THE CURRENT STATE OF THE HEALTH CARE SYSTEM Our current model of health care places the provider, in many cases the physician, as a gatekeeper to access to health. For whatever historical, political, social, or economic reasons this came about, … Continue reading HEALTH EMPOWERMENT
In the field of emergency medicine, there is an idea called “door-to-balloon” or “time-to-cath”, which is the amount of time that has elapsed from the moment a patient who is having a specific kind of heart attack walks into the … Continue reading Is Primary Care Actually Effective?
All too common diseases, the vast majority of which are preventable and becoming more prevalent, are not befitting the inherent nobility of a human being. The imperative of health care is to empower patients with the knowledge, the insights, the understanding, … Continue reading Thoughts on Health Care
For thousands of years, beginning with the birth of the family – the smallest unit in the scale of human organization – humanity’s evolution has been characterized by a process of integration, which although far less spectacular than the parallel … Continue reading The Power of Truth
The Baha’i world has been learning how to use an education program to raise capacity in individuals and populations to take charge of their own spiritual, social, and intellectual development and to build communities that understand the dynamic coherence of … Continue reading Pedagogy of the Empowered
This past weekend, nearly forty individuals gathered together for an exploration of participation in discourse. (See post, Discourse: Session at Bosch) The aim was to connect everyday conversations – those with neighbors, with friends, with co-workers, with family, with parents … Continue reading Collective Reflections
National and Regional Training Institutes throughout the world offer a course called Ruhi Book 5, “Releasing the Powers of Junior Youth,” designed for the training of “Animators” who mentor youth between the ages of 11 and 14 years. Ruhi Book 5 builds the capacity of Animators to develop in junior youth the mental structures to weigh the world’s problems in the balance of advanced moral reasoning. It equips them with noble moral principles, together with the linguistic, mathematical, scientific, and social skills requisite for translating them in practice into their community, society, and institutions. The resulting moral framework developed in … Continue reading Releasing the Powers of Junior Youth
Some people think education is an act of depositing facts, in which the students are the receptacle and the teacher is the banker. Instead of communicating, the teacher issues lectures and makes deposits which the students receive and memorize. This … Continue reading Education and Liberation
Extreme socio-economic inequalities of access and opportunity result in privileged vs. oppressed classes. The oppressed, over time, adapt to the structure of domination under which generations languish and become resigned to it. The status quo of the social order is maintained by … Continue reading Empowerment, Oppression, and Social Order
Paragraph#: 1. 10 new Regional Councils (RC’s). 5-Year Plan messages foundation of action and study. Familiarity with dynamics of growth increases with core activities. 2. Dichotomy of neighborhood and centralized children’s classes (CC) transcended. 2 Junior Youth learning sites. Expansion/consolidation primary task of RC’s. … Continue reading Summary of August 9th Message
Discourse on the following topics has brought these themes to the point of being reconceptualized. Certain foundational principles have emerged and crystallized from ongoing discourse. Principles we now believe in in a new way are: 1) Unity of all Humankind 2) … Continue reading Discourse and Politics: Blood in the Arteries of Governance
Is it possible that a “debate” leads us, the listeners and watchers, to truth? Can a mode of dialogue such as contestational or confrontational debate assist others and people interested in the issues to discover the truth or learn more … Continue reading Can Debate Lead to Truth?
The endowment which distinguishes the human race from all other life forms is summed up in the reality known as the human spirit, or the rational soul. Of this soul, the diverse faculties of the mind constitute its most brilliant … Continue reading Progressive Revelation: Historiography and Civilization Dynamics
When one examines social structures, processes, and relationships, one can identify numerous factors that influence them all. Yet one that is a never-changing and ubiquitous factor upon which ultimately depends the efficacy of civilization-building is the individual – the values, … Continue reading Building the Capacity to Build Capacity
Historically and currently, the relationship between power and knowledge has been strained and complex, to say the least. Recently, “modernism” – which has constructed systems of knowledge around truth-claims about social reality – has come into critique by “post-modernism” – … Continue reading Beyond Modernism and Post-Modernism
Operating under the assumptions that human beings, by nature, are cooperative and not competitive, and that there are spiritual sources of power that can unleash the latent capacities of individuals towards contributing to the advancement of civilization, the model of … Continue reading Neuromuscular Power
Capacity building requires forums in which space has been created for learning about the betterment of society. Open forums for discourse can accompany and assist undergraduate students through their four years of university studies. Through an ongoing cycle of study, consultation, action … Continue reading Discourse, Education, and the Collective
A culture of learning that operates through study, consultation, action, and reflection, depends on empowerment and capacity building on the level of both the individual and the institutions of society. Individually, all are responsible to participate in the generation and … Continue reading Global Learning
Developing our latent capacities requires self-knowledge about our nature and purpose – both individually and collectively. Knowledge of self and of civilization cannot be separated, as each individual exits in a social context and influences their environment, while it is … Continue reading Truth and Beauty
The advancement of civilization is propelled through increases in knowledge, as has been mentioned multiple times in previous posts. Every human being is a protagonist of humanity’s maturity, and all can contribute through a process of building on their latent … Continue reading The Centrality of Knowledge
One of the major causes of injustice and oppression is lack of knowledge and perpetuation of ignorance. This is done through words, actions, and policies of self-interested governments, leaders, corporations, media, clergy, etc. They seek to retain their power; and … Continue reading Oppression
As a community of discourse we need to ensure that we develop the ability to read and examine other people’s views and thoughts on a given subject with fairness. This does not mean that we never reach conclusions or continuously consider new or … Continue reading Discourse and Justice, Part I
In the collective life of humankind, justice manifests as a compass in decision making, protecting resources from being diverted towards extraneous values, and protecting groups of people from the oppression of a vocal and seemingly-powerful minority. Justice cannot, then, be … Continue reading Approaches to Justice
The roots of justice are in the human soul. Justice is a faculty of the human soul, a spiritual capacity that, like others such as love, reason, and mercy, can be nurtured through education and training, or ignored and left … Continue reading Justice: a Spiritual Capacity
achieving coherence 