rick lynn
Teacher
e-mail at mayfieldga@netzero.net
5012 Seaboard Ave.
Jacksonville, FL 32210 (904) 771-0687
At night in Old Atlanta, the spirits come out and make those old houses hum. Education is good, but homefolks are forever.
http://learningtheory.homestead.com/Theory.html
These files contain my complete learning theory
with applications. Although not as clear, my theory is also written below. At the bottom of my site are other articles, stories, and academic tools. Feel free to make copies.
Removing the deadly myth of fixed intelligences
(Please note my short version is located above under file marked ShortRTF)
The purpose of my theory is to release students and adults from the myth of permanence in ability created by our current teachings of fixed intelligences and to provide students and adults with tools to continually improve their ability to think, learn, change, and grow, mentally and emotionally. The incorrect, deadly teachings of fixed intelligence, which say mental ability is more or less permanent and can be improved slightly with effort, are directly related to many escapes and other problems experienced by students and adults today.
Today, we are reaping the consequences for teaching permanence in ability to our students and not providing tools to improve their lives. We are creating feelings of permanence in ability, tremendous anxiety, and psychological suffering in our students. By teaching fixed intelligences of learning, students are left without tools to change and improve their lives. We are creating feelings of permanent inadequacy for many students in achieving the academic, social, mental, and emotional skills of others. Even a straight-A student raised in a fine family may feel permanently inadequate in one or more areas or skills. This is leading millions of students to various forms of escape and other problems such as peer pressure, stagnant students (students who give up), dropouts, drug/alcohol abuse (even teen sex related as form of drug abuse), catharsis of violence, and suicide (the third leading cause of death among young people).
We must begin releasing students from this deadly myth of permanence in ability and begin providing them with tools to continually improve their abilities. My learning theory, which can be researched (stated at the end), offers us two, very large tools to help students and adults continually improve their ability to think, learn, change, and extend reflection time. It is essential for teachers to realize the importance of providing students with tools to continually improve their lives. Keep in mind, our current and more permanent, fixed intelligence teachings in school are not even valid theories (cannot be researched) but simply assertions by followers of social Darwinism years ago and accepted without research. These teachings are still with us today and are killing our students. I now give you two large cognitive tools we can all use to continually improve our ability to learn and grow, mentally and emotionally. Note, these are life-style tools or changes that should be used all the time or continuously, whether or not we are performing academic work. This is the only way to create true change in ability.
Understanding the first Cognitive Tool requires a more correct understanding of mental stress. By correcting the current "faulty" definition of stress, we can all learn to greatly improve our ability to think, learn, change, and develop into newer and better persons. Currently, stress is improperly thought of as any energy used when performing any physical, mental, or emotional activity. It is also thought of as occurring only during some immediate, situation or problem. To make matters less helpful and more confusing, many believe there is good stress and bad stress. These views of stress are "not useful" for helping us change and improve our lives. However, by changing from these faulty definitions of stress to one that more accurate and useful, we can then use it as a powerful tool to help students and adults change and improve their lives.
I see stress more accurately as "mental frictions" that occur in our everyday life and impede our ability to think and learn, not as simply energy expended. For example, laughing, crying, running, swimming, etc. are not good stress but very low, if any stress. In such cases, we are using energy, but we are "not creating mental frictions" from it. So you see in this definition, "stress does not occur" when energy is expended without mental frictions. Also by seeing stress more accurately as mental frictions that occur not just as conscious, immediate problems but also as other many layers of subconscious (or just below the surface) problems, difficulties, plans, and other unresolved mental frictions, we can then see more clearly how our individual environments work to greatly affect our ability to think and learn.
The first cognitive tool: stress is more accurately defined as one or more layers of both conscious mental friction or problems and more importantly, as layers of other mental work being worked on subconsciously, in parallel by the mind. When we are performing mental work, our minds are also subconsciously working on other layers of mental work or mental frictions from various situations, problems, hopes, plans, circumstances, responsibilities, etc. All of us are acclimated to different amounts or layers of subconscious, residual stress that impede our overall ability to think, learn, reflect, and develop skills over time.
As we go through our lives each day, we are coming in contact with many elements in our individual environment. We also bring with us certain interests, likes, and dislikes of things, people, work, fun, honor, respect, etc., along with a history of experience, assigning various weights and values to all those elements in our life. Given life's complexities, we invariably create various mental frictions between elements in our life along with the weights or values we are placing on those things. These mental conflicts slowly accumulate into layers of mental conflicts our minds are working on, even when we are not conscious of it. As these layers accumulate, we are slowly taking away some of our ability to think, learn, and develop other skills. Perhaps this is why young children appear to be smarter: fewer accumulated layers of residual stress. This shows us just how our individual environments work to either aid or impede our ability to think and learn. This greatly affects our ability to change and develop qualities, characteristics, and skills we admire in others over time.
You can see or visualize these layers of residual stress by drawing an upright rectangle, representing our full mental ability. Then beginning at the bottom and working up, drawing narrowly spaced, horizontal lines to represent layers of residual stress, which accumulate and impede our ability to think, learn, and shorten reflection time. The space we have left at the top represents our leftover ability to think and learn. The space at the top also represents our length of reflection time or time taken to consider the longer-term rewards or consequences for an action. If these layers of residual stress accumulate sufficiently, they can create psychological suffering, which may lead to escapes such as drug/alcohol abuse, catharsis of violence, and suicide. Layers of residual stress reaching the top of this upright rectangle would represent a point of irrational behavior or no reflection time. This understanding could be very valuable in preventing senseless violence and suicide rather than simply reacting to it. The file marked "Resid. Layers Figure" at the top illustrates this.
We cannot just relax or perform physical work to remove these layers of residual stress. When we attempt new mental work or our bodies recover from the physical work, our residual stress will return to its average. This is also true for forms of meditation. Meditation like relaxation may make you feel good by helping you change your state of consciousness; however, when you attempt a new mental work, your residual stress will return to its average. Relaxation or mediation only dims or temporarily removes the charge of mental energy to those layers of residual stress. Then when you attempt new mental work, that mental energy is then re-applied to those layers of residual stress. This shows just how layers of residual stress waste mental energy and thus drain off mental energy, which could be used more productively and constructively. This also shows us how our individual environments and situations work together to either aid or impede our overall thinking and learning ability.
My theory provides a method we can use to more permanently lower layers of residual stress. To begin, pretend your backyard is your environment with sandspurs in different places. Each day you take a little time to understand more where those sandspurs are, you can then learn to walk more delicately around those plants and avoid getting stuck. Very much so in real life, a person can begin to slowly understand a little more each day, the elements of his or her individual circumstances, responsibilities, problems, etc. along with the weights or values that person is attaching to those elements in his or her life. Then that person can slowly begin to understand a little more about how those elements in his or her life and the weights they are placing on those elements come together to create individual layers of mental frictions, I term layers of residual stress.
Each of us can begin to learn and understand a little more each day, the elements of our individual circumstances, responsibilities, experiences, and the weights or values we are applying to those elements or things in our life. Then we can begin to see how those elements in our life fit together to create our view of the world. As we learn to understand these elements and the weights we are applying to those elements in our life, we can then begin to understand how these elements and the weights we are applying to things in our life are creating our mental conflicts. Then we can choose to change the way we approach those elements or things in our lives and/or perhaps make slight changes in weights or values we are placing in certain areas to understand and more permanently resolve those mental conflicts, issues, or problems. This way, we can then begin to more permanently resolve and reduce our layers of residual stress. With each resolved layer, will come slight changes in values or principles which will help keep similar mental conflicts from occurring in the future. With each more permanently removed layer of residual stress, we will improve that much more, our ability to think, learn, and grow, mentally and emotionally.
As we learn to understand how the elements of our individual circumstances, responsibilities, job, personal interaction, etc., fit into our individual weights or values, those various circumstances and responsibilities will not disappear, but the mental conflicts connected with those problems will disappear. For example, if you heard a noise coming from your car and did not know the problem, you would feel anxious. However, upon recognizing the noise was coming from trash on one of your tires, the trash would remain there, but the mental anxiety would be gone. For problems related to circumstances and responsibilities, you may see how such problems may be necessary. While the problems may remain, the mental conflicts will be removed. For problems that do not fit in with our values or weights, it is up to each one to decide whether to approach that problem differently are change a weight or value related to that problem. I use the term "continuous feedback" to describe continually approaching our lives more delicately each day. Each day we better understand the elements of our lives and make adjustments in the way we approach our lives, we will more permanently remove layers of residual stress. This will also improve our sensitivity and awareness to information.
By improving our sensitivity (more perceptive of things) and awareness to information, we will be able to perceive and to correct more subtle mental conflicts, which are also hindering our ability to think, learn, and reflect. Improved sensitivity and awareness to information and elements around us are important for abstract thinking and problem solving. Abstract thinking ability is realized and increased as a person lowers his layers of residual stress sufficiently. This understanding could open the way for greater advancement or better accumulation of skills by students in higher math, science, and other areas of abstract thought. This is also important for learning college skills and other information age skills over time.
By lowering our residual stress, we will also increase our reflection time or time we take to think, plan, and make decisions. As a person accumulates high layers of residual stress, his reflection time shortens. His desires, goals, enjoyments, and methods of problem solving become more simplistic or short-term, less thought-out. Increased layers of residual stress can also increase psychological suffering, which may create a need for a catharsis release or escape from that high, accumulated mental tension. This condition makes drug/alcohol abuse, teen sex, the catharsis of violence, and suicide much more appealing in view of the immediate reward or release from psychological suffering and temporary lowering of residual stress such escapes provide.
Sometimes we are met with situations in our life that create situational stress. Situational stress is different from residual stress. Situational stress is related to events, which occur less often in our lives. The first idea of residual stress: (although plausible, perhaps too simplistic) is that situational stress increases by some factor of our layers of residual stress. If you have a residual stress of an arbitrary factor of 1, then your situational stress will go up by a factor of 1. If you have a residual stress of an arbitrary 3, then your situational stress will go up by a factor of 3. Second idea: when a situation occurs, a person is faced with multiple new work and also an increase in pace and intensity to find a solution. Both the approaching of that new work (depending on how much is new for that person) along with a rushed feeling of time (improper increase in pace and intensity) work to create a much higher factor of mental friction or situational stress. This occurs on top of our already present, layers of residual stress. By lowering our residual stress, we will also lower our situational stress. This will reduce psychological suffering and/or saturation of residual stress from a situation and help prevent violence and other irrational responses from occurring, due to that situational stress.
Reducing residual stress is a powerful variable and tool we can use to improve mental/emotional health and growth for millions of students and adults. It is a powerful tool that can be used to improve thinking, learning and motivation in mental areas.
For layers of residual stress related to experiences and actions in our past, we can learn to understand that what we were as persons when those experiences occurred - were comprised of our knowledge, confidence, experience, and quite possibly a much shorter reflection time. What we are today is really another person altogether, made up of more knowledge, confidence, experience, and hopefully a longer reflection time. Realizing this will help persons understand and reduce layers of residual stress created from past experiences.
My theory has nothing to do with morality. It is simply a method for more permanently lowering residual stress. The weights or values, we as individuals apply to various areas of our life are different for all of us and too numerous to mention. These elements work together to create our view of the world. If we were to attempt to teach or compel others to change a weight or value, we would undoubtedly create more and greater conflicts with other weights or values that person has established in his life. In short, to impose any weight or value upon another person would create greater mental friction and thus, would be counter-productive to my theory. However, by learning to understand and work more delicately within our own, individual weights or values, we will find ways to more permanently lower our residual stress and improve our ability to think and learn. As we do more research, we will find other ways to approach mental work more efficiently. This is the breakthrough education needs to become truly professional in the way it teaches its students and to finally enable them to change and grow.
My theory does not attempt to avoid emotions or work, but only to remove and lower layers of residual stress or wasted energy that interferes with our ability to learn. For example the theorists say physical activities such as running and swimming and emotions such as laughing and crying are forms of good stress. The theorists fail to realize this is not good stress but very low stress or very high efficiency of energy. When we are performing any physical, mental, or emotional work that is already learned, mastered, or natural, we are not creating mental friction and so there is no mental stress. We are also temporarily removing energy from those layers of residual stress. Therefore, we have high efficiency of energy and temporarily, very low stress. Doing physical work will not permanently lower layers of residual stress. When your body recovers, your residual stress will return to its average. True residual stress creates mental friction, which can remain as unresolved mental issues or problems and impede thinking, learning, and reflection time. The Icon at top, marked "Residual layers Figure" is a figure showing how layers of residual stress accumulate and impede our ability to think and learn.
The second cognitive tool: the myth of hard work is beneficial only when performing old work (skills already mastered), not in performing new work (skills which are in the process of being learned). There are misguided beliefs regarding mental learning, especially when they attempt to compare mental learning with physical work. As a result, we have many misguided sayings such as "Just believe you can do it." or "Just put your mind to it" and you will succeed. Such phrases sound very good but still follow the myth taught by Sir Francis Galton and still maintained today through our single/multiple intelligence models, "succeed by ability and effort". This attitude is recommended by many middle to middle-upper class individuals, who have had the luxury of being raised up in more stable environments, which makes learning easier. Such ones are usually reflecting outward, the mental/emotional/physical/social support, knowledge and skills they received from youth onward from family and peers upon all persons even though many of those other persons have never had such advantages. Such individuals are content with their lives and either not able to or refuse to see the positions of other students or individuals in less stable environments nor appreciate the deprivations existing in those less stable environments.
In truth, the attitude of work hard when performing a new, mental work actually impedes learning. Motivation in mental areas equals = mental reward received for mental work expended. As our pace and intensity in approaching mental work exceeds our immediate knowledge, confidence, and experience, we create exponentially greater mental friction and further impede our ability to think and learn. This hurts both short and long-term motivation in mental areas for many students. High layers of residual stress also play a role in causing many students to approach mental work in an incorrect way or try too hard. Students and adults may easily and wrongly believe that more can be achieved if they will just push a little harder (grit their teeth so to speak). This only makes the problem worse.
When approaching mental work, situations, problems, or academics we should begin slowly and simply reflect on the information we have. This will create a small base area of knowledge with notches to add more information. As we slowly add more information, our base area of knowledge will increase naturally and the number of notches to add more information will multiply, thus naturally expanding our pace and intensity of learning. If we applied our present myth or teachings regarding mental work and immediately applied a lot of mental energy, we would waste energy trying to place a lot of information onto just a few notches. In this way, we can see how incorrect pace and intensity kills both short and long-term motivation in mental areas. The mind is unable to deal with or is overwhelmed with information without understanding. This is another reason why the myth of permanence in ability to learn continues, because only slight improvement occurs with hard work, and students who try too hard wind up giving up in the long run.
We should instead, instruct students to approach mental work and other aspects of their life at a slower pace and "allow more time with less intensity". Students should allow more time and allow their knowledge, confidence, and experience to increase their pace and intensity naturally. If we take our time, we will lower our residual stress and make it easier to learn. Then as a person develops skills in different areas, new skills can be learned more easily; basic skills can be inserted into more complex skills, thus pace and intensity will then increase naturally and will factor over time.
Approaching mental work correctly is important for students to learn and enjoy learning new knowledge and skills (including academics). The little girl said as she learned to do something new, "This goes here and that goes there." had the right idea. In time, she will know where this and that goes and will proceed to learn other, more advanced skills with equal enjoyment. In the physical world, we may work hard, whereas in the mental world, we need to work easy. This is the correct way to learn mental work and to continue learning and equally enjoying more advanced skills over time.
The delicate dynamics of approaching all mental work correctly (including academics) affect every aspect of our life. The dynamics of approaching mental work correctly should be seen as a tool or skill we should use continuously and which can be enhanced with training. By teaching this skill, we will greatly improve reflection, planning and organizational skills for students and adults. This will also raise ability to think, learn, and increase the hopes and goals of students and adults.
These two large, Cognitive Tools are the keys to motivation in mental areas such as academics. Many bright students, due to high residual stress or incorrect pace and intensity in approaching mental work, may be working twice as hard to receive the same mental reward as other students. By lowering residual stress and approaching mental work more correctly, we will increase intrinsic reward in mental areas or mental reward received for mental work expended. We can draw this equation for motivation in mental areas: Short and long-term motivation or intrinsic reward in mental areas equals mental reward received for mental work expended. Intrinsic reward is created when students enjoy acquiring knowledge and mental skills for mental work expended. The greater the mental or intrinsic reward received, the greater the continuation of learning and the acquisition of more complex skills over time. This process continues and increases in value as students gain further confidence and experience. This motivation in mental areas then becomes more long-term and more valued by students over time. This is what we want from our students, long-term motivation in mental areas. These two cognitive tools help to create, nurture, and maintain motivation in that very important train of long-term learning and development of more complex skills over time for all of us.
Students can use the process of lowering residual stress to improve intrinsic reward and long-term motivation in academics. Students who begin this process later in life will still lag behind their peers in knowledge, confidence, and experience in those areas they are lagging behind. However, using those principles, a person can begin to catch up and even go ahead of his peers. After correcting my speech impediment, I did this.
To those who are followers of the more fixed, multiple intelligence models for mental and emotional stability and growth, I say this belief is not so and is quite harmful to all of us, even for you who follow that myth. Aside from organic dysfunction or damage, mental/emotional stability and growth is a variable that follows on a continuum of efficiency of energy. All of us fall on that continuum and have the ability to move positively along that continuum by using our mental and emotional energy more efficiently each day (fewer layers of residual stress and more correct pace and intensity when approaching mental work). By teaching young children through modeling and teaching older students the cognitive skills of approaching mental work more delicately and efficiently to lower layers of residual stress, we are providing students with the principles of mental/emotional stability and growth. Students need these tools to continue growing mentally and emotionally.
A student establishes his motivations to perform mental work based on mental reward received for mental work expended. Imagine two students in the first grade with equal intelligence. They also have the same work ethic. However one student is working with lower layers of residual stress while the other student is working with higher layers of residual stress.
The student with low residual stress will receive more mental reward for mental work expended in academics, for his mind will be less occupied with other mental conflicts in his life. Also if his life is not rushed or he is properly trained, he will approach academics at a more relaxed pace. For this student, learning will be more fun. Each day, he will gain more knowledge, confidence, and experience, for mental work expended, which will enable faster paced learning to take place later. Some students appear much smarter than their peers because with low residual stress, their motivation and learning has factored over time. This boy's model is the key to motivation in mental areas.
The student with the high residual stress will work harder, mentally to receive the same mental reward, for his mind will be more cluttered with other layers of residual stress or mental issues. Also, he will probably try too hard. This makes learning less fun and more like work. Since our society teaches permanence in ability, when the two children grow up, one child will be preparing for college while the other child may have dropped out of school, escaped in frustration to drug/alcohol abuse, or suicide. Such differences have the same effect on "high achievers" in the same classes who differ by only a small degree. These differences exist even among college students. Problems and escapes created by the myth of permanence in ability are affecting many students and adults today.
Children may very well learn faster. Could it be as we grow older, we also grow more cognitively aware of our environment. We also begin to take on more responsibilities that increase in number and complexity. This could show how children are able to learn more quickly at a young age. Children tend to begin life with few and/or temporary layers of residual stress. Then over time, children's awareness improves and with more responsibilities, they begin developing more numerous and more substantial layers of residual stress. I have learned to remain young in many ways and so have managed to avoid many of the social trappings, which adversely affect many people today.
The Savant is able to perform mathematical or musical feats because theoretically, the mind is dysfunctional in many areas and is delivering extra mental energy to other areas like math or music. Since we as so-called, normal human beings are affected adversely by residual stress in other areas of the mind, which function normally, our abilities in areas such as math or music, are by comparison, impeded. To a degree, I feel some persons (young children) through intense modeling have been improperly, socially channeled toward academic work and away from other experiences that might create higher layers of residual stress and perhaps coached to appear much more intelligent than they actually are. In addition, I feel some persons are through minute organic dysfunction or through a carefully contrived value system: perhaps lack of conscience, responsibility, or other values may also be able to direct more mental energy toward more self-directed goals and with less residual stress due to those altered or deleted values.
Telling students to work harder when they have high residual stress will only lead to more frustration. Those students will still have to work harder than their peers to receive the same mental rewards. The lower residual stress must come first. The teacher can then push such students only according to the mental reward and confidence they are receiving for mental work expended. If a teacher tries to build up his students' esteem without giving them tools to improve their lives, the teacher may do more harm by fostering more short-term escapes to maintain that esteem.
This information is important. Very few of us are able to rest our security upon money, power, status, image, or popularity. There isn't enough to go around. We must teach students our inner-security and ever-growing self-concept are more important. This is accomplished by showing students how our individual environments greatly affect our ability to think and learn and providing cognitive or mental tools students can use to continually improve their lives. This will provide students with greater inner-security and tools to continually improve their lives mentally and emotionally.
Peer pressure is created by the myth of permanence in ability. If a student feels permanently inferior in one or more areas, he will be more reliant upon his peers for support, love, honor, affection, protection, etc., and even some knowledge he may feel necessary to have. He will also be more in fear of rejection and thus, losing those things. This creates peer pressure. By showing students how their individual environments do greatly affect their ability to think, learn, and grow mentally and emotionally, students will have much more respect and esteem for themselves and for others. By providing students with tools to approach their lives more delicately and differently to continually improve their abilities, students will then have a more continuous hope of developing in time, many if not all of the qualities they admire in their peers. Students will then have a more continuous hope of changing and becoming better, newer persons with each passing day. This will lower peer pressure by making students less reliant on peers for support and remove the fear of rejection. Although rejection may continue, a person will not fear it.
Violent behavior is not necessarily the result of one problem or difficulty but the result of many layers of residual stress, which have accumulated over time. As layers of residual stress accumulate over time, they can create prolonged psychological suffering. This can lead either to an immediate, uncontrolled outburst of anger or to something far greater in terms of a controlled or thought-out, catharsis of violence. By lowering our residual stress, we will also lower our situational stress. We can then reduce and prevent psychological suffering created by high layers of residual stress, and reduce violent reactions due to psychological suffering.
In addition, as a teacher, I have seen far too many times when teachers and even some administrators have ignored forms of social and verbal abuse by students upon other students. This is not some rite of passage, for this abuse is most heavily and continually given to those very few students who do not fit in and are most vulnerable. By allowing such conduct, teachers and administrators are silently giving their approval and are contributing to high residual stress and psychological suffering in students. This can lead to a major catharsis effect of violence (or suicide) from one situation added upon an already high residual stress, either from high residual stress and its accompanying psychological suffering or a complete saturation of residual stress, creating irrational behavior. When students react this way, they may also be attacking teachers and the schools themselves for forcing them to attend school and then also allowing them to be placed in harm's way. I feel some of this residual stress or mental frictions are related to feelings of inferiority which may have been shown to peers in terms of testing, class placement, etc. which has in turn created class or group distinctions along with various groupings for mutual safety and/or allowed release of aggression upon others who appear more vulnerable.
For students (and adults) who have carefully planned out various forms of retaliation, it is reasonable to believe that while students are enduring harassment or other abuse from students, they have over time, imagined and prepared measures of retribution to be carried out at some future time. Possibly the preparation for such acts also helps to relieve psychological suffering created by the abuse. Then when the preparation is complete and the psychological abuse and residual stress from it, reaches a certain level, the controlled catharsis of violence occurs. I feel this is most likely to occur from students who are not usually violent (releases residual stress more often so less psychological suffering) and also not from students who usually are escaping in other ways such as drug/alcohol abuse, etc. Such students who might be inclined to major violence or suicide might be those who are not escaping and more or less, by their nature and/or education, trying to lead a more socially acceptable life style.
The myth of permanence in ability is the force behind class distinctions. Students and adults falsely believing they fall into their positions through genetic abilities or order, are driving themselves to obtain various forms of achievement, money, power, status, image, and popularity to symbolize their place in that mythical order of permanence or class. Yes, those who feel they cannot achieve will at least attempt to impress others they are able to achieve. Since society today values worldly or material success over other qualities, students and adults today are attempting to use various outward displays of greater money, power, status, image, and popularity to at least give the impression they are in a certain class. They use class distinctions to help symbolize their place as different and separate from those they feel are inferior or wish to line up more with those they admire. Many people, both students and adults devote their lives to the false god of permanence in ability through class distinctions. By showing students how our individual environments do greatly affect our ability to think and learn, we will remove once and for all, the fire from this mythical dragon of permanence and the class distinctions it causes. This will create greater esteem, respect, and hope for everyone.
In 1967-68, I moved from Jacksonville, Florida to Lake Worth, Florida. I had gone from a lower class area of town to an area that was more stable (at the time), with the sons and daughters of doctors, lawyers, and engineers. The kids in Lake Worth were no smarter than the kids from the poor side of Jacksonville. The kids in Lake Worth did enjoy a very secure and information-rich environment, which created low residual stress and lots of knowledge. Due to this advantage, many of those students were preparing for college early in life, while the kids on the poorer side of Jacksonville, faced with many shortages of needs and knowledge, were living just to get out of high school. This showed up in a big way for me to see just how our individual environments do greatly affect thinking, learning, and the development of skills over time. We cannot provide everyone with a stable environment; however, we can help students lower layers of residual stress to create greater mental/emotional stability and growth for students from those less stable environments. Please remember though, these cognitve tools will help everyone, even those persons in more stable environments.
Some students are able to develop in lower socioeconomic environments and become and become mentally successful. This is because in areas such as these where there are lots of confrontations, perhaps 15 percent of those families react with a more enhanced sense of respect and compassion for others, while the other 85 percent of those families pass on their anxieties to others. For those persons in the 15 percent range, there is perhaps more modeling of stability along with greater support, which helps to create greater mental/emotional stability and growth. My cognitive tools will help the other 85 percent of those students and adults who must deal with those passed on anxieties. Such ones can then learn to approach their lives more delicately in different ways to lower residual stress and develop greater mental/emotional stability and growth.
The reason many people fail to change their characteristics and abilities as they grow older is the result of having developed mental frames that have become more rigid, due to higher layers of residual stress. Many children and adults have developed a sense of learned helplessness and so have simplified their lives. They tend to do more of what they know and have known while blocking out other - more complex mental, emotional, and social skills, which in the past required too much mental energy to learn, appreciate, and develop in their lives due to high layers of residual stress. By learning to approach their lives more delicately using continuous feedback, children and adults will be able to more permanently lower layers of residual stress and improve their ability to think and learn. Improved thinking, learning, and motivation to learn mental work will create more flexible learning frames and improve their ability to learn and appreciate more complex mental, emotional, and social skills.
Racism is related to the myth of permanence in ability and the psychological suffering it creates. As people come together in groups, they may seek out ways to relieve their insecurities and psychological suffering upon others so it is politically correct and protected within that certain group. This is combined with perhaps a mutual or shared support in many areas of life from that group. I see racism as a form of drug abuse where a person or group is able to relieve psychological suffering upon others through some form of abuse to temporarily reduce layers of residual stress in their life.
Could it be that many students diagnosed as ADD or ADHD are really suffering from higher layers of residual stress, which may tend to create shorter attention spans along with motor activity as a natural, childhood release for this mental tension? This thought could shed more light on the affects of stress and a student's ability to think, to be attentive, and to learn.
In regard to traumatic experiences, could it be that a traumatic experience, which is repressed, is made up of one or more very large layers of mental conflicts, which the mind when overwhelmed with such information, then turns off to protect the mind and the person from mental harm? When that traumatic situation occurs, perhaps the mind reads those large layers of mental conflicts and determines at some point of mental activity when such information has reached a limit for healthy cognitive use. Any information then, which might harm the mind, would then be chemically turned off. This could be very similar to the body's use of endorphins to chemically turn off signals of extreme physical pain. Perhaps later when a person's residual stress is low enough, the mind then begins to incorporate this information in whole or parts, as that person is able to handle such traumatic information more effectively.
High residual stress is one reason Males are falling behind in society. The nineteenth century belief "Males should be strong" has left open a window of Free Aggression toward Males (aggression allowed upon Males that is considered in inappropriate toward Females). Such Free Aggression toward Males may have seemed necessary in the nineteenth century where the physical world and its ruthlessness played a greater role in society. However, in the information age, Free Aggression today is having detrimental effects upon the mental and emotional growth of Males.
Today, people sanitize this problem by saying, "Boys are taught not to cry." This problem is really the result of Free Aggression by society, which is the more truthful, general cause for lack of emotion in Males. Boys are being taught through Free Aggression, they better not cry or they will receive worse. Society in its ignorance has given unwritten permission to increase Free Aggression upon Males who appear weak in some way.
The nineteenth century belief Males should be strong, also held that "Females should be protected." This led to over-protection of Females. Today, the two influences of Free Aggression toward Males and over-protection toward Females have created a collectively high residual stress for Males and a collectively low residual stress for Females. As a result, Males are collectively beginning to fall behind academically and will later fall behind economically. Females are beginning to collectively use society's protection for greater opportunities of mental and emotional growth. In the future, the glass ceiling for women in business will fall. There will be more qualified women in white-collar positions and fewer men in white-collar positions. It should also be noted in retrospect that over-protection for Females has led to many problems for them in terms of poor insight and decision making at all stages of maturity. This must be understood, not as any slight upon Females but simply as a problem created from the socialization Females have experienced.
This analysis of Free Aggression toward Males explains the African American Male crisis in which African American Males are falling behind African American Females both academically and economically. This imbalance of residual stress among African Americans is also affecting Caucasian, Hispanic, and other Males. However, since Free Aggression is amplified in lower socio-economic environments and since more African American Males are in lower socio-economic environments, Free Aggression is amplified for those persons. If Caucasian, Hispanic, or other Males were in the same position (this is the case in some areas) then the Male crisis would be just as great for those groups.
It is incorrect to view the Male Crisis on role models. The lack of role models is the result of the problem and not the cause. If you had a bag full of sand with a hole in the bottom, you would "not" say there is less sand in the bag; rather, you would say there is a hole in the bottom of the bag. Indeed, we should first fix the hole in the bag by providing Males with tools to develop greater mental/emotional stability so they will be able to compete better, mentally and emotionally. This will enable Males to better care for their families and repair the hole in the bag, thus also creating role models.
There is a limit of time in which Males may continue to fall behind in society. Today, we are already seeing some Males act out irrationally. Many Males today are seeing Females surging ahead. Males have been told and tend to believe from school and society, the false and very harmful teachings of single/multiple intelligences, that some persons are naturally more intelligent than others or work harder. Many Males, having been fed this myth, are now wrongly believing they are somehow inferior and are now taking out their hatred upon women and others. I feel this problem is at the root of more degrading treatment and aggression by Males in society and in various media or press.
Many Males, like the rest of society, have not read my learning theory, so they do not understand how social imbalances between Males and Females are having such negative effects upon the Male's ability to learn. When Males do begin to fall behind collectively, they may begin to retaliate more collectively (more spouse and child abuse). This is a potential critical point I seek to prevent. This critical point can be pushed farther off into the future by utilizing and teaching continuous feedback to more permanently reduce layers of residual stress. Males will continue to fall behind for they will continue to face more confrontations, but they will not lose as badly. This will provide Males with a working method of not just coping with but also possibly solving their dilemma.
In the past, girls did not learn to apply themselves academically in a collective way. For years, the girls' average SAT scores were lower. Girls may be smarter than boys due to certain social advantages. However in the past, girls had not developed soft skills of competition to break through collectively. Today, girls are learning these soft skills of competition. They are learning to prepare for tasks, get up for tasks, and see through tasks amid difficulties. Girls are becoming more skillful in organizing and using information more effectively for more and varied goals and opportunities. In the past, only a few girls learned these skills. Now, many girls are learning these skills early in life. Now, with both more experience and greater social protection, the girls are surging ahead of the boys.
One reason the girls SAT scores may be lower is because the more girls taking the SAT are keeping the average scores lower.
However, with fewer boys taking the SAT, their scores are higher. I look for girls to surge ahead in many areas of life. The boys will continue to fall behind. I hope the graph at the top marked "Sep. Graph" helps to explain more how differences in race and gender are affected by differences in socialization and treatment. See insert or separate page
However, with fewer boys taking the SAT, their scores are higher. I look for girls to surge ahead in many areas of life. The boys will continue to fall behind. I hope the graph at the top marked "Sep. Graph" helps to explain more how differences in race and gender are affected by differences in socialization and treatment. See insert or separate page
Competition can be healthy as long as it is not combined with feelings of permanence or station in life. Competition that is good varies directly with the amount of tools available for students and adults to continually improve their skills and abilities.
Society tends to think of girls as more emotionally unstable because of their tendency to become more emotional in their expressions of feelings. However, we should recognize these displays of emotion, not as emotional instability but as a freeness of expression, which has been allowed by society. This information is important for girls who are searching for marriage mates. Girls, according to my theory, are more emotionally stable than boys. They are also looking for boys who match their emotional stability. However, boys are faced with more Free Aggression from society and tend to be more emotionally unstable.
Young girls tend to choose inappropriate marriage mates because boys who honestly portray their instability are generally more rejected by the girls. Since the boys know this, the boys who are usually selected come from three groups: (A) boys who have been sheltered and have not yet received their confrontations; (B) boys who put on the appearance of stability in order to sway the girl; and (C) boys who manage to acquire a somewhat stable life by emptying their life of a measure of circumstances, responsibilities, and weights or values requiring care or consideration for others. Both young and older girls alike are usually the last ones to learn this information. They have not been told these differences in treatment exist.
The girl can protect herself by mapping out how her perspective mate deals with his angers, hates, circumstances, responsibilities, along with weights and values he applies to elements in his life. These are all natural human traits and emotions. These traits and emotions should flow naturally. A boy who does poorly in these areas or worse, appears to hide those traits, is unconsciously giving the girl a message of warning. This information is vital and necessary for preventing teen-age date and domestic-marriage violence. It is "much more important and much easier" to prevent such problems from occurring than it is ending problems after marriage.
Another problem for girls related to the myth of permanence in ability is the obsession with beauty. A feeling of permanence in ability may cause girls to feel permanently inadequate in achieving various educational and other goal related activities. By providing girls with hope of improving their abilities, we will release girls from false feelings of permanence in ability and allow them to examine with greater confidence, the possibilities of developing many new skills, goals, and other opportunities. Girls will then be less reliant on beauty to maintain their self-esteem. They will be better able to develop a more versatile and valuable self-concept, one that is always improving. Perhaps even more accurate is that by providing better ways to look at ourselves, we can learn to have greater inner-security and so less affected by external displays.
In addition, I am giving girls an insight and a gift they already own to help them maintain mental/emotional health and to continue growing, mentally and emotionally. I believe all girls have and can never lose those traits I call "Little Girl Innocence". I see these qualities as light spontaneity, gentleness, and a delicate ease or softness of nature and spirit. I suppose there are other expressions that can also be used. I feel these qualities help girls maintain their mental and emotional stability, and in turn, mental and emotional growth.
Girls need to realize that Little Girl Innocence is something they never have to give up. No one can take it away from them. Even if a girl thinks she has lost it, she hasn't; it's always there. Little Girl Innocence will always be their permanent claim to self-worth. Little Girl Innocence can protect the girl during the darkest times when the sky is falling and the wind is blowing. These qualities can heal old wounds and prevent future wounds. Girls should be extremely wary of anyone who attempts to demean those fine qualities in any way. Such persons are only interested in bringing girls down to their own, low level of thought.
Girls who think they have to be tough like guys to compete are fooling themselves. The guys are already falling behind due to this same foolish toughness. In some business circles, it may seem appropriate to act this way; but again, the money, power, status, image, and popularity such people strive for are not worth the inner-security and healthy self-concepts which are lost in such places.
Girls should collectively develop a shield of protection and force of stability to require guys to either respect those fine qualities or be left out if they do not respect them. These qualities girls possess can become a catalyst of change for the rest of society. It is the qualities of Little Girl Innocence that give girls the healthier mental and emotional stability, which helps them to compete in the information age. Their range of personality to appreciate life in so many ways is very valuable and should be kept alive and well. Girls should never give up on and will continue to be well served by maintaining those fine qualities of Little Girl Innocence.
A problem for boys is learning to compete in the information age and at the same time, avoid the older, more abusive, physical world. This requires knowledge and insight from parents and other individuals. They must continually remind their sons and male students that the mental world is too important to become even slightly involved with the aggression and other forms of toughness accepted by many Males in society. We must learn to show proper restraint in our treatment of sons and male students and reward our sons and male students when they exercise this restraint toward others. This becomes more complicated when we must teach our sons or male students that the older concepts of courage in standing up to senseless, aggressive provocations of others may hinder our long-term ability to grow mentally and emotionally and to compete in the information age.
Teen-age crime is related to feelings of permanence in ability. A feeling of permanence in ability along with society's inducement of love, honor, respect, association, protection, etc. based on various representations of money, power, status, and image has caused some kids to see permanence in ability as a message saying, "They cannot adequately compete in society using legal methods." For this reason, some kids see crime as their only alternative to help support their society-created or society-induced feelings of worth. By providing students with tools to continually improve their abilities along with improved modeling of proper values from the rest of society, we can reduce teen-age crime and create greater hope and esteem for these kids. This way, these kids will have an opportunity to learn and compete in society legally, without turning to crime.
Again, attempts to raise a student's self-esteem by focusing on physical strengths or accomplishments will only temporarily raise that person's self-esteem and will not aid in the more important area of long-term mental and emotional growth. In fact, such techniques as boot camps and all Male classrooms that often utilize forms of physical and emotional abuse, designed to show respect for authority, may do more harm by fostering a more deep-seated hatred for society. This hate may surface in society months or years after the so-called therapeutic treatments in such facilities have taken place.
In the past, teachers were taking advantage of a society-induced morality. In those days, persons, both students and adults, were generally more respectful of authority figures. In the past, children were taught to respect good over bad and right over wrong. Today however, from the media and the modeling by many in power today, students are being taught to respect big over little and strong over weak. These new values are coming from all forms of press, even in school. Today, the message to all persons, from the lowest to the highest echelons of society is that money, power, status, image, and popularity are most important, no matter how they are received. Students are being taught that the more a person has of these things, the more support, love, respect, honor, and protection they will receive. They are also being taught that the less a person has of money, power, status and image, the less protection, support, love, honor, and protection they will receive. For this reason, students are tending to view teachers and other authority figures with more distrust. Power struggles as perceived by students are common today.
As a teacher, I know students who continually misbehave or threaten others should be strongly disciplined or isolated from other students completely if needed (even suspending them from school). Still the consequences, however severe, should never be accompanied by emotional abuse. By providing variables of improvement for both teaching and learning, we will create greater inner-security and a working together by both teachers and students for the greater, common goal of teaching, learning, and helping students improve their lives. Also, by providing tools for continuous mental and emotional growth along with tools for long-term motivation in academics, we will be able to instill into our students more intrinsic values to help them deal more constructively with various problems in their life. They can learn to become healthier and more constructive participants in the information age and not the destructive ones we are now creating. The use for continuous feedback to help solve academic and social problems is immense. Using these variables will provide education with a whole new, professional direction.
Others in education ask me where I get the research to support my theory. First I tell them my theory is quite valid. It fulfills the theory diagram and can be researched using initial bio-feedback readings to create a baseline of average, residual stress along with other self & observer evaluations for confidence, hope, esteem, motivation, academics, etc. Then using my cognitive tools, subjects can then be re-tested over time with other initial bio-feedback readings and other self & observer evaluations. There should be lower initial readings from biofeedback along with improved readings for subsequent self & observer evaluations. I also remind them of research from books such as Psychology of Sex Differences clearly showing differences in treatment and aggression toward Males and Females as early as nine months of age.
I also tell them that the false belief in single and multiple intelligences, which are so faithfully, if not dogmatically believed, are not even valid theories. They cannot be researched for they fail the visual inspection by completely leaving out environmental variables we know exist. They also fail the theory diagram test by failing to account for the many environmental variables, which would corrupt any research. I tell them the research they are using to teach permanence in mental & emotional ability is based on consistency of performance over time (note, organic dysfunction or damage cannot be measured as a part of normal, human ability). However, this is greatly flawed by both the tendency of humans to simply their lives based on knowledge, skills, and other supports given them from their environments, which tends to create more consistent behavior. Also, by failing to provide cognitive tools to improve ability, we are virtually condemning our students to permanence in ability. Given these environmental variables, research using consistency of performance will continue turning up false positives or false readings of permanence in ability.
We must learn to realize that our current, single/multiple intelligence models were simply accepted out of hand years ago and held on to by many who were in control and apparently felt satisfied enough with their own life. such ones could not see the tremendous disadvantage and damage such narrow, short-sighted beliefs would have on others, even among some person who are closely related to them.
Last, I tell those who would still cling to the myth of permanence in ability they are killing their students whereas my theory offers two large, cognitive tools to continually improve ability and hope for children and adults. They are free to choose the myth of permanence in ability as taught by Galton and others or my theory that provides hope and improvement.
I can only say our educational system is presently doing a really good job of maintaining the status quo in education. If we truly wish to improve education, then we will consider this theory as important and even life saving for millions of students and adults. I will let others decide how we should label persons in authority who continue to teach and advocate the myth of permanence in ability.
Things We Can Do
1. If we as a society hope to educate more students, we need to learn a few things about long-term motivation in mental areas. We need to understand that mental and emotional stability is needed for mental and emotional growth. This is improved by maintaining lower residual stress and altering pace and intensity of approaching mental work. By realizing this, we can help students make positive changes in their lives. We are presently doing more to help athletes change ability and than we are, helping students change ability. This is a sham in education today.
2. We need to erase the myth that students are naturally and more permanently stronger in some areas and weaker in other areas. By approaching the elements of our individual environments more delicately and differently, we can continually improve our ability to think, learn, and reflect. We need to show our students they have not been created yet, for with each passing day, they will be creating newer and better persons made of more things they admire in others. This should be a wonderful incentive for all of us to make changes in our lives.
3. We should teach students that to be smart, students must lower their layers of residual stress and that academics is best learned by working easy and allowing their knowledge, confidence, and experience to create the pace naturally. We need to teach our lessons with emphasis on understanding and not on pace of learning. We cannot teach 30 students in a classroom, so we need to help students begin to learn and enjoy learning on their own. This will lead to more self-directed work in academics, namely homework.
4. A word of caution for allowing students to work in groups. As college students, we were place in groups many times to demonstrate the art of having students work together. However, even in the college setting, being a guy or being different among others who had more political togetherness, I was isolated, ignored and not accepted by those groups. If this goes on in the college setting, you can bet it is worse in grade school. This is why I find it okay if a student truly wishes to work independently, unless the teacher has good guidelines to prevent such isolation or degrading of students.
5. For young students, lose those fat pencils and go to a normal pencil with a darker lead. As an intern and now a teacher, I grow tired of seeing young students lose their motivation to write because they have to press down so hard to make dark line. The fat pencil is cumbersome to use, and when the lead becomes dull, an adult using such a pencil has to press down hard to make a dark line. The increased diameter of the fat lead surface creates lighter lines. You can imagine how our young children must feel. Also, we need to reinforce our students for relaxing the grip on their pencils and not pressing down hard with their pencils. Tell students there should be nice gray lines that can be easily seen. If they have black lines, they are probably pressing down too hard. I joked to my students about a kindergarten student who would have names for her color crayons like Mary, Susie, etc. She colored well and treated her crayons well also. Last, we should remove time limits for student writing, especially during the early grades. At that time, the beauty of the writing and the words should be more important. The pace of the student writing will pick up on its own.
6. For older students, they should be taught that teachers and professors, who are giving instruction, are forced by time constraints to present a lot of information within short periods of time. Students should realize this and just do what they can to listen and take notes as much as possible. Then when they are away from that class, they can learn to completely change gears and slow way down; then more slowly begin piecing together the information so it is better understood. Slowing down and changing gears of study needs to be accompanied by visualization of material. Visualization or picturing information is vitally important in the higher math and sciences. They still want to be like the little girl who said, "This goes here and that goes there." Teachers really need to teach this skill at all grade levels including college. When students are able to correctly learn information on their own, they will not be threatened by a glut of information that occurs in high school and college.
7. Also, students need to be taught to allot more time and less intensity to their studies. I have seen too many high school and college students needlessly fall by the wayside simply because they tried to do so much in a short time and either did not properly understand the information or burned out. They then failed or gave up. They need to understand that pace and intensity will come in time. They should go slow, allot more time, visualize the information, and enjoy learning. Pace and intensity along with various skills of preparation will increase naturally. There should be a strict rule on number of classes allowed for freshmen. I think students should be counseled in group to help them understand the need for empty days to help make up for those many situations and need for more time which invariably come up and places students in binds for study-time.
8. Being smart is not an immediate thing for anyone. Being smart is an accumulation of simple skills helped along by parents and others and combined over time to create faster, more advanced skills. While growing up, children are presented with different amounts of and forms of knowledge, experiences, and skills at different intensities. Many children are isolated from many different kinds of knowledge, skills, and experiences.
Einstein's genius was socially created. He had dyslexia, which caused him to be isolated from peers, and visually hindered from learning using two-dimensional representations (print on paper). He was however, personally tutored and given a good knowledge of academics. In this way, his mind was drawn to a more narrowly defined area of knowledge. This enabled him to direct his attention to wonderful insights and theoretical knowledge that many others who had not traveled his path, could not see nor understand. A narrowing of focus toward academics could also be a large variable but not one I would recommend.
Persons ask me how they can learn to lower their residual stress, as if it were some arduous task, which had to be learned. I tell them to just understand clearly that layers of subconscious, mental conflicts or residual stress exist and impede their ability to think and learn. Knowing this information is an important first step. Next, I tell them to just consider the existence of those layers of residual stress as they approach elements of their life and begin to take notice of how the elements of their individual circumstances responsibilities, hopes, problems, personal interactions, etc., along with the weights or values they apply to those elements in their life create various mental conflicts. As they become more sensitive to and aware of those elements in their life, they will begin to see how and where those elements come together to create layers of mental conflicts or residual stress.
Each day these persons understand, resolve, and make delicate changes in those elements, weights, values, or principles, they will more permanently remove layers of residual stress and improve with each removed layer, their ability to think, learn, and extend and deepen their reflection time. Each day after that, those persons will become more sensitive to or attuned to other, more subtle layers of residual stress and will learn to more permanently remove those layers of residual stress also. The skill of realizing and more permanently resolving layers of residual stress will improve each day and those changes will become established without thought for there will no longer be a signal of a mental conflict, until another subtle conflict arises and is resolved.
As a person begins to make these changes and enjoys increased ability, esteem, control, and other qualities, such changes made by these persons will then become more permanent reinforcers themselves. The person has then acquired a more permanent lowering of residual stress. This process continues on indefinitely.
Stuttering (More comprehensive version on file below)
Look for file marked "Stuttering_RTF below
Perhaps a corollary of my theory is the effect of more permanently lowering muscle tension as a person more permanently lowers layers of residual stress. I grew up with a terrible stutter, and like many people who stutter, I was labeled slow by others. This held me back for many years. However, I did have the experience of living for a time, in a much more stable and secure environment. While living in that environment, I became conscious that my speech had improved to a small degree. I later developed this theory to more permanently lower layers of residual stress to approximate the stability of that more stable environment. As I progressed, I noticed that my speech also, correspondingly improved. I no longer have this problem (with exception of a rare short one). I am now a teacher.
I later realized as I began to lower my layers of average residual stress more permanently, I also began to more permanently reduce muscle tension or EMG. By more permanently lowering average muscle tension, I was slowly and unknowingly, relaxing the muscles around my diaphragm. Apparently the muscle tension was constricting the diaphragm along with other areas and disrupting the flow of air necessary for fluent speech. I feel this in turn, created the stutter. When I had more permanently lowered my average residual stress sufficiently, I eliminated my stutter. Apparently the reduced muscle tension allowed various muscles to work more smoothly and freely, thus allowing my speech to become very fluent. There are rare occasions when there is muscle constriction and an occasional stutter. However, my circumstances and responsibilities are not the norm, so I am grateful for the almost complete, fluent speech I do have despite my circumstances.
The effect of lowering muscle tension using my theory to improve speech can also be researched using biofeedback and my theory over time along with EMG measurements over time and checking for improvements in speech for stutterers.
Perhaps my learning theory, for all the good it will do, will not be well received by many in the middle to upper class who truly value our present models of learning. Such persons have built their whole sense of self and others based upon our current models of permanence in ability. Using this belief such ones feel somewhat cleansed of conscience, that persons not measuring up are either dysfunctional in some way and could never measure up or simply have not worked hard enough or applied themselves. This false belief also tends to create comfort for such persons, for it provides and false sense of superiority over the general public. It removes sensitivity, feeling, and responsibility for those less fortunate. While they may be very nice to others whom they feel are less in ability, they are really not able to show true feelings or concern for such individuals. The words of those feeling superior tend to be very smooth and fluent but lack in substance or feeling or concern for a person they feel is of a lesser station in life. I feel such persons having these views are soulfully disabled and truly lacking in themselves. Those who are wise will steer clear of such ones.
I must note that while these tools will help us improve our mental/emotional stability and also help us to grow mentally and emotionally, I do not in any way, feel this will enable us to function successfully is this old system of things in terms of living for this world. This system is going down. My faith is still in a higher power and the grand hope of new system by my God and his actions as noted in Daniel 2:44. However, these tools will help us to maintain good mental/emotional health and growth and release us from the myth of permanence taught to us and accepted by many.
Just a little note to some
I must say I have been trying to get my learning theory out in Jacksonville, FL. for many years to schools, colleges, news areas. When my theory is finally published, I will hope the people of Jacksonville, FL. will accept and use it. However, I will hope by then to be living elsewhere and not even have to stop if passing through. I feel their lack of regard for my learning theory may have cost many lives, which could have been avoided. To the faculty and others at UNF who said I would be charged with trespassing if I promoted my theory in the square, I can only say you are denying your students some very valuable information. I see nothing positive at that place.
I am from Georgia, and yes, I really love the people there and my folks, who have long since scattered in different directions. When my theory becomes known, I would certainly hope the folks in Georgia, from the average person, right on up to college and state educators would accept and use my learning theory. However, I myself will not try to convince them anymore. You see, from the average person right on up to state educators, they are still just good-ole-boys at heart. I can appreciate that, and I would never want to mess things up on my account. I think it would be better just be at home with them and not try to discuss it. Oh, the remaining files may be 7 or 8 inches below due to problems with site format.
The growing gap between Caucasians and African Americans in uducation
I have written this article on Black/White education gap in an attempt to bring together the all or most of the elements responsible for the ever-growing gap in educational achievement among African American and Caucasian students. I hope everyone will read what I have written, then feel free to write back to help me edit and even add other information we can use to help reduce this problem. The site for this article is at
These files contain my articles on Classroom Management, Reading, and math tool - Fingers. The last file is an article on depression. Again, feel free to make copies of all files.
I wrote this article to help girls of all ages keep and maintain their advantage in mental/emotional health. I feel this article will also help protect girls from making some harmful choices in life.
This is my story about Oscar, a hound dog who sleeps by day but becomes a super hero at night, flying through the air, rescuing fellow dogs in trouble. I wrote the story of Oscar as a high interest low vocabulary way to teach reading to Special ED and young Regular ED students. Having come from Southeast Atlanta and hearing a lot of Uncle Remus and the language of the neighborhood, I find it best to use a good soft, Southern Black accent, the kind you hear on Sunday in a quiet, sermon kind of way. The kids really enjoy it.
I get a kick out of it also. I have two versions: one is the reader version, and the other is the grammar version I use to teach grammar and reading.
I threw in the story "Little Red" just for the heck of it. I will send 5 to 10 tapes of my "Little Red" and "Oscar" story to the first 5 to 10 people who request it. I hope their response will stimulate more interest. Just give me a name and address to send them to.