Category: Learning

Explorations of Our Being

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

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What is this mind that we humans have? How does it work and how much of it goes unused because we have yet to tap into the totality of its power? Why is there a disconnect between how I see myself from the point of view of my thoughts and how I really appear in my physical reality? What causes some of our memories to remain vividly intact for all time and others to fade into oblivion? What happens when a mind becomes muddled, filled with extreme sadness, fears or paranoid thoughts? These are questions that have confounded me for years. They are the kind of queries that have guided the thoughts of brilliant individuals and ordinary souls for centuries. Somehow we have obtained more and more of a grasp on our physical being over time but clear knowledge of the complexities of our brains still remains somewhat elusive.

We humans don’t simply react to the world around us. We contemplate it sometimes to the point of obsession. We have an innate desire to dream, analyze and restructure. There is no reason for us to enhance the world beyond our most basic physical needs and yet we do. We don’t simply endure the unfolding of our lives but instead reflect on all that has happened to us, sometimes with joy in such remembrance and sometimes with great sorrow.

Memories are a remarkable aspect of our humanity. We quite often retain vivid pictures of things that we have experienced even decades after they occurred. Ironically the very incidents that we would most like to forget because of the pain that they brought us are sometimes the ones that remain the clearest in our minds. What is it about trauma that etches it so deeply in our psyches?

On the day of my father’s death I was only eight years old and yet I can recall details about every aspect of that horrific event from the time that I awoke to hear my mother weeping until the end of the evening when she and I cried in each other’s arms. I can see colors and hear sounds as though all of my senses were somehow heightened in a way that I had never before experienced. Even more than sixty years later thoughts of that day bring feelings so visceral that they still cause pain.

So too it has been with more generalized occurrences that impacted the whole of society with profound consequences. I know exactly where I was sitting and what I was doing when I first heard of the assassination of President Kennedy. I do not know if we had a Thanksgiving dinner that year but I can tell you where I was and what went through my mind when I watched the president’s funeral procession and witnessed the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald.

I still catch my breath when I think of the planes flying through the twin towers of the World Trade Center. I literally get a flutter of anxiety in my heart when I picture their dramatic collapse. I hear the screams and feel the terror that filled my thoughts in the split second in which I realized the reality of what was happening.

Over the years it has been the most horrific moments that have stayed permanently embossed on my psyche. I am filled with grief when I think of the first time that I truly understood the extent of my mother’s mental illness. It coincided with the first landing on the moon which is only a blur in my mind compared to the recollections that I retain of her pain.

I am haunted by images of the flooding from hurricane Harvey in my beloved city and the aftermath of destruction in the homes of family members and friends. I still get a catch in my throat when I think of how I felt when I saw what had happened after hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, a place I think of as a sister city.

So it goes with my memories. I barely recall the details of my college graduation or even my carefully planned wedding but I can describe the tiniest of particulars on the last days of my mother’s life. I wonder what it is about my mind that clings so tenaciously to thoughts of events that I would prefer to forget. What kind of chemical or physical reactions occur in our brains that causes such impressions to stay with us? What is it about our very humanity that stirs us to contemplate such things?

I try not to become too obsessive about such ideas. I purposely busy myself when my ruminating ventures into territory that is too dark and yet I am fascinated by the mere possibilities of unlocking the inner workings of our complex being. Understanding the mind was at one time forbidden fruit. Now we have discovered so much about how it all works and yet there is still so much mystery when it comes to comprehending the most spiritual aspect of our being. Exploring the territory of our very being has been the quest of philosophers, physicians, scientists and theologians and still we are in the dark when it comes to the how and why of our deepest thoughts.

  

Pairing the Past with the Future

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

history_2It’s been nine years since I retired from education but I have continued to regularly work with students. I can state without hesitation that they are learning mathematics at a much higher level and faster pace than any program that was around when I was a student back in the nineteen fifties and sixties. They are seeing quite advanced material but I’m always a bit concerned that there are still too many who are struggling for mastery of the concepts. I fear that we still operate from a one size fits all mentality when it comes to the pacing of our teaching when we still have students chomping at the bit to move forward and even more struggling to keep up with the flow of information. We seem to have made a race of the learning process rather than tailoring it to the individual needs of each student.

Part of the problem that we have is that as we progress there is more and more material to cover within any discipline in the same amount of time that there was over a hundred years ago. This becomes a particular problem when it comes to and subject but particularly with history, whether it be about the state, the nation or the world. Choosing what to cover and what to leave out has created well known problems with the historical knowledge that young people possess after finishing the required coursework in school. When I was a student the curriculum essentially ended with World War II, leaving more time for in depth emphasis on critical topics. It’s been more than fifty years since I formally studied history and so much has happened since then that needs to be presented and discussed, but what has to go to make room for more recent events?

I suppose that if I were to suggest one very major change to the general education programs in our school it would be to have history be an integral part of every single year of school rather than providing a bit here and a bit there as it now is. American History should be taught in the the fourth or fifth grade, again in the eighth grade and for two years in high school with World History being given at least that much time as well. Courses such as psychology and sociology are certainly interesting but they are not as essential as learning about the past and understanding its impact on both today and tomorrow.

We need a better educated population not just in the STEM subjects but also the social science of history. There is great wisdom in the old saw that history helps us to learn from the mistakes of the past. It furthermore helps us to make connections that provide us with tools for analysis of the present.

I sometimes shudder when faced with the ignorance of history that I encounter with far too many of today’s young. I recall talking with a group of students who knew little or nothing about the political differences between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson which lie at the very heart of the arguments dividing our nation even today. They were unaware that we live in a republic rather than a pure democracy and have no idea what that fact implies. They were unsure of what actually happened in the holocaust and new virtually nothing about the Russian Revolution and the Cold War. They seemed to get most of their information from dubious sites on social media and much of what they did know      was either limited or outright wrong.

While we certainly need our mathematicians and scientists to combat our the problems that plague us, we also should demand that our young graduate from high school with a clear understanding of where our world has been and we must insist that the knowledge that our teachers impart is done so without a tinge of propaganda or editorializing. History is best taught from primary sources that demonstrate the differing points of view that led to decisions that influenced events. Students should be able to see how and why such choices affected outcomes. They need to learn that none of us ever operates in a vacuum and that how we react to events is almost always determined by the worldview of our own time in life.

I studied English grammar and literature in college along with mathematics. I learned that analyzing language or writing requires an understanding of the times in which a tract was written. It is far easier to understand characters of a story when we have a concept of what it was like to be them in a certain time and place. History is as important to the study of the great artistic works of writing as knowing literary devices. Our human experience as portrayed in art is dependent on the times in which the works were created and we will never fully understand them if we do not have some knowledge of history to guide us.

Education has essentially been done in the same basic manner for some time now with only a bit of experimentation here and there. We’ve had a kind of revolution with the teaching of mathematics and science that emphasizes both theory and practice using abstract, visual and concrete examples. It’s time that we rethink the scope and sequencing of history classes as well to allow enough time to study events and ideas in depth. It’s a challenge that we seriously need to undertake as overwhelming as it may seem. We owe it to our children to adequately prepare them for the future and the key to doing that well lies in understanding the past.   

The Passage of Time

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

Tree circles

I suppose the surest sign of advancing age is in full view whenever someone speaks of the good old days with a kind of reverence. I have to admit to being guilty of that more and more often even though I purport to be a forward thinker. Sometimes it just feels as though everything is changing way too fast. Time is fleeting and for some reason it seems that the older I get the more it accelerates. In just a few short years I’ve gone from being part of a younger generation to serving as one of the heads of the family as all but less than a handful of my elders have left this earth. It’s an uncomfortable feeling to watch traditions slowly change or even die because the world is so demanding of everyone’s time.

I haven’t known whether to laugh or just sigh when I hear my children and some of my former students speak of the times when life felt so much better as though they were speaking of some ancient age of glory that no longer exists. Somehow in our rush toward innovation we’ve managed to make so many things more complicated and more expensive than they have ever before been. The idea of decreasing our workloads and having more time for ourselves and family has seemingly become a broken promise as the hours that we gained through our inventiveness have been filled with new demands at higher and higher costs. Ours has become a kind of pressure cooker lifestyle particularly for our young who worry incessantly about what their futures may be.

There really was a simpler time but it was never trouble free. We humans have grappled with universal problems since the beginning of history. Our need for the basics of survival, security, relationships and self development are part of our makeup. They transcend time, place, ethnicity and politics. When all is said and done we are all searching for the same things and when we witness the death of a superstar like Kobe Bryant we are reminded that even he was after all just like us in his love of family. With all of the adoration that was shown to him, it was inside the small circle of those who knew him best that the ultimate purpose of his life was defined,

I vividly recall my days as a young adult just beginning the process of becoming responsible. I was in many ways playing a role that I was yet to fully understand but I had huge dreams and felt unstoppable. I truly did think that I somehow had a better grasp on life than the adults who had been instrumental in raising me from a child and I felt that it would be my generation that would somehow set the whole world aright in a way that no other had managed to do.

Back then an apartment cost only a bit of change over a hundred dollars and the rent included all utilities. I could purchase gasoline for nineteen cents on occasion. A loaf of bread was a quarter and a gallon of milk was under a dollar. I bought groceries with a twenty dollar bill and dreamed of a glorious time when I might be rich enough to have an income of a thousand dollars a month. My first semester of college cost me less than five hundred dollars but I remember worrying that I might not have the finances to pay for the next semester and the next.

I indeed struggled to maintain a budget even with the seemingly low prices of everything because the cost of living was proportional to the average wages that people made. The first lesson that I learned as a fledgling adult was how much brighter my elders were than I had given them credit for being. I also began to appreciate the sacrifices they had made to care for me and my peers, almost always without complaint. I saw how difficult it is just to provide the basics of life. I was tired most of the time and became more and more in awe of the men and women that I had seen faithfully attending to their jobs day after day when I was still a child. I realized how much I had taken their efforts for granted.

Through each new decade my confidence rose along with my income. So often my progress was offset by rising costs. By the time my own daughters were attending college the cost of a semester ran into the thousands of dollars. Groceries and gasoline and housing prices required far more than they had thirty years before. A thousand dollars a month was a pittance and would not even cover the most basic lifestyle. Worse still was the realization that with all of the dreams I had shared with my generation we had yet to find the nirvana for the world that we had been so certain we would be able to create. Like generations before us we had fallen into the cycles of survival that have ruled mankind for centuries.

Now I’m watching my grandchildren set out toward adult life with the same swagger that I had when I first began to live on my own. Their world is a much different place with pressures and problems and costs that are staggering and yet I have great faith in them. They may not be able to conquer all of the problems, for surely new ones that we have yet to even realize will arise. I have faith that like my peers and my parents’ peers and those of countless generations before us they will learn what they need to do and eventually take the reins to tackle whatever challenges may come.

We live and learn, advance and falter, create wonders and make messes. It is who we are as people. Ideas and things come and go just like we humans do. Costs rise and so do incomes. We chip away at our problems and actually begin to eliminate some. We figure out how to defeat polio and how to build machines that travel into space. We are innovators at heart, essentially kind people who overcome hatred and violence again and again. The costs of improving ourselves and our world may rise but we always seem to find ways to make things happen. Life goes on.

Finding Joy In Work

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

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When I was a little girl I kept my toys sorted in cardboard boxes that I found at the grocery store. One carton held board games, another had all of my dolls and their clothing and a third container was filled with items for playing school. I generally had a difficult time recruiting volunteers to pretend that they were in my classroom because nobody wanted to do extra work during time away from the real thing and I was notoriously strict as an erstwhile educator.

I used some of my father’s books for my lessons and meticulously created practice examples and comprehensive tests. I graded everything in red ink of course and gave each of my somewhat unwilling students report cards at the end of each session. Needless to say I always had to search for new victims each time that I decided to open my classroom but I had enough sway over my brothers that they grudgingly went along with my role playing. I suppose that it was almost a certainty that I would one day be a teacher, but in truth I fought against that idea until I was in my early thirties.

I am a woman from the pioneering era of equality for women. The trend for my peers was to eschew the customary female occupations for positions in traditionally male roles. I was encouraged to become a lawyer, a doctor, an engineer, an accountant, anything but a teacher. The word on the street was that those who were unable to do anything else became teachers and I was a bit too proud to channel my intellect into a job that was rapidly losing its luster. I changed my major so many times that I finally took a sabbatical so that I might clear my head and contemplate what I really wanted to do with my life, not what everyone was telling me to do.

No matter how much I meditated on my ultimate role in society I kept circling back to the idea of teaching. Ultimately I became determined to follow my heart and I returned to college to finish my degree. The second time around I encountered the most incredible professors who encouraged me to use my talents in what they deemed to be one of the noblest of professions. I channeled all of my enthusiasm into learning about the science of teaching. I soon realized that there was way more to the profession than just bending students to my will. I became an eager advocate for the profession that would become an integral part of my life.

My first job was literally a Godsend. There happened to be a glut of teachers in the Houston area due to an economic downturn in the oil business and my fellow graduates and I were having a difficult time finding open positions anywhere. I submitted applications all over town and finally got a call from a private Catholic school only minutes away from my home. Surprisingly I landed a job teaching mathematics to sixth, seventh and eighth graders, something that I had never intended to do. I had to create lesson plans for six completely different classes as well as sponsor the school newspaper and head a committee taxed with purchasing computers for the campus.

I don’t think that I have ever worked as hard as I did during that first year but I enjoyed every minute of the experience. My students were delightful and I found out that I was fairly good at my chosen occupation. I was surrounded by other teachers from whom I learned how to improve my craft and the atmosphere at the school was one of kindness and optimism. I was certain after my maiden voyage as a teacher that I had found the perfect fit for my interests and my talents.

My determination to be an educator was solidified by that initial foray, but I wanted to have experiences in different settings so that I might define both my strengths and my weaknesses. Before long I set my eye on working with economically disadvantaged students in elementary school. There I had to plan for lessons in every single subject including art. It was an incredible challenge because my students were often riddled with home problems which often showed themselves in bad behaviors at school. It was time consuming to prepare for each day of school and I was challenged by both classroom management issues and methods for conveying knowledge of every conceivable kind. Each day I was responsible for twenty seven little souls who ranged from brilliant to learning disabled, well behaved to difficult. With the help of an amazing principal I learned much and became more confident than ever that I had made the right choice in deciding to be a teacher.

The rest is history as they say. I returned to an upscale private school for a time and then agreed to work in a public school filled with gang members. By then I understood that kids are kids and they all struggle to get past the angst of adolescence and teen years. My specialty became understanding where they were and starting from that reality to encourage them to move forward. I found myself loving every single one of my pupils and every challenge that I encountered with them.

I ended my career as a Dean of Faculty. By then I was working with the teachers, understanding the problems that they faced and doing my best to encourage and help them the way others had done for me. I never regretted a single day that I spent in the teaching profession. I felt that I had found my true purpose in life and I still get great joy from helping young people to learn. Our society may not have much regard for the teaching professions, which is unfortunate, but I learned that only those who can, teach. It takes dedication, long hours of hard work, physical and mental stamina, and a true heart. I’m glad I followed mine and found so much joy as a teacher.

We Must Provide the Heart

Published on by Sharron BurnettLeave a comment

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Way back in the nineteen eighties my husband, Mike, came home bearing a big box with almost childlike excitement. Inside the cardboard container was a computer from Radio Shack, an early rendition of the TRS 80 that ironically earned the nickname “Trash 80.” We were very much on a budget at that time, saving for college for our children and working at jobs not known for their generosity in salary. We carefully watched our purchases so it was unusual for Mike to spend what was then a rather large amount of money without discussing it with me. My initial reaction was to be a bit angry but Mike countered my protests by claiming that computers were going to change the world and our family needed to become intimately familiar with them. I was somewhat unimpressed but decided to just humor him since he rarely bought anything for himself.

Our first family computer, if you dare to call it that, was driven by a tape deck and seemed to be operated by a turtle. It did little more than provide Mike with an opportunity to explore a couple of primitive games and learn new ways of incorporating it into our daily activities. If I touched it more than once or twice I don’t remember. It gave Mike something to do after work and so I mostly ignored it.

It wasn’t long before computers were becoming a bit more sophisticated. Inventiveness in that arena was moving quickly and Mike soon enough wanted a bit more power than our machine afforded. In a sweet bow to me and my profession the next model that he brought home was an Apple II of the kind that was showing up in classrooms across the country. It operated with a floppy disk and our model had two drives. Since there were already several educational programs in use in my school I was able to find some practical use for it in my work. Our daughters took interest in the possibilities of the model as well and before long it was a center of family activity. 

My eldest daughter and I learned how to actually create programs for our Apple II but it was Mike who took an understanding of its power to a new level. He found ways to use the machine far beyond games and word processing while dreaming constantly of the possibilities of a technologically driven home and work life. It was as though he had become obsessed with the idea of making the world a better place through the use of intelligent machines. He constantly cornered other aficionados of computing and picked their brains about the future of a brave new world.

I soon realized that Mike was willing to drive a car until the wheels fell off but he was not content with keeping a computer past its prime. Again and again he would suddenly arrive home with the newest and most powerful model of computing and we would learn the ins and outs of the enhanced mechanisms. Before long I was incorporating the technology into every aspect of my work as a teacher. I even had a specially designed spreadsheet for keeping student grades. I got permission from my principal to replace the old style handwritten grade book with copies of my computerized system. It allowed me to keep a running average for each student at the instant I entered a grade. It was tied to a word processing program that gave me the ability to send home a weekly progress report to the parents. I became more and more convinced that Mike had been prophetic in his certainty that those machines were going to change our lives.

Of course things just got better and better in the world of technology. I now hold more power than all of the computers used to send a man to the moon in a tiny laptop that I can carry anywhere. I use technology on a daily basis to get the latest news, communicate with businesses and my doctor, keep up with friends, write my blog, do research, make purchases. The list of how my computer has changed my life is almost endless, and it has enabled me to do more in any given day than ever before. It’s difficult for me to even imagine the world as it was before and yet there are indeed times when technology drives me to the brink of frustration.

It’s quite difficult to communicate with a real human being when conducting business these days. I have to jump through a series of computerized hoops before finally hearing a human voice, often from a continent away. I have so many passwords that I sometimes  become annoyed by the task of having to retrieve them from my memory. I’ve been hacked and had to spend countless hours repairing the damage. I have had to create a routine of checking email and messages on my phone because important information is always coming in electronic form. Almost every type of business in which I engage relies heavily on the internet, which may or may not be up and running when I need it most. The frustrations of our modern conveniences have created their own form of stress including a toxic political environment and a haven for bullies.

For the most part I am in awe of the conveniences that I enjoy as a result of the continually improving technology that I use. Nonetheless I see its flaws and they are dramatic. As a society we have yet to understand the implications of instant communication around the world. We have a power that can go terribly wrong if we are not careful. Our inventiveness is moving forward so quickly that we barely have time to understand it before it changes. The lessons we teach about it are often years behind. It is a power that is both truly wonderful and frightening.

There is no doubt that today’s technology has improved life for millions. I can attest to that on a very personal level. We just have to be careful in how we use this great gift. We must be aware of its dangers and not rely so heavily on it that we become paralyzed when it fails. In the end we have to remember that we are dealing with machines that have no heart. We must be the ones to provide the human feelings.