Keeping The Spirit

May the spirit be with you.

'Tis the season for the spirit. In every long checkout line, in every overbooked airplane and every crowded terminal, the spirit lurks. In every late package and truly ugly lawn decoration, the spirit hides. Even in department store music and television holiday specials, the spirit is somehow there. Tis the season for the spirit.

What is the spirit? The spirit is the feeling of completion found when losing oneself in others. It is the joy of giving and it is the release and relief from taking. It is acceptance of others and of self.

The spirit resides beneath the surface, beneath the veneer, beneath the crusty outer shell, hidden away. It hibernates during the long year, trundling into its dark cave after New Year's Day to remain dormant until December comes around again. Then it emerges. That is the season of the spirit.

You may not feel that the spirit is with you, even in this season of the spirit. December brings even more stress, even more deadlines, even more obligations than the rest of the year. Christmas and Hanukkah celebrations require more planning and organizing and emotional challenges than ever. It is the season to compete even harder, to surpass your neighbor's decorations, to give the greatest gifts, to throw the best party, to appear the most generous. And it is also a time for end of year deadlines, for the approaching end of the tax year, for those difficult financial and personal assessments. It is the season for completion, the time to finish lagging projects, to make last minute investments, to pass a last minute national health bill, to try to save the globe. Yet it is also the season for the spirit.

Somehow, the spirit finds us. Long ago this time of year was set aside for the spirit and despite all the obstacles that we have increasingly placed in its path, it still somehow finds us. It finds us when we wish it to find us and where we expect it to find us. When we go to our place of worship, it will find us. When we perform acts of random kindness, it will find us. When we give generously of our time, talent, and wealth to those who need us, it will find us. And when we need it, then, too, it will find us.

After 9/11, the spirit found us. This was a spirit of togetherness, of renewed appreciation for one another, of compassion and generosity. The crusty veneer was briefly removed, the protective skin was pulled away, the spirit emerged from hibernation. There was connectedness, unity. And then, gradually, we let it trundle back to its cave. We are not practiced in keeping the spirit with us.

The spirit brings us together, but we need to be trained in keeping the spirit. Like the writer's muse, it is born out of practice. Like music, it is known through expression. Our children need to learn it in their schools and we need to practice it in our homes and our work place. Congress needs to release itself from self interest and practice it. Leaders around the world need to practice it to save the earth. We mustn't let it slip away.

Each December brings a clean slate, a new opportunity to find the spirit and then the challenge to try to keep it.

May the spirit be with you. And may you keep it with you all year long.

What is it Really About?

A recent post by Jeffrey Sachs reprinted in the Huffington Post included the following warning:
"Greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere continue to mount, and will do so for years or decades to come. The Wall Street Journal, America's biggest circulation paper, rails each day against climate science. Backroom deals in the U.S. Congress with industrial lobbies threaten to eviscerate already watered-down proposals for limiting carbon emissions. A vote on the U.S. legislation has been postponed till next spring at the earliest, and a similar bill has just been defeated in Australia. The truth is that even if we reach a political agreement, we're not yet on track to achieve practical, significant and sustained progress. "

I have concerns about the increasing effectiveness of delaying tactics and disinformation efforts. I try to have faith that ultimately the American people will see these for what they are and make their own choices and act accordingly. And the choice, simply, is to take steps individually and collectively to clean up our own mess on the planet, or not.

In the end, the "debate" over global climate change must devolve into one of character and morality. Stripped to its most basic form, the arguments fall between those who on the one hand would do all they can to preserve some quality of life for those who follow versus those on the other who can not or will not relinquish any material possessions or comfort from the life they now live because that future does not involve them. For the latter, the only remaining solution is to rationalize away reality and to pretend that there really are choices.

This global conundrum has been played out in microcosm on the rather innocuous pages of an unlikely source, the Costco Connection magazine. Costco undertook to volume-sell Al Gore's new book, "Your Choice". To maximize its promotion, the publishers placed Gore's picture on the front cover of the Costco Connection and published a piece by Gore as one of the magazine's product-hyping features. In addition, (and this was probably the last straw for many consumers), the Editor of the magazine wrote a column in which he attempted to reconcile the diverse thinking of Gore and Glenn Beck, whose paid advertisement had been included in the publication as well. The response was immediate and furious. So much so, that Costco backpedaled immediately in the next issue with an apology from the editor, two pages of reprints of the emails received, and a half page article supporting "the other side of the issue" as demanded by one of the emailer s, succumbing not just to the demand, but even to the degree of choosing the 'denial scientist' of the writer's choice, the well known climate skeptic, Fred Singer! The import of most of the e-mails seemed to be, "Stick to selling products and leave politics to the politicians". Wouldn't we love to organize our lives as neatly as our iPhones, with apps for food and home products over here, politics over there, religion on the weekends, and…oh,yes!…the polluting of our living environment way over there (we wouldn't have to go there much…)! And when the chips were down, Costco, a company I have come to admire for many other reasons, reversed its ground in the interests of commerce and reneged on what had started out to be a remarkably courageous and constructive role modeling for grassroots America.

This is a conflict with ethical roots, no different to my mind than the actions of lenders and bankers during the mortgage crisis, where there was no perception of wrong-doing because there was no effort to determine if anyone was being wronged.

"The fight against global warming isn't a fight to maintain the status quo. The status quo isn't ours to keep. Change is coming. The planet adjusts, always, and so must we." Marq de Villiers (The End)

The planet, as de Villiers says, will do what it has always done, but we have a choice. Why not leave a cleaner planet for our children and our children's children?

Thoughts on Helena Christensen's Blog

Helena Christensen's recent thoughts about the impact of the warming global climate on her mother country of Peru published in Huffington Post on Friday November 20 touched a nerve. I have climbed in years past in the Sierra Blanca range north of Lima, where each massif of lordly peaks must be acquired by traveling down a long half-pipe of a valley rimmed on the east by the glistening reflective white of the Sierra Blanca and on the west by the barren light-absorbent summits of the Sierra Negro. To climb the high peaks, it was necessary to ascend the abrupt 1000 ft wall on steep, switch backed roads to the floor of the 'quebrada', the narrow canyons within the cluster of high peaks formed like toboggan chutes aimed at the valley below. Even when I was climbing there 15 years ago, each quebrada held a reservoir of water contained only by an earthen dam formed from the glacial moraine. The size of the reservoir, and the consequent pressure upon the natural dam, corresponded to the rate of melt of the glacier that fed it. Even then, disastrous floods and mudslides into the valley below were not uncommon, including the burial of an entire town. Helena's words about the particular vulnerability of Peru's high altitude regions and the economic hardships the people must face ring true, and any climber can assure you of the rapid rate of snow and glacier melt on the high peaks of the Sierra Blanca by its impact on the 'classic' and long standing climbing routes which are no longer climbable or forever changed because of it. Helena waits with bated breath for an outcome from the global environmental climate conference in Copenhagen that few even remember is about to happen. And after the meeting we will probably go comfortably back to forgetting again, after a smaller than usual spate of dire predictions and concerns expressed in the media, increasingly hamstrung by the dying of newspapers. It is only human for us to do this, because the nature of the impending global disaster is such that suffering occurs not universally but regionally, such as in high altitude Peru or the desert regions of Africa or the tundras of Alaska. To the inhabitants of these regions, it is global disaster. To those of us inhabiting areas not yet impacted, it is a news bite. And unless gasoline disappears, or potable water can't be acquired, or our home is flooded, it is easy to assume the mantle of business as usual.

What is EQ and Why Do We Need It?

This week the unbelievable occurred. A fifteen year old girl was gang raped by 6 or 7 young men while another dozen or more watched, laughed, and took photos. This act was not committed by a street gang in LA but by a group of students attending a homecoming dance at the local high school in Richmond, California.
Lessons that teach children to 'get along with your neighbor' have always been high on the agenda at preschools. During the next several grade levels social skills continue to be an integral part of school lessons until a baseline of acceptable group behavior is reached. After that, the time spent specifically on interpersonal skills begins to fade to make room for areas of academic intelligence; reading, writing, and arithmetic. But are schools truly preparing a young person for a fulfilling and useful life by neglecting emotional and social skills in later years?
Daniel Goleman brought this subject to the nation's attention in 1995 in his book, "Emotional Intelligence". He wondered why some students with high IQ's did not succeed in school as well as others less gifted intellectually. And why talented adults sometimes fail where less talented adults succeed. He concluded that education cannot be accomplished in the abstract but requires a balance of emotional and intellectual skill sets. This work set the stage for a new look at the acquisition of a full set of necessary human capabilities including self-awareness, self-discipline, and empathy, disciplines for regulating emotion termed 'emotional intelligence', or EQ. These capabilities are not set at birth, but must be nurtured and developed. A comprehensive life skills curriculum that included EQ skills would likely have prevented the tragic incident at Richmond High.
A successful EQ curriculum is developmental and chronologically allied with brain and biological maturation. Those major transition times of childhood, passing into grade school and again into junior high or middle school, and the traumatic yet critical entry into puberty, are crucial times for emotional and social lessons. The emotional effects of these passages, if particularly distressful, can echo and re-echo down life's future corridors. An EQ based life skills curriculum will establish both a realistic anticipatory understanding and a framework of behavior expectations in advance of the development of the actual cognitive capabilities that follow puberty and that will allow informed decision making in the future.
Empathy, that 'sense of other', and the self-awareness from which it stems are the building blocks of civilization and the humanity that holds it together. Who would wish their child to react to inhuman acts such as beatings and rape with laughter and photo taking? Who would not prefer their child to use that same phone to dial 911 and to raise a cry of distress? But such a culture does not develop naturally; schools must become actively involved in developing curriculums that shape the culture. In the words of the song from South Pacific, “They must be carefully taught!”.

What Brain Research Means to Us by Rich Gamble

The esoteric world of neuroscience may hold more practical significance for all of us than we suspect. Within the last two decades, thanks to visual clues supplied by MRI and PET scans, researchers have dramatically increased their knowledge of how the brain learns. And what they have found is of vital importance to us as parents and teachers.

The old adages, such as “Spare the rod and spoil the child” and “All work and no play make Jack a dull boy” seem to have a scientific basis, at least in part. In fact, brain scientists have found that many intuitive educational methods used parents over the years are based in sound practice. But researchers are also finding that other practices may be harmful, or at best ineffective.

Take learning a language, for example. Traditionally, children have learned the language of the home from birth and later attempting to learn a second language in elementary school or even in high school or college. But researchers have found that the ‘window’ for natural language assimilation is open from infancy to age seven or so, after which time language learning occurs in a distinctly different neural system. Naturally bilingual children have learned both languages within the early time window and store both in the same neural system. In fact, it appears that some aspects of language learning, particularly inflection and pitch, may actually happen in the womb.

And there appears to be a strong relationship between exercise and brain function. For ‘Jack’ not to be a dull ‘boy’, according to John Ratey, MD, author of 'Spark', he needs to exercise daily, preferable first thing in the morning, to induce the flow of special nutrients and proteins to the brain which will sharpen his memory and enhance his ability to master new information.

While ‘sparing the rod’ evokes practices of a bygone era, and properly so, the fundamental concept of framing a structure with immediate consequences for misbehavior has a basis in brain science. A child who practices dishonesty, for example, lacks the cognitive tools to project the future social consequences of lying. This window for future abstract thinking, researchers have found, does not open until puberty. Until then, a system for behavior modification is required that apes the future functioning of a trio of brain areas, the Limbic Area (emotional), Frontal Lobe (reasoning), and Somatosensory Cortex (bodily sensing), a triangle that will one day support ‘conscience’ or ethical processing. Such a system, according to behavior researchers, should involve subjecting the dishonest child to discomfort at the act, a clear explanation of the moral principle involved, and punishment delayed slightly to elicit anticipatory discomfort.

The adage "Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy and wealthy and wise" may not be true for everyone, brain studies reveal. Sleep researchers have found that with the arrival of puberty comes a circadian shift that causes adolescents to be wakeful an hour later than before. Needing as much sleep, but getting less, these children find themselves caught between their own biology and educational traditions that require them to arise at the same early time for school, with sleepiness and poor attention the natural result.

As important as the work of brain researchers is, it is more important to us as parents and teachers to stay informed since it is we who are best placed to synthesize and utilize the science for the education of our children.

Confronting Reality by Rich Gamble

Yesterday I Googled the subject "climate change" and was surprised to find a preponderance of doubters on the page that opened before me. Not that I didn't expect that they would be out there – those who find it inconvenient to change their ways, those who are fatalistic in their views, those who have financial interests in maintaining the status quo. My surprise stemmed from the apparent fact that the doubters seemed to have a lot to say, and that the supporters said very little. My reason for Googling the topic was to learn more about the reported increase in melting of a glacier in Kashmir the Himalayas, an event that had come peripherally into my consciousness when a TV news report flashed by, an event of no small importance in consideration of the huge population of people dependent upon a consistent flow of water from that icy storage. I did find a report about it, buried half way down the column of search results. And just below that result was another report containing a statement from a Kashmir official downplaying the research results, saying that while the report may be true, several other glaciers in the area appear to be growing.

Clearly, without a dramatic illustration of climate change, such as an entire city engulfed in flood water (oh, wait! That did happen!), the skeptics are not prepared to accept that our climate is changing and that we the people will need to change as a result. Never mind that the predictions of the prognosticators are being realized as I speak, in fact sooner than most foretold. Those indicators are all present, but in scattered places about the globe; this is, after all, a global crisis. The scientists and those that synthesize their findings (reporters, writers) call for increased sea ice melt, glacier melt, sea level rise, increased coastal storm damage, greater storm intensity, greater precipitation amounts in storms, decreasing rainfall and increasing drought, increased wildfires, and so on. No one expected all of this to occur in one single location. But it is all occurring increasingly and alarmingly, as foretold, around the globe.

Teasing out and presenting here even a portion of the multitudinous examples of foretold global weather changes that appear to be materializing would be tedious and time consuming, if fascinating. I propose then to content myself with an investigation of the event that generated this piece, the reported unusual rate of melt of the Kashmir glacier. For background, one should know that the Himalayan Glaciers form the world’s largest ice body outside of the polar caps and are popularly known as the “Water Towers of Asia”, because they are the water source for the largest rivers on that continent. According to the report I read yesterday (ART News, Oct. 13, 2009) Indian Kashmir’s largest glacier, the Kolahoi Glacier, has shrunk 11 square miles in the last two decades, faster than all other glaciers in the region and threatening the water supply for tens of thousands of people. Experts attribute the temperature rise causing this shrinkage to climate change. The IPCC reported in 2007 that the glaciers in the Himalayas are receding quicker than those in other parts of the world. But (whoa!) India’s Environmental Minister Jairam Ramesh rushed in to say that “more scientific studies were needed to conclusively establish the link” between climate change and melting glaciers. He then pointed out that although a “couple” of Himalayan glaciers were receding, some others were advancing, and others were receding at a decreasing rate compared with the last few decades! (Can you spell ‘obfuscate’?). Shakil Ramsoo, assistant professor of geology at the University of Kashmir and the leader of the three year study said: “Other small Kashmir glaciers are also shrinking and the main reason is that the winter temperature in Kashmir is rising.” (Seems clear to me!) “’Global warming’ is a misnomer” (John Holdren, in Hot, Flat, and Crowded, Friedman) “It implies something uniform, gradual, mainly about temperature, and quite possibly benign. What is happening is…none of those. It is uneven geographically…A more accurate label…is ‘global climate disruption’”. A better term, according to Friedman, might be “Global Weirding”.

Increased glacier melt around the globe that must inevitably be accompanied by devastating effects such as flash flooding from moraine dams collapsing and inconsistent and diminishing water flow to the world’s major rivers was observed back in the 70’s. Al Gore’s film “An Inconvenient Truth” memorably illustrated the disappearing of once mighty glaciers with current photos juxtaposed to old postcards. Seeing is believing. Concerned groups around the world have placed monitors and data gathering devices on glaciers to measure the rate of melt. The facts are immutable. But leadership is about dealing with those facts, not hoping that they are wrong or will change.

A New School For Tomorrow by Rich Gamble

Kudos to President Obama for understanding that the traditional nature of our schools, whether public, private, or charter, must change. His contention that the school day and the school year should be longer serves as a first step toward recognition of this fact. His position, understated as it must be as a political figure who wishes to sway the majority, at the very least has caused the conversations to begin in educational circles where such conversations should have started long before now, as each headmaster and supervisor in each school and district hastens to protect turf and quickly consider how a ground swell for change might effect the mission and efficacy of his/her school curriculum. Educators are stick-in-the-muds, for all the edu-garble that permeates the sacred halls, resplendent with such terms as ‘rubric’ and ‘mapping’ and ‘taxonomies’. Where schools should be pushing the agendas of adult societies in America, they instead reflect them, well after the fact. Need I refer to Darwin and the evolution of the species? The internet, as Friedman noted, has ‘flattened’ the world, but it has also ‘grown it up’, a phenomena less discussed. Every school child can now contribute to our world meaningfully, for good or ill, a resource that we cannot afford to ignore.

So let’s begin with Obama’s assertion that school days should be longer. The immediate retorts from the education communities are expected: “We must hire more teachers or pay current teachers more”, “Children are already tired from the length of the day and their performance will suffer”, “Children have limited focus capabilities”, and “Teachers have limited focus capabilities”. All of this is true and can not be ignored. But brain science tells us that the answer is not in simply lengthening the day, but the way in which we utilize the time.

§ Fact: Optimum learning for recall occurs between the hours of 10 am and 2 pm each day.[i]

§ Fact: Aerobic exercise before studies enhances assimilation.[ii]

§ Fact: Long term memory solidification occurs during the second sleep cycle, after 7 to 8 hours of sleep.[iii]

§ Fact: Circadian rhythms change for teens causing a sleep shift to an hour later.[iv]

§ Fact: Teens require more sleep than adults, not less.[v]

There is much more. Neuroscientists are gaining an understanding of how the brain learns at a tremendous rate, and while much of what they learn supports traditional teaching techniques, a significant body of work suggests that in many cases educators are expecting results that are, quite literally, impossible. Take a moment to mentally structure a school day for optimum learning utilizing the facts above. The results are more sleep and a later start that begins with a gym class in which every child is aerobically engaged, perhaps a snack, classes, electives and competitive sports. The day is established not from a mandate to learn longer, but from the science that suggests how to learn better.

When considering the length of the school year, there is little opposition to Obama’s assertion that it should be longer. The agrarian influence prevalent in many communities across the US that determined the school calendar when it was established in its current form indeed no longer exists. No doubt the traditional calendar is archaic. So have school all year. Why not? In for a penny, in for a pound…while making changes to the system, why not recognize the growing influences that demand change and will compel us to make greater change eventually anyway? And that is the growing individualized nature of teaching, the recognition of each child’s specific input, processing, and output style; his/her perspective, global or specific; his/her cultural influences; his/her preferred intelligence and brain chemistry; his/her emotional intelligence and developmental growth. But I do not propose that each child is engaged in formalized education all year round – all work and no play does indeed make Jack a dull boy, according to science – rather I suggest that school itself goes year round with 4 or 5 terms, and that students (and teachers) establish a track for themselves within the year that suits them best as individuals. Now we can have classes and choices that reflect a society where information is gained at the touch of a finger, brain diversity is assumed, and there is ample time for social and character education.

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[i] Sleep Dependent Memory Consolidation; Stickgold.

[ii] Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain; Ratey.

[iii] Regulation of Adolescent Sleep Implications for Behavior; Carskadon, Acebo, Jenni.

[iv] Ibid

[v] Ibid

A Wake-Up Call for Educators by Rich Gamble

"Today the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released the results of a study...". So began a report released by Yahoo News on January 27, 2009, that grabbed my attention. The study showed that "changes in surface temperature, rainfall, and sea level are largely irreversible", even if (extremely unlikely) CO2 emissions were to be stopped completely. A tipping point has been reached: global warming and sea level rise are "locked in" over the next 1000 years. This report, one of many, is chilling in its semantic transition from the hypothetical to the actual, from proselytism to reality.

The time has come to adjust our thinking from "what if?" to "now what?". But not our thinking. It is largely too late for that. It is time to adjust the thinking of the next generation, our sons and daughter. To survive, our children need to be taught a new mindset, from preserving the old ways at all costs to learning to adapt in the face of inevitable change.

The thoughts of the fathers echoed off the walls of the classroom where I taught Leadership in a traditional New England boarding school on the day of the inauguration of newly elected President Obama. "I'm a '3' today - not the worst day of my life, but close," grumbled an 8th grade boy during our "check-in". "And why is that?" I asked. "Because of the election," he replied. "Things are going to change."

Yes, things are going to change, and not just because of politics. And the comfortable lifestyle enjoyed by most of the families of my former students, indeed most of us whose existence relies upon an infrastructure dependent upon fossil fuels and a climate that reflects the relative calm of our Anthropocene epoch, are destined for change as surely as my 8th grade student and his family. We must learn how to adjust.

In the spirit of welcoming challenge and responsibility I propose that it falls first to the educators of America to grasp the necessity for change and then to act upon it by adjusting curricula to that purpose. An emphasis on lessons that teach emotional intelligence, constructive mindsets, judicial and ethical decision making, empathy and selflessness are critical to the adaptation of the next generation to a radically changing planet. In Six Degrees author Mark Lynas reports that if the world continues its current rate of hydrocarbon proliferation into our atmosphere over the (then) next seven years we will reach another tipping point, one that will set in motion an unavoidable set of circumstances that must increase the warmth of our planet by 3 degrees, bringing drought and famine and consequent massive shifts in plant-able crop ranges and populations. To accept this challenge school curricula must change. To act responsibly, teachers must prepare students for this eventuality. As Marq de Villiers writes in his book The End: "We need to get over this absurd notion that we are endangering the planet...Earth has time. But we don't." As educators it is our professional responsibility to move more expediently across the divide from "what if?" to "now what?" and to begin now to re-frame the educational aims of our schools to reflect mindsets and skills for a new, more difficult world.

Can Ethics Be Taught?

Where do ethics come from? Is it nature or is it nurture? Brain research suggests it must be both. It seems likely that there could be a gene associated with ethics passed along; of right vs. wrong. Basic ethical processing would have been needed for early humans to engage socially with any success at all and the trait would have survived. However, the way in which the gene manifests itself would be shaped by the environment within which it is activated and the influences brought to bear. “Right” in our religious community is often different from “Right” in our business community. Research also suggests that we may possess as many inactive genes as active ones and that our inactive genes go right on sleeping unless they are awakened by “practicing” the trait they carry. Thus “practicing” ethical processing affirms the gene trait. But the ethics practiced might be those decided by the communities within which we currently reside (peer groups, neighborhood, and schoolyard) or… those that are carefully taught.
Brain research into ethical behavior suggests that ethical processing is developmental. It requires the higher cognitive reasoning of the frontal lobe to ameliorate the tendencies of the limbic, or emotional, areas. The brain develops in much the same order it evolved over man’s existence, from bottom to top. Thus the reptilian brain with basic essential functions for living comes first, the paleomammalion brain with its apparatus for emotion second, and the neomammalion brain with its refined processes including concept formation and cognitive reasoning, last. While researching how the brain makes judgments scientists discovered that an area of the upper brain known as the somatosensory cortex was activated when making difficult choices. This area supplies emotional context to the bodily sensations of pain and temperature, among others, as well as (apparently) feelings brought about by conscience. That is why we literally “feel” the pain of a difficult choice or decision.
But a child possesses a young frontal lobe not yet mature enough to process all of the consequences arising from unethical behavior, or to project the future relational difficulties that can arise from lying, stealing, or disrespect. Emotions arising from a fully developed limbic system can not be regulated by an under developed frontal lobe. Nor can he feel the “pangs” from an incomplete somatosensory cortex. And so a pre-pubescent child lacking brain development in areas critical to the abstract projection of feelings and consequences will require a construct or framework in its place. When we think in terms of a leadership curriculum for junior school students, we need to include a system that prepares them for ethical thought processing. Problem solving modules, decision making ladders, and similar templates that include the ethics component should be included. It is equally important, however, to model this behavior within the school community in a meaningful way.

A Very Short Story

I sat down the other day with my 94 year old father. I don't see him as often as I should and have become a stranger to his passions. He doesn't hear well. His memory serves him poorly and he keeps his thoughts to himself. Mom tells me that he often expresses concerns about the state of the planet and what that might mean for his grandchildren. On this day, our talk turned to mountains and climbing and the effect that global warming is having on climbing routes around the world. Dad's voice sounds dry and whispery now. He must frequently stop to search for the word he intends. His thoughts can leap. He doesn't talk for very long. He told me the following story.

"You know, I jog around this (waving his arm) residence as often as I am able. I have to rest frequently, so I have a series of benches that I sit on for a short while as I go around my route. A few days ago, I was out in the evening, when the sun had just set and the sky was glowing and I was looking up at it and seeing all of these"... (he searched for the word. I waited, then guessed, "contrails?")..."Yes, that's it; contrails. I was seeing all of these contrails in white contrast to the darkening sky, some crossing one another, some mostly parallel, some needle thin and others spreading and cottony, and as I looked I thought to myself, 'How long can they keep doing this?'"

How long, indeed?

Viewing Education in a New Way by Rich Gamble

I was captivated, along with the entire nation, to learn the details of the rescue of Captain Richard Phillips from the clutches of his pirate captors by US Navy Seals. The precision, the courage, the focus, the accuracy, confidence, and the decision making of this team of war specialists were truly astounding. But this was no accident. A Navy Seal will tell you that the only way to prevent the limbic system from hijacking the frontal lobe in an emergency, to maintain the ability to think clearly and not give in to panic as adrenalin and cortisone surge through your body, is practice; practice in simulated but realistic life threatening situations with a specific set of responses, over and over again. The fear will still be there, it will try to overpower you, but your brain will move your body automatically through the now familiar steps. Navy Seals train for survival because they expect to be in life or death circumstances. Those who don’t train don’t survive. In World War II, infantry platoon members resisted bonding with new recruits because they knew they would die quickly; they were rushed too soon, too unprepared into the field of battle.

Drawing a parallel nearer to home, if our children are to live tolerably, or even survive, in the coming decades of global warming, economic stress, and shifting populations they will need leadership qualities, strong character, and solid ethical foundations. But leadership, character, and ethics also require training, not just learning, beginning at an early age. And that means we need to change how we view education.

I have come to accept, slowly, reluctantly, hesitatingly, that we are indeed changing our global climate. From the time that I first became convinced that the earth’s temperature was increasing beyond the expected ups and downs that have accompanied man’s long history on our planet I began to read all that I could on the subject and I find myself visualizing three very disconcerting possibilities: the first and best case scenario, possible only through a timely and concerted global effort from all of us on the planet, would likely be unpleasant and uncomfortable; a second worse case scenario, if we change nothing, would be essentially unthinkable; and in the last we are rushing toward world-ending catastrophe totally unprepared; worse, adversely prepared.

When I lead the discussion in my eighth grade class toward the possible effects of climate change, a typical student remark is something like “Our home on the Cape would probably be under water. I guess we’ll have to move to our house in the mountains.” This response is culturally nurtured and totally appropriate to the age, perspective, and experience of a young person attending the Massachusetts junior boarding school in which I teach Leadership. Yet the remark contains two elements that appear to be universal in current American thinking: (1) the grudging realization that we might actually be inconvenienced due to a warming climate and (2) the expectation that others (government, scientists, parents) will continue to provide the solutions for us, a trickle down bail-out. But it can not be business as usual, not then, not now. Time is too short. “The fight against global warming isn’t a fight to maintain the status quo. The status quo isn’t ours to keep,” observes Marq de Villiers, author of “The End”[i]. Globally, environmentally, things are going to change. Now is not the time to prevaricate; we can not abdicate our responsibility to prepare our children to face these changes. We depend upon it – the world depends upon it. Leadership, character, and ethics need to rise to the top of our education agenda.

Even in the best case scenario of the predicted climate change potentiality an extraordinary kind of leadership will be required very soon, perhaps as soon as the very next decade; an extraordinary and unique kind of leadership demanding the dichotomous skill sets of individual initiative and self reliance partnered with a capacity for empathy, shared values, and teamwork. The warming of our global climate is bringing change, not just generally but locally and specifically. Over here the land will dry out from heat and drought and over there the land will flood from increased precipitation or sea level rising. As global temperatures begin their upward march toward the poles, areas suitable for crop production and sustainable human habitation will shift, economies will shift and people will shift with them. While we all are facing the general problem of climate change, the physical effects my community faces may be different from those that face yours. Smaller communities are likely to become isolated in their particular problems and needs and be overwhelmed. We must to be trained to respond individually, with autonomy and self reliance, yet with the capacity for empathy and collaboration and teamwork.

Now as I watch as my students enter the room and find their seats in the circle of chairs, chatting easily about the concerns of the day, I realize that these same young people I am now observing are the very ones who must all too soon face this reality and who must make a difference globally. For when I speak of a new kind of leadership, I speak not of new skills for leaders, I speak of the need for every one of us to be a leader with the skills and mindset to adapt to a changing world, to be proactive, to think, to judge for ourselves, and to act. We need to evolve a community of leaders as well as leaders of a community.

On a global perspective, the problem we face seems overwhelming. Throughout our history humans have possessed the useful trait of loyalty to tribe, to religion, to culture and nation. We are conditioned to fight and even die for our genus when we perceive it to be threatened. But as James Lovelock observes, we still find alien the concept that we are part of a much larger and diverse entity, the living Earth.[ii] It is time to recognize that we are members of a much larger tribe. The individual nations of our world continue to distract each other from recognizing the urgency for launching a timely effort to preserve sustainability on earth for all people by political unrest, intolerance, and self absorption. How can we recognize that, in fact, we all have a common enemy, an enemy that is powerful and impersonal and not concerned with our local agendas: the world’s climate?

My junior school students are themselves a metaphor for this global confusion. It is the battle of reason vs. emotion, the attempt of an underdeveloped frontal lobe to manage a surging limbic system. This uneven development of brain structures determines that before puberty the capability of my students to think abstractly, logically, and idealistically is hampered. Their ability to project consequences, to empathize effectively, to understand the importance of values and ethical thinking is limited. But other parts of their brain, those parts that govern their understanding of technology, their creative powers, and their puzzle solving skills are more than ready. Some of them have websites, most of them have a home on Face book, and some even have Internet businesses on the side. For them, global connections are commonplace. A fifteen year old Russian boy is able to create a virus that infects computers around the world but not able to see that it is wrong. There are no age limitations on the Internet; ideas are ideas and thoughts are thoughts, unclouded by age, race, or gender. In this respect, my junior school students are ready to take an active role in world citizenry now. I foresee a time, a quickly nearing time, in which they will be required to do so, because they are able. But I also fear they will not be ready. To help them become ready we must look to the Navy Seals; we must prioritize training in character and leadership and ethics.

But how can ethics be trained? Where do ethics come from? Is it nature or nurture? Brain research suggests it must be both. It seems likely that there could be genes associated with ethics passed along, an ethical reasoning, right vs. wrong, trait. A form of basic ethical decision making would have been required by early man to engage socially with any success. Research also suggests that we possess as many inactive genes as active ones and that our inactive genes go right on sleeping unless they are awakened by training, “practicing” the trait that they bear. And so training ethical processing affirms the gene traits.

The genesis of ethical leadership requires the higher cognitive reasoning of the frontal lobe to ameliorate the tendencies of the limbic areas. Neuroscientists researching how the brain makes judgments have found that an additional area of the upper brain, the somatosensory cortex, becomes activated when one makes difficult choices. This area supplies emotional context to the bodily sensations of pain and temperature, among others, as well as (apparently) feelings brought about by conscience.[iii] And that is why we literally “feel” the pain of a difficult choice or decision. But a prepubescent child lacks sufficient development of the two upper brain areas in the cognitive-emotional-somatic triangle and must rely upon the basic training of an adult framework for right vs. wrong, comfort vs. hurt, drilled again and again until the child brain has naturally matured sufficiently to feel the ‘pang’ of actual understanding. Perhaps our parents had it right all along.

The good news? There appear to be five essential shared core values world wide.[iv] They are truth, respect, responsibility, fairness, and compassion. That’s a pretty good start for ethical processing. Our increasingly diverse schools may include these core values in their basic training, traversing cultural lines without fear of giving offense. But ethical thinking needs to be taught early and often in life and it needs to be a regular part of the school curriculum. Remember, if we are not presenting our model for ethical processing in our classrooms it does not mean that our students are not learning a social formula of some sort, somewhere on a playground or in the neighborhood, for better or worse.

As to leadership, there are those who hold to the concept of a “natural born leader”, a particular beneficial convergence of genes and circumstances that occurs randomly and infrequently to elevate one member of a community beyond others as a guide and model. And while I do not dispute such occurrences, I suggest that, as in the case of our Navy Seals, that it is now of critical importance to train those characteristics of leadership in our students, to awaken those sleeping genes, and to foster a future community of leaders.


[i] De Villiers, The End, p.323

[ii] Lovelock, The Revenge of Gaia, p.4

[iii] Sousa, The Leadership Brain, p.200

[iv] Sousa, The Leadership Brain, p. 193.