be carried to the rest of the world" (Emoto,
2005, 6). What is the best water possible? This question
will create healing solutions when applied with positive intent and
the faith of knowledge. "The act of
living is the act of flowing. If a dam is built in a river to stop its flow, the river will die.
Likewise, if the flow of blood gets damned up somewhere in our bodies, it
will mean the end of life. The same is true for cities and countries.
...Just like water, people must always be allowed to flow
freely" (Emoto, 2005, 7). "An
important aspect of hado medicine is that the human body is considered to be a universe of its own. Our
bodies consist of some 60 trillion cells, each carrying out its
specialized responsibility while simultaneously harmonizing with other cells in a
wonderful way to make us who we are. ...the organs, nerves, and cells
of the body have their own unique frequency. The body is like a grand
orchestra consisting of the harmonization of various sounds. When something
goes wrong somewhere in our body, there is discord with one of the sounds.
And when even one sound is out of pitch, the entire composition is not as it should be" (Emoto, 2005, 52). The effects of
thoughts and emotions on water molecules that this study examined is possibly one of the most interesting
breakthroughs in modern science because it shows the
relationship between matter and thought. Society and individuals
affect each other and thus the responsibility for
social and economic inequities must rest squarely on the shoulders
of all stakeholders, teachers and students alike. Therefore, in the 21st Century schoolroom, peers and their ability to impact
others in their environments, even with their very
thoughts, will have to be the subject of further research. Teen
violence and suicide rates may begin to decrease as society itself begins to take responsibility.
This study is a very effective way of
illustrating the interaction of the human child with its
bio-system..
Green, D., & O'Brien, T. (2002, June). The
internet's impact on Documenting the
varied ways the internet has impacted teacher educational and curricular activities since the
advent of the 21st Century classroom, with internet access and
Microsoft programs for free at library and school, this article focuses on
how the culture of the classroom itself has been affected. The way in
which teachers have adapted their styles of teaching includes
curriculum accessed and shared online, lesson plans that can be easily set up
and reproduced for hard copies for students to take home, or e-published
for ease of access to any child doing homework with internet access.
The use of web quests to teach has also increased time the teacher may
spend in personal connections and mentorship with the students. The critical
analysis of this study indicates that a new variable has been cited as free internet
access allows for new and more creative learning
methodologies. Access to technology only available to large
corporations in the 20th Century has become the arena of
even the very youngest child, whose entry into the digital age is limited only
by others’ faith in their astounding ability to master the
computer as children of yesterday mastered the go-cart. This easily
mastered game technology offers a way to interact without even
learning to read. Graphic arts and computer software that
simulates real-world situations, within both the traditional classroom and any
new science of open systems learning centers, can supply a cost-effective, unbiased, and
non-threatening adventure in learning. This article therefore
pointed out one of the most glaring omissions in classrooms
designed by 20th Century mechanistic and
materialistic science, the absence of faith in a poor try becoming a
good try. Instead, these classrooms deny the child’s
potential with standardized tests measuring only two levels of
intelligence and grades and tracking that shrink rather than
grow a healthy, “bushy,” brain, with many dendrites and
connections formed by music and dance and artistic, creative interactions from the
earliest possible age. Those in generational poverty without this access at home could benefit by technology
access that could easily be made available locally in neighborhood
learning centers for even very young children to attend. Providing
access and understanding of new technologies can also include offering classes for the teacher by the
students who have already mastered many aspects of technology
at home before even going to traditional
classrooms. These advanced
students may also be utilized within the traditional classrooms as helpers and mentors
for those not yet granted equal access due to multiple
factors. Utilizing each other and the students as members
of the same team can also bypass pre-conceived bias on
the part of all stakeholders and can contribute immensely to the atmosphere
of trust where the self-esteem necessary for increasing
metacognitive and critical thinking skills in any population
can flourish.
Hockfield,S. (2005, July) An uncommon
celebration. “Our
challenge now is to create a broad, welcoming harbor that has room for every boat.” As the first
woman president of MIT, Susan Hockfield's analogy of MIT as a safe harbor for many boats echoes the
child's own innate joy in new discoveries and diverse learning
modalities. “Together, we need to be that
inspiration, to reveal those truths and those pathways to the next
generation. We need to be the spark that ignites the passion of every child
who wants to grow up to make the world a better place. We need to reach those
young explorers and bring them with us on the great adventure of discovery
and innovation that is the soul of MIT.” The encouragement that this gives women to enter the fields of Science, Technology,
Engineering and Mathematics is in offering up a role model of
successful competition in a world too often dominated by a majority of
men. Each child begins at birth a personally-guided tour on the Ship of
Discovery. Only including exciting opportunities for future students,
especially under-represented segments of the population such as the very
young child and minorities, will solve the gap of the digital age, as more
and more children gain access to laptops and game boys for educational
sharing of unique and potent visions of real-life and effective
reality zones that will benefit the community through Projects that are carried out by the students themselves. Thus, this article
offered valuable insight into the current paradigms that have launched a new and increasingly female
involvement in the areas formerly occupied by men. What is
called STEM, or the areas of Science, Technology, Engineering
and Math, had been traditional male areas in the
20th Century. In the 21st Century, however, this dearth of involvement by females and minorities may be easily solved, if constructivist learning
centers can replace mechanistic approaches to education
with the safe harbor for many boats mentioned as a
metaphor for a new paradigm that includes each individual learner
as a valuable addition to the resources of the whole scientific
community. That is why this aiticle is included, to show
how this new paradigm views education as a Voyage
rather than just a destination; synthesis itself is the safe harbor where many
boats may shelter. Hodges, D.A. (Sept. 2000). Implications of music
and brain research. This article
includes a fascinating amount of information on neuromusicology. Hodges cites the latest data
concerning the brain's musical ability. From conception, scientists
have found that the brain
is sensitive to music. The sound of the mother's voice is what the baby focuses on from
birth and even in the pre-natal stage. Music can create soothing
lullabies for restful and peaceful meditations. The young child is more sensitive
to mathematical and musical input than was
previously thought. In fact,
infants before one year old have been seen to understand the
universe, simply
from imitation and observation of parents and peers. Those children with many siblings might
have a head start, because of the amount of novel input they
accumulate from their first experiences of others. Lifelong learning is
affected by the intense experiences of the first few years of life and
kindergarten may be too late to correct these mistakes of early
childhood learned helplessness. Without a very focused program of inclusion and
restoration of self-esteem, the youngest children may never
recover their own original, innate, and inborn blueprint
for happiness. Learning a musical instrument affects brain
growth to a staggering degree. Research has shown that we
all have the capacity to participate in the music of our environment. The musical brain is the birthright of all human beings, so that all members of society, from cradle to
grave, stand to benefit from being musically involved. Thus, this study
examining the overview of research implicating music in brain growth was a very valuable addition to this Depth
analysis. How can studies linking the "bushy
brain" to music and mastery orientation be included in new paradigms
of education? This question will affect very early childhood
educators. How can they offer increasing access to musical instruments
and other knowledge bases without undermining the natural
child's innate interests and goals? By designing science of
learning centers that emphasize the child's goals, educators can bypass the M
Generation's addiction to game boys and roleplaying games
that emphasize violence and competition over
cooperation. Positive feedback loops may then be established
within the ecological systems that the learners inhabit. In the cultural and societal, as well as home and school, environments, (or ecological systems) in which the individuals
live, the only added ingredient necessary in a recipe for lifetime learning and happy and fulfilled selves is the trust and appreciation by others in their
immediate environments for their value as unique individuals with
unique skills and goals. Hogan, K., &
Corey, C. (2001). Viewing classrooms as
“Four vignettes, drawn from various stages in the
process of designing and doing a science experiment, revealed a variety of
fifth-grade student perspectives and interactions within the context of the
composite culture we created to blend our pedagogical goals and classroom
constraints with a view of science as a collective enterprise” (Hogan &
Brown, 2001, 230).
some of the sense-making tools of science, as modified and presented within
the composite culture of the classroom, at least in part to conflicts between
individualistic—oriented ideologies of school to which students are firmly
acculturated, and the collective-oriented ideologies of the scientific
community we chose to emphasize” (Hogan & Brown, 2001, 231). The research topic is an examination of
contextual scientific thinking in a fifth grade class. Aspects of both case study and ethnography are
present. The authors used literature to support their
study’s need, to support methods and curriculum used, to support
data analysis techniques, and to
support their interpretations of the answers. Thus, the literature facilitated a context for
the study and informed their analysis, as well as
the methodology used by the teachers’ interactions with students. Field notes, videotape, audiotape, peer reviews,
interviews, semester-long participation in scientific evaluation, all these factors helped to facilitate this study. However, a critical analysis of
this study would seem to indicate that the dichotomy between a scientific paradigm
that encourages cross-disciplinary research and one that does not is one of the least–addressed in
the literature and one of the most important in creating
an atmosphere within the classroom of teamwork and cooperation, a necessary part of
life and learning. Hunt, P., Soto, G., Maier, J. Liboiron, N.,
& Bae, S. (2004) Researchers in 2
studies investigated the effectiveness of a general education collaborative teaming process in
increasing the engagement, development, and learning of preschoolers with
severe disabilities. These children were placed in general education
early childhood programs that operated under a team-teaching model. The
process included monthly team meetings to develop educational and social
supports for targeted preschoolers. The educational team members then
collaboratively implemented the ideas they developed together as
a support team. Study 1 focused on 3 teams composed of early childhood
and special education teachers, instructional assistants,
speech/language therapists, and parents who supported a child with significant
disabilities attending one of the 3 participating preschools. Study 2 extended
the collaborative teaming model to include all preschoolers with disabilities attending one
of the preschool programs from the first study that required
intensive levels of support (4 children). The effectiveness of the
collaborative development and implementation of support plans and the extent
to which the collaborative teaming process was judged to be
useful in producing positive child outcomes was evaluated in both
studies. Teams were found to be of help to each child and the support of
the team members helped make the inclusion of disabled children in the
normal classroom situation less stressful for the teachers and
their students. Inclusive education occurs when young children with disabilities are members of the same
classrooms and community settings as their typically developing
peers. This study was
very effective in establishing the team as a necessary ingredient in successful
learning. A team includes all the necessary feedback to
model open systems that can grow and evolve along with
the children they serve. Emotional involvement and communication are also very much under-studied variables in
educational circles, but ones that may well be the
determining factors in success or failure, especially for the developmentally disabled who enter traditional schoolrooms. For these and
many other reasons, this study is valuable and should be offered as an approach to education that will include teams for every child, whether they
learn slowly or quickly. Li, Y.L. (June 2004). A school-based project in
five kindergartens: In this study,
the practice and belief of a group of around 60 teachers were tracked. The merits of peer
coaching, mentoring and collaborative teamwork were
examined. Classroom observations and semi-structured
interviews (40 to 60 minutes) were adopted as the main research
procedure. Teaching records, videoed teaching
episodes, and feedback on project workshops were sources of data collected for triangulation. The
findings of the study suggested that collegiality holds some promise for change in teachers' practice.
The presence of an encouraging mentor from among
one's peers explains how this study incorporates the use of Vygotsky's ZPD and also the intent found by Jung
and Maltz to be the most important variable in
having fulfilling interactions with others. Questions
concerning the constancy of change were seen by this study
to be of concern. The potential for successful peer collaboration will also benefit by the inclusion
of a simple methodology that anyone, teachers or
students alike may benefit from in the area of staff development,
if used collectively and with positive feedback
loops established that can only produce open systems
with quantum physics perspectives on growth. Li said that some
researchers have suggested that, in order for teachers to grow as professionals, schools
should be transformed into communities in which self-renewal through
collaborative networks supports instructional improvement. Of
particular importance is acknowledging participants' existing beliefs and
practices. The current study employed an inquiry approach. With this
approach, the participants determined their individual and collective
goals, experimented with practices, and engaged in open and trusting
dialogue about teaching and learning with colleagues and outside
facilitators. This study was
effective in pointing out how important self-esteem is to the learning process, in teachers’ early classroom experiences. Models
for optimum growth in both child and mentor need to be addressed. Therefore, Li's research offered a very good model that may well launch more effective research in
this field that has been under-studied and is
therefore under-determinable in terms of new paradigms. Renee, P.M., Snyder, J., Schrepferman, L.M.
& Snyder, J. (Sep-Oct. 2005). This study was a
longitudinal examination of 267 boys and girls. WCT is defined as parental warmth,
communication, and tracking. Monitoring child conduct problems from early
elementary school at age about 5.5 years to late elementary school, age
9.5 years, this study indicated a relationship between WCT in early
childhood and reduced incidence of conduct problems into
the first grade. WCT was also prospectively associated
with effective self-monitoring into the third and fourth
grades. The results of the study were described in a transactional model of
parent-child relationships and child problem behavior. Overt conduct problems
in kindergarten and a growth in covert problems
during kindergarten and first grade were also associated with less
effective later monitoring. This study is one of the clearest indications
that parental involvement and interest is more important to the early
childhood learning experience than is usually accepted in the
educational community. Each child has parental warmth as a catalyst for the
development of self-esteem. Communication is also an important factor in the development of a mastery orientation and achievement motivation. Pointing out the
ability of hugs and communication to expand Vygotsky's ZPD to include the fixing of behavioral problems before
entering school, these researchers also document
the need to provide more input and support for parental involvement and interest in the child in both long- and
short-term school relationships. Modeling positive
discipline that includes the wishes and input of the child may also be a factor that is
under-studied in the research. How can blocks to the flow of
learning be included in these tracking models, as the
influence of the teacher is probably also not included in this research?
These and many other good recipes for lifelong learning models need further
studies! Stacey, R. (2005). Affects and cognition in a
social theory of What constitutes
intelligence? The theory of mind describes an area of research focusing on the brain's ability
to understand mental concepts such as desire, belief, the existence
of others, and the difference between the appearance of things and the reality
of things. On the level of quantum physics perspectives of the truth of reality, dependent not on an eleatic or static
view of the universe, but on an observer-dependent view of infinite possibilities, where anything is possible and
the scientific method is found to be biased. The acceptance of reality
as a wave form instead of a particle, or a musical interlude versus a boring, macrocosmic, limited-by-death, experiment in human suffering, frees every individual to
become, through intent and practice, a master of anything! When the organism
or system in question allows flow among its members, harmony results. This is the
function of feedback. Advances in the study of infant cognition systems
challenge the definition of intelligence. Is a person's ability to solve
problems, utilize logic, and think critically, the typical measure of raw
intelligence? Howard made up of autonomous faculties that work
individually or in concert with other faculties. Creating a simple methodology
of feedback and choice will bypass the blocks to a freely
flowing and viable system of global creativity and future accomplishments. This study effectively
linked the unconscious processes with the ability of the child to become a contributing part of the group or ecological system they inhabit. If the society
or group itself is not functional, how can the growing child become
functional? Just as Vygotsky
explored the ZPD and its functional purpose in childhood development, so this author
explored the relation of the brain and its processes to
the group or social system within its individual ecosystem. This research is valuable, because it
opens the human individual to the system or group it
inhabits and helps to explore the ways these variables and funstions
interact. Cooperation produces group flow, as does an
unbiased observer practicing qualities of compassion and interest
in uniqueness. Strogatz, S. H., & Steward, Although this
article is not from a peer-reviewed journal and it is somewhat dated for the requirements of this
annotated bibliography, the continuing research documented in a recent text
by Strogatz (2003) called SYNC, makes this research important to
document. The questions addressed concerning the
functionality of synchronization may be the best way that the perspectives of quantum physics and
electromagnetics be introduced to the student. What is the answer to including
chaotic and creative uses for education in the 21st century matrix that
includes more technological innovations at a more rapid rate
of inclusion in lifestyle choices than at any other time in the history of
humanity and the future of the global sphere? Species degradation and
extinction is increasing, as humanity's consciousness becomes more aware
of the effects of short-term decisions based on greed and habitat
rape and destruction. Some solutions
are to be found in replacing rain forests by selling trees that are planted and nurtured as habitat restorations for
twenty or more years. Just as the methods of constructivism emphasize
a student's ability to solve real-life, practical problems through a
hands-on approach, the theories of chaos and sync emphasize the unique
contributions of each member of a team or species to become
synchronous, just as any living system is found to be creatively chaotic while
still capable of harmony without repetition. The example of an orchestra
that plays the same piece, but never the same way twice, is Strogatz's sample of chaotic synchronicity. What
do the pendulum and the firefly have in common? Including the quality
found in the rhythmic pulse of a firefly with the variable of the
rhythmic amble of an elephant, the antics of birds and bees, ants and
gazelles, the authors produce a model of behavior that produces chaos
that syncs, like an orchestra with many instruments playing in
harmony. Eco-habitats may be seen as not only bio-synchronous but also
musically intelligent systems producing and affected by electromagnetic wave
forms of unique symphonies. This study
illustrated the need for re-introducing music and the playing of instruments as essential for human growth at the earliest age possible. Almost every study has linked brain functions
like cognitive ability with access to stimulating
avenues of learning that can only be provided through the musical and
artistic avenues. These are still mostly ignored by
contemporary educational systems, despite the enormous volumes of research that
link imagination, appreciation, and self-motivated practice at any task to both
metacognition and self-esteem. Through focused practice, one becomes a master, not through being tracked or labeled throughout
life with the bias of the past attempts to become a
master. All areas of brain growth are enormously improved in students who take up the practice
and mastery of an instrument. Many research studies support the
healing power of music, as well as pointing out some of the basic
principles and perspectives of cognition to the developing brain. Therefore,
this study offered some of the most valuable insights
into these links and variables affecting cognition and bio-synchronocity. If music itself is the
determining factor in reality as we know it, then why are the children being
denied this avenue of learning? Just as fireflies
attain this quality, so can the children of the future utilize
harmonies not yet seen and synchronicities not yet envisioned
by a materialistic paradigm. Wetherby, A.M. et al. (2002, December 1).
Validity and reliability of the Language, & Hearing Research, 45(6), 1092-4388. Three studies were
conducted to evaluate the reliability and validity of the three measures used in the
Communication and Symbolic Behavior Scales Developmental profile (CSBS DP).
The authors of these studies used multiple regression analyses that
indicated the CSBS DP was a valuable screening and evaluation tool for
identifying children with developmental delays at 12 to 24 months. Their
research also indicated that developmental delays in infants and
toddlers were not being identified. This prohibits, according to their
conclusions, the provision of early intervention for many
children and families who were actually in need of such services as were
mandated by the IDEA or Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
According to the 22nd Annual Report to Congress in 2000, 11% of
school-age children received special education services, but only 4.9% of
preschool children received special education. Only 1.6% of infants and
toddlers received early intervention services. The authors said
that these statistics indicated a need to improve early identification procedures in very early
childhood. Identifying these young children is, according to the
authors in these studies, one of the most critical issues facing those
required to implement the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The
authors stated that children with delayed communication skills
needed to be identified even earlier, before language develops. They also
found that the relationship between language and play was so important
because play forms a context for language learning. The authors'
investigation was part of an ongoing longitudinal study of the Project called FirstWords.
The first goal of this project was to screen over 5,000 children between 6 and
24 months who represented the demographic composition of
Talahassee, developmental delay were the target population.
The second goal was to conduct a follow-up evaluation annually for ages
2 to 5 years old on at least 500 children who were under 24 months of
age at the time of the first or initial contact. The purpose was to
study the relationships between prelinguistic communication measured
under 24 months, and language, cognitive, and emergent literacy
skills measured during the preschool years. The families of children in the
bottom 10th percentile and children (randomly selected), performing
within normal limits on the screening checklist, were those invited to do
participate in a follow-up study. The sample thus included both children
developing typically and those with mild to moderate developmental
delays. The study
reported findings from the screening of the first 2,500 children and follow-ups on about 250 children at
2 years old. The standardized language test was conducted by an
ASHA certified speech-language pathologist in a small,
child-friendly, clinical room for one hour. The ASHA-certified interviewer
used the Preshool Language Scales-3 (PLS-3) or the Mullen Scales of Early
Learning (MSEL) to measure receptive and expressive language. The authors of
these three studies concluded that their findings supported the use of the CSBS DP as a screening
and evaluation tool for children 12 to 24 months. It maximized the role
of the family in evaluation with what they judged to be
cost-efficient parent report tools. They were concerned that the results
indicated that, unless better measures are used, children who will
require special education when they get to school age will be missed. The
test procedure they used determined if very young children might be
developmentally disabled in order to recommend the use of early
intervention, especially in homes where generational poverty or non-English
speaking households were found. Do the current
tests for very young children produce valid results? They found that no really conclusive results
could be obtained, due to the presence of too many variables in the test
population. However, the test as it exists was found by the authors to be a valuable resource in the sense
of some results that are apparent that might indicate the need for more
constructivist exposure at earlier and earlier ages. The IDEA is the
law mandating family-centered practices for infants and toddlers. The eligibility for family
services at the time of this article's publication is determined for early
intervention services by a range from 1 to 2 standard deviations below the
mean. To improve the effectiveness of scales used in early
identification of children with developmental disabilities, the authors
determined that eligibility criteria must become more realistic and identify
more of a proportion of children who need help. Because 10 to 15% of
school-age children have disabilities, earlier identification of the
majority of children who might require special education at school age. By setting the cutoff at 2 standard deviations below the mean, which corresponds to
the bottom 2nd percentile, most of the children who will
require special education, according to the findings of the authors in this
study, will not be identified in time for early intervention to be
successful. When they get to school age, they will continue to be
missed and under-identified with the current structures and limitations of
the social system. According to the
authors, the CSBS DP Infant-Toddler Checklist, CQ, and BS were designed to measure seven
prelinguistic skills: emotion and eye gaze, communication, gestures, sounds,
words, understanding and object use or play. The CSBS DP was nationally
field-tested on 2,188 children for the checklist, 790 children for the
CQ, and 337 children for the BS. Study 1 used interrater reliability
data and retests for about one-third of the samples. The reliability
raters were not informed as to whether the sample was an initial sample
or retest. Researchers utilized Pearson product moment
correlation coefficients (r) to calculate the relationship between the test
and retest scores. One of the
limitations of this study was the lack of representation of families from lower socioeconomic status
levels. There seemed to be significant differences between families of
different socioeconomic and social classes in word comprehension, so this
omission may have radically affected the results. However, the
test as it exists is valuable in the sense that it definitely
indicated the need for more exposure to Problem-Based Learning or
constructivism at earlier ages than currently considered in the
curriculums. Also, the advantage of including parents in the
testing of very young children is made apparent. Without considering the ecological systems and cultural systems of the individual child, as
well as developmental delays caused by physical and
emotional factors, no real connection to the child or
their unique behavioral patterns and learning styles can be established. Nutritional factors also need to be
considered, so that all variables in a recipe for wholeness may be addressed and utilized in the very early childhood experience. In the
last decade of the 20th Century, "traditional"
classrooms required earlier and earlier testing, as what was
considered third grade learning became kindergarten
material. Programs such as Head Start helped prepare the children to enter the system called 21st Century
"formal" education. Wood, F. B. (1998). The n-dimensional knowledge
proximity approach After founding
the Computer Social Impact Research Institute, Inc. in 1979 in CA (CSIRI), Dr. Fred B. Wood, the
inventor of modern radar for WWII, who worked for MIT and, later, IBM,
for thirty five years at the interface between hardware and software. Dr. Wood spent many years in independent and
unfunded research. As the only major contributor to both his own non-profit and others he co-founded such
as the ERS (Earth Regeneration Society), his
contributions have gone unsung. With Alden Bryant, Dr. Wood offered a
plan to reverse global warming as early as 1991, with
the self-published Whose World to Lose?, presented in of the co-founders, along with Dr. Ludwig von
Bertalanffy, of the former Society for General Systems Research that is now known as the ISSS. In this paper on
technology assessment presented to the ISSS (International Society of Systems
Science) at their 1998 proceedings,Dr. Wood offered a methodology for including many different perspectives and out of the box solutions to the
problems of creating open systems in any science or
organization.Dr. Wood offered this approach to problem solving by including variables that others might have
missed by visualizing a green cube of evolution, looking at the problem from many
different perspectives that can include science, philosophy, religion, or
any other discipline that has its own perspective..In this cube, shaped
like a grid with three axes, each side includes a group of disciplines that are located by letter of the alphabet and number, giving different perspectives on any
question that affects dynamic systems. Visualizing a large refrigerator
box, where the missing refrigerator represents the
center or design problem and the sides represent the sides of the cube,
is an easy way to access this information system in
the mind's eye. Access to the center, where all knowledge
combines in what we define as our reality, is always
considered from more than one perspective or discipline of science,
mathematics, engineering, music, compassion, etc. This approach can easily bypass
the realms of accepted knowledge and thereby eliminate some of the
dangers of biased viewpoints based on commonly accepted
paradigms. Dr. Wood observed
that reality itself may actually be a holofield or musically intelligent bio-synchronous system.
Each individual being within this holofield, in Dr. Wood's definition,
is coded slightly differently with their own unique
Galois polynomial and defined further by the biological
and spiritual wave formations indicated mathematically by two roots
from Maxwell's equations. The quantum view of reality is defined by the individual
observation and belief or experience at the center of each
unique ecological system. Each individual
being is a circuit in a bio-synchronous, electromagnetic, infinitely chaotic,
non-determinable, yet mysteriously harmonic flux, just as the individual cells in
the human body function together in harmony. Music has existed since men
first walked upright, and probably before, in the sound of water over
rocks on an untouched streambed, or the bubbling of the vortexial and
living water that kept the Hunza alive and healthy until 140 years old.
Is youth a function of living water, allowed to flow unhampered through
the veins of the earth in a symphony of understanding and joy
fountaining into life in harmony with itself? Does fear, hate, anxiety, anger,
and other emotion create harmful dis-ease within the heart, causing
blockage and death? Is being thankful for life more important than even
adequate water and nutrition in a formula for vibrant health and healing
abilities? Perhaps each of
these questions can only be answered individually, because
beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as is joy. This individual
paradigm or perspective overlaps and coincides with others who interact
within the child's ecological system. and are often viewed from the different viewpoints or perspectives of several disciplines. Just as Lorentz, one of the
harbingers of chaos theory, was both a mathematician and a weatherman, so
scientists like Dr. Wood and Ludwig von Bertalanffy investigated many
disciplines that overlapped, helping to define organismic biology and the
theory of living systems. As Gleick's Chaos
Theory is often defined by the Butterfly Effect, so systems theories may be defined by the
dimensionality of the spider's intricate web. Each segment is unique, yet the
same, principles of intricate harmony and mystical reflection
revealed on a dew-dropped morning in the woods or shining in the
windowsill outside. What is the
nature of intelligence? Is it musical, magical, and illuminating? Is it
static and definitive? Perhaps the middle way is best chosen, with elements of both aspects of reality included in
the zone of proximal development provided by supportive and caring
members of a team of educators. Redefining how intelligence is
measured in human children may also encourage measurement and observation of
the intelligence of other species to be redefined, so that dolphins,
orcas, whales, and other creatures may be acknowledged for their own
intelligence and languages. If, using Dr. Wood's green cube of evolution, human semantics are redefined to include the language of the dolphins, who seem to speak
telepathically with one voice, then human beings may also be able to
redefine their own unique connection to a natural world. Dr. Wood's
theories of whole systems and advanced electromagnetics, and other social and
scientific issues might present valuable input to future educational
attempts to create viable 21st Century schools that learn. Technology is
thus best-utilized through team-based, hands-on,
cooperative learning. " By
exerting its will, Descartes declared, the immaterial human mind could cause
the material human machine to move" (Schwartz & Begley, 2002, 33). Gleick (1987), as
pointed out in the Breadth section, saw a new theory he called chaos to be the beginning of a
new science. From the first philosophies of ancient from psychoanalysis to quantum physics, that
have evolved in the new millennium, there is seen to exist in the human
being an innate desire to understand natural phenomena from many different
perspectives. What is the eternal quest in the human experience, but
the need to fulfill a voyage of discovery on the eternal seas of
knowledge? To learn through experience and feedback of the many senses is
the untaught way of natural and free-will-oriented associations that
determine self-fulfillment and ultimate wholeness. New
ways of defining both artistic and musical talent have
reformed the way 21st Century educators view and measure intelligence
(Gawain, 1995), (Hodges, 2000), (Frankl, 2000), (Stacey, 2005),
(Jung, 1957. Recent research shows that it is the hours of
practice that one puts into any craft that ultimately creates the
genius and mastery of any subject (Restak, 2005). Thus, it becomes a
necessity to introduce very young children to a wide range of
disciplines and to allow them the time for practice and reflection so necessary to
implementing increases in intelligence and
potential. Were the guilds of the middle ages one of the
best community answers to developing both
metacognition and mastery orientation? What variables
determine the quality of early childhood experiences? Habermeyer (1999), in her chapter on music's
power to educate, selected the work of psychologist Howard Gardner as the
biggest breakthrough in education in the 20th Century. multiple intelligences in the early 1980s. He
identified seven, than eight, types of intelligences. The eighth was
that of the naturalist. Before (Intelligence Quotient, reached through means of
standardized tests). Contrary to the fixed or predetermined
intelligence of the past, we have a tremendous capacity for learning a variety of
things throughout our lives. The possibilities are enormous in terms
of what we can accomplish! The bad news is, schools tend only to reward two of the types of intelligence identified by logical/mathematical. Six other areas are
equally important, but are not necessarily acknowledged in school. They include
musical, bodily/kinesthetic, visual/spatial,
interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalist. The good news is, that musical
intelligence is so powerful that, by learning a musical instrument and
studying the arts, the other seven types of intelligence can be developed at
the same time (Habermeyer, 1999, 138). She also pointed
to research from 1988, when the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational
Achievement conducted a test to evaluate the science proficiency of
fourteen year olds throughout the world. Seventeen countries participated,
but the in only fourteenth, a sad result considering
that on math and science programs were twenty-nine
times that of any other country in the world. The top three countries in
this study were alike in having music programs as part of the
curriculum for students from an early age, showing that the inclusion and
development of musical ability is a particularly effective
way to integrate creativity with responsibility.
This leads to self-actualization, metacognition, and
ultimately, as Jung (1957) defined it in the previous section, with
ultimate selfhood that is whole (Hodges, 2000), (Hall & Nordby, 1973). This brings the dynamics of the organizational and educational systems back to
the original question: What is intelligence and how do children really
learn? and theories, and many other studies cited in
Habermeyer's text, dramatically conclude that "...music may
help children learn more and more readily, beyond the limited contexts in which
their musical intelligence is generally put to use" (Habermeyer, 1999,
139). Neuromusical research hints at a direct link between music and brain
growth, even at the fetal stage! Neurological
studies may offer some clues about the foundations of creativity, metacognition, physical interfaces
and emotional intelligence. The neurological perspective
begins with studies of brain development. Jensen (1998) cites several
interesting studies that explain the development of the human brain. He
states that the human brain weighs about 3 pounds and is large
compared to body weight. It is about the size of a grapefruit and is mostly
water (78%), fat (10%), and protein (8%). Its importance as a critical part
of the nervous system is uncontested, although it has been found that
there are more brain cells in the gut than in the brain itself (Rubin, 2003). The brain's nerve cells are connected by nearly one trillion miles of nerve fiber. Jensen states that the human brain has the largest uncommitted cortex (no
specific function has been identified so far) of any other species on
Earth, although those who have also studied whales and dolphins might disagree. The
human brain is energy inefficient, because, although it is only about
2% of the body's adult weight, it consumes about 20% of the body's
energy. The blood cells (about 8 gallons per hour, or 198 gallons per
day), supply glucose, protein, trace elements and oxygen. Water
provides the correct electrolytic balance for the brain's proper
functioning. Without at least 8 to 12 glasses of pure water per day,
dehydration results, leading to lethargy and impaired learning
(Batmanghelidj, 1995). Where is the most
significant impact on later success in school to be found? It has been shown that the brain cells
are made up primarily of two types. There are neurons and interneurons
or glial cells (glial is Greek for glue). Although glial cells
are predominant, neurons are essential for the brain to work. They have a
compact cell body, dendrites, and axons. They serve to pass on
information that flows in one direction: from the cell body, down the
axon, to the synapse. They make connections. More connections, just as in
any system capable of feedback, make for more efficient
communications. Learning occurs when a cell requires less input from another cell each
time it is activated. To the brain, exercise is doing what it already
knows and stimulation is doing something new. Learning happens on many
complex layers at once, from cellular to behavioral. Chemicals such as
serotonin, dopamine and noradrenaline produce behaviors in a classroom
such as attention, stress, or drowsiness. The internal
communications are through peptides, not synapses. Almost 10% of children under 5
have photographic memory, as do 1% of adults. The mind is a process, not a
thing. It is what the brain does. It is estimated that the human uses
less than 1% of 1% of the brain's projected processing capacity. What then is the
behavior seen as intelligence or genius and how can it be encouraged? The earliest opportunity
to prepare a child for school is in the womb. A developing fetus is
very sensitive to stress and poor nutrition, as most brain cells seem to
be produced between the fourth and seventh month of gestation. These
neurons form a vast network and the developing brain grows so fast that, at
its peak, the embryo is generating brain cells at 15 million cells per
hour, or 250, 000 per minute (Jensen, 1998). This rapid neurological
development is primary to what constitutes intelligence. Emotional
intelligence is learned mostly in the first year of life. Children need close, connected interaction and
handling, an attunement (Emoto, 1999), (Habermeyer, 1999). Early
troubled relationships could cause the child's brain to consume glucose that
could be used instead for early cognitive functions. Early exposure to
stress and violence causes the brain to reorganize itself,
increasing receptor sites for alertness chemicals that increase reactivity and
blood pressure, making the child more aggressive and impulsive in
school. Many studies have linked aggression and impulsivity to a lack of
early motor stimulation such as crawl time and also to a lack of musical
input, as the inner ear's vestibular area is seen to
play a key role in school readiness; the lack of such stimulation has been linked to dozens of learning problems, including dyslexia (Restak, 2005). Research indicates
that learned behavior can result in peaceful coexistence and self-actualization or
in human aggression (Anderson & Huesmann, 2003). It is the
desire to fulfill oneself in a commitment to mastery orientation that results
in behavior seen as genius or intelligence. Talent might create
innate desires and goals, but mastery comes through practice. Giving the
child, especially in the earliest years, when behavior patterns are often
set and hard to change, the most opportunities to have safe but novel
experiences with caring members of an inter-generational team, will
create the necessary environment (or ecological system), for optimal
brain growth throughout life. The positive
effects of being held, nurtured, and sung to, especially in infants, was discovered by seeming
coincidence, as the foundling homes in the nineteenth century had
100% mortality rates until an elderly lady was hired who sang, held, and
nurtured each infant (Habermeyer, 1999). Then the infants thrived!
Researchers into longitudinal studies of a quality they defined
as a combination of parental warmth, communication, and tracking
they called WCT seemed to have discovered a link to better cognitive development from early
childhood on into the early school years (Renee, Snyder &
Schrepferman, 2005). Discoveries such as these were usually from one
or more forward-thinking and unbiased individuals,
showing, through their actions, the effectiveness and validity of their belief systems. To include
factors affecting nutritional as well as psychological health in
the domain of the young child and allow them the joy of scaffolded
learning without stress or pre-judgments will aid the implementation of
cost-effective methods for providing stimulating environments necessary for
the growing brain. The ability of a child to thrive in the correct
environment will be dependent on the ability of the teacher or
mentor to stimulate and aid the young learner and to establish open systems
of communication and feedback. As the relation
between the living organism and the open system is revealed as a living matrix within both
organizational and social systems, each individual who realizes these
connections can reap the harvest of the qualities of emergence and synchronicity found in nature and
inter-species interactions. Revealed in recent action research
in the fields of science, education, and technology, the
functions of open systems are seen to integrate technology and humanity, as
the worldwide web grants access to all ages and races and income levels. This input and the increasing amount of information has created what has been named the
M or Multi-Tasking Generation (Wallis, 2006), (Scott & Pawson,
2000). These principles
and functions informing open, living systems have been described, analyzed, and synthesized in
three parts in the Breadth section, and the Depth will continue this
analogy by incorporating research relevant to the following topics: <> The Depth section
will use analysis and synthesis to investigate the impact of these factors on modern research
and organizational systems (Varela, 1999). Research on ways that
21st Century educators will utilize the principles of whole systems to
increase student engagement will be analyzed. Organizational and
social aspects of education in the 21st Century will be
synthesized and integrated with this theory of living systems (Hanson & Zercher, 2001). New perspectives
and paradigms await the renewal of the 21st century educational system. What constitutes
the quality called SYNC or Synchronicity? The example of an orchestra may
best describe this quality. Each individual plays a separate
instrument, and may follow a different piece of music, but the whole together
creates a symphony that, through the practice of
harmony, becomes more than the sum of its parts Strogatz (2003) described this quality and
linked it to Johnson's theories of emergence and Gleick's
theories of chaos. This quality exists everywhere in the natural
world and can be seen in the behavior of fireflies, the amble of an elephant, the leap of the gazelle, and the
behavior of the stars and planets. The complex world of
the atom and the patterns inherent in nature are closely intertwined. The qualities of synchronicity
indicate why sacred geometry, mathematical genius,
musical interaction, and creative, team-oriented arts
are so closely inter-related in a truly open system (Strogatz,
2003), (Johnson, 2001), (Barabasi, 2002). Brain-based
research implies that all individual beings have a capacity for synchronous behavior
(Jensen, 1998). Many miraculous occurrences of idiot savant and
disabled children who played piano like masters after very little practice,
seem to indicate a relationship between music and intelligence that
bypasses the normally acquired knowledge base. How both music and the
science of mathematics indicate the link between quantum physics
perspectives on reality and the functions of electromagnetic waves will be
described in the following quotes. As the qualities of living
beings that create emergence were defined in the Breadth by
considering the theories of whole systems that sync, so the ideal of
bio-synchronicity will be defined in the Depth by exploring different
scientific understandings of natural phenomena. Steven H. Strogatz
and Ian Steward (1993) described the behavior of fireflies and the history of the researchers who studied their
unique behavior (Smith, 1935), (Trimmer, 2001). Each insect had
its own rhythm, but the sight of its neighbors' lights brings that
rhythm into harmony with those around it. Just as the methods of
constructivism emphasize a student's ability to solve real-life, practical
problems through a hands-on approach, the theories of chaos and
sync emphasize the unique contributions of each member of a team or
species to become synchronous, just as any living system is found to be
creatively chaotic while still capable of harmony without repetition (Oshry,
1996), (Mirollo & Strogatz, 1990) (Pikovsky, Rosenblaum, &
Kurtis, 2002), (Reiss & Marino, 2002). The example of an orchestra that plays
the same piece, but never the same way twice, as that would be boring, is
Strogatz's sample of chaotic synchronicity. For example, what do the
pendulum and the firefly have in common? Strogatz and Steward observed:
"...a mathematical discipline that has its most visible roots in
particle physics appears to govern the leap of the gazelle and the
ambling of an elephant. ...techniques borrowed from statistical
mechanics illuminates the behavior of entire populations of oscillators. It seems
amazing that there should be a link between the violent world of plasmas,
where atoms routinely have their electrons stripped off, and the
peaceful world of biological oscillators, where fireflies pulse silently
along a riverbank. Yet there is a coherent mathematical thread that leads
from the simple pendulum to spatial patterns, waves, chaos and phase
transitions. Such is the power of mathematics to reveal the hidden unit of
nature" (Strogatz & Steward, 1993, 109), (Buck, 1988), ( This mathematical
functionality also reflects the musical nature of the universe, as well as describing chaos. As
Strogatz described: "The idea is that, in a chaotic system, small
disturbances grow exponentially fast, rendering long-term prediction
impossible" (Strogatz, 2003, 183). What defines chaos and how does the concept of a
symphony orchestra illustrate this functionality in the natural
world? Strogatz (2003) defined chaos in the following quotes: Ecologists
stumbled upon chaos in a simple model for the dynamics of a Scientists and
mavericks in their fields produced advances that bypassed accepted knowledge in the interests of truth. This was how the science of chaos came
about, through synchronicity and hunches, followed by reflection and unbiased observations. Hunches
and reflection produce the most inventive and creative flow
(Maltz, 1960). The teachers of the future can bypass the blocks
of industrial age ideas of a static reality that
does not respond and grow with the needs of the
stakeholders in the communities and educational systems that
serve them. Although chaos seems random, it is generated by non-random laws. Chaos can sync.
...To These quotes set
the stage for the amount of synthesis and integration that this Depth section attempted to
present, as they indicate the variables that will be necessary to
include in a recipe for educational excellence in 21st Century schools.
To see from an advanced perspective that certain underlying
rhythms and musically intelligent organisms populate a musically
intelligent and, perhaps, musically maintained universe, is only possible
when the blinders of superstition and unnecessary secrecy and lies
are stripped from the eyes of the industrially-controlled world (McNally,
1979). How can teachers of the future become viable members of schools
that maintain open systems of feedback and understand the relevance
of chaos theory and quantum physics? Dealing with generational
poverty and media blitz, the M Generation has the digital
age as its major source of input. The M Generation
is one that is immersed in multi-tasking: E-mail, downloads, cell phones, music, videos, game boys
and technology. The global playing field of the internet has
increased access for even very young children to be part of something never
seen before: a world capable of instant feedback and knowledge
exchange (Martin & Hewstone, 2003). How will young
children process knowledge from almost unlimited sources? Will coping with
depressive behaviors continue to dominate psychological arenas? How
will tomorrow's teachers cope with such depressive behaviors? How will
they stimulate positive learning experiences in Pre-K and kindergartens
that are using inclusion and teamwork for differentiated classrooms?
Inclusion is having disabled children in classrooms with their peer groups of
normal intelligence (Rafferty, Piscitelli & Boettcher, 2003).
Differentiated classrooms are those that allow different learning styles for
different types of learners (Tomlinson, 1999). The areas of
psychology, nursing, education, staff development, early childhood
education and inter-generational teams, systems theories,
quantum physics, chaos theory, emergence, and sync are all included in
the following synthesis that attempts to answer some of these important
questions (Hunt, Soto, Maier, Miller & Goetz, 2002), (Hunt, Soto,
Maier & Doering, 2003), (Hunt, Soto, Maier, Liboiron, & Bae, 2004),
(Ingram, 2000). Many researchers
have explored the link between depressive behaviors, early childhood experiences, and
motivation (Daly, Vasder, 2001), (Das, 1995), ( motivators have been found by psychologists and
general systems theorists to be of more lasting effect and to
have a greater lifetime impact on learning, far greater than the amount
of knowledge the memory might be able to retain. If
the child is allowed to choose their own scientific explorations, as Vygotsky observed, then their internal desire to learn new things will
create the required Zone of Proximal Development or ZPD best suited to their own individual learning
styles. When an interested
and non-judgmental peer or adult offers help and mentoring, then
growth of both brain and educational systems become
more dynamic and inter-related and proceed effectively without
any need for external interference or motivators. Feedback becomes
automatic in the course of any successful TEAMS Project. As also cited in
the Breadth section, the ecological systems theories of Brofenbrenner
(1996) indicate
the direction that 21st Century education must lead to help society utilize and improve both organizational and educational systems so
as to include this all-important variable of feedback. Feedback or
cybernetics affects the dynamics of an open system and allows the growth
of healthy interaction for all stakeholders within the system being
evaluated. Brofenbrenner, whose ecological systems theory explored in the
Breadth was based on a circle of interaction that progressively
expanded to include the environment of the individual beyond the
immediate family, as school and playground experiences occur, spent many years
of research on the effects of generational poverty and exposure to
violent behaviors. He found an alarming trend toward suicidal tendencies
and to increasing rates for dropouts in American school systems. What are the major
causes of such trends? Learned helplessness is what happens to a child
or an adult when traumatic experience causes actual
changes in the axons and neuronal links in the brain. A shrinkage of the
connecting dendrites results in the lack of what is called a
"bushy brain," one of the indicators of functional intelligence. Even one
traumatic experience can cause shrinkage in these links and can result in
long-term inability to function in learning environments that others
might find comfortable. This physiological change is also seen in
animals. It can be reversed with the use of several solutions recommended by
studies into brain-based research. One academic program, the
SuperCamp model, took students, many with a history of chronically low
levels of motivation, and, using follow-up studies as feedback models,
found that, after attending for only ten days, students became
insatiable learners who "...improve grades, school participation,
and self-esteem" (Jensen, 1998, 68). Creating emotional bridges between students
and teachers, eliminating the threats, high levels of novelty,
movement and choice: all these can dramatically increase levels of low motivation, even among children who have
experienced learned helplessness. "Teachers who
specifically design their learning to have dozens of methods
of learner-generated feedback,...not one or two,... find that motivation soars. Peer feedback is
more motivating and useful than teacher feedback in getting lasting results"(Jensen, 1998, 69)
Emphasizing internal motivation over external is the most important
way that teachers can give their students the
correct attitudes for excellence. How can the child
learn, unless they wish to learn? No amount of threat
or stress can replace the internal motivation that Louv (2005) found in the child able to integrate
their experiential reality with and through the
natural world. It is this world that informs and delineates
real experience. Filling in a big picture first and filling in the details only when going into specializations at the high school or even
college level will bypass limitations imposed by arbitrary assignment by
grade instead of inclination to share with a group of willing
team members of many ages (Daley, 2005), (Arbaugh, 2003), (Chen, 2002),
(Bransford, Brown & Cocking, 2000). Instead of providing
motivating activities in a group that will automatically provide
positive feedback to even the most disabled or youthful member of
the team, many teachers still put children in rows at desks and expect them to follow the same unsuccessful routines that plagued those who came before them. Learning by
doing needs to replace empty memorization and over-emphasis on homework through shared vision and schools that are
capable of becoming open systems (Senge, 1990). Violence
is created by frustration and the lack of ability, real or imagined, to effect positive
change within the ecological systems of home, school, playground,
and society. Many case studies follow happy, creative children through
a school system that creates a downhill slide of learned helplessness
culminating in thirteen-year-old drug abusers and suicides. There are
alternatives. In Gerald Corey's (1986) overview of the theory and practice of psychotherapy as a counseling
technique, the ability of the researchers and physicians to connect with
the individual and make reality meaningful is based on the notion that
the brain gears all behavior to fulfilling basic human needs
such as belonging and attaining a sense of self-worth. When this
destiny is thwarted, pain results. When we meet these psychological needs,
we develop an identity characterized by success. Corey points out that,
from 1965 through the 80s, the renowned psychologist Glasser used a
system he called Reality Therapy. His premise was that the
individual only relates to experiences and retains information that is
relevant to their reality and belief systems. BCP is the quality of behavior
being controlled by our perceptions. In Reality Therapy, the open
system in question was seen as created by the interpersonal
relationship between the client and the therapist (Corey, 1986). One of the most
powerful predictors of a teacher's impact on students is the teacher's belief that
what s/he 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, when the most growth and learning occurs, when brains and selves are still in early stages of development (Berends,
1986), (Erikson, 1980)? Enough individuals in the
environment of the child for positive interaction to occur creates the
self-esteem necessary to attain compassion and conscience at an early
age. This early stimulation seems to be the key ingredient in producing
creative, whole, lifetime learners, and its lack in the earliest years may
be one of the major causes for children, as more and more families see the
necessity for both parents to work merely to survive. Could it be that the
lack of progress and the dearth of American students entering the science
and engineering fields in the 90s could be the lack of belief in, and
input from, the learners themselves? This subject requires further action
research. What is
bio-synchronicity and how does it relate to the creative individual? The ability to act in a manner
similar to the slime mold, whose behavior was the model for most software
programs, is not generally accepted as a measure of intelligence.
Letting go and letting it flow, however, are actually natural functions
and laws of open systems that point the way to a new
and more interesting educational future for 21st Century learners (Wood, 1998). Nature was the teacher that most scientists consulted. Like
a waterfall that simply exists to create a song of water hitting rocks
far below, with integrated counterpoints in spiral harmonies and
vortexial rhapsodies echoed in the stars and planets as they move
slowly through space, the most important ingredient in creative learning
is the freedom to interact and respond to a musically intelligent
universe limited only by the imagination itself, if quantum physics is to
be believed. The truly creative individual is not motivated by external
rewards, but by the internal quest for new and novel experiences.
Only when the individual is encouraged in this quest with positive
feedback from peers and mentors does their ZPD blossom like a lotus
flower opening to include ever-widening ripples of creative force.
Eventually, this stimulation results in the child becoming the mentor to
those who lie below their own level of mastery (Ridley, 1996), (Renee,
Snyder, & Schrepferman, 2005). This can only increase the potential for those
who follow, just as the guilds of the middle ages
passed on skills to their apprentices. The formation of viable teams was a
natural part of life before the industrial age. Every member of a
team can help each other to enter into a sanctuary zone where anything
attempted becomes possible. This is when true bio-synchronicity occurs and
harmony in every chaotic endeavor is the result. The fact not only that
every system becomes differentiated from every other
system, but, more importantly, that the system becomes different
within itself: this is what ultimately defines an open and viable
system. The question then remains, is intelligence a function of
experience (Narby, 2005), (Frohof, 1983)? Neuroplasticity
may be described as the ability of the human brain to change and grow at any stage of life, not merely
in the first few years after birth. This is the newest research showing
the potential of the organism to be a creative and
open system that can emerge into the qualities necessary in biological organisms for synchronicity to occur. Thus, the human organism, capable of quantum
leaps of faith, can evolve into more than the sum of its many parts
(Restak, 2003). When the human being is given the opportunity within its own
circle or ecological system to be creative and appreciated, its
natural inclination is always to seek to satisfy its inborn curiosity and
potential. It is this inner motivation that creates the required environment
for this potential that Strogatz called SYNC and Johnson named Emergence
(Strogatz, 2003), (Johnson, 2001). When the human
being is merely given the opportunity to become creative, its natural inclination is to seek to satisfy the innate drive for new and novel experience. This crucible of
experience was what Leonardo da Vinci called the best teacher. Just
as dreams and visions help humanity to successfully navigate the
shoals and currents of the organizational systems that define society and
governments, so the miracles of bio-synchronicity will help to guide
the 21st Century human to a better global partnership, making it
possible to attain the bioethical behavior that will be
necessary for healing global warming and environmental degradation of habitat and to share with and care for all the
other species sharing the planetary biosphere (Wood & Bryant, 1992), (Kraft,1983). The periodicity of
fireflies gathered in the trees along the river and the integrity of bio-synchronous behavior: these can easily
become the subjects of reflection and insight. To synthesize and integrate molecular biology
with inter-species communication will also reveal the
missing part that art and music gave to those lucky or blessed enough
to have mentors and peers who inspired them to the ever-greater
levels of mastery and achievement found in art and music (Bamsey &
Clark, 2005). Maltz (1960) regarded Psychocybernetics as a new science that
gave insight into why mental picturing, often associated in the past
with magic, produced such amazing results in his own life and practice.
Psychocybernetics, as discussed in the Breadth, regarded the human
brain, nervous system, and muscular system, as a highly complex servo-mechanism.
This automatic goal-seeking machine steers its way to a target
or goal by use of feedback data and stored information,
automatically correcting course when necessary. However, this automatic creative
mechanism (seen in the reflection and hunches that almost always
accompany creative genius), must have a target to shoot at. Seeing something
clearly in the mind's eye while relaxing from strain, the creative
success mechanism takes over and does the job much better than an
individual could by conscious effort or will power. The master pianist
practices, but at the moment of performance, it is the surrender to the music
that produces the masterpiece. To see oneself as the best one
could be in the imagination, in Maltz's opinion, is a necessary condition to
personality transformation or physical healing, regardless
of the method of therapy. This builds new memories or stored data in the
mid-brain and central nervous system. All people are creative workers.
This echoes the work of Jung, Fromm, Vygotsky and Piaget cited in the
Breadth section. The same mechanism for success exists in every
individual, but is often only called genius when the person becomes a famous
writer, painter, or inventor. Early childhood
experiences can create learned helplessness, but replacing with achievement motivation and
mastery orientation can automatically reverse the process, correcting
behavior problems with the right attitudes toward health and happiness. Without happiness, creativity does not function well. Happiness is a state of mind that creates its own
goal-oriented behavior. Conscious behavior often inhibits and
jams the automatic creative mechanism. Giving all one's attention
to the present moment is one answer, but time for reflection and hunches
must be added to learning classrooms as well as training in an
attitude of happiness. Can this come about naturally if the right methods
are used, so that genius is as adaptable as possible to differentiated
learners? The human
organism is a feedback mechanism with complex interactions. Yet cells, brains, ants, and, yes,
even the humble slime mold, reflect the unfailing ability of Nature to
attain higher-functionality, as ever-more complex systems unite and harmonize
to emerge as a whole that is somehow, mysteriously, more than the sum
of its parts (Emoto, 2005), (Strogatz, 2003), (Johnson, 2001). Just as Gleick (1987) studied the new science of chaos, describing the evolution of
this new science from the reflections and hunches of many independent researchers, so every human, child, teenager, or
adult, can study their own attitutdes, choices, and
ecological systems to improve and arrive at a new paradigm
that combines these advances in brain-based research with the harmonies that can result from bio-synchronicity.
There were those
such as Jensen (1998), who co-founded SuperCamp, the nation's
first and still largest brain-compatible learning program for teens, who
made a significant impact despite the resistance of the status quo
to funding new and exciting technologies. There were over 40,000
graduates by the time he published his work in 1998. Remaining deeply
committed to making a positive, significant, and lasting difference in
the way the world learns, Jensen pointed out that very little
current brain research is directed at improving educational systems.
Grants, pharmaceutical firms, and private agendas drive the research, rather
than a group of professional educators. If lowering threat and
stress encourages more participation from the student, it will be the
teachers who will find out for themselves. "Brain-compatible
specifics for staff development include dialogue time, choice, reflection,
teams, journaling, peer coaching, more feedback, and experimentation.
These will evolve innovative models that optimally develop each
teacher's natural capacities. With minimal downside risk, we can
create new, complex, orchestrated learning communities that have the
capacity to push traditional achievement scores to new
heights" (Jensen, 1998, 114). What is the
current research about how the brain really learns? Cognition and meta-cognition are brain-based
functions that are present in creative environments that allow and
encourage the child to exercise their own unique talents and learning
styles. The ability to benefit both self and others is another reward
of intrinsic motivation. Jensen (1998) cited many interesting studies
about cognition. "In the classroom, there are three reasons why constant
attention is counterproductive. First, much of what we learn
cannot be processed consciously; it happens too fast. We need time
to process it. Second, in order to create new meaning, we need internal
time. Meaning is always generated from within, not externally. Third,
after each new learning experience, we need time for the learning to
'imprint.' In fact, new physical skills can take up to six hours to
solidify ...other new learning contaminates the memory process. Our visual
capacity, measured by bits per second and carried by the optical nerve, is
in the tens of millions (Koch 1997). That's far too much to process
consciously (Dudai 1997) ...so the brain continues to process information
before and long after we are aware we are doing it. As a result, many of
our best ideas seem to pop out of the blue. As educators, we must allow
for this creative time to occur. After completely new learning takes
place, teachers should consider short, divergent activities like a ball
toss or a walk that builds communication skills. Humans are natural
meaning-seeking organisms" (Jensen, 1998, 46). The value of
focused and novel learning times followed by the time to make this learning internal, plus the use of
nutrition and non-biased teachers who believe in their children, are what
brain-based research theories seem to indicate as most important to
cognition. Teachers as well need more quality time during the day for
reflection and relaxation (Li, 2004). Reversing the 20th Century
degradation of environmental and human systems is a necessary goal for teachers
and students alike. Unhealthy school lunches and over-emphasis on
grades, competition, and standardized tests, seem to
shrink the growing brain, just as learned helplessness inhibits brain function,
especially in very young children (Rose, 2005), (Rubin, 2003), ( Individuals are not blank slates on which to write, as John Locke proposed, but musical pinpoints of light in a web of harmonic
synchronicity that defines a viable ecosphere, an open system capable of growth and response (Pinker, 2002). "The morality
of the 21st Century will depend on how we respond to this The exponential
increase in violence and suicide rates for teens in the last half of the 20th Century may be a function of a lack of exposure
to the wonders of the natural world and the natural mind (Hanson & Zercher, 2001), ( (Fergusson, Grant, Horwood & Ridder, 2005), (Gordon,
1999), (Engel, 2002), (Emoto, 2005), (Emoto, 1999),
(Louv, 2005). Lack of funding for research and lack of resources for early childhood exposure to
multiple disciplines and hands-on learning centers may be
some of the causes that lie at the root of a failed system of education
that denies the child a sanctuary for learning (Reilly, 1999), (Green
& O'Brien, 2002), (Dils, 2004). Only unbiased and aware teachers and mentors can provide educational systems with the scaffolding and feedback
necessary for these organizations to function as living and
inter-connected systems (Bertalanffy, 1975), (Bertalanffy, 1972),
(Bates, 1997), (Bales, 1999), (Baker, 2001), (Gorski, 2001), (Barabasi, 2002).
Teaching Design by TEAMS Methodology will create hubs and mentors
capable of affecting their own open systems (Li, 2004), (Gay &
Airasian, 2003), (Fuster, 2003), (Cooper, 2006), (Bertalanffy, 1975).
Low-cost and effective measures are not necessarily at odds (Brown,
1981), (Goldstein, 2002). Simple solutions that provide a framework for
teams that function by a rigid set of rules, but are ultimately
underdeterminable and infinitely evolving, may be attained with open systems that
are open to all stakeholders, students and teachers alike. In
fact, it is often in the early peer relationships of sharing and caring
that the child develops the most important virtues for a successful
life. Many teachers themselves may have felt a calling at an early
age to be guides and mentors to their younger siblings or peers,
setting a foundation that can create master teachers in later years.
Vygotsky's ZPD must be considered important in all mentor and team relationships. Learning-by-doing, also known as Problem-Based Learning or PBL, needs to replace
empty memorization and well-meaning but demanding homework
assignments, stealing time for reflection and the practice of immersion in the
solace and freedom of nature, because the natural world in its
integrity is the best teacher (Harada, Lum & Souza, 2003), (Wood, 1987),
(Ansary, 2004). According to many
researchers, violent behavior is created in the young child by frustration and lack of ability
to effect personal and positive change within the ecological systems of
home, school, playground, and society (Barcelo, 1993),
(Anderson & Huesmann, 2003). Even the hint of sarcasm has been shown to cause
a heart attack in those already susceptible to one. If thoughts can affect water molecules, what can thoughts do to each other: teachers, students, parents, and administrators alike? Bodies are made up
of over 70% water, and the brain has an even higher percentage of
water. Many case studies follow happy, creative
children through a school system that creates a downhill slide of learned
helplessness culminating in the increasing incidence of violence and
depressive and even sociopathic disorders in children as young as
thirteen years old: alcoholism, drug abuse, and potential violence
and suicides. There was recently a PBS special following one young child from a healthy, four year old, creative individual, happy to share their talents, to a thirteen year old
rebel who wished only to react with suicidal tendencies and escape into
drugs. This is caused by rebellion against a school system perceived by the child to be closed and controlling and capable of hurting and hating,
something often caused by inconsiderate peers. Unfortunately, this slide
into depression and learned helplessness is not an isolated incident,
but affects a growing number of children and teenagers. What is the
answer to building community and schools that interact and
accomplish shared visions and local and global solutions, while still allowing
the young child the joy in lifetime learning so necessary, according to
Jung and other psychoanalysts, for wholeness and mental, as well as physical, health (Hodges, 1996), (Senge, Cambron-McCabe, Lucas, Smith, Dutton,
Kleiner, 2000), ( accomplished by using new techniques, as more and more variables are revealed through
systems applications and action research. MIT First
Woman President Hockfield (2005) said, in her inauguration speech, that
the ideal future for scientists at MIT is to provide a safe harbor of
understanding for many boats of discovery. To become capable of
competing and cooperating in a world gone flat because of global outsourcing
and other new economic technological innovations of the 21st Century
marketplace, the new global economy will have team members that
understand and appreciate the new theories of chaos and synchronicity and how
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Table of Contents
Table of Contents
1
Introduction 1
Depth: SBSF 8320
Current Research in Organizational and Social
Systems:
Annotated Bibliography: Chaos Theory & Open Systems 2
Chaos Theory & Open Systems: Synthesis 37
1. Variables and principles of open systems 45
Theory and Motivation 46
2. Bio-synchronicity in open systems 50
3. Bio-synchronicity as the foundation for creativity
55
Conclusion 62
References 66
Introduction
Annotated Bibliography: Chaos Theory & Open Systems
Nursing Forum, 41(2), 47-48.
rates in
Journal of Criminology. 43, 219-236.
practice and classroom culture.
T.H.E. Journal Online, Feature.
Retrieved August 12, 2002 from:
http://www.ascd.org/readingroom/edlead/9404/dwyer.html
Technology Review: MIT's Magazine of
Innovation.
Retrieved, April, 2007: from:
http://web.mit.edu/hockfield/speeches/2005-inaugural-address.html
Music Educator's Journal. 87(2), 17-22,
cultural contexts for fostering
scientific literacy.
Anthropology and Education Quarterly 32(2), 214-231.
“We attribute our students’ reactions to using
Collaborative teaming to support preschoolers
with severe disabilities who are placed in
general education early
childhood programs. TECSE, 24(3),
123-142.
The case of teacher development and school
development.
International Journal of Early Years
Education, 12(2), 143-154.
The joint contribution of early parental
warmth,
communication and tracking, and early child
conduct
problems on monitoring in late childhood.
Child Development. 76(5), 999-1014.
unconscious processes. Group Analysis, 38(1),
159-177.
biological synchronization. Scientific
American, 269(6), 102-9.
communication of the symbolic behavior scales
developmental profile
with very young children. Journal of
Speech,
to technology assessment: The case of
electromagnetic
systems. ISSS Proceedings, 1998.
Depth: Chaos Theory & Open Systems
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
1. Variables and principles of open systems:
Open systems as a function of SYNC.
wildlife population. ...a handful of pure
mathematicians starting with Henri
Poincare... had known about chaos for 70 years.
...that's typical of the
obstacles facing the development of any
cross-disciplinary science"
(Strogatz, 2003, 194).
understand how chaos works, the first step is
to understand chaos
itself. ...In colloquial usage, chaos means a
state of total disorder. In
its technical sense, however, chaos refers to a
state that only appears
random, but is actually generated by nonrandom
laws.... It looks erratic
superficially, yet it contains cryptic patterns
and is governed by rigid
rules. It's predictable in the short run but
unpredictable in the long
run. And it never repeats itself: Its behavior
is nonperiodic. The chaos
governed by the Lorentz equations, for example,
is vividly illustrated
by a strange and beautiful contraption, a
desktop waterwheel designed by
William Malkus, one of Lorentz's former
colleagues at MIT (Strogatz,
2003, 184-186).
2) Biosynchronicity in Open Systems:
Theory and Motivation
3. Bio-synchronicity as the foundation for
creativity in the natural world.
Conclusion:
Nature-Deficit
Disorder and a Flat World:
Indicators Of a Pressing Need for Reforming
American Educational Systems
simple but profound question: does every human
life have equal moral
value simply and merely because it is human?
Answer yes, and we have a
chance of achieving universal human rights.
Answer no, and it means we
are merely another animal in the forest"
(Smith, 2006, #127).
References
for KAM III Depth
A social-cognitive view. In M. A. Hogg & J.
Cooper (Eds.),
The Sage Handbook of Social Psychology.
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