Emotional Literacy Education Course 101 What Is Emotional Literacy Education? by Mark Zimmerman Content: Lesson 1 Title: What Is Emotional Literacy? Author: Mark Zimmerman Copyright: © 2003 Mark Zimmerman. All Rights Reserved. Content: Lessons 2 through 10 Title: Emotional Literacy Education Course 101 What Is Emotional Literacy Education? Author: Mark Zimmerman Copyright: © 2004 Mark Zimmerman. All Rights Reserved. User Agreement: This text may not be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author; except for your own private and non-commercial use; where you may keep one copy on one computer at a time. You may also print one copy, but not more than one. You may not share, sell, trade or in anyway exchange or give a copy to anyone by any means. All copies must remain without modification, and retain this User Agreement, Copyright and Author information. You may not post any part of this text on any Website. You may, however, tell others where they can get their own copy located at: emotional-literacy-education.com Lesson 1: What Is Emotional Literacy? The following lecture is a demonstration of the use of the Emotional Literacy Language. The views expressed are examples designed to inspire the student to develop their own unique ideas, language and Emotional Literacy Skills, and are not intended to promote anyone's philosophy. 001 Commentary On Susie Orbach #1 11:48 In the spring of 2001, I came upon the concept of Emotional Literacy for the first time. Most of my adult life, I've used the term Self-Knowledge. Where the idea of Self-Knowledge falls short is in the social context; and how it relates to others. Emotional Literacy, on the other hand, has a social connection - which for me immediately meant education. Because the term literacy comes from education. The term literacy means, or it has come to mean, acquiring specialized skills, for example, computer literacy. And I understood immediately that Emotional Literacy was a skill, that could only be learned through an educational system. Self-Knowledge, on the other hand, is primarily self-taught, but very few people are capable of teaching themselves such a complex subject. The first time I came across the concept of Emotional Literacy was at the Antidote Website, where I read Susie Orbach's definition. She is a Psychologist who wrote in The Guardian on August 12, 1998, "Emotional Literacy means being able to recognize what you are feeling, so that it doesn't interfere with thinking." Self-Knowledge means exactly recognizing what you are feeling, so immediately I saw the connection between Self-Knowledge and Emotional Literacy. I have spent the last two years working with Emotional Literacy, trying to see where it connects with my work in Self-Knowledge. And I have been modifying my own work, so that it meets educational standards. Susie Orbach wrote, "Emotional Literacy means being able to recognize what you are feeling, so that it doesn't interfere with thinking." I also became very interested in the concept of Emotional Literacy, because it involved both psychology and education. And combining the two for me means Emotional Literacy. Where psychology becomes important is that psychology is the study of the human psyche. It's the science of studying the human mind. And psychology has made tremendous progress since the time of Sigmund Freud. And it has gradually moved away from a psychology of pathology, and the study of human mental illness, towards a new kind of psychology started by Abraham Maslow. Freud studied mental illness, but he never really explained completely why people were mentally ill. He failed in one area, and that was the study of human health - human mental health. And Abraham Maslow chose to study healthy human beings as a model for his new psychology, which he called the Psychology of Being. His contribution to psychology is as great as Sigmund Freud's for showing that man is not merely a set of pathologies or mental illnesses and neurosis, but that man has human potential far beyond our imagination. Abraham Maslow showed us that human beings can be psychologically healthy. He also demonstrated why humans become psychologically unhealthy. He determined that we become psychologically neurotic, when our needs are thwarted; when we as human beings are blocked in fulfilling our human needs. That this blocking causes us frustration and a rerouting of our behavior into neurosis. Susie Orbach wrote, "Emotional Literacy means being able to recognize what you are feeling, so that it doesn't interfere with thinking." Why do feelings interfere with thinking? Mankind, in its philosophy, likes to separate feeling from thinking. They're not separate at all. Every thought has a feeling attached to it. If we are frightened or angry or confused, it's going to affect the way we think. What is happening here is that we do not recognize our feelings. We're unconscious of feeling. What is conscious is our thoughts. What's not conscious are the feelings attached to those thoughts. "Emotional Literacy," as defined by Susie Orbach, "means being able to recognize what you are feeling, so that it doesn't interfere with thinking. It becomes another dimension to draw upon when making decisions or encountering situations." It can become another dimension to draw upon when making decisions or encountering situations. That is, if we were able to recognize our feelings, we would understand how they affect our thoughts. So her statement is conditional. If we became more aware of our feelings, we would be able to use them to help us make decisions. Feelings which are properly associated with thoughts are what helps us to decide. They lend meaning. They lend gravity. They lend weight to our thought processes. Without feelings our thoughts would be like words in a computer. It's our feelings which give meaning to our thoughts. Its our feelings which help us to decide our behavior, whether we're conscious of it or not. We all start out life unconscious. Becoming conscious requires a special effort. Susie Orbach continues, "Emotional expression by contrast can mean being driven by emotions, so that it isn't possible to think." For most people thinking is an unreliable process. We like to think that it's our thought processes through which we decide what we're going to do, but ultimately it's our emotions that drive our behavior, unconsciously. Only when emotional experiences reach a certain level of intensity of confusion or pain or depression does it make it impossible to think. And it's when we become conscious of our emotions, that our immediate response is to repress them. What we don't realize is that our emotions influence our thoughts more than our thoughts influence our emotions. Susie Orbach continues, "These two things are often confused, because we are still uncomfortable with the idea of the validity of feelings." It's our feelings that need to be sorted out, because our feelings are driving both our thoughts and our behaviors. Men and women function differently when it comes to their thoughts and feelings. Men usually deny that they have feelings. Men are better able to suppress into their unconscious - emotions. And they rely more heavily on their intellect, and this has been hailed by men as a strength. But it is a self-defeating attitude, because their emotions are there, they just block consciousness of them, and amplify their thoughts. And women do just the opposite. In women emotions are stronger, consciously, than in men. Yet, maybe it's these strong emotions which do interfere with their thoughts, because emotions are scary, and fear does interfere with rational thought. For me Emotional Literacy means sorting out thoughts and emotions, because they can work together, when both are made equally conscious. But so much of our psyche is unconscious, that we have problems working within the framework of our own capacities and mental functions. And we tend to work outside in a social context, where we accept direction from without largely because of the uncertainty within. Emotional Literacy means becoming literate, becoming skilled in reading your own emotions. England is far ahead of the United States in advancing Emotional Literacy both politically and in the education system. At the Antidote Website Emotional Literacy is defined as, "Emotional Literacy is the practice of engaging with others in a way which facilitates understanding of our own and others' emotions, then using this understanding to inform our actions." Emotional Literacy should be understood in the social context, because it is the practice of engaging with others, learning from others ways which facilitate understanding of our own emotions, and the emotions of others. Our emotions do inform our actions. They drive our actions, instinctually, and in an unconscious way. But they can also act to inform our actions. Our emotions can provide us with information about ourselves, and about our behavior and about the behavior of others. 002 Commentary On Claude Steiner #1 16:57 Claude Steiner is a Psychologist who works in the field of Transactional Analysis. What is important about this field of psychology is that it focuses on understanding the exchanges in relationships. Which psychologists call transactions. Transactional Analysis helps by focusing on relationships and their emotional interactions. Claude Steiner wrote in his book Emotional Literacy, Intelligence with Heart, "To be Emotionally Literate is to be able to handle emotions in a way that improves your personal power, and improves the quality of life for you, and equally important, the quality of life for the people around you." Claude Steiner realizes in this statement, the importance of handling emotions. If we don't get a grip on our emotions, we're essentially out-of-control. Which causes us to rely heavily on social convention, instead of listening to our own inner impulses; which can give us information more detailed and more specialized about our own lives. Social convention deals primarily with group survival. It doesn't recognize the individual and their survival. Social convention has limitations in fulfilling the needs of the individual within the social group. Social convention is primarily focused on fulfilling the needs of the group, but not the individual. And even though this has been a successful survival strategy for mankind, it is also the technology which allows human beings to commit the worst tragedies to other human beings. War itself is the outcome of social convention. If society was worried about the individual, the need of the individual, society would change its convention about the concept of war. The group never dies in war, only the individual. And the group, the social convention, feels sacrifice of the individual is a noble cause, but it's really a selfish act by the society to preserve itself at the expense of the individual. Social convention and relying on social convention, limits our own potential, our own possibilities. Within the social convention, there's no room for the individual idea, or the individual need, or the fulfillment of the need. Emotional Literacy is not the technology of the individual. It is a technology of learning how to interact with oneself, and in that context, how to interact with others. When we are better able to handle our own emotions, we can improve our relationships, our own quality of life, and as Claude Steiner said, "the quality of life of the people around us." Because every emotion that stirs within our unconscious becomes manifest in our behavior, and affects the people around us. And if we are fearful or confused or angry, we can hurt those around us without knowing it. Claude Steiner continues, "Emotional Literacy helps your emotions to work for you instead of against you." Emotions are signals that carry information. And by ignoring our emotions, by ignoring those signals, we also miss out on the information they provide us. Our emotions also inform us about our environment, because how we feel directly relates to our relationships with others - and how they interact with us. Emotional Literacy is the process of learning about emotions, and learning how to make them work in a positive way. When we are informed by our emotions, they can provide us with guidance. When we are unconscious of our emotions, they always work against us. Claude Steiner continues, "It improves relationships, creates loving possibilities between people, makes cooperative work possible, and facilitates the feeling of community." Emotional Literacy is Self-Knowledge in social context. Emotional Literacy is using Self-Knowledge to figure out the dynamics of relationships. Emotional Literacy is the technology of understanding the dynamics of emotions in relationships. Therefore, it does improve relationships, because it provides us with an array of emotional choices - and how we are going to respond to others. It's not always about being positive in relationships. It's not about never being angry or never being afraid. When we are afraid, what is that telling us. And is it rational? Is our fear rational? Does it have an object that's real, or are we afraid of something inside our own imagination? It's these skills that we have to learn to properly manage our emotions. It's not about eliminating negative emotions. It's about understanding what each individual emotion can do for us. There are times when anger is justified. There are times when fear will save your life. And there are times when anger and hatred will destroy your relationship, impede your relationship. And there are times when fear has no validity. I like to describe two types of emotions. Anger, fear, guilt, frustration can be either functional or dysfunctional. And what I mean by that is, it can be either an appropriate response or an inappropriate response. If it's inappropriate, you're disrupting your relationship, unnecessarily. If it's an appropriate response, if it's functional, then it can be exactly the right response for the given situation. There is no one who can advise you which emotion is right for which circumstance, because circumstances are spontaneous happenings. And emotional responses happen in the moment. And you're not going to have time to consult anyone about the proper emotion or response. Therefore, the only way to determine whether the use of your emotions is functional or dysfunctional - is by becoming conscious of them; by gaining knowledge of them, by understanding them. So that you can learn how to employ them at the right time, and learn how to disemploy them at the wrong time. There is the possibility that Emotional Literacy can improve our relationships. Possibility, because this is a capacity that we have to actualize. It's only a potential. But when this potential is actualized, loving relationships can be made possible between humans. The workplace will become more cooperative and less competitive. And not only will Emotional Literacy facilitate the feeling of community, it will transform the community from what it is now into a community where feelings are as respected as thoughts, and where behaviors are contemplated, rather than automatic. And where the power of the individual is respected as much as the power of the group. Claude Steiner continues, "But Emotional Literacy is not a mere unleashing of the emotions - it is also learning to understand, manage and control them." That's what we do, unleash emotions onto others in our relationships, or one group against another group. We unleash them, unconsciously, without any understanding of the consequences. We unleash them automatically. And this is our fundamental problem, because emotions are directly linked to our instincts. And our instincts are often inappropriate responses to the given situation. Who's to determine, how to determine, if your response is appropriate, if you are not conscious of it? In searching the Internet for definitions of Emotional Literacy, there is one common theme among the definitions. As Claude Steiner said, "It is also learning to understand, manage and control them." Understanding emotions is the most common definition for what Emotional Literacy is. It's through understanding that we learn how to manage and control them, and make them work for us, rather than against us. The only way to understand our emotions is to learn about them through an educational process. Claude Steiner continues, "Being Emotionally Literate means that you know what emotions you and others have, how strong they are, and what causes them." We have a rainbow of emotions - both positive and negative. Some of them attract us to others. Some of them cause us to move away from others. "Being Emotionally Literate means that you know what emotions you and others have...." Emotional Literacy is the exploration of this rainbow of emotions, because each emotion has a specific function. It's not an effort to get rid of emotions. It's actually an effort to bring emotions into our consciousness, into our awareness, into our understanding, into our thought processes, so that they better serve us. So that they guide us in our relationships, and so that we know what we're doing, and the consequences of a particular emotion. Claude Steiner mentions the strength of emotions. Not only must we learn the specific use - for a specific function, but we also must learn how strongly to use a particular emotion. Or, when a particular emotion is very strong within us, how do we interpret that? And what does cause our emotions? Emotional Literacy will also explore what causes emotions. Claude Steiner continues. "Being Emotionally Literate means that you know how to manage your emotions, because you understand them." There is a process that one must go through to reach an understanding of our emotions. Through this process we use our thoughts to make pictures, word pictures, of our emotions. We use our thoughts in combination with our emotions. When our thoughts are in agreement with our emotions, that is understanding. When we have no knowledge about our emotions, that is ignorance. When our emotions agree with our thoughts, they harmonize into understanding. They work together. Claude Steiner continues, "With Emotional Literacy training, you will learn how to express your feelings, when and where to express them, and how they affect others." That's a pretty good summation of everything I've just said. First, that Emotional Literacy is a training process. It's a learned process. It's an educational process in which you will learn how to express your feelings. We are, every day, continuously, without knowledge, expressing our feelings. Without knowledge, how can we know the appropriateness of our expression? When and where and how to express our emotions - is what Emotional Literacy is concerned with. It's what it teaches. And since our emotions are primarily used in relationships, we must learn how emotions affect others. When we express an emotion, how it affects others will help us to understand the consequences of our emotional expression. Did our expression, and the way that it affected another person, turn out the way that you anticipated it to, or did it come out in a way that was harmful; or affected the other person in a negative way? And without Emotional Literacy, without being able to read your own feelings, your own emotions, and your own behaviors, using your thoughts, you will never be able to know if what you did, or said, was beneficial - or harmful to the relationship. How your emotions, and their expressions, affect others is important, because how you respond to others is going to affect the way that they respond to you. And if you want others to interact with you in a positive, loving, caring, respectful manner, the first place to start is through emotional expressions of warmth and caring and understanding. Claude Steiner continues, "You will also develop empathy, and will learn to take responsibility for the way your emotions affect others." He says Emotional Literacy is developing empathy. 003 Commentary On Dictionary Definitions 9:43 What is empathy? A dictionary definition for empathy is the, "identification with and understanding of another's situation, feelings and motives." It's important for us to understand the situations and the limitations that others find themselves. Those who are born in poverty, those who are born in a situation that doesn't offer the opportunity of education - requires us to take into consideration their situation. How it makes them feel. And how it makes them behave. Empathy comes from the desire to want to improve the lives of others; to at least to the situation of our own. Without understanding the suffering that poverty causes, people are unable to understand the situation that others find themselves, when it is conditions beyond their control. When it is within our control to improve the lives of others, through a simple concept, we are employing the compassionate emotion of empathy. We are caring about their situation. We are understanding the circumstances which brought them to their situation. We are understanding our own involvement in creating these adverse conditions. And we are actively doing something to improve the lives of others. And why would we want to improve the lives of others? By improving the lives of others, we are improving our own lives. Empathy is comprised of the suffix 'pathy' which means, "feeling; suffering; perception." It means being able to feel, not only your own life, but the lives of others. It means caring, but most importantly, it means feeling. And we tend to go through our lives without feeling. And without feeling, there is very little sense of being alive. So being empathetic has more to do with the selfish need of feeling alive, rather than feeling numb. We live in a society which identifies the strong as those who can function without feeling. Who can act rationally, coldly, steely. Little boys are taught not to cry and not to feel. In the end this only blocks out the world around them, because the only relationship we have to the world around us is how we feel it. Ultimately, this cripples, not strengthens, our children. 'Pathy' comes from the Greek word 'pathos' - which means, "as of an experience or a work of art, that arouses feelings. Feelings of sympathy, tenderness, or sorrow." 'Pathos' is defined this way, because when we feel, we tend to sense the suffering and the misery that surrounds us. But 'pathos' means far more than sorrow. Pathos means feeling, and there's more to life than feeling sorrow. 'Pathos' also means joy. It means pleasure. It means tranquility. But we only reach those emotions after we begin to deal with the world around us - in a responsible way. As Claude Steiner says, "You will also develop empathy, and will learn to take responsibility for the way your emotions affect others." We reach joy through responsibility; for taking responsibility for the way our emotions, and our actions, affect others. If our emotions cause pain and suffering to others, our reward will be suffering and pain. The source of the affliction is within us. And when we affect others negatively, we may not realize it, but that negativity is coming from within. It's our own unconsciousness, that causes us not to feel the pain within ourselves - that is the source of the pain we cause others. So Emotional Literacy is learning how to become responsible for your own emotions, and the positive or negative impact that they have on others. Emotional Literacy means social responsibility. 'Pathos' means sympathy, and sympathy means, "A relationship or an affinity between people or things in which whatever affects one correspondingly affects the other." Emotional Literacy teaches us that we do not live in isolation, but rather in relationships with others. Therefore, what affects one person affects ourselves, and what affects ourselves affects others. We dwell in a state of interdependency. I have defined sympathy as the simultaneous vibration or feeling that exists in two or more persons. We share the same feelings. We feel the same things. And whatever affects one person correspondingly affects the other. The dictionary definition continues, sympathy is a, "mutual understanding or affection arising from this relationship or affinity." Once again we return to the recurring theme of understanding as the basic fundamental definition of what Emotional Literacy is. It's through this understanding, that we achieve affection for others - that arises out of our relationship, and our knowing affinity with others. The dictionary continues, "The act or power of sharing the feelings of another." We all share the same feelings. We just share them unconsciously. We all hurt each other, we just do it unconsciously. And it's only through knowing this - can we stop the hurt that we pass from one person to the next, and from one generation to the next. "Sympathy is the act or power of sharing the feelings of another." We all share the same feelings. There is something universal about feelings. We all share the same nature. And it's out of this nature, our feelings are derived. The definition continues, "A feeling or an expression of pity or sorrow for the distress of another." Why, through empathy, do we experience sorrow? It's because we have caused each other such great misery, that when we open our hearts, we find that's all that's there. But there's more to life, if we get beyond the mutual hurt that we cause one another. But first, we have to understand what we've done to each other, because that's the only way to stop it, and to find new ways of joy to share in our lives. Another definition of sympathy is commiseration. Emotional Literacy is not about commiseration. It's not about wallowing in the suffering of others. It's about rising above the suffering of others - by ceasing one's own participation in causing the suffering of others. Sympathy, the dictionary continues, means, "Harmonious agreement." That's the ultimate goal of sympathy. That's the ultimate goal of understanding. That one falls within a harmonious agreement with oneself, and therefore with others. But this is not our current situation. Our current situation, in relationships, is one of continuous disagreement; continuous discord and continuous conflict. And it's this conflict, and continuous fighting in relationships, primarily for dominance, that continues this suffering that we induce upon each other. Emotional Literacy is the only avenue that I have seen for humanity out of its current situation. 004 Commentary On Claude Steiner #2 4:55 Claude Steiner continues, "Through this training," he says 'training', because Emotional Literacy must be learned, "you will become an emotional gourmand - aware of the texture, flavor and aftertaste of your emotions." Each emotion is different. It has a different use. It has a different source. It has a different feeling. It's accompanied by different kinds of thoughts. Different emotions produce different kinds of behaviors. And Claude Steiner is making us aware that we can differentiate the texture and flavor of our emotions. And he makes another very interesting statement about the aftertaste of our emotions. That our emotions leave an impression upon our mind, in our memory, after they've occurred. By tapping into our memory, we can discover the aftertaste of an emotion. We can also learn if we used that emotion appropriately, functionally. When I say functionally, a functional emotion, did the use of that emotion help us to get what we needed, or did the use of that emotion turn out to hinder us from getting what we needed? Claude Steiner continues, "You will learn how to let your rational skills work hand-in-hand with your emotional skills." Our rational skills, in many ways, work independently from our emotional skills. And by doing so, creates an imbalance, because where emotion does not match our intellect, we have created within ourselves discord. As Claude Steiner says, "You will learn how to let your rational skills work hand-in-hand with your emotional skills." We use our rational skills to make decisions. If we are unaware of our emotional associations with our decisions, we can often find them in conflict, working against each other, defeating each other. But through Emotional Literacy, we can learn how our decisions affect our emotions, and how our emotions affect our decisions, and how, when they work together, work for our benefit. Emotional Literacy is not limited to the training or education in emotions. Emotional Literacy is a holistic educational process - in which we learn about the human self as a whole. With Emotional Literacy we learn about our needs, our emotions, our intellect and our relationships. And what we learn are skills. What we grow are capacities. And what we achieve is our highest possibilities. Claude Steiner continues, "Adding to your ability to relate to other people." Human beings, functioning to survive, have developed social instincts. And a large part of our mental capacities are devoted to relating to other people. Knowing how to relate intellectually, knowing how to relate emotionally, knowing how to relate to others in our behavior - is the very foundation of our emotional condition. When we relate to others poorly, our social condition will be poor. Claude Steiner continues, "Hence, you will become better at everything you do with others: parenting, partnering, working, playing, teaching and loving." These are all social skills: parenting, partnering, working, playing, teaching. Emotional Literacy is the process by which we enhance our social abilities, our social skills, and our capacities to interact with others. 005 Commentary On Susie Orbach #2 3:35 At the Antidote Website Susie Orbach wrote, "Our aim is to create an Emotionally Literate Culture, where the facility to handle the complexities of emotional life is as widespread as the capacity to read, write and do arithmetic." Emotional Literacy is a cultural enhancement achieved through education. In which we are not only expanding the capacities of our emotions, but also we are expanding the capacity of our intellect. We are giving ourselves more choices in our behaviors' to others in our relationships. And we are learning how better to fulfill our own needs, thereby bringing more satisfaction into our lives. Our culture is going round and round in circles with the same emotional responses. We are trapped inside of our own emotions. It's our emotions which create our culture, which create our social structures. A change to our society will only come from a conscious and informed effort through education - to discover new ways to respond to each other. These new ways are known. For example, learning how to cooperate with each other rather than compete. Learning how to treat others with respect and dignity, rather than trying to dominate them. We create our own misery in our society. We beat each other down, as we struggle to make it to the top. And in doing so others are trying to beat us down. And no one ever really makes it to the top. It's just a continuous process of pain inflicted on each other by our own behavior, which makes all of us numb to our emotions, and makes us incapable of utilizing them in ways which are beneficial, and in ways which will enhance our own survival. So this statement by Susie Orbach is of tremendous importance, because she says our aim is to create an Emotionally Literate Culture. It means we have to create it, because we don't have an Emotionally Literate Culture. Our culture is emotionally illiterate. Each one of us every day suffers the consequences of that illiteracy. Susie Orbach continues, "Where the facility to handle the complexities of emotional life is as widespread as the capacity to read, write and do arithmetic." I particularly like this statement. It implies we can learn this. It's within our current educational technology, if we have the will to pursue it. 006 Commentary On Peter Sharp 7:04 Peter Sharp, Psychologist, wrote in his book, Nurturing Emotional Literacy, "Nurturing Emotional Literacy helps people to recognize, understand, handle and appropriately express their emotions. How we manage our emotions, and the positive impact that Emotional Literacy can have on improving standards in schools has been overshadowed recently by the attention given to the three R's. This handbook seeks to redress this, and looks at the importance of the fourth 'R' relationships." I like this particular statement by Peter Sharp, because it defines Emotional Literacy in the context of relationships. Which he describes in education as the fourth 'R'. In our schools children are put together in a classroom, and they are taught how to read, write and do arithmetic. But they're not taught how to interact with one another. Even though we put them in the same room together, and we force them to interact with one another, yet we give them no guidance. Peter Sharp also reiterates and agrees with the other definitions of Emotional Literacy, that we've already heard. That he says, "Emotional Literacy helps people to recognize, understand, handle and appropriately express their emotions." But before we can teach children about how to appropriately express emotions, we as adults must learn how to appropriately express our emotions. We must educate ourselves, before we can educate our children. And this is extremely difficult for adults to learn how to, and to relearn how to respond in relationships. Emotional Literacy for adults is fundamentally different than the education of children in Emotional Literacy. And the reason for that is - that during our own emotional development as children, we have constructed automatic behaviors in response to our needs; and in relationship to acquiring those needs through others. We have learned, and we have made a habit out of our negative emotions. And it's extremely difficult to change these habits. It's much easier to teach children before their habits have formed, but once our emotional habits have taken up residence in the neurological networks of our brain, it's very hard to change those neurological networks, though it is possible. It is possible through the process of education. It is possible for us as adults to modify our own behaviors, and to modify the way we feel, and to change our perception. Emotional Literacy will never become a part of the lives of children, until it becomes a part of the lives of adults. We must find a way to nurture Emotional Literacy in one another as adults. We must be supportive of one another in this effort. I agree with Peter Sharp. That the most important aspect of Emotional Literacy is that it nurtures the development of our relationships. Our relationships are all that we really have. They are all that's really important in life. Western culture has wrongly made of the highest importance the pursuit of money. And we do this at the expense of our relationships. We do this at the expense of our emotional happiness, because the pursuit of money is not the same as learning the capacity, and the potential, of our relationships. So I agree with Peter Sharp. The fourth 'R' in education, whether it's for adults or children, is relationships. And it is of the greatest importance that we understand the value of our fellow human beings, and that we put money, and its pursuit, in its proper perspective. Whenever I think about money and relationships, it always reminds me of Howard Hughes, who spent his entire life accumulating wealth, until he became the richest man in the world. What he was unable to cultivate were human relationships. For he saw other people as only objects of his benefit, of his use; whether it was using starlets that worked under contract for him sexually, or using the people around him to help make himself rich. The end of his life is a sad and pathetic tale of a lonely, narcotic addicted man - who saw no value in other people. Relationships are incomparable with money. They are not in the same category. We can't even say our relationships are priceless, because to do so implies to put a value on them, a monetary value. And there is no monetary value that can be placed on relationships. So Western culture has been barking up the wrong tree, has been walking down the wrong alley, and has found itself pursuing the object that ultimately becomes the cause of its own misery. Because when we place the value of money over relationships, people become property, commodities, something we buy, something we sell, something we trade. 007 Commentary On Asuman Martone 4:55 Asuman Martone, a Transactional Psychologist, wrote, "Emotional literacy is the recognition and consequent development of skills and abilities to deal with our many powerful forces. We must learn about our emotions before we can climb to the next level of development." Of all the definitions of Emotional Literacy, this one has the most profound implications. The statement that, "Emotional Literacy is the recognition and consequent development of skills and abilities," is a very clear picture of what Emotional Literacy is. Because it's the development of skills which help us as human beings to fulfill our needs. And it's only through need fulfillment, that we achieve satisfaction in our lives. So Emotional Literacy is the development of skills, that help us fulfill our needs and achieve satisfaction. She says that, "It gives us abilities to deal with our many powerful forces." That Emotional Literacy is not a concept confined to emotions. It's a concept which encompasses the whole of a person. That each person has many powerful forces within them, the power to create, the power to destroy. And it's how we harness these powers, that makes our lives either empty or full. What powerful forces is Emotional Literacy going to enhance? First, a human being is a composition of needs. These needs are our motivations, and all of the rest of the powers within us revolve around satisfying those needs. So Emotional Literacy has, as its foundation, education in need fulfillment skills - using our other powerful forces of emotions, intellect and relationships. And by becoming skilled in these, through Emotional Literacy, we achieve the satisfaction of our needs. We are adversely affected when our needs are not met. Psychologist Abraham Maslow described this thwarting of our needs as the cause of neurosis and human psychopathology. That as our needs are thwarted, we develop unwanted emotions and behaviors, which are both self-destructive and destructive to others. Therefore, Emotional Literacy is an education in how to overcome the habit of not getting what we need. Asuman Martone continues, "We must learn about our emotions before we can climb to the next level of development." Human beings are fortunate, because mammals have emotions. They have fear. They have aggression. They have domineering behaviors and social structures. But they don't have the intellect to understand, nor the ability to change their own nature. That we start with emotions is clear. That emotions motivate our behavior is obvious. And the only way to make our emotions work for us is by causing them to have a closer match to our environment and our circumstances. The only way to make this change is through learning. And it's through learning, and subsequent growth, that we climb to the next level of development. Abraham Maslow has written extensively on human development, and spoke eloquently about human potential. That man doesn't have to be a static creature. That human development is a lifelong adventure. And Emotional Literacy will rely heavily on the work of Abraham Maslow in the education of human potential. 008 Commentary On Paula Cole 2:59 I have always liked this song by Paula Cole. Paula Cole, Musician and Songwriter, wrote in her song, The Ladder, "I am climbing a ladder of urgency. "Climbing a ladder of hope. "Climbing a ladder of my emotions. "Climbing a ladder of unraveling rope." Understanding our emotions: being able to identify them; being able to recognize them; being able to categorize them into function; and what they do for us; and how they are used; and how they affect others, and what they mean to us, is like climbing a ladder of emotional development. The hope is that our emotions are not a static thing. But that our emotions can develop into wondrous feelings - that bring joy to our lives. And it's this process of learning about our emotions, this process of education - which will unravel the mystery of our emotions, and reveal unto us the knowledge of ourselves. Paula Cole's song ends, "I am only one thing. "One thing I see. "One thing I feel. "I am the ladder." The ultimate responsibility for your own emotions, and whether or not you can bring change to them, lies with you. Because each of us has defense mechanisms; which are also emotions; which block out influences; which may help us to develop. Ultimately, the responsibility lies with you. At the end of a day, no education process, or no teacher can break that shell, that we use to protect ourselves from our own emotions. That we have to be the ladder of our own lives. That we have to be the motivation for our own development. Paul Cole wrote, "Climbing a ladder of my emotions. Climbing a ladder of unraveling rope." An analogy for emotions has been the layers of an onion. And when you peel one back - a new emotion arises. Thus, unraveling the mystery of our emotions. It's when the person goes inside themselves and unravels their own emotions, using their intellect, that they begin to discover who and what they are. 009 Commentary On Mark Zimmerman 21:04 I would like to conclude with a quote, which I have written, and which can be found at my Website: emotionalliteracyeducation.com. There I wrote, "Emotional Literacy Education is the refinement of a knowledge base that has been around for thousands of years. It has been the focus of religion, philosophy, science and psychology. It is Self-Knowledge which has been formulated into a language of emotions which can be taught." For Emotional Literacy to progress, it needs one more component to its definition. That component is education. Education in the tradition of an educational system. What truly makes modern culture stand apart from past cultures is our educational system. It is truly the great success story of the last century. For education is the foundation of our culture. Without education there would be no doctors or engineers or musicians or artists. Without education, we would all be illiterate - unable to read, unable to write, unable to think. Without education, without the ability to read, learning, development and human potential cannot be actualized. So Emotional Literacy, to make it complete, needs one more concept in its definition. And that concept is education. So I start my quote, "Emotional Literacy Education." How are we going to become Emotionally Literate? through education. Education is a technology that we have developed over the past 100 years. Education is a process that we have refined over the past 100 years. Although education still remains an art, it is also a science. And it has proven that we can develop children, and give them skills that they will use for a life time. How do we become Emotionally Literate? How do we acquired the skills of Emotional Literacy? It's only through an education process. And that's where we run into our own limitation. What is this educational process through which we learn these skills? "Emotional Literacy Education is the refinement of a knowledge base that has been around for thousands of years." I have said this, because there have been Emotionally literate persons who have come before us. And their knowledge has been described in different terminology. And it's my preference to organize what they have achieved as Self-Knowledge. For mankind's history is one of trying to understand who we are; and what our relationship is to each other, ourselves and life itself. That's why it's been the focus of religion, philosophy, science and psychology. Deep inside each one of us is the need to know ourselves. For not to know ourselves, in one sense, is not to exist. In that sense only the society exists. In my youth I was confronted with many of the same issues that has confronted mankind since its beginning. Who are we? Where do we come from? Why are we here? It's these profound questions that have motivated religion, philosophy, science and psychology. And in my effort to understand myself and others, in a society that doesn't value Self-Knowledge, or the individual, I found myself by climbing that ladder of my emotions. By understanding myself and others, I created a set of books titled Knowledge of the Self in Nine Volumes. And I found something peculiar about this series of books that I had written. That even know I understood their meaning, I found that others were incapable of understanding them. And I have spent the last 20 years trying to figure out a way to take this personal language of Self-Knowledge, and formulate it into a language - which others could understand. And it's been a long journey. I feel within my heart that I have been able to take what was essentially a personal language, that only I could understand, and I have developed it into a universal language, which I believe others can learn. And its this language, which I call the Emotional Literacy Language, which can be used to educate others to achieve the skills of Emotional Literacy. It was the attraction of the concept of Emotional Literacy, that caused me to embark on this particular journey; towards creating a universal language of emotions, that others could learn to interpret their own emotions. The idea of Emotional Literacy as a skill, that was being explored by educational psychologists and educators; and knowing that psychology is essentially an exploration in Self-Knowledge, gave me the motivation to try to make this transition from a personal language of Self-Knowledge to a universal language of Self-Knowledge. Without a language, we can't make a picture of what our emotions are. Without language we have no structure for education. All education is based upon structure. Mathematics provides us with a language. The alphabet provides us with ways to interpret the sounds of printed words. And education must follow a structure. And that structure must follow a developmental path. Essentially, what is being taught in education are various languages and various skills. Learning how to read is learning a language. It's learning the structure of words. It's learning how to put them in a sentence. Therefore, Emotional Literacy remains just a concept without a solid educational process with which to base it. Much of Emotional Literacy is the transposing of psychology, and what has been learned by the psychologist in the office with their client; and now it's just being transferred to the classroom. Anger management for children, anti-bullying programs are Band-Aids. Because they do not represent a complete educational system either for children or adults. And as long as we cling to this, Emotional Literacy won't go anywhere. Because people will not be able to learn. What I have done with my own personal Self-Knowledge is that I have formulated it into a language of emotions which can be taught. Because I have created a structured language. And it is taught through the structure, through the terminology, through the vocabulary. I continue, "The fundamental principle of Emotional Literacy Education is the need for the individual to understand him or herself and others. The current educational system is based upon the recognition of the need for the individuals to learn how to read, write and do arithmetic. These skills are taught for the economic benefit of the child. Happiness is an emotional state as well as an economic state. What we, as adults, were not taught in school - is how to achieve happiness." Without the goal of happiness, Emotional Literacy has no meaning. There has to be some emotional state that we are trying to achieve. There has to be a reason for the educational process. There has to be a reward for the person who seeks Emotional Literacy and Self-Knowledge. So anything less than happiness as the goal will keep mankind where it's at. We were not taught how to be happy in school. They were preparing us to be of a part of an economic system, so that we could fulfil our basic needs of food, clothing and shelter. But at the end of the day when we come home from work, and we are full because we've eaten, an emptiness still lingers inside of us. Some emotional emptiness, something in us has not been fulfilled. Some human potential in us has gone untapped. Therefore, the goal of Emotional Literacy Education is no less than happiness for the individual. And when the individual is happy, the society will be happy. Happiness is not an economic state. Happiness means fulfilling all of our needs. And we can better fulfil our needs through a society that learns cooperation over competition. Our current economic structure is a zero sum game. And it's composed of winners and losers. The zero sum game is a competitive game, a hierarchical game, in which dominance over others is the goal. It's the structure itself that keeps us from happiness, because instead of cooperating, we compete. Instead of agreeing, we fight. Instead of sharing, we hoard. It's become a world of haves and have nots. And those that have are no happier than those that have not. But society has come to believe that money is the answer to everything including emotional happiness, but the experience of Howard Hughes proves that that's false. We must find compassion for one another as adults, forgive our past and work towards an Emotionally Literate Culture. Because that's the only way that we're going to achieve happiness as a society, together. I further wrote, "Emotional Literacy Education is based upon an Emotional Literacy Vocabulary." I have taken Self-Knowledge, and I have broken it down into a structured vocabulary, which can be used in the educational process for children and adults. The process for children is different than the process for adults. It is going to be more difficult for we, as adults, to understand this language. But it's time that we try. I wrote, "Emotional Literacy Education is based upon an Emotional Literacy Vocabulary. It is a means by which language is used to introduce a student to his or her own emotional values." The vocabulary which comes out of the Emotional Literacy Language is the mechanism that we use to recognize our emotions. And not only our emotions, but also our thoughts, and our behaviors and our needs. We use words to identify and to recognize our world. The way to recognize ourselves is to have a language which is based upon ourselves. We don't recognize ourselves, because we don't have a language that we study that is about us. All of our language is an objective language. We speak in terms of objects, the car, the telephone, our job. But we don't speak in terms of a language which is self-referential. We don't refer to our own emotions, our own thoughts, our own behaviors. And when we do, we do so in a way that skims the surface, and doesn't produce a detailed image of our emotional makeup. This Emotional Literacy Language is used to introduce a student to their own emotional values. There is no imposition of values here. It's just a way of defining the emotions you already have, and a way of educating in skills in new emotional responses, that help a person deal with everyday life, situations and relationships. I wrote, "Emotional Literacy Vocabulary permeates nearly all literature." That was one of the great realizations that I had. When I took this vocabulary, which came out of Knowledge of the Self in Nine Volumes, and I applied it to classical literature, I found that the text was peppered with emotional content. But I also understood that the authors themselves had a very superficial understanding of the terminology - that they were using in their literature. I took the classical literature at my Website at: selfknowledge.com, and I hypertext linked this Emotional Literacy Vocabulary to dictionary definitions - to offer some depth to the text. And to demonstrate how common these words are. And how we use them in everyday language, but actually know very little about them. And we don't use knowledge of these words to our benefit. So, for me, there's been an evolution from Self-Knowledge, a personal language that I formulated for myself, to understand myself, to the realization that it is possible to educate students - both adults and children, in an Emotional Literacy Language. Which will help them to have a better understanding of themselves and others. I wrote, "Emotional Literacy Vocabulary permeates nearly all literature." That's how common it is. I wrote, "In what we write is how we feel, think, desire and behave." Our literature is a reflection of our emotions. I wrote, "From this vocabulary a structured language will be taught, which relates to the content of our human selves. When we study ourselves, new choices in our feelings, thoughts and behaviors are made available to us." Without this exploration, we are stuck with the emotions that we have. And Self-Knowledge, as it's been demonstrated through history, shows us that mankind, that the individual, that society can have a much broader range of emotions, a rainbow. But those higher emotions are potentials - not actualities. Just like the skill of knowing how to read is a potential in the child. And without education that potential will remain undeveloped. I wrote, "What are the features of an Emotional Literacy Education system?" The first and most important component of an Emotional Literacy Education system is a language, a universal language, the Emotional Literacy Language. Because in language there is structure. And it's structure which can be taught. And from language, from the Emotional Literacy Language, we can derive its individual components, its parts, which is the Emotional Literacy Vocabulary. And its this vocabulary which can be instructed. Step by step we can learn to understand ourselves. Because we can use words to make pictures. And those pictures give us a map of our emotions and our thoughts and our behaviors. So one small step at a time, we build the vocabulary in the student. Whether they are adults or children. And it is because it is a language and a Vocabulary that Emotional Literacy Education can utilize the technology of education - that has already been developed over the past 200 years. So in this sense, Emotional Literacy Education becomes a normal educational process, which includes reference material, the Emotional Literacy Language, a curriculum, teaching materials, activities and the achievement of Emotional Literacy Objectives. 010 Susie Orbach Quotes 1:41 The first time I came across the concept of Emotional Literacy was at the Antidote Website, where I read Susie Orbach's definition. She is a Psychologist who wrote in The Guardian on August 12th, 1998, "Emotional Literacy means being able to recognize what you are feeling, so that it doesn't interfere with thinking. It becomes another dimension to draw upon when making decisions or encountering situations. Emotional expression by contrast can mean being driven by emotions, so that it isn't possible to think. These two things are often confused, because we are still uncomfortable with the idea of the validity of feelings." At the Antidote Website Emotional Literacy is defined as, "Emotional Literacy is the practice of engaging with others in a way which facilitates understanding of our own and others' emotions. Then using this understanding to inform our actions." At the Antidote Website Susie Orbach wrote, "Our aim is to create an Emotionally Literate Culture, where the facility to handle the complexities of emotional life is as widespread as the capacity to read, write and do arithmetic." 011 Claude Steiner Quotes 2:22 Claude Steiner wrote in his book, Emotional Literacy Intelligence with Heart, "To be Emotionally Literate is to be able to handle emotions in a way that improves your personal power, and improves the quality of life for you, and equally important, the quality of life for the people around you. "Emotional Literacy helps your emotions to work for you instead of against you. It improves relationships, creates loving possibilities between people, makes cooperative work possible, and facilitates the feeling of community. "But Emotional Literacy is not a mere unleashing of the emotions - it is also learning to understand, manage and control them. "Being Emotionally Literate means that you know what emotions you and others have, how strong they are, and what causes them. "Being Emotionally Literate means that you know how to manage your emotions, because you understand them. "With Emotional Literacy training, you will learn how to express your feelings, when and where to express them, and how they affect others. "You will also develop empathy and will learn to take responsibility for the way your emotions affect others. Through this training, you will become an emotional gourmand - aware of the texture, flavor, and aftertaste of your emotions. You will learn how to let your rational skills work hand-in-hand with your emotional skills, adding to your ability to relate to other people. Hence, you will become better at everything you do with others: parenting, partnering, working, playing, teaching, and loving." 012 Dictionary Quotes 1:38 The American Heritage Dictionary, Third Edition, definition for empathy is the, "identification with and understanding of another's situation, feelings and motives." Empathy is comprised of the suffix pathy, the dictionary continues, which means, "feeling; suffering; perception." Pathy comes from the Greek word pathos, the dictionary continues, which means, "as of an experience or a work of art, that arouses feelings. Feelings of sympathy, tenderness, or sorrow." The dictionary continues, and sympathy means, "A relationship or an affinity between people or things in which whatever affects one correspondingly affects the other." The dictionary definition continues, sympathy is a, "mutual understanding or affection arising from this relationship or affinity." The dictionary continues, "The act or power of sharing the feelings of another." The definition continues, "A feeling or an expression of pity or sorrow for the distress of another." Sympathy, the dictionary continues, means, "Harmonious agreement." 013 Peter Sharp Quotes 0:49 Peter Sharp, Psychologist, wrote in his book Nurturing Emotional Literacy, "Nurturing Emotional Literacy helps people to recognize, understand, handle and appropriately express their emotions. How we manage our emotions, and the positive impact that Emotional Literacy can have on improving standards in schools has been overshadowed recently by the attention given to the three R's. This handbook seeks to redress this, and looks at the importance of the fourth 'R' - Relationships." 014 Asuman Martone Quotes 0:27 Asuman Martone, a Transactional Psychologist, wrote, "Emotional Literacy is the recognition and consequent development of skills and abilities to deal with our many powerful forces. We must learn about our emotions before we can climb to the next level of development." 015 Paula Cole Quotes 0:38 Paula Cole, Musician and Songwriter, wrote in her song The Ladder, "I am climbing a ladder of urgency. "Climbing a ladder of hope. "Climbing a ladder of my emotions. "Climbing a ladder of unraveling rope." Paula Cole's song ends, "I am only one thing. "One thing I see. "One thing I feel. "I am the ladder." 016 Mark Zimmerman Quotes 2:27 I would like to conclude with a quote, which I have written, and which can be found at my Website: emotionalliteracyeducation.com. There I wrote, "Emotional Literacy Education is the refinement of a knowledge base that has been around for thousands of years. It has been the focus of religion, philosophy, science and psychology. It is Self-Knowledge which has been formulated into a language of emotions which can be taught. "The fundamental principle of Emotional Literacy Education is the need for the individual to understand him or herself and others. The current educational system is based upon the recognition of the need for the individuals to learn how to read, write and do arithmetic. These skills are taught for the economic benefit of the child. Happiness is an emotional state as well as an economic state. What we, as adults, were not taught in school, is how to achieve happiness. "Emotional Literacy Education is based upon an Emotional Literacy Vocabulary. It is a means by which language is used to introduce a student to his or her own emotional values. Emotional Literacy Vocabulary permeates nearly all literature. In what we write is how we feel, think, desire and behave. From this vocabulary a structured language will be taught which relates to the content of our human selves. When we study ourselves, new choices in our feelings, thoughts and behaviors are made available to us. "What are the features of an Emotional Literacy Education system? reference material, the Emotional Literacy Language, a curriculum, teaching materials, activities, and the achievement of Emotional Literacy Objectives." Lesson 2: Intrinsic Education vs. Associative Learning The following lecture is a demonstration of the use of the Emotional Literacy Language. The views expressed are examples designed to inspire the student to develop their own unique ideas, language and Emotional Literacy Skills, and are not intended to promote anyone's philosophy. 001 Emotional Literacy Education Is Intrinsic Education 7:47 In the previous lecture, I defined Emotional Literacy. The majority of those definitions were derived from people who include themselves as members of the Emotional Literacy Movement. When searching through these definitions, I could really feel how incomplete they were. That something psychologists were trying to implement, as education, lacked true educational references. The majority of the definitions for Emotional Literacy come out of the field of psychology. And even though there are specialists in the field of psychology, whose main interest is education, their definitions slant more towards the psychology field; than they do to the educational field. It's my main impression that the current Emotional Literacy Movement is interested in porting techniques, that are used in the practice of psychology, into the classroom. There is a limitation in doing it this way. In that education, from this perspective, amounts more to therapy. Which is to be expected, if your field is psychology. But what we really need is Emotional Literacy - whose foundation is in the expertise of education. First, the foundation, of the education techniques for Emotional Literacy, is going to be from the field of education itself. Primarily because education, as a technique, is more fully developed than psychology. That is to say, teachers are more successful at educating, than psychologists are at curing neurosis. So even though Emotional Literacy has its parts in psychology, the primary techniques are going to be based on the acquisition of learning skills. With that in mind, the concept of Emotional Literacy needs to be expanded to include the entire educational field. And all of the expertise that it has acquired, including all of the skills of educating. I have taken the concept of Emotional Literacy, and expanded it to Emotional Literacy Education. Emotional Literacy, to learn it, requires an educational process; more so than a therapy process. Emotional Literacy is acquired through learning and through growth. In his book, The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, Abraham Maslow wrote, "If one thinks in terms of the developing of the kinds of wisdom, the kinds of understanding, the kinds of life skills that we would want, then he must think in terms of what I would like to call intrinsic education - intrinsic learning; that is, learning to be a human being in general, and second, learning to be this particular human being.... Certainly one thing I can tell you. Our conventional education looks mighty sick. Once you start thinking in this framework, that is, in terms of becoming a good human being, and if then you ask the question about the courses that you took in high school, 'How did my trigonometry course help me to become a better human being?' an echo answers, 'By gosh, it didn't!' In a certain sense, trigonometry was for me a waste of time." From The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, by Abraham Maslow, page 164, 1st paragraph. Much of what is being pulled out of the field of psychology has been around for thousands of years. It's very basic to philosophy. That mankind needs a basic understanding of himself. And it's only within this last century that psychology has begun to understand this, and has begun to adopt these philosophies. Which have been around for thousands of years. So, what we have here is the convergence of education and psychology. And it's only been within the past couple hundred years, that education has been taught to the masses. And within the past 100 years, great progress has been made in understanding how people learn. Which, even though it's been around for thousands of years, it's only been available to the wealthy and the elite within the societies. And now the time is ripe for this great skill of education, combined with the psychology of learning about yourself. What is Emotional Literacy Education? It is the convergence of psychology, in the form of acquiring knowledge about yourself, with the techniques of an educational system. It's combining the two skills together. Taking the best from each and putting them into a new educational process. Which psychologist Abraham Maslow has defined as intrinsic education. Emotional Literacy Education, from my definition, is intrinsic education. 002 Language Skill: Dictionary Look Up "Intrinsic" 14:20 When I'm studying and learning a new topic, and I come upon a word that I don't understand, or that I'm not familiar with, or that seems particularly important to the subject that I'm trying to grasp, I like to look up the word in the dictionary. And I find this looking up of words in dictionaries in itself one of the educational techniques, that I personally use to teach myself. Therefore, I want to teach others how to learn. So from time to time, we will be going through the process of looking up words in the dictionary. Therefore, if there's a word I speak during a lecture, that you become curious about, I encourage you to look it up in the dictionary. And give yourself some time to think about it, because it's one very important learning technique. So, I was curious about the word intrinsic, and I looked it up in the dictionary, because it's a keyword in Maslow's definition 'intrinsic education.' So what does the word intrinsic mean? From the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition, "Intrinsic," the dictionary says comes from the "Latin intrinsecus, which means inward, or on the inside. Intra means within. The word intrinsic means inward, internal." So intrinsic education means the education of the internal, or that which is inward. What is internal? What is inward? Looking at the human body from the outside, from head to toe, we see that it forms a boundary. That boundary makes up a whole. Your body is a whole. And what we can observe from the outside is the boundary of the body. The word intrinsic is referring to anything inside that boundary - the boundary of your body and mind together as a whole. Because it makes up a whole. Therefore, intrinsic education relates to anything within that boundary. And that's what we define as you. We have an interior. And intrinsic education is the study and the learning about that interior. The word intrinsic has some interesting connotations. Continuing the dictionary definition, "Intrinsic means inward, internal, hence, true, genuine, real, reality, essential, inherent." Why does the word internal, why does the word inward, why are those words closely associated with what is true, what is real, what is genuine? Because, as we're defining the person within the boundary of their body, we are defining that as the real you, the genuine you, the true you. That which belongs to you. What we're trying to define here, in intrinsic education, is the education of those things that belong to you. That are within your boundary. That are within your border. Nature has played a very strange trick of the eye on mankind. That trick of the eye is that we are always looking outward. Evolution of the mind has developed through a mind that is continuously looking outward - seeing the other person. And what's interesting about that is, that the eyes don't turnaround and see what's in back of the eyes. Which is exactly this boundary of the body. By the very structure of the way our eyes are oriented to look outward, we have developed knowledge based upon the other person; our interaction with them. Therefore, we become highly developed in our social skills, yet those social skills are lacking an essential component. That essential component is knowledge of ourselves. Because the eyes point outward, we see the other person, but we don't see ourselves. Take the chimpanzee for example. They never see their own face. They see the face of the other. Therefore, facial expression has evolved from an indirect way. That is, our own facial expressions have evolved through how we see them affecting others. Chimpanzees have no mirror. No way to see their own facial expression. It's the same with the evolution of man. Our very own facial expressions, which are so intimate and so personal to ourselves, have evolved without our knowledge. They're within our boundary. They belong to us. Yet without a mirror, through millions of years of evolution, our facial expressions have evolved in a social context. We only know our facial expressions, as they're reflected in other people's response to them. That's a perfect example of something that's very basic and important to us - of which we lack knowledge. We're not aware when we make a happy face, or a sad face, or an angry face. Although the faces belong to us. In the same way, our emotions, which can't even be seen by others, have evolved without our knowledge, without us being able to see them. In the same way that we are not able to even see our own facial expressions. Much of mankind's development has been an evolution in his social skills. Primarily because the eyes face forward and see the other, but they don't face backward and see ourselves. Just like when you're driving a car, there's a blind spot in back of you on either side - of which you can't see oncoming traffic. The body also has blind spots. And even though we can see our hands, and our feet, and our torso, and our legs, we can't see our own faces without a mirror. And we've evolved not seeing ourselves physically - not seeing our emotions expressed through our faces. We've also evolved with a blind spot that relates to our emotions; that relates to our inner selves; that relates to our mind and all of its functions and abilities and capacities. Nature provided this blind spot which forces us to evolve socially in the context of knowledge. That means we've developed knowledge of the other person; their facial expressions, their gestures, their postures. There is even a blind spot in that situation. In the other person I can't see their emotions. I can't see their feelings. I can't see their thoughts. I can only interpret their facial expressions, or their verbal expressions. Which both can be false; can be deceptive. Just like animals use camouflage in nature to protect themselves from predators, human beings use facial expressions. They use language as camouflage. So the eye is tricked again, when looking at the other person. Because there may be camouflage in their emotions. They may be protecting something. And what that does is create another blind spot, because it makes it difficult to use the other person in acquiring self-knowledge. Although it's helpful to observe others, and to understand their emotions. In fact, it's actually easier to try and understand yourself through understanding others, because at least you can see their boundary. At least you can see their border. At least the other person is displaying behaviors that you can observe. By the time that you have behaviors, it's too late to observe your own behavior, making it all but impossible to use your own behavior to interpret yourself. It can be done, but it's more difficult. You have to access your memory, and try to remember how you behaved in an understanding process. But with another person you can clearly see their anger, their frustration. And it's useful to use other people in understanding yourself, because they can give you clues about yourself. These are the words that you might consider looking up in the dictionary: "true, genuine, real, essential, inherent, and the word that I like best is reality." From that perspective intrinsic education means education about the reality that is you. What's inside you. What's internal. What belongs to you. What's inside your border. So intrinsic education means studying what's real about you. And one of the methods for studying what's real about you, since you can't see yourself, is to study about what's real about others. What is true about you? What's genuine? What's real as opposed to what's false? What is inherent in you? What are you born with? And after you're born, what skills, what capacities can you acquire? We're all born with a specific nature. Abraham Maslow refers to that nature as our 'specieshood.' What is it that we're all born with as human beings? Intrinsic education is the study of your nature - of what you're born with. It is also the study of what you can become. What you can become are the skills that you can acquire. And the skills that you can acquire are based upon your inherent nature, or that which you are born with. Emotional Literacy Education is the study, the exercise and the acquisition of very specific skills, which I refer to as need-fulfillment skills. Emotional Literacy Education is a process by which, through exercise, through study, through learning and through growth, we acquire the skills that help us to fulfill our needs. 003 Language Skill: Dictionary Look Up "Extrinsic" 4:29 Continuing the dictionary definition, "Intrinsic is the opposite of extrinsic, which is defined as the merely apparent or accidental. Extrinsic comes from the Latin extrinsecus, which means on the outside. 'Exter' means on the outside plus 'secus' which means otherwise or beside. Extrinsecus means on the outside, otherwise or beside." Therefore, extrinsic means that which is on the outside of us - of our body. So, whatever is on the outside of us; whatever is beyond our boundary; whatever is beyond our border doesn't belong to us. It's not our nature. The very word 'definition' means to draw a boundary around, through words. To define a word, it has to have a beginning, a middle and an end. And by placing this boundary around the definition of something, using words, you're saying what it is, and therefore by exclusion, you're also saying what it's not. And that's how we're using the word intrinsic and extrinsic. We are saying what includes you by definition, by also stating what does not include you. Anything outside your body, anything outside of the borders of your mind, your brain, doesn't belong to you. Therefore, it's not your nature. It's not intrinsic. It's not what you're born with. It can't give you any abilities, or any skills, because those functions lie within your mind, within the brain. Continuing the dictionary definition, "The definition of extrinsic is not contained in or belonging to a body. External, unessential, opposed to intrinsic. Quoting I. Taylor, 'The extrinsic aids of education and of artificial culture.' " Culture itself comes from without. Therefore, culture is not our nature. Our nature is to become a social being. But the particular kind of culture that we acquire is dependent upon the culture that we live in. Therefore, culture is extrinsic, and acquired through learning. If you were born in another culture, you would acquire the traditions of that culture. And these traditions, by this particular definition, are extrinsic. They are not what you are born with, because we acquire them. And the proof that we are not born with them - is that a child will acquire the culture which it is born in. But what is intrinsic is our ability to learn the culture we're born in. We're given that skill. What is extrinsic is that which is external. That which is outward. And that which is external is non-essential, untrue, ungenuine, unreal, merely apparent or accidental. It's accidental in the sense of it's an accident which particular culture you're born into. Therefore, it's an accident what traditions you acquire. 004 Intrinsic Education: Developing Understanding and Wisdom 10:30 Abraham Maslow wrote, "If one thinks in terms of the developing of the kinds of wisdom, the kinds of understanding, the kinds of life skills that we would want, then we must think in terms of what I would like to call intrinsic education - intrinsic learning; that is, learning to be a human being in general, and second, learning to be this particular human being." First, Maslow is defining intrinsic education as wisdom and understanding. Which are both goals of Emotional Literacy Education. He also defines it as the life skills that we would want. And what are the life skills that we would want? The kinds of skills that will aid in our survival are the skills that help us to fulfill our needs, to satisfy our needs. Therefore, Emotional Literacy Education, as intrinsic education, is the acquisition of the skills that help us satisfy our needs. I call these skills need-fulfillment skills. He goes on to say, "...intrinsic learning; that is, learning to be a human being in general...." Because of the way the eyes face outward, we are missing the human being. That is ourselves. And Emotional Literacy Education is education in learning what it means to be a human being. Just what we are without any cultural add-ons. What are we born with? What can we become? That is of the highest value to us as opposed to the current educational system, which educates us to become what others value highly. They too are missing themselves. They too are missing the point of education in which you learn about yourself. In that sense, we are all caught up in the social web of education. In which we are always learning what other people want us to know. Rather than seeing ourselves, and identifying ourselves, as a point of which we need to know. Where is ourself? And what is it that we need to know about ourselves? We have a mental function called identity. And even that mental function is caught up in the social context, because it fails to identify a person as separate from the social group. The way our identity works is through this blind spot in which we can't see ourselves. But we can perceive the social group. We can see what they believe, and how they act. And then to fit inside the social group, we conform to it. Our identity becomes locked up in what it means to belong to the social group. And when the identity functions that way only, then we miss the crucial component. Which is being able to identify ourselves. Knowing that we exist. Knowing that I am. The way the mind is setup, without an educational process, that will be the outcome. In which we will miss ourselves. In which we will fail to identify ourselves - that we exist behind the eyes. And where the current educational system will succeed is that you will become identified with a particular group. And you will see the group as your particular identity. And it will answer the question for you of: "Who am I? I am whatever group I belong to. My values are the values of the group." And the fundamental problem with group identity - is that the group itself formulated its own identity out of a lack of self-knowledge, intrinsic knowledge. When the group formed its value system, its behaviors', it did so missing a very crucial fact. All social groups form the basis for their knowledge on a half truth. That is, the social group is the whole. The social group is everything. And the individual member is just a member of the group, a part of the group. And why that is so damaging - is that the group also believes that the members of the group are extrinsic, nonessential. They can be replaced. A perfect example of that is in the military. Where a person is so badly de-valued, that they can be sacrificed for the good of the whole. And a few missing people won't matter, because they can be replaced. That's the most extreme example of the logic of the social group, when the people within the social group miss the knowledge that they exist. That they are important. That they are irreplaceable. That they are unique. And that they matter to the rest of the universe. Every social group functions along the same line. And that line is ignorance of self, ignorance of self-nature, and its value, and its importance. And Emotional Literacy Education is education in the value of the individual, but not in isolation. It's an adjunct to the social knowledge. It's not an erasure of the social knowledge. One of our strongest, inherent and intrinsic qualities is that we are social beings. We are born social. Therefore, it's not a denial of our social aspect. But rather it's an expanded education, which includes an awareness of the individual and the society. Therefore, Emotional Literacy Education is also education of our social nature combined with education of our individual nature. Abraham Maslow said, "...intrinsic learning; that is, learning to be a human being in general...." It means what are we as a human being in general? What aspects do we all share? As Abraham Maslow called that 'our specieshood.' And he goes on to say, "...and second, learning to be this particular human being...." That each one of us is unique. Maslow likes to use the word 'idiosyncratic' to describe our uniqueness. Being unique is an inherent quality that we're born with. And it's a reflection of nature. For example, when you look at a tree, and compare it to another tree, even of the same species, you will see the trees have different shapes, different growth patterns. This is especially easy to see during winter, when all of the leaves have fallen off the trees. And you can just see their branches. And you can see that every tree that was ever created is unique, is different. And this is the same quality that exists within each one of us. So Emotional Literacy Education is where the student learns what particular kind of human being they are, and in which ways they're different from others. Because we have both. We have things that we share in common with others - that are our nature. And then we have our very nature itself, which we all share that creates within us a uniqueness, a specialty. That makes each one of us one-of-a-kind. And it's only through this awareness and understanding, do you begin to appreciate yourself. That you're the only one in the universe like you. I know that sounds a little bit like Mr. Rogers, but Mr. Rogers was a very insightful man. 005 The Old Education of Associative Learning 6:43 Abraham Maslow continues, "Certainly one thing I can tell you, our conventional education looks mighty sick." Maslow, throughout his work, defines sickness as a deficiency. Here he's referring to a deficiency in the conventional educational system. The deficiency that he's referring to, and which conventional education is missing, is intrinsic education - and along with it intrinsic learning. One of our innate qualities is the ability to learn. Therefore, each one of us has within us an innate quality and ability to learn. Emotional Literacy Education is also the education of the student in how to learn. What natural abilities they're born with. How to strengthen those abilities, and how to utilize those for learning. Learning itself is intrinsic. Is natural. Is what we're born with as a skill. If education is unrewarding, unpleasant, doesn't produce growth, then the student will learn that learning is unpleasant, difficult and doesn't produce growth. What we learn in the conventional education system is to hate learning, because what we learn has no meaning to our lives. It's imposed on us from the outside. And we are taught to perform tasks and skills which we will never use in life. So by the time we come to the end of our educational process, provided by the society, most people are turned off by education. And as adults the process of learning ends for them. It's our nature to avoid what's boring, what's unpleasant, what's fruitless, what's nonproductive - what doesn't help us to grow. The caveat is that the only way to grow, to learn new skills, to lift us up out of our current condition is through learning. That makes it a Catch-22. Emotional Literacy Education for adults is different than Emotional Literacy Education for children. That is, adults have to relearn the pleasure of learning. They have to find excitement in learning. There has to be a reward, an intrinsic reward. Something that they feel inside of them that is rewarding to them. Because if this process does not take place, then true learning will not be reactivated. If the student falls into the pattern of the habits that they learned through the traditional education system, then they will repeat the same boredom, and lack of reward which will cause them to abandon education in general, as adults, and specifically Emotional Literacy Education. So I want to emphasize that Emotional Literacy Education is not the old education of associative learning. It's not information that you must memorize, so that you can pass a test. In fact, it's not about providing you with information at all. It's about informing you about skills that you can acquire; mental skills, learning skills, need-fulfillment skills, relationship skills - but not facts, not information which would be useless in this kind of a process. Abraham Maslow continues, "Once you start thinking in this framework, that is, in terms of becoming a good human being, and if then you ask the question about the courses that you took in high school, 'How did my trigonometry course help me to become a better human being?' an echo answers, 'By gosh, it didn't!' In a certain sense, trigonometry was for me a waste of time." Emotional Literacy Education is the process of learning how to be a good human being. It's growing through learning how to be a good human being. It's learning what goodness is. Not externally or extrinsically, but what is good about being a human being? What qualities are we born with? What skills can we develop that move us toward our own personal good, and also toward the goodness of the society as a whole? What is good is what gets us what we need. What is efficient in providing our needs, that is what is good. Goodness is when we are successful, and the skills that we used to be successful. So Emotional Literacy Education is about acquiring the skills that make us successful in fulfilling our needs. 006 Mark Zimmerman's Experience with Education 8:35 What makes me qualified to talk about education? First, I spent many years in the educational system, and had its experiences. Second, as a child, I was a particularly good self-learner. So I lived in parallel worlds. The education that I was giving myself away from school paralleled the education that I was getting through the system. And by the time I was a junior in high school, I discovered that the twain shall never meet. That what they were teaching me in school was not helping me to become a better human being. It was helping me to be the kind of person that other people wanted me to become. And in the process it was destroying my own innate learning capabilities. And the collision of the two, I, as a student became more and more depressed. Spending my days in high school with courses that I knew were designed just to keep me there. After a certain age, when you learn how to read and write and do arithmetic, you have learned the basic and most important skills that the educational system can teach you. Then education splits off into two paths. Those who are bound for college, and those who are not. Most of education in high school is related to college prep courses. And the other path is vocational. Learning to be a carpenter. Learning to be a plumber. Learning to be an auto mechanic. Which are good skills, but they are extrinsic skills. Meaning that if you do not become an auto mechanic, or a carpenter, or plumber, or an electrician, somebody else will. And they will replace you. In a sense you're not needed, when you acquire those skills, because you can be replaced. They are just training you, enough of you to fill the roles, that are already there. The college-bound students get even less meaningful courses, like algebra, trigonometry, and they seem to just be designed to hold you over, and separate those that can do more complex mental tasks from those that can't. Thus, grading you, so that other people can assess you in your abilities for college related careers. By the time that I got to high school, I found a tremendous degradation in the quality of education. Insofar as it began to teach me skills that I didn't need. And the older I got, and the further into the educational system that I got, the less that I needed the skills that they were trying to teach me in school. To the point where they became meaningless as it related to me. I became so frustrated with the educational system in contrast to my own innate learning skills, which I was desperately trying to hold on to, because they were being destroyed by the conventional education system. Because they were not teaching me intrinsic learning. They were teaching me extrinsic learning. They were teaching me the skills that I needed to learn what they wanted me to know. And that was destroying my innate learning abilities - the ones that I was born with. Because I was not able to exercise them. And the frustration level in me became so great, that I left high-school at the end of my junior year. Not because I didn't want to learn. And now as an adult, and decades later, I can look back and see how learning is a lifelong adventure. And the adventure is growth through experience. It's only when we fail to keep learning, that our lives, where we are, become mundane. Because we keep repeating the same experiences. We can only have new experiences through learning, new perceptions, new ways of looking at the same old problems. Through learning and growth our perception of reality changes. Even if we don't travel. Even if we don't go anywhere. Therefore, it's like traveling, because it helps to make every day new. The educational system failed to teach them how to learn, and how to keep learning. Because education has very selfish motives. It's designed by politicians, who are influenced by corporations. Who then lobby lawmakers to pass laws that force the educational system to benefit the social group that we call corporations. So learning becomes this very narrow use of our abilities. And when that is repeated over and over, year after year, that little narrow part of the mind, which is called associative learning, primarily memorization, becomes strengthened. And all of our other abilities are weakened through a lack of exercise. And the mere learning through memory of repetition and memorizing is so dulling to the mind, so boring, so fruitless in what it produces, that we develop a natural aversion to learning. And this natural aversion, which we acquired in childhood, is carried with us throughout our entire lives. And our greatest, innate, intrinsic quality, the quality to learn, the thing that makes us what we are, our learning abilities, is destroyed in childhood by the educational system. So what Emotional Literacy Education for adults has to overcome is this lack of passion for learning. Emotional Literacy Education is going to awaken your passion once again for learning. It's not about an abstract subject which doesn't relate to you, and which doesn't matter in the end. Emotional Literacy Education will be interesting to you, because it's about you, and it's only about you. And all of the other techniques and tools that are used in the educational process, such as studying and learning about others, is just a tool to learn about yourself. Emotional Literacy Education will be interesting to you, because it is about the most important subject you will ever encounter, and that is yourself. Abraham Maslow said, " 'How did my trigonometry course help me to become a better human being?' An echo answers from inside him, 'By gosh, it didn't!' In a certain sense, trigonometry was for me a waste of time." 007 Home Work: Dictionary Look Up 0:50 The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition, synonyms that might be helpful for you to look up in the dictionary to get their definition for the word intrinsic are: "inward, internal, true, reality, essential, genuine, inherent, innate, natural, nature and real." A synonym that might be helpful in defining the word extrinsic is "exterior." Lesson 3: What Is Goodness? The following lecture is a demonstration of the use of the Emotional Literacy Language. The views expressed are examples designed to inspire the student to develop their own unique ideas, language and Emotional Literacy Skills, and are not intended to promote anyone's philosophy. 001 What Is Goodness? 10:39 In a 1997 interview from Mediadome.com®, Jewel Kilcher was asked, "What do you observe in the people you meet?" Jewel replied, "I notice everybody wants love, everybody wants to be known as basically good." "I just live my life, and I want to be a good person. I want to be happy. I want to have peace. I want to feel close to divinity, and those are things we all want." The singer-songwriter, Jewel, is very observant of human nature. She says, "I notice everybody wants love." And according to Maslow, love is one of our basic needs. She says, "Everybody wants to be known as basically good." That's because another one of our basic needs, according to Maslow, is self-esteem. We derive our self-esteem from others, when we're recognized as being good. What our educational system fails to teach us is how to be good. Or, at best, it teaches us a distorted version of what goodness is. Like all definitions that come from society, goodness is defined based upon the social good. What's good for the society. Where that fails is where it ultimately contradicts itself. One group within the society defines goodness one way, as it relates to their group. And then another group within the society defines goodness - as it relates to how it benefits them. And in that process we develop contradictory definitions of goodness, because what benefits one group may actually take away from another group. Therefore, what society tries to teach us is the good that benefits the group. And as it relates to the educational system, it benefits the particular group that's in political power at the time. So our definitions of being good fail us. Because while we think we're being good, as defined by one group; another group is tearing down our self-esteem, by telling us what we're doing is wrong, is bad, is detrimental. And it probably is insomuch as it relates to their group. It simply adds to the confusion of what goodness is. Everybody wants to be known basically as good. But what is good? What is good for the individual is good for all individuals. As if individuality were defined as a group. And we all belong to that group, because we are all by nature individuals - separate human beings. From that perspective defining what is good has a commonality to it. What's good for the individual is that which satisfies their needs. Skills that one develops towards need-fulfillment, and the subsequent success of satisfying a need - is what is basically good for the individual. Because an individual whose needs are not satisfied is a threat to all of us. It's in our thwarted needs that psychopathology, that neurosis develops. And these are detriments to everyone. A person who can satisfy their own needs is a good person. Insomuch as they are not threatening to others. Therefore, the basic satisfaction of needs for the individual creates and fosters the goodness of the society as a whole. It develops health for the society by reducing neurosis and psychopathology within the group. Our scariest encounters in the society come from a group, which shares some neurosis. And the root of all neurosis is the individual who can't satisfy a need. And when this becomes manifested as a group neurosis, it becomes strengthened by the fact it is shared amongst many people. Which can endanger other groups and individuals. The best examples that I can give of group neurosis, that became a detriment to the society, to the individual, to groups within the society, and the world as a whole, was the evolution of the Nazi Party in Germany and Communism under Stalin in Russia. When the individual is not taught how to be good, is unable to fulfil a basic human need in themselves, the frustration of the individual can become a cancerous hatred, as we saw in Adolf Hitler. Or, an out of control paranoia that we saw in Joseph Stalin. When enough people in the society share the same neurosis, they can mass together in groups, and vent their frustration out on their own people - within their own society. They can be strong enough to challenge other nations to draw them into war. Such that we're all made to suffer. What happened in Germany, and what happened in Russia, happened again in Cambodia in the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge. It happened in the last decade in Rwanda, where 750,000 people were hacked to death. So this condition didn't end with the Nazis. It didn't end with the death of Stalin. It didn't cease because communism failed as an economic system. Because the condition of man remains exactly the same. There is no education to teach people how to be good. And Jewel Kilcher says, "Everybody wants to be known as basically good." Society always comes from the past. The rules for a social group always come from the past. And up until this time in history, we haven't dealt with an educational system which teaches the student how to be good. We're left with a legacy of being compelled to join social groups and organizations that are fundamentally self-invested, of self-interest, selfish self-interest. Which is designed only to benefit the group to which you belong. That kind of social technology just sets up competition between social groups. In which the game is fighting and war. Whoever wins, wins all. This is the learning pattern that we are molded into. Which is self-contradictory regarding the individual becoming good. When you're forced to participate in a social group, which is essentially not concerned with your needs; and helping you to fulfill your needs, or helping you to develop skills so that you can fulfill your own needs; when the social group is concerned only with fulfilling its own group needs, the needs of the individual are ignored. Through that process of not caring about the needs of the individual, the individual's needs go unfulfilled. They become frustrated. That frustration grows into hatred. And it's almost as if at that point you're now ready to be a part of the group. 002 The Thwarted Needs of the Individual 7:10 I've always wondered, if Adolf Hitler, as a youth, if he had been accepted into the school of art in Vienna in which he applied, if the whole Nazi thing would have never happened? He applied at an art school, and he was not accepted. His basic fundamental need was thwarted. He saw himself as an artist. He wanted to develop his artistic skills. And if he had been able to follow his passion, if he had spent his days in front of a canvas, painting, rather than developing his political acumen, we may never have seen World War II. What Hitler experienced is what we all experience. The frustration of having our needs thwarted, unsatisfied. The pain builds up inside of us. We become bitter, angry, frustrated. And in some people it can evolve into such a level as to become destructive. And in the case of Adolf Hitler, there was such a group frustration in Germany, that he became the embodiment of German poverty, German frustration, German anger. Which was partially the result of the armistice, that was imposed after World War I. I have often wondered, if that one moment in history, would have been changed, if Adolf Hitler had simply been accepted into art school. But we have a society that hates the individual, disregards the needs of the individual. And in its place supplants the needs of the social group - whatever social group. And the need of the social group of the Nazi Party became the destruction of the Jewish race. And this is what I'm defining as group neurosis. Which evolved out of the frustration of the Germans, and became a group neurosis. And was manifested in the destruction of the Jews of Europe, and the war with France and Russia and Poland and Great Britain and the United States. So when the society turns a blind eye to the individual, they fail to recognize the damage that they're doing to themselves. The wrath that is going to come upon them, through the thwarting of the needs. And it happens over and over and over. And some of those people, who are particularly susceptible to neurosis, yet at the same time have a particular skill, as Adolf Hitler did, he was a good speaker. They can use such a skill to create havoc for all of us. What he did was he took his skill, and he combined it with his hatred, and his frustration, and expressed for the German people what they were all feeling, and brought them together as a group into a group neurosis. And through that he caused devastation and destruction to much of humanity. And we have a very similar, yet for which I don't know the exact details of Stalin's neurosis, his paranoia. It still led to the death of 20 million Russians through starvation, labor camps and imprisonment. And in which he continuously threatened the rest of the world with his military and nuclear weapons. That the only way to prevent this kind of social neurosis, which is far more dangerous than the neurosis of the pathology of the individual, the only way to prevent it is we have to care about the needs of the individual. And provide them with an educational system, that shows them how to satisfy their needs. By preventing the build up of frustration in the individual, ultimately, we're preventing the buildup of the frustration within the social group. Who is the most dangerous, because they can generate the most destructive power. So if you want to fix the society, you have to think about fixing the individual. Ignoring the individual, allowing neurosis to build up, frustration to build up within the individual, not giving them a satisfactory life, is a danger to all of us. What I find contradictory in the psychology of the social group, is that they see the individual as the greatest threat to the society. But from this perspective, it's not the individual who's a threat to the society. From this perspective it's the neurotic society which is a threat to itself, to other groups within the society. And the first person that they go after is the weakest person. Because of their neurosis, they go after the weakest in the society first. Just like the Nazis went after the Jews, because they were a minority within their country. The society picking on the weakest first, in its neurosis, goes out to destroy, goes out to conquer, goes out to kill. The biggest threat to society is not the individual. The biggest threat to society is the neurosis of the social group, because it is far stronger than the neurosis of any one single individual. Yet, they're interrelated. If you don't solve the problems of the individual, and their frustration, they will use the social instinct to form groups, which become destructive to the society itself. 003 How We Become Happy 5:28 Jewel Kilcher continues, "I just live my life and I want to be a good person." It is a basic fundamental need of all of us. Because when we are good, we feel good. When we feel good, we do good. When we do good, we're recognized as being good. And when we're recognized as being good, we get self-esteem. And that's what we teach in Emotional Literacy Education. Not a specific dogma about what goodness is, but about a set of skills that teach the student how to satisfy the desires. How to fulfil their needs. How to avoid frustration. How to be fulfilled as a human being. Rather than frustrated and empty, as the result of a society that makes every attempt to get for itself, and accumulate for itself. She continues, "I want to be happy." It's a simple observation. Everybody wants to be happy. And how we become happy is by acquiring a set of skills, that helps us to get what we need. Then, we experience satisfaction. And through the skills themselves, there's a certain sense of happiness. A certain sense of joy that comes with the performance of a skill that gets you what you need. So goodness is not a dogma, or a set of beliefs. You are good if you do this, and you are bad if you do that, never has brought a single human being to any kind of happiness. Because that's associative learning. That's being told by the society. And memorizing what the society tells us. That if we do such and such a good thing, we are good. And that if we do such and such a thing, we are bad. But it fails because the person isn't acquiring the skills to satisfy their needs. Jewel continues, "I want to have peace." Peace is feeling satisfied. For example, when we become hungry, food is the object. We say that we need food. Food is the need, but hunger is the drive. Hunger is the displeasure. Hunger is the annoyance. Hunger is the irritation. That effects us physically, and it affects us emotionally. Have you ever noticed that when you become hungry, which is a physical feeling, emotionally you change. And you become grumpy. You become irritable. So emotions are connected to physiological conditions. And it's skills that we have to acquire, so that we can manage our needs. When we are hungry, we need to eat. And it's a simple, most basic need. But it's an example of when, after you eat, the hunger, the discomfort goes away, and you feel satisfied. And in a sense there is a minutia of peace that goes along with that. A minutia of satisfaction. So these are the skills. These are the goals of Emotional Literacy Education. To teach the skills that help people to satisfy their own needs. Jewel continues, "I want to feel close to divinity, and those are things we all want." Those are things that we all need. Some things that we want, we can actually do without. And what Maslow clearly teaches, what Maslow has discovered, as a scientist, and as a psychologist, is that we all have needs. Things that we can't live without. That if we do live without them, we become neurotic. We become frustrated. We burn inside - seethe, ache. And it builds up in the human psyche. And it seeks an outward expression. And that outward expression maybe alcoholism. It may be suicide. It may be the compulsion to form a neurotic group, who vents its frustration on other people who are weaker than them, like the Nazi Party. It's all connected. So these are things that we all need. 004 Human Education 6:36 In his book, The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, Abraham Maslow wrote, "If one took a course or picked up a book on the psychology of learning, most of it, in my opinion, would be beside the point - that is, beside the 'humanistic' point. Most of it would present learning as the acquisition of associations, of skills and capacities that are external and not intrinsic to the human character, to the human personality, to the person himself." From The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, by Abraham Maslow, page 162, 1st paragraph. The main point that Maslow is trying to make, in the first sentence, is that the current education system is being implemented and taught from a very particular, and in my opinion, a very narrow point of view. And that point of view comes from the society, and how it looks upon the student. And the educational values, for the educational system, comes from a very basic human instinct of selfishness. Because what the society is asking is, "What can the student do for me? What can I make the student become, so that it will benefit me, the society." And Maslow is pointing out, that there are other points of view. Different questions a person can ask from which they will get a different type of educational system. The point of view from which Maslow is approaching the question about education is the humanistic point of view. The root word of humanistic is human - human education. What is it that the human needs to know to survive? Since Maslow concerns himself with survival as the fulfillment of human needs. And since he defines human needs in a hierarchical fashion, where he states that when one need presents itself, then the organism seeks to satisfy that need. And when that need is satisfied, another need emerges. And from this perspective, we have a hierarchical succession of needs. That are also related to our own personal growth and happiness. First, we've satisfied the simpler needs. And then the more complex needs. Which produce greater happiness and satisfaction. Which require greater skill to satisfy or to accomplish. Then, we have a system of needs which is perpetually challenging our growth. And that's what it means to be human. Abraham Maslow wrote, "If one took a course or picked up a book on the psychology of learning, most of it, in my opinion, would be beside the point - that is, beside the 'humanistic' point." From The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition, a dictionary definition for the word 'humanism' is "A system of thought that centers on human beings and their values, capacities and worth." "Humanism," the dictionary says, "concerns with the interests, needs and welfare of human beings." There are two fundamental ways to define what a human is. One way is to define a human in their social context. What group they belong to. What culture they belong to. What religion they belong to. The other way, to define a human being, is simply to ask the question, "What is a human being?" And when we ask that question, we find out that the socialization of the human is just one aspect of the human being. The way education is currently setup, it teaches that the human is a part of the society, rather than the other way around. In which being a social creature is only a part of being human. So all education is directed towards socialization - to make the person conform to the society. Humanism is a system of thought that centers on the human being, as an individual; and what capacities, what abilities, what values are innate inside them. There was a time in history when people believed that the sun revolved around the Earth. And it was a fallacy based upon a lack of knowledge. Education is a system that's based upon the false idea that the individual revolves around the society. That the individual doesn't matter. What's important is the society. What's insignificant, what is replaceable by birth, and through education, is the individual. 005 Associative Learning Is Extrinsic Education 7:48 Maslow states, "...most of it...would present learning as the acquisition of associations, of skills and capacities that are external and not intrinsic to the human character, to the human personality, to the person himself." Most of it, the educational system, presents learning as the acquisition of associations. Which is not a way of acquiring knowledge. Knowledge is based upon experience. Most of current education today is based upon the memorization of facts, and those facts are remembered by a process of association. For the most part, the acquisition of information by association provides us with facts. That we memorize and soon forget. Spending time memorizing these things, that we don't use and that we forget; because it's just a memory that's not used. And when memories aren't used, they're lost. What you have is wasted time, wasted energy. Time that could have been spent growing. Learning is wasted, because then we later forget those facts. Because those facts were useless, and didn't provide us with any benefit. He continues, "Most of it would present learning as the acquisition of associations, of skills and capacities that are external and not intrinsic to the human character...." The skills that we are taught in school are taught to us to benefit the society. That's their primary function. As a secondary result, it benefits the individual. How that is seen clearly - is that if you pursue a vocation, and acquire a skill, that society sees as valueless to it, then they will make sure, that skill that you have, has no benefit to you. So they're not concerned about your happiness, your health, or your mental well-being. The society is largely driven by fear. It tries to teach the individual the things that will benefit it. And that will keep it alive, even if those things that are keeping the society alive are detrimental to the health, to the safety and the well-being of the individual. For example, the mining, the manufacturing, the distribution, the creation of asbestos products, this benefited the group. This benefited the corporations who made a profit from asbestos. Even though they knew it was detrimental to the worker, and to the end user of that product. Yet, the profit motive is always the justification that it is benefiting the group, if it makes a profit. And that is enough of a value to the society, to the group, to the corporation, to justify the loss of a few workers. Or, the ill health of a few workers, or a lot of workers, or, all of the workers. Profit supersedes individual safety, individual health and well-being. In that sense one could say exactly how the profit motive is used. And the way in which the profit motive is used - is the justification and the validation of the health of the group, that we call the corporation. If it fits, and if it matches that criteria, then all other criteria are disregarded. And this is the power group within the society, that sets the educational goals. So they will teach you skills, that are designed to benefit their particular group, the health of the group, the safety of the group. But when it comes down to the individual's safety, the individual's health, it's disregarded as long as their criteria of profit is met. So not only are the skills that we're taught external to us, that they don't represent our nature. They represent the nature of the external society or group and its safety, and its welfare. So what they teach us is non-essential, not intrinsic, not of our nature. It's certainly not intrinsic to human nature, or human character, or human personality, or to the person himself, Maslow says. Humanism, the dictionary says, "Concerns with the interests, needs and welfare of human beings." Emotional Literacy Education is looking at education from a different perspective. And that perspective is the health and the welfare of the human being. From the point of view of asking a very simple question, and that is, "What does this particular human being need to survive? What do they need to be satisfied? What do they need to have happiness?" And from that perspective, needs become an important part of education. The skills that people need to acquire, to fulfil their own needs, becomes a major focus of Emotional Literacy Education. All physiological needs, safety needs, relationship needs, self-esteem needs, self-actualization needs - are all required for the welfare of the human being. 006 An Outline of Mankind's Problems 7:49 In his book, The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, Abraham Maslow wrote, "Such a goal involves very serious shifts in what we would teach in a course in the psychology of learning. It is not going to be a matter of associative learning. Associative learning in general is certainly useful, extremely useful for learning things that are of no real consequence, or for learning means - techniques which are after all interchangeable....It is important and useful, especially in a technological society. But in terms of becoming a better person, in terms of self-development and self-fulfillment, or in terms of 'becoming fully human,' the greatest learning experiences are very different." From The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, by Abraham Maslow, page 163, 2nd paragraph. It is obvious from an analysis of society, and its unsolvable problems, its unsolved problems, that society itself needs a very serious shift. As human population expands, we multiply the unsolved problems. Which range from poverty to nuclear weapons. Most of the world, and its people, live in poverty. And now even the most impoverished nations are acquiring nuclear weapons. The society has tried to solve its problems through the old methods of politics, through corporate structures, through education, and through psychology - among others. What we've learned is that our problems are growing - not diminishing. We're not solving our problems through these methods. We seem to be increasing them. There is a lack of restraint on the part of politicians, corporations, the military establishment, and its pursuit of the most destructive weapons that science and imagination can provide. In the last century we only upped the ante on our problems. Before the last century, we didn't have to face nuclear weapons. We didn't have to face the myriad of drug addictions. And now we have new addictions including entertainment through television. It has become a mass addiction. Because it distracts us from ourselves. It keeps us occupied. It keeps us from growing. It keeps us from learning, when we use it as a substitute for growth - for learning. And corporations are very clever in creating designer foods. Which Western culture has become addicted to. And its led to diabetes and the health problems caused by obesity. The majority of Americans now are overweight. These are problems that didn't exist in the century before. And they are problems which are more profound, and more difficult to solve, than the ones we had in the previous century. And I would like to add, as one of the major problems, mankind's great reproductive capacity. And how its straining resources, overpopulating the earth. And when you combine this overpopulation with Western culture; and the consumption of natural resources, and the burning of fossil fuels - to produce those products, you have a depletion of the natural resources, and a destruction of the environment through over fishing, through mass cultivation, through logging. American rivers are all polluted. The greatest fresh water resource in the world, the Great Lakes, they're all polluted. The air is polluted. The ground is polluted. The very foundation of our survival is threatened by our own uncontrolled emotions. Which are a drive for happiness, but have gotten diverted into uncontrolled and unrestricted and undisciplined human behavior. Which seems to be bent on a self-destruct mode. These things are accelerating. As nations like India and China begin to adopt the ways of Western culture. Which science already knows, that if China and/or India, consumes as much fossil fuel, and drives as many cars - as a ratio of the American population does, it will be more than this planet can handle. From an environmental perspective we know all these things. It's convenient for some politicians, who represent the corporations; who are doing the polluting, who are acting irresponsibly, who don't have any self-discipline, whose only concern is profit - to deny problems exist. It's convenient for them to say there's no global warming. It's convenient for them to deny the destruction of the planet as a whole, because they're the ones responsible for doing it. And they take no responsibility. And the easiest way is to deny. The ultimate irony here is that it's not what we do - that is becoming such a threat to humanity, but rather it's how we do it. It's the undisciplined way in which we do it. It's a lack in our ability to control our own emotions, our own selfishness, our own greed. It's not what we do. It's how we do it in an unrestrained, uncaring, unknowing way. 007 Social Neurosis and Associative Learning 16:00 Abraham Maslow wrote, "Such a goal involves very serious shifts in what we would teach in a course in the psychology of learning." Maslow believed in education. He came to understand that psychology was treating the sick, who were made sick by the society. And when people become neurotic, psychology can ease their neurosis. But it's very difficult to erase the habits learned in childhood and adolescence and young adulthood. Because these are the formative years. And once those neurological networks are setup, it's extremely difficult to change them. They become patterns of behavior, patterns of emotion, patterns of thought, that have a physical counterpart in the brain. A physical structure that has to be changed - a rewiring of the neurological networks of the brain. This is extremely difficult to change in adults. Because it's somewhat painful to change patterns, which have arisen as the result of our thwarted needs. Of which the society itself is responsible. So the cause of neurosis is the society, because it makes no effort to fulfill the needs of children. It makes a half-hearted attempt at filling the needs of children. On the radar screen of society, children are the smallest blip. And the society of adults is the largest blip. And these adults take care of their own needs at the expense of the weakest in the society, at the expense of children. And by doing so, setup a condition in which these children, into adolescence and into adulthood, are unable to satisfy their needs. And therefore, they become neurotic. Dependent upon alcohol, drugs, television and cigarettes in an effort to find happiness. To experience a little pleasure which society thwarts. It becomes a vicious circle of the adults ignoring children, and satisfying themselves. And what you have is a population of children who don't know how to satisfy their needs. Because they are not educated in need-fulfillment. And when this group of children, who do not know how to satisfy their needs become adults, out of their neurosis in an unskilled attempt to satisfy their needs, they repeat what their parents did. Which is to ignore the needs of children - in a desperate effort to fulfill their own needs. So you create a vicious cycle. Maslow uses the word very serious shifts in what we would teach in a course in the psychology of learning. Maslow continues, "It is not going to be a matter of associative learning." It has to be something totally different in the field of education, than we have known in the past. And he's making a declarative statement. Associative learning, the normal educational process, that we go through, doesn't fulfill the needs of man, except for food, clothing and shelter. But that's only successful in Western culture. It doesn't solve the mass poverty in which the rest of the world is not even able to satisfy their most basic needs, their physiological needs. The system that corporations have developed is not very successful in either lifting up the Third World in their need-fulfillment of food, clothing and shelter. Nor is it fulfilling the needs of the whole human in the Western culture. No matter how many billions of dollars we spend on the military, and on the police, our safety needs are still not met. We fear crime. We fear terrorism. We fear the Russians' own lack of control over their nuclear arsenal. We fear a burgeoning China. We fear rouge states, like North Korea in their acquisition of nuclear weapons. So Western culture, though for a small percentage of the world's population, satisfies the basic physiological needs. Which is the lowest level of our human nature. The second level, our safety needs, it doesn't even solve that problem. Money does not solve our safety needs. The only thing that's going to solve our safety needs, if we create human beings which don't threaten each other. So Maslow says it's not going to be a matter of associative learning. He continues, "Associative learning in general is certainly useful extremely useful for learning things that are of no real consequence." Why does he say, "of no real consequence?" It's because if our goal is to be safe, what we're learning in school, and what ultimately becomes the social structure, does not fulfil that need. We are still frightened. And politicians who panic, who are afraid themselves, instill fear in the rest of the population. So I can state that associative learning sets up a culture in which we have skills, that help us to satisfy the needs for food, clothing and shelter. But it does nothing to pacify our fear. Because we are threatened by each other. 11,000 Americans, every year, are murdered by handguns. It's the highest rate of murder by handguns in the entire world. Our hostility toward one another, our mistrust of each other, our fear of each other cannot be solved by putting more policemen on the street, or spending more money on the military. Those do not address the basic, fundamental cause of our fear. Which is a condition. Which we setup for ourselves. We're not threatened by lions or wild animals. We're threatened by each other. If we simply learned how not to be threatening to each other, there would be no need for fear. We cause fear in each other. So associative learning is of no real consequence beyond the satisfaction of food, clothing and shelter - as needs of the human condition. The second need in the hierarchy of needs, invented by Maslow, is the safety needs. And associative learning does not create a culture which feels safe with itself. Rather it builds large social groups, which act like bullies. And whose primary function is intimidation. We can never be safe, as an emotion, as a feeling of safety, through associative learning, because it simply does not address the problems. Maslow says that, "Associative learning is extremely useful for learning means, techniques which are after all interchangeable." As I've stated, the society functions like a machine, and the human being is treated like a cog in the machine. And the child, the student, is formed through associative learning. Molded and shaped into a type of cog, into a type of gear that fits someplace into the machine. And the society treats that person like a thing, like an object, like a tool, like a device. And all tools, all devices, all gears can be replaced. We treat other human beings as replaceable, as not unique, as not individual. We setup the society so that people are replaceable. We setup the society, so that a person has no real value beyond how they fit into the machine. And when you no longer fit, or when they change the machine, they simply discard you. Just the very notion that you're treated as a part in a machine, that when you wear out, you can be replaced by an identical part. That's how associative learning molds people into what to become. Just a part in a bin somewhere, that can be pulled out from a collection of similar parts, and placed into the machine, easily replaced. They just order a new part. So we learn techniques which are after all interchangeable. Maslow says. "It is important and useful especially in a technological society." It is a society which is only concerned with the machine, with the mechanism, producing parts out of human beings to fit into the technological machine. Computers are just machines. Every part of our technological society is just a machine. From the abacus to the geared clock to the steam engine to the first computers - are just all machines. The computer on your desktop may not look like a machine, but it is. It's just the new machine, the more consolidated machine. Where the parts are smaller. And the human beings are taught skills which fit us into the technology of how to use these machines. And they have improved our lives, but on such a low level that we then end up existing at. Our belies are full. We get enough water, and we have a roof over our heads. But deep down we feel the emptiness of our other needs not being met; our safety needs, our relationship and love needs, our self-esteem needs and our self-actualization needs. Maslow says, "It is important and useful especially in a technological society." And the problem with the technological society is that it has no self-discipline. It has no control over its own technology. The United States was unable to control the nuclear weapon that it created