Category Archives: School / Education

In psychology class today we brought in Dave Hill – The World’s Greatest Hypnotist who performs in Las Vegas and has been on the David Letterman show several times. Over the course of an hour he attempted to put our class of 21 into a deep sleep and then read to us our post-hypnotic suggestions which we wrote on a sheet of paper beforehand. No one did any embarrassing or crazy things after waking, but most of us drifted in and out of hypnosis.

First, the hypnotist made us breath deeply and become very relaxed. Then we closed our eyes and weren’t allowed to open them until he told us so (once we went under, even if you tried to open them, you couldn’t). He then spoke to us to become more and more comfortable, which made us slouch more and more. "Very sleepy, very droopy, you are concentrating perfectly," he would say over and over. After we awoke, he tried "rapid induction" which he claimed only three people in the world can do. He stands right across from the subject, gets him/her comfortable, and then shouts "sleep!" and the person falls into his shoulder and becomes limp.

My post-hypnotic suggestion was "I will not check by BlackBerry for the next two hours." Instead, he read it "You will not check your BlackBerry for the next two weeks, and you will put it in the office of your teacher until November 7th." WTF? When he said that I consciously knew it wasn’t going to work.

Despite some people resisting – if you resist, you can avoid hypnosis – it was still a good time, and will be more fun to watch the video of ourselves tomorrow!

In my Geography class today we had a very interesting discussion on the Israel and Palestine situation. Two of my Jewish friends who are both very involved and spent two months in Israel over the summer said that they would fight for the Israeli army over the American army. This shocked me. They are both very normal American citizens, but feel like their heritage and attachment to the religion supercedes loyalty to their home country.

It raised the larger question about the fundamental human need for an identity.

It is usually in adolescence when we fully develop our sense of self. It is a core human need to feel ownership of our self (our ego), take comfort in a unique identity, AND feel a sense of belonging to a larger something. The identity crisis is the quintessential high school quagmire, and it usually manifests itself with abrupt personality changes. Someone may come in one day and be a real loud-mouth, and a month later try on the introverted hat. Later on, this is called the mid-life crisis.

Religion is a very convenient way to fulfill this need. In many ways it dictates a value system and brings a rich culture and history to which you can feel a part. For me, I prefer to exercise my individuality by grappling with the big questions myself and developing a personal value system. In other words, my sense of belonging is to a worldview I continue to create. I have little interest in finding my roots or tracing my ethnicity. If my parents tried, I would have resisted a formal religious upbringing because it seems too tidy a way to resolve some of the most difficult questions. My approach is not necessarily better than the one of my friends, but it highlights a divergence in life philosophy.

What are your thoughts?

Life gets interesting at intersections. Economic theory, for example, is boring until you add behavioral science and sociology. Environmentalism may, in and of itself seem "same old same old," but when discussed with public policy, geography, and energy it becomes much more interesting.

This is why interdisciplinary education should triumph over the historical precedent of different discrete academic departments. As I look at colleges and their majors, the most fascinating and relevant to today’s world are the interdisciplinary ones that involve law professors, computer scientists, political theorists, sociologists, and media studies scholars.

The President of Stanford says that each student in today’s world needs to be like a "T" – deep in one area but fluent in a wide range of topics. I couldn’t agree more, with one additional emphasis: broad exposure in the liberal arts should be taught by examining the intersections, overlaps, and disagreements between what we historically have called independent "disciplines."

There’s nothing like good ole high school humor. For all the downsides of high school, I do get to be around some very funny people who make me laugh. In business meetings people politely laugh, usually at stupid jokes. But at the high school lunch table, I spend a fair amount of time straight out bawling (in a good way!). You can always tell a genuine smile/laugh when the eyebrows pop up and a twinkle in the eye.

What’s not so good is when I break down laughing during a class. But there I was, in my Geography class, and we were talking about why foreign aid can sometimes be a bad thing. A classmate of mine suggested that sometimes foreign aid is delivered in the form of condoms, and as such, condoms save people from AIDS, ergo less people die, more population, and the African country can’t deal with it. On the face of it, it seems mildly outrageous, though not something I would break out laughing to. But a quick look at a friend sitting to my right shows a slight smile creeping across his face. That did me in. I start breaking down, laughing so loud that the teacher has to stop his lecture for a second. Finally I stop, but I’m still laughing. A few minutes later I can’t sew my mouth shut and humor tears start forming. Meanwhile, my friend is laughing so hard he starts sweating, which leaves him in shock. By the end of the class, my rib cage hurt.

The moral of the story is…when was the last time your rib cage hurt from laughing so much?

Why can’t my high school adopt this policy? As Erin O’Connor reports:

An English high school has decided to cope with the problem of student profanity by tolerating it. Beginning this fall, students will be allowed to curse at their teachers, just so long as they don’t say “f–k” more than five times during a lesson. Part of the new policy involves keeping a running tally on the blackboard of how many times the word “f–k” has been uttered during a given lesson–a practice that promises to distract students. If the word is used more than five times during a class–and my guess is that some classes will turn into competitions to see just how many times the word can be uttered–students will be “spoken to” afterward by the teacher. The school’s idea is that this policy will improve student behavior by acknowledging their habitual language patterns while making a reasonable request for modification of those patterns. “The reality is that the f-word is part of these young adults’ everyday language,” the headmaster said. “As a temporary policy we are giving them a bit of leeway, but want them to think about the way they talk and how they might do better.” The school, which was labelled “not effective” by inspectors last year, will also be sending “praise postcards” to parents of students who avoid cursing and who show up on time for class.