Jeff Burgess
Educational Platform
EAD 6133 Capstone
Dr. Michael Arnold
July 1, 2004

Electromagnetheory of Education:
Magnetic Mind Metaphor or Empirical Examination?

Introduction

When I first posed the question “What is a ‘magneteacher’?” to graduate colleagues in an educational administration class, the first irresolute response was that it might be a teacher to whom students are attracted.  While this may be true in most instances, my definition of a magneteacher was a teacher that taught students to be magnets for knowledge by developing a life-long appreciation for learning.  Since then, my magneteacher theory has undergone a metaphoric metamorphosis into a dimension that is more literal than I had previously contemplated.  Every living process on Earth and the existence of our solar system is dependent upon electromagnetic energy.  From the tiniest particles within atoms to enormous astronomical entities, everything is reliant on this inexplicable dynamic force that provides a pulsation that holds the matter of the universe in place with a celestial dance of radiant energy.  Before we ponder the question of what in the world does this have to do with education, let’s cogitate a few mind-boggling magnetic mysteries. 
Many respected scientists and doctors are reporting on research that suggests that magnetism has the power to heal the body and the brain. US News and World Report (2004) mentions researchers at a Boston hospital that recently refocused their study on possible new treatments for bipolar disorder after an electromagnetic encounter.  When the patients emerged from an advanced brain scanning device, the echo-planar magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging procedure, bipolar patients who had been severely depressed became radiant and cheerful.  Their poles were apparently realigned!  The brain is imminently being studied as an electromagnetic organ with the possibility that brain disorders might result from disarray in magnetic function.  Other researchers describe the phenomena of the reversal of Earth’s magnetic field every 100 million years.  Calculations show that the magnetic field has been weakened about 50% in the last 1000 years, 5% of that in the last 100 years. The computations suggests that the magnetic field will be too weak to support life in about 1500 years.  Perhaps the Big Bang is actually a big pulse like the reversal of Earth’s magnetic field.  The alpha rhythm of brain waves has been shown to match that of oscillations of electromagnetic fields in the atmosphere – perhaps another dance of rhythmic radiant energy from the divine architect.  Earth’s surface and the atmosphere are a giant electric circuit with embedded thunderstorms clothed with static cling whose discharges help to balance the budget of energy.  Similarly, dreams are a way to achieve equilibrium from the random discombobulation of energy in our magnetic minds.  Another detail to consider is the potentially harmful effects of electropollution proliferated by man’s recent harnessing and distribution of alternating current electricity and radio waves.  Many researchers suggest this pollution could be harmful to magnetic biological processes.  One thing is clear – without electromagnetic energy our subsistence would immediately cease.

Just as electromagnetic energy is extremely essential for earthly existence, a dynamic force of dendrite connectivity is necessary for public education as we know it to avoid inevitable extinction.  We need to get on the same wavelength and maintain a consistent universal alpha rhythm and with students, parents, teachers, administrators, community members, business leaders, politicians, and governmental regulating agencies.   Harmonious relationships need to be molded among all the components of our brain building generators. We need to envision an educational system that is free from harmful pollution that distorts truth, seeks selfish motives, promotes corruption, and fails to break the continuous cycles of destructive family and social patterns. Our educational system would benefit from a good dose of electrolytes and shock therapy to promote cleansing, communication, collaboration, and cooperation.  

Platform

From the time we learn to talk, our minds become starving magnets for knowledge.  When a young child starts arranging words into sentences, he or she will start incessantly asking how, when, where, why, who, or whatever (We will call this a magnetoddler).  We seek information from many sources: parents, teachers, friends, books and other written media, religion, electronic sources, the world wide web, television, telephones, and telepathy.  Humans have a natural curiosity that is never satiated.  We want to know how did we get here, why we are here, and where we are going.   

If the brain is an electromagnetic organ (a scientific fact), then it is logical that learning is an electromagnetic process.  When this process is disturbed, learning cannot occur or is distorted.  As educators we need to be aware of sources of potential pollution that might interfere with electrochemical signals in the brain. Educators should sensitive to the physiological and psychological hierarchy of needs of our students.  Its is hard to think about academics when you are worried about the hunger pains from your growling stomach, or when you are worried about the living nightmares that occur when you leave school and return to your house of horror, or how you can avoid the bully on the playground, or when you are thinking about where you are going to get your next fix.  Learning is more likely to occur in an environment that promotes safety, security, and suitable shelter.  We need to express empathy for children’s needs of love and esteem.  Only when these needs are met are students able to begin to concentrate and move toward their full potential.  Attempting or forcing instruction when these needs are not met made lead to repulsion, disarray, the development of a magnitude, blowing of a fuse, or even violent behaviors.  Every student may be teachable, but first we need to analyze each individual’s culture, history, current polar arrangement, and influential forces.

In addition to providing safe and secure schools, we must provide a physical environment that is magnetically attractive and appealing.  Students and parents need to be drawn to rich, stimulating environments that include artifacts of student creations that provide ownership and connection.  The ideal learning environment should include opportunities for visual, auditory, and kinetic experiences, as well as a variety of shapes, colors, and levels of lighting and temperature.  The environment should contain consistent visual symbols of pride and tradition as well as evidence of change and transitions that lead to improvements in learning.  

The school curriculum must seek alignment of all its filaments.  Local, state, and federal standards must be evaluated, interpreted, and incorporated continuously on a alternating current cycle (be prepared for oscillations, reversals, voltage fluctuations, and power shortages in these fields).  Solid yet flexible goals and objectives must be defined and distributed to internal and external communities and leaders.  Early childhood education must be focused on developmentally appropriate activities and the acquisition of language and communication skills.  Early intervention with difficulties in these areas will help to produce more successful students.  Our American society is currently extremely negligent when considering advantages of introducing basic language phonemes of other cultures at this opportunistic moment.   As the curriculum expands to meet the diverse needs and interests of maturing students, we should provide ample, appropriate, and opportune occasions for pubescents and magneteenagers to develop in the intelligences of linguistic, logical-mathematical,  spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic, and the imminent technological components.  Some of these desires will be fulfilled in the extracurricular functions of the school such as academic clubs, athletics, band, music, vocational, and technological activities.  If we do not address the full spectrum of intellect in our educational systems, we are denying students access to the liberties, freedoms, prospects, and entrepreneurial opportunities that are intrinsic to a democratic society. 

I am concurrent with my previous analogy of magneteacher pedagogies and styles – we should teach the child to have a magnetic mind, with one new criterion of training the child to seek input from sources that are appropriate, a sometimes impossible task when considering the societal norms and values of today’s tolerant and permissive civilizations.  Children do become life long learners, but as mentioned previously the sources of information are widely varied, and the inherent, ingrained closed circuits of dysfunctional families are not easily broken. Children will learn from examples found in their environment whether it is good or bad, moral or evil.  It also makes a difficult difference if the source of their learning or acquisition of values and morals comes from television, violent video games, or affiliation with gangs.  The rewards for successfully challenging individuals to rise above their circumstances – priceless.

Assuming the student is prepared to learn, instructional organization again must motivate minds magnetically.  To attract students to a desired instructional or behavioral objective we first must awaken the dendrites with electromagnetic brainstorms, and then hook the student by provoking thought, awakening interests, role playing, and by presenting real world problems, puzzles, paradoxes, incongruities, and unanswered questions.  We must enable and equip our young apprentices to explore, clarify, investigate emergent views, examine theories, identify resources, develop skills, study models, and participate in direct experiences.  Our learners need to have ability and experience in explaining theory, interpreting story, applying knowledge, viewing perspectives, feeling empathy, and perceiving knowledge.  Our trainees need time to reflect, rethink, and revise their work and ideas after they encounter related but dissimilar experiences, shifts in perspective, weird facts, anomalies, or surprises.  The developing experts should be provided opportunities to exhibit and evaluate their understandings, findings and solutions.  Their products and performances need to be authentic, have meaningful context, a clear purpose, and an appropriate audience. These steps are accomplished by allowing the student to uncover knowledge, as opposed to teacher coverage of the material.  

The school should be a centralized magnet to the surrounding community.  The school is the focal point for cultural, entertainment, and athletic activities for many small, rural schools as well as subcommunities in urban settings.  The community should be invited to participate in educational settings through sponsorships, carnivals, open houses, volunteer opportunities, Veteran’s Day activities, Grandparents Day events, and cultural and heritage sharing. Communication with publics may include newsletters and press releases.  The school should also infiltrate the community through visitations, field trips, community service programs, and vocational training.  Collaboration with the community is essential for the school to attract and sustain the support and resources necessary for appropriate education.  

An effective educational administrator is the dynamo that powers the institution he or she leads. The visionary leader attracts and gathers teachers that have a similar enthusiasm for learning, and repulses or redirects those who do not.  Influential, with a strong ability to push or pull, yet diplomatic, sensitive, flexible, approachable, and empathetic leaders are needed in administrative positions.  The administrative leader has several tasks that must be simultaneously coordinated.  He or she must identify, evaluate, allocate, and reappraise human and financial resources with discretion.  The administrator must ensure that local, state, and federal laws and regulations are followed. The educational leader has the duty to see that special needs students receive a free and appropriate public education.  The building principal should have the primary goal of ensuring that learning is occurring in the classroom.  The administrator must see that a safe, secure, appropriate, and attractive learning environment is available for utilization.  The administrator must collaborate and effectively correspond with the community members, politicians, and business, cultural, and religious leaders.  He or she needs to have an understanding and appreciation of the diverse needs and cultural context of the population that is being served.  

Reflection

Twenty-five years ago neither anyone I knew at that time nor I ever imagined that someday I would be an educator.  Many of my former classmates at our last high school reunion were amazed at the ironic reversal of my mind’s magnetic field since our graduation. Though I had lived a quiet, somewhat normal childhood with a loving Christian mother and alcoholic father (now recovered and Christian), my life quickly transformed from a student of success to one of failure during the two years that I spent in ninth grade.  As a young teenager I made choices to attach myself to a rebellious, noncomformist crowd that shunned attempts from family and educators to instill an appreciation for learning.   Everyone looks for affiliation, association, and attachment somewhere, whether it is with knowledge, family, friends, religion, politics, power, wealth, careers, drugs, alcohol, sex, violence, gangs, or crime.  After years of wandering aimlessly and searching for answers, about 14 years ago my life took a dramatic turn as a result of divine intervention.  Since that time, my life has refocused on encouraging others to consider positive alternatives.  My hope is that I will be able to make difference in the lives of those I serve.

My belief is that when we exit our earthly experience, our electromagnetic energy will be eternally transformed in one of two directions according to our polarity, north or south.  However, there is a cross connection that can be made to reverse the lives of those going in the wrong direction.  As educators we have the opportunity to be role models and examples that have the power to influence, persuade, and convince others.  We have the power to push or pull people to make positive or negative choices.  In the infinite realm beyond our magnetic minds, our decisions will change lives, the world, and eternity.  

A je-free-bird-brain-storm production
 2004 All Rights Potentialized