Post 20. Public Awareness

Post 20. Public Awareness.

One of the places that my commitments to society are reflecting, is at Friends Of The Open School. The website reflects just a few communal accomplishments within the context of Jefferson County, Colorado.

Http://www.jcosfotos.org

One of the other shining lights in the social haze, is the success of the now National, regional pilot program, for the Service to Armed Forces transportation program at The American Red Cross. This activity now supports a regional hub with offices throughout Colorado, and there is no longer a shortage of drivers.

Potential SAF drivers can contact Tim Bothe at 303.607.4785

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Post 19. An Image.

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.

Post 17. Enlightenment.

Post 17. Enlightenment.

I wondered if anyone had thought about realism in the context of creativity before. And I remembered this poem that is so familiar to me, in a way that describes the intrinsic benevolent nature of creative intent. So please do read the poem, "The Problem" by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Link here

http://www.online-literature.com/yeats/905/

Post 16. A Plausible Description of Meaning.

Seek meaning in your life. I think in some ways this Jefferson County Open School directive could be more like, seek ways to seek meaning in your life. Growing up in a school that was dedicated to discovering new and individually distinctive ways to cultivate personal growth and learning, I do tend to wonder later in life about the structure of those strategies and how I applied the theory.

I was at TEDxMileHigh this weekend. I was a part of the new TED Adventure program and someone asked me on camera, what are values and instincts about? I began by discussing the influences that our values and our instincts have in terms of decision making processes. This is a new idea, that what people consider intuitive or irrational, might be the most efficient and tenable mental process for decision making entirely. I reasoned with some academic background, that as people value accomplishments according to the feelings and intuitions that mitigate those values, those instinctive processes are helping to discriminate potential choices and their available outcomes in distinctive and personally relevant ways. People find meaning in our culture, and it is partly by internalizing the different characteristics related to stereotypes and prototypes that are available in the culture. In many ways, our values are helping to stratify the amount of energy that we each commit to the characteristics that we display and that define us in social space. The definition we're creating is how I intend to describe meaning.

Genuflecting, is the process of a person becoming aware of the interpersonal reflections and feedback given to her or him, and deciding that it is congruent with his or her personal sense of self. This sense of self is optimally distinctive, it maintains salience in social space while being committed to being a part of it. The image that is created by social identity is another interpersonal dynamic. The thoughts about meaning that I decided on, are that whenever one is discovering his or her social identity is growing in a way that is congruent with her or his sense of self, genuflection occurs and helps an individual to honor his or her past accomplishments and value her or his future achievements.

I have solved a few problems so far by understanding the process of creating meaning in my life and applying that process for others. I believe that this concept of allowing people the space to seek meaning and create a social identity that allows genuflection as a part of education and work, can solve far more social problems than I have been exposed to.

At TEDxMileHigh I discovered an entire community of people who were tired of being sick and tired, and who refuse to be told anymore the role that this futuristic world expects of them. These are the innovators and the changers, and the people who through the act of self-transcending genuflection, are creating a more benevolent collective identity for their group presence in the world. I discovered that people who are antisocial are not the only ones who get angry and strive to repair the dissonance between sense of self and social identity, and that by far people who are angry and choose to apply this genuflection as a force of benevolent will, are stronger and more cohesive interdependent beings.

Overall I am encouraged and strengthened by this experience, and whatever hope I lost in the process of examining those who do not believe that their intentions matter, was restored by every one of the people at and who were presenting this event who do know that meaning matters.

Here are three articles related to this post.

Bjornebekk, G. (2008). Positive affect and negative affect as moderators of cognition and

     motivation: The rediscovery of affect in achievement goal theory. Scandinavian Journal of

     Educational Research, 52(2), 153-170.

Holleran, L., & Jung, S. (2005). Acculturative stress, violence, and resilience in the lives of

     Mexican-American youth. Stress, Trauma and Crisis, 8(2-3), 107-130.

Weiner, B. (2010). The development of an attribution-based theory of motivation: A history of

     ideas. Educational Psychologist, 45(1), 28-36. Doi: 10.1080/00461520903433596

Post 15. An Image.

Post 14. Progress, finally.

I suppose that since I do tend to mention this blog I should provide a basic rundown of the things that I'm working to accomplish

1) The American Red Cross. I'm working with the Red Cross to help provide transportation for people who have been in the armed services in order to support the VA and the medical systems engaging those people. I really like this work because veterans are people who have already discovered a life of service and always have gratitude for people who help them in terms of living that way. It is really super what some of these individuals say to me at those times. I'm moving this program forward and making it sustainable, as a part of the Service to Armed Forces (SAF) program. Additionally I'm planning to help develop a disaster preparedness program for youth in Jefferson County, Colorado in order to engage young people in the teaching of younger people, to help provide meaning for important learning experiences that people can share. I hope to include some young people who would otherwise be considered at-risk in this process because it provides meaning for accomplishments in a prosocial way. You can help too www.redcross.org

2) The City of Lakewood. I'm engaging citizens in my area with a person names Jonathon Stalls who owns www.walk2connect.com and I'm doing this because Jonathon is a wonderful resource in terms of helping to design and implement sustainability strategies. These strategies will help improve access for pedestrians and cyclists in Lakewood. Lakewood is a community that formed around mechanized travel, and is in the process of growing and changing in order to support community members who engage in alternative and healthy lifestyles. This connection will be a great resources that allows the city to grow.

3) Jefferson County. I'm working with my mentors who were a part of Jefferson County Open School in order to bring together Alumni for a workshop I am developing at the International Democratic Education Conference. www.idec2013.org I am doing this in order to share my experiences in education and in my lifetime as a way to send a message of reducing violence in our culture, teaching ways to reduce the tolerance of violence, and teaching ways to cope with our violent culture in a way that enables stronger bonds with our communities. Any of the strategies I used throughout my development can be implemented in a way that fosters meaning for the accomplishments of young people, in a prosocial way, that will help change the direction of the communities in The United States cultural milieu.

4) My Girlfriend. Well, for as important as all of these social projects are, my girlfriend is the one who is helping me engage those resources. She is an amazing woman who needs my support, personally, socially, spiritually, and intellectually because she has a gift. She can help people to see the angels which she calls light beings. And so one of the roles I am in is protecting her and enabling her to continue in this direction. I happen to know the directions in which human perception changes, those directions can be operationalized as symbols, and this becomes a language of perceptions and actions. I am helping to teach this amazing woman what I know of those perceptions, to help foster her growth while enabling the process of enlightenment for others in this lifetime.

I figure with all of these social projects people will start to take notice of the benevolent nature of my activities. I do intend to write about my struggles with bullying and the social ostracism and stigmatization that has taken place systematically in my life. The State of Colorado system for Vocational Rehabilitation is operated by people who insisted that I am not an educated man, and that I will not complete college or complete any of the work you see in the foregoing posts. Of course I intend to do my college internship for the very same man who told me that I would not succeed and that I could not be supported in this process. My next step is to tell the story, about how to survive and fall in love with, a society that says by every other indication that they do not accept me. I suppose one of the greatest motivations, is being told that I cannot succeed.

And so in general that is what is going on. Thank you for reading, I hope it is not an arduous read.