DC: Shame on you Northwestern University. It’s yet another example of how the U continues to move away from our far more noble roots.https://t.co/uQoxFAdTpW
— Daniel S. Christian (@dchristian5) September 6, 2024
Speaking of higher education…
Higher Ed in 4 charts — from jeffselingo-14576223.hs-sites.com by Jeff Selingo
Why “Wisdom Work” Is the New “Knowledge Work” — from hbr.org by Chip Conley
Summary:
Today the workforce is getting older, and the number of younger workers in positions of senior management is growing. These two developments might appear to spell trouble, in that they seem to set the generations against one another, but the author of this article argues that in fact they represent an important opportunity: If companies can figure out how to enable the intergenerational transfer of the wisdom that comes with age and experience, they can strengthen themselves — and the workplace as a whole.
It also allowed us to develop a list of the character qualities that most commonly defined our best informal mentors, among them: less ego and more collaboration skills, a knack at asking generative questions, and an ability to offer unvarnished insight that feels like a gift as opposed to judgment.
…
It’s time that we invest as much energy in helping older workers distill their wisdom as we do in helping younger workers accumulate their knowledge.
From DSC:
I think Chip hits on many important and valuable insights in this article. His messages apply to all kinds of organizations. Still, they are especially relevant to the Magnificent Seven (i.e., Google parent Alphabet, Meta Platforms, Amazon.com, Tesla, Apple, Microsoft, and Nvidia) and other tech-related companies who often move forward with designing and producing things without ever thinking about whether they SHOULD be producing those things. What are the positive and negative ramifications of this technology on society? THAT’s a wise question.
I would also add that the word WISDOM is spread throughout the Bible as you can see here — especially in Proverbs 2. So while Chip talks about human wisdom, there is a deeper kind of wisdom that comes from God:
6 For the Lord gives wisdom;
from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.
THAT kind of wisdom is priceless. And we need it in our businesses and in our lives.
From DSC:
On a macro scale…this is on my heart these days.
I ran across some troubling but informative items re: religion in America from item #5 at Rex Woodbury’s 10 Charts That Capture How the World Is Changing:
.
I’ve known about this decline for years now, but Rex’ posting and graphs were disheartening nonetheless. And Samuel Abrams’ article contains many reflections that I’ve had as well.
The Christian journey is about transformation — our hearts and minds are changed so that we become more like Jesus Christ (the pioneer and perfecter of [our] faith, per Hebrews 12:2). This transformation involves how we see and experience the world as well as how we are supposed to treat others. We receive new “glasses” if you will — new lenses on the world. In fact, Jesus said in Matthew 22:37-40:
37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
So Christians are taught to love our neighbors. I/we mess up on this constantly, but many of us are trying to get better at it.
But what happens when we don’t love — or even care for/about — our neighbor? Do you know that if you are living in the United States right now, you are already feeling and experiencing the impact of this in an enormous way?
Here are a few ways that you can see this playing out — even from a secular/business standpoint:
So you and I are already being impacted when we push God out of our lives and out of our institutions. When we Americans look around these days..how’s that going for us? In my own life, the further I get away from God, the worse things get.
Also, we could talk about mental health*, shootings in our schools and on our streets, and several other things.
Do we care? I do. I think about this kind of thing more and more these days. LORD, forgive us. We need your help.
Psalm 8
For the director of music. According to gittith.[b] A psalm of David.
1 Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory
in the heavens.
2 Through the praise of children and infants
you have established a stronghold against your enemies,
to silence the foe and the avenger.
3 When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
4 what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
human beings that you care for them?[c]
5 You have made them[d] a little lower than the angels[e]
and crowned them[f] with glory and honor.
6 You made them rulers over the works of your hands;
you put everything under their[g] feet:
7 all flocks and herds,
and the animals of the wild,
8 the birds in the sky,
and the fish in the sea,
all that swim the paths of the seas.
9 Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
9 The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed,
a stronghold in times of trouble.
10 Those who know your name trust in you,
for you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you.
7 But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
Hebrews 11:1 New International Version
Faith in Action
Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.
Psalm 86:5 New International Version
You, Lord, are forgiving and good,
abounding in love to all who call to you.
You are my refuge and my shield;
I have put my hope in your word.
114 You are my refuge and my shield;
I have put my hope in your word.
9 For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, 10 and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority.
Psalm 36:5-7 New International Version
5 Your love, Lord, reaches to the heavens,
your faithfulness to the skies.
6 Your righteousness is like the highest mountains,
your justice like the great deep.
You, Lord, preserve both people and animals.
7 How priceless is your unfailing love, O God!
People take refuge in the shadow of your wings.
Matthew 16:15-16 New International Version
15 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”
16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
Matthew 19:14 New International Version
Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”
Students Speak Out: How to Make High Schools Places Where They Want to Learn — from the74million.org by Beth Fertig
Too many high school students complain that school is boring. Students share what makes school enjoyable.
.
Excerpts (emphasis DSC):
.
Solving chronic absenteeism involves tackling big structural problems like transportation and infrastructure. But we also have to make our schools places where young people want to learn. Too many teens, in particular, had negative feelings about school even before the pandemic. Yale researchers conducting a national survey of high school students found most teens spent their days “tired,” “stressed,” and “bored.” Fewer than 3 in 100 reported feeling interested while in school.
Decades of research prove that students learn more when they experience high levels of academic engagement and social belonging in school.
Students at all four schools experience internships, work-based learning and partnerships with community organizations, which they said make classwork feel more relevant.
4 For the word of the Lord is right and true;
he is faithful in all he does.
5 The Lord loves righteousness and justice;
the earth is full of his unfailing love.
Psalm 34:8 New International Version
Taste and see that the Lord is good;
blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.
Jeremiah 32:17 New International Version
“Ah, Sovereign Lord, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you.
Proverbs 14:34 (New International Version)
Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin condemns any people.
Ephesians 3:20-21 New International Version
20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
DC: So as the world watches how America’s judicial system works (or doesn’t work), we tell them, “Trump is above the law, at least in many circumstances.”
https://t.co/ehjBFKcA2I— Daniel Christian (he/him/his) (@dchristian5) July 2, 2024
From DSC:
I realize I lose a lot of readers on this Learning Ecosystems blog because I choose to talk about my faith and integrate scripture into these postings. So I have stayed silent on matters of politics — as I’ve been hesitant to lose even more people. But I can no longer stay silent re: Donald Trump.
I, too, fear for our democracy if Donald Trump becomes our next President. He is dangerous to our democracy.
Also, I can see now how Hitler came to power.
And look out other countries that Trump doesn’t like. He is dangerous to you as well.
He doesn’t care about the people of the United States (nor any other nation). He cares only about himself and gaining power. Look out if he becomes our next president.
Unlimited Presidential power. According to Trump vs the US, the “President may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for his official acts.” Justice Sotomayor says this makes the President a “king.” This power + surveillance + AGI/autonomous weapons mean the President is now the most powerful king in the history of the world.
Democracy is only 200 years old.
7 “Two things I ask of you, Lord;
do not refuse me before I die:
8 Keep falsehood and lies far from me;
give me neither poverty nor riches,
but give me only my daily bread.
9 Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you
and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’
Or I may become poor and steal,
and so dishonor the name of my God.
2 Corinthians 9:6 (NIV)
Generosity Encouraged
Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.
Romans 12:12 (New International Version)
Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.
14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
It is written: “‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bow before me; every tongue will acknowledge God.’”
I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth.
For the director of music. For pipes. A psalm of David.
1 Listen to my words, Lord,
consider my lament.
2 Hear my cry for help,
my King and my God,
for to you I pray.
3 In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice;
in the morning I lay my requests before you
and wait expectantly.
1 Chronicles 29:10-11 — from biblegateway.com
David’s Prayer
10 David praised the Lord in the presence of the whole assembly, saying,
“Praise be to you, Lord,
the God of our father Israel,
from everlasting to everlasting.
11 Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power
and the glory and the majesty and the splendor,
for everything in heaven and earth is yours.
Yours, Lord, is the kingdom;
you are exalted as head over all.
1 Why do the nations conspire[a]
and the peoples plot in vain?
2 The kings of the earth rise up
and the rulers band together
against the Lord and against his anointed, saying,
3 “Let us break their chains
and throw off their shackles.”
4 The One enthroned in heaven laughs;
the Lord scoffs at them.
5 He rebukes them in his anger
and terrifies them in his wrath, saying,
6 “I have installed my king
on Zion, my holy mountain.”
7 I will proclaim the Lord’s decree:
He said to me, “You are my son;
today I have become your father.
8 Ask me,
and I will make the nations your inheritance,
the ends of the earth your possession.
9 You will break them with a rod of iron[b];
you will dash them to pieces like pottery.”
10 Therefore, you kings, be wise;
be warned, you rulers of the earth.
11 Serve the Lord with fear
and celebrate his rule with trembling.
Do We Need Emotionally Intelligent AI? — from marcwatkins.substack.com by Marc Watkins
We keep breaking new ground in AI capabilities, and there seems little interest in asking if we should build the next model to be more life-like. You can now go to Hume.AI and have a conversation with an Empathetic Voice Interface. EVI is groundbreaking and extremely unnerving, but it is no more capable of genuine empathy than your toaster oven.
…
From DSC:
Marc offers some solid thoughts that should make us all pause and reflect on what he’s saying.
We can endlessly rationalize away the reasons why machines possessing such traits can be helpful, but where is the line that developers and users of such systems refuse to cross in this race to make machines more like us?
Marc Watkins
Along these lines, also see:
Isaiah 53:3-6 New International Version
3 He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
4 Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
Matthew 27:45-51 New International Version
The Death of Jesus
45 From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. 46 About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli,[c] lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).[d]
47 When some of those standing there heard this, they said, “He’s calling Elijah.”
48 Immediately one of them ran and got a sponge. He filled it with wine vinegar, put it on a staff, and offered it to Jesus to drink. 49 The rest said, “Now leave him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to save him.”
50 And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.
51 At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.
Luke 24:1-8 New International Version
Jesus Has Risen
24 On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4 While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. 5 In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? 6 He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: 7 ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ” 8 Then they remembered his words.
Psalm 62:5-8 New International Version
5 Yes, my soul, find rest in God;
my hope comes from him.
6 Truly he is my rock and my salvation;
he is my fortress, I will not be shaken.
7 My salvation and my honor depend on God[a];
he is my mighty rock, my refuge.
8 Trust in him at all times, you people;
pour out your hearts to him,
for God is our refuge.
