Jackson Free Press

With Jackson State University naming Carolyn Meyers as its new president within the past week (see Ward Schaefer's interview), my thoughts naturally turned to Mississippi's educational system and the subject of how we learn.

For me, I find that the older I get, the harder it becomes to really learn something new. I'm not talking about accumulating new facts; those are easy: As facts become available, I simply add them to my mental "database."

What I find more and more difficult, however, is to come to a familiar subject without also bringing my 50-plus years of experiences and opinions. It can be excruciating, for example, to try to wrap my mind around certain conservative or fundamentalist principles, because I have lots of experience disagreeing with them. I inevitably bring an "I already know" mindset with me to certain subjects, making it really hard to learn something new in those areas.

I encounter the phenomena weekly in my yoga classes. I teach mostly beginners but have several students in my level-one classes who have been practicing for years. Some frequent advanced classes along with the basic ones, but many never stray from the lower-level classes. They may have physical limitations, practice infrequently or have no desire to go further.

But yoga, like life, is rarely a linear progression: I learn as much, if not more, through deepening the basics as I do by attempting more advanced and difficult poses.

A few students always manage to find a challenge exactly where they are. Some, however, come to the basic positions (many of which they've done hundreds or thousands of times before) the way I frequently come to a conversation about conservatives: been there; done that. I can see their minds wander as their bodies harden into the "correct" form. I watch as they anticipate the next step, moving quickly toward the pose apex without attention to breath or listening to what their bodies are telling them, much less my instructions.

They have lost what Buddhists call the "beginner's mind."

In the classic 1961 sci-fi novel, "Stranger in a Strange Land," author Robert Heinlein coined the word "grok," which is in (somewhat) common usage among sci-fi aficionados, tech geeks and their significant others. The "Random House Dictionary" defines it "to understand thoroughly and intuitively" and "to communicate sympathetically." (The original definition is more esoteric, but then, it's a Martian concept.)

The only way to even get close to grokking, though, is with a mind empty of preconceived notions. It's the same calm, clear mentality that allows for a response of "I don't know" to a question instead of automatically filling in with thoughtless commentary, or worse, being satisfied with the first response that springs to mind.

I have always considered myself a life-long learner. As such, I think it's imperative to regain a beginner's mind in every endeavor. In other words, I frequently need to put aside my knowledge, opinions and logical conclusions, if only for a short period, to grok new information or teaching that comes my way. It's not as if all of that stuff (with which my brain is, quite literally, "stuffed") won't be there later. But adding new information on top of the old--like adding new tschotkes to those already crowding a shelf--just adds to my brain's clutter instead of allowing for actual learning to take place.

Approaching a familiar yoga pose or a brand new idea with a beginner's mind--simply absorbing information or following instructions--allows for a brand new experience instead of resisting and hardening against it. It may not make sense and might feel absurd, but if I can stick with it, it is worthwhile.

But if the phenomenon of an overheated "full" brain happens to those who consider ourselves open-minded, tolerant and accepting, how much harder must it be for a public-school student to actually learn in an atmosphere where the only thing that counts is how well you did on the last standardized test?

I've had the pleasure of working with a lot of interns at the JFP. They come in all ages, shapes and sizes, and bring with them all manner of experience. One of those experiences is what I recognize as the result of a tyranny of low expectations. In almost every group, individuals stand out as those who have "gotten by" instead of being challenged and pushed.

"Getting by" manifests differently in various individuals: Some are excellent students, but too "smart" to grok anything new; some are eternally confused, hiding behind uncertainty; others never learned grammar and spelling, despite 12-plus years of school.

In a country that has bemoaned the lack of good, quality education for at least as long as I can remember, Mississippi stands out as underachieving in every standardized category: reading, writing, math and science. In 2006, only 61 percent of our kids overall graduated from high school, according to Education Week, even fewer African Americans (55 percent) and Native Americans (37 percent). Only about 10 percent of our high-school graduates were ready for college in 2009. Granted, our scores are getting better, but so are the national scores, leaving our kids perpetually behind.

The theories about why American education isn't getting the job done are legion, and I don't have a brilliant theory to add to the morass. But I see the results: kids overwhelmed by a system that seeks little more than to pack their heads with "stuff." Some of those kids go on to amass piles of debt to get specialized college diplomas, leaving them with few options but to chase their own tails in a never-ending cycle of upward mobility and conspicuous consumption. That, too, is just getting by.

Maybe it's as simple as measuring something else other than how many facts our kids have learned, like the actual ability to learn and think critically. Possibly, part of the equation includes beginning education earlier, and making the arts and physical education more prominent to use different parts of the brain.

Perhaps all the experts just need to take a few deep cleansing breaths and adopt a beginner's mind to find better approaches.

Mississippi needs smart, tough, compassionate educators to get at the hard truths and make a real difference. I have high hopes Meyers will be one of them for Jackson and JSU.