Project Wonder - Day 66 - Uncertainty

Penn & Teller are two of my favourite performers. Teller is one of the most creative magicians I've ever seen. Here, let your mind wander for a few moments.

Don't worry, I have no idea how he does it either.

To be honest, its a little unsettling. But then again, its supposed to be. What we saw Teller perform defies so much of what I've (we've?) come to expect from the world. Indeed, this is what the experience of magic is all about, a momentary challenge of what we think we know. 

I often see magic, and illusion, as powerful tools to remind ourselves that we almost never see the full picture. That our sensations, perceptions, and interpretations of our experiences in the world are always partial. We are forever collecting puzzle pieces, though we will never know when the puzzle is fully complete. 

To put it another way, we may be 99 percent sure that the sun will rise tomorrow because we've always known it to rise. But is the sun rising tomorrow an inevitability? 

There it is. Another moment of doubt. They are few and far between sometimes. At least until we grow aware of our mind's propensity for blocking out windows of uncertainty. When we choose to challenge what we think we know to be true, either by asking questions, or pursuing new experiences, we open doors to possibilities. 

We are forever making a map of the world. A map of smaller maps. Our words and memories create a psychological landscape of what we believe the world to have been, and continue to be. But we must recognize the limitations of our cognitive cartography. As Alfred Korzybski suggested, "the map is not the territory."

The reality you and I experience is not the same reality. We live in the same sea of uncertainty, perhaps, but we do not have the same map of the sea. And we can never be sure that we're talking about the same sea. And though sometimes our maps seem to overlap, but we must remind ourselves that we might be wrong.

The experience of magic has a similar effect of bringing us into the realm of the nebulous and fuzzy "might be"s. The marginal degrees of uncertainty contained in all of our constructs of the universe contain infinitely deep rabbit holes of possibilities. "What if"s are borne out of not knowing. And magic reminds us that there are a lot of "what if"s we'd never considered before.

What if we could somehow get comfortable with not knowing? With the partiality of our maps, models, and stories? What might we learn then?

Thank you for considering.

Yours generally semantically,

Brandon

Project Wonder - Day 65 - Connections

I spend a lot of time encouraging students to be creative.

Obviously, I'm not the only one who sees the value of creative thinking. But for many people, creativity is "just" a perk of the arts, associated with games, and doesn't have any place in a serious classroom.

Today I overheard not one but TWO separate conversations between students, who were discussing why creativity is so important to them.

One student complimented the other on his ideas after a Brainsprout. I pretended to work at my desk across the room.

"I really liked where your head was, very creative Louis." Cristian often uses the pseudo-joking compliment.

Louis was obviously flattered, but played along: "Yah, thanks. I've been feeling extra creative lately." He shows a new dance move, that's absolutely ridiculous. The two laugh.

Later on this afternoon I happened to overhear a conversation between two girls in the hall outside the classroom.

"What format did you use for your ISU?"

"I just wrote an essay. Boring. But I couldn't really think of anything creative."

"What? You can write in anyway you want? Just imagine a bunch of different possibilities. Then you can choose one you really like."

I really can't fully describe the depth of my joy at overhearing these words from students. While I'm not sure that creativity is most OVERLOOKED piece in the education puzzle, I DO think that if more students developed their capacity for creative thinking, our communities would be a very different. And not just because they'd be full of innovative, limit-breaking ideas.

So what exactly is creativity, and what is it good for?

For me, creativity simply refers to the ability to develop original, meaningful ideas. It stands in contrast with conformity (blind or intentional), and habituation (a sort of self-conformity).

It's important to note that in my definition creativity does not refer to a character trait. Creative thinking, rather, is a skill that can be learned by everybody. In fact, all of us are already creative in some degree though we are completely unaware of it. And we can certainly choose to exercise our creative thinking skills more regularly.

I've also learned that being creative does not mean avoiding habits at all costs, or never agreeing with groups. It simply requires the ability to generate original, meaningful ideas. And there are lots of ways to do this.

One of the ways involves learning to connect two seemingly unrelated ideas. There are many examples of combined ideas all around us. Soccer + baseball = soccer baseball. Legal pad + computer = tablet. High five + long distance = air high five.

One of the creative warm ups I sometimes use with students involves making a list of as many ideas as possible that connect two random objects. For example, I will ask students to generate 100 ideas relating a banana with a chair. The students go to work:

"Make a chair out of bananas"

"Put bananas on students desks every morning as breakfast"

"Carve a seat out of a banana tree"

Try it yourself. I bet you come up with at least 10 different (albeit silly) ideas in a minute.

So much of being creative lies in the ability to make connections. We all make connections readily, most of the time without realizing it. The problem is in actively practicing developing ideas. To make connections intentionally can seem risky. After all, if I suggest some ideas and one of them is "bad" or "stupid", I might easily feel embarassed or judged or at least uncomfortable. Being creative requires a bit of safe space at first.  Unfortunately, it seems many classrooms don't create the space or encourage the practice of creative, possibilities thinking. And of course, there are many teachers and classes that do.

Once you've had practice taking risks and making connections in a safe space you eventually develop the courage to try and explore different possibilities without a safety net. Creative risks become easier, knowing that "bad" ideas often lead to better ones. Learning lies in every experience, and which means taking chances and playing with ideas can be valuable in themselves.

What if the purpose of school was not to help students find a career, but first to help them find/create a sense of purpose? Wouldn't learning to be creative help students write their own unique life story? Might they not be more willing to seize the day? It seems to me that finding a sense of purpose informs our decisions: how we spend our time, energy, money. In other words, having a purpose might help one navigate a career path.

Creative thinking, and the desire to learn, are intertwined. Students who have developed the ability to connect seemingly distinct ideas must also be practiced in learning from others' ideas.

Creative idea generation requires the mindset of possibilities without prejudice. Students must be open to all ideas, willing to gain from everything.

Students who are more creative have the ability to connect and find relationships between distant ideas. They are practiced in making meaning out of difference, and novelty. They will find ways to embrace diversity and uncover relationships. Creative thinking requires an attitude of compromise.

All of us are creative. But we learn to tell ourselves that we can't. From all sorts of places. Can't is a bad habit.

And sure, habits are an inevitable part of being human. But can't we choose to build more creative habits of thought? What, really, is the cost? What are the biggest barriers?

Semantically,

Brandon

Project Wonder - Day 61 - Dissonance

"Is it always to be a winners-losers world, or can we keep everyone in the game? Do we still have what it takes to find a better way?" - Robert Fulghum

In our psychology class we often refer to the idea of cognitive dissonance. When we hold two beliefs or thoughts in our mind that disagree with each other we experience a sort of tension or discomfort, and our minds take measures to settle this discrepancy. For example, I often feel guilty when I throw away uneaten food, knowing that my waste would feed a hungry mouth. Or when I believe that making healthier choices will benefit me immeasurably and catch myself scarfing down a bag of potato chips.

Our minds are meant to make sense of the world, and when things are in disagreement it means we haven't quite figured everything out. It's really quite unsettling, and is dealt with quickly by dismissing one of the thoughts/feelings/actions in disagreement and subsequently rationalizing our answers ("I know that eating junk food is in disagreement with my desire to live better, but I've worked so hard this week. I deserve this salty snack. Besides, it's just this once.")

The original proponent of Cognitive Dissonance Theory was Leon Festinger. He suggested that our minds are motivated toward a harmony of ideas and beliefs, or at least away from disharmony. Peace of mind.

Not only do we attempt to harmonize internally, but socially as well. We strive to fit in, to be part of a group and share perspectives. We enjoy being around those similar to ourselves. But perhaps we get a little too used to an inherited worldview, reinforced by surrounding ourselves in a community of those who share it. So much so, that we have a hard time seeing things any other way. We may internalize the assumption that there is only ONE RIGHT WAY to see the world, and begin to view differences as a threats.

This would be okay if it ended here.

Unfortunately the way we often deal with threats is by squashing them, instead of examining our own fears. We rationalize so much of opponent-squashing behaviour in the name of a right cause. It doesn't occur to us that we might be wrong, because our ways have always worked for us. Whoever Us is.  Under this view differing opinions and their owners are obstacles to our interpretation of the greater good, and somehow we are more comfortable justifying wars and violence than we are of admitting to our own human fallibility.

Our culture of violence is growing steadily as we gain more and more capacity to connect with multitudes around the world, rapidly increasing our exposure to different, and possibly disagreeing, attitudes and beliefs.  Arguably, the pace of this exposure is unprecedented, and somewhat ironically we must learn to grow accustomed to change.

Disagreement itself is inevitable, given the vast and unimaginable scope of human experiences. We can learn to accept this, but when our communities of self-fulfilling prophecies lead us to believe that others are wrong, we become defensive, self-interested, clutching our righteous inherited worldviews. And it's very dangerous when people begin to tell you "you're wrong because you're different."

Some people may have seen this video already. It is disturbing, and of course fascinating. And perhaps most important of all, it is telling of our increasingly violent behaviour on the basis of selfishness and entitlement. Perhaps we have grown too used to valuing our own interests, and devaluing others'.



Social harmony does not mean total agreement of beliefs. Indeed, that would be impossible. It does, however, mean not squashing others. Harmony is about co-existence, and getting used to the idea that we haven't got all the answers, if any of the answers, and that everyone's answer is worth listening to, for it might contain something we'd not considered before.

As my Mom said once to my siblings and I on our way to a visit with people we weren't particularly fond of as youth: "You don't have to like each other, you just have to get along."

Thank you for reading.

Yours in peace,

Brandon

P.S. When I watched the video above, I had to catch myself making character judgments of the store patrons. After all, in a similar situation I might behave just the same. Our problems are systematic, and somehow we're all a part of the same team.

Project Wonder - Day 60 - Big Buts

"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education alone will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent." - Calvin Coolidge

Today's theme is big buts. I cannot lie.

Before touching on that, I should perhaps offer a justification for my absence. Ok, so perhaps calling today's PW "Day 60" is a bit misleading. I had planned to take a day or two's break from writing to  prepare for the school's annual board inspection. And here I am eight days later having survived a hurricane of paperwork. I'm still feeling fairly one-dimensional, but the inspectors left with smiles on their faces.

It was an exhausting week of monotonous tasks. Getting lessons and records and schedules in order. This self-organization thing is tough. It's very hard to stay ahead of anything, and it will be wonderful to have the chance to be proactive again once this semester ends.

The rate that things are going I'm a little afraid to blink. Final exams finish on the 14th, and semester two begins on the 4th. I don't know what I'll be teaching yet, and I can't wait to find out. I have learned so much, these three months, about myself as a teacher, and about the minds of learners. Most of the learning about my teaching practice concerns what not to do. For example, I will never schedule five classes worth of 1500-word culminating projects for the same due date again. Never ever. 

I also feel like much of my time here has been about learning to work. And learning to continue to work, beyond excuses and other self-imposed barriers. Through observing students' alibi-generating abilities I am becoming more aware of some of my own guilt-ridden excuses, and the readiness with which my mind creates them.

The mind is very good at filling the space created in the wake of goals with "but"s: "I wanted to be a magician BUT I don't have fast enough hands"; "I tried to do the reading BUT I couldn't see because the power was out."

There are buts everywhere, and more and more it seems to me that the buts in our lives are the sources of all problems. We are really good at finding excuses in everything. Today I was speaking with a student about this very thing. 

There's a student who comes to class late every day, with a different excuse. He sits at his desk sans notebook, and when I ask him why he's unprepared he very easily casts responsibility onto others, whether his mother, the taxi driver, or even his little sister. It truly is fascinating. 

Today I became intolerant of his justifications for laziness, and asked him to leave the class. I gave him the assignment of sitting at the office and writing out every single excuse that he can think of to justify not being able to do/accomplish things. I told him to make sure he fills the page.

"But I can't write that long my hand cramps easily." 

"Well, pause when it cramps, and shake it out. Then continue."

"But the generator is too noisy I can't concentrate." 

"I think you'll find this task easy to complete" I sighed knowing the irony might be lost, and I left him. 

--

When I came back at the end of the period, he had indeed filled the page with excuses. It is honestly the first task I have ever seen him complete. He also seemed proud of himself, so we sat down to debrief.

We examined the list, and he admitted that he felt a bit ridiculous reading them all in a row. I admitted that I have a list of excuses too, that's a lot longer than the one he produced. I suggested that perhaps the difference between being successful and not has to do with how impossible these list of excuses are to circumvent. In other words, how big are the buts?

I can only hope to see this student growing in awareness of the buts that he uses to hide from effort. If he believes that the excuses are trivial, then he should have no problem. Little buts. If the excuses seem difficult or impossible to get around, one might refer to them as big buts. 

Today I'm aiming to always be cognizant of my buts, and to question just how big or little they really are. I hope to own my excuses, take responsibility for the ways I choose to view the world and subsequently the limits I choose to set.

Thank you for reading. 

Yours in but reduction,

Brandon

Project Wonder - Day 52 - Egos

"Make your ego porous. Will is of little importance, complaining is nothing, fame is nothing. Openness, patience, receptivity, solitude is everything."

- Rainer Maria Rilke

There's a poster in the library at school that reminds me on a regular basis that "listen and silent are spelled with the same letters." It's cute, definitely poster material.

But I wonder about the poster's intended message. Surely it doesn't purport some synonymity between silence and listening. On a daily basis I work students who I'd swear were practicing ninjas given their dedication to voicelessness. And yet I struggle to find any evidence that these silent warriors listen with any degree of intention.

Perhaps the poster means to suggest that silence is a requirement before listening can take place. That is, silence is a necessary condition, but it is not sufficient. This, I'll allow.

But I've since been wondering what it means to listen. To really listen. Sometimes I find myself pretending to listen by nodding silently to someone as they mouth words in my direction, meanwhile the voice inside my head is playing double-dutch around the strands of others' sentences, looking for a way to get some words in myself.

Today I tried to notice just how much my ego prevents me from truly listening to others. Do I really listen? Or am I just waiting for my turn to speak?

For many reasons, an ego is a useful thing to have. It tends to make sure that I get what I need, and often it goes after what I want. It celebrates my triumphs, and leads me away from fears and dangers. For the most part, it works for me.

But while my ego is a grounding solace in a sea of uncertainty, it must also be recognized as an isolating island on which I am somehow stranded. If someone gets too close my ego believes defences are merited. If new ideas or perspectives are presented the ego searches for their value to self, and readily dismisses them otherwise.

The real challenge set in when my ego began to notice other islands, perceiving other selves as threatening competitors in a game of survival. I wrote a bit about this game yesterday, suggesting that the conditions of survival are much different than what they were even one hundred years ago. At least, that they could be.

Today in biology groups of students found themselves in disagreement over some data point. Individual students calculated and re-calculated, until eventually we addressed the problem together as a class to discover the correct answer. When the answer was announced war cries of "in your face" and "take that" and cheers of celebration were thrown through the air. Other students got defensive and begged for a recalculation, clearly ashamed for having gotten the answer incorrect in their own process. Inherently the class assumed that we were against each other, that we were part of a zero-sum social game where there were winners and losers.

The egos got caught up in projecting and defending their rightfulness, all the while we completely forgot about our shared pursuit of solving the problem. I wish I could say this sort of thing stopped happening beyond the high school classroom.

But then again, those are MY wishes. Self-motivated, ego-driven.

Is it possible to dissolve the ego in the collective? Or to find the collective intertwined with the chase of the ego?

After school a student shared a few personal concerns with me. I genuinely sought to listen, and understand her situation, perspective, and desires. I did what I believe to be the best way to listen, and I asked questions  to bring my ego closer to her world.

Perhaps two egos will never share the exact same perspective. But if we look far enough into the distance, our different perspectives become less and less significant, our gazes only crossing at the horizon. Here's hoping we'll all get close enough to be willing to look in the same directions.

Thank you for considering,

Brandon

Project Wonder - Day 51 - Infant Morals

We create a lot of boundaries. I've already written about our ever-negotiating borders, but today I came across this video that offers a few ideas about just how quickly we value self-similarity.






Tell me that your mind isn't racing. Go on. What would Rousseau say?

The results of these studies point to an instinctual preference for those who share our preferences. And perhaps even more shockingly, an inborn tendency to will punishment on moral transgressors. Have you ever thought of a baby as an ill-wisher?!

I suppose I have always thought of babies as all-forgiving. In my head they are pure, objects of nothing but love and light. Maybe that's my complete inexperience with babies writing.

Either way, I never imagined infants to be vengeful. Fighting fire with fire. Mean rabbits don't deserve rewards.

I wonder how the babies would respond if the "mean puppets" were punished more severely. Such an elegant experiment, no? Characterizing puppets and inferring babies trait preferences from the characters they favour.

Why do we prefer those similar to ourselves over those who seem different? From an evolutionary perspective recognizing and siding with self-similar beings is obviously valuable in an environment where anything different could safely fit the assumption of hungry and dangerous. Of course I'm talking ancient human history, when resources were scarce and threats were abundant.

It's possible to trace the inheritance of this behaviour and pattern of thinking, through generations leading to the present. We are a world of each others' Others, and we almost always associate the Other with danger. At least, I do.

But the global social environment of the present is unimaginably different from our ancestors' communities. We have the capacity to connect with almost anyone in the world, from almost anywhere in the world. And we have resources to share! More and more of the Other are losing their otherness, as we recognize just how much we're all related. Studies in genetics, sociology, psychology, anthropology tell us that we're all of the same kind.

Yet we remain divided by national, cultural, and ideological barriers. Divided and willing to harm those who we believe have done us wrong, always fighting fire with fire, over borders we've inherited.

I wonder if we may collectively, consciously, decide to evolve. Become aware of the differences we see, the cliques we create, the puppets we favour and choose to recognize the similarities we all share. To see our Selves in the Others. Isn't the pursuit of empathy better for our survival? It has to be better than killing ourselves.

Thank you for considering,

Brandon

P.S. I don't have a membership, but here's a link to the nature article referenced in the clip:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v450/n7169/full/nature06288.html

Project Wonder - Day 50 - Writing

Today marks the fiftieth day of my commitment to daily writing. Though it has been difficult at times, and certainly not uninterrupted, the choice to write has been one of my better decisions.

I have wanted to write for a long time. I'm enamored by the notion that, more than the spoken word, the prose or poetry of an author may never stop carrying meaning. The written word has a certain permanence, a lasting power that enables it to connect with unknown audiences beyond the small fraction of space-time with which I'm personally familiar. Writing grants ideas a degree of autonomy, setting them free to interact and influence other memes. Whether my ideas have any usefulness is not up to me to decide. But I recognized that if I don't take the time to etch them into the external world somehow, they may never be more than my own means to entertainment.

For several years now I have kept a journal of sorts, attempting to capture ideas and insights as I experience them. I have hundreds of pages of disconnected "snapshot" ideas floating around on my hard drive. It's possible that someone might be able to decipher my cryptic semantics and begin to make sense out of the disjointed euphemisms. Possible, but not necessarily likely. It is here where the true task of writing lies.

It's one thing to have an idea that makes sense to me. Inside my mind I rarely need to explain my own ideas, and the assumptions on which they're founded. After all, it's MY mind.

The task of writing, as a friend of mine shared some years ago, is to become clearer on the logic and rationale contained in my ideas. To better understand the origins and possible consequences of an idea and to discover the language required to communicate my intended meaning in these ideas to others.

And so this daily practice has done wonders for my own sense of cognitive clarity. I am able to make greater sense of my inner monologue (sometimes dialogue) and I think I'm getting better at the craft of choosing words. Plus, as the habit of daily writing continues to solidify itself in my waking existence I intend to pursue more challenging writing goals, the details of which I won't reveal here.

Offering ideas to the universe not only allows others to enjoy or play with them, but it also clears my mental palette in a sense, allowing me to dive further into my experience, knowing that I've mapped the territory, albeit imperfectly.

So thank you for reading, and sharing in my scribbles. Here's to another fifty days!

Yours compositionally,

Brandon

P.S. Check out this writing advice from one of my favourites, courtesy of Brain Pickings.