You educate through example. You educate by your life...what you are.

Myles Horton Audio

Self-Knowledge

Right thinking comes with self-knowledge. Without understanding yourself, you have no basis for thought; without self-knowledge what you think is not true. You and the world are not two different entities with separate problems; you and the world are one. Your problem is the world's problem. You may be the result of certain tendencies, of environmental influences, but you are not different fundamentally from another. Inwardly we are very much alike; we are all driven by greed, ill will, fear, ambition, and so on. Our beliefs, hopes, aspirations have a common basis.

We are one; we are one humanity, though the artificial frontiers of economics and politics and prejudice divide us. If you kill another, you are destroying yourself. You are the center of the whole, and without understanding yourself you cannot understand reality. We have an intellectual knowledge of this unity but we keep knowledge and feeling in different compartments and hence we never experience the extraordinary unity of man.
-Krishnamurti

Remain Resolute

The ability to remain focused, upbeat and resolute amidst the turbulence of disappointment and challenge is a necessary skill which one who strives to succeed must obtain. It is important to not let disappointment in one’s life turn into an indictment of one’s efforts and cherished goals. “An individual’s ability to carry on in the face of calamitous adversity showcases critical leadership traits, including perseverance, self containment amidst difficult circumstances, courage, perspective, and an ability to focus on the needs of others rather than oneself. Individuals who have mastered such challenges in their own lives are more apt to be viewed as leaders able to serve others” ( Strock,2001,pg.93).

-Regi Adams

excerpt from:Way of the e-lightened Mind.

The Role of Encouragement in Education

Listening to the pulsing waves of melodic transmissions emanating over my head phones I sat down to ponder the importance of encouragement in the educational process. The role of positive reinforcement is sometimes overlooked as perhaps it is often viewed as a frivolous activity of appeasement. Yet such a notion could not be further from the truth. Education is an activity which challenges learners to expand into unknown territories. An undertaking such as this requires the fortitude to assume risk. Risk to one's ego and perceptions of agency. Positive reinforcement and encouragement helps learners mitigate the intensity of the unknown. Encouragement allows learners to cultivate a belief in their ability to withstand potential failure, thus nurturing a greater willingness to assume risk. It is only through assuming risk that we truly learn.

The Power to Inspire

Nine tenths of education is encouragement.

-Anatole France

Characteristics of Adult Learning

Social Cognitive Theory

Social Cognitive Theory is the overarching theoretical framework of the self-efficacy construct (Bandura, 1986). Within this perspective, one's behavior is constantly under reciprocal influence from cognitive (and other personal factors such as motivation) and environmental influences. Bandura calls this three-way interaction of behavior, cognitive factors, and environmental situations the "triadic reciprocality." Applied to an instructional design perspective, students' academic performances (behavioral factors) are influenced by how learners themselves are affected (cognitive factors) by instructional strategies (environmental factors), which in turn builds on itself in cyclical fashion.

The methods for changing students' percepts of efficacy, according to Bandura (1977, 1986), are categorically subsumed under four sources of efficacy information that interact with human nature: (1) enactive attainment, (2) vicarious experience, (3) persuasory information, and (4) and physiological state.

Source: http://www.positivepractices.com/

Research Notes:The Seeking Process of Self-Directed Learning

Mathie (1993) active learning strategies:

1. Provide overview of goals
2. Set expectations
3. Empower student to make choices
4. Environment that stresses rapport

The Teachable Moment

Moments of uncertainty and new challenges are managed through the discipline of routines. Routines anchor excursions into the unknown, allowing for untapped potential to be realized. Develop the tools to be ready for the moment.

Strength to Love 1963

Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Power of Vision

Where there is no vision, the people perish; where there is no framework of moral reasoning, the people close ranks in a war against all. -Cornel West

Possibility’s Reality

The curse of indecision in a world of wisp and cloud, aloud one proclaims the desire to be. See the possibility, rather than the cold disappointment of limitation. Resuscitation of childhood dreams seems to be the remedy for the soul. The key to life is held within the focus and discipline of spiritual mettle. One must not settle for the quick and convenient, for neither can deliver the providence of the "as yet" and the ''not yet'' born.
-Regi Adams
excerpt from: A Chinese Kid Named Santiago

Catch a Fire

"Passion is not friendly. It is arrogant superbly contemptuous of all that is not itself, and , as the very definition of passion implies the impulse to freedom, it has a mighty intimidating power. It contains a challenge. It contains an unspeakable hope". -James Baldwin

....the Small Stuff

The world perishes not from bandits and fires, but from hatred, hostility, and all these petty squabbles.
-Anton Chekhov

Can't Stop, Won't Stop...

Tread the path of persistence with a faithful heart and a patient spirit. Endure the tumultuous waves of adversity as the reed endures the tide of the tempest. All things are revealed in their due time. The nature of the struggle is to be embraced and the essence of the moment to be cherished. Do not surrender the pleasures of your art to anxiety and worry.
-Regi Adams

Excerpt from: Way of the E-lightened Mind, Book of Success

As a Man Thinketh

When you control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his "proper place" and will stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told. In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit. His education makes it necessary.
-Dr. Carter G. Woodson

Life long Learning

There is no end to education. It is not that you read a book, pass an examination, and finish with education. The whole of life, from the moment you are born to the moment you die, is a process of learning.
-Jiddu Krishnamurti

Emotion, Learning and the Online Learning Environment

"In spite of evidence that more and more students are engaging in online learning experiences (Alan & Seaman, 2006), clarity about the transition to a new learning environment is still at arm’s length (Cleveland-Innes, Garrison & Kinsel, 2006). In addition, the impact of the emotion created by dealing with this new environment on learning is virtually (pun intended) undiscovered. In this session, Dr. Marti Cleveland-Innes and Zehra Akyol will review theory and data regarding emotion in online environments, with opportunity for discussion of the effect of emotion on teaching, learning and instructional design. In addition, this presentation corresponds with the launch of a web-site to support continued discussion and research on emotion and online learning. The web-site will be introduced at the end of the session"(Canadian Institute of Distance Education Research,2008)

View Session Here

Knowledge to Wisdom Part I

The need to rethink educational strategies and pedagogy is perhaps at the most critical stage observed in U.S history. The record drop out rates in our school systems and the wide spread underdevelopment of our students are ominous signals of turbulent times ahead. The jewel of society rests squarely in the bosom of its intellectual institutions. The strength of a society's ideas and its passion for learning are foundations on which thriving and sustainable communities are built. To nurture the mind, in a desire to develop a deep understanding of the world around us, has often been relegated to an inferior status within the hierarchy of our society's considerations. It is rarely acknowledged that intellectual wherewithal is what makes all other considerations achievable goals.

I would like to illustrate this point with an analogy. The grand structure of a tree starts but from a modest seed, one would rarely see the logic in this were it not for the commonality of such an occurrence. The same principle can be seen in the existence of a bustling society, knowledge and learning are the seeds by which all else grows. The germination process occurs and the seed of knowledge sprouts roots which can be likened to wisdom. These roots act to stabilize that society in the midst of challenge, turmoil, etc. As is the case in nature, the life that the seed has introduced into the world must continually be nurtured in order for it to live and grow. Without the continual nurturance of the tree by the environment, the tree would surely perish no matter how magnificent the tree might be in stature.

It is my belief that life long learning and education are the means through which societies can maintain their vitality and heath. The underlining goal of education should be to transform the mere accumulation of facts, digits and data into meaningful understandings and enlightened perceptions. The contextualization of learned information into the larger perspective of the world and responsibility helps to nurture this process.

...Mind over Matter

“Ultimately, a human being is wealthy not because of what he has, but because of what he knows. What he has, he can lose through disaster, obsolescence, or theft. What he knows, he can never lose unless he loses life itself. Thus, his real wealth is a characteristic of his thinking not any physical assets”.
-Dennis Kimbro, Ph.D.

Freedom of the Artist

In its origins, the word art meant science, knowledge, or learning. But it now connotes more than that: it refers not to learning and knowledge simply but to learning and knowledge in ways different from those associated with science. Art is a way of seeing, or apprehending, the world of man and nature through visual, sound or mental images. Through these images, the whole conglomerate of skills that we call art or the arts assault our consciousness to make us take a certain view of the world of man and nature.

Reference:

Barrel of a Pen: Resistance to Repression in Neo-colonial Kenya. 1983. Trenton N wa Thiong’o - NJ: Africa World Press

Sources of Self-Efficacy Information

Sources of Self-Efficacy Information;. People make judgments about their capabilities, accurate or not these estimations are based on enactive experience, vicarious experience (observation), persuasory information, and physiological states. In school, children gain knowledge and experiences through experiential activities. They also gain information based on seeing how peers they judge to be similar to themselves perform at various levels and under given circumstances. They also are told by teachers, peers, family and others about their expected capabilities. Children give themselves physiological feedback about their capabilities through symptoms such as soreness or sweating. These sources of efficacy information are not mutually exclusive, but interact in the overall process of self-evaluation.

Bandura, Adams, & Beyer (1977) advise that enactive experience is a highly influential source of efficacy information. Successful experiences raise self-efficacy with regard to the target performance while experiences with failure lower it. Another source of efficacy information is vicarious experience through observation. Observing peers, or peer models, especially those with perceived similar capabilities, perform target performances results in evaluative information about one's personal capabilities.

Verbal persuasion or convincing serves as another source of efficacy information. Teachers, for example, can raise or inhibit students' percepts of efficacy by suggesting whether or not they have the capabilities to succeed in a given task (Bouffard-Bouchard, 1989). Models can also be used to demonstrate to self-doubters that personal capabilities are more often a result of effort rather than innate capability. Students often have physical reactions to anticipated events. Many a public speaker testifies to sweaty palms and nervous vocal reactions when performing a speech. These physiological indicators are sources of self-efficacy information as well. Social cognitive theory postulates that the aforementioned sources of self-efficacy information are the most influential determinants of performance.

Source: Positive Practices.com

Freire on the Banking Concept of Education

In the banking concept of education, knowledge is a gift bestowed by those who consider themselves knowledgeable upon those whom they consider to know nothing. Projecting an absolute ignorance onto others, a characteristic of the ideology of oppression, negates education and knowledge as processes of inquiry. The teacher presents himself to his students as their necessary opposite; by considering their ignorance absolute, he justifies his own existence. The students, alienated like the slave in the Hegelian dialectic, accept their ignorance as justifying the teacher’s existence — but, unlike the slave, they never discover that they educate the teacher.

The raison d'etre of libertarian education, on the other hand, lies in its drive towards reconciliation. Education must begin with the solution of the teacher-student contradiction, by reconciling the poles of the contradiction so that both are simultaneously teachers and students.

Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed; Chapter 2

Zen and the Universe
The search for truth is a road of enduring proportions, persistent yet elusive. Those who claim to have mastered its secrets are perhaps those furthest from it. Will I ever really know? Soul searching solitude and nights of contemplation are my companions in search of the way.

Excerpt from: A Chinese Kid Named Santiago

Emotions, What Good Are They?.....

I sat in a dimly lit coffee shop sipping on a mixed green tea of my own creation. I came across an entry I had made in a research journal I use to document my thoughts and insights. The entry discussed the role of emotions in the learning process. This insight sparked my mind as I began to reflect upon this in greater depth. It occurred to me that as an educator I should not overlook the role of emotion within the realm of education. Emotions help us discern immediate pressing concerns from those that are not critical. In transforming one's life through learning, emotions help us to prioritize our selected tasks and objectives .

I wanted to investigate this concept further. Some questions came to mind. What role does emotion play in learner retention? What role does persistence play in the same equation? Retention is a passive action on the part of the student. Persistence is an active movement towards a goal. In the persistence paradigm the student is the active agent in his or her own transformation. The student acts and is not acted upon.

“Regardless of combat circumstances, you must always remain calm. Calmness is attained through meditation and belief in your own skills.

-Miyamoto Musashi

Despite the appearance of the challenge that lies before you, the ability to remain calm is the starting point to its remedy. Calmness gives birth to focus and focus breeds success. One must maintain a cool disposition in the midst of turmoil and struggle. The success of the mission is dependent upon one’s ability to do this. Remaining calm at all times is a skill that must be trained like any other. One’s training should consist of visualization and meditation. Meditation trains the mind and senses, strengthening their abilities of clarity and focus. These faculties will serve you well while engaged in the throws of struggle.

Train hard, and believe in yourself. Belief shows respect to the efforts of self-evolution that you have engaged in. Whilst others slept you toiled, while others enjoyed states of comfort you forsake yours for the hard path of cultivation. For this, you are a warrior, relevant and worthy of respect. The result of the competitive struggle is none of your concern. Your only concern should be the expression of your art.

Excerpt from: 4 Steps to Conquer

Excellence is developed through patience and holding steady through the process of self development. The quick and accessible route is not always in the best interest of quality and longevity. Lasting excellence is a methodical and arduous process. Patience allows one to establish a firm platform from which to build and to grow. The key to cultivating patience is to focus upon the activity, which one is currently involved. “An effective coach displays the following skills and characteristics: empathy, active listening, ability to size up people, diplomacy and tact, patience toward people, concern for the welfare of others, self-confidence, noncompetitiveness with team members, and enthusiasm for people”(DuBrin,2005).

Excerpt from: The Way of the E-lightened Mind, 10th entry

Problem based learning (PBL) is an instructional methodology, which engages learners by presenting them with scenarios reflecting real world challenges. This approach to education is different from many traditional “chalk and talk” methodologies, as PBL does not rely on the extensive use of lectures and monologues to drive the curriculum. The traditional paradigm of instruction tends to emphasize an approach where knowledge flows “downhill” from the instructor, to the less informed mind of the student.

The active agent in this instructional model is the teacher who propels the delivery of the lesson plan. A learner’s role within this paradigm tends to be passive, reduced to a role of no more than an “empty receptacle” passively receiving presented information.

Excerpt from: The Power of We!

The Darkest Forest

The warrior stood at the boundaries of the darkest forest, staring intently into its depths. The absence of light played tricks on the senses, as morphing shapes took on forms of a familiar nature, before vanishing
back into the murky depths. The warrior’s heart beat with an increased rapidity as the anticipation of the eventual confrontation filled her sensibilities. There was a heightened state of awareness. It was as if time stood still for that one moment.

Excerpt from: The 5 O'clock Coup

"You must be fierce, but have patience at the same time. Most inportant of all you must have complete determination. The worst opponent you can come across is one whose aim has become an obsession". -Bruce Lee

Never Mind that Man behind the Screen
Get at the impetus, the force behind the action, distraction from the true
reason. Treason of the senses leaves the traveler lost among landscapes
of emotion and conjecture, lectures of the heart lead to teachable moments and pockets of understanding; left standing with none but self
and possibility.

Excerpt from: A Chinese Kid Named Santiago, pg. 44

The Virtue of Patience

Ultimately, patience is the bedrock on which excellence rests. If one can enjoy the moment, enjoy the process and take it for what it is, then one can experience the natural flow of the activity. If one strives to live every moment, and strives to win every moment, then the natural conclusion of success will manifest because of these efforts.

Excerpt from: Way of the E-lightened Mind, 12th entry

Journal Entry on Self-Concepts

It is 12:51am New Years day and I am still awake…thinking. Over the past few weeks I had an opportunity to catch up with some old friends. It is always interesting seeing how things change over the years. Sharing in the personal success of people and observing their growth is an edifying experience. I began to wonder about how people come to believe in their ability to succeed. I wanted to know what creates this change this evolution in personal perspective. Is it possible for someone who may not have a good impression of themselves to change it for the better?

If one already has a positive opinion of themselves can they improve upon it? With many of these questions in mind I began to look at the phenomena of self concepts. "In a nutshell self-concepts can be viewed as the totality of a complex organized, and dynamic system of learned beliefs, attitudes and opinion that each person holds to be true about his or her personal existence" (Purkey, 1988).

Where do our beliefs about ourselves arise? Well one powerful contributor to this concept is our personal experiences. The occurrences in our lives over time construct an overall picture of who we perceive ourselves to be. Reflecting upon experiences of success or mastery contributes to a positive self-concept. The opposite of this is true as well. The self-concepts we develop about ourselves do not simply reside in the realm of our minds but has a tangible influence in our lives made possible through our daily behaviors. Prescott Lucky (1945) contributed to our understanding of this best when he stated that self-consistency, or maintaining the status quo is a primary motivating force in human behavior. Stated another way our actions will create our reality around based upon our self-concept. Subconsciously or otherwise people will act out in ways indicative of self-perception.

-Regi

“...I feel that the period will sooner or later arrive when I must abandon life and reason together, in some struggle with the grim phantasm, FEAR.”
-Poe

Fear is the foe of a thousand lives and shapes for it manifests in our lives in so many expected and unexpected ways. The greatest accomplishments the world has ever seen are the products of people who have conquered their fears. Within all endeavors, a decisive moment arises, a moment when a person must come face to face with their
deepest fears.

Excerpt: 4 Steps to Conquer pg. 9