Late November

Well, I said I would post again in November...and technically it is still November where I am. Things have been busy - and by busy I mean I have been sick for about half the month. That was followed by a power outage that took out half the power in the city I live in, and kept some areas (including my job site) out of commission for days. Then came Thanksgiving, and then clean-up from the power outage, once power was restored. Fortunately, I was in an area where the power stayed on, but it was a rough pre-Thanksgiving weekend for the entire town. Things are looking up now, though, and hopefully, we won't have another windstorm like the one that took out power for another few years. In the meantime, my work on my PhD application continues, as do my plans to visit my parents in Illinois in December. Hopefully, I will have another Incoming Insight before the end of the year. If you're from the U.S., I hope your Thanksgiving celebration was a good one. If not, I hope you had a great weekend.

See you in December!

Long Time, No Post

So it's been a bit longer than normal between posts here. This is, in part, because I am getting other work which is keeping me busy. While my work with IRI is important and is not ending, the simple fact is that we are in a financially slow period, which means I have been focusing less on overseas work and more on local matters (improving finances, updating our website, and so on). While I am in one place for a while, I am also getting some side work to supplement my income, preparing for next year when things should pick up a little for me in terms of travel.

The upside of extra work is more income and a busier schedule. The down side is that I have less time for blogging. I don't intend to stop Incoming Insights, but it will slow down a bit. As it is, I have been posting mostly short apologies for not posting most of the month anyway, instead of the more interesting information I wanted to post.

My plan is to cut back on Incoming Insight's posts, at least for a bit. I am going to aim for one post in November, one in December, and then twice a month starting in January. Hopefully, the slower pace will help me focus more on what I want to say, instead of just posting something in order to get it online.

I appreciate everyone who's been reading - your interest is encouraging! Take care, and I will see you around November 20th or so.

Job-Related Things

I'm still working on the next set of content for the blog. This may take a while, as I am also looking for some part-time work to supplement my income (working for IRI is mentally and spiritually rewarding, but not as much materially - and I like to eat). I am also working on my PhD application, a revamp of IRI's website, and some local volunteer work. I may post more about some of these things in the future, but suffice to say I have a lot to do, and it's keeping me quite distracted.

WIP

I'm in the process of putting together my thoughts for the next Incoming Insights. I'm thinking of looking a bit more at direct vs. indirect identity, but there are a few other topics I'm looking at as well. I should have a bit more focus by next week.

Meetings and Other Things

This week is meeting with people and working through my to-do list. I find to-do lists are a lot like avalanches - sure it doesn't seem like much at first, but once it gets rolling, you realize you're probably going to get buried. Hopefully, I can keep on top of things and surf on top of things instead of getting tossed around under it all.

Insight Into: Education & Conceptualization Part 4

In my last article, I talked about the potential conflict between traditional educational techniques and conceptual development. For those who want the TL/DR version:

1. Traditional education focuses on imparting information and eliminating error
2. Conceptual education focuses on developing ways of processing information and utilizing them effectively through constant re-examination.
1. Part of this re-examination requires brainstorming ideas and new perspectives
2. These ideas and perspectives will almost certainly include errors
3. Self-identification and correction of these errors are part of the conceptual development process

The key term in part three is "self-". To develop good thinking skills, the learner must be able to work through errors on their own. This makes the actual acquisition of correct data much slower than the traditional process wherein the student is corrected by a knowledgeable source. In fact, it is possible for a student to never properly identify certain errors, leading to long-term misconceptions. It is the risk inherent in thinking for yourself.

Clearly, both forms of education are important. Both having access to correct information and the ability to process, analyze, and innovate said information are both critical to long-term development. Unfortunately, the techniques which effectively impart correct information (and include external correction) create thinking habits that can be counter to good conceptual thinking and development - in particular, dependence on external correction and the tendency to "learn for the test" instead of understanding the content of the material.

I think that this can be addressed in a number of ways. In all cases, it is important to remember that understanding is more than mere knowledge and thus, the conceptual development is necessary for genuine educational development. Thus, we need a combination of methods - on one had, disseminating valuable information accurately and, on the other hand, providing the mental tools to understand and build on that information. I think there are a number of ways we can do this. Keep in mind that the list below is a simple overview, and not intended to be exhaustive, either as a description of the methods, nor as a complete list of possible methods. These are just ideas for discussion.

Method 1: Include conceptual development exercises in traditional education

This method involves taking the currently existing classes and curriculum and introducing exercises designed to force students to interact with the information in ways outside of those they have already been taught. This may include brainstorming new ideas or connections to ideas, as well as proposing various ways the information may be used in unusual circumstances.

Strengths:

• Minimum amount of change to overall educational structures (i.e. no new classes needed)
• Can be added to existing material
• No new teachers needed

Weaknesses:

• Teachers will experience some loss of control over the material as students innovate
• Some teachers may need to be retrained to work with these new approaches
• This will extend the time it takes to cover any particular subject
• Some students may not learn the information or be able to think conceptually as easily as others - there is a danger of students being left behind the rest of the class

Method 2: Student-directed learning

This method gives students much more control over their material, allowing them to learn at their own pace. These methods have been effective in several private schools.

Strengths:

• Self-directed teaching means that all students are able to learn at their own pace, ensuring maximum understanding for each student
• Teachers have less to work on in terms of material, as the students are actively involved in determining what they learn and how

Weaknesses:

• Teachers lose a substantial amount of control over the material
• Self-directed curriculum usually includes material to guide the development, such material can act create the same "learn for the test" behavior that is found in more traditional education
• The role of teachers can change dramatically - from "teaching" to "supervising"
• There is a substantial change in the structure of the educational institution at this point

Method 3: Dual-track curriculum

In this method, the regular classes progress as normal, but an additional "interdisciplinary" course is added that focuses on integrating the ideas from the other courses and prompting students to think about the whole of their education in new and creative ways.

Strengths:

• Existing classes would experience minimal changes, with the exception of having more cognitively engaged students
• The separate course not only serves as a way to promote conceptual thinking, but also helps integrate and provide relevance for many of the other classes the student takes
• One teacher can specialize in conceptual development, leaving other teachers to their specialties

Weaknesses:

• This requires changing the overall structure of the school's classes, as well as the addition of new teachers for the new classes
• Existing teachers will need to make some adjustments, in order to keep discouraging students at the kind of creative thinking the new class encourages them to do
• There is a real danger that the existing courses could be viewed by some as supplementary to the new conceptual course, especially from the perspective of the students (for whom the interdisciplinary, conceptual course provides relevance for some of the other courses' topics).

-----------------------------------------------

Conclusion:

While I have my preferences in methods (which I may get into at another time), the point here is not so much finding a solution as it is understanding that solutions are available. What is not optional, in my opinion, is to sacrifice conceptual/analytical understanding for the sake of imparting more and more data. It is also important to note that it is surprisingly easy to undermine conceptual development, as the "Common Core" curriculum in the U.S. has demonstrated. In my investigation of Common Core, I have found the principles it is intended to promote to be very positive, with a strong emphasis on conceptual development. Unfortunately, the application of the curriculum has, from all accounts I am hearing, resulted in less critical and conceptual thinking by its students. I think this is, in part, because the application of the curriculum is at odds with the intent and perhaps even the content of the curriculum. Unfortunately, this issue is bigger than my article here has time for, but suffice to say I think there is a solution, if we are willing to change not just the content of our material, but the style we use to teach. Thinking is a action, and actions are guided by habits. We need to instill not just the idea of conceptual thinking, but the habit in our students.

General Business

Well, I missed Monday. I planned to simply update Tuesday instead, but it looks like this week will be more complicated than anticipated. I am working on organizational finances and some other details, which are keeping me away from the blog for the moment. I hope to have the next section of the education discussion up next Monday. See you next week!

Insight Into: Education & Conceptualization Part 3

In the last article, I provided a brief discussion of why simply acquiring data is insufficient for education. A student must be able to understand the data you are communicating. I noted that this requires a style of thinking that focuses on concepts and ideas instead of rote memorization. This type of thinking, however, is a learned skill, not a natural talent.

In IRI's work with developing communities, we have determined that teaching someone how to think conceptually requires at least the following learning cycle:

1. Introduce ideas
2. Prompt the learner to think about (analyze) the data provided in 1
3. Encourage the learner to synthesize concepts (their own take on the data) based on their understanding and perception
4. Prompt the learner to analyze the new concepts
1. Prompt the learner to compare the concepts to the other ideas they have
2. Promote learner-driven identification of inconsistencies and errors in the ideas
3. Do not correct the learner - the self-identification of errors is critical
5. Encourage the learner to synthesize concepts based on their analysis
6. Repeat as necessary (many, many, many times) to develop the habit of reflection, analysis, synthesis, and self-correction

This is a gross oversimplification of the system, but it is sufficient to point out one of the key points of conflict between teaching people how to think (promoting analysis and understanding), and simply teaching them what to think (providing data). The crux of the difficulty lies in point 4.3 - emphasizing self-correction over instructional correction.

As I mentioned in the first article of this series, the goal of education is, in part, to make sure the learner has correct information. To that end, error is the enemy, and must be corrected so that the student doesn't learn bad information. Yet in order to think in a way that promotes understanding, students must be able to think through issues without correction, and, from a traditional educational perspective, this is unnerving. The tendency of a teacher to correct error is, in many cases, nearly automatic. Thus, a tension arises between the need to impart correct data, and the need to train students in ways of processing that data. It can be extremely hard, in a classroom context, to find a way to balance the two. In some disciplines (often literature or philosophy), the emphasis gets placed on developing understanding, but many times lacks a sense that some things may be correct or incorrect. Other disciplines (medicine, the previously mentioned nuclear power plant management) take a very dim view of errors, as these can cost lives. Yet all disciplines need both elements of education to flourish, because without both, you can't have students who understand new information. Without that balance, you either get students who can play with ideas, yet divorce them from operations in reality (pure analysis), or you get students who are locked into calcified systems of understanding that they can't innovate on (pure data).* To truly be effective, education must include both of these elements, yet they seem mutually exclusive (good thinking = tolerating error, good data = eliminating error).

Next article, I will look into some ways to, perhaps, reconcile these two systems so that students can both be good thinkers, and learn good information.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

*I am comparing extremes here for emphasis. Most people have some degree of both elements in their thinking, though these elements may still be imbalanced. That said, I have personally met examples of both extremes, so I can say with confidence that they really do exist. This is a real thing.

Insight Into: Illness

It appears I managed to catch a rather distracting cold. I am recovering, but as you may have noticed, it did successfully distract me from posting yesterday. The next post will be up once I recover.

Insight Into: Education & Conceptualization Part 2

In my last article, I proposed that one of the main reasons for education is to keep people from doing "stupid things." If you have not read the article, please have a look to get up to speed. Today, I want to continue looking at how conceptualization impacts education. Let's get back to the discussion.

The Core Issue Part 2:

So it turns out that simply transferring data to a student does not, in fact, mean the student understands the data. In fact, students often only focus on remembering enough data to pass the tests, as, in the educational context, it is the tests that really matter (more on that in a later article). Now to understand why this is an important distinction, consider two warehouse employees, Jake and Janet.
Jake and Janet both work for Dr. Rebar* organizing items in a warehouse. In the back of the warehouse, there is a door. Dr. Rebar has repeatedly told both Jake and Janet that they should never open the door. Being good employees, Jake and Janet both listen to Dr. Rebar, and avoid opening the door, even when it seems convenient to do so, which is really quite often. After a while, Janet starts to wonder why the door needs to stay shut, even though there are many times during the day where life would be easier if they just used the door. Jake tells her that it isn't important why Dr. Rebar wants the door shut, the doctor is the boss, and if the boss says don't open the door, then you don't open the door. Janet, however, is unsatisfied with this. One day, she asks Dr. Rebar why you don't open the door. The doctor explains that the door is quite heavy, and, at some point, the hinges broke. If you open the door, the door will actually fall out of the frame, and a lot of extra effort will be needed to put the door back. In short, until the door is fixed, opening the door is more trouble than it's worth. This sounds reasonable to Janet, and she goes about her business.
Now, at this point, you have two employees, each of which are doing what they're instructed, and preforming their jobs as they should. Both know that the door should not be opened, but while Jake has just accepted this as a basic fact, Janet understands why the door should not be opened. From a performance perspective, there is no difference between the two, and, for the most part, Janet's understanding seems superfluous.
Then, one day, a fire breaks out in the warehouse, and Jake and Janet get stuck in the back of the warehouse. The only way out is the door, or a skylight, which can only be reached by a dangerous climb up to the top of the warehouse (a climb that might just end with the climber dropping two stories into a rapidly-spreading fire). Jake, not wanting to open the door-that-should-not-be-opened, opts to try the incredibly risky climb. Janet, on the other hand, realizes that, in the face of a fire, a broken door is a minor inconvenience, and simply opens the back door and leaves. Janet makes it out and, because this story is supposed to have a moral, Jake slips and falls and dies a terrible fally-fiery death.
So the point? Just acquiring data is fine, as long as all you need is that data. Unfortunately, when problems arise, they are almost always the result of something unexpected happening, which requires some creative thinking to resolve. This creative thinking, however, is impossible for someone who is simply acting based on their instruction, instead of acting based on their understanding of the ideas (concepts) the instruction is trying to convey.
Does this seem obvious? Yet we see variations of "I just couldn't figure out [fill in the blank with an incredibly simple issue]" as a reason for why someone failed at something all the time. At IRI, we have learned that one of the main reasons for this is not that people don't have the necessary data to solve the problem, but that they aren't thinking in a way that allows them to conceptualize the problem and identify solutions. In IRI parlance, their cognitive system is centered around concrete data (B), not concepts and analysis (A). It turns out that conceptualization is a learned skill, and must be taught as vigorously as any other type of educational information. The difference is, with conceptual thinking, you aren't talking about teaching data. You're talking about teaching people how to process data - that is, how to think." In our next article, I'll look at the necessary steps for teaching conceptualization, and examine how this intersects with (and conflicts with) our traditional style of education.

Next Week: Teaching People How to Think

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*I am going to assume Dr. Rebar has a degree that is consistent with a PhD graduate who gets a job as a warehouse manager. I imagine it is a degree in something like interpretative dance.

Insight Into: Education & Conceptualization

This begins a series on the difficulties with deliberate development of conceptual thinking in education. My goal is to 1) identify key issues in education and educational systems as they relate to developing conceptual thinking, 2) identify patterns in current educational processes that hinder conceptual thinking, and 3) propose solutions to improve conceptual thinking.

Before I begin, I think it is important to establish how I use certain terms, so here's a short list (I may expand on this later):

• Ideas: our thoughts about things
• Concepts: ideas we hold, where holding an idea connotes ownership and the ability to adapt said idea based on new information
• Definitions: ideas communicated to us via a 2nd person or medium
• Information/Data: ideas we receive through perception or formulate through analysis
• Conceptualization: The process of identifying, reviewing, analyzing, organizing, and generally thinking about concepts
• A, B, C aspects of thinking: refer to previous articles (link provided below)

To begin:

The Core Issue Part 1 (Education)

As I understand it, there is one primary area of conflict in education that tends to drive a wedge between teaching people "how to think" (that is, how to conceptualize and respond to ideas) and teaching "what to think" (i.e. teaching people specific instructional data they need to follow). This conflict stems from one of the primary reasons for education: to make sure people don't do stupid things, where "stupid things" include spending unnecessary effort to relearn ideas humanity has already investigated. 

For example, we have spent decades developing computer technology and programming and it would be incredibly wasteful to make anyone who wanted to work on computers have to figure out basic circuits and logic systems on their own, when we can simply impart known information to them. This way, they can add to the current body of understanding based on our previous research. In addition, we are absolutely sure we want to educate people who manage nuclear reactors on how to manage nuclear reactors - it has proven very bad when those people misunderstood their jobs, or got something wrong.

The need to impart existing information has two central areas of focus: to transfer said data to the student, and to make sure the student accurately understands this data. In short, we are interested in accurate transfer of data. This means, among other things, that error is one of our primary enemies. Let's face it - you don't want errors showing up in nuclear power management, or surgery, or waste disposal. That's really bad. Thus, we structure our education around transfer and accuracy, testing students to make sure they have acquired the data we give them as we intend them to receive it. If they pass the tests, all is well, and we can assume they understand the information.

Except that last sentence has proven to be wrong. Passing tests, it turns out, does not guarantee understanding of an idea. This is because understanding requires conceptualization. That is, the data we provide (in the form of definitions) must be converted into concepts. (I discussed this previously in my articles on direct and indirect understanding; see the link below to the relevant articles). This means that students, to successfully understand the information we are giving them, must be able to conceptualize the information they receive (i.e. transform them into concepts). This is where we run into our core issue, and to understand that issue we need to investigate what we need to do to teach people to conceptualize.

Next time: The Core Issue (Part 2: Conceptualization)

Link to articles on ABC thinking: http://incominginsight.blogspot.com/2015/03/a-review-of-reviewing-thinking.html

What? It's Monday Already?

Sorry everyone - I'm not quite ready. I don't have any really great excuses, I just had a lot of stuff going on, and fell behind on the writing I was planning. My apologies. I will get back to education-talk ASAP. In the meantime, enjoy a picture of a funny little dog:

Not my dog - a friend's dog, but a funny little dog.

This is the best picture I could get - that little guy moves fast!

Returned to Washington

Well, I survived my trip to Wyoming, but came back to find I have some stuff to catch up on, so I don't have much of a post today. Next time, I will review a bit of what's been going on in Mozambique, some of our plans for the future, and perhaps some other items. Sometimes life gives you minor but unavoidable distractions that keep you from posting blogs. Life is kind of a jerk like that.

On the Road! Next up: Conceptual Thinking and teaching

It seems I wasn't able to pull my ideas together in time to get an extra blog in. This is due, primarily, to the fact that my chosen topic required more reflection than I had originally thought. It's also because the topic will probably take more than one post, which takes some extra time to write up. Instead, I will provide some insight into my upcoming insight - over the next few weeks, I plan to look at how the idea of conceptual training interacts with the practice of teaching.

During the work we have done with IRI, we have identified several areas where traditional (and some non-traditional) teaching methods can conflict with conceptual training. I plan to look at some of these areas of conflict to see why the conflict exists, and what we might be able to do to facilitate more critical and analytical thinking in our teaching methodology. Please note that many of these concerns aren't unique to our work - a lot of them are concerns that have been raised in education for years. The reason I am reviewing them is not because they are all original, but in the hopes that the insights we have gained may inform the ongoing discussion and perhaps present new windows into potential solutions.

But that's what's coming next - this week I am on the road! Next week, I may have the beginning of the teaching discussion, or I may talk a bit about what I've learned on my WY trip - depending mostly on how interesting the trip turns out to be.

Trip Prep

As I mentioned last blog, next week I travel to Wyoming to meet with Al and update our plans for the rest of 2015 into 2016. I am also looking for some part-time teaching work to expand my reserves (I originally planned for working with IRI two years before having to go back to work - I made it five, so I'm overdue). As a result, things have been a bit busy for me. This means a shorter post today, and possibly no post next Monday, as I will be traveling, but I will try to post something later this week, to make up for today's lightness and next week's lack.

Schedule Changes Change Things

Well, it appears that, due to both immigration policy changes and some issues regarding water availability in Chimoio, my trip to Mozambique has been postponed for the foreseeable future. The water issues are, apparently, creating a high-mosquito environment that Malaria turns into a high-risk environment, and is also creating water shortages. I don't have all the details on what the background on the issues are, but it is apparently significant enough that our Mozambican Director thinks I should probably stay away for now.

This leaves me with more time to find work, however, so it isn't all bad. With some contracted or adjunct work, I should be able to start rebuilding my cash reserves for the next few years working with IRI. Sometimes, one closed door opens another.

I will be traveling to Wyoming in early August to meet with Al when he gets back from Mozambique. We will discuss everything he has seen while he was there, and work on our goals for 2016 and beyond. There's a lot happening with IRI (even if my personal adventures are a bit curtailed), and we need to make sure we have a plan of action. Granted, most plans don't survive the first "interesting" event they encounter, but at least it gives us a foundation to build and modify our approach.

Exciting things are happening - we just need to make sure we are ready to act on them!

Checking in With A Thought

It seems I'm pretty busy this week. I'm still working on finding work to support my work, so that's keeping things exciting. I'm also working on a newsletter article for this month, and making sure I don't miss any birthdays (apparently, I know a LOT of people who were born in July). I've also been working on follow-up for the last few Incoming Insights articles, which may still take a little while.

In the meantime, I want to make sure that I'm clear about the reason we are looking in to the nature of human cognition, the effects of suppression, and the impact these things have on education and development. Ultimately, it is about building relationships. Not just relationships between ourselves and the people we work with, but how they relate with each other and other (often more aggressive and powerful) cultures around them. It is about identifying what goes wrong in relationships, and how to change things to make it right. All too often, organization or individuals will attempt to intervene in what is clearly a bad situation, only to find that their intervention has had its own set of negative consequences. Sometimes, the overall situation will still be improved, but occasionally, the intervention sets off a series of cultural events that ultimately makes things worse. There has been a lot of work that has gone into understanding what has happened in these cases, and more work focused on how to prevent similar issues in the future. We are focused on the latter. IRI wants to help people understand themselves and the world they live in so that they can build relationships and initiate works that are appropriate to their context. Our goal is to bring clarity and self-development to all areas of life: personal, social, economic, spiritual, educational, and whatever else may be affected. Much of what we have seen tells us that most people want to do good and be good people, but they often have disconnects about what is really good for themselves, their communities, and their environments. Our goal is not to correct them, but to give them the tools to figure out for themselves how to deal with their relationships.

That's all for now.

Preparing for the Fall

I am currently in the process of preparing for my fall activities. When I started working with IRI, I decided to save up enough money to work with them full-time for two years, with a plan to basically take a year off to work to save up enough for an additional few years. That was five years ago. I am now well past the point I thought I would need to get work again, but I have finally reached that point. As a result, I am now looking for work in undergraduate education (as an adjunct or lecturer), Instructional Design, or corporate training. While we still have plans for me to travel to Mozambique in August, this fall will hopefully entail me finding one of those three jobs to make back some of my savings, and finish paying off a few outstanding bills I have accumulated over the last five years. This week involves a lot of visits with potential employers, phone calls, and e-mails. It isn't terribly glamorous, but it is necessary, and I do look forward to teaching regularly again.

This does not mean I am stopping work with IRI - far from it, but the fact is, the current plans we have leave me relatively physically inactive for the upcoming semester at least, and I can use that time to recover some funds to facilitate future work. I will still be working on IRI material, and still posting blogs as regularly as possible. Thank you to everyone who has and is (and wants to?) support me and/or the work being done at IRI. Your help has been deeply appreciated.

Q A (Question Answered - there's only the one)

During my last splurge of Incoming Insight posts, someone sent me a question about the potential benefits of suppression. Discounting the (in my opinion short-sighted) view that there are several benefits for the oppressor, it does leave an interesting question about when and where enforcement of will is appropriate. Superficially, law enforcement "suppresses" criminals, by refusing to allow them to do bad things to other people (and occasionally themselves). Likewise, parents could be said to "suppress" children, by disallowing certain activities - or only permitting them under special circumstances or after certain criteria have been met.

I think, however, there are two distinctions between these examples and the example I gave of cultural suppression. The first is intent: the intent of the suppressor in my examples was to keep themselves in power and the suppressed population...well, suppressed. In the case of my illustration, the intent was the acquisition and maintenance of power--at the expense of the suppressed culture. In the examples above, you have two very different motivations, namely protection (in the case of law enforcement) and protection/education (in the case of parents). I think many cases of abuse of power by these groups is often identified, in no small part, by their intent. If the cop pulls you over because you were speeding, that's keeping people safe, and (while annoying) a general good. If the cop pulls you over to shake you down, however, that's utilizing power to promote the officer at your expense, and that is suppression. Thus, intent has a substantial role in identifying cases of systematic suppression and their possible impact.

Of course, as the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The fact that you want to protect/help people is only marginally useful as a defense if what you have actually been doing is inflicting various degrees of psychological/social/economic trauma on them. the second difference between suppression and these other examples is proper application of power. Namely, that those who hold power are diligent in analyzing the impact of their actions, and willing and able to change their approach in the event that the results do not match with their intent. (Someone is always going to hold power, by the way - we don't get to actually live in a "balanced" or power-neutral world.)

The area of intent is where you get your "moral monsters" - those who walk over other people or cultures to get what they want. They are the obvious examples of terrible things, and everyone can name at least one Terrible Person who has willfully harmed others to advance themselves. The area of application, however, is where I think the most harm actually gets done. We like to feel good about ourselves, and often make the mistake of believing that because we have good ideas or intentions, that we are helping others. As a friend of mine says, we front-load our help, looking at how our plans should benefit people, without taking a hard look at what those actions are really doing. One example I have heard personal testimony about are the education of Native American tribes. While, ostensibly, the goal was to help the tribes "get up to speed" with Western culture,* the actual effect of much of this education was to separate the tribal culture from their language and heritage, causing substantial fractures in their identity and sense of ability. The government may have thought it was doing good, but the actually effect was really quite terrible.

So to sum up, I do believe that controlling persons or groups is necessary for social order and development, but it has to be done very carefully. With this in mind, allow me to clarify my concept of cultural suppression. Cultural suppression is the control of one culture by another culture in such a way as to suppress the identity and ability of the controlled culture, resulting in fractured identity, loss of perceived ability and worth, and dependence on the suppressing culture. This does not necessarily overlap with other definitions of suppression (suppressing fire, suppression of crime, fire suppression, etc.). Yes, this is a complicated concept, but since when was life actually simple? As noted, our drive for simplistic explanations and actions are part of the reason we see so much damage in our global society today.

Busy Week

I have had a lot going on this week, but proportionally not as much in the IRI department. With the trip to Alaska cancelled, I am in the process of reorganizing my schedule and helping some friends (who are moving). It isn't terribly exciting, but it is very much a part of life. I am planning another Incoming Insight before the end of the month.

In other news, Inside Out is great. If you can, go see it - it covers the impact of change and stress in a creative, entertaining way. How Pixar manages to keep producing creative films this frequently is beyond me, but they are doing a bang-up job. Go to the movie - take the kids (it is ostensibly for them, after all) and have fun...and possibly try not to cry (it is Pixar).

Trip Preparations and Changes

It appears I get another schedule change. I will no longer be going to Alaska this year - the meeting was postponed for scheduling and financial reasons, but is being rescheduled for next year. I will be heading to Mozambique and South Africa, however. I am still working on the details, but it appears I will be heading over mid-July and staying for at least a month or more. Of course, procedures for getting a visa for Moz. have changed, so I also have to figure out how to get the visa so I can get there. It's things like this that keep life interesting.

Insight Into Suppression - Stage 5: Recovery (?)

Previous Article - Stage 4: Rebellion

Stage 5:

Freedom!!! The Culture has achieved freedom from The Suppressor, and is now back to managing its own affairs. Now the recovery can begin...or can it? As you may have noticed, the illustration for Stage 4 and Stage 5 is identical. The problem with habits is that they are stubborn. They are born not of reason, but of action, and like it or not, the actions of The Culture for a long time now have been actions of suppression. Thus, the habits of The Culture, conscious or unconscious, physical of mental, are still habits of suppression. While The Culture is free, they remain suppressed. This creates an incredible tension in The Culture. The expectation is freedom, but it doesn't take long for The Culture to realize that suppression is still ongoing. Since The Culture still has habits of suppression, it still feels suppressed, which may feed the resentment for The Suppressor that is already (justifiably) feels. Thus, one of the most frequent outcomes of ending suppression is...more suppression, as The Culture proceeds to suppress The Suppressor, out of feelings of anger, resentment, vengeance, and the lingering sense of suppression felt by The Culture.

Note that The Culture feels suppressed because, in terms of habits (mental and perhaps physical) it still is suppressed. This does not mean The Suppressor is still suppressing The Culture - it may still be doing so (after all, The Suppressor will have gained habits of being a suppressor as The Culture gained habits of being suppressed), but that isn't required. The Suppressor may want The Culture to develop - but no matter what they do, The Suppressor and The Culture seem to quickly fall back into old patterns. Thus, the two groups find reconciliation and a true end to the cycle of suppression incredibly hard to find. The truth is, they are both trapped, and the chances of escape are minimal until the underlying habits of suppression (for both sides) are addressed. Only then can each side reestablish an identity free from suppression and begin to live at peace - both with each other, and with themselves.

This change, however, is not easy - habits are often hard to identify as such, especially mental habits, and even harder to change. In order for The Culture (and The Suppressor, for that matter) to truly find its way out of suppression, it must first regain its ability to think through and understand its situation (A). Unfortunately, at this point, The Culture's thinking has become strongly based on action (traditions, for example) and established relationships (BC), and comprehension (A) has nearly been lost (they are currently BC...a, as noted previously). To overcome the legacy of suppression, then, The Culture must recover its understanding (A), and apply that understanding to its situation in a way that allows old habits to be discovered and addressed, and new habits to be built not on suppression, but freedom and understanding, without resentment or old pain clouding their judgement.

This is how IRI attempts to help people - by providing that (A) that allows them to recover their identity and understanding, and create a new habit of life free from the old habits of suppression, fear, and pain. We do this because it is needed - the world cannot become a better place is people are stuck in destructive habits. We do it because we believe God wants people to become the best they can, and desires servants who understand what they are doing instead of following blindly. Most of all, though, we do it because it is the right thing to do.

Insight Into Suppression - Stage 4: Rebellion

Previous Article - Stage 3: The Culture of Dependence

Stage 4:

Well, it seems The Culture is finally fed up with being suppressed. Can't blame them - being suppressed is really bad for you (as is suppressing others, but that's a different discussion). Thus, The Culture rebels, driving The Suppressor out, and taking back their culture/city/homeland/etc. In most cases, remnants of The Suppressor are, themselves, suppressed (which is bad - more on that next time), and control of The Culture is rightly placed back in the hands of The Culture. Unfortunately, habits being what they are, The Culture has not escaped unscathed. With the exception of throwing off obedience, it still has all the habits that were introduced while under suppression, including the surrender of its identity. The Suppressor, however, is no longer there to provide the ceded identity and understanding, so The Culture now has no identity to speak of - it is adrift, and no longer understands its place in the world. In response, The Culture is likely to fall back to known traditions and relationships within the culture, even while its understanding continues to dwindle (BC...a).

Next Up - Stage 5: Recovery (?)

Insight Into Suppression - Stage 3: The Culture of Dependence

Previous Article - Stage 2: Establishing a Culture of Suppression

Stage 3:

At this point, the suppression of The Culture is complete. Obedience to The Suppressor has become habit, and The Culture is now dependent on The Suppressor for its identity, purpose, and direction. This is true even if The Culture hates The Suppressor and everything The Suppressor is doing. Habits are not reasonable - they do not require justification, only repetition, to establish. The repeated pattern of (forced) obedience creates a tendency toward obedience, even while The Culture seethes with resentment over the treatment it is receiving. This is a nasty situation, and one that eventually will blow up for The Suppressor. In the meantime, however, The Culture has, intentionally or not, ceded its understanding and identity to The Suppressor, and is now running mostly on obedience, tradition, and relationships (BCa).

Next Up - Stage 4: Rebellion

Insight Into Suppression - Stage 2: Establishing a Culture of Suppression

Previous Article: Insight Into Suppression

Stage 2:

Now the suppression of The Culture is truly underway. With local resistance and troublesome traditions (at least temporarily) eliminated, The Suppressor now controls the understanding and the actions of The Culture. At this point, the only internally initiated actions taken by The Culture are some of the surviving traditions (if The Suppressor didn't wipe out all of them), and the relationships within The Culture. At this point, The Culture is resigned to suppression - it may not be good, but it is just how life is. The Culture begins to lose its understanding of itself, as this is being overshadowed by The Suppressor's culture and understanding. Thus, The Culture's cognition slips from ABC to BaC, with the commands and requirements of The Suppressor coming first, and reason only being used to justify the commands. This stage is transitory, however, as acceptance quickly turns into habit.

Next Up: The Culture of Dependence

Insight Into Suppression: The TLDR Version

So my last post on suppression was a rather long story. While I enjoyed writing it, I wanted to make a more illustrated explanation of the impact of suppression, as we at IRI currently understand it. To make this a bit easier to digest, I am going to spread the illustrations out over the course of this week - one post a day, Monday-Friday. Since I also have a pre-suppression stage, today will be a double-long post.

Stage 0: Pre-Suppression

This is the culture before it is suppressed. In this case, we will assume the culture is a conceptually advanced, independent, self-directing culture. It's a healthy community that is growing and developing and perfectly capable of managing itself. It has a direct connection between what it understands about itself and it's activities and relationships. Good stuff.

Stage 1: Introduction of Suppression

Now we have a new player enter the picture. This group (which I will call The Suppressor from now on) takes over the general operation (including education) of the suppressed group (which I will call The Culture henceforward). The Culture still retains its old understanding of itself, but is now forced to comply with the wishes of The Suppressor. This means The Culture's identity will also be impacted, since part of that identity has changed from an independent culture to a subordinate one. The Suppressor may initiate additional changes to The Culture's identity, since The Suppressor is now in charge of The Culture's education to a large degree.

Next Up - Stage 2: Establishing a Culture of Suppression

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes...

So it appears there will be some rearranging of schedules for IRI over the next few months. As a result, I will still be going to Alaska, but after that I may be heading off to Mozambique for a few months to document the work being done there and encourage our partners in the area. The plans are still in flux, so I don't have specifics yet, but this summer suddenly got much more interesting. Stay tuned, and I will try to keep people posted on everything that's happening.

Getting Behind

Wow - I missed an entire week. I have no idea where that week went, but it is gone.

I had intended to write up some follow-ups to the last post, and I still am, but I have gotten behind in a few personal matters, and need to clean out my personal space before I dive back into the cyberspace. I apologize for the delays, but I do still exist, and things are going pretty well, but I am reorganizing, and probably won't get back on track until next week.

I have, at least, gotten a time frame for the meeting in Alaska - it starts on July 6th, though I may arrive in Nome 3-4 days ahead of time to get set up and coordinate with the rest of our team. I'm really looking forward to going up there. I love Alaska, in general, and the idea of being able to work with tribal people in the area, helping them re-discover the tools to rebuild their lives and society is wonderful to me. I hope we can figure out the best way that IRI can help.

So in short, I am alive, I will be posting interesting things again soon. See you next week!

Insight Into Identity, Agency, and The Impact of Suppression

In previous posts, I have discussed the difference between direct and indirect identity, the impact it has on our understanding, sense of agency, and associated responsibilities. To sum up: the more directly I understand myself (as opposed to understanding through outside sources), the greater my overall sense of agency, control, and associated responsibility. This is one reason why socially or economically struggling peoples tend to have lower levels of perceived agency and responsibility. What I want to look at today is how the process of suppression (in particular, cultural suppression) contributes to the dissolution of agency, direct identity, and sense of responsibility. At IRI, we have found that this is very widespread (going far beyond even the more obvious manifestations of cultural or personal suppression), and the harm it has caused cannot be understated.

So, let's take a look at an example culture to see how this process works. I will refer to these fictional people as "Targetians" - please note that as far as I know, the Targetians have no direct real-world analogue, though you may see some substantial similarities between them and various cultures you may have encountered. I want to illustrate this phenomenon without getting to personal for anyone who is from such a culture - it can be rough to relive if you have experienced it.

We'll start the Targetians off as a fairly stable, solid, creative culture. They have a strong direct identity, with a strong sense of self-understanding, agency, and responsibility. They have a stable civilization that is comfortably advanced and are generally satisfied with how things are progressing in their society. This is a best-case scenario, as most cultures have some general level of internal dissatisfaction, but this is a fictional example, and the Targetians will serve their purpose by being one of those annoyingly ideal civilizations.

Now the Targetians encounter another civilization we will call the "Largeese." This civilization is substantially larger than the Targetians, with superior economic and military might. They come into the Targetians lands and proceed to set up shop. This, the Largeese decide, requires the Targetians to surrender their territory, resources, and general autonomy to the Largeese. Being bigger, richer, and stronger, it isn't hard for the Largeese to take over. The Targetians are now a second-class people in their own homeland.

In this situation, the Targetians agency is, to a large degree, damaged by the Largeese. This loss of agency is at odds with the Targetians direct identity and it's strong expectations of agency. There are a number of responses from the local population. First, there are those who resist the loss of agency. These are the rebels - whether violent insurgents or non-violent protesters, they attempt to regain their agency from the Largeese. Second, there are the traumatized. These Targetians are unable to reconcile their expectations with the imposed loss of agency, and this tension manifests itself in mental instabilities of various kinds (depression, anxiety, delusion, etc.). The third group Gives in and accepts the Largeesian rule. Real life is much more complex, of course, and there is a lot of overlatp between these groups, but this will suffice for our illustration. The main point here is that, over time, this situation changes the Targetian society.

The first group, who rebel, ultimately end up getting knocked down. The Largeese will have nothing to do with such opposition, and simply squashed this group to the best of its ability. Thus, those who have held on to their identity most strongly get removed from the society. The group that experiences cognitive tension will receive help to work through their problems (it turns out the Largeese, while not interested in accommodating rebels, will help those with mental trauma), but since the Largeese control the therapy, this group will ultimately be "helped" by being encouraged to conform to their new social situation. The last group will get by fairly well, but their cognitive habits will change dramatically, and that's where I want to focus here.

Without the rebels, the two remaining groups must adjust their cognitive system to adapt to the change in agency afforded by the Largeese. In this new system, independent thinking and reasoning (A), which might lead back to a direct identity is strongly discouraged. It either creates more rebels, or mental trauma, and so is seen as negative - at first by the Largeese, but eventually it may be seen negatively by the Targetians as well, since such people would be, as a rule, a disruptive force in an otherwise "normal" society.  It isn't that the Targetians that remain LIKE their second-class status, in fact, many strongly resent it, but why dwell on things you can't change? Instead, the focus becomes daily survival and social obedience (i.e. "not rocking the boat"), which emphasizes the B aspect of cognition. In addition, social cohesion and interdependence will probably increase (C) since "the only ones we can count on are each other. Thus, the Targetians move from an ABC cognitive pattern with an associated direct identity, to a BCA cognitive pattern, where their identity comes from their status as a second class people, given to them by the Largeese (an indirect identity).

Now two important things have happened. First, the Targetians have lost their direct identity. Since the Largeese are now the source of their identity, the Targetians will tend to see the Largeese as the ones responsible for the Targetians lives. Thus, responsibility gets shifted tot he Largeese, and the Targetians lose their sense of agency and responsibility, as well as their identity. Second, since A has been deprioritized, the tool which the Targetians would use to rediscover their identity, agency, and responsibility has atrophied significantly.

This suppression by the Largeese, however, can only last for so long, and eventually (after several generations), the Targetians rise up and push the Largeese out of their homeland. Now the Targetians must start the process of rebuilding. Unfortunately, for generations, the critical, analytic, conceptual part of their thinking has been suppressed by both the Largeese, but also by the Targetians themselves. Thus, the toolset needed to recover the Targetians identity and agency is extremely rusty - and rusty tools often break. As a result, the Targetians find, to their dismay, that they are unable to recover their civilization even to the level of their ancestors, and they can't figure out why. After all, they have preserved all the cultural traditions (B) they could, and they understand that they should stick together (C), so why can't they pull things together? Are they really as dumb and ineffective as the Largeese claimed? Are they really failures?

Well, no. The problem is that the Targetians have lost the conceptual/analytical aspect of their thinking to a large enough degree that they don't realize any more what they have lost. Other, more conceptual, outsiders look at them and see a "primitive" or "traditional" people, and assume that because they have been this way for generations, it is simply how their culture works. Not wanting to interfere with the Targetians any more, the outsiders refrain from interacting with them too much. While noble, this means that the aspect of the Targetian culture that is lacking and needs to be restored (A) will be long in coming, since rebuilding an entire history of philosophy, reason, and analysis is much harder than it sounds. Learning programs, by and large, focus on facts and specific operational training (B), not restoring conceptual/analytic faculties (A). In fact, education programs that assume A, but don't focus on teaching it (like many western teaching programs) will probably not only fail, but only serve to reinforce the existing thinking pattern of BCA, since the program assumes A, but uses B to teach. This means that any cultural recovery for the Targetians will be a long, uphill struggle, especially if critical thinking and reasoning (A) is seen as a Largeese cultural trait - in that case, critical thinking may even be demonized, as it is seen as a cultural artifact of the enemy.

So yeah, this is a terrible situation. Cultural recovery can only occur through internal development, which can only occur through conceptual redevelopment (A), but the tool needed for such redevelopment has been lost and perhaps even demonized because of prior misuse by the suppressing culture. This is what IRI has been working to remedy. Through our programs, we seek to reintroduce A elements of thinking with a minimum of cultural baggage (there cannot be no baggage - it simply isn't possible to think or act without any reference to your native culture). We focus on developing conceptual/analytical tools, and encouraging nationals to engage with and develop their own direct identity. We have found that with a recovery of direct identity, there is a corresponding recovery of agency and responsibility. We do not need to initiate social programs in the places we work - the nationals do that, once they start to recover their identity and the A-aspect of their thinking.

Once the nationals take back the initiative in their development, then we can come in and help - if they need our help (often, they need less help than they previously thought they did - frequently, they don't need any help at all, other than to have a level playing field to develop on). My co-worker Al frequently tells people that "I work for the nationals" - which is, in the case of the work we are now doing in Mozambique, literally true. It is amazing and wonderful to behold - seeing people groups we were told were "lazy" or "ignorant" accomplishing projects and programs themselves that outside organizations have failed to achieve for decades.

This is what I do, and I love doing it.

Internet Delays

Sorry for the late post. I have been having a little internet trouble lately, so I'm once again making a quick post to let everyone know. I should have something more substantial up soon.

2015 Tour 1 - Complete!

Well, it looks like I've finished running around for now. The next trip isn't scheduled until July, so I have a few months to process things and work on other projects. I'm still recovering from the travel (I just got in yesterday), so to make up for last week and give you something to look at this week, I give you a picture of my route for this tour:

Stage 1 - The March Route:

Thanks to Google Maps for the Image

If the image is too small, the distance covered was approximately  3500 miles or 5633 km. I was able to visit several of our supporters and friends, and it took about two and a half weeks to cover. I stayed in Broken Arrow for about a week and a half before taking off again, which gave me a bit of a break. Then came stage 2:

Stage 2 - The April Route:

Thanks again to Google Maps - you are quite useful.

This trip covered about 1800 miles or 2900 km. I stayed in Lewistown for about a week, which was the longest stay of the trip back. The entire trip took about 2.5 weeks, with the Lewistown stay counted in.

The grand total distance covered for the trip was about 5400 miles or 8690 km. Yes, I know the numbers don't all add up correctly, but I'm estimating and rounding a bit. The basic idea is there. That basic idea being that this was quite the long haul. 

In addition to the distance traveled, I had to get the car repaired twice along the way, and I still need to get the AC fixed (it broke down somewhere around Denver). It turns out cars don't like being driven over 5000 miles in two months. Overall, though, it was a great trip, and I'm glad I was able to go. Thanks to everyone I got to talk to and stay with along the way, and to everyone who pitched in and helped me out with various (mostly repair) expenses. Y'all are great. (What? I went to Texas on this trip, I can use "y'all.")

On the Road Again

Once again, lots of traveling this week, so not much to post.

Check that, here's a quick travel tip: always, ALWAYS carry extra oil and coolant on long trips. It saves you from, for example, realizing that you are out of coolant while driving on a highway in a location that is about 45 miles from the nearest inhabited area. That is not fun. Not fun at all.

There - that's your tip for the week. Next week is the seminar I am holding in Lewistown, MT. I should have something more interesting to update with then.

Insight Into Identity

So when we last left our discussion of cognitive theory, I had given an overview a review of direct and indirect understanding. This model seems to apply to all the ideas we hold. That is, for any idea we can think of, our understanding is either direct, indirect, or some blend of the two. My understanding of computers, for example, is blended - some things I understand directly (basic ideas about computer operation and function), and some I understand indirectly (router functions, networking, and how my computer interacts with my ISP).


Now one particular bit of understanding that is a major component of how we function is our understanding of ourselves - our self-concept, or self-identity. Like any other idea, we can understand ourselves directly or indirectly. Initially, we learn a lot about ourselves indirectly through our parents, friends, and general environment. Over time, however, we usually begin to form our own ideas about ourselves which are to some degree independent of our environment. These new self-concepts are understood directly - they are our ideas about ourselves, we own them, and we determine how they change. For the sake of simplicity, I will call ideas we hold about ourselves directly our direct identity, and ideas about ourselves we get from others our indirect identity.

For most of our lives, we have a blend of direct and indirect identity. We often feel it most keenly in adolescence, when we really start trying to assert a more direct identity over the indirect identity provided by our families and general culture. We never fully gain a completely direct identity, however, and for good reason - we are often wrong about ourselves. I may believe myself to be an eloquent writer or brilliant singer, only to have others contradict my understanding. At that point, I need to assess whether or not I am right about my understanding of myself - perhaps I really don't sing as well as I think I do. On the other hand, maybe those critics are just jealous of my incredible talent. It is sometimes hard to determine which understanding most closely matches up with reality, and we spend much of our lives trying to figure that out.

One aspect of identity that concerns the work we do with IRI is the relationship direct and indirect identity has to control. If you remember from last time, if I have a direct understanding of something, I am in control of that idea - the idea is mine. I can change, modify, and adapt it as I see fit in order to bring it into alignment with everything else I understand about the world (ideally, this brings it into better alignment with reality, but sometimes we get really, really confused). An indirect
understanding, however, leaves control of the idea to whoever is teaching me. I can't do any more with computer repair, for example, than what the IT specialist tells me. The IT specialist has a direct understanding, but my understanding is only indirect. Thus - and this is critical - direct understanding allows me to control an idea, while indirect understanding leaves control in the hands of others. Now, apply this principle to direct and indirect identity, and what do we get?

What we end up with is a direct correlation between direct and indirect identity and personal agency. The degree to which I have a direct identity (I understand myself directly), is the degree to which I have control over my life (barring, of course, aspects of our environment we cannot control - no matter how direct my identity, getting hit by a tornado will end badly for me). To the extent I have an indirect identity, someone else (the entity which gives me my identity) has control over my life. This is, again, exemplified well in adolescence, where teenagers struggle to not only define themselves, but also escape from their parent's control. In short, my sense of identity (direct or indirect) directly impacts my sense of agency, and the associated sense of responsibility. If I have control over something (like myself), I have a responsibility to properly manage that thing. If I do not have control over something, then I am not actually responsible for it.*

Since our goal at IRI is to help people take control of their lives so that they can improve their situation, we are constantly working to bring people from an indirect to a direct identity. This work has led us to some interesting theories about why many cultures are suffering socially and economically right now, where the problem comes from, and how it can be fixed. That's going to be quite a heavy load to cover, however, so it will have to wait for next time.
 
------------------------------------------
* As a side note, this is one reason why mismatching authority and responsibility in business is both demoralizing and dangerous. If I am given responsibility without the power to change the situation I am responsible for, I become nothing more than a scapegoat. If I am given power with no responsibility, I become a monster. Neither situation is really beneficial to anyone involved.

Travel Takes Time

I'm currently in the Dallas, TX area. I started in Spokane, WA, and have been driving through Colorado, Kansas, and Oklahoma. I return to OK tomorrow. These trips are primarily to meet with supporters and partners. We want to keep our connections with the people helping us, and the best way to do that is in person. It is a great trip, and I get to meet lots of incredible people, but it is tiring. It also makes writing up posts difficult at times, especially when I am moving from place to place every day, and each trip is over 4 hours.

That's the long way of saying I don't have much to post this week. Next week is much more relaxed, as I will be staying in the Tulsa area for a while.

An Interesting Interpretation

Well, I'm back to traveling. I just finished a missions conference in Grand Junction, Colorado, and am on my way to visit a church in DeKalb, Missouri. I love to travel, but I will admit that I also like having a few days between presentations and driving to cool down a bit (and post blog entries). Right now, I am taking a short break in Denver before heading off tomorrow for Missouri.

While I am traveling, I still get updates from the office and our supporters. One such update proved particularly interesting: apparently there was an article in a magazine that referenced an article that I wrote for the Room For Doubt website.

Now, I remember writing the article: I was asked to write a series of introductions to several web articles that people might be interested in reading. The articles in question were not articles produced by Room For Doubt (a Christian website), but by several atheists and agnostics, who were talking about their understanding of ethics, morality, and life in general. The hope was that the Christian readers of the Room For Doubt (I'm going to call it RFD from now on), site would be able to see how outsiders to the faith through about and understood our world. As such, I was asked not be as unbiased in my presentation as possible, allowing readers to think about what these alternative views and their implications (both good and bad).

One of the readers, apparently, was Kent B. True (the nom de plume of Harold Orndorff) for the Restoration Herald. It seems I was a more successful than I had intended in my neutrality, as Kent was under the impression that I was endorsing the content of the articles, not simply the reading of them. Kent's article was sent to us by one of our supporters, who was curious about the interesting position Kent claimed I was taking. Unfortunately, I have tried to find where these articles got posted, but have failed to do so. This means that I have only my recollection of my comments (as my original comments are buried in some deep, dark corner of one of my computers), so it may be that the framing of my comments by the site, or even the comments themselves indicated a position I had not intended to take. So, both for our supporter's and Kent's sake, let me clarify my position.

To be fair to Kent, most of his analysis was of the content of the articles I was recommending. These articles were largely existentialist in nature, and Ken (to brutally shorten a much longer and more complex argument) believed existentialism to be untenable as a source of ethics.

I agree.

There: point clarified. Now this is not to say I was just blowing smoke in my recommendations for these articles, I genuinely believe that the authors are intelligent people making the best case they can for their position. That's why I recommended other people read them; it is important to understand other positions, not just our interpretations or caricatures of other positions. This does not, however, mean I agree with them. Certainly, there are parts of what many of the authors said that I think are legitimate, but I tend to agree with (as well as find fault with) parts of what nearly everyone says. Just because I agree with a point, that doesn't mean I agree with the main point or conclusion of a position or argument.

I believe existentialism to be a valiant effort, but ultimately futile. That is, really, one of the big reasons I am not an existentialist. To me, it looks like someone trying to cross a vast chasm by holding out two boards...then trying to walk across them. The idea of putting out boards to cross is good, and the idea of crossing on the boards is good, but when you put all the ideas together, they just don't work.

So my apologies to anyone who believed I was an existentialist. I know I am amazing, and everyone wants me in their corner, but that's not the case here. Also my apologies to whoever might have been confused by the misunderstanding. Finally, I apologize to anyone who really didn't care about any of this, and read through this article hoping I would eventually move on to something more interesting.

If anyone is interested in Kent's views and opinions, he also has a blog called The Clubhouse. While I do not endorse all of his ideas (or anyone else's, really), I do think he has some interesting points, and endorse reading them.

A Review of Reviewing Thinking

For the last year or so, I have been posting articles about some of the ideas and theories behind our work at IRI. I have recently had people point out that these articles are mixed in with many other articles and posts, and can be hard to find. I was asked to provide a way to review all the posts relating to our ideas, and so I went back to find all the posts. In the process I discovered two important things:

1) I'm terrible at keeping a consistent posting schedule

2) I am starting to repeat myself in my posts

These are things I will be working on. In the meantime, here are all the posts that are related to our theories, in order. You can click on the address of each to go to the relevant page. I hope this is helpful.

THINGS I HAVE SAID (Volume 1)

What Do the Seminars Do? 

http://incominginsight.blogspot.com/2011/09/what-do-seminars-do.html

Things We Have Learned: Terms & Concepts

http://incominginsight.blogspot.com/2012/08/things-we-have-learned-terms-concepts.html

Away Longer Than I Thought 

(includes a Discussion of Direct and Indirect Learning)

http://incominginsight.blogspot.com/2014/01/away-longer-than-i-thought.html

Incoming Insights: Direct and Indirect Identity

http://incominginsight.blogspot.com/2014/03/incoming-insights-direct-and-indirect.html

What Is ABC Thinking?

http://incominginsight.blogspot.com/2014/09/what-is-abc-thinking.html

What is ABC Thinking (2): Three Components of Thought

http://incominginsight.blogspot.com/2014/09/what-is-abc-thinking-2-three-components.html

ABC Thinking (3): Putting Thoughts Together - How A, B, and C Relate

http://incominginsight.blogspot.com/2014/09/abc-thinking-3-putting-thoughts.html

ABC Thinking and Dr. Stuart Cook

http://incominginsight.blogspot.com/2014/09/abc-thinking-and-dr-stuart-cook.html

Examples of Cognitive Systems: BCA Thinking

http://incominginsight.blogspot.com/2014/09/examples-of-cognitive-systems-bca.html

BAC Thinking: A Theoretical Cognitive System

http://incominginsight.blogspot.com/2014/09/bac-thinking-theoretical-cognitive.html

Thinking About CAB: Conceptualized Mysticism

http://incominginsight.blogspot.com/2014/10/thinking-about-cab-conceptualized.html

Thinking about CBA: Mystical Materialism

http://incominginsight.blogspot.com/2014/10/thinking-about-cba-mystical-materialism.html

Thinking About ACB: Mystical Conceptualization

http://incominginsight.blogspot.com/2014/11/thinking-about-acb-mystical.html

Thinking About ABC

http://incominginsight.blogspot.com/2014/12/thinking-about-abc.html

Insight Into Cognitive Systems: Extra Thoughts

http://incominginsight.blogspot.com/2014/12/insight-into-cognitive-systems-extra.html

Insight Into Thinking: Comprehension 

(here is where I start repeating myself a bit - consider it a review)

http://incominginsight.blogspot.com/2015/02/insight-into-thinking-comprehension.html

It Turns Out Trips Take Preparation

Just what the title says. This particular trip will be about two months long, and involve at least five states where I will be presenting/speaking that I know of so far. I think it's getting to me a bit, but I want to keep posting regularly, so here's the update: I am getting ready for lots and lots of driving broken up by periods of speaking and presenting. I expect I will be exhausted by the time I am done, but I plan to keep posting during the trip. Speaking of which, the next post will be a kind of "recap" for those people who have just started visiting recently, and may not be up on all my "Insights Into" posts. My plan is to give an overview of the topics I have currently covered along with links, so newcomers can catch up without having to read the less interesting posts (like this one). I may also try to give a quick overview of where I am headed with the posts, as well, depending on the amount of time my travels afford me.

Next post - probably from Kansas or Colorado.

Quick Update

So this week I am getting ready for traveling next week. As my next travel session will probably be very long, that means getting my tax info out of the way so I can travel with at least that much stress off my shoulders. This has been distracting, so my post this week has been delayed. I keep telling myself "I just need to finish this thing, then I will post," but the truth is, it really isn't happening. So I figured I should put up  short post to explain why my post isn't up, and probably won't be until next week.

Job accomplished.

In the meantime, I have been thinking about the terms I have been using to describe Direct Understanding. Part of the trouble I have had in explaining our ideas is that we have a lot of terms we could use, but none of them are exactly what we want. Understanding, comprehension, ideas, concepts, definitions - all of these have different concepts attached to them, but none of them quite work, since the common understanding of them tends to be 1) vague, and 2) highly overlapping. This makes precision difficult, and explanations long and somewhat tedious. I may, therefore, put together a list of terms with definitions as I use them in my explanations - a kind of Glossary of Jason. I'm not sure if/when I will do this, but given the complexity of the topic, it may be useful. Whether I do or not, I still want to spend time exploring how direct and indirect understanding impacts our personal identity, so that will probably be in the next post.

Insight Into Thinking: Comprehension

It's been a while since I talked about the theories behind the work we do at IRI, and I think it's about time to resume. Previously, I reviewed different thinking styles people use to interact with the world. Now clearly, given IRI's focus on ABC thinking, we have a preference when it comes to which style we promote, but before I get into the details of why, I want to take a moment to discuss a closely related issue—the way we learn and understand ideas. In the work we do, discussions in this area usually produce the most positive feedback and results, and I cannot understate how important it is to our work.

Onward, then.

Direct Understanding

So let's say there is an idea I want (or need) to understand (we will refer to this generic idea as “I”). There are three ways I can understand this idea. First, I can understand it directly. That is, I have a fully developed concept about the idea, understand its impact on other ideas, and feel comfortable modifying my concept to adapt to new information. Direct understanding, which I will also refer to as conceptualization, can be illustrated as follows:

 

Note the arrows go both ways; I understand the idea, and I can, in turn, do things with the idea (modify it, update, or otherwise adapt it to new circumstances). In short, I understand, and can use the idea—the idea is my idea.

Indirect Understanding

Now let's look at another scenario. In this case, I don't know the idea and need to go to another person to understand it. This other person (or institution) is someone I know and rely on for information (for this illustration, it doesn't matter if I should trust my teacher, only that I do). The teacher, understanding the idea, can communicate it to me. This can be illustrated as follows:

Now, you'll notice a couple of differences in this diagram. While the teacher has a direct understanding of the material, and I have a direct connection to the teacher, the teacher is simply imparting information to me. That is, the information I have isn't something I understand directly, but indirectly through the teacher. This means that all I understand about the idea is what the teacher has given me. I am dependent on the teacher for my idea, and I cannot modify, adapt, or change the idea, since it is not mine, but my teacher's. We call this Indirect Understanding, which we sometimes refer to as definitional understanding (as definitions in the dictionary only change slowly and with much fuss). At this point, I only know what I have been taught, and I cannot deviate from my teaching.

Direct vs. Indirect

To illustrate the difference between a direct and indirect understanding, consider the difference between normal office workers using their computers and members of the Information Technology (IT) department. The office worker probably doesn't know too much about computers, overall—he or she might be able to turn them on and make them run the required programs, but if something goes wrong, the worker is stuck and has to call IT. In the best case (let's be optimistic here), the IT worker listens to the problem, diagnoses the situation, and instructs the office worker on how to make the computer start working again. At this point, the office worker can fix the problem, but probably still doesn't understand the problem. The office worker has an indirect understanding of what to do—he or she only knows what IT said to do, and does what IT says to make things work. IT, by contrast, has a direct understanding of the computer's operations, and can identify the problem, formulate a solution specific to that problem, and instruct the office worker on how to fix it (again, best case scenario here). Direct understanding allows us to problem solve and adapt—we gain new ways of thinking; indirect understanding just gives us new things to think about. The difference between the two is the difference between how to think and what to think.

Wrapping Up

Clearly, a direct understanding of an idea is superior to an indirect understanding in terms of utility and development. Initially, we all learn about ideas indirectly—someone else tells us something new, and now we have more information than before. The goal then becomes to move from indirect understanding to direct understanding. We want to go from knowing data to comprehending concepts. Gaining a direct understanding should be the goal of every learner...and helping others acquire a direct understanding should be the goal of every teacher. It is critical that we keep this in mind when talking about the importance of ABC thinking. Next time, I hope to discuss how this idea of direct and indirect understanding relates to our identity and our sense of worth and ability.

Workshops Completed!

Last week's workshops are over, and they were very well received. We had six participants in the college workshop, and an average of 11 participants in the evening church group. In both cases, the participants found that the changes in thinking that come from reflecting on our concepts, then seeing how they apply in our lives made an impact on how they were approaching their work and home lives. There was also a lot of interest in the idea of direct vs indirect understanding, a topic I plan to review in more detail in a later post. There was some frustration, especially during the first few days, among both groups, but this was expected. The feedback by the end of the week was positive, if not enthusiastic. Both groups have indicated that they would like more training or follow-up to the seminar, and we are currently planning some additional workshops for the church that Al will be presenting later this month. We expect to have some additional work from the college, as well, though it would take longer to set up those (more formal) programs.

One point that is clear in both cases: we do not think about our ideas nearly as much as we believe we do. While we are a conceptual culture, in general, we are not often a reflective one, and this is where many of our weaknesses arise. It is very common for someone to explain a mistake (theirs or another's) with the phrase "he wasn't thinking," and this explanation is usually exactly right. Our ability to think about what we are doing - not just our actions but also our way of making decisions or problem solving - has a huge impact on what we are capable of accomplishing. These workshops are proving to be a great way to help people develop the ability to not just think about what they are doing, but also about what they are thinking. We have found that when you focus on how you think, life becomes a lot more managable.

The content of the feedback was very positive. Even the suggestions for changes were given more as "ways to improve" instead of "bad, and you must change." Some of the feedback we received:

• "It pushed us out of our comfort zone!"*
• "...I would like to take a longer course on this subject. I would change it to be more like a 4 hour class, rather than just 2."
•  "Brevity was good. [Good] discussion."
• "...with this class I will look at the 'why' in what I do so that I can broaden my effect on family and friends."
• "I liked the homework"

The last one was genuinely surprising (and, to be fair, not universal). We have found, though, that people do like to stretch their abilities, as long as they don't feel like failures when they run into trouble. This is, by far, the most difficult point of the workshop to get across--we aren't looking for "right" answers, we are trying to help people learn how to discern what the "right" answers may be. Once a person learns how to learn, there is very little that can stop him or her.

-------------------------------------
* Just to be clear, this comment was in response to the question: "What was your favorite part of the workshop?"

Workshops In Progress

IRI currently has two workshops underway in Casper, Wyoming. I am leading one at Casper College, for the custodial department, while Al is leading another for a local church.  This is the first time we have used our updated, shortened workshop format (8-10 hrs, down from 36+ hrs.) and it is working well. Feedback so far is positive, and the participants seem excited about the material.

We are hoping that this shortened format will give us more opportunities to hold workshops for other partners/supporters. In the past, the biggest hurdle for our seminar was the fact that it took an entire week's time. Now, while we still prefer a four or five day time frame, we only need around 2 hours a day, which makes it much easier for people and organizations to work into their schedule. The new format is also much more flexible, in terms of tailoring itself to its audience, than the previous seminar format. In our current case, we have one seminar focused on personnel training (the college), with no religious content, and one focused on spiritual discipleship (at the church). While it may seem difficult, it is really just a matter of focus. Both groups are learning how to think more clearly about themselves and their environment, but the former workshop focused on the practical day-to-day applications, while the latter focuses on the Biblical ties and spiritual implications of the material. It is great having a basic core that can be of benefit to all people, without losing its integrity or being dishonest about its intentions with one group or the other. We're having a blast, and hope that everyone continues to enjoy the workshops this week!