P=fm: Fostering Innovative Teaching and Learning in a Digital Age

A larger scale context for power teaching includes ideas from Duane Elgin, Lester Brown, Al Gore and many others. Collectively, they say the convergence of systems level global problems without national borders place before humankind a choice the species has never encountered in 195,000 years of life on "Spaceship Earth." In Elgin's language, humans can experience an "evolutionary crash" or "evolutionary bounce." We can continue a path of global gluttony. Or we can create a path of voluntary simplicity. Elgin argues that we can choose the scenario best suited for what we want tomorrow. Far ahead, we can see Peter Ward's "Homo futuris" (a new species of humans replacing Homo sapiens the way Homo sapiens replaced Homo erectus). We can see world class schools across the planet as central agents in the growth of human intelligence and wise living. And we can see schools in the United States as agents for what Thomas and Brown call a "new culture of learning." That is the grand context for President Obama's strategic vision: create a world class public school system in our nation by 2020. The power teaching prototype (P=fm) aims at the president's vision. With just two factors, the prototype connects the future of learning and Mind, Brain, Education Science. Most recently, it created future bent, writing/thinking intensive psychology courses at a small college in the urban South. With just two factors, P=fm fosters innovative teaching and learning. (Contains 6 figures.)