Integral Education - An Introduction (for my ENG101 class)

Reaching a New Educational Paradigm

 This short introduction to Integral Education aims to inspire inquiry into our current assumptions of how and why human beings learn (i.e. our current educational paradigm), particularly as applied in public education. It is therefore aimed primarily toward those who can not only engage in this inquiry, but actually do something about it on a large scale. This paper's basic premise states that our current techno-socio-economic system breeds a daily and weekly stimulus that gradually (and imperceptibly) overwhelms our accepted educational paradigm. Modern research in human potential and accelerated learning suggests that this overwhelm stems from the fact that our commonly held assumptions of how and why humans learn utilize far less capacities than we actually possess. Increasing entropy results within a system unable to handle it. The various forms this advancing resistance takes include: a felt stress-increase in the learning environment, violence, drug use, emotional disturbances, absenteeism, and many other forms of distress.  Expressed succinctly, the problematic issues seen in public schools today can be traced to the very model from which our entire educational approach emanates.

    Multiple Intelligences

  Just thirty years ago, American college professors taught that human intelligence is basically set at birth. The common thought was, "You're stuck with what your parents gave you." It wasn't understood that human intelligence is innate and can be highly developed by anyone willing to do so. Nor was it understood that conventional education and most IQ tests engage only two or three human intelligences at most (mathematical/logical and linguistic being the two most common), while modern research has suggested that humans possess varied intelligences, all of which, though related, often develop independently.

  Each intelligence can be pictured as a distinct line of development, the complete number of which ranges anywhere from at least eight to possibly two dozen explicit lines of intelligence (depending on who you ask, cognitive psychologist Howard Gardner or integral theorist Ken Wilber, respectively).  Examples of such developmental lines include: cognitive, morals, values, emotional, interpersonal, intrapersonal, musical, self-concept, linguistic, kinesthetic, psycho-sexual, spatial, spiritual, and so on; all of which influence how and why we learn.

  Research repeatedly demonstrates the synergy-creating power of cross-training in multiple lines of intelligence, often leaving conventional rigid specialization trailing behind. For example, though basic moral-intensive training produces a measurable positive effect on moral development, such training alone falls short. Anyone who has known the difference between right and wrong yet still chose to engage in a wrong behavior knows this from experience. Yet research demonstrates that when you combine extensive training in the spiritual and intrapersonal lines of development, particularly with meditative and contemplative practices and serious self-inventory, dramatic jumps in moral development are possible.

 The importance of developing multiple-intelligence awareness is exemplified in the individual with an IQ of 190 who uses his "intelligence" to embezzle thousands of dollars. Sure, he possesses impressive cognitive intelligence, but where is his moral intelligence? Other interesting questions ensue: How has his development (or lack thereof) in the values, intrapersonal, and self-concept lines of intelligence influenced this outcome?  How intelligent is such a person, really? How often does conventional education touch upon these important modes of intelligence or even work to increase inner awareness of them? What is the value of a highly educated psychiatrist, for example, with poorly developed interpersonal and emotional lines of intelligence? How would engaging the whole person supercharge the learning process? How would such an environment affect the average student's overall learning gestalt? How would such an environment affect the student's emotional intelligence and sense of wellbeing?  

Introducing the Integral Approach

 The Integral Framework proposed by integral philosopher Ken Wilber, author of twenty-three books, including "A Brief History Of Everything," and "Sex, Ecology, Spirituality," is currently one of the most innovative modi operandi available by which to facilitate the emergence of a more competent educational model. Wilber's Integral Operating System is versatile enough to be applied to virtually any field of knowledge, including education, the aim of which is to be all-inclusive and comprehensive, incorporating the greatest number of truths into one organically functioning whole. Though there are numerous elements animating the IOS, we will cover only one of the most important: quadrants.

Quadrants

 Wilber discovered early in his career that virtually every event occurring in the known world possesses four Quadrants, all of which represent the Interior, Exterior, Individual, and Collective components in any given situation (see Figure 1 below), often exerting unseen influence.

 The Upper Right Quadrant (UR) is the world of measurable, exterior experience on the Individual level, the realm of science and observable data: neurochemistry, brainwaves, brain development, and so on. The Upper Left Quadrant (UL) covers the realm of interior experience within the Individual, the realm that science often finds difficult to handle, having traditionally been the domain of the world's contemplative, philosophical, and spiritual traditions. Subjective consciousness itself resides here. Yet science states that anything that cannot be disproved (such as subjective, inner experience) is not science. The implication is that if it isn't science, it isn't real. Yet science can neither prove nor disprove that I love my mother, for example, since any actions of supposed love I show her could theoretically be motivated by any number of factors, only one of which is love. Does that mean that love isn't real? No. It simply means it can't be measured. Thus we have the UL: interior experience that no machine can ever accurately measure. Science may be able to take an EEG scan of my brain waves during a particularly vivid dream, but it cannot take a picture of the dream itself, nor can it take a picture of how I inwardly experience the dream.

 So, though the UL and UR correlate with one another, neither can be reduced to the other. Both are important and need to be addressed in any attempt at an Integral approach to a given field of endeavor. Otherwise, as Wilber has so duly noted, you have one side claiming it has the whole story, resulting in a biased monologue rather than a dynamic dialogue.

                                                              Figure 1: The Four Quadrants

 The same Interior and Exterior aspects are present in the Lower Quadrants, yet now we are dealing with the Collective.  The Lower Left Quadrant (LL) contains our inherited, interior Cultural values, morals, world view, and educational paradigm. Though none of these agencies can be adequately measured by science, nor seen with the naked eye (you can't take a picture of a moral, for example), they all exert a profound influence on any given moment. Likewise, the Lower Right Quadrant (LR) houses our exterior Social Systems, such as governments and modes of agriculture and commerce, all of which apply undetected force upon daily affairs.

 Covering the basic first, second, and third person perspectives, all of which are represented in the world's major languages, the Quadrants show us that there are indeed multiple sides to every issue, including education. Each of these Quadrants is constantly exerting influence upon the learning process, and thus needs to be duly addressed. For example, there is the present developmental stage of the individual (UL), her prevalent neurochemistry (UR), her inherited cultural perspective and inherited educational values (LL), the socio-economic and technological environment within which she is learning (LR), and her own concept of how hard (or easy) it is for her to learn certain subjects (UL), all of which are altering how she learns, grows, and subsequently teachers others to learn and grow.

 A civilization's technological power base in the LR can often evolve faster than the Cultural paradigm of education in the LL, creating a tangibly felt tension as a culture struggles, waiting for its interior world to mature to a level of competence relative to its exterior development. We can see this scenario play out in many high schools where the analytical methods of teaching and learning first instituted during the Industrial Revolution are still used today. Although our current techno-socio-economic base has evolved far beyond that of the Industrial Revolution (LR), our basic Educational Paradigm (LL) has not. Today's children inhabit a complex world (LR) unforeseen fifty years ago, yet we maintain the confines of an academic model (LL) incapable of adequately handling its demanding provocation. The backwash manifests as tension, stress, anxiety, and overwhelm.

 The study of dissipative structures reveals that when an open system (which is what an education system really is) begins to experience such overwhelm, it is due to the system's inability to disperse enough of the increasing entropy (chaos) into its surrounding environment. When this occurs, only one of two outcomes can result. Either the system will become overwhelmed by the increasing entropy and die, or a bifurcation point will arise where an entirely new system evolves out of the old, producing a  higher level of functioning. Likewise, our current educational paradigm is showing signs of such building entropy, and is coming to a point where its ability to contain the incredible stimulus of the Information Age will necessitate a jump to an altogether new paradigm capable of doing the job.

 All four Quadrants will need to be accessed in order to reach a consensus as to what an Integral Education encompasses. While the currently popular field of neuroscience is providing many answers as to how and why humans learn, it represents only one quadrant (UR). In order to engage the whole person, we must engage all the Quadrants. A few simple examples of incorporating the other quadrants include: addressing each student's inner beliefs about how easy or difficult various subjects are for him or her to learn (UL); incorporating Maria Montessori's concept of teacher as "felt presence" in the classroom (LR); spiritual community-based learning (LL); Lynn Freeman Dhority's twelve brain-based learning guidelines (UR); utilizing teaching methods which engage multiple intelligences and encourage awareness of other intelligences not focused on in class (UL); implementing Suggestopedia's innovative brain state-specific learning methods and environments (LR); incorporating visualization in the classroom to facilitate ease and flow of learning (UL); and the use of environmental learning sound systems, which utilize special audio frequencies in the classroom to effectively encourage calm, focused attention and optimal brain function (LR). These are merely a few of the many available approaches each of the Quadrants is able to offer us in effectively making the jump to a higher Educational Paradigm.

Conclusion

 In conclusion, I assert that a dramatic shift in our current educational paradigm is the only proper solution to the many and varied problems faced in today's public school system. My reasoning is simple: change your paradigm, and your world changes in response. Yet the shift in paradigm has to be based on real potentialities waiting to be accessed, and an All-Quadrant approach can certainly assist us in accessing those potentialities in a timely manner, should enough of us be willing to do so. After all, we each have the right to either accept or refuse the ever beckoning call of positive change and evolution. It is to the human aspiration for higher knowledge and understanding that this material has been both presented and dedicated.