MOOC MOOC Day 1

I'm joining a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course).  This is a first for me.  Normally, I'm a lurker, but, I want to learn more about contemporary teaching pedagogy.  In higher education, this seems to be how the playing field is shifting: more access to more information for more people. (I dream to see this information be accessible to everyone, regardless of socio-economic status, but this may be a while away).

I am involved in contemporary education thanks to my interest in/study and practice of alternative, mostly experiential, education and my connection with the Rangjung Yeshe Institute and their Online Learning program.  I join this MOOC with the intention to expand my understanding of how we, with our limited resources, can best create the opportunities for people to find our online courses, and get the most out of them.

This RSAnimate video is one I've seen before, but this context has made it all the more pertinent.  Hunches need a little help from their friends sometimes, and what a way to do it with this incredible, addictive tool we have in the 21st century. It convinced me to jump on board this journey and engage rather than lurk.

More to come - let's see how this first MOOC goes for me.  I look forward to networking with any and all who are interested in similar topics!

RSA Animate - The Empathic Civilisation

Assumptions we've created based on our educational, economic, and political institutions may be wrong.  Our identities or where we feel we "belong" has shifted over the course of human civilization based on arbitrary outward situations.  i.e. the "fiction" called the nationstate, religious affiliation, blood ties.

Empathy is the opposite of utopia - there is no mortality or suffering in utopia.  Empathy is based on frailty and imperfections: the ability to show solidarity with other humans, other creatures, and our biosphere.

"Mirror Neurons" are proving empathetic capacity - humans are softwired for belonging, attachment, sociability rather than aggression and selfishness.

Is it possible to extend our empathy to the entire human race?  the other creatures we share this biosphere with?  and the biosphere itself?

To Empathize is to Civilize. 

RSA Animate - Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us

Anil showed this in class the other day to highlight the concept of proper motivation in the workplace and to pose the question, "is there a proper motivation in the workplace?" The model presented here which is replicated in many places is -
1. Autonomy
2. Mastery of Skill
3. Purpose

He compared things to the Buddha's life in terms of the 8fold path.

Secret Powers of Time

Past Oriented - 1. past positive - focus on the 'good old times' 2. past negative - focus on regret/failure
Present Oriented - 1. Hedonistic - live for pleasure avoid pain.  2. My life is fated (by religion, poverty) Fatalism
Future Oriented - 1. We've learned to work rather than play, and avoid temptation.  2. Life begins after the death of the mortal body.

shared time perspectives characterize nations ---  culture too?

The Geography of Time - Robert Levine
Pace of Life - Time Perspective - How people divide their experiences into partitions
Time Duration - are you bored?  are you excited?

Different cultures have a different pace of life.

Education? Purpose of school is to make present-oriented beasts into future oriented adults (some cultures make them past-oriented).


Kids need to be in a situation where they feel like they are controling something (video games...)
all of our educational systems are designed toward future-oriented kids, yet, they already know the cultural time perspectives - future-oriented kids succeed in school as we have it set up.  How to teach present-oriented kids?

Kids are totally different than we were - revolution of time.

"Many of life's puzzles can be solved simply by understanding our own time perspective, and the time perspective of others.  Conflict we have with other people is simply conflict we have with each other's time perspectives.  Once we're aware of that, we stop making negative attributions like 'you're dumb' or 'you're childish' or 'you're pig-headed' or 'you're authoritarian'.  It's really the most simple idea in the world."

RSA Animate - The Secret Powers of Time