Post 18. Continuing Growth. |o|

Post 18. Continuing Growth. |o|

There have been a lot of events that have developed out of the previous efforts in the community. I have little doubt that my own self-awareness now is as an extension of the culture, and as I transitioned in a transpersonal sense toward accepting a role in the growth of the larger world, that the world by reflection changes with me.

Overall the 2013 International Democratic Education Conference (IDEC) was a success for my community and for my organization. The concept of applying meaning to learning and creating a space for meaning making in the context of the classroom, has become a solution for a wide range of social problems. I will speak to The United States and The State of Colorado and those cultural milieus in a moment. For now I must note that this awareness is global and no longer only an issue that should be pursued just in the local context in Jefferson County. So, this project has grown exponentially because of the process of cocreation that occurred with others in the global community during the IDEC. The awareness that I am referring to is the process of actualization and identity formation as it happens for young people in our institutions. The greater transpersonal awareness that was elaborated by Abraham Maslow and Viktor Frankl as well as many other researchers who have published work in the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology is that under the right conditions people do begin to accept their influences, actions, and therefore responsibilities; this growth continues as a part of larger personal, social, intellectual, and spiritual contexts for development. I believe that one of the contributions to this idea coming from the community, is the awareness that this transition into transpersonal awareness also functions as a transition from extrinsic motivation to internalized intrinsic motivations in the interest of becoming a strong part of a healthy and functional larger community. This process is what the Jefferson Country Open School seeks to develop, and that community objective is operationalized in the learning goal Seek Meaning in Your Life.

The application of meaning fits in many contexts, and this process has elucidated some of the causalities around major social problems experienced in Jefferson County, Colorado, United States of America. Firstly, United States culture can be viewed as restrictive, but it is also considered a low culture in social sciences. This means that the mores and norms created by the culture are not overtly enforced such as in high culture societies like China or Japan, but instead expectations placed on members of society are wholly created by the functional stereotypes presented in mainstream culture. As people begin their process of identity formation and meaning making, they may encounter difficulties with the resulting perception of mistaken identity placed upon them by the larger community. One of the causes for lethal violence in our culture is this conflict between social identity and personal identity, and the lack of socially available strategies for mending the dissonance in social space (Lee, 2011). Our culture enforces a set of expected identity characteristics and expectations by subvertly creating the space for those expectations according to stereotypes. Stereotypes therefore create a restrictive cultural environment, which is indicated by the emergence of new and frightening social problems. These problems exist in social space, and are attacks that are created as an angry response to perceived social wrongs against the future perpetrators of lethal violence, who may have peculiar, narcissistic "Superman" concepts of self-identity (Palermo, 1997). Meaning making, is a way to begin providing a safer social space for healthy identity formation, and for developing the skills that help young people mitigate, interpret and influence stereotypes, and the implementation of social prototypes, respectively.

The way to develop Meaning Making in the context of Jefferson County Schools is to encourage the superintendents plan to move forward in innovative ways and with appropriate technology and resources that will help measure the current culture and create an awareness of cultural trends. This will provide a roadmap for arriving with great efficacy in the future social space, having created regulations and policies that fit the future paradigm based on the current one. This plan requires an awareness of the larger community and the current and future states of concepts present in culture and media texts. Understanding the culture is work that students in secondary schools could be doing as a part of their own self-analysis and growth regarding the existence of media stereotypes and expectations within the social milieu of The United States.

The solution to a wide range of social problems within Jefferson County comes from an education that in part encourages an awareness of Modern Culture, as it is currently taught at the university level. This is the discovery that has come out of the work with Friends of the Open School, and Jefferson County Schools, along with the 2013 International Democratic Education Conference as mentioned in previous posts. I look forward to working with others in the local community, to bring this global solution to fruition, which will be very helpful to my research.


References

Lee, M. R. (2011). Reconsidering culture and homicide. Homicide Studies, 15(4), 319-340. doi: 10.1177/1088767911424542

Palermo, G. (1997). The berserk syndrome: A review of mass murder. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 2(1), 1-8.