The Mandala (the Lotus Flower) - Dr. Richard Ewing, and regional development - Part Two of a Three part blog

Some details about the Mandala (Lotus Flower)

In my last blog I included the Mandala that I created from Dr. Ewing's white board drawing in November 2007. As I have contemplated the diagram and its larger metaphorical, and metaphysical meaning, it represents a nuclear reaction, or the birth of a cell, or any other natural growth system.

Some time ago while considering this image I wrote "when a critical mass of knowledge and energy is reached, the results can touch the world."

For most of my life one of my major criticisms of science is that it dissects the word. With the scientific method the world has been cut up into pieces by our scientific and human-oriented (separatist) perspective. Depicting the general categories of disciplines (environmental, social, cultural/historical, political, economics) in the five inner circles in the Mandala image will allow us to re-cognize the integral relationship of these pedagogical domains, providing a new context for re-aligning our educational systems. I recognized that we usually take things out of a comprehensive context while I was working on my Forestry degree in 1990. I was introduced to "systems thinking" at that time. While writing my Thesis I was assigned to conduct an economic analysis of an alley-cropping agroforestry system. Even at that time I couldn't leave well enough alone. I understood that for really understanding the potential of this innovative approach, we would have to look at the environmental, social and political context.

In adapting the Mandala to the World Reverence for Life University(www.worldreverenceforlifeuniversity.com) project, we are developing a core set of courses to address each of these areas, and yet we recognize that the lines drawn between these “disciplines” are only a functional, or organizational delineation. In fact, as stipulated in Systems Thinking, there is a desperate need to re-examine and recombine these perspectives into a comprehensive whole after study or examination.

The “petals of the flower” in the Mandala or Lotus depict the “outreach-service” delivery mechanism that I believe should be a part of all of our educational systems and endeavors. My emphasis on Outreach-Service (extension) has developed from the Land Grant University System that was so powerfully transformative in the United States. However, I agree with John Campbell’s critique of the limitations of the Land-grant system as it has matured, mainly that the “Outreach” has not been properly expanded and utilized. FYI my father was an agricultural Extension professor at Iowa State University for 28 years. I, inadvertantly, followed his footsteps and became and Extension professor at Texas A&M University.

The Mandala depicts a “nuclear reaction”, which is my vision to powerfully extend learning and research, to re-connect education to the world, which is depicted in the outer ring of the Diagram.

It is beyond the scope of this document to discuss all of the benefits of revitalizing the land-grant model while empowering it with information communication technologies (ICT), however, in brief, this approach will re-vitalize the educational experience for students. It will also help to connect education to the mainstream of society, delivering a multitude of benefits: essentially creating a recursive flow of ideas, information, people and business to a world that is clamoring for these outputs of our educational system. The outer ring of the Mandala Diagram shows the original vision of the Land-grant model which framed the educational system on three legs (Education, Research, Outreach). We add to the model the ultimate outputs of this inspired model – Learning, Development, and Service.

Look for Part Three of this blog soon. Sorry for the delay, I've started a new job, which has had a pretty steep learning curve.

All the Best! - Andy