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May 25, 2007 U-K columnist Steve Dayton says (here) that ... while being rich and successful may well be the American Dream, it is quite possibly a debilitating mental disease that should be eradicated for the common good. Ahhhh yessss! Not just a few privileged children, but ALL children need to enjoy daily access to fine tools, fine instruments, fine teachers, fine gardens and other fine places! Unlike Mr. Dayton, however, I would argue that the full human intelligence will lead humanity up to this higher social order, not just mirror neurons. In fact, today's folks simply need to realize the value of special human talent and help create the new and better society of everyone, by everyone, and for everyone, so that the vigor, joy, and talent in millions of children don't get flushed into the socio-cultural sewer, and dumped into the ocean of oblivion. Unusually talented children who are unable to develop because of chronic impoverishment and chronic social neglect are both a tragic disgrace and a tragic loss to today's society, as well as to future human generations. Today, there are so many chronically impoverished families, and tens of millions of children are forced to work each day in crowded schools where bully children lurk and prey on certain other children. School teachers themselves tend to be intimidating, bossy people. But indeed, a talented, creative person works best in a non-intimidating, more carefree atmosphere. Yes, daily intimidation shuts down a creative talent each day. Moreover, when only one way is the correct way, and the only way to get a passing grade, then creative art, creative music, and creative writing soon get blocked. Wherever strict imitation is the school rule, innovation is denied. There are different designs of printed letters, and there are different fascinations in children. There are different personal characteristics such as hair color, skin color, eye color, math skills, language skills, and so forth. There are exceptional personal skills in handling a ball, or a deck of playing cards, or a seedling plant, or a snake, or a dog, or a spider, or a pen, and so on. But thousands of special talents and skills go unrecognized in today's schools. On top of that is the crushing poverty felt by so many families and their children. This makes me wonder about the priorities of those who would move humanity to distant worlds in outer space! I say that humanity first needs to better explore inner space and take care of itself and the providential living world, or face extinction. Indeed, as U-K columnist Thomas Keyes asserts (here) The solution to humanity's problems, if there is a solution, will have to come from the immediate environs of planet Earth. I would be more specific and say that the solution to humanity's problems will have to come from inside of human brains! Although most poor people don't become dangerous, some chronically impoverished, tormented, and bullied children have grown up to wreak havoc. For example, in the USA there was President John Fitzgerald Kennedy's assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. More recently, there was the Korean student Seung-Hui Cho, who shot and killed 32 people and wounded many more at Virginia Tech. There also are suicide bombers whose way out of poverty into paradise is to blow themselves up on a crowded bus, in a crowded religious service, or in a crowded market. Indeed, a life of chronic intimidation and chronic poverty fuels many a fiercely destructive person. In modern American schools many children carry a weapon by which to defend themselves if necessary. Just this last April on the HSU campus I tried to present what the Korean Cho's point of view had been for years as a frequently maligned and often cowed younger schoolboy. After I was through talking and I'd left the room, however, a worried student called the campus police on me! This person was afraid that that I might be carrying a gun in my backpack! Later I was warned not to ever bring up this subject again. What? I can't even raise a discussion at a well-endowed California State University??? What is all that money being paid to teach??? About bullies in American schools, Scott Donahue writes, Teachers and staff wouldn't stop anyone from harassing me unless I got my parent involved. One time I was even punched in the face and was told by a school authority to "not worry about it," as they had written the person up and they were allowed to return to their game of basketball. And, Violence on TV or in video games isn't the root of the problem. The problem lies deeper in our culture: we see things occurring but nothing really changes. Cho could have been helped multiple times but no one thought he would be a threat. Gun control is an issue that people will focus on, but a person's mental health is more valuable and important variable than anything else. Ahhhh yessss. Spoken like a true reporter, commentator, and prophet! So in the USA, what does school TEACH? From what Mr. Donahue just said, it seems that nobody at school really CARED about Cho. The teachers and the students were non-kind, non-loving, and non-empathetic. So this makes one wonder about the daily school curriculum content. Maybe schools need to teach enlightened ethics and morality to boys and girls on a daily basis. But then we get into the Constitutional "church and state" can of worms. Yup, church and state is a thorny issue. Well, then, maybe the LOGIC of being kind, empathetic, and loving needs to be taught, not just in church schools, but in secular schools. Right now it seems that the Christian churches fail to teach empathy well enough so that on school days the children actually follow in the footsteps of their often celebrated (but rarely actually followed) Lord Jesus Christ! Now what do I sound like, a Fundamentalist preacher? Anyhow, when it comes to what actually can be done to help children be smarter and less destructive to their peers, the needed pioneer brain-technologist may be a perplexing character, as evidenced by the following quote borrowed from Breakthrough Technologies: The work style of pioneering for alternatives is different than the style for building mastery. The main emphasis of day-to-day engineering is to be a master of your chosen technology. Mastery is achieved through continuous improvements; refining, augmenting and finding new applications while sustaining expertise throughout this process. The work style depends on established knowledge and tends to be systematic, relatively predictable, and has a relatively short-term return on investment. Creating new and superior technologies, however, is a wholly different type of work. Going beyond the limits of an existing technology requires a pioneering spirit. It requires imagination to envision future possibilities. Pioneering requires confronting ignorance and creating new knowledge rather than just applying existing knowledge. It requires intuition and subjective judgments to navigate in the absence of an established knowledge base. And because progress is unpredictable and the returns on investment are long-term, it requires the ability to take risks. ------------ About the author: Sixty-seven years of age, and still relatively vigorous in mind, body, emotions, and spirit, John L. Waters is an independent researcher on self-healing, integration, creativity, and unity. To help demonstrate the effectiveness of his research, John has created thousands of drawings, paintings, instrumental music pieces, songs, prose pieces, poems, and other inventions. John has also used his research to help persons remove a mental block and solve a difficult problem. John also gives personal presentations which explain his research and illustrate his research results. Each one of these works demonstrates the effectiveness of John's research. For more information, read John's letters of recommendation: about John's self-healing and integration: more about my work: about John's independent research: about John's seeking an agent or a publisher. Email: blueguntwo@yahoo.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. Please link to this article rather than copying and pasting it onto your site (which would be unauthorized and illegal). |
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