Can Higher-Order
Thinking Skills
[Systemic Thinking]

Be Taught By
Distance Learning?                

This page is under construction,    watch your step.....

soza@snowcrest.net

Table of Contents        

Preface
Abstract
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Obstacles
Methodology
The terms to be defined
The issues to be explored.
The self-dialogue
Conclusion
Suggestions on future research
Sources

Preface

This document records my SelfDialogue----as opposed to discussing----as I venture into a RE-THINKING of an important element of our educational system methods, one of our most vital societial systems.

Why I chose this "system".
The educational arena is the key linchpin system out of all our societial systems that teaches thinking.    If we could stop teaching children and adults to think in the wrong way, in the beginning, maybe getting thru life would not be so much work, and would be more pleasurable.    Why an overhaul of our teaching methods is overdue

My Quest
http://www.snowcrest.net/soza/seedtime.htm

How this system is relevant to Systems Theory.
Systems Thinking is the essence of Systems Theory.   Systemic Thinking
Systems Theory gives us a template of concepts----like a style sheet of thinking---thru which we can look at any kind of system, and understand it better.   


Why this is a timely topic.
Why an overhaul of our teaching methods is overdue
First principles of educating the young into their new life


How Systems Theory concepts can be applied to this system.
Dialogue [Self, Group]
Inquiry   [Self, Group]
Communication
Mental Models
PostModernism
EcoSystem
Systemic Thinking
Personality Types
Disorienting Delimna AND Transformative Learning
Honoring The Soul
Duality

Abstract
After experiencing classroom dialogue techniques, thru two semesters of Systems Theory class, and Quality Management class, too,   I am exploring the truths about learning, and about "systemic thinking", and trying to apply them to distance learning technologies and instructional design, new technological arenas now evolving, on the "Internet". Perhaps this can also serve to help teach teachers more about systems theory.

Mental Models
My purpose is to try to clarify, thru application of some systems thinking concepts, some of the metaphors or mental models, that are manifesting, as these new teaching methods become mainstream, so that whatever is adopted generally, will be in the best interests of the human biocomputers who will use these courses.


Dialogue
This is partly, a journey/journal,  documenting the process by which these truths are coming thru,   a form of inner dialogue, a "stream-of-consciousness" RightBrained form of "journaling". I don't pretend to have all the answers, but do this to display the thinking mode that proves the existence of the "inner Teacher".     

My usual "journaling" method is to pose a question to my unconscious/ subconscious,   like so.  

Write a big capital "Q" on a sheet of paper, or the equivalent,   then write the question itself.    Then pause and wait,  for the RightBrain intuitive Self to start answering.   Then record the "stream-of- consciousness" ideas that will come.    
My Creative Thinking Flowchart

PostModernism
A new term that I learned might offer us some clues as to how we should decide how to decide, on this most sensitive of all issues. The term is "postmodernism". I interpret what I read about "postmodernism" to mean that our old societial rules are not working any more, and so, as we RE-THINK our culture,     into this new reality layer now manifesting, in group dialogue and discussion, we could all benefit by learning to listen to the "inner Teacher", both individually, and in groups.

These truths are relevant on the subject of this question. Without this core truth, all education is meaningless.

Without communion within ourselves, and the ability to listen to our own "inner Teacher", our Higher Self, our "conscience", thru our intuitive RightBrain, mere mental development can even be harmful.



Ecosystem
Many of our cultural practices, particularly in business, lead to a condition of a disconnect between the heart chakra energies and the head chakras----our internal energy ecosystem---merely to add to our material wealth, and this leads lots of us to value the outer material wealth, rather than the inner spiritual wealth/wholeness, at a great cost to our souls,    and to us all.    

Honoring The Soul
Perhaps more of us could benefit by the guidance and inspiration in   ZEN and the Art of Making a Living,   by Laurence G. Boldt.    He tries to inspire us all to seek out our higher calling,   and find a career that brings out the best in us, not merely working for the money, but as an expression of love in action, our own soul doing its life's work,   from the heart.

Within this ongoing dialogue,   I hope to reawaken the focus on the heart chakra,   within our teachers and leaders.   

A life of disconnect between the heart energies and the head energies is a stressful life, where things are "hard".    A life of union within,   with the person using BOTH sides of their brain,    the intellectual and the intuitive,   and with good communication internally, between their heart and their head,    is a life where everything is "easy",    including learning,    and less stressful lives lead to healthier,    happier people,   who are more self-sufficient,   more resourceful,    and who treat themselves and other people better. Therefore,    no treatment of this subject would be complete without a reminder of this most vital "connection",   the invisible connection within.     
SuperLearning as I perceive it

Because I perceive that our society consciousness is the cumulative effect of all our individual and family realities, when the reality level of one person or one household is lowered,    WHATEVER THE REASON,    our collective reality is lowered.
Surely, this is the most vital system of all.

Personality Types
If our educational professionals can accept my view of this, they can help every student to rise to their own higher and higher level-of-consciousness, both by helping them learn how to learn how to learn, and by deliberately NOT forcing the students into practices that over-develop the student's LeftBrains, by such methods as rote memorization.   

If a student complains about something like this,   just let them learn it the easiest way for them.   We know from "neuro-linguistic programming", NLP,   that there are visual, auditory, and other types of sensory dominance.   Additionally,   as people develop their nervous systems,   we go thru different stages,  and at different times,   use different "modes" of our brain.

When we,  as businessmen,   value profit over fairness to our customer, and material wealth over inner stability and wholeness, we encourage people to have a heart-to-head disconnect, and that leads us to having a harder time to learn things, because one function of the heart wisdom is to feed the RightBrain intuition and creativity, with vibrational energy.   A good book on this is   The Etheric Double,   from   The Theosophical Society.

Perhaps a spirit of renewal among our teachers on this point would help spread this value to our young people, just as we have awakened a concern for the environment in them.

What if 1997 could be remembered as   "The Year Of The ReEnabling Of The Heart Wisdom",   in our collective consciousness?    What present consciousness- lowering activities would suddenly be not happening?   Do we need a more effective "social safety net" in place,    first?   How to be a HeartCentered Teacher

Our media advertising over-stimulates people about "love" of the second sexual chakras, without simultaneously stimulating them about "love" of the fourth chakra, the heart.   
My Peace initiative with the mass media.

Conservative Republicans repeatedly try to install their particular brand of spirituality into our public schools, by speaking about "prayer" in the public schools. What they don't "get" about this issue, is that the usual Christian dogma is antithetical to students learning to use both sides of their brains, which makes learning easy.


Acknowledgements

My Thanx to the greatest Teacher of them all, The "Inner Teacher", The SELF.

These pages describe the "applets" from that Teacher that loaded, and then never released.

http://www.snowcrest.net/soza/Spring67.htm
http://www.snowcrest.net/soza/seedtime.htm
http://www.snowcrest.net/soza/peace/myideas.htm
http://www.snowcrest.net/soza/peace/mychild.htm

My Thanx to the greatest human teacher in my experience,   Milan Vodicka.   His inspirational lectures led me to turn OFF all my NotNow flags,    mentally.   His ongoing example is teaching more than mere words.   He has a talent for bringing out the best in people,   and in teaching more than mere technical knowhow,  also the creative use of our own process of thinking.    If I "could put what he knows about teaching, and put it in a bottle, for other teachers", ....we could all learn easier.   Perhaps this document is the beginning of realizing that wish,  the "bottle" being the container of this book or paper.

Introduction
To inquire into the issues raised by the question "Can Higher-Order Thinking Skills Be Taught By Distance Learning?", and to invite feedback and further Internet URLs, on these topics, I will soon initiate this effort as an open forum, thru one of my WWWboard message threads.   http://www.snowcrest.net/soza/MySalon.htm

In an inquirial, and non-advocatory, mode, I will raise some issues, and then invite responses from others of the same interests. Since the technology is still being developed, many of these technology questions may well be being made obsolete, as I type, somewhere on the planet, conjoined as we are, thru space and time, in our higher levels of what I call the "mass unconscious", and Carl Jung called the "collective unconscious".

Teaching Systemic Thinking
So, in addition to fulfilling a course requirement, what I am trying to do is to raise the level of the discussion within the teaching community in general----- about using Internet technology to deliver course materials----- to a higher plane, and to enable all those who endeavor to develop these courses, to do so with the thought in mind, that they have an obligation to retain a balance between LeftBrained and Right-Brained emphasis. both inside themselves, and in the courseware that they produce for the student to use.

The "courseware",   is the RECORDING of their thought processes, as they endeavor to deliver this wisdom to others, in digitized electronic form.    I perceive atoms as a recording media,  a recording of our thoughts,  so it is important that courseware developers and teachers trying to develop courseware,  to be in a clear meditative integrated state of mind as they record these thoughts.    http://www.snowcrest.net/soza/thnkclrr.htm

They don't have to understand all the ideas that I present here,   but just this part about "whole-brain" thinking,  "systemic thinking",   and the heart wisdom connection, "ThreePartThinking",    the real "Holy Trinity" that matters,   inside each "carbon copy" of that One Supreme Being.     http://www.snowcrest.net/soza/hearttch.htm

The reason for this is to teach the student user of the courses to maintain their own inner balance, and to strengthen their ability to learn, and their confidence in their ability to learn. This will empower the student to learn more easily and to develop real Higher-Order Thinking Skills, i.e., "systems thinking".

If a student thinks that a subject is "EASY", then their subconscious sets up a flag that says, ABSORB NOW, but if the student tells his subconscious that a subject is HARD, then it sets up a flag that says NOT ABSORB NOW.

As these truths gain wider acceptance, that we should enable the student for INTEGRATED THINKING---systemic thinking---- using BothSides of his brain, we will look back on the earlier rote memorization type schooling as "antique". We already understand that the Eastern religions teach their followers more of an Integrated WholeBrain kind of thinking, and that may be the reason that we in the West lost the economic competion.

We must rise above labeling and blaming about whose fault it was, in the past, that made us rely on teaching methods that overly developed the verbal/linear LeftBrain, and move forward to a new higher plane, or level-of-reality, where everyone will be able to learn more easily, and more rapidly.

Does it really matter whose fault it is? Does it really matter if everybody accepts the new clarity? Let us meet "up yunder".    Those "naysayers" who can't make the jump with US immediately,    will still gradually wake up into the universe of our construction.    This is because everything is interconnected.   

Duality
When the "cold war" paradigm became unraveled,  thru the "summit meetings" by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev,   and the treaties that followed,   that duality (quantum level of reality, or matter/antimatter interface)   that had dominated our planet since the nuclear explosions in 1945,   "dys-integrated",  and as we work to make a new stable duality,   we have a chance to redefine all our institutions, into higher and better layers of reality. 

We have a chance to reconsecrate our planet and our cultures more locally, to be worlds where "utopia" is the "norm".   Nowhere is this opportunity more important than in our teaching and learning.    In our RE-THINKING, let us "think" ourselves and others that we touch, into higher and not lower realms. As we teach people to learn how to learn better and easier, we also teach them to be more self- sufficient, and more fully human.

Whatever in our past schooling methods that labeled some students as less intelligent than others, simply because their learning speeds were different, or their learning styles were different, please now let us just become conscious of those methods, and try to delete them from our cirriculums, instead replacing these methods with more varied, more learner- controlled, more SelfDirected methods.    More on the self/Seth/Self/SELF.

Maybe other leaders in this field are only thinking about ease of learning, but I am also cognizant of the need to allow people to learn to think for themselves, and to allow them to be conscious in their own highest level-of-consciousness,   the argument that helped to inspire Mikhail Gorbachev to open his culture to Perestroika.  

Simply, if we want people to be self-sufficient, hard-working, tax-contributing, members of society, we must encourage them to express from their highest layers of themselves,    to be conscious in their own highest level-of-consciousness.   I have also lobbied government leaders for over two decades,   to stop governing by FEAR, FORCE and COERCION, by writing to them of these same truths,   and others,   that I call  "Time-Matrix Translation".   And

This Inquiry
Let this inquiry serve to bring thru new "breakthru" ideas, to get us past whatever stumbling blocks we as a teaching community may be hung up on.

I am teaching this as an informal "systems theory" course, for teachers, on the Internet, no tuition, of course.      Donations To This Effort Are Welcomed By The Author

Let us clearly perceive the "current reality" of where we are "stuck", and together redefine a "new vision" of where we want our "accepted" mainstream education to be "stuck at", next, for instance, in 5 years.   I learned in the Fall 1995 course, in Systems Theory, from the Peter Senge    Fifth Discipline   books,   that this conjoining of current reality awareness and also holding a firm view of the new vision,   contributes to something he calls "creative tension",   which I would express as causing the translation to the "new story" faster.

Let each teacher receive whatever new realization that they need, to evolve to a higher level of INTEGRATED THINKING, personally, so that they may better help their students to learn.      My Quality Management Project, Spring of 1996

Obstacles

Obstacles to overcome in this effort will usually be coming from those whose own mental development is still overly LeftBrained, and whose RightBrains are being stagnated by their own SelfTalk. Other lesser obstacles will be funding for more and better computer hardware and software.

Methodology
My "process" of leading this discussion/dialogue,  thru the Internet,   as well as merely raising the thought frequency level of my own atoms and molecules,   thru "intercession" and thru "Ghandian Truth Firmness",    strengthens these levels-of-consciousness in the "mass unconscious",   whether or not they bring me any outward benefits in the material world.    And now,  you see the secret to being a "philosopher-futurist".

With each atom really the resultant of all the forces impinging on it,   a la Dirac's Ocean,   when I raise the "thought frequency" of my own atoms,    with everything really interconnected,   this will make it easier for other teachers to understand it, even if they never read these words.    This is the "esoteric" world,   the macro recording level,  like the Netscape Editor.

While trying to elucidate my viewpoint about this issue,    in the outer, "exoteric" world,    -----the macro playback level,  like the Netscape Browser---- thru the medium of the Internet,   on my own web pages,     I will also try and engage a newsgroup-like message thread discussion/dialogue, with other interested parties, in a way that will document the ideas.

Newsgroup messages---for instance,   notices to come to "MySalon"-----will be entered asif sent to the message threads, in the WWWboard, since newsgroup messages expire. These expired messages can also be found using DejaNews, but on my message threads, I can delete naysayers' messages, after duly noting their viewpoint.    http://www.snowcrest.net/soza/MySalon.htm

As I make a survey of distance learning technologies,   over the next year or so,  and begin to pursue an online graduate degree program,   I will continue to evolve these ideas, and may develop some course authoring software for teachers that will free them to create the best possible courses that will enable the students' Higher-Order Thinking Skills---Systems Thinking---, instead of developing them too strongly along LeftBrained lines.

As promised last Spring of '96, I discovered how to write online HTML tests---those tests that grade themselves--- and have several small programs to input the answers from email,   and check them against the right answers. So far, these are not expressed in Java syntax, but I am on the trail of the easiest way to translate it.   A parallel project is to learn Java.  JavaScript is simpler,  and more limited.   My first tool of choice is Java Workshop. It has a well-developed IDE,   development support system,  that is good for beginners.

I will also use this effort as a marketing tool, to try and display my unique wisdom on these subjects,   in search of an "academic home", and a career as a professor or instructional designer for a college, eventually.

Inner-Dialogue

The Terms To Be Defined

Higher-Order Thinking Skills---Systems Thinking---

The Issues To Be Explored

[Inquired Into]

1. Whether Higher-Order Thinking Skills---Systems Thinking--- Can Ever Be Taught, As Contrasted With Learned?

2. Whether The Range Of Senses Available To Be Used In Communication Thru The PC Between Student(s) And Teacher Is Enough To Stimulate Higher-Order Thinking Skills---Systems Thinking---  DeliveryByWrittenWord      DeliveryBySpokenWord

3. Whether The Tacit Or Nonverbal Level Of Communication Can Be Enabled Thru A Preprogrammed Course?    Intended Communication vs Perceived Communication

4. Whether A Guided Sequence Of Proposed Activities Away From The Computer Chair Can Adequately Supplement Whatever Might Be Missing In The In-Chair Lessons?

5. Whether The Group Learning Experience Is Truly An Essential Component Of The
Learning Process


6. Whether If The Student Feels That He Is Not "Getting It", By Online Course Interaction, Can He Have A Human To Respond To His Pleas For More Help, In Understanding It, For Instance, By Email, Like Software Technical Support?

7. .....more coming....

================This part is still not complete===================

1. Whether Higher-Order Thinking Skills---Systems Thinking--- Can Ever Be Taught, As Contrasted With Learned?

4. Whether A Guided Sequence Of Proposed Activities Away From The Computer Chair Can Adequately Supplement Whatever Might Be Missing In The In-Chair Lessons?

5. Whether The Group Learning Experience Is Truly An Essential Component Of The Learning Process

6. Whether If The Student Feels That He Is Not "Getting It", By Online Course Interaction, Can He Have A Human To Respond To His Pleas For More Help, In Understanding It, For Instance, By Email, Like Software Technical Support?

7. .....more coming....

=========================Some Answers============================

Intended Communication vs Perceived Communication

The challenge of any communicator, whether a writer, artist, or public speaker, is overcoming the great leap between the meaning intended by the person generating the message, and the meaning actually perceived by the listener/reader.

There are always many modes or channels or styles of communication going on, in the traditional classroom setting.   These gaps of perception exist,   even within the traditional classroom.


Excerpts (Revisited with my  SearchAndReplace function)   from
The Origin of Consciousness In The Breakdown Of The Bicameral Mind, by Julian Jaynes

"All Thought Is Not Conscious

ConsciousAwareness takes you into the task, giving you the goal to be reached. But from then on, ...it is as if the learning is done for you.

... The important part of the matter is the struction, which allows the whole business to go off automatically.

struction, ..to have the connotation of both instruction and construction.


When we speak, we are not really ConsciouslyAware, either of the search for words, or of putting the words together into phrases, or of putting the phrases into sentences. We are only ConsciouslyAware of the ongoing series of structions that we give ourselves, which then, automatically, without any ConsciousAwareness whatever, result in speech.

So we arrive at the position that the actual process of thinking, so usually thought to be the very life of Conscious Awareness is not ConsciouslyAware at all and that only its preparation, its materials and its end result are ConsciouslyAwarely perceived.

{ IS-LIKE making a Call Interrupt in PowerBasic }


 My Creative Thinking Flowchart

http://www.snowcrest.net/soza/learnnow/jaynzh02.gif


Reasoning refers to a gamut of natural thought processes in the everyday world. ..Logic is the science of justification of conclusions that we have reached by natural reasoning. The very reason we need logic at all is because most reasoning is not ConsciouslyAware at all."
http://www.snowcrest.net/soza/learnnow/easyjayn.htm

I strongly recommend that everyone reading this,   purchase a copy of
The Origin of Consciousness In The Breakdown Of The Bicameral Mind,
by Julian Jaynes,    copies from Houghton-Mifflin.


So, if the end result be that the student gains knowledge or understanding, increasing learning ability, AND also gains in thinking ability, to creatively solve problems, i.e., Higher-Order Thinking Skills---Systems Thinking---, then isn't the student the best judge of whether the learning process is working for him/her?

Especially in teaching a body of knowledge within a narrow focus of a course description and validating that the material of the subject has truly been learned by the student, thru some objective tests, we must ask ourselves whether the act of choosing focus itself, plus suggested learning activities is sufficient to enable a motivated student to teach himself, to use information resources, to let knowing unfold itself within the student's mind.
SelfDirected

If we are under the illusion that the teacher/courseware developer must pour information into the student, like a commodity which can be bought and sold, then our answer would be "no", but if we understand that ultimately the student learns by teaching/ learning within himself, in listening to the All-Pervasive Self, with the guidance of an outer course----like that cucumber vine follows the trellis----then our answer would be "yes".

Some subjects will always be easier to learn, if assisted by the telepathic level-of- communication with a focused teacher. "Easier" does not mean that learning is precluded without it, just a little harder.   A renewed emphasis on that "inner Teacher",  that we all have,   would help to overcome our doubts on these issues.

If we want to retain our grading system, as a validation or certification of competency, that someone can rely on, perhaps we should let the student tell us when he is ready to take the exam.    I was also influenced by  Interactive Instructional Designs For Individualized Learning,   1973,    by Danny G. Langdon,   Educational Technology Publications, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey 07632

Conclusion


Responses to the sensory limit question

Methods Of Delivery Of Knowing By The Written Word

Writing is an extension of talking by voice.   According to Julian Jaynes,  writing was originally invented on this planet,   to put commands "signs" on posts,   I believe he said, in early Mesopotamia.

If he is right,  writing on paper or on any other media,  is an extension of writing on the signposts,   the commands of the "gods",   their early conception of the inner voice.

Writing with a typewriter is an extension of writing in handwriting or printing by hand.

Writing with a word processor is an extension of writing on paper, with a typewriter,  with the letters stored in digital format, on magnetic media.

Writing in HTML is an extension of writing on a word processing file, with this file then delivered via electronic signals to a distant printer.

Writing in multimedia,  with sound and graphics files,  movies and applets,   is an extension of HTML,   with multi-sensory stimulation,   which will make a better memory engraving.    Interactive forms of this can serve as a gentle guide or framework for the student to explore knowledge pathways, like the cucumber vine follows the trellis.     

Allowing the student himself to embroider on this essential framework,  his own assignments,   or choices of focus for a session at a time,    will enable him to learn at his best,   and at the same time,   will help strengthen self-sufficiency,    self-management.

Editing the printed word vs Editing the spoken word

Methods Of Delivery Of Knowing By The Spoken Word

Audio video televised courses are an extension of classroom lecturing.

Audio video teleconferencing with live two-way interaction is an extension of classroom dialogue.

Newsgroups, email and message threaded softwares are an extension of group discussions/dialogues, which records the flow of meaning.

 http://www.snowcrest.net/soza/MySalon.htm

Display of projects via modem communications is an extension of classroom or lab display.


Conclusion

Donations To This Effort Are Welcomed By The Author

My proposed answer to this question is that Higher Order Thinking Skills can be LEARNED by a student, at a distance, even if it might be EASIER for a student with a particular learning style (i.e., intuitional) to have the personal classroom interaction with a human teacher, to help TUNE INTO a particular level-of-consciousness/ gnowing1, within the Cosmic Computer continuum of intelligence.

MindAscendsGnosisIsComplete

It is EASY for me to understand this, based upon my own personal experience with Self-Realization, over almost a 30-year period. It might be harder to believe this, for a younger person, with undeveloped RightBrain intuitional skills, but suggested activities to help a student develop the RightBrain skills, for instance a CAD drawing program, plus some activities that exercise and help develop use of BothSides of the brain, can help to overcome an over-developed LeftBrained linear/ verbal/ sequential tendency.
SuperLearning, my way

It is EASIER for me to understand as a 51-year-old than it was to understand thru the medium of text-based textbook learning as a young person----and I placed in the 99%-ile---- but add the new learning/teaching technologies:   hands-on typing, screen visuals including moving pictures, capability of audio file playback (and editing for the author), interaction with software simulations in some subjects, for instance, charts that change as the values are changed by the student-----and the understanding should be more rapidly realized, than with simple textbook discussion of a topic, plus old-style homework problems and teacher explanations.

1 No, that is not a typo. Think of "gnosis". My interpretation of a related word "magic" is "mind ascends, gnosis/knowing is complete",    which means that,    there is a continuum of higher and higher levels of understanding.   
If something is "hard" to understand,   simply "rise above it".    What does this mean?   By improving brainwave coordinatino,   a person can perceive at higher and higher thought frequencies,   using the brain like a radio,   to tap into what I call the "Cosmic Computer",  or Infinite Intelligence.


To return to the original question,

Can Higher-Order Thinking Skills---Systems Thinking--- be taught by distance learning?

If distance learning courses2 can be understood to serve as a framework or a template, for a self-guided interactively-defined tour-----like a vine follows a trellis, slowly growing its own tendrils to hold on with---- of exercising the student's mind in a focused level of consciousness supplemented by informational resources, 3 and a SelfDirected learning/ journaling process, then yes, a course in distance learning format can be just as effective, or moreso, than old-style classroom plus textbook reading/homework. I say moreso, because it is possible to write from a deeper level than it is to speak face-to-face.

2 that can be expressed either synchronously, as audio-vido teleconferencing, or asynchronously, as a CD-ROM course, or in an HTML-based Internet or Intranet course

3 that transmit the collective widom of previous understanding by others,   a great time-saver.


Higher-Order Thinking Skills, as defined by who?

As-defined-by-current-consensus within the community of teachers generally, vs as-defined-within-each-student receiving the course as a guided experience.

Q. Can Higher-Order Thinking Skills be tested objectively?

Can Higher-Order Thinking Skills be demonstrated?

Any TRUTH which can be transmitted by a book, can be effectively transmitted by modem, thanx to the work by legions of programmers who invented and continue to develop the word processor and telecommunications software.

Students who feel the need for paper copies can simply PRINT the pages that they want, on their own printers, for deeper understanding, and deeper study, with underlining.

As an adult, studying the lawbooks, it was easier to photocopy the pages that we needed, and then take them home to study, rather than sit there long hours at the law library. Many college students study by underlining the important sentences.   This tells your unconsious  "Remember This One".


Can intellectual development be stimulated thru distance learning, with no other human contact?    For some types of people, some learning styles, yes, for others, probably not. Can a flow of meaning unfold within the student without human contact/proximity?
On subliminal tacit communication

Can this be simulated with teacher/tutor interaction by email?

Can it be simulated with software alone?


Disorienting Delimna AND Transformative Learning

It is hard to have the students experience this process thru distance learning,   though,  perhaps,  in time,   we will be told how to do this thru the modem.    An interface to convert brainwave frequencies to digital format,    back and forth,  on both ends of the line, is probably the best we can hope for.    On the receiving end,   it needs to come thru a headset as SOUND.   No electrodes stuck into the brain.   Then the person can LEARN to convert the SOUND to brainwave vibrations.   What was that Natalie Wood movie about the twelve-track video tape recordings of brainwaves?    I have that brainwave synchronizer gadget.   It uses both an audio headset for earphones,   and special glasses with little lights that flash on and off in a certain synchronized pattern.   Maybe the receiving device could be that.


The Key probably lies in convincing each student that he should give himself the permission to unfold increasing levels-of-consciousness within himself/herself, exercising higher and higher degrees of brainwave coordination, i.e., "thought energy frequency", in interacting with the collective unconscious, or Infinite Intelligence, Cosmic Memory, whatever we call it, becoming "OneWith" the higher layers of our common reality. For this great leap of faith, many people will need the occasional support of a group experience.

What is so obvious to this author, is not so obvious to younger learners, and to other people without the same life experiences.


First Principles Of Educating The Young Into Their New Life

We usually think of a young child as a "blank slate" empty of meaning, who comes before us, to be encoded with the wisdom of our family, or of our culture.

What if we thought of each young child as a fresh crystallization of the All-Knowing One Supreme Being, desiring pleasure, who comes with the .ZIP files for all knowledge, already built-in, and simply looking for adventure, so that the cosmic unfoldment program can now INSTALL these programs of Gnowing/Gnosis into this new body, this new carbon copy of the All-Knowing One Supreme Being?

What if we could take it as a "given", or an assumption, generally accepted, that each of us, on higher levels, is really already connected to what Carl Jung called the collective unconscious, by whatever label we choose to call it, and that this communion with the All-Knowing Cosmos ---what this almost 30-year software developer perceives as "the Cosmic Computer"----is built into everyone, probably thru resonance to DNA frequencies, somehow, or thru the interstices of all our atoms,   then in actuality, the "absorb now" RECORD mode of the small child, is simply perceiving TRUTHS at the level of these pre-verbalized thought energy frequencies, the built-in universal "setup" program, that we all have, and simply remembering anew, what we already KNOW, basically, like "downloading" a new compressed .ZIP file, from Internet, and then "installing" it into a new carbon copy, like we would "install" Windows 95 into a new personal computer?

Regions Faster Than Light


This is how I perceive learning. Of course when I was younger, this was not so apparent, or so clear. It took decades working thru other modes of thinking to gain these realizations.

I believe one key lies in education NOT overburdening children especially, with overly-LeftBrained rote memorization, to spit back out answers to the teacher on tests. Yet, eventually, the student needs to demonstrate mastery of the ideas thru an objective test.

Balance is the key, overall. Teaching children to develop both sides of their brains, and in teaching them to re-enable their heart chakra to head chakras messaging, thru mediation.


Suggestions on Future Research

1.   Learning more about "systemic thinking".
2.   Learning more about "multimedia authoring software".
3.   Learning more about "Higher-Order Thinking Skills".
4.   Learning more about "Java", for the purpose of writing some courses, with HTML.

ReSources (Online, Library, Etc.)
http://www.snowcrest.net/soza/learnnow/DL_links.htm

Also, in links distributed throughout this document.


The Journey That Never Ends  ----   Hop Aboard!!!

     

Copyright 1996, Shari Soza