THIS WEEK AT THE LIFE FORCE CANADA
EDUCATION THINK TANK MEETING
January 27, 2022
We were happy to welcome many new attendees to this week’s meeting. What a joy to see new faces and meet people from many corners across our nation. We even had a party crasher join us from a Council in California.
We were excited to also welcome David Andrews to our Think Tank this week. He is a lifelong educator and coach and a very engaging speaker. There are four main teaching tools and approaches that David uses and he was kind enough to give us an overview of all of them.
The first one he covered was 4-Mat – an approach developed by Bernice McCarthy. This system “honours the learner” and believes that there are 4 main types of learners in any given population:
- Type 1 – emotional, sensitive, intuitive and tend to be in caring professions;
- Type 2 – person who likes information. They like to read and see it for themselves. They are very procedural and want to have the facts and figures and data and statistics;
- Type 3 – 3 dimensional, structural, kinesthetic, experiential, embodied, hands on. They learn it by doing it; and
- Type 4 – little more eccentric, they see the big picture and the relationship and connection between things. They are infinitely creative and quick thinkers.
In order to capture these learners, you need to engage them with the right questions that suit their Type. You can use the “cycle of learning” technique to do this. Watch the link below to learn this method. Ideally, as an educator or designer of instruction you want to honour the learner, so you must honour all 4 types of learners. Using this system, you can take any concept and break down any lesson with only four main questions and you will have created a curriculum.
We next explored Garner’s Multiple Intelligence Theory that asserts that there are eight different types of intelligences and while people may have multiple areas that they are good in they usually especially excel in one. These Intelligences are:
- Linguistic-Verbal
- Visual-Spatial
- Interpersonal
- Intrapersonal
- Logical-Mathematical
- Musical
- Bodily-Kinesthetic
- Naturalistic
David also covered Emotional Intelligence with us. There are four basic human emotions. While there are many variations and subtlety the four main emotions are: anger, sadness, fear and joy, each one very distinct physiologically. Emotions are very raw and real and also very human and we have them to protect and to guide us, but society has medicalized emotions. If you’re feeling sad, you’re depressed and need medication. If you’re fearful you have anxiety and need medication. If you’re angry you need anger reduction therapy. We’ve got to the point where people are terrified to have any emotions and so we do everything we can to avoid genuinely experiencing them. He showed us a fantastic tool to help us identify and measure where we are in the range of emotions and a technique to help us to feel, process and regulate our emotions so that we can come back to a place of peace and joy.
Lastly, we looked at the fascinating topic of Spiritual Intelligence and the Virtues Project. It recognizes that the existing public school system, which is only about 150 years old, really focuses on corporate capitalism and excessive individualism and has trained us to be worker bees. There is no reference to us a spiritual beings or to our possibilities. In the past, all the holy books and spiritual leaders were the teachers, and the “education” was based on parables. For 4000 years parables were the vehicles of cultural and spiritual transformation and they asked “what’s the moral of the story?”. This simple question creates an awareness of “virtues”: patience, kindness, loyalty, honesty, mercy, sincerity, forgiveness, truthfulness, etc.
Virtues can be learned, regardless of your race and colour, religion, your geographical location, and your education, or lack thereof. Virtues really are the universal human characteristics and potentiality. Sadly, public education is devoid of teaching spiritual intelligence, yet all virtues are so valuable in any family or relationship, any school, community or society. The Virtues Project identifies the means and strategies to bring the language of virtues back into the classroom, curriculum and activities and back into the home.
I encourage you to “like” and subscribe to our YouTube channel and take some time to watch this informative and inspiring discussion with David Andrews.
Click here to see our Education Think Tank zoom meeting with David Andrews:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YJlYEFb-Xg&t=8s
Once again, thank you to all who attended. It is always such a pleasure for me each week to meet the new people joining us for the first time and to see all those that make time each week to come back and take part in our Education Think Tank. You are all truly blessings to me.
Til’ we meet again,
Norma Jean Maxwell
Life Force Canada
Education Think Tank Facilitator