How can I apply Spiral Dynamics in my teaching?

[Shmurda]

Hey,

I'm a Maths teacher for secondary students in an International school in a developing nation. This country is not one in which I risk being jailed for religious heresy. The students are intelligent fluent English speakers with wealthy families. I'm basically free to teach however I please, so long as I cover specific mathematical content over the course of the school year. 

After listening to Leo's video on applications of Spiral Dynamics, I'm interested in attempting to implement some techniques in the classroom which reflect Spiral Dynamics stage yellow and systems thinking in general. This has to happen at the classroom level only, as I cannot alter the educational structure of the whole school. 

So, have you had any ideas about revolutionising the classroom environment? Lets give them a go!

 

[trenton]

One idea is something I learned from a book called "seven habits of highly effective people".  In this book there is a section about synergy in habit 6 about a classroom.  The principle that the author operates under is that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.  It is common for students to run off of the script that they just have to do whatever the teacher makes them do.  A second common script is that math is going to forgotten because they cannot apply it anyway.  "Synergy is almost as if a group collectively agrees to subordinate old scripts and write a new one."

 if I start looking for ways to avoid some of the toxic scripts you could run into as a math teacher, then I see how it can be necessary to give the students some degree of freedom.  I don't know what kind of math teacher you are, but there are some examples from many different kinda of math.  One way in calculus would be to compare how a sailboat works to how an airplane works.  This could include a wind vector problem, and you could take into account things like how long does the runway need to be for the airplane to make a smooth take off.  There could be many other factors surrounding the take off which students could split into groups in order to calculate.  This could create a small degree of freedom while demonstrating how calculus saves lives and how often it is applied, creating big picture thinking.

Alternatively if you teach statistics then you could have a problem with lake pollution in which chemicals have seeped into the drinking water.  You could know that a small amount is insignificant and would not hurt you, thus you would need to calculate how polluted the lake would have to become in order for the average glass of water let's say 16 oz for this problem to become too dangerous to drink.

There could be serious real world problems like these studied in physics and chemistry as well.  If it were chemistry then you could have them take a few samples from the lake and try to find if the water is dangerous to drink.  This way they would be participating in something larger than themselves throughout the process which could improve interest in what they are doing.

On one last note you should be aware of backfiring mechanisms.  If you try too hard to avoid common scripts students run off of, it could become a self fulfilling prophesy.  It is like the problem with evil and suffering.  You would have to be careful to make sure not worsen the problem by trying to stop it.  Therefore, you should be careful about which advice you follow and why as well as the motive for following it.  Perhaps you could stay on track with a positive motivation to make teaching even better with some of these suggestions rather than by operating from fear of these scripts.  I hope something I said here helps.

[Derek White]

When it comes to mathematics you can teach them euclidean geometry. I enjoyed it vert much, specially the proofs. The thinking required to do that type of geometry is really helpful in contemplation and life in general.

I think many math teachers gloss over axioms and the many assumptions that are inherent to math. I think Leo also made a video on infinity, Godel's incompleteness theorem, strange loops, and quantum mechanics. Maybe you can explain those concepts to your students, don't show them the Leo's video, but maybe explain the math and science behind it. Oh, maybe introduce them to paradoxes. Paradoxes are a must.

I think there are so many cool topics, don't just stick to boring graphs and calculus. 

I think the key is to teach them to question every little detail, this would most likely get them to stage yellow level of thinking. Teach them what the difference between a theorem and axiom is. Teach them what a point and line actually is. 

[PlayOnWords]

A developing nation like Red/Blue? I think showing them Spiral Dynamics could go very sideways. You gotta remember people are going to have strong emotional reactions to this shit. You tell a fundamentalist Christian that you like to suck cock and take it in the ass and it's a problem. You tell a developing nation they're way behind everyone else and everyone they know/will ever know in this country will always be behind, it's a problem. They're not gonna have anything to cross reference it to. Except Paris Hilton, or whatever.

I do think you should be bold too though, just maybe not full on Spiral Dynamics. Sprinkle your teaching with nuggets of wisdom for life and develop them that way. Where are you teaching, if you can answer that?