The Three Together
Approaching the general malaise in schools today, various ideas have been sought out to inspire a new attitude in the students towards education and its relevance for their future lives. Most prominent and recent has been the “growth mindset,” as a key to student success in the classroom and in life. It was from the observation that certain students were able to demonstrate an unusual passion-based perseverance for not going for the easy way out, or just the grade, but going after the skill or learning "improvement for improvement’s sake," due to love of a discipline or a subject matter. However, such a discovery is like a wonderful health food plant that you think can solve world hunger – only the plant is going extinct. There is nothing wrong with the plant; it’s the soil that’s poisonous. Similarly, it’s not because of the characteristic of the growth mindset itself – but rather it is planted in the very malaise that it is supposed to cure. After all, passion and perseverance, first and foremost, require a feeling that there is something worth being passionate about and persevering for. There is always a small minority that can succeed in any educational environment – driven by an early talent or intellectual tendency towards a certain art or scholarship, respectively, that can succeed in almost any educational milieu. There is also, always, a frustrated, bitter majority left behind.
However, it would be different when it is a collective perseverance for a passionate growth together – founded in you and your classmates – who will become true friends, not ruthless competitors, together using developing skills and learning for each other. It is that joy that is just the right soil for a growth mindset for all.
Imagine children who have recently had their training wheels removed from their two-wheeled bicycles. They have just experienced the sensation of balancing on two wheels, aided by the stabilizing torque of the wheels spinning due to their own pedaling. A moment ago, they were frightened and eager to place their feet on the ground for safety, but such an action would have caused them to lose control and fall. This is similar to younger children entering a previously dark room and learning to turn on the light switch. The darkness once caused fear, but now the light brings joy and encourages further exploration, eventually leading to the procedure becoming second nature. The young children automatically seek out and turn on the light in any dark room they enter, and older children effortlessly ride any two-wheeled bicycle without hesitation.
We can experience tasting the thrill of becoming part of something greater without losing our individuality, but rather by extending ourselves to others and becoming you through others – and others through you. This is like a rectangle and circle joining to form a column, which enhances rather than erases the original shapes. The result is an elevated structure with added dimensions, created through rotation and height extension.
Experiencing it over the ego’s fear of getting stuck doing all the work or getting bossed around by others, can bring on a powerful delight. Any group of youngsters, and adults so experienced, can repeat the experience with any others so trained – or that they themselves have trained.
The key thing, the true power that will be vital to survival and thriving in the future globalized world, to comfortably connect into its homeostasis, will be the capability to proceed exponentially. In short, it is hoped that groups can connect the same way, someday up into a voluntary, unanimity system, a global human scale-free network to properly connect with nature for the good of both, for the good of all!