Mental giving is sharing ideas. Some believe that this passed down knowledge and the ideas about it are the foundation on which our culture is based. Centuries of learning, even millennea have been distilled down to bring our civilization to the point at which we stand today. Ironically, the moment of realization has looked the same throughout all of that time. The well-known "Aha!" moment includes bright eyes, an almost imperceptible contraction of the pupil and an increase in both respiration and heart rate. The person learning and the teacher often get a bit of adrenaline rush and often there is a falling away of constraints of time and space. This timelessness is cultivated by the best teachers and because of it, their students are carried along into a non-physical space where their minds become optimized, stimulated, relaxed and excited simultaneously. Pound for pound, our brains, when stimulated, burn ten times the calories than muscle tissue. The benefits of this sort of giving accrues to both the teacher and the student, but more importantly to society as a whole.
Because of our fascination with our mental state, we often forget that our ideas are not our selves. The mental world, although it is a part of us, is not actually who we are, but for the time being let us assume that is a very large component. Our ideas and the information that we make our way through the world with can be a large determinant in what we see, how we react and how we present ourselves to others. Giving on this level, then, has a huge influence on who we see around us and the reactions that we may have to others. Giving of ideas and information may be the best way to find out about the world around us, fact checking our perceptions and gaining acceptance for new ideas or new approaches to age old problems.
Instead of, and in direct opposition to, the "Oh, that explains it." moment that we often feel when being told what to think, giving on the mental level works by example and encourages reciprocation. Learning how to think is different than being told what to think. Ironically, there was a report issued yesterday that looked critically at the outcomes of recent testing of students in both public schools and charter schools in Wisconsin. Charter schools get tax dollars for their operation without the regulations and requirements that public schools must follow. Almost half of students taught in traditional public schools scored either proficient or advanced in math and reading skills. This alone is a horrible state of affairs. It means that more than half of our students do not have facility with basic skills that they will need to succeed. Worse yet, when we compare those numbers to the voucher school students, even more of our children are falling through the cracks. In Milwaukee County, where voucher schools where first introduced, far less than twenty percent (only 16%) fell into those top two categories. In neighboring Racine County, 21% of students made it into the top two performance categories and statewide less than 1/3 of students made it into the proficient or advanced categories. reductionist tendencies wish us to think of these statistics in their aggregate, but they do not speak to the real questions about how this has been allowed, no encouraged to happen and what does this mean for our current and future state of affairs.
We certainly cannot forget that these statistics represent and actually reflect a stark reality. They reflect the status of actual students. Millions of individuals are experiencing mental challenges because schools are failing them. Not only are public schools generally falling down on the job, but the most recent phenomenon, charter schools are even worse. Having been trained as an educator, I understand that teaching is still considered a giving profession. Teachers for the most part do not, contrary to what we have been told, seek a job in education based on the fact that they have time off during the summer, nor do they go into teaching to get great salaries or awesome pensions. These red herrings have been thrown into public discussion to demonize and belittle the same people who we are asking to do more and more for the sake of our children and I contend that the list of jobs that teachers are required to do has grown disproportionately to their compensation for decades. We want teachers to be police officers, counselors, advocates, baby sitters, mental health professionals, M-team participants, experts on special needs and how to deal with specialized learning requirements, moral compasses for their students and Oh, by the way...teachers as well.The more responsibility we heap om teachers in the classroom, the less time they have for actually teaching.
This is perhaps why the burn-out rate for teachers has been climbing. Fewer than 10% of teachers retire after a full career, most only serve in this capacity for a half dozen years or less. This means that those with the least experience are being trusted with the greatest numbers of students. Many of the teachers that I had during my education stayed for a full thirty to forty year career, serving generations of students who respected them immensely. now, especially if you listen to the political rhetoric, these people who give their lives for other people's children are made out to sound like public enemies or at least greedy and lazy "takers". Think back to how you were introduced to concepts led to understand and describe ideas, or how you learned to make your way in the world. Virtually every time it was not trial and error that you got in isolation, someone took the time to help you to understand. These selfless givers are one of the most important parts of our lives and trying to learn how to teach others can be rewarding on many levels. We can reap benefits from teaching in many ways, for those of us who teach for a living we can attest to the good feelings that come from the discipline. They accrue in many ways, just not usually financial. Trying to create a system of for profit institutions that does as good a job at educating our children as the way we used to do it seems fraught with problems, but the facts seem to speak for themselves.
Lest we forget, this process is anything but one way. If we find those who are resistant to ideas, or who lack the basic components that will lead to their gaining information or ideas, there is little we can do to make them take up the information or use it in the future. Mental giving requires that the recipient take an active part in receiving. Unlike getting them to parrot back things they have been told, fully understanding ideas and gaining a useful hold of useful information cannot be drilled into a person.Perhaps with some things, mnemonic devices will help. I still use the old rhyme, Thirty days has September, April, June and November, but like multiplication tables, understanding the relationship between terms on a chart is different than just reading the chart. There are many things that can get in the way of mental giving, from hunger to malnutrition, form genetic abnormalities to head injuries or drug induced states. The reciprocity of our relationships, whether they be teacher to student, mentor to apprentice or elder to younger must have both a give and take to be successful. Letting go of the budding individual must be the goal, letting them use the information that you provide in their own way is the only way to know whether the teacher's job was successful. Watching those we have helped to learn take things to the next level is often the only way that we can truly know that we have left our mark.
Because of our fascination with our mental state, we often forget that our ideas are not our selves. The mental world, although it is a part of us, is not actually who we are, but for the time being let us assume that is a very large component. Our ideas and the information that we make our way through the world with can be a large determinant in what we see, how we react and how we present ourselves to others. Giving on this level, then, has a huge influence on who we see around us and the reactions that we may have to others. Giving of ideas and information may be the best way to find out about the world around us, fact checking our perceptions and gaining acceptance for new ideas or new approaches to age old problems.
Instead of, and in direct opposition to, the "Oh, that explains it." moment that we often feel when being told what to think, giving on the mental level works by example and encourages reciprocation. Learning how to think is different than being told what to think. Ironically, there was a report issued yesterday that looked critically at the outcomes of recent testing of students in both public schools and charter schools in Wisconsin. Charter schools get tax dollars for their operation without the regulations and requirements that public schools must follow. Almost half of students taught in traditional public schools scored either proficient or advanced in math and reading skills. This alone is a horrible state of affairs. It means that more than half of our students do not have facility with basic skills that they will need to succeed. Worse yet, when we compare those numbers to the voucher school students, even more of our children are falling through the cracks. In Milwaukee County, where voucher schools where first introduced, far less than twenty percent (only 16%) fell into those top two categories. In neighboring Racine County, 21% of students made it into the top two performance categories and statewide less than 1/3 of students made it into the proficient or advanced categories. reductionist tendencies wish us to think of these statistics in their aggregate, but they do not speak to the real questions about how this has been allowed, no encouraged to happen and what does this mean for our current and future state of affairs.
We certainly cannot forget that these statistics represent and actually reflect a stark reality. They reflect the status of actual students. Millions of individuals are experiencing mental challenges because schools are failing them. Not only are public schools generally falling down on the job, but the most recent phenomenon, charter schools are even worse. Having been trained as an educator, I understand that teaching is still considered a giving profession. Teachers for the most part do not, contrary to what we have been told, seek a job in education based on the fact that they have time off during the summer, nor do they go into teaching to get great salaries or awesome pensions. These red herrings have been thrown into public discussion to demonize and belittle the same people who we are asking to do more and more for the sake of our children and I contend that the list of jobs that teachers are required to do has grown disproportionately to their compensation for decades. We want teachers to be police officers, counselors, advocates, baby sitters, mental health professionals, M-team participants, experts on special needs and how to deal with specialized learning requirements, moral compasses for their students and Oh, by the way...teachers as well.The more responsibility we heap om teachers in the classroom, the less time they have for actually teaching.
This is perhaps why the burn-out rate for teachers has been climbing. Fewer than 10% of teachers retire after a full career, most only serve in this capacity for a half dozen years or less. This means that those with the least experience are being trusted with the greatest numbers of students. Many of the teachers that I had during my education stayed for a full thirty to forty year career, serving generations of students who respected them immensely. now, especially if you listen to the political rhetoric, these people who give their lives for other people's children are made out to sound like public enemies or at least greedy and lazy "takers". Think back to how you were introduced to concepts led to understand and describe ideas, or how you learned to make your way in the world. Virtually every time it was not trial and error that you got in isolation, someone took the time to help you to understand. These selfless givers are one of the most important parts of our lives and trying to learn how to teach others can be rewarding on many levels. We can reap benefits from teaching in many ways, for those of us who teach for a living we can attest to the good feelings that come from the discipline. They accrue in many ways, just not usually financial. Trying to create a system of for profit institutions that does as good a job at educating our children as the way we used to do it seems fraught with problems, but the facts seem to speak for themselves.
Lest we forget, this process is anything but one way. If we find those who are resistant to ideas, or who lack the basic components that will lead to their gaining information or ideas, there is little we can do to make them take up the information or use it in the future. Mental giving requires that the recipient take an active part in receiving. Unlike getting them to parrot back things they have been told, fully understanding ideas and gaining a useful hold of useful information cannot be drilled into a person.Perhaps with some things, mnemonic devices will help. I still use the old rhyme, Thirty days has September, April, June and November, but like multiplication tables, understanding the relationship between terms on a chart is different than just reading the chart. There are many things that can get in the way of mental giving, from hunger to malnutrition, form genetic abnormalities to head injuries or drug induced states. The reciprocity of our relationships, whether they be teacher to student, mentor to apprentice or elder to younger must have both a give and take to be successful. Letting go of the budding individual must be the goal, letting them use the information that you provide in their own way is the only way to know whether the teacher's job was successful. Watching those we have helped to learn take things to the next level is often the only way that we can truly know that we have left our mark.
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