My Routine

Inspired by the notion of making every moment a meditation, I generally follow the same daily routine. 

The foundation is a late-night sequence that takes about 15 minutes before going to bed. First I relax in my recliner and do my modified version of the 4-7-8 breathing that I learned from Andrew Weil, who learned it from Indian mystics. I close my eyes, breathe in through my nose for a count of four, hold that breath for a count of seven, exhale through my mouth for a count of eight, and repeat eight times, primarily paying attention to my breathing and quickly letting go of any thoughts that come to mind. To simplify matters, I keep track of the number of cycles with my fingers.

Then I do Basic Practice, as learned from Dick Price at Esalen Institute. With my eyes closed, I pay close attention to each of the following for two breaths: smells (if any), sounds, the flow of air through my nostrils and into my lungs, my body, my emotions, my thoughts, and lingering images.

I then recite, usually silently, the Lord’s Prayer: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.

Then I identify three gratitudes, either individuals or recent facts in my life for which I’m grateful.

Lastly, I ask myself a question to sleep on and go to bed, usually at midnight.

When I wake with no alarm, usually around eight, I pay attention to whatever is on my mind, including remembered dreams. Often what I notice relates to the question from the night before.

Then I write spontaneously in my journal for 15 minutes, as prompted by Julia Cameron’s “morning pages” that she recommended in her The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity. With this journal, I mostly brainstorm to-do tasks and sort out my feelings about recent events. Sometimes I just record those events “for the record.” I consider this “contemplative journaling.”

I eat breakfast while reading my tweets, mostly Giants-related and those posted by Jesse Eisnger. I glance at the online Chronicle to see if there’s anything of interest there (usually, no) and read their items about the Giants while I digest my food. Roma Guy once commented on the value of mindful eating, but I’m afraid I fail here with my multi-tasking.

I then jog for 30 minutes. A comment by Rhonda Magee about her running style prompted me to no longer listen to music when I jog. Instead I pay attention to my breathing, my posture (leaning forward enables one to run faster), my feet landing on the ground (I prefer landing flat-footed), and any thoughts that come to mind. I’ll reflect on significant thoughts for a half-minute or so before letting them go and trust that important ones will pop up again later. Lately, I’ve shifted back to interval training, running as fast as I can for two minutes and then slowing down for two minutes.  I consider this “contemplative running.”
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William Styron once reported that he divided each day into three two-hour segments: writing, reading, and correspondence. I consider that schedule quite sensible and try to follow it, though I often mix the reading and correspondence.

After an invigorating shower, I write for 90-120 minutes, often for Wade’s Weekly or other substantial pieces.

Then I prepare and eat lunch while streaming “The Daily Show,” which is delightful and often informative. Then I lie down for 15-30 minutes, often sleeping for 15, using an alarm clock. Some sleep studies have found that the body has a natural tendency to nap half way between waking and sleeping. So maybe traditional cultures that used siestas knew something modern cultures neglect.

Next I look at and process my email. Lately I try not to open my email program until after I write for 90-120 minutes, for otherwise the audible notifications too easily distract me. First I look for personal and other pressing emails. Then I go through the remaining emails in chronological order.

On days that I drive taxi I process my email while riding the bus to work and waiting in line for a passenger at the airport, where I also use my Kindle to read the New York Review of Books, New Yorker, New York Times Book Review, and books.

When driving taxi, I often do my 4-7-8 breathing and some elements of Basic Practice at traffic lights and on the freeway. As much as I can, I try to do “contemplative driving.”

I often repeat mantras to myself to keep myself grounded. My favorite one now is: “We can only do what we can do.”

Though the real world often interferes with me following this routine, I find that I do much better when I can.

I share this report in case any of you find anything here that is of use to you. Most of my life, I was relatively undisciplined. Now that I’m developing some self-discipline I wonder how my life would have gone if I had done so earlier. But it is what it is.

Meditating Lawyers

In her fascinating “Educating Lawyers To Meditate?” article published in Spring 2011 by the UMKC Law Review, Rhonda V. Magee offers an incisive critique of the legal profession and an encouraging report on efforts to transform it. Her analysis applies throughout society and is strikingly relevant to progressive political activism.

Magee wants her profession to live up to its stated ideals. According to the American Bar Association, "A professional lawyer is an expert in law pursuing a learned art in service to clients and in the spirit of public service; and engaging in these pursuits as part of a common calling to promote justice and public good.” In line with this spirit, Magee wants lawyers to “increase our awareness of the complex humanity at the center of the work of lawyering and to maximize our capacity to engage practical wisdom in the course of our service as lawyers, leaders, and human beings.”

The Carnegie Foundation shares her concern. In 2007 the foundation published “Educating Lawyers: Preparation for the Profession of Law.” In that report, William M. Sullivan and his co-authors argue:

Law is a tradition of social practice that includes particular habits of mind, as well as a distinctive ethical engagement with the world….. The moral development of professionals requires a holistic approach to the educational experience that can grasp its formative effects as a whole…. How can we best combine the elements of legal professionalism – knowledge, skill and moral discernment – into the capacity for judgment guided by a sense of professional responsibility?

Given the profession’s unique interest in justice, a significant degree of social responsibility is implied. The Carnegie report therefore calls for the “moral development of practitioners” and strengthening “moral character” through “ethical-social apprenticeship.”

In 1993, Yale Law School Dean Anthony Kronman coined the phrase "lawyer-statesman" to capture the ideal professional identity of the early common-law era, which emphasized "the value of prudence or practical wisdom.” According to Magee, Kronman focused on the profession’s recent “failure to adequately form lawyers with a sense of themselves as civically-committed members of a socially-critical profession, who gained self-respect, and the respect of others, by their capacity to discern wisdom in the face of life’s perennial conflicts.” He defined "practical wisdom" as "a subtle and discriminating sense of how the (often conflicting) generalities of legal doctrine should be applied in concrete disputes." Therefore, prudence, "a trait of character and not just a cognitive skill," is key.

Kronman argued that “the scientific law reform movement” undermined the concern with practical wisdom that is focused on particular situations. Instead, this movement (which is reflected in modernization throughout society) has prioritized “theoretical understanding,” “knowledge in the abstract,” “quantification over qualification,” and “intellectual competence,” while neglecting nurturing growth in “temperament or character.” These dehumanizing trends are also seen in the leftist Critical Legal Studies movement (as well as the progressive movement in general).

Ironically, an alternative to this modernization can be found in the ancient Greek philosophy that gave birth to the dualism that afflicts the modern world. As Pierre Hadot sums it up, for Socrates (who would sometimes become totally absorbed in meditation, withdraw from society, stand motionless, and/or reflect for an entire day) knowledge was “not just knowing, but knowing-what-ought-to-be-preferred, and hence, knowing how to live.” In this spirit, Magee affirms “educating the whole person [to] fulfill a pre-existing sense of moral commitments.” This learning that is rooted in “values-based knowledge” arises not only from Socratic dialog as “American legal education has made famous, but also from inner reflection.”

Socrates appears to have believed that only through rigorous and repeated self-examination might one live a life of meaning: “An unexamined life is not livable for man.” As Hadot summarizes, the capacity for morally grounded living depends upon ongoing self-examination:

There is, moreover, every indication that such wisdom is never acquired once and for all. It is not only others that Socrates never stops testing, but also himself. The purity of moral intent must be constantly renewed and reestablished. Self-transformation is never definitive, but demands perpetual reconquest.

…Importantly, self-examination of this sort…was not conceived as being for the benefit of the so-called “individual” alone. Indeed, the development of moral people…was aimed at better preparing such people for civic engagement and service to the common good…. Contemplative practices are essential to the well-educated human being…. 

…The ancients saw even the study of texts…as contemplative practice…. [As Brian Stock put it:] “Reading and writing are a means to an end, the making of a better person.”

Fortunately, Magee and her associates in the contemplative-practices-in-law movement are making headway in their efforts to reclaim law’s wholesome roots, especially by encouraging law students, lawyers, and judges to practice mindfulness meditation. This form of meditation helps practitioners develop what Dan Siegel calls “mindsight,” or “our ability to look within and perceive the mind, to reflect on our experience.” 

Magee states, “Contemplative practices [may] naturally lead to increased ethical consciousness,” because meditators not only accept whatever is present, they also notice what is beneficial and what is not. A basic grounding in humility, love, a sense of interconnectedness, and reverence for life underlies contemplative meditation.  In this way, we minimize egoism and calm our emotions, which enables us to make wiser decisions, handle our fear, and exercise the courage that we need to honor virtue consistently.

By “contemplative practice,” Magee refers to regular behavior that assists people “in being more deeply present and capable of choosing their responses to stimuli…[by] developing self-knowledge, as well as awareness of the psychological or emotional states of others in our midst.” As Siegel puts it, being mindful is “paying attention to the present moment without being swept up by judgments…. People move towards well-being by training the mind to focus on moment-to-moment experience….” Mindfulness meditation has been widely adopted and its benefits have been established by scientific studies.

One risk, however, is the use of contemplative practices to facilitate unethical behavior and/or the strengthening of Western hyper-individualism. Such efforts help practitioners focus merely on “personal self-management” in a way that undermines

the power to catalyze practitioners toward the more aspirational objectives of the movement – such as promoting more ethical and moral conduct, more compassionate and empathic judgment, social justice and transforming the world in support of the more altruistic tendencies within human nature.

In her article, Magee concludes that contemplative practices “tend to lead to spiritual and moral growth – if not inevitably, then more often than not.” Nevertheless, she supports efforts to  ground contemplative practice within an ethical context “while at the same time affirming freedom of choice in religion and human autonomy.” Along this line, she reports that Arthur Zajonc

argues persuasively that contemplative practices should be introduced only after obtaining commitment to grounding them in a universalist ethical framework based minimally on two pillars: 1) humbly setting aside self-interest and acknowledging the value of the other in our midst; and 2) a sense of reverence for the high task of which we are endeavoring: to live more consciously and deeply.

Though the Golden Rule, to love others as we love ourselves, may be a preferred alternative to “setting aside self-interest,” an ethical framing of this sort does leave “every person free to connect that grounding with a religious or spiritual tradition, or not, according to the dictates of one’s own conscience.” In this way, ethical contemplative practice affirms autonomy and demonstrates a way for “the continued integration of contemplative practices into the central institutions of our nation’s infrastructure.”

In Spring 2010 the University of San Francisco School of Law, where Magee teaches, supported her offering a course on “Contemplative Lawyering.” Magee reports:

In each of these classes, we combined sitting meditation with lawyering-in-context role-play exercises, in which students were called upon to handle a hypothetical challenge in light of the contemplative perspective. Afterwards, we discussed their experiences with the meditations and role-play exercises…. We closed each class with a final meditation and poem…. Anecdotal evidence indicates that we succeeded in helping our students begin to grow into more emotionally aware, civic-minded, ethically-engaged lawyers.

The contemplative-practice-in-law movement may have begun in 1989 when Jon Kabat-Zinn offered a program on meditation to judges. But Magee considers “the seminal year” to be 2002 when the Harvard Negotiation Law Review hosted a forum and published a major report on the movement by Leonard L. Riskin, who has taught courses on meditation at Yale and Columbia law schools and held well-attended five-day retreats between 1998 and 2002. Since then groups of meditating lawyers have formed throughout the country, nearly a dozen law schools are offering for-credit courses, continuing education courses are being offered, and associated groups have formed within bar associations. 

In 2007 the California Law Review became the first “top-ten” school to publish an article on contemplative lawyering. Magee reports:

The authors see “mindful lawyering” as “not preoccupied with winning or losing; but it is also not necessarily about smoothing our conflict and avoiding suffering.” Instead mindfulness in the practice of law “provides a framework for thinking about how individual action is tied to group process, how group process connects to institutionalized relations of power, and thus how transformational change at the interpersonal level is linked to transformational change at the regional, national, and global levels."

In 2010 the Nevada Law Journal published another major collection of articles on the issue.

The Center for Contemplative Mind in Society, for whom Magee currently serves as Board Chair, has advanced much of the movement’s work with its Law Program. For more than ten years, the Center has sponsored annual retreats, occasional gatherings with invited participants, and the first national conference on meditation and law in October 2010.

To “continue the process of bringing these practices from margin to center,” Magee believes law professors need to “increase opportunities to develop the skill of metacognition or reflection to law students in all classes (without the need of mentioning mindfulness or meditation)….”

More deeply, a paradigm shift is needed away from the reliance on learning “based on revelation, external observation and reasoning, to one which includes internal observation” as a way of “knowing the world, and for knowing how to do well by and with others in it.” This shift “would open the door wider for responses to injustices and patterns of justice,” such as replacing “adversarial with restorative justice methods.”

Toward the end of the article, Magee takes her argument to the next logical step and suggests that

legal education must take place within smaller settings or “base communities,” wherein the knowledge, skills, and values that lead to the sound practice of law may be conveyed though deep engagement with real people and real issues—clients and lawyers in the locality struggling with real world problems….

In her article Magee affirms the need to nurture open-ended self-development grounded in universal ethical principles with methods that reinforce self-determination. This approach does not narrow its focus on developing certain skills, such as developing courage or “leadership development,” as do other projects. Rather, it asks each individual to define her or his own goals concerning how to become a better person as well as support others in their own personal development efforts.

Moreover, her article does not limit itself to a single issue, like law or education. Rather, it proposes, it seems to me, the comprehensive and fundamental, or holistic, transformation of our entire society, including all of our major institutions, our culture, and ourselves as individuals.

A network of community-based, multi-issue lifelong learning centers based on these principles would be an exciting development. I stand ready to help with any such effort.

Thurman, King, and Deep Nonviolence

Howard Thurman was an African-American theologian who was extremely popular and influential in the Black community until his death in 1981. He led the first delegation of Blacks to meet with Mahatma Gandhi, was a classmate and friend of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s father, and advised Dr. King throughout his life. Reportedly, Dr. King carried Thurman’s Jesus and the Disinherited with him when he traveled. 

In 1944, the year I was born, Thurman co-founded the first multiracial church in the United States, the Church for the Fellowship of all Peoples in San Francisco, where I'm a member. The head minister is Rev. Dorsey Blake, a former classmate of mine. Though the congregation is now small, the spirit is strong and we are exploring possible new, groundbreaking projects.

Published in 1949, Thurman’s Jesus and the Disinherited is basically a self-help manual for activists. Thurman understood that deep nonviolence requires constant striving to develop the emotional and spiritual abilities that are needed to resist injustice. The book has had a profound impact on me, helping me in particular to better understand the need for reconciliation.

In the introductory chapter, “Jesus—An Interpretation,” Thurman addressed how dualistic Greek philosophy threatened holistic Judaism and states, “The crucial problem of Judaism was to exist as an isolated, autonomous, cultural, religious and political unit in the midst of the hostile Hellenic world” while at the same time trying to give to all basic security, both economic and spiritual.

Thurman wrote, “The urgent question was what must be the attitude toward Rome…. This is the position of the disinherited in every age. What must be the attitude toward the rulers, the controllers of political, social, and economic life?” Jesus responded to this issue with a message that “focused on the urgency of a radical change in the inner attitude of the people…. [H]e placed his finger on the ‘inward center’ as the crucial arena….”

We face a similar dilemma today: How can we maintain alternative communities rooted in a holistic worldview within our fragmented, modernized world, while we establish economic justice and nurture equality (what Thurman called “the simple practice of brotherhood in the commonplace relations of life”), in a society that denies full citizenship and claims that someone must always be in charge, that one must either dominate or submit?  What must be our attitude toward “the system,” our global social system composed of our major social institutions, our culture, and ourselves that work together to concentrate wealth and power? There is no enemy we can demonize, for our main problem is the system itself and each of us is complicit.

As was the case with the Jewish minority when Jesus lived, we have two alternatives: “resist or not resist.” If we choose not to resist, we can imitate, assimilate, capitulate, or “reduce contact with the enemy to a minimum” while keeping “one’s resentment under rigid control [with] a terrible contempt.”

The other alternative, resistance, involves “the physical, overt expression of an inner attitude.” When this resistance is violent, driven by “a great and awful assurance that because the cause is just it cannot fail,” it “is apt to be a tragic last resort.”

Jesus instead preached nonviolence and assured us that “the Kingdom of Heaven is within.” He 

recognized with authentic realism that anyone who permits another to determine the quality of his inner life gives into the hands of the other the keys to his destiny. If a man knows precisely what he can do to you or what epithet he can hurl against you in order to make you lose your temper, your equilibrium, then he can always keep you under his control…. [Jesus] announced the good news that fear, hypocrisy, and hatred, the three hounds of hell that track the trail of the disinherited, need have no dominion over them….

He projected a dream, the logic of which would give to all the needful security. There would be room for all, and no man would be a threat to his brother…. The basic principles of his way of life cut straight through to the despair of his fellows and found it groundless. By inference, he says, “You must abandon your fear of each other and fear only God.  You must not indulge in any deception and dishonesty, even to save your lives….”  

The next three chapters, “Fear,” “Deception,” and “Hate” elaborate on these key themes – overcoming fear, hypocrisy, and hatred – by offering incisive guidance.

Concerning fear, Thurman states:  

Fears are of many kinds—fear of objects, fear of people, fear of the future, fear of nature, fear of the unknown, fear of old age, fear of disease, and fear of life itself…. 

The ever-present fear that beset the vast poor, the economically and socially insecure, is a fear of still a different breed. It is a climate closing in; it is like the fog in San Francisco or in London. It is nowhere in particular yet everywhere. It is a mood which one carries around with himself, distilled from the acrid conflict with which his days are surrounded. It has it roots deep in the heart of the relations between the weak and the strong, between the controllers of environment and those who are controlled by it. 

When the basis of such fear is analyzed, it is clear that it arises out of the sense of isolation and helplessness…. [I]t is not the fear of death that is most often at work; it is the deep humiliation arising from dying without benefit or purpose. 

Fear…among the weak in turn breeds fear among the strong and dominant. This fear insulates the conscience against a sense of wrongdoing…..  

The result is the dodging of all encounters…. 

[T]his fear which served originally as a safety device…becomes death for the self.

Jesus responded to these realities by dedicating himself to “set at liberty them that are bruised” and by preaching, “Take therefore no thought for the morrow” in order to foster a “sense of belonging, of counting” that establishes “the ground of personal dignity, so that a profound sense of personal worth could absorb the fear reaction…. He senses the confirmation of his roots, and even death becomes a little thing.”

These words apply as well to those who are economically secure. Lack of self-confidence, for example, leaves us afraid of what others think of us. Fear of failure paralyzes. Concern that our lives may ultimately be meaningless or at least ineffective leads us into a downward spiral. We fail to speak our truth, leading to more self-doubt that undermines our effectiveness. But if we dedicate our lives to doing serving others as well as we can, we can find a rock-solid foundation and let the chips fall where they may.

We can truly trust ourselves and stop placing others on a pedestal. Thurman said, “One of the practical results following this new orientation is the ability to make an objective, detached appraisal of other people… In a conversation with me Lincoln Steffins once said that he was sure he could rear a child who was…a habitué of a ghetto so as to immunize him against the corroding effects of [idolizing others]. He said: “I would teach him that he must never call another man ‘great’; but that he must always qualify the term with the limiting phrase ‘as to’…”

“[I]f a man’s ego has been stabilized,” and he humbly sees himself as a child of God, Thurman wrote, “he is in a position to appraise his own intrinsic powers, gifts, talents, and abilities” and experience “a profound faith in life that nothing can destroy…. It is true that a man cannot be serene unless he possesses something about which to be serene…. Here are the faith and the awareness that overcome fear and transform it into the power to strive, to achieve, and not to yield.”

In the chapter on deception, Thurman articulates themes that are seen today in the call for greater openness and transparency in all relations. “Deception is perhaps the oldest of all the techniques by which the weak have protected themselves,” Thurman declared. “The weak have survived by fooling the strong.”

But we pay a price. “The penalty of deception is to become a deception…. Life is only a tale told by a fool, having no meaning because deception has wiped out all moral distinctions” and life is cheapened by an “artificial and exaggerated emphasis upon not being killed.”

Thurman recommends instead “a complete and devastating sincerity” as recommend by Gandhi in a letter to Muriel Lester where he stated, “Speak the truth, without fear and without exception,… You are in God’s work, so you need not fear man’s scorn.” Inspired by Gandhi, Thurman wrote:

Be simply, directly truthful, whatever may be the cost in life, limb, or security. For the individual who accepts this, there may be quick and speedy judgment with attendant loss. But if the number increases and the movement spreads, the vindication of the truth would follow in the wake. There must always be the confidence that the effect of truthfulness can be realized in the mind of the oppressor as well as the oppressed.

Dr. King surely bore those words in mind throughout his life.

By refusing to be dishonest with and thereby give status to those who are more powerful than us, we can relate as one human being to another. “A man is a man, nor more, no less,” Thurman insisted. “The awareness of this fact marks the supreme moment of human dignity.”

In his chapter on hate, Thurman analyzed the origins of hate (which it seems to me is anger that persists and calcifies) as a defense mechanism that “distills an essence of vitality [that provides a] basis for self-realization…. Hatred becomes for you a source of validation for your personality [and] gives you a sense of significance…. [T]hey declare their right to exist, despite the judgment of the environment.” Hatred provides a “tremendous source of dynamic energy [as] a strange, new cunning possesses the mind, and every opportunity for taking advantage, for defeating the enemy, is revealed in clear perspective.” When this dynamic flourishes, “the illusion of righteousness is easy to create…[and] all moral judgments of behavior [is] out of bounds… It is open season all the time… eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.” 

Once again, however, though “hatred seems to serve a creative purpose,” we pay a price. Thurman wrote:

Hatred destroys finally the core of the life of the hater…. At last it turns to ash…. It blinds the individual to all values of worth…. Hatred bears deadly and bitter fruit. It is blind and nondiscriminating…. Once hatred is released, it cannot be confined to the offenders alone…. Hatred cannot be controlled once it is set in motion…. 

Above and beyond all else it must be borne in mind that hatred tends to dry up the springs of creative thought in the life of the hater, so that his resourcefulness becomes completely focused on the negative aspects of his environment. The urgent needs of the personality for creative expression are starved to death.

But it is the final chapter, “Love,” which moved me most and helped me better understand the focus on reconciliation advocated by Gandhi and King. Along with Adam Kahane’s Power and Love, this chapter motivates my interest in problem-solving dialogues that involve all stakeholders, including corporate CEOs.

Thurman wrote:

You must abandon your fear of each other and fear only God.  You must not indulge in any deception and dishonesty, even to save your lives….  The religion of Jesus says to the disinherited: ‘Love your enemy. Take the initiative in seeking ways by which you can have the experience of a common sharing of mutual worth and value. It may be hazardous, but you must do it.

Thurman declared that both privileged and underprivileged persons must liberate themselves from their assigned role in society, because “love is possible only between two freed spirits.” They must undo their conditioning, remove barriers, and create “real, natural, free” social situations that enable them to be “status free” and experience their common humanity. 

Thurman said, “We are here dealing with a discipline, a method, …an over-all technique for loving one’s enemy.”  He called for those in need to cry out, “The [human being] in me appeals to the [human being] in you.” 

Whenever a need is “laid bare,” Thurman wrote, “those who stand in the presence of it can be confronted with the experience of universality that makes all class and race distinctions [irrelevant].” He insisted that this “personality confirmation” is essential for “lasting health” in a democracy.

Applying these principles to our current situation will be one of our greatest challenges. How can we create social situations that enable wealthy individuals and low- and moderate-income individuals to deeply encounter one another, witness their needs laid bare, and consider how they can work together to define fair and practical solutions? 

But as Thurman said, “Wherever [Jesus’] spirit appears, the oppressed gather fresh courage; for he announced the good news that fear, hypocrisy, and hatred…need have no dominion over them…. You must abandon your fear of each other… You must not indulge in any deception or dishonesty…. Love your enemy.”

If we practice those principles, the future may hold unknown miracles.

Holistic Learning Communities

In Millennial Momentum: How a New Generation is Remaking America, Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais include two chapters on education, “Building Better Learning Communities” and “Taking Higher Education Higher.” The first addresses elementary and secondary schools. The second looks at college and beyond. Progressive activists could well incorporate some of their ideas into holistic, life-long community centers that would foster personal development, mutual support, life-long learning, and informed political action.

In 1789, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.” This necessity is no less pressing today, as the millennial generation is demonstrating increased civic engagement.

Winograd and Hais rely on the “unified theory of learning” that emerged in a 1997 “year-long conversation on how to create ‘a society where all individuals fully participate in the development of their own and their community’s learning potential’” at the Institute for a New California. With an “emphasis on learning, rather than education,” the foundation formed a framework on four principles derived from studies at the Institute for Research on Learning:

• Learning takes place all the time.
• Learning is a process of friction between what we already know and believe and new experiences, people, or settings.
• Demands for learning never cease.
• The ability to know how to learn has become the most important type of learning.

“Real learning can take place,” they write, when we blend these four elements within a “social context of interactivity, exploration, and discovery.” All stakeholders, including students, parents, teachers, and those who provide funding need to be fully involved. Students can play the role of teacher in peer-to-peer interactions and parents can be involved in choosing school policies and administrators. 

The Institute’s unified theory affirmed, “The most productive learning systems are built and sustained when the goals of the four domains are aligned through a process of consensus-building.” With that consensus, schools can then integrate “the constituent parts of learning—subject matter expertise, pedagogy, and developmental aspects of the learner—into an effective learning environment,” with the student “an active agent in her or his learning.”

Applying these principles to colleges and universities would, according to Winograd and Hais, require “everyone involved in education to give up their institutional silos and work across boundaries to reform the entire system” into a “learner-centered” community. Especially with the use of modern technologies (including online education), with this approach,

Distinctions between learner and teacher will become blurred. Students will co-design and even co-instruct courses, since sharing the knowledge among peers provides the best context for learning. To prove mastery of a skill or topic, students will produce new simulations or author Web sites, and these work products will be assessed not only by faculty but also by their fellow students, to capture the value of the contribution to the larger team or learning community.

The authors of Higher Education in the Digital Age describe the radically different role of the faculty in such environments in this way: “Faculty members of the twenty-first-century university will find it necessary to set aside their roles as teachers and instead become designers of learning experiences, processes, and environments…. They may be asked to develop collective learning experiences in which students work together and learn together, with the faculty member becoming more of a consultant or a coach than a teacher.” 

Winograd and Hais propose that students retain a lifelong membership in the university from which they graduate, research results should be placed in the public domain rather than copyrighted, and universities should forsake their individualistic focus in favor of a collaborative model. 

Since “millennials’ digitally native brains will not sit still for hours at a time listening to traditional lectures,” the MIT physics department adopted an interactive, immersive approach in their freshman courses and saw a dramatic drop in failure rates. Learning rooted in trial-and-error “produce[s] the most innovative and valuable types of information,” as ecosystems reward what works and discard what doesn’t.

Particularly encouraging is the development of “serious games,” (sometimes using video games and/or computer-based, virtual reality), that expose students to “comprehensive, realistic experiences that produce a sense of being immersed in the action.” According to D. Thomas and J.S. Brown, these methods combine “knowing, or ‘learning about,’ with doing, or ‘learning to be.” As one group of researchers on gaming and learning stated, “Whereas schools largely sequester students from one another and from the outside world, games bring people together, competitively and cooperatively.” These games tend to help participants evolve their individual and collective identity as they “learn to become.”

These gaming technologies demonstrate the potential of growing dispersed learning communities that integrate “the roles of learners, providers, payers, and policy makers…[in] powerful alumni networks that span the globe and last a lifetime.” By affirming individual responsibility and collective action, these learning communities can “imbue their daily routines with civic purpose and meaning in order to attract the full energy and enthusiasm” of their members.

Progressive-minded political activists, it seems to me, could fruitfully develop learning communities based on these principles, both inside and outside existing institutions.

Readers’ Comments

Re: Media Consortium Cab Ride 

I'm hoping that you have a wide and growing readership because your weekly thoughts are always filled with clear thinking and passionate giving-of-yourself.  You really do "walk your talk" and I have observed growth in strength, compassion, and patience.  Your synthesis of the several aspects that must conjunct together in order to make this movement - at this time - effective helps clarify for all of us what is "essential."  More power to you, friend!

in faithfulness and trust,

Marcella R. Womack
NEW DAWN Resource Development LLC
Organizational Consultant, Process Designer and Facilitator, Trainer, and Speaker
35 Years of Experience
Kansas City, Missouri

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"Wade's Weekly" was especially good this week. Thanks! The Jonah Lehrer discussion on learning was especially useful. I looked up the original article and entered this material in my files:

[Stanford psychologist Carol] Dweck distinguishes between people with a fixed mindset — they tend to agree with statements such as “You have a certain amount of intelligence and cannot do much to change it” — and those with a growth mindset, who believe that we can get better at almost anything, provided we invest the necessary time and energy. While people with a fixed mindset see mistakes as a dismal failure — a sign that we aren’t talented enough for the task in question — those with a growth mindset see mistakes as an essential precursor of knowledge, the engine of education....

[Following a test conducted by Dweck and Claudia Mueller involving 400 New York City fifth graders] half of the kids were praised for their intelligence. “You must be smart at this,” the researcher said. The other students were praised for their effort: “You must have worked really hard.”

[On a follow-up test, the latter group raised their average score by 30 percent; the former group saw their scores drop by nearly 20 percent.]

The problem with praising kids for their innate intelligence — the “smart” compliment — is that it misrepresents the psychological reality of education. It encourages kids to avoid the most useful kind of learning activities, which is when we learn from our mistakes. Because unless we experience the unpleasant symptoms of being wrong... the mind will never revise its models. We’ll keep on making the same mistakes, forsaking self-improvement for the sake of self-confidence. Samuel Beckett had the right attitude: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.”
JONAH LEHRER, “Why Do Some People Learn Faster?” Wired (magazine), 4? October 2011

Leonard Frank

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Re: Sports, Teamwork, and Activism

Well thought out and nicely written piece on baseball and teamwork.
Michael O. Doughty

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Re: A Social Transformation Network (Draft Proposal)

Thanks for this, Wade.  This is a good-looking project with a good-looking web page – and I’m feeling drawn to very similar things.  I appreciate your vision and leadership.

If I can help with the design process, I will be glad to do that.

If you have a minute – you might glance at the framework that is emerging for me and see if it suggests anything.

It’s  based on the concept of “circle” – and trying to pull many issues into one circle – in a holistic way, just as you suggest – and including a lot of spiritual/community/interfaith elements.

http://circle2012.net

http://circle2012.net/vision.cfm

http://circle2012.net/onlinecongress.cfm

I am solidly into these principles you outline below – so my guess is, we are working along the same lines, guiding by very similar instincts.  I will do my best to include your ideas in my design work, and thanks for getting all of this so clearly expressed.  It’s very helpful.

- Bruce Schuman

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Re: Patience 

I loved your writing on patience – both the basic point of view and all the wonderful quotes and lyrics you brought in to illuminte that. Thanks so much.
If it’s okay with you, I’d like to share some of it with my group next week. Let me know if you are open to a bit of it being xeroxed and handed out. If not, I could simply read some of it at appropriate times.

...Hoping you are well. Thank you for continuing your work and writing.
Xoox
Chris Price

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Re: My Bottom Line

This is a GREAT bottom line!

Dan Brook

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This is Sharon Johnson and I share the value of your dream.

Ellen Shaffer along with a few others have been discussing similar dreams as your own and recognize the need of intergenerational/culture involvement with an integrity of which you address.  We are planning a dinner discussion on
 June 14 at Ellen's home, if you are interested.  FYI: Our conversation for further thinking comes from the healthcare issues we continually face.
Your articulation speaks directly to my thoughts.
.
All my best,
In peace,
Sharon Johnson

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Great comments and food for thought, Wade.  Always, I struggle with the challenge of adding new projects to an already full plate -- and honestly, at the moment, I am getting invitations to new and meaningful engagement every single day!  But what you are describing here is so foundational and potentially transformative that it bears reflecting on how to clear space and commit to making such meetings happen.  Thanks again for the inspiration.

May you be well,
--
Rhonda V. Magee
Professor of Law, Co-Director, Center for Teaching Excellence
University of San Francisco
School of Law
2130 Fulton Street
San Francisco, CA 94117-1080
ssrn author page: http://ssrn.com/author=624519

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Re: Transform the System 


Great analysis of "the system" as it exists today. Looking forward to future pieces on how we work to transform it

John Testa

Media Consortium Cab Ride

The other day I gave Jo Ellen Green Kaiser, Media Consortium Executive
Director, a ride from San Francisco International Airport to her home in San Francisco. She had just returned from the East Coast where she had met face-to-face with some members of her alliance of progressive, independent media outlets that is dedicated to “amplify independent media’s voice, increase our collective clout, leverage our current audience and reach new ones.”

Peppering her with questions about her work as I often do with my passengers, I soon learned that a recent example of the kind of project she’d like to do again was the collaboration with 32 partners she organized to report on Occupy actions throughout the country on May 1. Calling themselves “Media for the 99 Percent,” these diverse outlets offered live TV and streaming broadcast, an interactive map, breaking news reporting, and coordinated social media coverage across their sites, reaching a combined audience of more than 50 million Americans.

After May 1, their website reported:

Some cities excelled at coordination among labor, immigration, and Occupy groups. In Los Angeles, New York, Baltimore, and Chicago, labor and Occupy groups worked together to lead mostly peaceful joint actions and sit-ins.
In other cities, protesters were less organized and elements of their groups engaged in property destruction. Local police in Seattle, Oakland, and Portland responded with crackdowns that included arrests, tear gas, and kettling. Some reports said officers were throwing people off their bikes and beating resisting protesters with police batons. But the isolated actions of a few individuals did not define the entire movement.
Leading a nationwide general strike is an ambitious goal, so it is no surprise that the number of May Day protesters was smaller than activists had hoped for. But May Day succeeded in its goal to be a nationwide protest that united activists in cities and towns across the country and signaled the return of the Occupy movement.

Her work on this project, it seems to me, provided her with a special overview of the Occupy movement. From her perspective, with the exception of the Bay Area where so many “professional activists” had already launched many organizations, in most parts of the country Occupy Wall Street inspired concerned citizens locally to fill a vacuum in a non-extremist manner to address the top two Occupy concerns: growing economic inequality and the corruption of our politics by big money.

Most Occupy activists nationwide, she said, have not been anti-capitalist or opposed to all government. Rather, they have wanted to fix the system with fundamental reforms so middle-class citizens like themselves will have more economic opportunity and a greater voice in governmental affairs. In the Bay Area, however, using the leverage afforded a small minority by the consensus-based decision-making process, as I reported last fall in Wade’s Weekly, hyper-individualist anarchists managed to define Occupy as a radical fringe group out of touch with the mainstream.

According to Kaiser, the May 1 actions demonstrated that Occupy still has legs in many areas of the country. Most of this activity, however, has a local focus, especially with actions focused on stopping foreclosures. Currently, there is no Occupy national thrust, no national presence. This lack is regrettable.

Now we need a model Gandhi-King campaign focused on the founding principles of the Occupy movement. Granted, the odds are long and the obstacles are many. But if we get our act together and do it right, who knows? We may be able to help spark a national Occupy renewal. Or perhaps the metamorphosis of Occupy into a new brand, “the social transformation movement,” or simply “the transformation movement.”

With no expectations, why not try? Why not act as if we can and give it our best shot? Given the urgency of our situation, if we are concerned about the future of humanity and life on Earth, aren’t we morally obligated to give it our best shot? All we can do is fail and be accused of utopian ambitions.

But that’s what most people thought about that small band of pragmatic idealists who occupied Wall Street last year. And even if we “fail,” it will be a learning experience. As Bob Dylan wrote, "There's no success like failure"

In “The Art of Failing Successfully,” Jonah Lehrer reported on how we can learn when we make mistakes. Initially, humans react to mistakes with a strong, involuntary response, followed quickly by a neurological signal that involves paying attention to the screw up. And those whose initial response is stronger and who focus more persistently on the error learn more from it.

Moreover, people with a “fixed mindset” who agree with statements like "You have a certain amount of intelligence and cannot do much to change it" learn less than those with a “growth mindset” who believe they can “get better at almost anything” if they work at it. The former tend to see failures as “purely negative” while the latter see mistakes as “an essential precursor to knowledge.”

When teachers praise students for "being smart," those students tend to fall into a fixed mindset and assume that mistakes are a sign of stupidity. But when students are instead praised for their effort, they’re more likely to adopt a growth mindset, be less afraid of making mistakes, and better able to repair their self-esteem and transform failure into success. Mindset matters.

As Lehrer concludes, “Dylan was right, but failure alone is not enough. We need to learn how to fail better.” So let us grow the self-confidence to set aside ego, endure failure, and do our best to help grow a potent, national grassroots movement to deal with this country’s obscene inequality and political corruption.

My Evaluation of the Caucus

If the Occupy Be the Change Caucus is to continue, I ask that it affirm clear support for holistic nonviolence. I do not ask that every member commit to practice that method personally. But I do ask that every member at least provide moral support to those who want to do so.

Thus far, it seems to me, the Caucus has failed to provide that support. I don’t know what adequate support would look like, but I suspect I’ll know it when I see it and believe that it would at least include the Caucus adopting at its next meeting something like the following policy: “To help achieve our mission, a top-priority method will be to promote the holistic Gandhi-King three-fold path.”

At the Occupy San Francisco (OSF) camp in fall 2011 a large banner declared, “A Living Example of a Better System.” Participants often referred to the need to “be the change.” The fragile community that emerged outdoors at Justin Herman Plaza aimed to be HOLISTIC, in that it:

• Encouraged participants to be whole (open, honest, transparent, true to their deepest self). 
• Considered the individual not as a separate self but as one interwoven with the whole world. 
• Addressed the whole person: the personal (which for many includes the spiritual), the social (including the cultural), and the political (which deals with governmental policy).  

The affirmation of the need for personal development was common. The importance of learning how to deal with interpersonal conflict was widely understood. Providing community services to meet unmet needs was central. And the weekly political action, protest marches, were vibrant and engaged onlookers. Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. would have appreciated this effort to practice the holistic three-fold path.

However, as I discussed in Wade’s Weekly at the time, OSF made certain mistakes that made it difficult for us to sustain our community. Since 100% consensus was required to make decisions, a minority faction, many of whom were prone to violence, were able to block efforts to grow a solid, holistic community and instead established their hyper-individualist version of anarchism (which differs distinctly from social anarchism).

So, while remaining active in OSF and trying to help improve how we operated, I initiated the Occupy Be the Change Caucus, hoping that the Caucus could provide a useful alternative model in terms of a more viable governance structure and also help strengthen the commitment to nonviolence within OSF by fostering inner and outer nonviolence as a way of life rather than merely promoting outer nonviolence in terms of behavior.

Before going into limbo, the Caucus made some progress. We planted seeds in terms of certain ideals and principles. We attracted and involved about 15-20 deeply committed, talented, experienced activists. And some of us experimented with the three-fold path on which the Caucus was founded (though we were unfamiliar with the phrase at the time) in that we:

• Explored a format for a peer-support group to nurture self-development. 
• Conducted a peer-learning circle as an alternative-education structure. 
• Established an affinity group to participate in the January 20 action in the Financial District. 

During the time of those activities, I told an old friend, “I feel like I’m finally doing what I’ve been wanting to do my entire life.”

In 1967, I dedicated my life to help organize “communities of faith, love, and action” – that is, the three-fold path. As I wrote in “An Evaluation of the Residence College” for my student newspaper that year, I was concerned about society’s “cruel, dehumanizing impact” on “the welfare of the whole personhood of the individual” as imposed by all of our institutions that “are all interwoven” and “extremely well-designed into a coherent pattern of vicious manipulation – designed to graduate reliable cogs in the marvelous machine of unparalleled material progress.”

I argued:

America is spiritually decadent…. [Our institutions] do not merely neglect but rather devastate vast realms of inner experience. The development of one’s own innermost experiential potentialities is truncated. Creative expression of one’s true self, whether in art, thought, or personal relationships, is not nurtured. Individuals are not encouraged to develop, to create their own vibrant sense of meaning and direction. Inner strength is seen as a threat; so the ground for a stable sense of autonomy is undercut. 

Instead, the emphasis is upon behavior. Children must learn to express themselves “appropriately.” They must be well behaved. They must develop self-control and learn the values of politeness and responsible citizenship. Thus, they must become reliable hoop-jumpers. They become dependent upon external pressures and external rewards. What is deemed most important is output….

Whether or not the student’s behavior is authentic is largely ignored…. In short, our educators demonstrate little concern with the souls of their students, even though they are in the very process of inflicting enormous damage upon those souls….

The student must develop a false, external self to cope with the demands of others…. 

Such a stability must be a precarious one. It must be a defensive identity which is unable to honestly expose itself to novel ideas or to open itself to new experiences….
So much is made of usefulness that man himself is reduced to a mere instrument…. 

What is needed is encouragement of integrity, rather than dishonesty; concern with behavior being congruent with experience, rather than with proper, high-level performance at any cost; …appreciation of the remarkable breadth of human creativity, rather than merely the powers of the intellect; illumination of the value of freedom, rather than the expediency of submission; nurturance of flexible autonomy, rather than brittle automatons;… recognition of the needs for ecstasy, as well as rational self-understanding; education, rather than manipulation; love, rather than mistrust….

The both/and perspective reflected in that litany and my commitment to holistic organizing has motivated me ever since. But a few years ago, I decided that I wanted to be more explicit and intentional with my efforts and look for others who clearly share the holistic perspective and want to openly, consciously pursue it.

So, given Occupy’s embryonic holistic culture and inspired by Howard Thurman’s Jesus and the Disinherited (which was a self-help manual that Dr. King carried with him when he traveled), I circulated at OSF early drafts of the Occupy Be the Change Pledge, which was based on the holistic pledge that Dr. King required marchers to sign in Birmingham in 1963, which was based on similar pledges used by Gandhi.

Those drafts received a positive response. So, after incorporating input for suggested changes, a diverse group of twelve individuals signed the pledge and a few of us gathered signatures at the OSF camp and invited signatories to a meeting.

But the Caucus, including me, fell victim to the same over-emphasis on behavior that I critiqued in “An Evaluation of the Residence College,” as seen in the activist mania that afflicted OSF and pervades modern society. We too quickly jumped into action at our first meeting.  Consequently, like OSF, we did not establish: 1) a clear, shared positive vision; 2) written guiding policies; 3) membership requirements that clarified commitments and expectations, and 4) a viable structure and process for delegating authority and holding accountable those to whom authority is delegated.

On reflection, at that first meeting, we should have had more discussion about the proposed mission statement and pledge, including small breakout groups to surface concerns. Then, once we clarified our core principles, we should have established priority collective goals. Instead, in a rather individualistic manner, we quickly asked individuals to suggest and sign up for whatever working groups anyone wanted to propose (and ended up with too many working groups).

But feeling pressed by the urgent need for action, I assumed that the intent was made clear by our name, “be the change,” our mission statement – “to help transform ourselves and our society into truly nonviolent and compassionate individuals within a community dedicated to the common good of all humanity” – and the pledge, which includes: “to the best of my ability…, I avoid both selfishness and power trips [and] strive to be in good spiritual and bodily health.”

And I assumed that those who came to meetings did so because they backed the effort to grow a holistic community with members who support one another in our personal development (which for many people includes spiritual growth), provide community service, and engage in political action.

But as it turned out, those words did not mean the same thing to the same people. Not everyone got it. And some who got it weren’t into it.

The first sign of lack of unity had emerged at the planning meeting that preceded the first membership meeting. After having gone through an extensive process of writing and re-writing the pledge (which integrates the various forms of nonviolence: philosophical, strategic, living, respect for all life), at that planning meeting some of those who had been involved in rewriting the pledge and had signed it nevertheless persistently argued that we revisit that decision and adopt strategic nonviolence instead. This discussion persisted for an hour or so, which left us little time to plan properly for the first membership meeting. Instead, we hurriedly decided to just ask participants to form whatever working groups they wanted.

The main argument for a focus on strategic nonviolence is that it can attract more people because it only asks for a commitment to nonviolent behavior at a particular action, rather than a commitment to inner/outer nonviolence as a way of life. Some of us argued that our choice is not either/or but both/and. As did Gandhi and King, we can build a strong, core community rooted in holistic nonviolence, and then join in coalitions for actions based on strategic nonviolence.

At our first membership meeting, after the option of pursuing either holistic or strategic nonviolence was discussed and the pledge was adopted as an affirmation of the holistic option, and we amended the proposed mission statement to clarify that we wanted to nurture personal development, I assumed that we were in alignment. But such was not the case.

The lack of unity gradually became clear. When we invited members to a support group to explore how to support each other in our personal development, one member replied, “That just sounds like another meeting to me.” No more than four members ever came to a support group meeting. One member was disheartened by that lack of interest and what she perceived as a general lack of transparency with regard to honestly sharing feelings. When I posted a query about members’ perceptions of “activist shortcomings,” one member replied that activists are not weak but strong and effective, and quit. On a number of occasions, individuals indicated that they were drawn to the Caucus in order to promote strategic nonviolence within Occupy in a top-down, one-way process of “education” (which has been described as “moral gentrification”), rather than growing a holistic community rooted in problem-solving, peer education. When I facilitated a brainstorming session to surface potential goals in each aspect of the three-fold path and then tried to facilitate a process of evaluating and selecting from the options that surfaced, the agenda was set aside to “check in” about the recent January 20 action. Then the team that developed the proposed agenda ignored all that work on possible goals and instead proposed that the next meeting ask everyone what they would really like the Caucus to be. When I shared my vision, the primary response was “Is that all?”, laughter, and “Yea, like we could do that in a week.” At the next meeting, the last meeting so far, when we discussed organizing a public forum, some members wanted the focus to be holistic, or deep, nonviolence, but others wanted the focus to be strategic nonviolence, with us talking about holistic nonviolence “much farther down the road.” Also, no more than three members ever came to one of our learning circles, only one other working group ever actually met, and folks not following through on their commitments and doing what they said they would do became a chronic problem. For example, most members of the January 20 affinity group did not show up at the agreed on time and place and some unilaterally decided to alter their involvement after the group had decided on a plan.

So, after we decided to ask Chris Moore-Backman to lead a workshop on the three-fold path, I temporarily stopped trying to make things happen and the Caucus went into limbo. My hope was that Chris’ workshop would inspire more people to pursue holistic nonviolence. But when at the end of the workshop one member suggested that we meet again to consider whether and how to act on what we had learned, we decided to wait a whole month before gathering again and when we did, there was no mention of the workshop or the three-fold path for almost three hours and when I finally brought up the issue, the focus quickly shifted back to strategic nonviolence.

So it seems that we attracted mostly individuals who are willing to go to meetings but weren’t really into promoting holistic nonviolence. My sense of having found what I was looking for was an illusion, like a mirage on the desert.

I feel that the most serious roadblock is making an intentional commitment to personal development. As one member in the post-workshop gathering stated, it is “a bit scary” to engage in critical self-examination and to honestly share with close associates one’s observations about one’s own mistakes, all of which helps to foster self-improvement (if it’s not essential). The reasons for this apprehension are understandable and I certainly don’t have any magic solution. But I would like to pursue with other like-minded individuals how to make progress in this regard.

Fortunately, through it all, I feel that I may have found a few like-minded souls with whom I can collaborate on this project. And I feel good about the latest draft of a proposal for a “social transformation network” that I’ve begun to discuss with non-Caucus members.

Whether I continue this effort under the umbrella of the Occupy Be the Change Caucus remains to be seen. If at least four or five pledge signatories want to practice the three-fold path together in the name of the Caucus, I am available. Perhaps we can start over and do it better next time.

Other Caucus members who aren’t prepared to practice the three-fold path might take on other projects and/or meet only every 6-8 weeks to oversee and guide the Caucus, more like a governing board than a working group. Or maybe we should initiate a new project. I don’t know.

But I still seek a holistic community that would differ from the sense of community that I have found with fellow activists in the past. After having done so for 45 years, I’ll probably continue this effort in the future, in one way or another.