Last week, I had a conversation with a colleague who told me how difficult the first year of his new job had been.\u00a0 He had asked several other faculty from his new institution for advice and then tried to teach the way they did.\u00a0 \u201cLike wearing someone else’s shoes, it didn’t quite fit,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cI had to figure out my own way of teaching the course, and I’m excited to do it again completely differently next year.\u201d<\/p>\n
His statement rang a bell in my mind.\u00a0 I had just spent a week at Harvard\u2019s Kennedy School on the faculty of an Executive Education program.\u00a0 One of the perks of this particular program was that I could attend a number of other remarkable presentations.<\/p>\n
Lisa Lahey of Harvard\u2019s Graduate School of Education gave a provocative session about the development of the human mind.\u00a0 Her context was to help people exercise leadership.\u00a0 But her concepts apply to all of us:\u00a0 educators, artists, scientists, parents, partners, etc.<\/p>\n
Lahey and her colleague Robert Kegan have been studying how adults learn.\u00a0 They have catalogued five plateaus of conscious development.\u00a0 The first two are very simple.\u00a0 The infant\u2019s pre-conscious world centers on physical need.\u00a0 Movement and sensation drive impulse. The mind gradually begins to understand cause and effect.\u00a0 Lahey and Kegan call the second phase the instrumental<\/em> mind.\u00a0 A child learns boundaries, but is still fundamentally focused on satisfying the self.<\/p>\n The third order of consciousness is the socialized<\/em> mind. Its core agenda is belonging.\u00a0 A person of this mind is a team player who believes what the current society believes.\u00a0 Loyal and unquestioning, in alignment with what others are asking, identity is defined by how others respond. The mind frames it in these words: \u201cIf other people think I am good, then I am good.\u201d<\/p>\n The percentage of people in this order is very high, according to Lahey.\u00a0 Our\u00a0 educational system reinforces this level of development.\u00a0 Teachers ask students to acquire facts, but not to think. Many educators find this the easiest way to teach, and they do it very well.\u00a0 As long as success is measured by test scores and grades, it will be difficult for educators to do anything else.<\/p>\n Actors understand this order of consciousness.\u00a0 Trained by school or experience to follow direction, to be easy to work with, to be scared of rocking the boat, performers are susceptible to idea that others determine their worth.\u00a0 This is also the consciousness of the military, organized religion, and political life.\u00a0 It is the glue that binds civilization; it is also a root cause of sectarian conflict.<\/p>\n Moving to the fourth level of consciousness, the self-authoring<\/em> mind, is a courageous act.\u00a0 You step out of your social group enough to create an inner barometer of the truth.\u00a0 You separate yourself from what others want you to be and live life with your own agenda. You are no longer the passenger, but the driver, making the journey on your own terms.<\/p>\n This is the leap that my colleague made.\u00a0 He had been functioning in the socialized mind, which was both useful and necessary \u2014 up to a point.\u00a0 He is now in the self-authoring mind, aligned with his own truth.\u00a0 It\u2019s a great step, seemingly obvious, but hard won.<\/p>\n How interesting it would be, I wondered, if our schools were focused on this kind of development.\u00a0 Of course, teachers do need to provide information.\u00a0 But to encourage students to examine their beliefs, to develop a critical inner life, to question social norms — all these should be a part of our education.<\/p>\n The next leap is a big one. Lahey told us that the self-transforming<\/em> mind is held by only two percent of the population.\u00a0 A person at this level of consciousness sees the limitations of her own way of thinking and recognizes the value of other points of view.\u00a0 Contradictions can co-exist. This individual understands that every action is interrelated in a complex pattern.<\/p>\n Lahey used the story of Plato\u2019s Cave to illustrate this development.\u00a0 In this parable, a group of people are sitting on the floor of a cave looking at their shadows on a wall.\u00a0 This is their reality.\u00a0 But one person turns around.\u00a0 He is surprised to see a light aimed towards the wall making the shadows.\u00a0 (This, incidentally, is why Plato mistrusted the theater; for him, actors were manipulators of the truth.)<\/p>\n Perplexed, this individual leaves the group.\u00a0 He discovers a pathway leading out of the cave where he finds a totally different reality lit by the sun.\u00a0 He comes back to persuade the group to turn around and leave with him.\u00a0 They mock him and disregard his pleas.\u00a0 They cannot open their minds to any other reality but the shadows of themselves.<\/p>\n How does one move from one plateau of consciousness to the next?\u00a0 Until recently, prevailing theory said that the mind stops developing in mid-life.\u00a0 Now, research has revealed how plastic the brain actually is.<\/p>\n In order to grow, consciousness needs support and challenge in equal measure. For example, the socialized mind loves clear expectations and appreciation for a job well done.\u00a0 Questioning authority, evaluating one\u2019s own performance, assuming new responsibilities, and making independent decisions stretch a person at this level.<\/p>\n The self-authoring mind is happiest creating its own reality.\u00a0 This person thrives when recognized for acting upon her own belief system.\u00a0 Seeing the limits of that system stretches this individual. Can she make space for others\u2019 ideas? Can she identify the patterns?\u00a0 Can she take responsibility for being a part of the problem?<\/p>\n I have heard both Lahey & Kegan speak about their hopes for world leadership.\u00a0 They are optimistic that the small percentage of people at the fifth level will grow.\u00a0 Would it be possible, for example, for the United States to truthfully examine its contribution to the on-going discord in the Middle East? Would it even be thinkable for us to listen when we have so demonized the other?<\/p>\n We don\u2019t land on a new plateau without effort.\u00a0 Nor do we stay there.\u00a0 We are moving back and forth between levels in the various strands of our lives: spiritual, emotional, mental, social.\u00a0 My colleague is using the self-authoring mind in his work; I\u2019m sure that in other aspects of his life he is already headed towards the self-transforming phase.<\/p>\n The point is to challenge ourselves to expand.\u00a0 Lahey ended her presentation with a quotation from Rumi:\u00a0 \u201cIf your pitcher is small, don\u2019t blame the ocean.\u201d\u00a0 What we can do, what we need to do, is help ourselves, and the people who surround us, become bigger pitchers.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Kegan, Robert and Lisa Laskow Lahey, How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work: Seven Languages for Transformation<\/em> (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2001).<\/p>\n Kegan, Robert and Lisa Laskow Lahey, Immunity to Change<\/em> (Boston: Harvard Business Press, 2009).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last week, I had a conversation with a colleague who told me how difficult the first year of his new job had been.\u00a0 He had asked several other faculty from his new institution for advice and then tried to teach the way they did.\u00a0 \u201cLike wearing someone else’s shoes, it didn’t quite fit,\u201d he said.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nancyhoufek.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nancyhoufek.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nancyhoufek.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nancyhoufek.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nancyhoufek.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=267"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/nancyhoufek.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":271,"href":"http:\/\/nancyhoufek.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267\/revisions\/271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nancyhoufek.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nancyhoufek.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nancyhoufek.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}