Imaginal Education 1981

ANNOUNCEMENTS

SEND OUT Repeat after me: ACTION REMOVES THE DOUBT...THAT THEORY CANNOT SOLVE.

Imaginal Education 1981

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In the 1950's, the Institute began its work on curriculum by asking the questions: What is an educated person? What program of study will enable that picture of an "educated person" to become a reality?

Three basic presuppositions were discerned. First, a curriculum for 21st Century people needs to emphasize methodology for thinking and action rather than content. The process by which physics arrived at its operating wisdom is more necessary than the operating wisdom itself. The, capacity to do sociological thinking is more important than knowledge of particular sociological works. A further reason for emphasis on methodology is the colossal amount of available knowledge in the modern world. People's use of human wisdom and experience is limited by their ability to rapidly appropriate the wisdom needed. In addition to intellectual methods, human beings need methods for grappling with their personal destiny and methods for participating in the global social process. A person without clarity on methods for thinking, acting and living can not be called educated.

Second, the content of the educated person's competence must encompass the entire memory of the human race. Wholeness has to mean relational mapping, within which any particulars would, in principle, have their place. A model, called the life triangle was created. In the shaded part or the theoretical triangle is a relational map of the disciplines of learning. In this schema, a person is shown as a social being, a solitary being, and a being over against the inclusive mystery of what sometimes is called nature. Thus the science triangle organizes science studies under these categories: the sociological sciences, the psychological sciences and the natural sciences. The humanities triangle corresponds: history to a human as social being, art to a human as solitary being and philosophy to a human as the articulator of the inclusive patterns which provide unity and meaning to the multiple aspects of the mystery of being.

A curriculum which emphasizes methodology and wholeness must also be dynamic. It must be adaptable to different ages of human beings, to different communities, and to the relentless process of historical change. This means having a model which makes room for variable data. For example, the natural sciences can be further subdivided into the physical sciences, the life sciences, and the mathematical sciences. These three arenas of being can be taught to two­year olds as well as to eighty­two year olds, and to the ghetto dweller just as well as to the suburban sophisticate. But each group of students has its own current images and experience of life; hence the actual curriculum in both content and methodological training would vary. Similarly, the curricu­lum in relation to the disciplines of biology or physics or mathematics will be different ten years from now.

EDUCATION AND SOCIAL IMBALANCE

Society today is returning toward a balanced society where culture, including religion, education and style, rightly informs the economic and political processes. The moral foundations are being forged anew where communities are being reformulated, religion is refurbished and education is life­related and life­long.

In other times when the great civilizations were at their peak cultural roots were vital and strong. In European civilization it was between the 13th and 16th centuries when society was maintained keeping people in right relation to God, and kings ruled with divine right.

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Imaginal Education 1981

THE COMPREHENSIVE DESIGN ­ p.2

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At other times the political became dominant and new structural freedoms required other forms of education. In the West it was the 17th­and 18th century renaissance where the liberal arts were a means for individual political participation.

We have just passed through a time when economic dominance produced a technological revolution unprecedented in scope or innovation. The education of this period prepared people for the job market. That era was over when corporations began to do their own training, social as well as technical. Managerial is being cultivated as one top executive journeys younger managers in the arts of statecraft and human well-being. The effects and benefits of economic­health will remain a legacy for the future enabling the care for all the people. But today creativity, life and social renewal is at bottom a cultural activity inside the business world as well as outside.

COMPREHENSIVE CURRICULUM

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The comprehensive curriculum is based upon the whole life triangle. The practical aspects to life are learned through the curriculum as well as the theoretical aspects. In the 20th century the wholeness of life has returned to human consciousness in a way that it has not been present since early cave people. Life, action, thought and the beyond are all mingled together. People today know that all ideas are relative and all actions situational or contextual. This relativity has thrown human beings into the awareness of the unknown in life as well as the known. Both theory and practice are forged, indeed created, by people over against the unsynonomous aspect of life itself. The mystery of life is both on our hands and beyond our understandings even as life is being created in test tubes. Having "come of age" human existence has been brought into startling relief exposing all its contours, its dread and fascination, its power and its contingency.

The life triangle is a design or diagram that represents or points to this wholeness of life. ­The dichotomies between the sciences and the humanities are portrayed in polar tension with one another rather than open divorce or conflict. They are complementary opposites rather than arch enemies presenting the young with an either/or. Scientist exhibit poetry and the sensibility of artists. Artists have become masters of technique and many different media, including electronics and the vibes of musical intonations and sound. Today the theoretics of religion hold both the sciences and humanities together in a tri­polar tension. Professors and students alike become gurus to the whole society. The sage emerges again out of daily experience, and novelists lead the masses of people into the deeps of life or ur­experiences through paperback books.

In a way people are being educated upon the crucible of life itself instead of or, at least, in addition to the classroom. But this life­based curriculum is being intentionally practiced and managed using classrooms, work days, excursions, art forms and significant endeavors in human communities. We are educated throughout our total life experience, but it is possible to hasten the process, to structure it, to render it more intentional than not and more human than dehumanizing.

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Imaginal Education 1981

STEP PROCEDURES

CONTEXT Review life triangles from the talk. A comprehensive training design requires all 3 aspects of education: the foundational pillars (theoretical); the practical skills; and the selfhood capacity (the Unsynonomous). .

TEAM Divide into 3 or 4 groups according to actual working situations,

WORK (hospital supervisors, management positions, public school teachers, etc)

1. List 5 theoretical [earnings that must be learned in the work situation (reflecting the individual, social, and rational pole)

( for each list have team members list individually first, and

then create a corporate list for the team.)

List 5 practical skills necessary to this work situation. (reflecting the individual skill, the social skill and the intentional decisional skill)

List 5 approaches to the unexpected crisis in the work situation, e.g. How to deal with violence in the office from public. (reflecting situations of awe, of dialogue, and with the unknown and the unknowable.

2. Discern the 5 images that need to be shifted if their trainees are to learn the above 15 activities, e.g Presenting the public with a friendly but highly effective face.

3. Discern the mechanism for the death of the old images in their office, e.g. A major training event, space transformation, etc.

4. Organize the work situation in terms of time, space, and relations in order to reinforce the positive images just named.

TIME ORGANIZATION SPACE ORGANIZATION RELATIONS STRUCTURE

individual prep time individual space policy (decision

corporate work time corporate work space making)

corporate meeting time corp. meeting space roles in organize

corp. social time corp. social space evaluation of both

public dialogue time public space indiv. and corp.

task.

feedback

5. Put everything on a timeline (1 month to 4 years­depending on what is appropriate) relative to the real work situation.

Imaginal Education 1981

STRUCTURAL CHANGE W/S ­ pg. 2 ­

STEP