On being willing to learn, to grow, to change

March, Book Two - by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, Nate Powell

One of my favorite passages in John Lewis's March II graphic novel, which I just finished.  

Up until then, many in the movement -- including myself -- had been critical of his [Attorney General Robert Kennedy's] response to our pleas for federal intervention.

Kennedy: You, the young people of SNCC, have educated me. You have changed me.  Now I understand.

It showed me something about Robert Kennedy that I came to respect: even though he could be a little rough -- ruthless, some would say -- he was willing to learn, to grow, and to CHANGE.

Nothing changes the fact that Kennedy did not do what Lewis was hoping in terms of federal help.  But Kennedy's admission that he was "educated" and "changed" makes Lewis respect Kennedy.  You can take this cynically -- that Kennedy just said this because he approved of the peaceful March on Washington and wanted Lewis and SNCC to continue to be conciliatory.  

Or, you can take Kennedy's response as a vulnerable and open one.  He says that Lewis (and the young people) had educated the older man, had changed the older man, the powerful man.  Maybe Kennedy really was open to be changed and educated.  That makes me think of how we need to be open to the world and people.

Middle season #30

 This is the season of the burning bush. The sugar maple with a thick carpet of leaves on the ground AND a huge mass above. Other maples that are brightly electrified in the early and late sun and the thinning of leaves on many bushes and trees. Trees becoming transparent. 

On "a bellyful of words"

 

A typical day at Nature's Classroom Institute.  I love the "what are students learning" at the bottom.

At the high school that I work at, there's a new pandemic crisis.  Now, it's an overwhelming number of students who are earning Ds and Fs.  At our sister school, the number of kids on the D and F list is nearing 50%.  At our school, though less, it's still surprising... or not so surprising.  

I've been thinking recently that this latest crisis, along with the past crises or kids not turning on their Zoom cameras and acting passively in class, isn't only an issue of teachers' instruction or charisma.  I feel like it's laying bare the reality that most kids don't want to go to school for the most part.  Kids who have always excelled -- or have homelife that gives defeernce to schooling and authority -- continue to do well.  But kids who don't really don't "get" school (and there is a lot not to get!) are finding a lot more opportunities to check out.  

Ralph Waldo Emerson also didn't "get" typical schooling.  He wrote:

We are shut up in schools and college recitation rooms for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bellyful of words and do not know a thing. We cannot use our hands, or our legs, or our eyes, or our arms. We do not know an edible root in the woods. We cannot tell our course by the stars, nor the hour of the day by the sun. It is well if we can swim and skate. We are afraid of a horse, of a cow, of a dog, of a cat, of a spider. Far better was the Roman rule to teach a boy nothing that he could not learn standing.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson

I heard this yesterday while listening to Laura Walls' Thoreau biography.  In the book git comes when Emerson hears of Thoreau's trip with his brother to the White Mountains.  

I heard this yesterday while listening to Laura Walls' Thoreau biography.  In the book it comes when Emerson hears of Thoreau's trip with his brother to the White Mountains.

A couple towns over there is a "NaturePlay School" early childhood program.

Nurture your little sprout in our nature-based early childhood program based on the forest school model! Research has shown that unstructured outdoor play and nature-based exploration to be the perfect groundwork for meaningful learning and growth. Lyman Woods' NaturePlay School provides this and more! We spend much of our time fostering creativity, teamwork, and social skills through unstructured play on our trails and in our Wild Woods play area. Your child will also learn about the animals and ecology of the forest, wetlands, and prairie through fun hands-on lessons designed specifically for early childhood. Your child might plant trees, build forts, care for a garden, cook over a campfire, wood-work, and hike and explore our trails and look for mystery boxes! They will work on content such as science skills, language, and math without even knowing it! We spend as much time as possible outside in our 135 acres, but will use the Interpretive Center as a home base in inclement weather.

 

Nature's Classroom calls itself "the nation's premier environmental education program."  

Nature's Classroom Institute is the nation's premier environmental education program. We offer a fully customized, highly engaging 3, 4 or 5 day experience that has direct positive impacts on classroom community and academic performance. Our multi-disciplined, degreed educators integrate lessons with the curriculum of visiting schools in order to reinforce what is being taught in the classroom. With thousands of classes and activities to choose from, we create unique and individualized experiences for each and every student and teacher.

The goals of Nature's Classroom Montessori are to foster independence and to support children in moving toward a mastery of self and the environment. Our classrooms are prepared Montessori environments designed to encourage children in their self-directed discovery of the world. Interest-based activities encourage children to develop a love of learning and trust in their own ability to learn.

The tagline of the school is "Learning through experience.  Growing through expression."

Here are some impressive "School Garden Lesson Plans" from "Whole Kids Foundation"

 My colleague Sarah just told me about DeepS\\ Springs College.  (link)

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On "Small Fish"

 

I love this Jeremy Nguyen cartoon I found in a pile of old New Yorker magazines.  It's titled "Small Fish."  

On the left, the cartoon recreates the standard food-chain diagram.  The plastic rings complete the dark  Anthropocene joke, suggesting that the fish will be destroyed by man-made detritus.  But it doesn't end there... the natural food chain becomes an unnatural food chain, ending up in a plastic bag - the same plastic bag you probably just got from a quick trip to the store for something you didn't need -- emblazoned with a smiley face.    

You think that you're going to be eaten by a bigger fish?  Think again! 

I picture myself as one of the fish... unaware that right behind me is a bigger fish... and behind that some other disaster waiting to happen... and behind that another disaster.

On "the purest of human pleasures"

 

William Kent's Rousham

According to philosopher Francis Bacon, the "purest of human pleasures. . . the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man" was not reading books or listening to music, but gardening.  

According to Witold Rybczynski,in his book Waiting for the Weekend (1991), gardening is "an indulgence" but an ancient one.  The kind of garden Bacon is talking about, and the one I find to be a great pleasure, is more intimate. 

The walled domestic garden behind the house was almost secretive, a magical place, not least because it provided privacy.  Before the home was subdivided into specialized rooms, gardens were already "refuges of intimacy," in historian Orest Ranum's charming phrase, and afforded an opportunity for the solitary contemplation of nature -- especially flowers... The flower garden (there was usually a kitchen garden elsewhere) was intended for leisure -- it was specifically called a "pleasure gardens" -- and was the perfect place for "doing nothing."  There was usually a bench, often set in an arbor, which provided a congenial setting for private conversations and romantic encounters.

Rybczynski cites Charles Moore, the author of The Poetics of Gardens, while saying there are just two basic notions of how to create what has been, throughout history, the main goal of a garden: a happy equilibrium between humankind and nature.  

The first is the walled paradise garden, which keeps the outside world at bay and re-creates a perfect, orderly paradise within.[these are ideally square, divided into four quarters, geometric]..  The second idea, equally ancient, is of a garden ordered not according to geometry but to the natural world -- asymmetrical, crooked, diversified, picturesque.

The English gardens of the eighteenth century are examples of this.  They include gardens like William Kent's Rousham (above), and those of his successors Capability Brown and Humphrey Repton.  He also notes Henry Hoare's Stourhead, "considered by many to be the greatest of al eighteenth-century English gardens." (204)  The beautiful and useful "Visit Heritage" site with introductions to dozens of great English gardens is here. If the pandemic ends and we get to travel abroad again, I'll use the Map View as an itinerary.

Stourhead, considered to be the greatest of English gardens

Gardens are very special "indulgence."  Gardening, says Rybczynski, "is solitary, but it also involves outdoor physical activities (digging, planting, pruning) that make it an attractive antidote to the mechanized -- and mechanical-- clerical work that characterizes most modern jobs.  In that sense, the garden offers possibilities for both recreation (working in the garden) and leisure (sitting in the garden)."  

In that way, Bacon appropriately calls them "the purest of human pleasures."

On the prime instrument of leisure

 

Society 6 bike art print (link)

 

Historian John Lucacs says that the automobile is

the most wonderful of conveniences not so much because of its comforts (which is limited in even them most luxurious of cars) and not even because of its reduction of distances, but because it allows its owner to be teh master of his time rather than of space; he can leave whenever he wants, and return whenever he chooses; he does not depend on schedules of public transport.

According to Witold Rybczynski, in "Waiting for the Weekend," "It is precisely this freedom that makes the car the prime instrument of leisure." (183)

But I'd offer another  prime instrument of leisure: the bicycle. 

Outside Magazine recently published Joe Lindsey's review of electric cargo bikes.  And in the middle of the article is a beautiful paean to biking:

The point of cargo bikes isn’t to get a workout (ahem, e-bike shamers). And while they can replace a car outright, that’s a commitment few are willing to make. Really, these bikes are meant to replace car trips—as many as you can feasibly switch from four wheels to two. That means they’re among the most important kinds of bikes to make and sell.

What I hear from people who have bought them is that they change life in small but profound ways. Such an e-bike becomes a family adventuremobile for exploring greenways and parks; kids ask to go to school on the “big bike,” not in the car; running errands becomes something other than sitting in stressful traffic and hunting for parking spaces. Life seems simpler.

Today is my 56th day of riding my bike to work since school started in mid August.  The commute has provided me dozens of nature sightings, some invigorating workouts, constantly changing routes through neighborhoods and through parks, exposure to life-affirming rain and wind and (this morning) snow.  On the two days I've driven to work, I've returned home with a heavy lethargy.  When I come home after biking, often with songs from my earbuds in my head, I feel like I need to take a walk with Jennie.  The amount of time I "lose" from a car ride is negligible on this 4-mile ride.

On Cognitive Distortions

 

 In 1976, psychologist Aaron Beck first proposed the theory behind cognitive distortions and in the 1980s, David Burns was responsible for popularizing it with common names and examples for the distortions.  The graphic above shows, there are different names for cognitive distortions.  One thing I like about this is the Anais Nin quote: "We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are."

1. Filtering  A person engaging in filter (or “mental filtering) takes the negative details and magnifies those details while filtering out all positive aspects of a situation  When a cognitive filter is applied, the person sees only the negative and ignores anything positive.
2.  Polarized Thinking (Black and White thinking) In polarized thinking, things are either “black-or-white” — all or nothing. We have to be perfect or we’re a complete and abject failure — there is no middle ground. A person with polarized thinking places people or situations in “either/or” categories, with no shades of gray or allowing for the complexity of most people and most situations. A person with black-and-white thinking sees things only in extremes.
3. Over generalization In this cognitive distortion, a person comes to a general conclusion based on a single incident or a single piece of evidence  For instance, if a student gets a poor grade on one paper in one semester, they conclude they are a horrible student and should quit school.A person may see a single, unpleasant event as part of a never-ending pattern of defeat.
4. Jumping to Conclusions  Without individuals saying so, a person who jumps to conclusions knows what another person is feeling and thinking — and exactly why they act the way they do. In particular, a person is able to determine how others are feeling toward the person, as though they could read their mind. Jumping to conclusions can also manifest itself as fortune-telling, where a person believes their entire future is pre-ordained (whether it be in school, work, or romantic relationships).For example, a person may conclude that someone is holding a grudge against them, but doesn’t actually bother to find out if they are correct.
5. Catastrophizing (also, Magnifying or Minimizing) When a person engages in catastrophizing, they expect disaster to strike, no matter what. This is also referred to as magnifying, and can also come out in its opposite behavior, minimizing. In this distortion, a person hears about a problem and uses what if questions (e.g., “What if tragedy strikes?” “What if it happens to me?”) to imagine the absolute worst occurring. For example, a person might exaggerate the importance of insignificant events (such as their mistake, or someone else’s achievement). Or they may inappropriately shrink the magnitude of significant events until they appear tiny (for example, a person’s own desirable qualities or someone else’s imperfections).
6. Personalization.   Personalization is a distortion where a person believes that everything others do or say is some kind of direct, personal reaction to them. They literally take virtually everything personally, even when something is not meant in that way. A person who experiences this kind of thinking will also compare themselves to others, trying to determine who is smarter, better looking, etc. A person engaging in personalization may also see themselves as the cause of some unhealthy external event that they were not responsible for. For example, “We were late to the dinner party and caused everyone to have a terrible time. If I had only pushed my husband to leave on time, this wouldn’t have happened.”
7.  Control Fallacies.  This distortion involves two different but related beliefs about being in complete control of every situation in a person’s life. In the first, if we feel externally controlled, we see ourselves as helpless a victim of fate. For example, “I can’t help it if the quality of the work is poor, my boss demanded I work overtime on it.”  The fallacy of internal control has us assuming responsibility for the pain and happiness of everyone around us. For example, “Why aren’t you happy? Is it because of something I did?”
8. Fallacy of Fairness.   In the fallacy of fairness, a person feels resentful because they think that they know what is fair, but other people won’t agree with them. As our parents tell us when we’re growing up and something doesn’t go our way, “Life isn’t always fair.” People who go through life applying a measuring ruler against every situation judging its “fairness” will often feel resentful, angry, and even hopelessness because of it. Because life isn’t fair — things will not always work out in a person’s favor, even when they should.
9. Blaming.  When a person engages in blaming, they hold other people responsible for their emotional pain. They may also take the opposite track and instead blame themselves for every problem — even those clearly outside their own control. For example, “Stop making me feel bad about myself!” Nobody can “make” us feel any particular way — only we have control over our own emotions and emotional reactions.
10. Global Labeling. 
    In global labeling (also referred to as mislabeling), a person generalizes one or two qualities into a negative global judgment about themselves or another person. This is an extreme form of overgeneralizing. Instead of describing an error in context of a specific situation, a person will attach an unhealthy universal label to themselves or others.  For example, they may say, “I’m a loser” in a situation where they failed at a specific task. When someone else’s behavior rubs a person the wrong way — without bothering to understand any context around why — they may attach an unhealthy label to him, such as “He’s a real jerk.”  Mislabeling involves describing an event with language that is highly colored and emotionally loaded. For example, instead of saying someone drops her children off at daycare every day, a person who is mislabeling might say that “She abandons her children to strangers.”
11.  Always Being Right. 
    When a person engages in this distortion, they are continually putting other people on trial to prove that their own opinions and actions are the absolute correct ones. To a person engaging in “always being right,” being wrong is unthinkable — they will go to any length to demonstrate their rightness.  For example, “I don’t care how badly arguing with me makes you feel, I’m going to win this argument no matter what because I’m right.” Being right often is more important than the feelings of others around a person who engages in this cognitive distortion, even loved ones.

from  "15 Common Cognitive Distortions" on Pyschcentral.com - link 

see also: 10 Methods for Fixing Cognitive Distortions.

***

 This reminds me of Joseph Goldstein's line: "Don't believe what you think."  Cognitive distortions happen to others -- making it harder to communicate with them. But they also happen to us.  Goldstein writes,

There are some particular difficulties and challenges in being with difficult emotions. We often live in denial. It’s not always easy to open to our shadow side. And even when we are aware, we can get caught in justifying these feelings to ourselves: “I should hate these people—look at what they did.” From justifying these feelings of hatred and enmity (which is quite different than being mindful of them), there can come a strong feeling of self-righteousness. We forget that the feelings and emotions we have are all conditioned responses, arising out of the particular conditions of our lives. Other people in the same situation might feel very different things. Although at times it may be hard to believe, our feelings are not necessarily the reflection of some ultimate truth. As Bankei, the great 17th-century Zen master reminded us: “Don’t side with yourself.”