Saturday, July 22, 2017

entanglement.

The Chinese have successfully teleported an object to space according to a brief article in Time Magazine, using and further proving the concept of quantum entanglement. The idea of entanglement had even left Einstein scratching his head. But now, scientists speculate that quantum entanglement will have all kinds of applications, including computers that can communicate without possibility of hacking. At some point entanglement may enable large objects to be transported through space instantaneously. (or not)

None of this is unrelated to education. The object of education should be to entangle students in the real world, not to sequester them in idleness and artificiality. So Friedrich Froebel used field trips, play with blocks, crafts, gardening, songs and music and care for small animals as tools to deeply engage students in learning (and in life) and to lead them into a full entanglement in holistic thought. Woodshops, as envisioned in Educational Sloyd were to connect the child further with his own creative and formative capacity, a process launched in Kindergarten.

Just as two photons can be introduced to each other and thence be connected through life, even to the furthest expanses of the universe, the same can be true for human beings. We can be led toward the development of powers that may be inexplicable to those who have not been led toward that same point of entanglement. The point of Froebel's kindergarten was to lead children toward a sense of wholeness that Froebel described using the term Gliedganzes or interconnectedness. One might just as easily use the term from modern physics, entanglement.

Entanglement may offer an explanation for what we commonly call coincidence. For example, earlier in the week, I got an email message from Joe Youcha from Alexandria Seaport Museum asking me to help promote his new books on using boat building to teach math. On the same day, I received an email from another person at the same museum asking to set up a appointment for a telephone interview. Neither was aware that the other was contacting me. Was that coincidence or entanglement, or what Black Elk described as follows:
Everything the Power of the World does is done in a circle. The sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power, whirls. Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours. The sun comes forth and goes down again in a circle. The moon does the same, and both are round. Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves. Our tepees were round like the nests of birds and these were always set in a circle, the nation's hoop, a nest of many nests, where the Great Spirit meant for us to hatch our children.-- Black Elk
I shipped a box guitar yesterday to Woodcraft Magazine, but kept one here for my amusement. Today I will prepare for my week long ESSA class on making "pocket boxes."

Make, fix, create, and increase the likelihood that others will become entangled in their own creativity.

No comments:

Post a Comment