Prospectus for RENAISSANCE UNIVERSITY
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Renaissance University:
The School
of Education

Renaissance
University's School
of Education
will indeed truly be that since one of its cores will be miaeutic
Socratic Method, combined with modern CPS (Creative Problem- Solving)
techniques, both of these being systems of methods for figuring out
understandings.
Another core of Renaissance University's School of Education and its
own teaching methods will include Lozanov-derived Suggestopedia, and a
third core will be
some of the various forms of accelerated and enhanced learning method
represented in Ostrander's books on "Superlearning" and/or as
currently represented in the International Alliance of Learning (IAL).
It is
our intent to also include some of the learning and
performance-enhancing
methodologies of Learning Strategies, Inc. of Wayzeta, Minnesota,
as a fourth core. Though not for martial purposes, for both
physiological and
intellectual reasons we intend to include as a fifth core some content,
at
least, from several of the Oriental martial arts.
With reference to creativity method and CPS - Creative
Problem-Solving - technique. literally
hundreds of effective creative problem-solving techniques now serve in
professional use around the world, result of the movement and training
disciplines which began in the 1950s
from such various taproots as Alex Osborn's CPS and Gordon Prince's
Synectics.
Each
of these hundreds of
successful CPS methods can, with little modification, be turned into a
profoundly accelerative and enhanced learning-with-understanding
technique. Examples of this phenomenon are
laced
throughout the present Project Renaissance website.
Indeed, the phenomena of
learning, per se, appear to overlap
by more than 90% the
phenomena of
creativity. Unbeknownst to most of the practitioners of either, the two
fields—of
education and of creativity—are almost the same field.
Also, all or virtually all of the
successful creativity techniques in current professional use are
essentially
Socratic—causing one to closely examine one’s own first-hand
awarenesses and to
seek to respond from what one discovers there.
Missions of the School of Education:
For this reason of overlap with
creativity, the School
of Education will
not be
an isolated island in the archipelago of various separate university
programs
of study, teaching only teachers and would-be teachers. Instead its
mission,
like that of the School
of Unified Studies,
will
be much broader:
1) It will be intimately
involved in the
methodology and instructional process of the entire rest of the
curriculum of
the University.
2) Part
of the School of Education will also double as a Department of Creative Studies, likewise not only with its
own missions but intimately involved in the methodology and
instructional
process of the entire rest of Renaissance University's
curriculum.
As a major element in educational
curriculum is the integration of knowledge—one element and example of
this is
Jerome Bruner's "spiral curriculum"—the School
of Education and the School of Unified Studies
will be very strongly involved with each other.
Many present-day faculty involved
with accelerated learning have also strongly developed proficiencies in
other
fields. We at Renaissance University will strongly encourage this
tendency, so
that the faculty of our School
of Education will
have
strong proficiencies, experience and competencies to teach from besides
educational method— no less than the teachers we graduate from our main
programs will have genuine proficiency and competence in the fields in
which
they will be teaching.
Because Renaissance
University
will be crossing traditional academic boundaries at so many points,
early in
the development of the University the entire system of separate
divisions,
departments and schools will come under review. Foregoing the
conveniences of
such divisions and architecture, especially during the start-up of the
University, is not lightly undertaken.We have no present plans to
impose some
different structural system, but there are so many flaws in the
existing
academic structure that we will definitely be looking for possible
alternatives. For the short run, we will
have our hands pretty full starting up a model University which is
already so different
in so many ways from what people are used to.
Besides functioning as its own
laboratory, the School
of Education will
develop
and conduct one or more systems of lab schools at all other educational
levels,
whose mission will include the improvement of existing methods and the
development of new ones; demonstration; training for our education
students;
and the generation of new and appropriate educational materials for
publication.
Missions Beyond
Renaissance University:
The School
of Education
will also provide a variety of services to the community, and possibly
the
bases of services whose provision will extend far beyond particular
communities. Some of the more immediate and obvious services it may
provide:
1) Training in learning
methods, and tutoring,
to people enrolled as students in courses at other universities.
2) Special training for
faculty in existing
secondary, elementary-primary and preschools, and in a variety of adult
training programs.
3) Programs providing
improved methods and
procedures, and faculty training, to other universities. Our
competition is not
other universities but the shortfalls in quality educational levels
which all
of us are committed to correct. We would be delighted to aid other
universities
in this regard now; we will be delighted to aid other universities in
this
regard later.
Part of the faculty of Renaissance
University's
School
of Education will
form an independent or
autonomous department which can contract its services not only to this
University but to other universities, variously as a department of
Socratic
studies, a department of accelerated learning methods, and/or as a
department
of creative studies. We will be pleased to see various of our faculty,
both in
and beyond the School
of Education,
serving in
several universities simultaneously, as a means to promoting
cooperation and
educational advance along a broader front.
Indeed, forming this autonomous
independent department, possibly in the context of other and existing
universities, may precede formation of Renaissance
University as such and
serve as one of
the means through which Renaissance
University
will be
created. Also, some good can be accomplished by this means in the other
host
school or schools, since for purposes of needed reforms and improved
practices
in such schools, an organization of faculty is likelier to be taken
more
seriously than are individual faculty members. In every instance,
whatever
resources and tools may come to hand in this approach are to be used
not for
advantaging narrow interests, but entirely for positive advance along a
broad
common front. The underlying criterion
will always be, what will better enable more people to more completely
fulfill
their positive potential as human beings.

Photo courtesy of Elan Sun Star
Renaissance
University:
The Developmental Programs
There are two things which no
educational institution should ever forget, even if nearly all of them
appear
to have done so....
1) Each
learner is a whole human
being. His learning, even in seemingly the most abstract or narrowly
specialized academic matters, involves all of himself, and to be
successful
draws upon all of himself.
2) Every
identifiable skill or
brain function which relates to intellectual functioning can be
enhanced by the
appropriate reinforcements and training to, in turn, enhance
intellectual
functioning.
The developmental division of Renaissance University
will draw in its programs
upon the following strategies and resources:
1) Oriental martial arts
such as T'ai Chi,
Karate, etc., to improve focus and a closer relationship between
intention and
action, among other non-martial purposes.
2) A strongly detailed
program of calibrated
sensori-motor activities, in the human developmental model, re-working
and
attuning the more basic functions of the brain in order to better
support the
brain's higher functionings.
3) Training activities
adapted from various
sports, to train up faster and more accurate physical responses.
4) Tachistoscopic-type
activities to tune up,
render faster, clearer and more accurate many functions more directly
and
closely related to intellectual functioning.
5) An aggressive practice
pursuing the very
foundations of understanding, per the Jean Piaget schema. Cognitive
Structural
Enhancement (see Winsights No. 44) is
one of our initial primary ways of achieving this. Test instruments for
monitoring, self-monitoring and "going meta to" one's own thoughts,
perceptions, situational encounters and intellectual strategies, will
be
another of our means.
6) We will also feature an
R & D program
developing computer games specifically for the purpose of enhancing
intellectual and related functions, and the sundry additional, more
basic brain
functions which lead to these. Publications of games and programs from
this
endeavor are expected to become one of the incomes of the University.
7) We will have each other,
with our various
talents, there at the University. We will also have there a large and
building
influx of world-class geniuses and leaders through our program of
symposia, as
well as by direct invitation for purposes of these developmental
programs. We
will therefore model and cross-model, using NLP procedures and using
such
Project Renaissance procedures as ‘Borrowed Genius" as a major resource
for heightening sought-after abilities in all who participate in these
programs.
8) Through many procedures
including, for
example, "Toolbuilder," we will all be engaged in aggressively
seeking out, creating and testing new protocols for enhancing
intellectual
functioning, some of which will be better than, and will replace, some
of our
initial developmental practices.
Each full-time and liberal arts
student at the University, and many as well of other students, staff
and
faculty, will create and fulfill a succession of initially modest
contracts for
self-improvement in the developmental programs. The cumulative effect
of these
contracts should be somewhat beyond modest. Incentives will attach to
not only
gains in personal performance, but to instances and extents to which
one helps
and encourages others toward such achievement.
This developmental program will
also serve older adults who are in or anticipating career-change,
greatly
broadening and improving their job options and prospects.
The developmental program, like
the Renaissance
University
program generally, will also
make available training in such fundamental skills as fast-math and
PhotoReading. That likely majority of students who reach us who were
not voracious
readers previously, will be conducted through what amounts to a fairly
conventional Great Books program to build background, at least those
who are Liberal
Arts candidates. They will also be conducted through an intensive and
sustained
PhotoReading program covering considerable literature, with activations
and
seminars, to develop in them the values and the intuitive and
beyond-conscious
understandings which are characteristic of life-long voracious readers
and of
well-educated Liberal Arts graduates. In
each basic subject of study in the curriculum, there will also be
extensive
PhotoRead material in addition to conventional readings and research,
to
develop an intuitive feel for and appreciation of that subject.
A well-detailed, well-monitored
and incentivized developmental model which, as much as our
institutional
methods, is needed to make it feasible for Renaissance University to
feature,
together without contradiction, a near open-door admissions policy, a
very low
failure rate, and unconventionally high levels of intellectual
achievement in
its graduates.
As program capacity develops,
this "brain spa" program's services will be extended to Renaissance University's system of
laboratory
schools, and hopefully will extend also to the students of other
institutions
along with services in training our learning methods— and to the
community.
Indeed, one of the main sources of income for the University is
expected to be
via such services, which may be extended to many communities and
possibly
world-wide.
Traditionally, universities have
acted as much in the role of gate-keepers as they have in providing
education
or instruction, and in providing research. Most of the gate-keeping has
revolved around assumptions about fixed levels of and limits to
ability. Those
assumptions are put aside: "Where there's a will, there's a
developmental
program."
Some gate-keeping no doubt
remains for Renaissance
University
in some
ability issues, but not very much; also considerably reduced will be
gate-keeping duties with regards to values and motivation, partly
because of
the program of incentives. Also, as Renaissance University
earns more and
more of its way with valued income-producing services, it won't need to
focus
so much of its energies on fund-raising.
Thus, Renaissance
University
will become increasingly free to focus on its principal roles:
educating;
research; developing the finest possible human beings; and equipping
them as
well as possible for their finest possible roles in contribution to
culture and
civilization.

Image courtesy of Elan Sun Star
Renaissance University:
Department of Creative Studies
One of its first duties will be
to pick up where Project Renaissance’s website leaves off, which has an
exhibit
currently of about twenty major creative problem-solving procedures
self-taught
on the Web. We are building toward an exhibit which eventually will be
titled "The World's 101 Best Effective and Creative Problem-Solving
Methods." Many of these methods are Project Renaissance's; others come
from other cited sources.
The point here is that a much
broader range and number of programs and procedures are in service than
have
been thus far emphasized in the Department of Creative Studies at State
University College in Buffalo, New York, the academic body which
otherwise
provides an admirable model for some of what the proposed Department at
Renaissance University intends to do. The Buffalo-based department is
built
very largely around the original form of Creative Problem Solving (CPS)
method
created by Alex Osborn and advanced by Dr. Sidney J. Parnes. Osborn-Parnes CPS method will indeed be one
of the taproots of the proposed new Department; so will Synectics; so
will the
many original methods featured in Project Renaissance; so will other
sources,
programs and methods.
Major questions in recent years
have arisen about key points in the paradigm theory on creativity and
creative
methods. These questions have not been carried through into
investigation, and
many of them appear to be of a crucial nature.
One of the other first duties of the proposed Department
will be to
develop studies to investigate those key questions and thus, where
necessary
and appropriate, to challenge the existing paradigm.
Two other special duties will be
in highest priority as well for the new Department, involving it both
with the School of Education
and with the School of Economics and Enterprise.
With Enterprise,
not only will this Department be teaching students to be effective
innovators,
inventors, creators and problem-solvers; this Department will be
extensively
facilitating problem-solving throughout a swarm of student-run
enterprises so
that a much higher percentage of these may succeed and eventually
support the College and University as well as the student and graduate
entrepreneurs who own and direct them. With Education, this Department
will actively develop additional enhanced and accelerated learning
procedures. Nearly every successful creativity procedure can double as
such a learning procedure, usually with little adaptation needed. We
also wish to look more deeply into the fact that virtually every
successful creativity
procedure is essentially Socratic.
One other very important priority
also faces this Department, in contrast thus far to other departments
of
creative studies. It will go to great lengths to be of service in the
community, and to train many community leaders.
One additional priority: in
every aspect, the creation of Renaissance University
itself will face many
problems. Hence a functioning Department of Creative Studies, early in
that
process or even preceding it, will be invaluable in facilitating
solution-finding in all these instances and aspects.
This Department of Creative
Studies may even be formed up autonomously, partially independent of
the
University and preceding the creation of the University itself. As
such, the
Department can contract its services to other educational institutions,
provide
services in the community, and become one of the nucleii from which the
Renaissance
University
itself can be launched. This
is pretty much the same prospect as for what will become the
University's School
of Education.
Since creativity and learning
overlap so, phenomenologically speaking, and so many of the creativity
methods
can serve as basis for profoundly accelerative learning methods, and
some of
the people in the Department of Creative Studies will be the same as
people in
the School of Education: in pre-University days the aforementioned
autonomous
contracting agency may be both what will become the School of Education
and what will become the Department of Creative Studies, contracting
out its
creativity services and expertise to some organizations and its
educational
services and expertises to other organizations.
Although Project Renaissance is
playing something of this dual role now, because it is our hope that
other
programs will join us in the creation of Renaissance University proper,
it is
also our hope that some will join with us to create a precursor body
specifically to play this role more directly on behalf of the
forthcoming University.
All liberal arts graduates of
Renaissance University, as well as some students who attend more
narrowly
specialized programs, will be well schooled in several, not only one,
of the
effective CPS methodologies. Given the variety of problems and
contexts, each
method can serve as back-up to the others, providing complementarity.
What one
method doesn't solve, another likely will. Our graduates will not be
easily
stopped. Many will also develop some skill in facilitation, and some
can
develop careers directly in the creativity profession. The entire
program of Renaissance
University,
however, will be about as
creative as we can render it.
For all its key roles, the
Department of Creative Studies is the sector most subject to change.
Here is
why: One of the best uses of a good
problem-solving method is ON the problem of: how to create BETTER
problem-solving methods. One of the best uses of those methods in turn
is on
the problem of: how to create EVEN
BETTER such methods! This re-investment
of methods into better methods can—and should—go on forever. This
principle and
pursuit are intended for the ages; the particular methods and forms
consequently cannot be, and will be periodically reviewed and upgraded,
as
likely will be the whole of Renaissance University
itself.