think4change.org

Researchers are working to clear away the freeway gridlock that is overwhelming at times in large metropolitan areas globally.  And just what are they studying to solve this problem? Ants.  Slate has a video describing this phenomenon here. As it happens, ants have developed what scientists call "distributive intelligence" - a way to communicate with others from the colony in real time important information about the shortest, quickest route to potential food sources.  Instead of using biochemical pheromones to communicate with other drivers, real time information will be distributed to other drivers on the same route advising them when it is best to take an alternate route.  

In one sense we are already experiencing the implications of "distributive intelligence" when reading this blog entry.  The packets are continually "learning" which is the fastest route from one server to the next to the end user.  The difference is that the packets are to communicating with each other the way ants do.

This "distributive intelligence" model may have far-reaching implications for all sorts of learning beyond solving traffic jams.  Who knows, perhaps a better understanding of bees will help relieve the gridlock in the skies.

Again here is a link to the video (about 3 minutes long).

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Sociology professor Ulrich Beck, from Munich's Ludwig-Maximilians University and the London School of Economics has a thought-provoking article in the Guardian on how the conversation about increased use of nuclear power is being framed by political leaders today.

He writes:

"...the actors who are supposed to be the guarantors of security and rationality - the state, science and industry - are engaged in a highly ambivalent game. They are no longer trustees but suspects, no longer managers of risks but also sources of risks. For they are urging the population to climb into an aircraft for which a landing strip has not yet been built."

Several of the comments are worth a look as well.

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This "Teacher Corp Academy"  is one of the ideas bandied about by a panel at "EDin08", America's Education Crisis: Pursuing Academic Excellence.  EDin08 is an initiative that grew from the Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors Strong American Schools project. This  nonpartisan campaign is also supported by The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and is dedicated to "promoting sound education policies for all Americans".

Then again, maybe there is already one in the making (see below).

Even though it is difficult not to notice that the entire panel was comprised of white males, the ninety-minute panel discussion is worth a look.  Also, there was very little "kid focus" to the conversation.  The conversation was advertised as  a look at some of the political implications of the educational crisis in the US, and to that extent it fit the bill.

Several participants - notably the superintendents from New York City and Prince George's County in Maryland - really nailed some key points about the gap in achievement between the privileged and those living in poverty.

The conversation about standards is an important one.  According to John Deasy (from PG County) the standards need to be "higher, deeper and fewer".  They did seem to dance around some of the barriers to national standards, and especially a candid assessment of No Child Left Behind.  It would also have been helpful if the panelists decoded "state's rights" and "local rights" in this context.

Also, missing from the conversation was a discussion of the purpose of public education.  It appeared axiomatic that the only reason to educate children is so that we, as a nation, can be more competitive with children in other countries.  Admittedly, math and science proficiencies are crucial, but so is critical thinking and creativity.

It is still amazing that discussions about the need for increased time on task are still in the mix.  Solid research on that issue has been around for at least twenty years.  Yet, we still are discussing it instead of increasing it. Just like the school year and the school day.  An indication of just how many contravening forces are at play in American education.

And from what all of these experts said, it is very clear that initiatives like the On The Move's* REACH Institute is at the cutting edge of the creation of these new teachers.

To repeat, a useful conversation to drop in on. It would have been great, though, if some representatives from academia, like folks from REACH and some classroom teachers, had been on the panel.  Or at least a woman, or a person of color.  Maybe next time.

Here is the link on FORA.tv.

* On The Move is a member of the Whitman Community.

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Recent empirical research from Taipai has validated anecdotal evidence that has long suggested that medical practitioners have a physiological capacity to disengage "natural" empathic responses to seeing others in discomfort, or in pain.  This kind of neurophysiological research leads to any number of questions about the interplay between thinking and feeling.

Here is one of the interesting research findings:

Physicians registered no increase in activity in the portion of the brain related to pain, whether they saw an image of someone stuck with a needle or touched with a Q-tip. However, the physicians, unlike the control group, did register an increase in activity in the frontal areas of the brain--the medial and superior prefrontal cortices and the right tempororparietal junction. That is the neural circuit that is related to emotion regulation and cognitive control.

The research was focused on acupuncture practitioners exclusively.  One question that emerges from this study is whether or not there is a similar, yet dysfunctional, capacity in sociopaths for instance to "turn off" empathy when they see others in pain.  And of course that would lead to the possibility that such a switch might be turned on.

Here is a longer discussion of the study along with appropriate journal links.

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The Wise Heart, A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology, Jack Kornfield's latest work, is well worth a read, even if you have very little interest in the particularities of Buddhist Psychology.  The book combines many lessons learned during the forty odd years he has been a practicing Buddhist with twenty-six principles of Buddhist Psychology that he has studied and help refine over those years. The result is a very practical map into a world that is both extraordinarily complex and profoundly simple.

Kornfield teaches at the Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Marin County, and the Insight Meditation Center in Barre, Massachusetts. Those experiences gave him an enormous amount of anecdotal material to make these principles very clear and available to the average reader, while also making striking parallels to traditional western methodologies.

Interwoven throughout the book are stories from his own family life that are carefully crafted to add to our understanding of this discipline.  At no time did I have the sense that I was reading an Oprahesque tell all - even though these personal stories spoke of some very difficult times in his life.

Also, Kornfield brings a number of his clients into the conversation.  Normally I tend to skip over "case studies" in such books.  They are usually much too long with more context than I want and less relevance than I need.  In this book it is different.  The "cases" are really brief, tightly focused vignettes that capture the essence of the principle being discussed.  I was left with powerful personal sketches that continue to stay with me, and are very helpful in keeping the more abstract principles grounded.

The author does not shy away from difficult, and sometimes arcane, notions within the Buddhist psychological systems.  There are the healthy and unhealthy states of desire, the eight levels of the jhana states "that open the door to illumination".  Not to mention the "alchemy of transformation".  Woven through entire book, though, is how mindfulness, compassion and lovingkindness are some of the essential tools we bring into any transformative relationship that might lead to an end to suffering.

Finally, at the end of each chapter Kornfield gives very clear practice instructions to activate these principles into everyday life.  No doubt these are the same practices he suggests to his meditation students during retreats. 

The eastern psychology systems - in tandem with many centuries of consciousness studies, ethical systems, and spiritual practices - are in many ways far more advanced than our western perspectives on the nature and function of emotions and thought processes. This is especially true when looking at human beings through lenses other than those provided by the DSM.  

As an advanced practitioner in both eastern and western psychological traditions, Kornfield has added important new ways to approach many psychological questions, such as how we construct and make meaning of our world, the interplay of thinking and feeling, individual and social identity, reality and self as social constructs, and so forth.  Questions that are at the forefront of many conversations that members of our community have every day.

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Minerva, the Greek goddess of wisdom - and it should be hastily added of warriors as well - is coming to the Pentagon in the form of a new initiative aimed at getting academicians to weigh in on various security issues.  In a recent New York Times article, Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, would like to have his department fund research projects in the humanities much like it currently does in the sciences and engineering.

In its [ed - the Minerva Project] written call for proposals, the department said Minerva was seeking scholars who can, for example, translate original documents, including those captured in Iraq... The department is also looking for computational models that could illuminate how groups make what seem to be irrational decisions, and decipher the way the brain processes social and cultural norms. [emphasis added]

The project, focused as it is on issues of "soft power", is not without its critics.  Some see inherent conflicts of interests if the Defense Department is the organizations tasked with approval such RFPs, rather than the National Science Foundation, while others see this as an opportunity for historians, anthropologists and other social scientists to join the national conversation on security.

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Seems so. That's the number of parts per million of CO2 that the planet can seem to handle reasonably safely. We are not there. We are somewhere above that number. The higher we go, the more stress on the planet - more global warming, more Al Gore movies, more apocalyptic scenes from the bible...

Seriously, there is a site that is dedicated to educating the population and creating pressure on thought leaders around the world to bring that number down. Bill McKibben and his colleagues are serious people with the hard data of science and the soft power of persuasion backing them up.

Take a look HERE at 350.org. Help get that number down.

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The dean of Boalt Hall (UC Berkeley's School of Law), Christopher Edley, has published an open letter on the school's website in response to a number of appeals to fire John Yoo, a tenured professor, and the principal author of the now infamous "torture memos" (PDF).  These memos seemed designed to give legal cover to the Bush Administration to use "enhanced interrogation techniques" on suspected terrorists. A number of organizations and individuals, including The National Lawyers Guild, a human rights group, have criticized the university for keeping Professor Yoo as a faculty member.

The letter is a valuable read for a number of reasons, not the least of which being as a reminder of the purpose of tenure at a university.  All too often tenure has come to mean a kind of guarantee for permanent employment.  The dean reminds us otherwise.

Without tenure, professors in universities might tend to shy away from controversial issues.  They might "play it safe" and in so doing short change their students by denying them a rigorous airing of various issues that emerge from any meaningful dialogue in the classroom, or in the world for that matter.  And they may become reticent to research "controversial issues".

Here is a snippet:

It seems we do need regular reminders: These protections, while not absolute, are nearly so because they areessential to the excellence of American universities and the progress of ideas. Indeed, in Berkeley's classrooms and courtyards our community argues about the legal and moral issues with the intensity and discipline these crucial issues deserve. Those who prefer to avoid these arguments--be they left or right or lazy--will not find Berkeley or any other truly great law school a wholly congenial place to study. For that we make no apology.

The dean for his part is not at all reticent to take issue with, or at least raise serious questions about, Yoo's tortured legal wrangling that sought to place the President beyond the law in his role as Commander-in-Chief, even to the point of ignoring treaties and other international agreements that according to the Constitution are the supreme law of the land. He writes:

There are important questions about the content of the Yoo memoranda, about tortured definitions of "torture," about how he and his colleagues conceived their role as lawyers, and about whether and when the Commander in Chief is subject to domestic statutes and international law.

The dean is reluctant, no adamant against, initiating any proceedings to strip Yoo of his tenured faculty position. In doing so, Dean Edley has demonstrated the clear thinking, and determined leadership that apparently was so lacking in Yoo's memos. 

Academic freedom is still alive and well...and we suspect not just at Berkeley. Oh, and "Go Bears!"

 

Again here is a link to the letter.  

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Several of us at TWI been looking at how the interplay between thinking and feeling leads to effective (or ineffective) action.  For the most part we have looked at this anecdotally.  

Here is an interview with Harvard Kennedy School Professor, Jennifer Lerner. She is the director of the school's new Laboratory for Decision Science.  Professor Lerner studied this phenomenon in the lab, and then nationally after 9/11.

Some snippets: 

In our early laboratory studies, we found that experimentally induced fear and anger did indeed have these opposite effects on risk perception. However, this lab research was not a sufficient test of our hypothesis...

In the aftermath of September 11th, we realized that, tragically, we were presented with an opportunity to find out whether our lab research could predict how the country as a whole would react to the attacks and how U.S. citizens would perceive future risks of terrorism. We did a nationwide field experiment, the first of its kind....

The results mirrored those of our lab studies. Specifically, people who saw the anger-inducing video clip were subsequently more optimistic on a whole series of judgments about the future--their own future, the country's future, and the future of the world. In contrast, the people who saw the fear-inducing video clip were less optimistic about their own future, the country's future, and the world's future....

Again, the entire interview is HERE.

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So, you are at the beach.  Which is more dangerous: the sand or the water? Or you have to decide which is safer for your child: riding in the school bus (without seat belts), or in the passenger seat next to you (with a seat belt and shoulder strap).

This recent article on risk assessment graphically illustrates how our emotions often cloud our reasoning when we are trying to make decisions about risk.  And what is the impact of all these disclosures about lead paint in toys, and cough medicine for children on our capacity to make effective decisions?

The author notes:

Perhaps the most insidious change is with the rare but spectacular risks. The sensational tales of brain-eaters and sand killers. Such stories have always existed, of course, but something is different now, and that's the Internet. Ubiquitous access combined with the bazaar potential publishers means the freakiest event can be shared by millions of people. Anyone can read about it, blog about it, link to it, forward it in e-mail, and post it as a Flash video, but there's no impetus for them to disclose the risk responsibly or reasonably. Their agenda may even call for them to twist the truth, make the risk seem more or less serious than it is.

Here's the paradox that rises from all of this: As an individual and consumer, I like disclosure. I want every corporate and civic entity I place trust in to be accountable. I want journalists and scientists to unearth the risks I'm not being told about. At the same time, while any one disclosure of a threat may be tolerable, or even desirable, the cumulative effect of so much disclosure is, frankly, freaking me out.

Interesting article that dovetails nicely with some of the work by Whitman grantee, Decision Education Foundation.

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