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Does anyone else think the "Just talk about it" is just not good enough.
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19-10-2018 01:05PM#1
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[Deleted User] wrote: »Nothing comparable to what I am describing however. There is some good stuff on that list for general development of children but of the 15 "Broad Objectives" listed there the only ones that even err into the area of Mental Health I am discussing are a brief mention of "self-esteem" in the first one. The rest of the list appears to be focused almost entirely on group interactions and conflict resolution and identity. All good social stuff - but little to nothing about the introspection - maintenance of mental health and well being - and the communication of same to oneself and others that I am describing.
At best therefore, the contents of your link there are what I would see as the pre-requisites and basis for the kind of development I would like to see installed atop it.
I’m a bit confused about much of what you’ve written above. I cannot understand how after reading the curriculum you came to the conclusions you did above. The three strands of the curriculum are ‘Myself’, ‘Myself and others’ and ‘Myself and the wider world’. You’ll note the first word in each of the three strands is ‘Myself’. If that doesn’t imply introspection, we’re working off different definitions of the term ‘introspective’ (the irony
).
But seriously though, after reading through the curriculum, you didn’t see anything in the Aims -
Aims
The aims of social, personal and health education are
• to promote the personal development and well-being of the child
• to foster in the child a sense of care and respect for himself/herself and others and an appreciation of the dignity of every human being
• to promote the health of the child and provide a foundation for healthy living in all its aspects
• to enable the child to make informed decisions and choices about the social, personal and health dimensions of life both now and in the future
• to develop in the child a sense of social responsibility, a commitment to active and participative citizenship and an appreciation of the democratic way of life
• to enable the child to respect human and cultural diversity and to appreciate and understand the interdependent nature of the world.
Or the broad objectives -
Broad objectives
When due account is taken of intrinsic abilities and varying circumstances, the SPHE curriculum should enable the child to
• be self-confident and have a positive sense of self-esteem
• develop a sense of personal responsibility and come to understand his/her sexuality and the processes of growth, development and reproduction
• develop and enhance the social skills of communication, co-operation and conflict resolution
• create and maintain supportive relationships both now and in the future
• develop an understanding of healthy living, an ability to implement healthy behaviour and a willingness to participate in activities that promote and sustain health
• develop a sense of safety and an ability to protect himself/herself from danger and abuse
• make decisions, solve problems and take appropriate actions in various personal, social and health contexts
• become aware of, and discerning about, the various influences on choices and decisions
• begin to identify, review and evaluate the values and attitudes that are held by individuals and society and to recognise that these affect thoughts and actions
• respect the environment and develop a sense of responsibility for its long-term care
• develop some of the skills and abilities necessary for participating fully in groups and in society
• become aware of some of the individual and community rights and responsibilities that come from living in a democracy
• begin to understand the concepts of personal, local, national, European and global identity
• appreciate and respect the diversity that exists in society and the positive contributions of various cultural, religious and social groups
• promote the values of a just and caring society in an age-appropriate manner and understand the importance of seeking truth and peace.
that would suggest your claims that - ‘little to nothing about the introspection - maintenance of mental health and well being - and the communication of same to oneself and others’, is more than a tad disingenuous? Because even the broad objectives alone cover exactly what you’re suggesting, and more, certainly a lot more than just self-esteem in relation to mental health.[Deleted User] wrote: »Not sure what "not gone on" it actually means to be honest as I have not seen you discuss the subject much in the past or indicate even all that much knowledge about it. But yes I mentioned in my first post that it has already been making it's way into some schools - and as you say it has been successful enough.
I don’t mean to be nit-picky tax but I didn’t say it has been successful enough. The reason I’m being nit-picky about that is because I said ‘introduced by the Dept. of Education in a good number of schools now after what was regarded as a successful pilot program’. I was referring to the pilot program, which was indeed regarded as a success, ie - the pilot program met it’s intended objectives. I didn’t say I agreed with the objectives, or that I was personally convinced that the pilot program did meet it’s objectives. The only objective it actually met as far as I was concerned were it’s budgetary objectives - it costs little to implement.
That goes some way towards explaining why you didn’t understand what I meant when I said I’m not gone on mindfulness personally - while I can understand that it’s something you’re obviously quite clearly passionate about, I just don’t find it interesting. That’s why I don’t discuss it or indicate I have all that much knowledge of it.[Deleted User] wrote: »It is absolutely a step in the right direction and also gives us the ability to study the effects on a larger group of people over a much longer period of time. Which will yield more informative data than a hand full of people shown the rudiments of the practices over a mere 12 weeks - which is the kind of data we have for it now.
It yields more data tax, certainly, but how useful that data is, is really anyone’s argument. The data we have so far suggests anything between no benefit at all, to all sorts of benefits that can cause some people to become evangelical in their promotion of mindfulness. My brothers are practitioners for years and one has recently become a ‘Life Coach’, and my wife has been a practitioner for years, I hear more than enough about how it’s changed their perspective on life, everyone’s talking about mindfulness and how it has changed their lives :pac:[Deleted User] wrote: »But I absolutely see it building on the pre-requistes from something like SPHE rather than being a replacement for it - or in conflict with it - or in any way a mere duplicate of it. These are complimentary approaches to a more holistic approach to mental well being that we can - and hopefully are as we see here - introducing both more comprehensively and _earlier_ in our schooling.
Oh absolutely, while I suggested earlier that I personally see no value in it, I also understand that different things work for different people, and I personally see no harm in mindfulness whatsoever. I simply see it as a waste of class time and something which should be taught to children by their enthusiastic parents is all, because from what I observed during the pilot program, it’s difficult to get other people enthusiastic about the idea in order to deliver the program effectively to children.[Deleted User] wrote: »Nor would I - but what we should be giving them from a much earlier age is the language narratives and linguistic structures by which they _could_ talk if they want. So that if and when they do choose to - that are as well equipped to do it as we can make them. And even those that never choose to - or actively choose not to - such linguistic improvements allow them to have that conversation better with themselves - and being better able to identify issues internally should hopefully allow them to better action them.
I can see where you’re coming from tax, but from my perspective I think listening and teaching people to listen, is a far more important skill than teaching children how to talk or engage in self-examination. At least if you teach people to listen, it teaches them to be aware of other people besides themselves, and from that they’ll work out a way to communicate their ideas to each other effectively, effective communication being a two way thing, being aware of and being considerate of other people who may lack the ability to be able to communicate their ideas.0 -
One eyed Jack wrote: »If that doesn’t imply introspection, we’re working off different definitions of the term ‘introspective’ (the irony).
Or you are not reading what I write closely enough. Because no where in what I wrote or what you quoted did I say it did not imply introspection. What I _did_ say was "but little to nothing about the introspection - maintenance of mental health and well being - and the communication of same to oneself and others that I am describing. ".
I trust I do not have to explain the difference between "nothing to do with X" and "Nothing to do with the kind of X I am referring to" now do I?
Pasting the curriculum at me does not change what I said. Which is that there are 15 elements listed in the "Broad Objectives" and of those 15 only the one briefly mentioning "self esteem" is touching on the kinds of things I am talking about. Rather the 15 things listed are what I would see as the foundation upon which the kinds of things I am discussing would usefully be placed. And even then looking a the curriculum it is unclear what they even mean by self esteem. What content do they have - for example - on the concept of "locus of evaluation" and how some people find their mental health suffers greatly for having the wrong one? As an anecdote for example almost my _entire_ near suicidal depression and mental suffering in my early life was alleviated by nothing more than my shifting my internal locus of evaluation from external to internal sources. This one single move changed me over night from the lay about useless depressed nobody to the much happier much more successful happy nobody I am today
To take a random example from the list take the objective "develop and enhance the social skills of communication, co-operation and conflict resolution". Great - here we aim to build the skill of communication itself. However the type of thing _I_ am referring to would use that only as a foundation. As I am talking about having worked on the communication - we _then_ give them the language and ideas around mental well being that they can use when doing that communication. To use a very loose analogy - I see one as installing the phone line and I see the other as teaching the language to be used when communicating with someone over it.
Other things on the list have nothing to do with what I am talking about. For example some are about physical health. Sure physical health feeds into mental well being in the long run - but it is still very distinct from anything I am talking about here.One eyed Jack wrote: »That goes some way towards explaining why you didn’t understand what I meant when I said I’m not gone on mindfulness personally - while I can understand that it’s something you’re obviously quite clearly passionate about, I just don’t find it interesting. That’s why I don’t discuss it or indicate I have all that much knowledge of it.
Well the nit pickyness aside (though if it helps there are two meanings of the word "enough" in that context and your response to me suggests you picked the wrong one of the two.) you are pretty much stating what I suspected here. Which is that your lack of interest in it is itself entirely uninteresting and irrelevant and if we are going to discuss the issue we should do so in terms of actual facts and not personal emotion. I think we might find it difficult to move a conversation forward if you're claiming the curriculum already does what I am suggesting in one breath (which it doesn't) and in the next breath telling us why you actively do not really know what you or I are actually talking about.One eyed Jack wrote: »It yields more data tax, certainly, but how useful that data is, is really anyone’s argument. The data we have so far suggests anything between no benefit at all, to all sorts of benefits that can cause some people to become evangelical in their promotion of mindfulness.
I would say very useful. However I also think a rule of thumb in general is that having any data is almost always going to be superior to having no data at all.
But some data is massively superior to others. Sometimes monumentally so. And if we take something that requires months to see real progress and benefit from - and then observe a study that only looks at people who were _partially_ engaged with that something for only 12 weeks - then it is very safe to say there is much better and informative data we could be working on obtaining.
So when you comment on "the data so far" without actually citing or presenting - well - any of it then it leaves the listener in a position of not having anything of use to glean from your paragraph. As you have essentially said nothing at all. What we would need to do is see what data you are talking about - and see if the data showing "no benefit at all" and/or the data showing "all sorts of benefits" falls under which evaluation paradigm. I certainly would not be biased in my evaluation of the data - and if I saw something showing massive benefits but only after studying the test group for 12 weeks I would be as quick to dismiss it as the opposite.
But so far I have seen few "no benefit at all" studies that were done over the long term. With the exception of the longer term studies of people with rarer but relevant conditions that mindfulness meditation has been shown to actually exacerbate or compound. Data which should inform with a level of caution any curriculum we form on the matter at the school level.One eyed Jack wrote: »I simply see it as a waste of class time and something which should be taught to children by their enthusiastic parents is all
Which is 100% exactly how I would also see the nonsense you personally like to see taught to children under the guise of "religion". Alas there are things that get into our school curriculum that is a waste of time. On this thread I am discussing one specific area of a schooling system. If we want to shift to discussing the curriculum as a whole then we might be derailing the thread somewhat. But suffice to say I think there are massive overhauls we could benefit from across the entire board at that level.
And if the process for doing so were to bring to the table data and studies showing whether the things we want to add or remove from a new curriculum actually has real world benefits and advantages then I think a module built around - but not solely consisting of - mindfulness practices might find itself significantly higher on the pecking order than some of the complete nonsense and waste of time you might find it up against which lack much or even _any_ such data about it's benefits.One eyed Jack wrote: »because from what I observed during the pilot program, it’s difficult to get other people enthusiastic about the idea in order to deliver the program effectively to children.
Again an issue I see in many areas of the curriculum. I would even dare to risk saying most or even all of it at times. Take how we teach languages for example - which appears to get very few people enthusiastic or to an effective level of competency. Most Irish people can not even speak our own language of Irish for example let alone foreign languages. And as one of my partners is a linguist I get quite a lot of exposure and travel into Europe.
And there I see their level of Enthusiasm is quite high for language learning - and they do it much differently to us. Here in Ireland for example - just one example of the differences I see - I can think of Hector Ó hEochagáin who was a TV presenter who spoke a lot of English but loved peppering his dialogue with little Irish words or phrases here and there.
In Europe - particularly in Germany and Austria - I find almost everyone loves doing that with English. They just love to get a word in here - a phrase in there. Like it gives them a little buzz. I do not see that here much or at all.
And that is just languages. I see it across the education system myself alas. So I entirely agree with you building enthusiasm is an issue when implementing something. I just do not think _at all_ that it is an issue specific to anything I have proposed.One eyed Jack wrote: »I can see where you’re coming from tax, but from my perspective I think listening and teaching people to listen, is a far more important skill than teaching children how to talk or engage in self-examination.
I would not go down the route at all of thinking one "more important" than the other. I would see them as entirely complementary. In fact for reasons I will describe below I am not even sure I would distinguish them as separate things at all in some contexts. Which is again why I feel the curriculum you linked to does not address the things I discuss but provides a foundation for them.
After all - you can spend all the time in the world teaching people to communicate their internal world - but what use is it in a society where no one is listening? That makes as much sense as installing a radio tower in a country where no one will ever own radios.
But conversely radios are not much use if no one is broadcasting - you can give people all the listening skills in the world - but what use is that if we do not have the ability to communicate - or the language to internally make sense of and _then_ articulate our internal issues.
Further listening - good listening - is not just about passively sitting there as a sponge and taking it all in. It is also often about constructing the right questions at the right time. So giving people the structures to talk - _is_ to give them the tools to be a listener too. Sometimes the right question asked in the right way can open up whole channels and systems of thought in your brain that were not explored before.
I am not sure therefore I see much utility in the "listening is more important - and sure if they can do that they will probably work out the rest for themselves" approach you describe here. Why assume they will reinvent the wheel - or that they even should - if there is a language of psychology and psychiatry there that they can be given to do it?
Whatever you might think of the man himself for example - and I can understand what gets peoples backs up about him - The Blindboy Podcaster of late has done a series of podcasts on different systems of thought in this. CBT and Transactional Analysis were among the things he discussed to an audience much of whom knew nothing about either.
And the feedback he appears to have gotten I find more interesting than anything he actually said himself - and it fits exactly what I am saying here. His listeners are commenting on his streams or writing into him saying pretty much every time "I had these thoughts and feelings and I did not know how to discuss them even within myself - and listening to what you taught about CBT/TA/OTHER put the words in place around which these otherwise nebulous things were given substance".
It is like the anti-1984 thing with Newspeak. There the idea was to remove words from the language. Not because removing the words magically stops people having feelings or thoughts. But because if those feelings or thoughts do not have words to coalesce around then it is significantly more difficult to action them or address them internally or ex.
So to return the thread to the OP - the issue for me with "Just talk about it" when people do not have the linguistic frame work to actually do it - is like telling someone with no legs to just get up and walk out.0 -
[Deleted User] wrote: »Or you are not reading what I write closely enough. Because no where in what I wrote or what you quoted did I say it did not imply introspection. What I _did_ say was "but little to nothing about the introspection - maintenance of mental health and well being - and the communication of same to oneself and others that I am describing. ".
I trust I do not have to explain the difference between "nothing to do with X" and "Nothing to do with the kind of X I am referring to" now do I?
Pasting the curriculum at me does not change what I said. Which is that there are 15 elements listed in the "Broad Objectives" and of those 15 only the one briefly mentioning "self esteem" is touching on the kinds of things I am talking about. Rather the 15 things listed are what I would see as the foundation upon which the kinds of things I am discussing would usefully be placed. And even then looking a the curriculum it is unclear what they even mean by self esteem. What content do they have - for example - on the concept of "locus of evaluation" and how some people find their mental health suffers greatly for having the wrong one? As an anecdote for example almost my _entire_ near suicidal depression and mental suffering in my early life was alleviated by nothing more than my shifting my internal locus of evaluation from external to internal sources. This one single move changed me over night from the lay about useless depressed nobody to the much happier much more successful happy nobody I am today
To take a random example from the list take the objective "develop and enhance the social skills of communication, co-operation and conflict resolution". Great - here we aim to build the skill of communication itself. However the type of thing _I_ am referring to would use that only as a foundation. As I am talking about having worked on the communication - we _then_ give them the language and ideas around mental well being that they can use when doing that communication. To use a very loose analogy - I see one as installing the phone line and I see the other as teaching the language to be used when communicating with someone over it.
Other things on the list have nothing to do with what I am talking about. For example some are about physical health. Sure physical health feeds into mental well being in the long run - but it is still very distinct from anything I am talking about here.
You understand the use of the term ‘broad’ in relation to the objectives of the program? While such philosophical and linguistic interpretations of simple language may be of interest to you, it is of no interest whatsoever to me. That being said, of course I’m happy for you that you have found something which makes you happy.Well the nit pickyness aside (though if it helps there are two meanings of the word "enough" in that context and your response to me suggests you picked the wrong one of the two.) you are pretty much stating what I suspected here. Which is that your lack of interest in it is itself entirely uninteresting and irrelevant and if we are going to discuss the issue we should do so in terms of actual facts and not personal emotion. I think we might find it difficult to move a conversation forward if you're claiming the curriculum already does what I am suggesting in one breath (which it doesn't) and in the next breath telling us why you actively do not really know what you or I are actually talking about.
I never said I didn’t know what I was talking about? I said I had no interest in mindfulness. That should be easy to understand. The curriculum does exactly what I think you’re suggesting, but if you’re suggesting it doesn’t, then you’re going to have to be much clearer in exactly what you are suggesting, in order to move the discussion forward. I think there might be something in what you’re trying to suggest is lacking from the program, and I’m interested to hear it, but so far I’m at a loss as to what you’re suggesting is missing that isn’t already covered by the program.I would say very useful. However I also think a rule of thumb in general is that having any data is almost always going to be superior to having no data at all.
But some data is massively superior to others. Sometimes monumentally so. And if we take something that requires months to see real progress and benefit from - and then observe a study that only looks at people who were _partially_ engaged with that something for only 12 weeks - then it is very safe to say there is much better and informative data we could be working on obtaining.
So when you comment on "the data so far" without actually citing or presenting - well - any of it then it leaves the listener in a position of not having anything of use to glean from your paragraph. As you have essentially said nothing at all. What we would need to do is see what data you are talking about - and see if the data showing "no benefit at all" and/or the data showing "all sorts of benefits" falls under which evaluation paradigm. I certainly would not be biased in my evaluation of the data - and if I saw something showing massive benefits but only after studying the test group for 12 weeks I would be as quick to dismiss it as the opposite.
But so far I have seen few "no benefit at all" studies that were done over the long term. With the exception of the longer term studies of people with rarer but relevant conditions that mindfulness meditation has been shown to actually exacerbate or compound. Data which should inform with a level of caution any curriculum we form on the matter at the school level.
12 weeks is certainly enough time to evaluate the efficacy of a program which is normally delivered over the course of 8 weeks -
The original Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy programmes are designed to be taught over 8 weeks.
All the pertinent research has been carried out on courses lasting 8 weeks.
The length of each class is at least 2 hours, ideally 2.5 – 3 hours.
Source: The Mindfulness Centre, Ireland
Work with the data you’re given - I see no benefit personally, is one data point; the other is that of my brother who is evangelical in his promotion of mindfulness as an effective tool that everyone should be using. I have no problem introducing my bias in saying that he’s doing the concept of mindfulness no favours by making it sound like nothing more than a slick ponzi scheme for some slick operators to take advantage of gullible shmucks, but that’s just my impression of his marketing skills.
In the school environment of course it’s a different story, and at least one expert has as you suggest cautioned against drawing any hard and fast conclusions with the limited data set that is currently available -
Willem Kuyken, a professor of clinical psychology at Oxford University and director of the Oxford Mindfulness Centre has urged caution about the widespread adoption of the practise in schools.
"There’s a lot of enthusiasm [about] mindfulness and we think that the enthusiasm may be ahead of the research,” he told Times Education Supplement.
“I completely see why people might say it’s wishy-washy, which is why we’re working to ensure there is good research answering important questions about whether it works, how it works and how it can be best implemented in school systems.”
Prof Kuyken said that advocates of mindfulness in schools often point to the NHS, mental health charities and other health organisations that encourage the practise. But he warned that evidence for its use in these fields is far more robust than it is in education.
“There have probably been at least 20 studies now of mindfulness in schools, all of them small, all of them not designed optimally,” he said.
Prof Kuyken, who is one of the lead researcher on a five-year study of almost 6,000 children which aims to establish what benefits, if any, mindfulness has on children in school.
“What we’re doing now is designed to provide a much more definitive answer of ‘Does it work, for whom does it work and is it cost-effective?’” he said.
Source: [url=
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2017/08/25/schools-should-wary-teaching-mindfulness-children-professor/]Schools should be wary of teaching mindfulness to children, professor says. The Telegraph[/url]
Here’s the thing though - I’m ok with that, and we’re already agreed that different things work for different people, so it stands to reason on that basis that some people will benefit from it, some people will see no benefit whatsoever. I don’t see any harm in mindfulness itself, and if people benefit from it, then while I personally consider the program a waste of school time, I consider it a waste of school time because I think the benefits of it are only gained by people who are interested in it. People who are not interested in it will see no benefit, and because children only spend 20% of the calendar year in school, and 80% of their time outside the school environment, they are unlikely to gain the full benefits of mindfulness, which could be better delivered by parents who are enthusiastic about the idea.Which is 100% exactly how I would also see the nonsense you personally like to see taught to children under the guise of "religion". Alas there are things that get into our school curriculum that is a waste of time. On this thread I am discussing one specific area of a schooling system. If we want to shift to discussing the curriculum as a whole then we might be derailing the thread somewhat. But suffice to say I think there are massive overhauls we could benefit from across the entire board at that level.
And if the process for doing so were to bring to the table data and studies showing whether the things we want to add or remove from a new curriculum actually has real world benefits and advantages then I think a module built around - but not solely consisting of - mindfulness practices might find itself significantly higher on the pecking order than some of the complete nonsense and waste of time you might find it up against which lack much or even _any_ such data about it's benefits.
You’re clearly not, as you’ve just wedged in religion out of nowhere. I didn’t bring it up, you did, but let’s stick to mindfulness for now.Again an issue I see in many areas of the curriculum. I would even dare to risk saying most or even all of it at times. Take how we teach languages for example - which appears to get very few people enthusiastic or to an effective level of competency. Most Irish people can not even speak our own language of Irish for example let alone foreign languages. And as one of my partners is a linguist I get quite a lot of exposure and travel into Europe.
And there I see their level of Enthusiasm is quite high for language learning - and they do it much differently to us. Here in Ireland for example - just one example of the differences I see - I can think of Hector Ó hEochagáin who was a TV presenter who spoke a lot of English but loved peppering his dialogue with little Irish words or phrases here and there.
In Europe - particularly in Germany and Austria - I find almost everyone loves doing that with English. They just love to get a word in here - a phrase in there. Like it gives them a little buzz. I do not see that here much or at all.
And that is just languages. I see it across the education system myself alas. So I entirely agree with you building enthusiasm is an issue when implementing something. I just do not think _at all_ that it is an issue specific to anything I have proposed.
And again, let’s just stick to mindfulness for now. While that is certainly an interesting perspective on language and education, and while I’m a cunning linguist myself with fluency in several languages, I’ve never found it particularly interesting personally, it’s just one of those things as far as I’m concerned. My real talents lie elsewhere, far more interesting, at least to the ladies anyway
I would not go down the route at all of thinking one "more important" than the other. I would see them as entirely complementary. In fact for reasons I will describe below I am not even sure I would distinguish them as separate things at all in some contexts. Which is again why I feel the curriculum you linked to does not address the things I discuss but provides a foundation for them.
After all - you can spend all the time in the world teaching people to communicate their internal world - but what use is it in a society where no one is listening? That makes as much sense as installing a radio tower in a country where no one will ever own radios.
But conversely radios are not much use if no one is broadcasting - you can give people all the listening skills in the world - but what use is that if we do not have the ability to communicate - or the language to internally make sense of and _then_ articulate our internal issues.
Further listening - good listening - is not just about passively sitting there as a sponge and taking it all in. It is also often about constructing the right questions at the right time. So giving people the structures to talk - _is_ to give them the tools to be a listener too. Sometimes the right question asked in the right way can open up whole channels and systems of thought in your brain that were not explored before.
I am not sure therefore I see much utility in the "listening is more important - and sure if they can do that they will probably work out the rest for themselves" approach you describe here. Why assume they will reinvent the wheel - or that they even should - if there is a language of psychology and psychiatry there that they can be given to do it?
I have found that one can learn far more about oneself from listening and observing others, than one can ever learn about oneself on one’s own. That’s the utility of the importance of listening far more than one speaks. I didn’t say it was either/or, nor did I suggest they weren’t complementary. They are, and saying that one is more important than the other does not mean anything like I’m suggesting that we reinvent the wheel, but rather I acknowledge that language evolves, from Old English to Modern English to modern day Engrish (it’s big in Japan). By the time you’ll have taught children the basics of the language of psychiatry and psychology (which itself is undergoing constant evolution), they’ll no longer be children you’re attempting to teach, but adults.Whatever you might think of the man himself for example - and I can understand what gets peoples backs up about him - The Blindboy Podcaster of late has done a series of podcasts on different systems of thought in this. CBT and Transactional Analysis were among the things he discussed to an audience much of whom knew nothing about either.
And the feedback he appears to have gotten I find more interesting than anything he actually said himself - and it fits exactly what I am saying here. His listeners are commenting on his streams or writing into him saying pretty much every time "I had these thoughts and feelings and I did not know how to discuss them even within myself - and listening to what you taught about CBT/TA/OTHER put the words in place around which these otherwise nebulous things were given substance".
It is like the anti-1984 thing with Newspeak. There the idea was to remove words from the language. Not because removing the words magically stops people having feelings or thoughts. But because if those feelings or thoughts do not have words to coalesce around then it is significantly more difficult to action them or address them internally or ex.
So to return the thread to the OP - the issue for me with "Just talk about it" when people do not have the linguistic frame work to actually do it - is like telling someone with no legs to just get up and walk out.
I think you’re familiar with my opinion on the entertainer that is Blindboy, I don’t find him entertaining in the slightest, and it’s quite likely I too would find his listeners opinions far more interesting than the man himself, it really isn’t that hard to know when he speaks on economic and social issues, his knowledge of either subject is... limited, is putting it kindly. A far more interesting speaker and someone from his neck of the woods and all is Dr. Stephen Kinsella, all-round decent guy who hasn’t disappeared up his own orifice, it’s not just humblebrag when he says he has two PhD’s and still manages to make sense. He does, and he makes far more sense than Blindboy attempting to emulate Shakespeare’s Fool.
So to return the thread indeed to the OP - my issue with your suggestion that we give people a linguistic framework is simply misguided at best, and would serve no purpose for people who are dumb, as in unable to speak, and therefore a linguistic framework to them is indeed like telling someone anything when they can’t speak. Some deaf people are actually great listeners btw, actively observing, and by doing so, people who are dumb and deaf come up with their own ways of communicating their inner thoughts and expressing themselves. You may or may not understand them, but in order to know what they’re saying first of all, it helps if you can understand just how they’re communicating. You can only do that by listening and observing. You won’t do it by telling them how you want them to speak, even Picard had to learn that... eventually
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One eyed Jack wrote: »You understand the use of the term ‘broad’ in relation to the objectives of the program?
I understand that such a word lacks _any_ of the specifics that I am discussing yes. And that the use of such a term tells us nothing at all about the specific content of it. And when I look into the links you present on the topic the content of those links in no way contains any reference to the kind of things I am talking about.
So pretending I have linguistic issues that I do not - rather just talks past the majority of everything I have been discussing with you. If you want to pretend that my reference to the "Broad Objectives" means I only read them and nothing else in your links - you are welcome to engage in the pretence of course. But pretending would be all it is.That being said, of course I’m happy for you that you have found something which makes you happy. Or - at least - petty.One eyed Jack wrote: »I never said I didn’t know what I was talking about? I said I had no interest in mindfulness. That should be easy to understand. The curriculum does exactly what I think you’re suggesting, but if you’re suggesting it doesn’t, then you’re going to have to be much clearer in exactly what you are suggesting
Your lack of knowledge and interest in the subject - or understanding what I have been writing - does not mean I have not been clear. Perhaps it is not clear _to you_ but that does not mean it is not clear _at all_. In fact it would be difficult to be any clearer without starting to talk at you like you were a child. Which I am happy to do. But perhaps a better approach to adult conversation would be rather than making vague and vacuous assertions about lack of clarity or content - you might instead try to probe with specific questions or inquiries. That is how adult two way conversation works. "in order to move the discussion forward".
Again however I have been very clear about the difference between what your links discuss - which is fundamentals of basic communications - and what I am discussing - which is about fostering communication on a specific topic. The Phone and Language Analogy is worth repeating here. Installing a communication channel being different from the protocols of what would be discussed over it.
Put more plainly a "broad" (since you are focused on the word) approach to fostering basic communication ability in children is a great thing. However that is only a foundation when it comes to giving them the linguistics and tools to discuss a given _specific_ topic. A topic that there is not just little but pretty much _nothing_ in your link referring to. Which is why I am saying the curriculum does not do what I am suggesting, despite your vague insistence that it does.One eyed Jack wrote: »12 weeks is certainly enough time to evaluate the efficacy of a program which is normally delivered over the course of 8 weeks
Which just highlights once again the fact I genuinely see no reason to think you know what you are talking about on this subject. 12 weeks is simply _not_ enough to evaluate the efficacy of a program based on "X" when in general the benefits of "X" are not observed until much longer periods than 12 weeks. To think 12 weeks is enough therefore is just to demonstrate you know little or nothing about the subject at hand.
I can give you a crash course in a few sentences however. Mindfulness Meditation practices are generally not - as many people often believe - about stilling the mind and thinking about nothing. Quite the opposite. What they _are_ about is not being a slave to being lost in thought and internal conversation the entire time - and being able to focus on some aspect of the present moment in such a way that if distracting thoughts or emotions arise you develop the ability to notice them and let them go on their way without their distracting you in the present moment.
The "arc" I discussed in the previous post where people think they are getting worse at it just when they are getting better at it - is because the main skill to be developed is even _noticing_ that you are getting lost in thought in the first place. Which most of us simply can not do. So when people start to get good at it - they notice they are getting lost in thought all the time - and perversely this leaves them thinking they are bad at it or just got worse. When in fact they have just reached the stage when they can really get going in the practice.
None of that in my direct experience or in reading books by Dan Harris, Jon Kabat-Zinn, or any comprehensive studies on the matter - happens within 12 weeks generally. It is very rare to see that level of progress in 12 weeks at all.
So no - a study focusing on people for 12 weeks is not going to give any meaningful or useful results on the topic really. Even if the study is focusing on the practice entirely rather than just a course with "elements" of the practice in it as the link in this thread was. In fact it is likely to be worse than useful. It is likely to give results that are positively misleading.One eyed Jack wrote: »Work with the data you’re given - I see no benefit personally, is one data point; the other is that of my brother who is evangelical in his promotion of mindfulness as an effective tool that everyone should be using. I have no problem introducing my bias in saying that he’s doing the concept of mindfulness no favours by making it sound like nothing more than a slick ponzi scheme for some slick operators to take advantage of gullible shmucks, but that’s just my impression of his marketing skills.
Much like many or most forms of religion - many things sold as "meditation" are indeed money making schemes taking advantage of gullible scmucks. This is something people who promote the practice have to combat and undo as part of promoting what they promote. When you google simply the word "meditation" you get all kinds of woo nonsense and crap and evidence devoid claims being sold to people to make profit.
This is unfortunate - but entirely true. Quite often you even get it sold as a way to commune with god - usually using fancy sounding words to make it all sound much more than it is. For example a religious nut job on a forum quite similar to this talks about how he went from atheist to christian having communed with god during "Deep Meditation using bio feedback technologies".
Sounds wonderfully technical doesn't it? But "Bio feedback" means nothing more than a simple tool that helps you visualize some aspect of your own body. The most common one is a simple beeper that beeps with your pulse. So you can focus on your pulse as you meditate. A useful tool actually but quite nonsense when presented like someone manufacturing evidence for god out of it would want.
Practices like Vipassana however offer nothing - and make no claims whatsoever - that requires recourse to buzz words, fancy ideas, or claims made on the basis of insufficient evidence.
However as I keep saying we are in danger -One eyed Jack wrote: »In the school environment of course it’s a different story, and at least one expert has as you suggest cautioned against drawing any hard and fast conclusions with the limited data set that is currently available
- of focusing too deeply on the _single_ example I gave of meditation and making this thread about nothing but meditation. That common but unfortunate move that often happens on forums like this where people get uppity about the example offered rather than focus on the actual point being made. And as I keep saying mediation would only be _one_ example of _the kind_ of thing I would like to see formed and incorporated into our schools from an early age. And I would be in entire agreement with your appeal to Authority Oxford Professor as to being cautious about adopting it in isolation in our schools.
Rather I would see it as one tiny single element in a curriculum aimed generally at giving people tools and linguistics and ideas that I see no reason to think most people currently have - aimed at fostering and maintaining their own mental health and well being. Focusing on meditation alone or as a majority - as you appear to be doing in your responses to me - would be as useless to me as forming a "Physical Eduducation (PE)" curriculum that did nothing more than tell kids what a football is - or did nothing more than make them jog an hour every couple of days. I think we recognize in a PE that fostering Physical Well Being requires a general holistic approach to maintain that health. I think Mental Health is no different.
But your Oxford professor agrees entirely with me when you quote him as saying “There have probably been at least 20 studies now of mindfulness in schools, all of them small, all of them not designed optimally,” he said. That is exactly my issue with the "study" that was linked to earlier in the thread. It was too small - not enough people and only 12 weeks when 12 weeks is not even _remotely_ close enough to requirements. And it was not well formed at all - relying on poor self reporting measures and making rather poor assumptions about the differences - and their relevance - between the sexes.
Instead perhaps we should be looking at long terms results when stuff like that is integrated into a curriculum over a number of years. Or we can focus good methodology studies closer on the work people like Jon Kabat-Zinn do with it in "the Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School" where massive benefits and progress have been claimed from the practices.One eyed Jack wrote: »I think the benefits of it are only gained by people who are interested in it. People who are not interested in it will see no benefit, and because children only spend 20% of the calendar year in school, and 80% of their time outside the school environment, they are unlikely to gain the full benefits of mindfulness, which could be better delivered by parents who are enthusiastic about the idea.
You are asserting that suspicion without evidence however. I am not seeing any studies - nor have you offered any I note - that correlates or links interest in it with the benefits from it. Nor - I would point out - is being interested in it a requirement for much of what we put on our school curriculum. If it was - one wonders what a school curriculum would even look like. Would History, Geography, Irish, Maths even be there at all? What about religion? I certainly say no benefit _or_ interest in any student ever from my time in various schools of having that nonsense foisted on us.
I suspect you are just showing your bias here therefore - by applying standards to one subject that are not being applied or required of any others. Whereas my approach and position to it - regardless of any bias or ideas I have about the efficacy and benefit of such practices - would be to put by biases aside hold _all_ of them to the same standards where possible in a fair and reasoned manner.
And as I said if we did take that approach - and include things on a curriculum that actually have evidence and reason showing their benefit - I suspect some of the nonsense that might be dear and precious to you would find itself much further down the pecking order as to it's justification for being on a school curriculum than anything I am proposing should be there.One eyed Jack wrote: »You’re clearly not, as you’ve just wedged in religion out of nowhere. I didn’t bring it up, you did, but let’s stick to mindfulness for now.
That is a weak dodge by far. References to other elements - or citations of examples from other elements of the curriculum is in no way the same as not focusing on one area of it. Quite the opposite. Being focused on one area does not require one make _no_ references to any other part of it.
The point - dodged alas - being that if we are going to start rolling in standards of measurement that you are only applying here and not to anything else - then that is going to force a derail into discussion of the curriculum as a whole. Because we would be engaging in unfair cherry picking of standards which you apply to whatever you have personal issue with - but withholding it from everyone and everywhere else.
And "religion" is a perfect and warranted example of that rather than - as you simply pretend - being "wedged out of nowhere". Because if your personal bias towards something forms as "I simply see it as a waste of class time and something which should be taught to children by their enthusiastic parents is all" then it is perfectly warranted to point out that the nonsense taught under the guise of "religion" about virgin births and resurrections is every bit as much a waste of class time - and is just as valid to be claimed that it is something that should be left to "enthusiastic parents is all".
The one difference being that meditation can be shown to exist - and the benefits of it or not actually studied. The god stuff not so much and despite it being around in our society and curriculum _a lot longer_ than meditation practices - the evidence and data showing any benefit of it at all is thin on the ground. Somewhere hovering around non-existent in fact.One eyed Jack wrote: »And again, let’s just stick to mindfulness for now.
And again, I see no reason to do that. It was one example of a much larger point and your focusing on the example rather than the point is interesting and telling. The entire point I am making is that there are potentially ways to address the concerns of the OP at the level of early school curriculum by introducing a program that is not there at all. A program that would build on the foundation of what you linked to already being there. And of the _many_ things that could potentially be on such a program Mindfulness Meditation is only one tiny and single element of it. Only one of the examples I have offered so far. That this one example has triggered you in some way is fine - but I see no reason why that means we are required to focus solely on it when the thread is not about that.
What the thread _is_ about is the idea that "Just talk about it is just not good enough" and I think that is 100% correct. It is not. And it certainly is not if we are not giving people the tools and language and concepts that would foster their even being _able_ to "just talk about it" in the first place.
And I simply do not see any of that - or any of my points - being addressed by you using a lot of individual words to tell us nothing more than you personally have no interest in one single practice. What relevance you think your personal interest has to anything here is cloudy at best.One eyed Jack wrote: »I have found that one can learn far more about oneself from listening and observing others, than one can ever learn about oneself on one’s own. That’s the utility of the importance of listening far more than one speaks. I didn’t say it was either/or, nor did I suggest they weren’t complementary. They are, and saying that one is more important than the other does not mean anything like I’m suggesting that we reinvent the wheel, but rather I acknowledge that language evolves, from Old English to Modern English to modern day Engrish (it’s big in Japan). By the time you’ll have taught children the basics of the language of psychiatry and psychology (which itself is undergoing constant evolution), they’ll no longer be children you’re attempting to teach, but adults.
I genuinely have no idea what your point in this paragraph even is. Again you appear to be doing nothing more than making a blatantly obvious statement about _everything_ on our curriculum but in some way pretending it is a relevant or useful statement about the current topic. Clearly you think there is a point being made here - or you likely would not have typed it all - but I am not seeing what it is.
We teach a lot of things to children over the course of their schooling. Like Mathematics. And by the time we are finished teaching it to them - they are no longer children but adults. So what is your point?
The point for me is we have adults coming out of our schooling system with an alarming quantity of mental health issues and some people are telling them "Just talk about it". And we are telling them that despite at no point - in said schooling - giving them the tools and language and concepts to meaningfully discuss the topics we are demanding the "just talk about".One eyed Jack wrote: »I think you’re familiar with my opinion on the entertainer that is Blindboy, I don’t find him entertaining in the slightest
Irrelevant. I am discussing the message and the effects of it - not the source. If you want to ad hominem the source by all means do but in general I will not be replying to that area of your posts.
Regardless of the source - what I observe in situations where people like his present these concepts and ideas to their audience - the result is the same. Which is that said audience feels enabled after having been given the new language and concepts to give substance linguistically to thoughts and feelings that were otherwise nebulous for them before. And this is a _good_ thing.
Now of course anecdote is not evidence - nor am I pretending it is - but anecdote _is_ a focal point for interest, potential, and further study. And there is a pattern there that indicates that potential benefits to mental health are there to be relatively easily obtained by finding ways to give those tools and ideas to people _before_ they develop mental health issues in order to pre-empt them before they arise or deal with them when they do.One eyed Jack wrote: »So to return the thread indeed to the OP - my issue with your suggestion that we give people a linguistic framework is simply misguided at best, and would serve no purpose for people who are dumb, as in unable to speak, and therefore a linguistic framework to them is indeed like telling someone anything when they can’t speak. Some deaf people are actually great listeners btw, actively observing, and by doing so
I have no idea what the reference to deaf or dumb people is meant to be here. It has nothing to do with my points in even the remotest way that I can see. And simply calling something "misguided" without anywhere in your post having explained how or why it is - is no better than remaining deaf or dumb on the issue either.
The simple core of my point has not been addressed. Which is that if you want people to "just talk about" an issue - but you have never given them the concepts or linguistics or tools related to that issue - then you are expecting more of them than you need to. If there is a benefit to be gained by having them talk about their issues - open up about them - or explore them - which I genuinely believe there is - then there is automatically a benefit to be gained by improving their ability to do so. And to not have them reinvent the wheel of the linguistics about that area before they do so when we can relatively easily install that in their brains early on for them.0 -
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One eyed Jack wrote: »tax I don’t think you understand how an evaluation works. There is a given time frame
And I do not think you have any of the training or knowledge by which to make that evaluation. I am very much versed and educated in the methodologies of scientific studies and of the methods by which one can evaluate such work by others. I know all about how to write and read and interpret scientific studies. You are walking essentially into my field of play and telling me from the outside I do not know how the game works. Not clever.
The issue is that a given "time frame" is useless - and will produce useless data - if it is not congruent with the time frame of the thing being studied. And that is what _you_ appear not to understand about how evaluation works. If for example you were evaluating a drug that takes 12 weeks to be efficacious and your time frame of evaluation was 6 weeks - your results are likely not going to be useful.
With meditation practices the general learning curve is such that new practitioners do not tend to even get to the point where they can genuinely start learning the practice usefully for quite a period of time. It takes weeks to get people to the level they even notice the things they have to notice before implementing the practice. So studying the effects of teaching such practices for 12 weeks is about as useful as claiming to be a scientist of ice bergs when in fact you only ever observe or study the bit sticking up over the water.One eyed Jack wrote: »You don’t have the luxury of spending the kind of time you would like on it, because time costs money, and nobody really gives a shìte whether little Johnny can focus his locus and self-examine himself or any of the rest of it. Mindfulness is just shìt hot right now, CBT is just so last century.
But we do have that luxury and people are engaging in those kinds of studies. It is just early days yet. That _other_ people are doing short time scale studies with results that are not useful - and then for reasons that are still unclear to me jumping to conclusions in that paper other than the one actually studied (such as studying it in a college situation and then claiming conclusions for a school situation) - does not mean we can not or are not engaging in actually useful studies elsewhere.
But sure it is indeed an issue of poor funding. Often because people fund studies - or not - that they themselves do not understand. A 12 weeks study of something that likely takes 12 months to show any actual beneficial effects is not something that should have been funded or green lit in the first place. It was a poor choice.One eyed Jack wrote: »When I say I have no interest in mindfulness, and you proceed to ‘give me a crash course’ I never asked you for and gave you no indication that I wanted it, that just demonstrates a complete lack of awareness of self, and awareness of others, on your part.
Nope. Quite the opposite. It shows that lack on _your_ part by thinking that you wanting it or requesting it is the measure by which another person should choose to offer it or not. It isn't. Nor should it be. The measure by which I should choose to offer it is my understanding of the subject - and how that informs me as to what would be beneficial to offer or not. And that is not true just of this conversation but _any_ conversation between someone who knows little or nothing about a given subject - and someone who does. Because it is the person who does who is in a better position to know what points or knowledge is best likely to be informative to the other party. And it "just demonstrates a complete lack of awareness of self, and awareness of others, on your part" to not be cognizant of that fact.One eyed Jack wrote: »What you attempted to do is just ignorant, trying to force your ideology on me when you are wholly aware I have no interest in it.
Except no one is forcing anything on you. You are for example not in any way compelled to read this thread or reply to my posts on it. You are _choosing_ to do that entirely of your own accord. The entire opposite of being forced. The issue here is that your personal interest in the subject is - not at all relevant to the facts of the subject. And it is the facts of the subject - and how they relate to the OPs concerns - that are the _sole_ arbiter of what I will say on the thread and why.
The question for me is whether such practices and such modules in a curriculum will be beneficial - or will address the concerns of the OP. Whether some joe soap who knows little or nothing about the subject or finds themselves interested in it - could quite literally not be more irrelevant to - well - anything. And I think it just demonstrates a complete lack of awareness of self, and awareness of others to even suspect it might be relevant. If it is of no interest to you - then simply stop discussing it with me. Problem solved.One eyed Jack wrote: »That’s exactly the kind of fundamentalist zealotry that frankly worries me about your sort. It’s quite disconcerting, and were I of a weaker mind, I might succumb to your overbearing recruitment tactics.
Except no one is trying to recruit you into anything. No one is being over bearing. And least of all fundamentalist or zealous. Quite the opposite. As I said myself already I would dismiss 12 weeks studies on the subject even if they 100% supported my position for example. No fundamentalist zealot I know of would do that. You are just getting pointlessly personal and insulting here for the sake of it really.
No what I want is for _no one_ (not just you and your biases here) to take anything I say seriously but in fact to notice exactly what I already said. That there is a wealth of anecdote here suggesting the benefits of these practices - but anecdote it not evidence but an indicator of what is worth studying. And we need more of that study. And many people are in fact doing just that. And I await the results of it with great anticipation. Because if my suspicions are well founded - we have a relatively easy and cheap practice that can show and produce wonderful benefits. Wonderful stuff if true!
But no matter how many times I point this put you keep moving to ignore it - that the focus on one single example from many is not useful here. For whatever reason meditation triggered you and you've focused on it almost solely. Whereas I am saying A) It was a single example from a few I offered and many more I could offer and
I too - like you - do not actually want to see it implemented in isolation in schools either. I think it would be entirely pointless to do so. I think it would only show genuine utility and benefit if implemented only as a small _part_ of a greater more holistic mental health equivalent to PE.One eyed Jack wrote: »You can rest easy tax, because we are indeed giving people the tools and language and concepts that would foster their being able to resist being taken in by fundamentalist zealots, and talk to each other in the first place rather than come off like fundamentalist zealots themselves.
The name calling and ad hominem and insinuations are not likely to add anything to this conversation other than your unfortunate ongoing MO of trying to get moderators to step in and shut down conversations you do not like the direction of. A tactic that has unfortunately worked many times in the past. But I will not be joining you in the name calling or topic shifting. As I said the failures of communication have not been on my side here - and I have suggested ways to rectify it such as replacing vague assertions of not being clear - with an approach more inclined to specific questions aimed at things you feel have not been clear. You are not engaging in conversation in good faith here and now pretending this is my fault somehow.
_Again_ my concern with the OPs issue is that he is indeed right that merely demanding people "Just talk about it" is not "good enough". Because that approach assumes people have the language and concepts required to talk about it in the first place. And as I said your personal opinions about people like Blindboy aside - his recent forays into discussing mental health with his audience is a good example of what I mean that can not be dismissed merely by Ad Hominem on the source.
The effect we observe there is exactly what I describe. That people return with comments and feedback that the single most beneficial aspect to his speeches on the matter were that his listeners had these nebulous feelings and thoughts and the CBT - or TA - or other frameworks he afforded them gave them tools and concepts they were never given before - certainly not in their school curriculum - to give those things real form.
And once they had that - they were then in a position to action them or discuss them internally or externally - or in some cases even recognise background feelings and narratives and issues they otherwise were oblivious to.
And all of that is good stuff. Why would it not be? I certainly have not been shown any negatives related to it. And Meditation which you appear more obsessed with focusing on and being zealous and fundamentalist on the topic of than you are falsely trying to claim I am - is only a tiny part of what I think is the correct approach to pursuing those benefits.0 -
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