Value Intellectual Curiosity

"The man who never alters his opinions is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind." – William Blake (1757-1827)

In general we learn, and even recognize at the perceptual level, what has value or significance to us. As used here, intellectual curiosity refers to a healthy, insatiable appetite for purposeful knowledge by inquiring minds. An individual with such a mind will not say “I don’t need to know that.” How does one know when some specific knowledge will be useful? No, the inquiring mind asks: "Why is this knowledge valued and what meaning does it have for me, for my community?" It is only through intimacy that one knows something whether it is knowledge or another human being. Get intimate with learning as one would any other natural thing. For all learning is organic and needs to be cultivated as a farmer does his crops. The better the care given the crops, the greater the harvests.

Yet, one should not study just for self – which is important, for knowledge takes on a greater importance when we look at it not only in terms of how it can enrich one's own life, but in how one can use that knowledge to enrich one's community. This is the difference between information and knowledge. One is passing and the other is lasting, shared by generations into the future. Gossip is information, but its life cycle usually is finite. Knowlege has universal application, gossip is situational and does not.

One exemplary example of an inquiring mind is that of W.E.B. (William Edward Burghardt) DuBois (1868-1963), a graduate of Harvard University in the late 19th century and one of the most brilliant minds of the 20th century, and a man who made purposeful learning his life-long mission:

Night – grand and wonderful. I am glad I am living. I rejoice as a strong man to win a race, and I am strong – is it egotism – is it assurance – or is it the silent call of the world spirit that makes me feel that I am and that beneath my scepter a world of kings shall bow[?] The hot dark blood of a black forefather is beating at my heart, and I know that I am either a genius or a fool. O, I wander what I am – I wonder what the world is – I wonder if life is worth the Strum. I do not know – perhaps I shall never know: But this I do know: be the truth what it may I will seek it on the pure assumption that it is worth seeking – and Heaven nor hell, God nor Devil shall turn me from my purpose till I die . . . I therefore take the world that the unknown lay in my hands and work for the rise of the [African-American], taking for granted that their best development means the best development of the world . . . .[1]

---

1. W. E. B. Du Bois, The Autobiography of W. E. B. Dubois: A Soliloquy on Viewing My Life from the Last Decade of Its First Century. International Publishers, 1968. p. 171.

On the Merits of Single-Sex Education - Part I

The issues of gender are complex, ranging from cultural expectations and childrearing methods to sexual preferences and neurological and physiological issues. When you add to the mix a discussion on Black manhood, it's like adding gasoline to a fire.

I know that, as an African-American male, I'm always frustrated by the outcomes of such dialogues, primarily because as individuals we belong to one gender or another or sexual preference or another, and, therefore, believe that we know the full-scope of what that gender or sexual preference lifecycle is about. NOT!

Few of us understand, for example, that the needs of the male in the first five years of life are dramatically different from that of females nor is it appreciated that although males catch up with girls physically in their teens, recent neurological research tells us that males may not catch up with females in brain development until their late teens (ages 18-20). We are told that only the X chromosome carries a full set of defining body characteristics; a man's single X chromosome may be defective, whereas a woman, who has two chances, is believed to seldom fall short. And, even when partners can possibly understand this, how is the information integrated in their childrearing patterns? Among caregivers? Nursery school providers? Educators? Grandparents?

To create an environment for equitable education for Black males will require a complete overhauling of the system of knowledge delivery in public schools up to at least the 6th grade. That will not happen soon, of course, as the larger society does not accept the need for change, particularly for Black males. More to the point, the failure of young Blacks and Latinos (male and female) is important to the criminally unjust law enforcement and incarceration system in the United States.

As an adult male, I understand more clearly that the current warehousing method of education worked partially for me, but not for most of my peers. Boys in general, regardless of ethnicity, are exploratory by nature, and sitting in rows and forbidden to explore is going to cause conflict. The problem is not the child or the gender; it's the inability of the teacher and the system to adapt to the neurological and physiological needs of boys. To create better men, our parents, our community, and our schools must make creating healthier boys a priority.

Additionally, how gender roles are defined by BOTH women and men needs increased discourse as the roles of husbands in the household is changing. But, I also know that many women have not made the full shift to equitable gender sharing. While men now perform domestic tasks in their households more than ever before, fewer women have taken up "outside tasks" like lawn, landscaping, home repair activities, because these do not reinforce their standard of beauty, and are still considered male tasks. In my opinion, until some women and men redefine their image of beauty, change is going to be slow. Are nails and hair or condition of hands more important than family and relationship? Not if we are parents. I believe that it's healthier for parents to work together in all tasks in our fast-paced economy and for children to see them doing so, even if one or the other is only showing spiritual support.

On the Merits of Single-Sex Education - Part II

Parenting, today, is more important than ever. There are great risks and challenges facing the next generations. Both males and females must come to grips with definitions of manhood since both genders reinforce the image. In his new book, Marc Anthony Neal, who is viewed by some as the leading African-American intellectual interpreting Generation X today, argues that the idea of a "Strong Black Man" is not compatible with parenting, because parenting functions reflect female gender roles. As the father of two daughters, Neal says that raising children with this gender view of the world today cannot be sustained in an economy where African-American females are increasingly likely to be the bread-winners in families. More importantly, to maintain them will continue to put all African-American children — male and female — at risk. Nurturing males has many benefits, but only one is paramount – the survival of a people.

Yet, there may be hope. In 2002, Lee Mansell, principal of Foley Intermediate School in Foley, Alabama read a book by Michael Gurian called Boys and Girls Learn Differently! which started her thinking more seriously about single sex education. After that she discovered the ideas of Leonard Sax in a magazine article and thought that his insights would help improve the test scores of Foley’s lowest-achieving group, minority boys. Sax went on to publish those ideas in Why Gender Matters: What Parents and Teachers Need to Know About the Emerging Science of Sex Differences. In 2003, Mansell began educating teachers and parents about single-sex education and launched the program in 2005. It has been so successful that Sax, a family physician turned author and advocate, will quit his medical practice this May to devote himself full time to promoting single-sex public education.

That the integration of brain maturation and gender has finally made it into the public school system is a miracle and is the making of a revolution. This acceptance is due, I believe, because nothing else educators have done since the 1970s has worked. That's when politics entered the educational system in the form of collective bargaining. How much did politics play a role? Well, in 2003 Hillary Clinton briefed the American Federation of Teachers about the threat that Iraq represented, whereupon the nation’s second-largest teacher’s union supported the Bush administration's jihad to attack Iraq. What is an American teachers union doing involved with supporting military action in a sovereign nation, you ask? That's what some Congressional oversight committee should be asking because the behavior of the AFT and its board clearly shows that there are some citizens managing your child's future who need to be doing something else, and if this something else is global imperialism, they should be shown the door.

This beginning is not the end. What must happen next is that the textbooks and standardized tests need to be written at the language and grade level at which the children are being taught, and not 4-5 grade levels above. Language is where the cultural discrimination has been taking place to thwart the dreams of young people for the pass 30 years no matter what their complexion. Of course, some school districts also removed music, physical education, and health care from the schools to further degrade the educational process and prevent youngsters who are right-hemisphere dominant, particularly African-Americans, from advancing intellectually into historic areas of self-employment — better to have the dropouts ready for all those jobs in the military or to feed the excessive appetite of an unjust predatory penal system.

It's a long road to reconstruction, as the first American social reconstruction proved, but there are leaders in this 21st century social revolution that have at least kick-started it. Parents can learn more about Foley Intermediate School here: Teaching Boys and Girls Separately by Elizabeth Weil, New York Times, 2 March 2008.

A Word (or two) on Free Speech

Whenever free speech absolutists speak of "free speech" I often think what they mean is that "agree speech" is free speech, usually followed by a personal attack against those who disagree with them. From their perspective, "your 'free Speech' has limits, while theirs does not."

As the Biblical James writes: "...the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts." Sir James recognized that words can be used as weapons, and he recognized that words do not operate in a vacuum. Like everything else in our world, speech is governed by the laws of nature. The science used to describe the motion of objects using words, diagrams, numbers, graphs, and equations is called Kinematics. Since speech is language in motion, it is governed by the laws of motion as defined by Isaac Newton, the 17th century scientist.

According to Newton's third law, for every action force there is an equal (in size) and opposite (in direction) reaction force. Since forces always come in pairs, known as "action-reaction force pairs," speech, too, follows this rule. Someone who bullies another person, for example, can expect three types of opposite reactions of a varying nature. One reaction may be a passive retreat, which may lead to harm by undermining a victim's sense of self-worth, with any name-calling significantly reducing a person's self-esteem as recent studies on bullying and spousal verbal abuse has revealed. One of the these studies was conducted by Dr. Stephen Joseph, a psychologist at the University of Warwick, who researched bullying at Secondary Schools in the United Kingdom. His work dispels the well-known myth "Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me".

A second reaction could be a verbal repartee in which the subject responds to the attacker tit-for-tat. These tit-for-tats can lead to a third reaction, which may turn physical or extremely violent if the targeted individual or group believe themselves to be a victim of verbal abuse or if a blaspheme is thrown at them like an offensive warhead. It's highly unlikely that a sober college professor, for example, will meander up to a 250-lb NFL linebacker and with conviction call him a "sissy" — at least where it can be heard.

Free speech absolutists are being disingenuous if they suggest they never modify their speech or their reporting under any circumstances. Our speech is governed by situational ethics, which is Newton's first law of motion: "An object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force."

The object here is the tongue, of course, and an unbalanced force can be a social, political, economic, military or natural environment that requires the tongue to be restrained. Some humans may require either force or wisdom to know when restraint or silence is appropriate. Speech that is offensive is not free speech. It is just what it is, offensive. Those who require force to curb offensive speech will almost always find an opposing reaction that will assist them in doing so. It's a law of nature.