Project Renaissance home page | The Stream Index
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T H E S T R E A M
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Newsletter of Project Renaissance and Win Wenger
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September 2004 (Best viewed with
fixed-width font)
IN THIS ISSUE:
* Quote of the
Month
* Announcements
* Events/News
Items
* FEATURE ARTICLE:
"Become
a Trainer for Project Renaissance?" by Win Wenger
* Comments, Feedback
New Work, New
Life - Jens Reineking
More about
DIDA - Kathy Carroll
* Organizational
Notes
* Links
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QUOTE OF THE MONTH
"The excellence of a teacher can be judged by the
students who finally
excel him."
-- Leonard E. Read
........................................................................
ANNOUNCEMENTS
~~~
WELCOME to all new members who have joined us this month.
We hope to
hear from you and to give you much food for thought. Back
issues are
available upon request. Just add the month to the subject
line:
mailto:thestream@winwenger.com?subject=BackIssues
Or see the online archives: http://www.winwenger.com/strmlist.htm
~~~
CO-AUTHORS WANTED:
Active and/or retired professionals in psychology,
economics, history,
biology, physics, sociology, chemistry, etc., to
co-author with me new
kinds of introductory texts (various age levels) and
methods-of-teaching
texts. These texts are to become part of an eventual
discovery
curriculum.
- Win Wenger, Ph.D. (
mailto:wwenger101@aol.com?subject=Texts )
~~~
ADMINISTRATOR NEEDED
Project Renaissance is seeking individuals with
administrative and managerial skills and interests to assume some of the
functions of general manager or executive director. Duties will include
organizing meetings, maintaining contact with membership and trainers,
developing programs and promotions, and assisting in cataloguing the archives.
This initially volunteer position is planned to evolve into a separate
compensation arrangement. Please contact Win Wenger if you are willing and able
to help. Email Win at mailto:wwenger101@aol.com?subject=Applicant .
........................................................................
EVENTS
~~~
Win Wenger is delivering UNIQUE TRAINER TRAINING in
London, UK
Sign up for the first-ever Project Renaissance Trainer
Training in London, England.
Module 1: Sept.
27-29, 2004 (just completed)
Module 2:
February 28-March 1, 2005
Don't miss this exciting opportunity to learn directly
from the inventor of the methodology. Please contact Cora Robinson for further
information:
mailto:cora@createexpress.com
~~~
PROJECT RENAISSANCE DOUBLE FESTIVAL - November 12-14,
2004
13th Annual Conference on Creativity and Accelerated
Learning in the
Maryland/Washington, DC area
Preceded by Beyond-Einstein Training, November 12, 2004
Followed by Trainer Training, November 15-18, 2004
During this fun-filled week of colloquium-like dynamic
events, people from around the world will again gather to discover and explore
creating and learning. Over the last decade the Double Festivals have
celebrated many breakthroughs in both creativity methods and
enhanced/accelerated learning. This year we are looking more directly at the
learning side of this equation. Our theme is the 'Theory and Practice of
Education'.
Living in a World Where We Can't Go Home Again...
Every second our world is changing, sometimes
perceptibly. It is as though we are all
in "the Kindergarten of the Future," except that change is happening
right now as you read this.
All of us are having to learn and adapt to conditions we
never encountered before. For better or worse, we do so based on the options in
our available repertoire of responses and appreciations. In effect, how well we
learn determines how well we live.
Creativity, learning and problem-solving are critical
skills each of us must develop in this world of inevitable change. Fortunately,
just over twenty years ago, we at Project Renaissance realized that learning
and creative problem-solving are over 90% the same thing. Each of the hundreds
of methods for creatively and ingeniously solving problems can be used as
distinct and powerful ways to improve learning.
From year to year, the Double Festival is always one of
the world's very best small conferences, partly because of the unique format
developed by Project Renaissance. You'll find high levels of involvement and
understanding, learning AND creativity, richly experienced by all our various
participants.
Highest-quality presenters are drawn to this conference
because, as with the original Socratics and Stoics, high-quality feedback from
a quality audience helps them further develop their own perceptions and
understandings, in the fields which most galvanize them and are most vital to
them.
To experience directly for yourself some of the
additional reasons and benefits, please click http://www.winwenger.com/upcoming.htm#df
. There you'll find more information about our special format and about this
year's topic, and you can register conveniently online. We're looking forward to some wonderful
growth together and some great experiences together!
- Win Wenger
~~~
IAL CONFERENCE CALL SERIES
The International Alliance for Learning will host a
series of conference
calls with leaders in the field of Accelerated Learning,
Accelerative
Learning and other areas of human development - leading
up to the 2005
IAL International Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, January
13-16, 2005.
Further information is available from Chuck Bubar:
mailto:CBubar@aol.com
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Feature Article:
BECOME A TRAINER FOR PROJECT RENAISSANCE?
SOME SUMMARY CONSIDERATIONS
by Win Wenger, Ph.D.
This is a brief account of how most of our methods got
here, with their associated understandings tagging along.
A conundrum:
“If you have any good method for solving problems,
one of its
best uses is on the problem of how to create better
methods for
solving problems!.... And one of the
best uses of
those, in
turn, is on the problem of how to create even better
such
methods.....”
We’ve ridden this hobbyhorse, or tiger-by-the-tail - or
whatever metaphor you think most fitting here - and we’ve been dragged across
the landscape by it for better than a third of a century by now and it’s still
going.
Under constraint of compression and shifting
circumstances in a collaborative workshop training in September 2004, I
invented two more new techniques, which went very well; and in each of most of
my workshops I usually invent at least one new procedure along the way. That’s
part of my fun as a trainer. A main avenue for creating new and better
techniques, however, is via Toolbuilder, which is laid out in detail for you
step by step at http://www.winwenger.com/toolbld.com .
With both the simple concept (that of re-investing your
best methods into creating better methods) and this freely published example
(the Toolbuilder cited above), anyone who cares to can create his or her own
sea of highly effective methods. So far, we are the only ones to take this
principle very far. Hence we have an unconventionally large and broad
repertoire of ready techniques and certainly some of the most advanced,
effective, and simple-to-use such techniques now on the planet.
Main chunks of what this stream of new methods has taught
us:
1. How much is at
stake?
Answer: Nearly
everything, in human terms and in material terms. You know already that far
less than one percent of the human brain and mind is developed: 5-10% of the cells in the brain are developed
to any extent, but to what extent? And
what portion of those developed cells has any connection with where we are
conscious from? We’ve been learning how
to develop and bring more of the brain and mind online with useful, focused,
everyday consciousness. What we’ve learned thus far is a drop in the bucket but
is already substantive. With more good people onboard pursuing these issues,
we’d learn a lot more a lot faster, with more benefits spilling out into the
world. We’re a tad short on manpower.
Commercialization:
Out of all the values represented here among these stakes, some are
concretely transactable. Our own interest to this point has been in exploring
the phenomenon itself and in the fun of inventing new techniques and
discovering new principles. To better extend that interest and fun, however, we
now have to give attention to developing some of the more concrete
transactions. This will better enable us to serve our other main interest of
getting use of these resources into the hands of many, many people who are most
in need of them, in many corners of the world. Please see below our partial
list of application areas.
2. A simple,
simple tool: Socratic Method.
We now know the active ingredient in Socratic Method and
why, over a span of 2300 years, its use consistently has led to highest-level intellectual
performance and genius. Knowing that active ingredient has let us devise new
forms of Socratic Method, far easier to use and apparently even more powerful,
applicable in all areas of human endeavor and not only in education.
A critical issue - most human beings go to their graves
without ever really having been heard, on anything. To be heard, most people
have to shout, even scream. The results of so many having not been heard, we
see on the TV news each evening. What would happen in the world, what would
happen to problems in the world, if many, many more people were really being
heard, and drew themselves and each other out at length, in depth, in detail,
on the matters most important to them?
What would happen in your organization or place of work
if the decision-makers there met for formal problem-solving on the issues of
the firm, two hours every Thursday afternoon - or whenever - on a regular
basis? And if they systematically
practiced drawing themselves and each other out, in detail, at length and in
depth, on their respective deepest and subtlest awarenesses regarding the
situation of your enterprise? What would happen with the levels of achievement
there, and/or to your profits?
What if, for your child at school: teachers and parents
and volunteers were all trained for, and supported in, drawing out students in
depth, at length, in detail, on their respective subtlest and deepest
awarenesses in each topic of study? What
if, from as early in the school year as possible, students were trained and
supported to draw themselves and each other out, in depth, at length, in
detail, on their respective subtlest and deepest awarenesses in each topic of
study? Note, of course, that “Dynamic
Format” group-managing techniques (see http://www.winwenger.com/dynform.htm
) makes it feasible to give every
student in even the largest groups the full intensity and effect of Socratic
Method which previously could be had by only one or two students at a time.
3. Simple, simple
tool: Free imagery, or
Einsteinian
Discovery Technique.
Sensory imagery is the language of most of your brain.
Forty to forty-five times as much of your brain associates by sensory imagery
as associates by conscious word-concepts. Nearly all your real intelligence is
there, offline from your everyday consciousness. All your experience, awareness
and data are there, only a little of which is available by conventional method
to your conscious use.
With your consciousness trained down to the speed of the
language you speak, the sortings-through and processes of your greater mind and
brain appear instantaneous by comparison. Instantly, when you face a question
or problem, or pose yourself a question, the greater part of your mind is
already trying to show you, via imagery in the back of your mind, the best
available answer or understanding. Just look in, see it, translate it, and test
it.
Just about every human being alive is able to sensitize
to ongoing inner imagery and to do these things - this is truly a universal
resource humanity-wide, if only more people knew about it. One might say that
this in-built resource is part of the birthright of every one of us.
4. Understanding
the Beyond-Conscious.
That description (in #3 above) also illustrates some of
our new understandings about how the human mind and brain work. We not only
have this tremendous resource lying offline from our consciousness, we all have
this near-instantaneous reflex that sorts through our enormous database and
assembles for us, in each context we encounter, the best available insights and
understandings. We understand the issues in translation between sensory-based,
“metaphoric” concept and conscious word concept, including how everyone has
developed their own unique inner symbolic language, differentiated by a
lifetime of experience, so that “dream dictionaries” usually don’t work except
for the people who write them.
We have made a nice beginning on reliable methods to gain
accurate translations from one’s own inner symbols, “Image-Streamed” images,
and dreams. We also understand that this vast array of resources is anything
but “unconscious”! That's why we now refer to these as the “Beyond-Conscious.”
Most of its characteristics are very different from those which most people
attribute to “the unconscious.” The “Beyond-Conscious” or, if you prefer, the
“unconscious mind” is so many different things and functions that any
generalization about it falls short of the remarkable reality.
5. How did the
human mind and brain get that way?
The profuse stream of new techniques which work, and the
many contexts which they have dragged in with them into our understanding, has given
us a much-improved theory and general model of human development, and a good
many clues on how to move human development, individually and generally, toward
a much more optimal level.
6. The simpler the
tools, the more their possible applications.
Most of these tools are exquisitely simple but pack some
power! Here is a partial list of areas of possible application of the tools
which Project Renaissance is currently working with. We have only barely begun
to develop each of these areas of application:
* Creative problem-solving methods
* Enhanced, accelerated learning methods
with
UNDERSTANDING
* Athletics
* The arts
* Health and healing
* Potential therapies
- emotional
- physical
- intellectual
& powers of understanding
- developmental
* Human development
* Scientific research
* Many special lines of inquiry
- ethics
- tools of
philosophical inquiry -
the High Thinktank
- brain
research issues
- metaphysical
* Invention and innovation
* Child enhancement
- ALL positive
dimensions, not only
intellectual
and emotional
* Ways to increase human intelligence
* Conflict resolution
* Solving community and world problems
Within this partial list of areas of application being
developed, each area has many of its own topics and categorical sub-headings.
For example, “the arts” include art, music, indeed each of the arts, and within
each is development of methods for more readily learning the skills of that
art, for building to higher performance levels, and for building high original
creativity in production of that art. Each of these is a distinct, rich,
multi-faceted and open path for major developments.
Who would like to head up our efforts to develop and take
one of these areas of application to the next level? Can we find a match between these
opportunities, our needs, and what you would like to offer? Please contact us at wwenger101@aol.com to
discuss the possibilities.
To adequately pursue these areas and develop them, we may
need to develop educational programs, academies and schools at all educational
levels, pre-K to University. For a preliminary design of and Prospectus for our
Renaissance University, please contact wwenger101@aol.com .
November 15-18, 2004, is our next Trainer Training, in
Pasadena, Maryland, near Baltimore Airport. This training, together with our
13th annual conference, the Double Festival, November 12-14, and the general
Beyond-Einstein Training by day Friday, November 12, gives a major opportunity
- not only for trainers and would-be trainers - to gain skill at and
understanding of these and many key related issues.
In any one of the above areas of application, you will
find major and original substance, and a chance to make a major difference,
materially, in exploration and findings, and in human terms. If you think it
through, you will see personal and professional opportunities, and contexts
about which you are likely to have some curiosity. You will be learning,
exploring, working in very good company. I think you will find some accessible
opportunities to make a meaningful positive difference in your own life and in
the life of others whom you care about.
- Win Wenger
------------------------------------
To send feedback privately to the author, email Win
Wenger at:
Wwenger101@aol.com
To send your comments about this article to The Stream,
write to:
mailto:thestream@winwenger.com?subject=Trainer
To post your feedback or promote a discussion of this
topic:
http://bbs.cartserver.com/bbs/b/7733/#PostMessage
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COMMENTS and FEEDBACK
~~~
NEW WORK, NEW LIFE - Jens Reineking ( j_reineking@gmx.de
)
I read an article about the work of Prof. Frithjof
Bergmann, University
of Michigan, Ann Arbor. It is called "New Work, New
Life" and details a concept of work which proposes that people
- spend one third of their time in paid jobs as we know
it,
- spend one third of their time doing something they
really, really want,
- and spend one third of their time to provide/supply
themselves, e.g. by growing food or working in simple assemblies which produce
things that are really needed (clothing, transport, etc.).
There are currently more than 30 centres for New Work
world-wide.
I haven't read his book myself yet, but since you're
concerned with real-life solutions (creative one, preferably), this might be
something to look into:
http://www.umich.edu/~iinet/journal/vol6no2/bergmann.htm
- Jens Reineking [j_reineking@gmx.de]
~~~
MORE ABOUT 'DIDA'... Kathy Carroll (
kathycarroll@speakeasy.net )
With reference to Win Wenger's simplified problem-solving
process, DIDA... outlined as follows in the July 2004 issue of The Stream):
1. "D" - Determine and write down your problem
or question. ...
2. "I" - Intend - and to some extent, expect
...
3. "D" - Detail your image(s) ...
4. "A" - AFTER those sensory details, examine
how that set of images
answers your question.
Here is a suggestion for step 2, the intention. Say, “I choose for my
understanding of my images in regard to this question to
be immediate,
precise, and profound."
- Kathy Carroll
------------------------------------------------------------------~~~~~~
To send your comments to The Stream for possible
publication here, write
to: mailto:thestream@winwenger.com?subject=Comments
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ORGANIZATIONAL NOTES
~~~
TOPICAL INTEREST GROUPS:
Our membership is large and diverse, and many of you have
expressed an
interest in communicating with other members who share
your topic of
concern or research interest. If you'd like us to share
your email
address with other interested members, and to supply
theirs to you,
please email your name, email address and subject/topic
to:
mailto:thestream@winwenger.com?subject=InterestGroups
Your communications will be private. If you'd like to
take a topic
public, just post your discussions on Project
Renaissance's board:
http://bbs.cartserver.com/bbs/b/7733/#PostMessage
~~~
ADDRESS CHANGE?
If your email address changes or your email box is full
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happens, make sure you notify us of any change and put
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~~~
SUBSCRIBER OR MEMBER?
If you currently only subscribe to The Stream, you can
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Membership in Project Renaissance entitles members to
additional
benefits. If you're not yet a member, please register
now, here:
http://www.winwenger.com/regmem.htm
or from link on the homepage, http://www.winwenger.com .
~~~
DUPLICATE MAILING?
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The Stream,
please let us know by replying to:
mailto:thestream@winwenger.com?subject=duplicate
~~~
HOW YOU CAN PARTICIPATE...
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visit our homepage at http://www.winwenger.com and
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Discussion Board link. To post a message right now, click here:
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- requires Yahoo sign-in.
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........................................................................
LINKS
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* Index of feature
articles in The Stream archives:
http://www.winwenger.com/strmlist.htm
* Archived copies
of Capital Ideasmiths are here:
http://www.winwenger.com/Capitalidea/capidea1.htm
* Project
Renaissance homepage:
http://www.winwenger.com
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