Skip to main content

What If We Addressed Problems Holistically


What If…

We treated problems holistically instead of individually?

              One of the things I realized early on in my adult education was the relationship between seemingly disparate ideas. My bachelor’s degree focused on the relationship between biological equilibrium, environmental factors, and the mental reaction of individuals. From the beginning, I knew that it was folly to think that any of these categories could be studied in a vacuum. It did not take long for me to realize that it was not only in my own specialty that this was true, but in many other aspects of life. Yet, the compartmentalized view of the world is how the general populace perceives its environment, and social problems in particular.

              As an educator, I found myself unable to teach only the subject with which I was tasked. I found the need for students to be able to express themselves in written and verbal form necessary to master the scientific concepts I was mandated to teach. I also knew that a comfort level with basic algebra was required in order to see the patterns and relationships between scientific phenomena. I am fortunate enough to be able to teach and develop these related skills in my classroom, but have come across far too many colleagues who are either unable or unwilling to do the same. The difficulty of this task increases with age, as the ability gap increases and the assumptions of understanding are greater.

              This trend is present in all other aspects of human life, whether it be poverty or climate change, income inequality or crime rates, xenophobia or individuality. Even though all of these factors are related and impact each other, whether for good or ill, lawmakers and the wealthy choose to deal with them as though they can be fixed independent of one another. While some relationships are more direct and obvious, such as those in physical science, the more pernicious ones resemble the relationships in life sciences, which are multivariate and contain an almost infinite amount of possible outcomes. It is here that trends and statistics inform what the most effective solutions can be to these complex problems.

              All of these problems can be alleviated, if not solved, if we as social creatures acted in concert for the benefit of everyone. This can only be done well if we develop complex solutions implemented with surgical precision at the sources of the problems. Band-aids are no longer acceptable to treat bullet wounds that have become, in many aspects, infected by the secondary infection of problems only created by neglect of the original injury.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Musing on the News - Book Bans

                 Time published an article on 4/20 titled “New Report Finds That Book Bans Have Reached Their Highest Levels Yet.” As an avid reader I am immediately bothered by this, but I think it is worth explaining why.               First, over half the country is functionally illiterate, and even more don’t like to read, so who are we banning books for, anyway? It’s not like online ads that subliminally change your thinking. If you want to read a book, you have to physically get it, let someone else know what you’re reading (checking it out of a library or buying it in a store), and spend hours reading the material, depending on how fast you read. Reading is also self-selecting, as you can figure out by the book cover and back if you want to spend the time to decipher its contents. Reading social media and news is anonymous (except for the data points being collected on ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Viral Candidate - Kids

Kids               I don’t want to run for public office, I never have, but if I did, I would focus on our children and how to set them up for future success. As a member of the first generation in this country predicted to be worse off than their parents both physically and financially, this is particularly important for me . Kids are our future, and we need to do a better job taking care of them and enabling them to have the quality of life we wish for them (which I’m assuming is better than the one we have made for ourselves). I’m a public-school teacher of middle and high school students and have been for over a decade (since before the iPhone came out and teaching fully metamorphosed into an exercise in frustration). As a public servant and one who has a heart for the future success of our nation through the next generation, I find it important to address what we are going to do for our descendants (while figuring ...
Post a Comment
Read more

On Hold

  The Viral Candidate – On Hold               I really don’t want to run for office. I’m an idea person, not an implementation person. I have a lot of ideas that I think would do a lot of good. I realized that all the political candidates have done something “noteworthy” in politics or life before trying to run the country. This feels elitist, but also ensures intelligent, capable people are the ones running. Or maybe those are the people who refuse to run because our political landscape has gotten so toxic. With that thought, I want to finish some of my ideas and do something larger than being a high school teacher before I try to imagine a national political campaign. Therefore, I am putting the Viral Candidate project on hold for a year.               I have been trying to find a way to build a platform and have done so with little guidance so far...
Post a Comment
Read more