Sunday, January 25, 2015

Limited Use of the Plasticity of the Brain leads to our Modern Disease of ADHD.

Limited use of the Plasticity of the Brain leads to our Modern Dis-ease of ADHD

I am reading ‘ The Brain That Changes Itself, by Norman Diodge. In this book there is a woman who was born with a great memory but little in the way of spatial ability. She eventually learns that because of the plasticity of the ‘brain’ she can develop her lack in spatial ability. She does this by looking at clock faces, the kind of clock face that uses hands to point at numbers. She studies, or remediates, as in attends to, the arms and the digits, studies the volumes as the measure of time. She gets to the point where she will have numerous clock faces in front of her, reading the times on all the faces laid out in front of her.
What she begins to notice in fine tuning her attention within reading this means of time, is that her behavior in reality improves, meaning her spatial ability in real time, the actual physical world improves. 
Our ability to process symbols is great, but if for some reason we have a lag in development, we have to go back and ‘ paint the fence’ like in our karate movies, to re build the attentive capacity that was never developed, or was lost through accident. Accidents beings things that happen to adults, or developmental delays in children, or lack of development opportunity in children. Our minds are not fixed, they are able to change, they are able to use different parts to compensate for another part having been injured through lack, or through physical injury. We have the ability throughout our life to build near pathways.
We are so capable of taking in our world, but we must have the exposure to form and structure. Words are a form and a structure, little symbols that organize our communication, and  as such, our measure of the world around us. Words are attention to detail, and order of that detail. They are symbols as much as the symbols of time on the face of a clock with arms and digits in a circle.
If we look at our from of education since the advent of public schools, we can see that in tandem with the application of public education we have the rise of attention deficit disorders. Given the plasticity of the brain, and given the importance of structural development of spatial ability as symbols within, enabling an understanding of the forms in life as symbols of life without, why is the disease of lack of attention and order growing?

I recently looked at real estate in an area close to New York City. The real estate taxes on a small house are up to 15,000$. 9,000$ of which is supposedly paid to the school district. Astounding that a small house would pay that much of salary towards the local school district, and yet, I hear adults of children saying to me that they and their child have been diagnosed with ADHD.  This diagnosis seems to be the catch all for any lack in a person. I think to myself, ‘ what does this mean?’ Am I supposed to cover for the lack of attention and order in anyone who has been officially diagnosed with ADHD? Am I supposed to forgive all the problems lack of attention in another due to some named disease may bring in any relationship to that person? Is this a form of end game that accepts lack without realizing the lack of attention and using this to realize the blatant solution? I mean what happens when two people come together who have ADHD? Do they throw up their arms and say the cause of harm in this actual physical world is due to their dis-ease of ADHD? Who cleans up the mess? More ADHD people? In the end who suffers the most? The children. If we realize that ADHD is lack of attention and order, and that our brains are flexible and can build new neuro pathways, then we have the solution. What ADHD means is that there is an inability to focus here, in reality, thus the solution is to focus here, to order the within with the prefect tools of inner structure, as words, where the meanings are clear, practical, each unit a reciprocal of what that word means in physical reality.
Obviously, the very structure of our schools, is one of the the causes. Sending children into a room, a box, and placing information into them ONLY does not work. Children need order, real substantial order, and time to order. A school that breaks attention span with a bell every 50 minutes interrupts attention. It is actually a form of disruption.  And we are asking households to pay 9000$ a year for this. And, I will not go into asking how a home that has two adults working at minimum wage pay can afford this, and a car, and health insurance etc. In reality someone has to be there to serve you that cup of coffee, so even what we call the little things that make our lives easier must be respected, so why not pay that person enough to live and support life? I mean that monetary value is created through labor from freely given resources !   Spatially, the numbers do not add up, but then we can say we are ADHD and therefor no longer responsible. What came first the chicken or the egg? Is this measure that makes no sense existent because we simply do not look? Yes. So, are we the fault of our own demise, especially because it is understood that the brain has great plasticity? I mean what happened to Helen Kellar? Was it that an innate plasticity as what she was as a human being simply given space and time to order itself? Yes. And yes, it really is that simple. Ignorance is as the word suggests, is a state of non-lookingness. 
From the age of 1 to seven, when the brain is most flexible, taking in the form presented to it, we have how many hours in that child’s life? Let’s do the math. 7 years at 24 hours in a day times 365 is 61,320 hours. If we understand that it takes 10,000 hours to master something, then a child could come very close to mastering something by the time they are seven. They could come pretty close to mastering a few things in those first seven years, and we see this in many proteges. Given this understanding, why do our children have attention deficits? If we double this to the age of 14, then a child has double the 10,000 hours in their life and could master more than one thing. Or, at least, be close to mastering a couple of things, which in turn would create a structure within that enables a faster understanding of other areas to master. Therefor, there is really no excuse for ADHD in our world. By twenty two, there is no excuse for children to have not mastered language, none. 
Think of the limited symbols in a gun fighting video game. There is the symbol of a man, and a gun, some rocks and green blobs in the back ground. Sometimes some sky with planets and stars, sometimes some  hills etc. So, a video game presents very little form, symbol exposure. It is an extremely limited form, and the child becomes the reflection of what forms they confront. Thus, our very so-called entertainments are not what is best for us. and our children are spending hours doing this. When the real world hits, then, and they must make a living, what are they going to be capable of? Will they go to a doctor and be diagnosed with ADHD? And will they justify all their mis-steps as this diagnosis? What happens to the children that are to come in a world of such adults? 
When we are exposed to structure and form, our innate capacity is to absorb it, to start to order it, but the exposure must come to pass. If we are exposed to compound forms, as knowledge and information constructions  only, then we struggle because we are asked to understand a shape- so to speak- of which the details are not yet structurally clear, meaning the starting points, thus this is placing a square peg into a round whole, or hopping before crawling. As our knowledge of words reflects, there is variation in the degree of an ability to take in the format of knowledge and information presented through words in our schools which is obvious in our divisions into class. Here, our attention is focused on stories told from one point of view, the point of view of the person/people who financially support that text book. Thus the story will be told in their self interest, not in the interest of practical reality, because practical reality would be a different story all together, one that would demand common sense. And, anyone can realize that we are not systemically moving in common sense.
Thus, our children are a measure of mis-association, creating dis-association leading to a lack of self responsibility labeled as ADHD. The problem is inherent in this;  a lack of self responsibility, thus the solution is to become self responsible, of which no one outside of us can do for us, each must become this for themselves, and we all know this.

It is that the one thing each fears the most, is the only solution. That one point. Thankfully, the solution is here, and it is to build the means of a clear self response- ability, as being structurally sound, as having a solid foundation as the words we know. Our words create our thoughts, create our actions, leading to our habits, that become our characters. And our characters determine our success in this world. Thus, given the generational dis-clarity passed down with each generation, compounding into ADHD, we can use technology to refocus us and build a sound mind as the words we know. This will build a  superior memory, a direct seeing, and thus a very focused person who has the creative ability to order, see the parts and the whole, realize what would balance and be mechanistically possible in this physical world we express and live, and then dis-cover creative ways that sustain and build a world that becomes the functional clarity without, of this clear ability within as the very expression of ourselves here. 



Wednesday, January 7, 2015

How Flexible Are We With Our Knowledge and Information?

I am encountering parents who tell me that their child can read, and even gets very good grades on the exams, but when it comes to speaking and forming information verbally and on their own, they cannot.
I was trained as a violinist. I learned how to sight read music. What happened was that I could sight read a lot of music by the time I was 18, but when it came to generating music myself I could not move. The music was handed to me, with little space to move outside of it, because one thing came after another, I followed. And, in my adult years, I met many so-called professionals, who could not move beyond a certain genre, they were stuck in the forms they played to make a living, I suspect. A very limited scenario overall. The very fabric of the instrument was not understood, instead a program of information was placed within, without real under-standing of the whole. 
A lot of parents will have children study with someone who teaches them pieces, and the children will perform the prices and appear to be advanced, but in reality they are not. The real essence of playing is not developed. In the race to the top. to appear capable ends up catching up, and the parroting leads to limitations, as it is not real physical understanding.
One can learn to hop, but this does no mean that one can walk. What goes in is what comes out, what is allowed to be discovered, if such is given space and time, becomes the measure of the person. Knowledge and information without application does not lead to critical and creative thinking skill development. Even repetitive parroting without real definition in practical application to the whole, leads to programing without understanding the program. Lack of flexibility and changeability is the outcome.
In spending so much time only reading music, and I have to admit that I should have practiced the basics as the scales and the arpeggios more than I had, I became the experience of the measure of the phrases that I began to read, to block out and transform into music. So many are repeated, especially as I had remained in classical music, that when I encountered a new formation, I had to slow down way down to form that new form that deviated from a pattern. The exposure to patterns became the directive, and thus I lost confidence when not being able to be flexible in newer forms, or in moving into generating my own music. This too, overall developed insecurity, another wall of belief to have to filter through.
It is interesting , because at this point I  have improved with beginners and intermediate players, and what I notice is that if I do not follow an established pattern and add improvisation to something, these beginners become upset because they want the norm, as they cannot hear through the added resonance. So, there is a problem when someone has not mastered something because they tend to want to hang on established forms, which overall means that they are not looking at the parts, and have already expected set formats as the basis, when this is not so in music, nor is this with words. One must know the parts so well and be aware of the effects of the parts on the whole at all times- this is real spatial development. Here, change can be handled and one is flexible within that. This is what a child uses to build their abstract map that becomes their directive that ends up separating them from reality, from the whole. It is this separation that leads to limitations, to a movement as knowledge and information without application. Thus, the dis-ease we see in our children is one of attention deficit. And we wonder why?
Now, imagine teachers in a room with twenty or more students, each with  set patterns, the traditions and values of each family unit,  trying to work with this in a classroom? They simply, by design, cannot possibly check the basics in every child. In space and time it does not exist with this established industrial format. Which is why I see so many discussions that realize the extremely important point that the parents are the ones responsible for the careful development of the child.
Overall, the format of a school imparting knowledge and information without application is a form that teaches a child how to “ hop only, without really learning to walk.”
So, now imagine that child that has learned to hop but not walk. What actions would be needed to slow that child down and patiently change the action of hopping to walking? If we look at Helen Keller, who was  racing in her head with her own frustrations and lack of structure,  this movement had become within her, like a speeding train, where her mind was in that rapidly moving train of information, so she could no longer see the reality outside her movement as her directives. She was completely ungrounded, and her parents did not have the patience and the time and the understanding to resolve this separation - because it is a separation from practical reality. What they did was find someone to do this for them. And that person spent many hours and much time bringing Helen back. How many parents have the time to do this? 
In reality, all of us are racing in a train, hopping and not walking. And we are so locked in that we no longer see the practical reality landscape surrounding us. When we suddenly drop something, or when we trip and fall, or when we miss filling in that blank, of when we cannot answer a question, or solve a problem it is because we are racing as a “ hopping” action, and we are so entrenched in this that we don’t even realize it, and blame the consequence of this on the world around us, when it is us. We can really blame no one. And why, because there are those who realize this and take the time to “ revolve” themselves, they struggle and change. And these are actually very very very few, were this different then the problems of parents wanting the schools to solve the lack in their children would not exist. And the conversations about how this is needed would not exist, thus this means that this is you.
That child that can follow what is imparted as knowledge and information, in this world of lack of patience, and constant media impulse, for generations, has become a follower of knowledge and information without application only, thus when asked to generate, to self generate, they cannot slow down and reform themselves, because they are like Helen Keller, they have become the race of that information without application. To change this takes a lot of one on one interaction to correct and rebuild a new self directive program. Our schools are not there for this, which is why some will send their children to private schools, and as well spend large amounts to have the child tutored, because they understand how important it is to inform a child with the basic units, as the words, and that the child has the opportunity to apply themselves practically - this takes one on one interaction, and the labor piece must make enough to live so they can be there for the child.
I had to go back and retrain myself, it took hours, many many hours, and much reformation, which meant slowing down again and again and again, an action that is really no different than learning to walk. It is after all a physical world of space and time.
Our words are the perfect units to create structure, we can move them around, reform with them, we can give ourselves points of reference with them, they are the perfect tools of structure building. They are the perfect tools of building an ability to critique, to draw attention to the parts, to bring parts forward for attention, and then to reformat in creative ways, all of this done verbally to share abstractions that can then build an idea to share with another, to then take apart and tweek to make sure something is sound before following through into application. Words determine what we are able to make concrete, meaning what we are able to do and direct ourselves as in this world, because they show us how we see, how we notice things. Which is why the SAT tests are tests that look at the words you know, and I mean really know.
We are the words we know, the words we understand clearly, the words we have learned. If we have learned phrases, which can be ideas and beliefs and opinions, than it is as though we are hoping instead of walking, we are racing in a construct that is not equal to practical reality, and as such we lose our footing and cannot generate, and then we lose our self confidence, our self esteem, and we freeze, we lose directive capacity because we are not focused here, we become overwhelmed which leads to more chaos and dis -association from reality. 
Techno Tutor, to build a sound mind because we are the words we know.  A self empowerment tool to fill the gap as the need to allow parents to ensure that their child has the words to build an effective human being who has what it takes to become a success in this world.
Remember that becoming aware is a process, one that starts with “ crawling” and builds. Humans use language as a way to order our communication, thus we are the words we know, and I mean really know.