Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Family Thanksgiving


Astral Facts, November 2010

(weather-delayed edition)

Astral: (Theosophy) Consisting of, belonging to, or designating, a kind of supersensible substance alleged to be next above the tangible world in refinement; as, astral spirits; astral bodies of persons; astral current.

Family Thanksgiving

While sitting in the dentist office waiting room last August, I was surprised to see a current issue of Newsweek on the table. This issue focused on the world’s top 100 countries, where the United States finished 11th overall (Some details are here:

http://www.newsweek.com/feature/2010/the-world-s-best-countries.html)

I was interested in the rating for education, where the US didn’t crack the top ten in education. (On the online chart, the US finished 26th, snuggled between Slovenia (27th) and Latvia (25th), far behind Finland (1st), as well as Kazakhstan (14th), and Cuba (20th).

The issue also included a sidebar commentary on what kinds of “fixes” might be considered.


1. Get kids into school as early as possible

2. Increase the time spent in school

3. Invest in teacher training


The researchers noted that American children spend half their waking hours outside of school, but children experiencing extensive preschooling at a young age, extended school days and years, and instruction from “effective” teachers do better.

As the section on education concluded: It may be difficult in some nations, but “…the fruits of this emphasis are still paying off in high test scores.”


A major problem is certainly being exposed here. I am sure everyone can see it plainly.


Of course, I am referring to how the emphasis on family is not only absent from the equation but also undermined.

Rather, the focus is on getting “good” test scores related to intellectual and factual knowledge and its application. How is “character” education being included or even acknowledged? What part of the curriculum includes respect for others, tolerance toward diversity, involvement in community service, etc?


I always thought the “first school” and basic education began within the family and the family continued to be the primary institution of learning in any stable society. However, the three points emphasized for reform combine to reduce the influence and involvement of the family. Is the cure really to put children in school at an earlier age, keep them in school more days and for a longer time each day, and place the responsibility for the children upon the “trained” educators in the school system?


In my freshman comp class, students read “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan, where she discusses the nature and complexity of the languages we use in intersecting worlds we inhabit. In giving a lecture about her book The Joy Luck Club, she found herself using the formal structure of academic English. Later in conversing with her mother and her husband, she commented on the high cost of furniture by saying, “Not waste money that way.” She realized this was a perfectly normal statement to make “in our language of intimacy” that she had grown up with as a member of an immigrant family. In her article, Tan recognizes the different “Englishes” she combines in her writing:


The English I spoke to my mother, which for lack of a better term might be described as ‘simple’; the English she used with me, which …’broken’; my translation of her Chinese, which …’watered down’; and what I imagined to be her translation of her Chinese if she could speak in perfect English, her internal language, and for that I sought to preserve the essence, but with neither an English nor a Chinese structure. I wanted to capture what language ability tests can never reveal: her intent, her passion, her imagery, the rhythms of her speech and the nature of her thoughts.
We also read and discuss “Children in the Woods” by Barry Lopez (referred to as “the nation’s premier nature writer" by the San Francisco Chronicle). Lopez owns some wilderness property in Oregon, where children frequently visit. He says the children often want to go into the woods with him. Lopez notes, “In the beginning, years ago, I think I said too much. I spoke with an encyclopedic knowledge of the names of plants or the names of the birds passing through in season.” He goes on to say that he learned later just to guide the children along paths of discovery from simple details they notice. He comes to realize,

In speaking with children who might one day take a permanent interest in natural history-as writers, as scientists, as filmmakers, as anthropologists-I have sensed that an extrapolation from a single fragment of the whole is the most invigorating experience I can share with them. I think children know that nearly anyone can learn the names of things; the impression made on them at this level is fleeting. What takes a lifetime to learn, they comprehend, is the existence and substance of myriad relationships: It is these relationships, not the things themselves, that ultimately hold the human imagination.

I would think such experiences as Tan and Lopez describe are important "astral" intangibles that the SAT, GRE, ACT, WASL (may it rest in peace), etc. overlook or even ignore. In this country, we see universities placing emphasis on community service, extracurricular activities, and personal narratives as much as the standardized tests that currently define “good” students.


Both my grandfathers died before I was born, so I never got to take a walk with them in the woods or discuss the olden day struggles with them; nonetheless, I learned a lot from my own father and mother about their lives and my own through our shared experiences as a family during the “down time” from school, something I make sure to do with my own children.


During this November and December festive holiday time when families traditionally gather, I hope everyone can have time for informal and internal education as a family, where tuition is cheap and priceless.

Walter Lowe

Astral Facts is a monthly presentation of Humanities Science, produced in the bowels of the Humanities Science offices.




Friday, October 29, 2010

Put Another Tree Limb on the Bonfire

Astral Facts, October 2010

Astral: (Theosophy) Consisting of, belonging to, or designating, a kind of supersensible substance alleged to be next above the tangible world in refinement; as, astral spirits; astral bodies of persons; astral current.


Put Another Tree Limb on the Bonfire

Often we use basic vocabulary without stopping to wonder why and how certain expressions have come to be. For example, the term “bonfire” is often used as teams rally the night before a big football match or when various groups have special evening gatherings at retreats or conferences at waterfront or forested locations.

However, the ties to the term's original concept and this weekend’s Halloween festivities might not be so apparent.

October 31st has long been viewed as the beginning of the new year in Celtic tradition, where the transition from one day to the next actually occurs at nightfall rather than some vague midpoint of the night. In the Celtic traditional stories, light came out of darkness (as in the Judeo / Christian / Islamic beliefs); thus, the darkness represents the transition into new life. Each day then begins in darkness, followed by the new life brought out in daylight.

At nightfall on October 31st, the light of summer ends and the darkness of the seed of the new year begins. Just as the “fruit” germinates unseen from within the seed, new life comes out from the darkness at the end of summer and the harvest season. The Celts call this celebration Samhain or Samhainn (pronounced “Sow-en”) celebrated on the evening of October 31st, according to the predominent solar calendar.

To the Celts, time was circular rather than linear. This is reflected in their commencing each day, and each festival, at dusk rather than dawn, a custom comparable with that of the Jewish Sabbath. It is also reflected in their year beginning with the festival of Samhain on 31 October, when nature appears to be dying down. Tellingly, the first month of the Celtic year is Samonios, ‘Seed Fall’: in other words, from death and darkness springs life and light. http://www.livingmyths.com/Celticyear.htm

According to the Celtic beliefs, at this time the veil between the physical world and the spirit world become very thin, as a sort of “in between” time gap existing between the 12-month solar calendar and the 13-month lunar calendar. In many ways, this became a very sacred and holy time.  During this time, ancestors from the Otherworld could revisit their haunts from their physical life time. Villagers opened doors and windows to welcome in their ancestors, and food was prepared for them. Since not all the spirits were friendly, faces of guardian spirits were carved on turnips and set at the doorways to turn away those bothersome spirits.

There was also a much lighter side to the Celtic New Year rituals. Children put on strange disguises and roamed the countryside, pretending to be the returning dead or spirits from the Otherworld. Celts thought the break in reality on November Eve not only provided a link between the worlds, but also dissolved the structure of society for the night. Boys and girls would put on each other's clothes, and would generally flout convention by boisterous behavior and by playing tricks on their elders. http://home.comcast.net/~buaidh/Samhainn.html

Villagers would slaughter cattle for a great feast where the whole community would gather around a large fire. The bones of the sacrificed animals would be put on the fire, with all other flames in the village extinguished. Then each family would relight its hearth from the one great fire, bonding the community together to start the new year.

So enjoy the celebration this weekend and other community gatherings throughout the year as you toss another limb from the family tree onto the bonfire!



Walter Lowe

Astral Facts is a monthly presentation of Humanities Science, produced in the bowels of the Humanities Science offices.

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Age of the Humanities

Astral Facts, September 2010


Astral: (Theosophy) Consisting of, belonging to, or designating, a kind of supersensible substance alleged to be next above the tangible world in refinement; as, astral spirits; astral bodies of persons; astral current.

Age of the Humanities

In these days of changes and budget cutting, on campus we see the budget knife poised over the literature, arts, and humanities areas. Perhaps this should be troubling to us all.

 
Historians and many social scientists will tell us that human civilization has shifted from agrarian societies to what is called the Industrial Age, where powers of production and labor capabilities were the bases for power and value. More recently, civilization has been in what some call the Information Age, where control and manipulation of knowledge and information have reigned. As we have continued into the 21st century and the third modern millennium, control over and access to information is no longer available only to a privileged few, as anyone can “Google” this or blog that.

Daniel Pink, a commentator on business and technology issues, has suggested that we are now in the Conceptual Age, where powers of human sensitivity will hold the key to success in life. In other words, the opportunities, capabilities and skills of “design, story, symphony, empathy, play, and meaning” will be valued. It is not having the information and knowledge that will be important; rather, the application and use of the content will be of greater value.

British philosopher Roger Scruton has divided knowledge into three categories. He calls these “knowledge that, how, and what,” which can be restated as knowledge related to “information, skill, and virtue.” In other words, knowledge “that” would help us understand the meaning of a bicycle and the principles of its design. Knowledge “how” would refer to having the capability of pedaling it, applying the brakes, competing in BMX extreme sports, etc. Finally, knowledge “what” involves the proper time, place, circumstances, etc. in applying such skills – should we ride at full speed across campus and down the hallways between classes? Should we ride in the middle of the street and impede other vehicle traffic when no specific bike lane is marked? Scruton says such knowledge is the basis for a cultural “ethical vision,” which he says “is a knowledge not of facts nor of means but of ends: the most precious knowledge we have.”



And isn’t this the knowledge addressed by the Humanities? Isn’t it through the various disciplines of the Humanities (art, literature, philosophy, music, language, theater, etc.) that people are able to exercise and experience the components of the “Conceptual Age” that Pink has identified?


As many have noted, in a time when we see emphasis on multicultural inclusion, why are cutting off the avenues for the sharing of stories, empathy, symphony, etc. that connect us with the cultural diversity that surrounds us in the barrios, ghettos, ‘burbs, and other ‘hoods? Shouldn’t today’s students learn to develop an understanding of the skills, values, and knowledge “what” needed in the Conceptual Age?


This reminds me of the story of the prospector and his donkey.

Every month the two would come down from the hills to get fresh supplies. Each time the prospector was disturbed by the cost of feed for his donkey. Finally, he told the owner of the supply store that he had figured out a solution – he would train the donkey to live on sawdust, which was in plentiful supply in the hills.


After several months like this, the prospector came down to the town without the donkey.

Where is your donkey?" the shopkeeper asked him.

“Oh, I must be the unluckiest person alive,” moaned the prospector. “Just as I finally trained the donkey to survive on sawdust, it died!”


Walter Lowe

Astral Facts is a monthly presentation of Humanities Science, produced in the bowels of the Humanities Science offices.

Monday, April 26, 2010

Astral Facts, April 2010




Have Fun on 101

Astral: (Theosophy) Consisting of, belonging to, or designating, a kind of supersensible substance alleged to be next above the tangible world in refinement; as, astral spirits; astral bodies of persons; astral current.



April’s celebration as “Poetry Month” has seen lots of famous and contemporary pieces published in the newspapers, in daily emails, on refrigerator notes, etc. We might be wondering why we haven’t seen the advertisers jump on this bandwagon, but – like marketing natural medicines – the money in poetry isn’t really so profitable.


Fortunately, the people at Burma Shave didn’t accept that, exploring down a “road not taken” with the poetic signs which used to be found along the backroads of America. Perhaps many of us can still remember “the good ol’ days” driving on those winding two-lane state highways (like the original Route 66 across country or Highway 101 along the west coast) and then coming across a series of five or six small signs on the side of the road, with about enough space in between to read and digest one before the next appeared. The final sign in the series always identified the source (Burma Shave), but we knew it long before it appeared.


Some samples went like:


The ladies
          Take one whiff
                        And purr—
                                       It's no wonder
                                                       Men prefer


Burma-Shave Lotion


The first signs carried content to advertise the benefits of the product, but once the brand name recognition became automatic, many verses focused on driving habits and road safety. A typical example is entitled “Daisies”:


       If daisies
                 Are your
                        Favorite flower
                                      Keep pushing up those
                                                        Miles-per-hour


                                                                          Burma Shave.



You can find an exhaustive list compiled from the book Verse by the Side of the Road at this location:
http://burma-shave.org/jingles/


Of course, we don’t take the backroads in our current fast-paced culture, and we have the Interstates (I-5, I-90, I-84, etc.) slicing straight lines through terrains from point A to point B at posted speeds of 70 mph. Thus, the rustic local color of the country roads has been brushed over and aside for the state sponsored (and controlled) “Lodging / Food / Gas at the next exit” messages that preserve the natural beauty of the Interstate network and control the revenue flow.


High-fives for the I-5’s!


During this month, I experienced the “High-five for the I-5” attitude in my classroom while we were discussing the poem “The Man He Killed” by Thomas Hardy.


I imagine copyright laws prevent me from reproducing the entire poem here, but it’s readily available online for perusal prior to discussing it. Open it in a new window:


http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/923.html


My students read it over and pronounced it was saying that “war turns potential friends into enemies. “


I suggested that might not be all there was to it, so they added that the poem shows that “war causes soldiers to act differently than they ordinarily would.”


This was followed by the attitude that said, “We’ve finished. Can we leave now, Mr. Lowe?”


“High five for the I-5!”


However, I had planned the class session with a “High fun on 101” perspective, and I was noticing some curves, so I asked, “Why does each stanza begin with quotation marks, but only the final stanza has quote marks at the end?”


While they puzzled over that one, I noticed a view from a different angle, asking them, “Why does he have those dashes in the third and fourth stanzas?”


Since one of the students had read the poem aloud to start the discussion, I suggested, “Do the dashes somehow affect the rhythm of the poem when it’s read aloud? Why would Hardy do something like that?”


As a class, we figured out that the quotations meant that the entire poem was that of a soldier speaking aloud, and the dashes interrupted the rhythm because it appeared that this was the first time the soldier had verbally told the story of the experience.


By now, we were actually out of the allotted time, but obviously we weren’t finished yet. We hadn’t decided what the circumstances were that prompted him to speak. So the assignment for the next day was to imagine someone needed an illustration to accompany the poem in a book. If the offer was $5,000 for the best concept, how would they compose their suggestion? How much time had elapsed between the event and the telling of it? How would they describe the scene and situation?


The next day they had forgotten the “High-five for I-5” view and completely pulled off the freeway. They wanted to spend the entire class time at this particular bend in the road with its panoramic view of the variety of possible scenes.


Obviously, the “I” and the “he” in the poem referred to the two soldiers, with “I” walking off the battlefield and “he” remaining a dead body on the battlefield.


However, the “He” in Hardy's title, now they had thought about it, wasn’t so clear. If the speaker in the poem had indeed realized in the third and fourth stanzas that the man who had died might easily be a mirror image of himself, that realization had not carried over to the fifth (and final) stanza, for he ends the story in the same matter-of-fact and somewhat detached voice he started with.


Whatever emotions he had acknowledged in stanza three and four were now safely bottled up again. Essentially, part of him had died out on the battlefield as well, and now this is something he has to carry inside.


The students felt that Hardy had recognized and described PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) back in the early 1900’s – long before the contemporary recognition in the 1970’s as a condition needing attention.


By their initial “High-five for I-5” approach, the students had missed the deeper implications of Hardy’s observations. However, a “Have fun on 101” approach offered much more value – value that perhaps could be found as we examine other things going on around us.  What happens in the classroom doesn't need to stay in the classroom!


Perhaps it’s not a bad idea to pull out of the fast lanes and take a leisurely drive, for fun, on 101!


Walter Lowe

Astral Facts is a monthly presentation of Humanities Science, produced in the bowels of the Humanities Science offices.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Astral Facts, March 2010

Natural Language

Astral: (Theosophy) Consisting of, belonging to, or designating, a kind of supersensible substance alleged to be next above the tangible world in refinement; as, astral spirits; astral bodies of persons; astral current.

Since April is National Poetry Month, it seems appropriate to segue from the lamb-like ending of the month (in spite of snow pummeling the mountain passes) by looking at how poetry can have its roots from merely listening to the voices of Mother Nature.

In her article “Hearing Voices,” Linda Hogan, a Chickasaw poet and the inaugural Writer in Residence for the Chickasaw, comments on Barbara McClintock, who won the Nobel Prize in 1983 for her research on gene transposition in maize (corn). When McClintock was asked for the inspiration that led her to her discoveries, she said that she listened to what the corn was saying to her, “letting it come.” According to Hogan, McClintock was successful because she paused to learn “the stories” of the corn plants and developed a relationship of “the inner voices of corn and woman speaking to one another.”

Hogan’s point is that, as a poet, her mission is to listen to the voices of nature and then be the medium to express them. Nature sees everything and reports it to whomever will listen. As Hogan says, when the Chernobyl disaster occurred, the local authorities tried to hush it over, but the wind carried the message to the rest of the world. “The wind was the poet, the prophet, the scientist” all rolled into one.

Hogan draws upon her own heritage whose oral tradition has told the stories of people who listened to the Earth: “people who have known that corn grows with the songs and prayers of the people, that it has a story to tell, that the world is alive.”

Hogan points out that this is not merely restricted to Native American tradition, for Western Culture describes how "Psyche received direction from the reeds and ants; Orpheus knew the language of earth, animals, and birds.”

Hogan says the mission of the poets is to communicate these messages. She cites Ernesto Cardenal, a priest, poet, and former Nicaraguan Minister of Culture, who commented on political events by noting, “The armadillos are very happy with this government …/ Not only humans desired liberation / the whole ecology wanted it.”

If course, these just sound like nice stories; however, perhaps it’s not that art imitates life, it is that art reflects life:

http://discovermagazine.com/2002/apr/featplants
http://www.redicecreations.com/article.php?id=4577

So for those of us who might be interested in learning a new language so that we can listen to our plants and maybe find inspiration in our lives and for the lives of those around us, here’s a good place to start:

http://www.redicecreations.com/article.php?id=4577

And who knows; maybe we can hear the voices, too!


EARTH VOICES
by: Bliss Carman (1861-1929)

I Heard the spring wind whisper
Above the brushwood fire,
"The world is made forever
Of transport and desire.

"I am the breath of being,
The primal urge of things;
I am the whirl of star dust,
I am the lift of wings.

"I am the splendid impulse
That comes before the thought,
The joy and exaltation
Wherein the life is caught.

"Across the sleeping furrows
I call the buried seed,
And blade and bud and blossom
Awaken at my need.

"Within the dying ashes
I blow the sacred spark,
And make the hearts of lovers
To leap against the dark."

II

I heard the spring light whisper
Above the dancing stream,
"The world is made forever
In likeness of a dream.

"I am the law of planets,
I am the guide of man;
The evening and the morning
Are fashioned to my plan.

"I tint the dawn with crimson,
I tinge the sea with blue;
My track is in the desert,
My trail is in the dew.

"I paint the hills with color,
And in my magic dome
I light the star of evening
To steer the traveller home.

"Within the house of being,
I feed the lamp of truth
With tales of ancient wisdom
And prophecies of youth."

III

I heard the spring rain murmur
Above the roadside flower,
"The world is made forever
In melody and power.

"I keep the rhythmic measure
That marks the steps of time,
And all my toil is fashioned
To symmetry and rhyme.

"I plow the untilled upland,
I ripe the seeding grass,
And fill the leafy forest
With music as I pass.

"I hew the raw, rough granite
To loveliness of line,
And when my work is finished,
Behold, it is divine!

"I am the master-builder
In whom the ages trust.
I lift the lost perfection
To blossom from the dust."

IV

Then Earth to them made answer,
As with a slow refrain
Born of the blended voices
Of wind and sun and rain,

"This is the law of being
That links the threefold chain:
The life we give to beauty
Returns to us again."


"Earth Voices" is reprinted from April Airs: A Book of New England Lyrics. Bliss Carman. Boston: Small, Maynard and Company, 1916.


Walter Lowe

Astral Facts is a monthly presentation of Humanities Science, produced in the bowels of the Humanities Science offices.

Monday, February 1, 2010

Astral Facts, January 2010

The Handwriting on the Wall

Astral: (Theosophy) Consisting of, belonging to, or designating, a kind of supersensible substance alleged to be next above the tangible world in refinement; as, astral spirits; astral bodies of persons; astral current.

If you’re like me, you probably were occupied with so many things that you missed the celebration for “National Handwriting Day,” which occurred, as it does every year, on January 23rd, the birthday of John Hancock, one of the most famous for handwriting.

And if you’re like most people, you might be thinking it’s not really a big deal – anything worth noting is already in our faces via email, texting, “all a-Twitter,” or other such channels of Twaddle.

People don’t write in diaries or journals any more – we have our personal blogs and Facebook pages to satisfy the primordial autobiographical urges – why bother with the clutter and mess of pen and ink!?

Why, indeed?


The recent issue of American Educator, Winter 2009-201, published by the American Federation of Teachers, addresses the topic of handwriting skills and composition and higher level thinking skills. The author (Steve Graham) notes that children often find that their ideas flow much faster than their hand moves, and they get frustrated at not being able to write down their thoughts fast enough.
http://archive.aft.org/pubs-reports/american_educator/index.htm

As a result, gaps occur while the mind must slow down and wait. When the hand has finished putting down the thoughts from a few minutes ago, the mind has often raced ahead and the next idea jotted down has fluency failings or it is written so illegibly that the content is totally lost. The student gets frustrated, decides “I can’t write; I’m not a writer,” and the self-fulfilling prophecy is verified when the student does fail in writing. We don’t have time in our elementary schools just to focus on handwriting itself, copying significant passages from significant tomes – handwriting is in the tombs.

And today, we really don’t need to write our thoughts out in much detail. Consequently, if we do, the lack of skill and practice is a handicap. For example, Kitty Burns Florey, the author of Script and Scribble: The Rise and Fall of Handwriting, notes in the January 29th entry in her blog,


But I think it’s too soon to declare legible penmanship a lost art. Maybe the problem lies in calling it an art rather than a simple necessity like knowing how to add and subtract. Hardly a day goes by when the average person doesn’t have to write something on paper. We take notes at meetings, we make lists, we address an envelope, we send a thank-you letter, we keep diaries. A radio talk show host who interviewed me this morning had jotted down some things he wanted to discuss but confessed he couldn’t read it back so had to wing it.
http://blog.coreknowledge.org/2009/01/29/handwriting-is-still-alive/


Back in 1986 (February 24th), Lance Morrow’s whimsical article in Time magazine
entitled “Scribble, Scribble, Eh, Mr. Toad?” extends Kenneth Grahame’s Wind in the Willows story to Mr. Toad discovering mechanical writing tools and progressing much the way he did with his vehicle fetishes. What if Toad (or any of us) found those no longer available, relegating himself back to the primitive mode of communicating in handwritten form? Perhaps, we might discover,

Toad drove his pencil onward. Grudgingly, he thought, This is rather interesting. His handwriting, spasmodic at first, began to settle after a time into rhythmic, regular strokes, growing stronger, like an oarsman on a long haul. Words come differently this way, thought Toad. To write a word is to make a thought an object. A thought flying around like electrons in the atmosphere of the brain suddenly coalesces into an object on the page (or computer screen). But when written in longhand, the word is a differently and more personally styled object than when it is arrayed in linear file, each R like every other R. It is not an art form, God knows, in Toad script, not Japanese calligraphy. .....

Writing in longhand does change one's style, Toad came to believe, a subtle change, of pace, of rhythm. Sentences in longhand seemed to take on some of the sinuosities of script. As he read his pages, Toad considered: The whole toad is captured here. L'ecriture, c'est l'homme (Handwriting is the man). Or: L'ecriture c'est le crapaud (Handwriting is the toad). http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,960730,00.html

OMG! 2 ltl time, 2 mch 2 say!
@TEOTD IWAWO!
But ICBW,
TTFN.

(Oh my goodness, too little time and too much to say.
At the end of the day, I want a way out!
But it could be worse.
Ta-Ta for now.)

Walter Lowe

Astral Facts is a monthly presentation of Humanities Science, produced in the bowels of the
Humanities Science offices.