MUSICAL INTELLIGENCE

You’ve probably noticed that among the people you know, you are one of a kind. Far from clones of yourself, your friends and relatives possess greatly varying skills, personalities, interests, preferences, etc. 

Howard Gardner, the Harvard professor who is father of the theory of multiple intelligences (author of the book Multiple Intelligences) asserts that special talents and interests are indicators of a biological imperative that drives the psyche of individuals. Furthermore these biological imperatives are gateways for optimal learning for individual children.  Gardner has concluded that these are distinct intelligences, which are likely to be entry points for the expression of genius.

Beyond this, could it be that a little bit of protégée, that lacked sufficient encouragement as a child, shadows your daily life?

One of those intelligences proposed by Gardner is musical intelligence.

Yehudi Menuhin was fortunate in that his parents recognized their son’s powerful reaction to music from the time he was a tiny child. And they had the foresight to take action on his behalf. When Yehudi Menuhin was three years old, his parents smuggled him into the San Francisco Orchestra concerts. So entranced was Yehudi by the sound of Louis Persinger’s violin that he begged his parents to give him a violin for his birthday. Louis Persinger was so impressed by the youngster, that he agreed to comply with Yehudi’s demand that he be his teacher.

Who would have thought that as an adult this musical acumen would even be considered essential for winning a war as evidenced by the following cable received during WWII:

We request that you definitely cancel all arrangements for Menuhin concerts up to and including 13 October. His presence in Europe with fighting troops at this critical juncture of the war is essential in its effect upon their morale and most important. - General Eisenhower cables from Supreme Headquarters.

I have never heard of anyone who didn’t enjoy time spent following this biological imperative in his or her work and play. In the words of Yehudi Menuhin, “Anything that one really wants to do and one loves doing, one must do every day. It should be as easy to the artist and as natural as flying is to a bird. And you can't imagine a bird saying, ‘Well, I’m tired today. I’m not going to fly.’"

There’s much more to fostering adult competence than the verbal/linquistic and mathematical intelligences to which most of schooling has narrowed its focus. Even though we have a one-size-fits-all approach, emphasizing verbal/linguistic and mathematical skills, the human reality points to the need for a plurality of educational approaches, and allowance for multiple roads to success. Surprises abound among renowned geniuses.

Luciano Pavarotti the Italian operatic tenor, who also expanded to popular music, became one of the most successful tenors of all time. During Pavarotti’s brilliant career, he starred in well known operas such as Aida, Boheme, Tosca, and Madame Butterfly. Indeed many consider him to be one of the finest tenors of the 20^th century.

Pavarotti achieved this brilliant career in music despite one skill, the lack of which, his music teachers very likely considered prohibitive of success: he never did master reading musical notes.

True, the examples in this series on Multiple intelligences include child protégées. We mostly tend to think of such people as unusual, rare human beings. Yet how many of the behaviors of these labeled and/or drugged, or simply bored children of today resemble, in their attitudes and behaviors, those of world renowned geniuses when they were children? Almost without fail either parents of an influential relative had the insight and foresight to prioritize the fostering of that genius that became world famous.

Perhaps a suppressed or ignored potential protégée shadows you or someone you know. The more we pay attention to the life stories of geniuses who become household names, the more we discover among such representatives of surpassing talent that their path to success diverged from the system, or at least proceeded outside the closely guarded perimeters of its gatekeepers.

I’m not suggesting we eliminate academia. Just that we widen its corridors – considerably. 

THE TRUE COMMON CORE: Part 6 of 6

The following tale, The Animals That Went to School, is adapted from the original written by George Reavis in 1940. With this version, which extends the setting and ending, I have added my own twist.

Once upon a time a manicured park was cordoned off from a wild life refuge. Over time this caused subtle changes to the attitudes of the animals living in Central Park. A group of animal leaders in this mowed, trimmed, and edged park decided to start a school to produce a well-tamed park crew. The goal of the School Designers was to instill basic skills in park maintenance to be held in common by all the animal offspring and to effectively confine them to the park's parameters. There would be no more escaping of young animals into the neighboring wild life refuge.

The School Designers adopted a curriculum of running, climbing, swimming and flying.  The regime required all of the animals to take classes in all of the subjects in equal measure. That would guarantee that all had exactly the same education.

The duck was excellent at swimming.  In fact, he was better than his instructor.  However, he made only passing marks in flying and was very poor at running.  Since he was so slow in running, he had to do remedial running after school.  This caused his webbed feet to become sore and badly worn, meaning that he dropped to an average mark in swimming.  Fortunately, “average” was acceptable, therefore nobody worried about it – except the duck.

The rabbit started at the top of the class in running, but developed a nervous twitch in his leg muscles because he had so much make-up work to do in swimming.

The flying squirrel was excellent in climbing, but he encountered constant frustration in flying class because his teacher insisted that he learn to fly from the ground up instead of from the treetop down.  The squirrel became a poor climber and developed cramps from overexertion while trying to fly, so he ended up with a C in climbing and a D in flying.

The eagle was a real problem student and was severely disciplined for being a non-conformist.  In climbing class, he repeatedly beat all of the others to the top, only to briefly soar out of control!

Occasionally the duck, rabbit, squirrel or eagle glimpsed the neighboring natural habitat, the Wildlife Refuge, and experienced a deep yearning.

The wary leaders, who had become invested in the Animal School, provided motivational carrots and sticks, but when this didn’t work sufficiently they invented labels, such as ATC (Awkward Tree Climber), IAF (Inadequate Attention to Flying). After School Tutoring proliferated as anxious parents enrolled the children. The medical profession duly supplied drugs to suppress the children’s urge to do anything other than attend their lessons. A steady parade of labels, meds, and test scores was sufficient to enlist the parents’ concerned support to the keep the animals’ focus where it needed to be.

One day, despite all this pressure, something profound stirred in the heart of the duck, the rabbit and the squirrel as each witnessed the eagle simply fly away, never to return …

THE TRUE COMMON CORE - Part 5 of 6

The first decade of the 21^st century has brought with it an explosion of science that casts new light on the dimensions of our humanness that dance out of range of our eyesight.

We humans can see only narrow band of the light spectrum between infra red and ultra violet. And so it is with our cameras. At least most of our cameras.  However, a few years back the Russian Scientist Konstantin Korotkov invented a camera that captures, the unseen, at least to our eyes, interactions between living beings. The GMV camera captures the fields of plants, animals and people, the reaching out, co-mingling, and even repelling of individual energy fields.

At the same time in America, the Institute of HeartMath proved that our heart radiates and energy field extending in the shape of a torus around the body. We can’t see it, but it’s there affecting and being affected by every one that it contacts.

During the same decade the Japanese scientist Masuro Emoto discovered that thoughts and intentions affect molecules of water—such as the molecules of water that comprise over 70% our body. While dark, negative emotions create muddy blobs, happy, peaceful beautiful thoughts, like love and gratitude form beautiful crystals.

What if we were able to see the energy fields of our children in school and in nature? What if we could see them shrink into a dismal state of self-protection when the child feels bored? Not understood? Under pressure? What if we could see the water crystals in the child’s blood turn to muddy blobs at these times?

On the other hand, imagine seeing the dance of energy when children play; when they engage in work of their own initiative; when they are enjoying nature; when they are in a loving environment. What if we had this ability to peer closer to the core of our humanity? To the Core of the Child? How would we design their days? Their Education? Their environment?

Epilogue to the Allegory:

 Potential enlightenment so threatened the power and pocketbooks of the corporate promoters of the Cave Dweller Curricula and accoutrements that they stepped up their campaign to laud the ‘core’ learning needs of cave-bound humanity. Many confused parents anxiously clung to the familiar slogans “Into the Light” and “For The Common Good”.  Accordingly they prevailed upon their children to submit to shadow-bound academics in the interest of bright futures. So conditioned were the cave dwellers by corporate/government-driven slogans that even the knowledge of the light blinded them.

Nonetheless, the rays of light proved so irresistible that increasingly the children of coming generations stepped through the cave portal to repopulate meadows and forests. The common reservoir of Living Connections stimulated brilliance through imagination, exploration, creativity and ingenuity, and love. Corporate cave interests were forced to seek new sources of revenue as, one by one, families, relocated in Ecological Edens, and child protégées enjoyed Enlightened Education and Elucidation.

THE TRUE COMMON CORE - Part Four of Six

  

The deepest core of humanity is one of connections—connections to one another, to nature, to the earth, to one’s spiritual essence, to the Source of all Life.

What does this have to do with the education of children? Everything. It means learning that is of real value is contextual. This Context is in terms of Living Connections.  Imagine looking at your face in a mirror. If you contemplate your image you can best learn about your eyes, nose, mouth, and ears, etc. by appreciating the way these facial parts all work together—by looking at the reflection of your face as a whole. Beyond this comprehension of useful connections between visible attributes, this mirror has its greatest value when you gaze even deeper – into the unseen – into the wholeness, the essence of the being that is YOU.

Now, imagine you drop the mirror and it splinters into a dozen or so shards. How satisfying, or true to your image is it to view your features through scattered slivers of glass? How accurately do the disconnected splinters reflect your face, the room, or your encompassing world?

Similarly, how accurately do splintered courses of study reflect a world of co-mingling realities in and around each child—let alone mirror unique potentials for constructive flow in this world?

Contextual Learning requires engrossing experience to appreciate the connections between the whole and its parts, and the parts to one another. Like gazing into the whole mirror, and reflecting on both the seen and the unseen, a wholistic education, mirroring the wholeness of childhood, enlivens the sleeping giant of connective intelligence. And the new revelation for this generation is that this connective intelligence always, yes, always includes the heart.

Enlightened Connections

The bright light blinded the first to briefly step through the portal, momentarily obscuring the world beyond the cave.  But soon enough scintillating colors and myriad forms beckoned one after another to free and endless exploration in light-filled meadows. Each heart recovered a long obscured language of connections, and communed with one another, plants and fellow creatures.

The cave dwellers assumed the worst, until returning pioneers shared exuberant accounts of expanded knowledge and insight. Their freely obtained common experience revealed enlightened living/learning/loving to be the core inheritance of humanity.

For the freed children every stick, pinecone, stone and alcove held new possibilities. The interior genius enjoyed calisthenics of the freed imaginations. They begin to invent, and design with gusto. Alert adults supported the core curriculum of genius with needed physics, geometry, and mathematics.

 Guides related childhood experiences to Humanity’s Story. Animated storytellers narrated as a rich heritage filled with inspiring histories, tales of countless generations of adventurers, and generative thinkers presenting new possibilities for the benefit of all life. The fire in the heart ignited ideas that grew from carrying fire, to designing fire pits in the elements, to building fireplaces in homes; from animal skin clothing to woven garments; from scavenging for berries and bulbs, to cultivating gardens, and on and on.

Enlightened Lessons ensconced in compelling stories conveyed Enlightened Connections. These fed the imaginations so that in their pretend play children emulated Heroes of the Heart.

THE TRUE COMMON CORE - Part 3 of 6

The petite three year old entered the play yard through the awning and underneath the expansive limbs of the mulberry tree. Glints of sunlight played with her gleaming black hair. Momentarily, Aramesh stood still in her spotlessly clean pink dress and shining black shoes. Shyly, she hung back next to her grandmother as her large dark eyes surveyed early arrivals already populating the swings and slide. A couple of ‘cooks’ were in a sand box filling stainless steel muffin tins and bowls with a soil/sand mixture.

As soon as Aramesh oriented herself to her surroundings, off came the shoes and with equal decisiveness the socks.

Then she headed to an unoccupied sandbox and lay down. Shining hair, pink dress, arms and legs, fingers and toes commingled with the cool grains of quartz. After first creating a ‘sand-angel’ with her arms, this tiny person became motionless. As if in response to an ancient call to radiant health, she became absolutely still as she allowed the earth to caress her back, while the sun lent its radiance to her serenely innocent countenance. I watched in awe, silent witness to the meditation of a young child.

I didn’t have my camera at that moment, although the image is indelibly etched in my brain—A momentary flash, to echo through the years as confirmation that the outdoor spaces, offering contact with natural elements, are an essential link in childhood passages from infancy to adulthood.

Penetrating insight into the natural stimulators of whole person, whole heart/brain intelligence helps us discern the “core” that our children rightfully hold in common. We recognize this endowment as the synthesis of Living/Learning/Loving in the above sandbox collaboration, including the twelve-year old who volunteered to pour the sand. Compelling life experiences offer a living curriculum that integrates whole person individuality with wisdom and knowledge.

The fundamental Common Core entrusted to our children is a Living Endowment. The Source of this Trust held in the interest of Human Genius insures the centrality of the heart and the full range of joyous expressions of the spirit/mind/heart/body complex that is a child.

The Allegory of the Cave Culture – Part Three

The Common Trust

The frightened people chastised the adventurer as he peered through the tiny opening. Authoritatively prodded by Cave Curricula specialists, his elders bade him to stop wasting time and return to cave labyrinth studies.

The possible ‘enlightenment’ of the people threatened the entrenched specialists, hierarchies of authority, and captains of commerce, which had chiseled a secure niche in Cave Culture Curricula. Alliance with the government propped the lobbyists’ push for the broadest scope of their agenda. With slogans like “Into The Light”, text and test lobbyists zealously promoted the need for further penetration of dark tunnels to memorize stone cold minutia.  The power that investors wielded was singularly self-serving, but they promoted their cause vigorously as being ”For the Common Good”. 

Nonetheless, through the generations, adventurers and dreamers were so drawn to the beckoning light at the cave entrance that one by one they labored to enlarge the rock bound aperture.

Continued in The True Common Core: Part Four

THE TRUE COMMON CORE (Part 2 of 6)

THE TRUE COMMON CORE: Part Two of Six

It was eight-year-old Renae’s second year at the Living Ethics School.  At the conclusion of the American History Teaching Story, it didn’t take her long to decide to build a model of a log cabin for Presentation Night. Fortunately the resources for her 12” by 12” cabin were all around her.  Sticks about ½ inch in diameter that could be sawed or broken to be about a foot long were strewn over the surrounding acreage.

The outdoors offer building materials for larger construction projects as well. Carter, along with other ‘home builders’, was seen for days dragging logs and branches to his ‘house’ among the trees and shrubs of Peace Town. Hay from the freshly mowed prairie provided bedding and filled in gaps between the branches that formed the walls of his house.

More recently the whole group of 17 plus kids raided a pile of just-cut long leafy branches to erect leafy green screens around tree houses, alcoves and newly erected teepees.

Some may ask, “Where’s the learning in all this? The answer comes clear when we shift our focus from slivers of intellect to arteries of intelligence. The construction projects exercise the creative/innovative imagination, an integral artery of whole brain intelligence. An added bonus in this 40-minute mid-morning break is that the physical exertion and creative collaborations actually re-energize minds and bodies for another 40 to 60 minutes of academic labors before lunch.

Another tremendous value during this outdoor play in wild nature concerns a second vital area of development. Like generative intelligence, social intelligence eclipses textbook learning. Co-habitation in Peace Town necessitates frequent negotiation and mediation of property disputes. A week’s worth of disagreements over ownership of household pinecone currency stashes, echoes the social and political disputes that plague humanity. Helping individuals peacefully resolve conflicts of interest has convinced LES teachers that there is no learning in the school that better prepares the children for successful adult life than this outdoor, living arena.

The ability to ‘see’ real learning requires an adjustment similar to exiting a dark cave to enter broad daylight.  Anxiety-driven academia currently screens out vital priorities for the full kaleidoscope of intelligence. The first step is to remove the cataracts of control that obscure the fullness of our humanity. To appreciate the accoutrements for real learning, necessitates opening mental apertures for sufficient light to enter the retina of the adult heart/brain system.

The Allegory of the Cave Culture – Part two

Au Coure

(To the Heart; To the Core)

The cave parents, while desiring the highest intelligence and best education for their offspring, were themselves graduates of Low Light Learning. It seldom occurred to most to factor into skills for intelligence expansion the faculty ensconced in the forebrain for Envisioning new Possibilities. Who knew to relegate this ability to the role of Illustrious Intelligence when it aligns with the heart as a coherent system?

No one living recalled that the ancestral heritage of cave dwelling humanity included many child protégées, graduates of sunlit meadows. The valued innovations of imaginations humming at full-tilt frequently earned them the esteemed title: Professor Emeritus of Enlightened Envisioning.

In time a lone adventurer, seeking primarily to escape the oppressive cave conditions, began the laborious task of digging through the entrance rubble. A tiny pinhole of light soon beckoned from a world beyond. A slight heart tremor startled the digger, as if in response to a familiar call.  

To be Continued in: The True Common Core - Part Three

THE TRUE COMMON CORE (Part 1 of 6)

At the Living Ethics School we glimpse the spiritual, shared core of humanity when children engage with sunlit nature; and when enthusiasm and initiative drive meaningful learning. 

Recently, the 5^th and 6^th grade geometry classes merged with plans to build a small cob (clay, sand & straw structure) on the property. With avid interest the students viewed building techniques as we watched You-Tube videos. In math class solving for the area and volume of rectangles and triangles included graph paper floor plans for individual cob house replicas. Eagerly the young architects drew up unique floor plans for miniature cob houses.

After about two weeks of preparation, on a crisp Indian summer day under clear blue skies, happy anticipation reigned as the architects filled small buckets with clay, sand and water, gathered handfuls of straw, and filled pitchers with water. Armed with the needed construction tools and materials, we headed for a large tarp spread out on the grass.

Soon mirth converged with focused concentration as the builders mixed the clay/sand/straw mud with bare feet (as seen in the videos) and formed diminutive cob bricks with their hands. 

What teachers and parents, who are devoted to the children in their care, don’t relish opportunities to sync learning with enthusiastic participation? By necessity this level of unforgettable learning must escape the confines of tightly controlled regimentation in order to soar on the wings of spontaneity.  

This six-part discussion, calls our attention to the true Core (The Soul/Heart/Brain Complex) held in Common by our children as the Source of all true learning. The following Allegory of the Cave Culture, hints at the century-long, persistent slide into ever more rigid centralized, regimentation, driven by a Core of Control, which John Holt aptly designated ‘schooling’ in lieu of ‘education’. 

The Allegory of the Cave Culture – Part One

Entrapment 

There’s an ancient myth of dwellers of an earthly paradise, which due to a local catastrophe sought refuge in a nearby cave.  When falling rocks and boulders sealed the entrance, the people became hopelessly entrapped in a vast system of caverns. 

Through many generations families learned to survive in dimly lit subterranean vaults. Those who had once basked in sunlit meadows gradually died away, and new generations assumed that living in a shadowy cave matrix was normal. Tales of former days of freely exploring bright realms of beauty were relegated to fanciful myths. 

The serious education of the children came to consist primarily of traversing dark labyrinths, and committing to memory the twists and turns of narrow passageways. A Cave Culture grew up which included businesses that sprouted up to provide books, tests, and electronic devices for Labyrinth Learning. The corporate entities that invested heavily became heavily vested in the lucrative continuance and growth of Cave Culture Curricula. 

Children labored in dimly light passageways, allowed only limited, highly controlled access to a powerful interior source of light—the imagination. This faculty of potential exploration, invention, and creation lay dormant in dusty recesses of intellect.  The ability to imagine light-filled fields of freedom, not only distracted from Minutia Memory, it could lead to vigorous attempts to seek enlightenment.

To be continued in The True Common Core: Part two