A think tank established for the creation of “closed, holistic systems.”
"The adoption of a holistic worldview globally may represent humanity's greatest chance for a promising future to be shared by all." yasha husain
INTRODUCING A NEW BOOK SERIES ON HOLISM
Presented by the Holistic Solutions Think Tank Director: Yasha Melanie Husain
Ms. Husain has, since 2009, been the publisher of the site: Seeing Our Way To The Future, 21st century holistic solutions
Book #1
Holistic Living: Tips for Youth {Featuring the 'Charting the Course' closed, holistic education system proposal.}
Holistic Living: Tips for Youth is a guide for healthy living geared at teens and young adults. In this comprehensive book about how to make your own smart healthcare and lifestyle choices, there is shared a vision for a futuristic school system meant to help all personality-types, including people who think primarily linearly, and primarily by association.
The closed, holistic education proposal, 'Charting the Course,' is for k through to the PhD level, and is intended to merge left- and right-brained thinking to create more whole brain thinking. The proposal triumphantly immerses the entire student population in a single classroom, in exception of only those multiply-handicapped students who have outstanding, albeit, hopefully, temporary, "disabilities," who also separately receive an advanced education under the new proposal.
A key ingredient of 'Charting the Course' is the “individualized special project,” that begins in fifth grade, and carries a student through to his or her mastery at the college level. The goal of the individualized special project is for students, when they enter college, to have in-depth knowledge and experience with conducting independent R&D.
The research they do, for the project, should be a result of their unique findings and interests. By way of self-discovery, that is, which is merely guided by the foresight and wisdom of their teachers, students consistently reach conclusions that are also greater than the total sum of the parts, since the projects are done holistically.
Students of all backgrounds, throughout the year, choose multiple, individualized special projects, they do one at a time, and that engage their personal learning needs. Largely by achieving this, the student population becomes immersed through mutual understanding of each student's unique growth potential.
Projects can be off the charts. For example, imagine that a high-functioning “autistic,” or more right- brained, child, comes to understand history through land masses, or earth science. Projects, then, may stretch back in “geologic” time as a result of the student's imagination, the student being responsible for picking the project in accordance with his or her unique story and special interests. Having found a foundation for understanding like this, which benefits student and teacher alike, next, in this example, scientific understanding, with guidance, and, importantly, through extrapolated associations that interest the student, logically and intuitively leads to cultural and historical understanding.
The personal projects, by nature, are linear, which is a left-brained function, so that they trace events, yet they are steeped in a student's own associative thinking process, which is more right-brained. They can be used to achieve a graduated level of whole brain thinking.
Living in a firstly linear world sometimes detracts from the human capacity to access the whole brain, with its gifts and insights from interhemispheric thinking. Most of us tend to be dominant left- or right- brained thinkers and the chiefly linear system we live in accordance with accentuates this, due to the sense of polarity that exists as a result of it.
Teaching, under the proposal, as the year progresses, moves then in whole, graduated stages, not primarily linearly.
Classes, throughout the year, for fifth through to the PhD level, are all remarkably lab-like, while, as well, “labs,” now ambitiously merge overlapping elements of different subject-matter, making each subject seem a part of the whole, and easier to grasp in full.
Classes, or “labs,” preferentially, become more dynamic, whether discussion-based or akin to traditional labs. In both cases, they feature new combinations of 1) group dynamics, 2) inventive thought (which can be scientific, sociopolitical and artistic), 3) hands-on innovation and 4) guest lecturers. Labs, on other words, may feature highly engaging and even Socratic lectures and logic combined with roundtable discussions, or, when scientific, or stemming from the humanities, may unfold more like the traditional lab featuring experimentation, however now always using graduated, whole brain thinking.
The object is to constantly engage students in learning that is mechanical and or theoretical, and not merely rote. Assignments are comprehensive, yet less in number, and tailored, even, to the student.
A potential model of the lab-like coursework, that in each case may be designed individually by teachers, and in the particular case below would need to be tailored to different age groups, is Professor Madhu Thangavelu's University of Southern California's Space Exploration Studio, http://astronautics.usc.edu/student-projects/space-exploration-studio/.
In Professor Thangavelu's class, students do inter-related individual and group projects. At midterm time, they present their individual projects (still separate from what would be, in the 'Charting the Course' proposal, the individualized special project), and for the final, they present a group project that builds from their individual projects.
All projects for the studio involve developing architectures for space habitation and development. During Thangavelu's studio, for nearly every class, guest lecturers who are experts from all fields that apply to space architecture, lecture. They may be from NASA, Lockheed Martin, or government, or,
they could be private space entrepreneurs. Professor Thangavelu also contributes to the conversation. After the lecturers have made their presentations, Thangavelu asks them all to return at midterm and final time, to hear, and even grade, the student presentations. So there is a social network built, on the one hand, and an ongoing and momentous conversation building, by way of institutional learning.
Ultimately, by way of having, in the lab (as diverse as labs might become), linear order (rational, sequenced and rhythmic), but also associative learning mechanisms (feeling, perceptive and big picture) that help drive the day, you have a thorough approach that logically leads to whole brain thinking, and that lends itself, too, to the creative individualized special project.
While the lab creates a copacetic room for students who learn not only from the teacher, but each other, and, in some cases, guest lecturers, the purpose of the individualized special project is to help students achieve independent thinking.
The key components of the 'Charting the Course' proposal also include summer or school year reading that's a combined linear and associative learning experience. Reading would include relevant and inspiring books of biography that go far in helping to set the stage for subject-matter, plus nonfiction that is sweeping, “big picture” historical, vivid/synthetic, analytical and creative.
Summer reading is optional at the college level, though advisable, and is there to make the semester's courseload a lighter one on students who are maybe slow readers or, for example, fair better concentrating on one area of study at a time. With summer reading, students can also make preparatory notes, based on their own “big picture” analyses, to better prepare them, through the formation of well- understood “associations,” for the school year and its accumulated knowledge.
The lab hours will meanwhile draw on core reading that has saturated the imagination, as well as selective, additional reading assigned throughout the school year.
Assigned reading always supports labs. It's not exhaustive, so to put too high of demands on students, but may include selections from popular periodicals, scholarly journals, government documents, nonfiction, essays, fiction and poems. Enlightened films may also be used for teaching. Professor Thangavelu, in another example, wrote a text book the author found fascinating, and thought was a complement to his course.
Labs, in the end, are drawn to form, in a learning way, assurances that interhemispheric thinking, linear/chronological understanding combined holistically with associative understanding, and grasping of the essence, which is the big picture, consistently and progressively follows.
Capping the education proposal, is a holistic teaching style that includes the writing of revolutionized, Individualized Education Programs (IEPs), by the teacher, with help from only the guidance counselor. These IEPs are for the whole classroom, describing each student's special projects gains, and lab attendance and participation, thereby elaborating on the inherent skill sets of students, and even in lieu of traditional, standardized tests.
These new IEPs would hopefully be used as a means of college entrance. Students would then take their IEPs to college with them, and there again to be used to enhance the education experience.
College is seven years long and built as a direct path to the obtainment of a PhD, unless students opt for a two-year program, which may also be an apprenticeship complemented by a small grouping of required, staple, college-level classes.
In order for the new program to be underway, it's feasible to train teachers in holistic teaching in as short as two months over a summer, with night classes during the school year, using money partially allocated from special education funds for the following year, and minimal added stimulus dollars. Initially, universal curriculum would be designed to be used at the implementation of the new program, that would remain as a foundation.
As well, there would be some refocused subject-matter that would require additional training, and the evolvement of new teaching specialties, for instance, toward the teaching of holistic math, or theoretical physics at the high school level.
Still other new and reinvented ideas are contained within the 'Charting the Course' education proposal, while constructive feedback and criticism will hopefully still enhance its potential to be realized.
Book #2
The New Village: Finding Holistic SolutionsWe're at a time in world history when what is old and new, culturally, which has the power to cross borders, is literally being married. Like any good marriage, one might expect there to be fits and bolts in the beginning, anxiety over what has been and what will be, but successfully, the days of yore, with their spiritual richness, and the futuristic world of ideas in which we also spend splendid hours, stand to be united in peace.
The book, The New Village, documents this marriage, as it takes place, and helps what new dynamics there are to unfold, along the 21st century frontier for change.
The New Village looks at the capital of human knowledge that's an amalgam of the values, foresight and practical wisdom of ancient histories and modern science and industry.
The book offers in-depth coverage about what has quickly become the all-pervasive symbol of our era: the merging of ancient and modern wisdom to establish a 21st century infrastructure and way that are both sustainable and rewarding and, incidentally, based on an inherent notion of holism.
The New Village describes a third way, however with that way being incumbent upon the wherewithal of individuals to seek community-based solutions that are simultaneously fostered by the spirit of Oneness between all that exists.
Featured in the second part of the book, is the story of the visionary space and earth architect, Nader Khalili, inventor of Superadobe homes and technologies, whose story is at once a merging of the old and the new, and never ceases to brighten the lives his story touches.
Book #3
The Modern Roots of Holism
This recent political treatise focuses on the modern history of holism and details the life and story of the man who coined holism, Jan C. Smuts, a South African statesman, prime minister and soldier, who was also instrumental in the organization of the League of Nations and United Nations Charter.
Book #4
The Ancient Roots of HolismThe selective and thought-provoking chapters contained in this universal peace offering are a meditation on an ancient thread of wisdom which emanates from each day and age, however differently.
Aside from the apparent differences, this book focuses on the sameness.
It focuses on and draws out the core teachings of the world's major traditions and religions, dating from thousands of years ago, till today. Each chapter shows where there has been tremendous overlap, stressing the commonalities and ties between traditions.
Ultimately, this book is a meditation on how, at their core, the traditions are all so alike, each also being based on universal law.
The book steers away from any divisiveness.
Book #5
American Determinism: Holistic Politics
This final book in the series will be about President Barack Obama and his second term, and the President reaching, with the people, and also the people around the globe, his perfect potential, and the perfect potential of the populous.
It will describe firstly American Determinism, referring not only to the determinism of Obama, but of past Presidents, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy Jr.
But the book is particularly about the potential for the Obama Administration.
American Determinism: Holistic Politics draws a diagram of what the holistic outreach by the current President of the United States looks like, and how the President's Administration's potential, when further realized by the United States and world, may go very far in helping to deliver on the promise of holism this century, as it already has begun to do.
In order to describe the 'perfect potential' for holistic solutions to unfold, and in this case, by way of what I define as American Determinism, this fifth book in the series, covers, uniquely, the evolution that takes place around the symbol of the Enneagram, which is pertinent not only to physics and the workings of the universe, but the unfolding of human psychology, and is thus used, increasingly, in psychological circles.
The reality is that each of us has a perfect potential. To harbor it, it requires firstly that we understand the world and its laws, its universal wisdom, and with that understanding, gain faith or trust in the universe. From there, we allow the truth to unfold before our very eyes, being responsible for the unfolding happening by way of our unique contributions to the world, be they practical, inspiring, inventive or innovative.
We all, if we allow our perfect potential to unfold, and become realized in this world, affect one another positively, as if the cup were always full.
Every once in a while a person may come along like President Obama, for instance, who is also a Type 9 on the Enneagram, a global thinker, moderator and mediator, who has a certain amount of built-in genius, and in part because of his circumstances in life, who can have a remarkably dynamic impact, that is, if, the perfect potential of others combines with their leader's hopes and aspirations for the world, be they fair and just.
The above may right now have the potential to unfold, and for the President, country and world, and that's the message, along with a strong reflection of President Obama's trajectory and vision, that will be relayed in American Determinism: Holistic Politics.
This book's unfolding is the culmination of the previous four books on the topic, holism, the author, Director of the Holistic Solutions Think Tank, has written.
American Determinism: Holistic Politics, and the full series on holism, will be available in fall 2013.
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Yasha Melanie Husain. Copyright 2013-14.