((I V >-V ,___fs,-3*-' .0 Paradigms and Prisons: A Narrative of Translation and Transformation: My Hero's Journey from "At-Risk" Youth to Teacher/Learner In a Jail Setting Warren Albert Trimble Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Education Faculty of Education, Brock University St. Catharines, Ontario ©Warren Albert Trimble 2007 Abstract All life is suffering. Life is the pursuit ofhappiness. These are two foundational Buddhist dictums that, in their simplicity, I have entirely misunderstood regarding their depth, misreading them as contradictory. Indeed, my superficial interpretations led me to Thoreau's life ofquiet desperation and deep depression. We come to know and bring understanding to our lives by storying them. My own Hero's Journey, the path from my egoic selftoward the universal Self, can be understood as the resultant translations and transformations. Inevitably each of us is involved in such a story, though most are unaware of the stages along our own Hero's journey. ' Narrative honours writing as a means of knowing. The contemplative reflection allows insight into our imprisoning paradigms, beliefs, behaviours, and blind spots. My research revisits and explores nodal experiences along my Hero's Journey through 4 categories: self, society, soil, and Self. While the value of this process of narrative inquiry lay in its ability to come to know and understand one's self, perhaps its greater value is of a more universal nature. My inquiry, while adding to the body of academic educational narrative literature, may also illuminate a path to educators, students, and all interested, encouraging a response to the call of their own Hero's journey. I am a teacher/learner in a jail setting, working with youth between the ages of 12 and 18 who have committed crimes such as armed robbery, assault, rape, and murder. As this thesis follows my continual development from egoic self/teacher/learner to universal Self/Teacher/Learner, it also enables me to both consciously and unconsciously open the ways in which I expand my care, compassion, and love to work with at-risk youth. u '.t'J: .^i\v;:^ .' ' •i,i ' M-< !* ,7W>.:'< '-. ' • V"' ' -'^ ' (l'./'«.-'T..T?' -J-'H j;:-; •:.: - "NiJi*. ' v '' ';..r'-.j .1 ..!f S..^«*V, ;;;^»«X. '>S :!''v.J'i l"^ • --l*- i!^\" 3; ^ ::. Ui;^ i;H' 0* ,' ;«'";:;<«.'' / r"-:^ fc,. '• iJ^aTij: .:n<v5'Ju ' ••^.''i^.S.mi ':,: '» ,•>'> -'. ,Vi4. *,- -- jr V'.' ; WV 1 Table of Contents Abstract ii Table of Contents iii Table of Figures vi CHAPTER ONE: PARADIGMS AND PRISONS 1 self/Self 5 Society 7 Soil 9 Narrative Method 1 Stipulative Definitions 15 Limitations 19 Chapter Outlines 20 CHAPTER TWO: NARRATIVE METHOD 25 Arriving at Narrative 28 Women's Ways of Knowing 30 Writing as a Way of Knowing 33 Background to Narrative Theory 34 The Story Model 45 Conceptual and Hermeneutics as Aspects of Narrative 49 Conceptual as Story 49 Hermeneutics Within Story 51 Hermeneutics and Myth 53 Hermeneutic Foil and Historical Context 55 111 1 V ! »l '. ^? .-'.. J •...r.;r:.i{ Integrating Hermeneutics, Concqjtual and Narrative Towards a New Story .. 56 How Does One Study The self/Self. 57 What? So What? Now What? 61 CHAPTER THREE: NODAL STORIES OF TRANSLATION AND TRANSFORMATION: IN EOLATION TO self 63 Epistemology and the Elephant 64 Situation One: The story of Avery Kidd 69 Situation Two: SettHng Into my self (INFP) 79 Situation Three: Dumb to Dyslexic 92 Voices Through the Cracks 104 CHAPTER FOUR: NODAL STORIES OF TRANSLATION AND TRANSFORMATION: IN RELATION TO SOCIETY 1 12 It Takes Two To See One - Society 112 Situation One: About Society 115 Situation Two: The Golden Rule 124 Situation Three: Society's Magnetic Pull 133 CHAPTER FFVE: NODAL STORIES OF TRANSLATION AND TRANSFORMATION: IN RELATION TO SOIL 144 Situation One: Whitehead's Phase of Romance 144 Situation Two: The Problem of Whitehead's Phase of Precision 158 The Life Of Our Planet In One Year 162 Situation Three: Towards Whitehead's Phase of Generalization 172 h;r'", i «, -. o '';' ,'. r.-'/ '>: 'k I i I K.f x: ^fn . CHAPTER SIX: NODAL STORIES OF TRANSLATION AND TRANSFORMATION: IN RELATION TO Self. 179 Situation One: In The Jaws Of The Black Dog-Depression 179 Situation Two: Vipassana Meditation 192 Situation Three: Towards An Integral Spirituality 206 CHAPTER SEVEN: SUMMARY, CONCLUSION, AND IMPLICATIONS 228 Summary 228 Conclusion 234 Implications 241 References 261 Vil i. ii'j. ) <y Table of Figures Figure 1. Paradigms and Prisons. (Warren Albert Trimble, 2003) 2 Figure 2. Comparative stipulative terminology 44 Figure 3. Drake's story model 46 Figure 4. Kohlberg's stages of moral development 75 Figure 5. Maslow's hierarchy of human needs 81 Figure 6. Comparative temperament terminology 85 Figure 7. Voices through the cracks 109 Figures. Loevinger's stages of ego development 114 Figure 9. Buscaglia's qualities essential to a loving relationship and qualities destructive to a loving relationship 122 Figure 10. The Golden rule throughout various traditions 127 Figure 11. Gebser's structures in cultural development 138 Figure 12. The four paths of Yoga 183 Figure 13. Dabrowski's theory of positive disintegration 216 Figure 14. Fowler's theory of stages of faith 219 Figure 15. A theoretical integration of Wilber's concepts and 2 Eastern traditions 224 Figure 16a. A hierarchical integration of developmental levels 254 Figure 16b. A hierarchical integration of developmental levels 255 Figure 16c. A hierarchical integration of developmental levels 256 VI , I./'.: 1 1 .\ '..-.M'H -' .i^Un':' j! , '::^.^K>^H ?; ;::! ,* > .i-\ i> ni CHAPTER ONE: PARADIGMS AND PRISONS What follows infigure 7 is a poem that I wrote specifically as an overview of this thesis. I place it here, as an invitation and tool for the reader to better understand the way in which I typically communicate the meanings of my experiences. "Paradigms and Prisons" is an introduction to the stories chosen for this project. At first glance, those two words may seem interchangeable. However, they also relate directly to each other as almost all paradigms, or belief systems, create boundaries, or prisons, for our behaviours. A third aspect to this coupling of words is that I work as an educator within a prison setting, dealing with both paradigms and prisons on both a physical and a conceptual level daily. I hope you can appreciate and enjoy the meanings, both the overt and the covert, of this poetic arrangement as the first steps together on my Hero's journey of the self/Self. The Buddha said "All life is suffering," and that "Life is the pursuit ofhappiness." According to Thomas Moore, our lives generally lack meaning as we "hunger for spirituality" (1992, p. xvi). He states that the most fi-equently heard psychological predicament of our time is the feeling of "emptiness." We suffer fi-om this emptiness. And the suffering is perpetuated every time we try to fill it. We try to be soothed or satisfied by eating food, buying things, seeking entertainment, but doing so exploits our confusion and our disillusionment. The more we seek this satisfaction, the greater is our potential for disappointment and disenchantment. The resultant disconnect from feeding one's self leaves us spiritually hungry along a path of self-indulgence rather than one of self-transformation. We want the quick fix, a silver bullet, rather than a clearer understanding of the work entailed in transforming one's self. Consequently, the less we ' i '.' I'.f. :•"! ^1 .'''i„-i'i : "'i. > ii- 'I U*>---'.: ^ »f ,„' (~. ' * ,r.; '...ii'., -'• ''.,"' ^, ,, , ,;t ''^>:il. ^ -v. T -I^L 'I'T:. „/ rjr-M'i-i-ftt '••^. .-'.f--' '"•! . fj:. ' vVf ' - ' i' " ."<?,• ":i .i.o '.:;;-. -* ^' 1 . r^ ;. >;; L.« '.( Well here I am with open upward hand Shoulders to ears , ;,,, my Trying to figure out who it is, this me While breaking shackles of life long fears Looking forward and back at the future and past Inward and outward my biography While moving toward a Future that only I can create and conceive There are paradigms and prisons With bars of iron and bars of gold I want to search them out Find what it is in me they hold There's a self we know and one we don't One a construct over all time The other based on illusions perceived Dividing everything into yours and mine Oh and there are two questions that occur to me Are we evolution or divinity? And then there's love and what does it mean, yeah Find one in faith and two in a better me, a better we It's in my mind this concept of time There's only now The present is my gift I open up and find I want to give out ^ All of this is ours if we wish Reflecting with open heart and open eyes This love search can help With a more meaningful and richer life Oh and there are two questions that occur to me... Figure 1. Paradigms and Prisons. (Warren Albert Trimble, 2003) , '<:A '' •i:i,- - >.;*. H ..,;{ (i;, . !*< '' t- • ' '\ , ; 'X ' * . :;;» :* V'it: E ivi. ;r:'.V S .- :ii I •>;-«, . ••«> ^t-' '.. , /y- ^' r'' ..4: = i»< V'»* S know of our paradigms, those created by our egoic self, our society and the soil/ecology, the less we are able to connect with and transform to our true Self. Initially, I labeled these divisions ego, everyone and environment. After hearing a lecture by Satish Kumar in 2002 and reading his book You are therefore I am (2002), I altered my paradigm. Kumar's Chapter 1 1 is titled "Soil, Soul, Society" (p. 74). From his lecture and chapter heading I renamed my own trilogy, self/Self Society and Soil.