Dear Organlearners,
Jason Smith <jsmith@quantumsolutions.on.ca> writes
> When you cut the welfare payment to a family headed by a single mom, some
> really destructive things happen. It becomes harder and harder to put
> nutritious meals on the table for the family.
(snip)
> It gets worse. Hungry children don't study well.
(snip)
> It gets even worse. Hungry children who are poorer learners don't end up
> doing well in school.
(snip)
Greetings Jason.
It is such a pity that I had to snip your powerful insights into the
plight of our children. In my original contribution I named the
subject merely "It hurts!" Rick added the "Embassy Bombings". I hoped
that the subject will develop into far more than merely the tragic
recent bombings (embasies in East Africa and twon in Ireland). You
have not disappointed me.
The welfare (and I do not mean the mere welfare policy of
goverenments) of all our children is the indicator (meter) of the
spiritual (minds and hearts) health of our society. You have shown
the disastrous effects of physical hunger. But you have even went
further. You also comment on spiritual hunger and use "systems
thinking" as a certain kind of food.
> At, the world is full of people who, with understandable intentions, make
> the situation of the world worse. They simply do not see systems. No one
> gets up in the morning and says "I think I'll contribute to global warming
> today." Yet, many of us do.
>
> Systems thinkers can show the world better ways to deal with the
> complexity of real-world issues. It's possible to explore problems
> without blame and come up with simple actions that can have great impact
> with few or no adverse consequences.
I want to stress that we have to look at the spiritual hunger of our
children. For example, it is not only adults who "do not see
systems", but also our children. I would like you to go more into
this spiritual (minds and hearts) hunger of our children.
The worst kind of hurt we can inflict on the spirits of children is
to present the universe as devoid of the seven essentialities. For
example, consider wholeness. How often do adults present the universe
as merely an omnibus of topics to the children?. The universe is not
a loose collection of fragments -- it is a learning organisation. It
has a mind with thoughts and a heart with feelings. Thus I vibrate
with you when you write:
> To me, systems thinking is much more than a good idea. I believe that if
> humanity cannot make a significant dent in its habit of fragmented
> thinking, we will harm many if not most of our species -- unintentionally.
Best wishes
--At de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre for Education University of Pretoria Pretoria, South Africa email: amdelange@gold.up.ac.za
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>