In chapters two and three of his Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth, Fuller outlined the formation of contemporary educational, political and economic systems as the product of the energies of Europe's sea trading interests, the men Fuller referred to as the "Great Pirates."
Fuller's concern was to trace the shared origins of the specialist education he felt contemporary schools promoted and the origins of the mortgage and debt-based economy now institutionalized through the World Trade Organization, World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. He argued throughout his influential career that both a specialist training and debt-based economy worked together to limit people's capacities to think comprehensively about opportunities and challenges facing global human and environmental communities. Rather than specialize in a particular historical time or place, Fuller sought patterns in the international development of interpenetrated technological, military, economic, political, and educational systems.
The questions this list seeks to raise and address include in what ways can teachers encourage Fuller's transdisciplinary comprehensive orientation to study and life in schools? What specific ideas of Fuller should be taken up in classrooms?
One example of such work can be found in World History Connected at
http://worldhistoryconnected.press.uiuc.edu/3.1/heyer.html
My answer to the original question... "The questions this list seeks to raise and address include in what ways can teachers encourage Fuller's transdisciplinary comprehensive orientation to study and life in schools? What specific ideas of Fuller should be taken up in classrooms?" .. is to change the classroom.
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Children growing up in totally eco-compatible buildings will get an education by osmosis in their daily life. I have designed dwelling structures which I have described as "Living Universities". Any child raised in building solar heated, solar powered, treating the sewage load daily before it ever leaves the building, drinking water of higher quality than the president of the United States is served on his dinner table, will begin the first day of college already knowing more than post graduates raised in failed 20th century lifestyle homes.
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The question is not how to raise the standard of education to make a better world, but how to change the standard of living so that the people of the world are automatically educated every single day of their lives.
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PALACES For The People is that solution. The fact that it is based on carbon-fiber reinforced Octet Truss concepts that can withstand category five hurricanes and tornados, or survive 8.0 earthquakes is not as important as the fact that the builders themselves will make those Octet Trusses with their own hands.
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http://ecosyn.us/Patents/patent2986241/patent2986241.html
http://ecosyn.us/Patents/patent2986241/octetruss_patent.html
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Buckminster Fuller patented his version of the Octet Truss in 1964, a full six decades after Alexander Graham Bell is photographed with numerous versions of Octet Trusses in his hands. 100 years have gone by and practically nobody on Earth knows how to make a low-cost super-strong Octet Truss yet.
When finally the average person is living inside these structures they will have their imaginations inflamed about all that can be done with them. What's the point of teaching children things in school they will never ever use? When they are taught at home what Octet Trusses are useful for they can do more with them than grad students who learn late in life at engineering and architecture classes.
What I have done so far with Octet Trusses is design buildings with structural members so lightweight that teenage girls could build them, instead of heavy cranes and foul-mouthed hairy chested burly construction workers. Gender-friendly construction. I have designed next generation conformable Hydrogen storage tanks so strong that they could be used as hulls for spaceplanes to Low Earth Orbit. I have designed these things to become ship hulls and highway tankers. I can make highway bridges, or roadsurface rebars out of them. I can pack them tight in cargo bays, like the Space Shuttle and unfold them in space wearing bulky space gloves. I can adapt them into hundreds of new types of construction materials, prefab, ready to use at Home Depot stores. I can build a city for 1,000,000 people without using a stick of lumber or a ton of structural steel.
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Look:
http://ecosyn.us/Welcome/Ecovillage_02_400px.JPG
http://ecosyn.us/Welcome/Structure_19_400px.JPG
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http://www.ecosyn.us/ecocity/Palaces/New_City/New_Ecocity.html
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http://www.ecosyn.us/ecocity/Palaces/Octet/Octet_Truss_01.html
http://www.ecosyn.us/ecocity/Palaces/Octet/octet_anim.gif
http://www.ecosyn.us/ecocity/Palaces/Octet/Octet_Tri-Mesh.JPG
http://www.ecosyn.us/ecocity/Palaces/Concrete/Octet_Truss_Floors/Octet_Floor_Joists.html
http://www.ecosyn.us/ecocity/Palaces/Concrete/Octet_Truss_Wall/Octet_Wall.html
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Sincerely, Lion Kuntz, Sonoma County, California, USA.
http://www.ecosyn.us/Ecovillage/ Ecocities, Palaces For The People, Octet Truss Updated, Ecological Synergy Microfarming, H2-PV = 26,280 kg H2 from an acre of PV per year.
Pursuant to my comments below, about phasing in synergetics at the middle and high school level, check out my recent curriculum writing along these lines, for a course I'm currently teaching in Portland, Oregon: http://www.4dsolutions.net/ocn/winterhaven/
(the 'Functions and Generators' page -- link at bottom -- gets into it more, recycling graphics from Synergetics on the Web (see Sources)).
Kirby
AUTONOMOUS DOME-SPIRAL TECHHOLOGY DNA-RNA
FULLER+SHUHOV+DNA=ECOHOUSE
ABOUT THE INVENTOR, THE MANAGER OF THE PROJECT.SHEVNIN JURY(DROP)
(20.02.62) inventor of the SPIRAL "KNOW-HOW" of mesh environments on the basis (ARCHITECTURE+GENETICS=ECODOME)
of topology of a structure of molecule DNA. In 1991г. has finished Petersburg State
architecturally building university and has received the copyright certificate on
the invention of " the Collapsible skeleton of a mesh environment of rotation "
-1747619 04 In 1/343. The certificate on useful model 8380. 04 In 1/343.
With 1992 on 2004 works at the airport as the rescuer and in parallel studies
wildlife in a microscope, improves the spiral "know-how" of mesh environments.
In 1999 " the THEATRE of the PETRUSHKI ", the information on theatre on a site
GIF.RU creates ART of RUSSIA, at support of fund of SOROS ( Petersburg).
In 2003 at support of fund of SOROS (Moscow) has carried out the project
" SPHERE of the WORLD " for children with the limited opportunities in children's
home of 4 cities of Pavlovska support the SQUANDERER of the United Nations
has organized performances(statements) of mobile theatre " Round HOUSE "
with the program against xenofobia, violence and conflicts, in the markets of
Saint Petersburg and on the international CINEMA festival " PURE(CLEAN) DREAMS " .
" The SMALL NATIVE LAND " prepares for the program for realization of the project
ECOTHEATR at support of the international fund of D.S.Lihacheva. The presentation
of the project has taken place at international festival " City of the Childhood " 2004г.
About works and researches of the author of the project is more than 10 publications
in mass-media, for example in magazine INTERBIZNES 56.
" If a DNA - RNA genetic code programs the design of roses, elephants and bees,
we will have to ask ourselves what intellect designed the DNA - RNA code as well
as atoms and molecules which implement the coded programs. "-R.Buckminster Fuller
http://projects.takingitglobal.org/JURI
Some of the information in Synergetics is extremely basic and not difficult to understand (other stuff is more difficult). For example, the way A and B mods compose members of the concentric hierarchy (tetrahedron, cube, octahedron etc.) is no more difficult than what's currently offered in middle and high school curricula.
So you might think I'm proposing changes to elementary geometry education. Well, of course I am. But at this juncture, I'm more interested in exploring the intellectual history angle, i.e. it's impossible to understand recent American history if you haven't tuned in the struggle to implement a positive future program that incorporates many of Fuller's important/relevant innovations.
I'm not *just* interested in American history of course, and anyway, the history of any country is part of the larger history of the planet, which concerns us all.
I go into more detail along these lines in my blog:
IQ Test
Incomprehensible?
As for how I envision a 21st century education system, I just posted some more about that today:
Prospero's Books
In sum, Fuller and friends have already given us all the tools we need. One pitfall to avoid is this mindlessly repeated mantra that Fuller is "indecipherable" or "incomprehensible" or "didn't know how to write English". This last criticism may be on target, but then, what's so great about English if it just leaves us wallowing in intellectual squalor?
You don't have to be any kind of genius to understand how we might move forward in a positive direction. Any average human will be able to grasp the information. This idea that Fuller is "too hard" (or "too crazy") is simply a smoke screen -- one that can't work for too many more days.
Kirby
Time is precious. As a physicist, I realized that my efforts to act in accordance with the integrity of the intelligence of the universe were restricted by what you describe in your note.
I decided to do precession as Bucky did and focus my energy on what it is that the universe is expecting from me! It was necessary to leave my employer and sacrifice this corporate position in order to have time to be a comprehensivist. I remembered that I had assisted to a lecture of Bucky in 1976 on videotape in France! I was lucky to find Bucky's lecture 'Everything I know 42 hrs' on the BFI website. This is an extraordinary inspiring lecture.
It was not possible to be associated with any institution, since conditions and restrictions are not compatible with spontaneous integrity.
I started to lecture on request and to teach at home to those who were interested in becoming comprehensivist.
After six years of precession, I have rediscovered how to regenerate my body and mind with the concept that the individual can frequently do better than the non-synergetic specialist, and by applying synergetic to the human body... One student did a geodesic structure with recycled wood and a Panton reactor on an alternator. Other students do raw juice therapy! They are young and very happy to receive alternative education based on comprehension of generalized principles rather than...
It is amazing to see the individual interest in those classes on synergetics. I gave private class to high executive, doctors, actors, chess grandmaster...
If you decide to do precession, it may be necessary to live in great simplicity!
Livingry and not weaponry
Jean Le Tual