I Do and I Understand: A New Model of Transformational Education

I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.
- Confucius

Fr. Francis Kline, besides being one of the most impressive leaders I have ever met, also happens to be a Julliard trained organist who, much to the disappointment of the New York Times, at the age of 21 gave up a lucrative recording contract and certain stardom to enter a Trappist monastery. I was thrilled when the students of the Self Knowledge Symposium (SKS) enticed him into leaving the cloister for one of his exceedingly rare organ recitals. But as I walked him toward the main entrance to the Duke Chapel, neither of us was prepared for what we saw.

It was a mob scene usually reserved for rock concerts and basketball games. Hundreds of people back lit by the floodlights of television crews crowded toward the doors. Amazed and a trifle alarmed, I lowered my shoulder and pushed into the Chapel. As Fr. Francis made his way to the organ loft, Will Willimon, the Dean of the Duke Chapel, appeared at my side. “I have never seen anything like it,” he said. “I told the students not to get their hopes up. I said they’d be lucky to get 50 folks for a free organ recital. This place holds 2000 and we’ll be hard put to get them in standing room only. And at 20 bucks a head?” Then he added with a grin, “I guess I’ll never live it down with the kids.”

Then he introduced me to the Chapel’s organist who pumped my hand with real excitement, “We’ve never been able to pull a crowd for a recital before. I guess this just shows what a little advertising will do!”

Even at that tense moment, I knew better. I knew that no money whatsoever had been spent on advertising. I knew we were witnessing a grassroots effort by a tireless bunch of students and a handful of adults who volunteered their help and expertise. For two months, I watched in awe as meeting after meeting convened and adjourned, leaving the attendees loaded down with the kind of responsibilities that would make highly paid employees blanche. Articles magically appeared in almost every newspaper in North Carolina, fliers were handed out at local churches, tables were manned all over Duke by eager student ticket sellers, advertising in the program was sold to local merchants, radio stations promoted the recital, and television crews were enticed to chronicle the event. Students stepped up and bought twenty or twenty-five tickets with a “sell ’em or eat ’em” attitude. I was looking at so much more than “a little advertising.”

Catching my breath, I looked around at the brimming tide of humanity and was finally able to pick out 10 or 12 student ushers taking it all in stride: Young college men in jackets and ties, young college women in dresses. Each one armed with a walkie-talkie, knowing his or her job and quietly doing it. And then I saw Meredith Parker, the Duke SKS student president and the focal point for all this activity. I watched her coolly and calmly directing everything from her walkie-talkie. Eventually she caught my eye and gave me a smile that clearly said: “Relax, why don’t you? We got it.” And I relaxed.

When the recital started, over 2200 people were shoe horned into the Chapel, and almost all had seats. Meredith and I slipped outside and took our seats on the Chapel steps as the Gothic chapel reverberated Bach to all four quarters of the universe. Fr. Francis received two standing ovations and rave reviews in the local press. Br. Joshua told me later that Francis said: “A packed house, an incredible organ, all I can say is I gave the best I have to give. I played my heart out.” He certainly did — and so did the students of the SKS.

This story naturally provokes two of the most commonly asked questions about the SKS. First: in a time when it has become painfully fashionable to bemoan the cynicism, materialism, “slackerism,” and over-cooked individualism of Generation Y and their younger brothers and sisters, how do you get college students to work on an organ recital like they are climbing Mount Everest? Second, and even more fundamental: What does an organ concert have to do with personal and organizational transformation?

The Gen Y Dilemma

Before I tackle these two, I want to describe the context in which the SKS works. In America today, a crisis is polarizing many well-intentioned people. On the one hand is the subjective “anything goes” philosophy of post modernism. In this camp everything is “relative” and the purpose of life is reduced to a matter of individual taste. Ken Wilber has argued forcibly against the post modern emphasis on emotion, in which the unpleasant contradictions brought to light through rigorous thinking are conveniently ignored. One of my students put it more bluntly: “They are open-minded all right, but that’s not enough to build my life around.”

Yet when thinking students turn away in hopes of finding something with more structure, they are put off by ideologies that seem to intolerantly require a heavy up-front commitment to someone else’s exclusive take on the Truth. It might be said that today’s college students are too smart for subjective post modernism and have too much heart for objective ideologies.

Let me say at this point that the Self Knowledge Symposium does not claim to have the final Answer to this problem. Instead, the SKS is a pragmatic work in progress which students report is waking them up to not only the deeper issues of life but to the prospect of deeper meaning as well. Like many of our peers on college campuses we are groping toward a model that avoids the pitfalls of either extreme noted above. The paradoxical nature of this attempt is, perhaps, best illustrated by the fact that the Buddha said “work out your own salvation,” and yet this did not stop him from vigorously presenting the means by which salvation might be won.

The Process of Process

I believe the Buddha was telling us to focus more on process, and to be less hung up on content.

The SKS is more concerned with the process of transformation than with the specific content. “Seek and ye shall find,” not “Seek and ye shall find that God lives on Mt. Olympus.” Our goal is to be open to change and new ideas while insisting on a rigorous, disciplined even scientific, approach to self-transcendence within the context of a moral life.

Science illustrates this key difference between content and process. Scientific “content” includes a list of all the species of birds, the details of the Big Bang, or all the numbers on the periodic table of elements. Scientific “process” is the Scientific Method itself.

No card-carrying scientist would claim that the current description of the universe is sacrosanct. The content of the atomic table might change at any time through new discoveries, and in this sense science is open-minded. Yet, this same scientist is downright dogmatic and close minded when it comes to the process of the Scientific Method itself — the repeatability of experiments, for example. So it would seem that science has been able to transcend the apparent contradiction of dogma vs. open mindedness. Science is rigorously consistent and constantly evolving.

The SKS is similarly concerned with the process of personal and organizational transformation. And at that level – the broad methodology – the SKS fundamentals are so simple they are almost trite.

During the latter half of the 20th century the purpose of life in the spirit of tolerance was largely reduced to a matter of taste. In contrast, the SKS dogmatically maintains that the purpose of every human life is to be transformed from a selfish to a selfless individual. This message has many advantages. It provides a concrete mission that is also flexibly adaptable to the individual. The process of transformation from selfishness to selflessness is a mission so inclusive and pluralistic that it can be as religious as the Buddha’s Enlightenment or as secular as Mr. Scrooge’s Christmas epiphany. Acknowledging the truth behind this statement requires little more than common sense and a careful observation of human nature and history.

The second principle of the SKS is self knowledge. Knowing oneself is the first step on the path of transformation .By emphasizing self knowledge the SKS introduces a discipline that is not only self evidently important but is once again consistent with both a religious and non religious orientation. The journey toward self knowledge requires nothing more dogmatic than curiosity, lends itself to a disciplined, even scientific, approach, and appeals to students the way Cosmo’s little quizzes appeal to its readers.

Community building is the third pillar of the SKS approach. The process of personal transformation like just about all human endeavors is facilitated by working in a real community of other people who share the mission. Besides acting as a support group and reminder, the members of a community can act as mirrors abridging years of work by pointing out what they see in each other through compassionate criticism.

The fourth principle is character formation. We cannot hope to be constantly inspired. Like putting on an organ recital, self transformation is often just plain hard work. The student must become a person who can make a commitment and act on it in a consistent way –even when real self sacrifice is required.

The longing for self-transcendence is the final principle. Call it grace if you like, but at some point the student must realize that he cannot do it alone. All authentic methodologies like the 12 Step Program of Alcoholics Anonymous nurture the longing for transformation while exposing the student to the futility of selfishness and ego affirmation.

Engaging Students

Of course, none of that is original. Nor will a set of abstract principles move a group of students to work tirelessly for months to fill the Duke Chapel with 2000 people for an organ concert.

So what is it about the SKS that inspires students to throw themselves into the organizational work of the SKS? The SKS is the result of a group of adults and SKS student officers who are actively and obviously “living the life” themselves. The SKS leadership calls setting the example “going first” and students are openly invited to judge whether these sacrifices are really leading to better people and a better way to live.

And while getting down into the trenches with a “no secrets” approach can be very demanding (and occasionally embarrassing!), it fosters something that students desperately want and respond to: personal intimacy. More than anything else, they want a place and time where the B.S. is left at the door, and for an hour or two everyone speaks directly from their hearts. They want a place where the truth is valued simply because it is the truth.

So, What Do Organ Concerts Have to Do with It?

The SKS uses experiential learning as the path to transformation. We read a lot in the SKS, but the accent is on intimacy and action. Aristotle said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not a choice but a habit.” The SKS approach is more akin to what a business associate never tires of repeating to his employees: “Don’t figure it out, get off your butt and find out.” And we have found that what child psychologists tell us is true: Students want to be challenged, and held accountable to high expectations. They want standards in their lives that go beyond “I don’t care what you do as long as you are happy.” They instinctively sense that to live a moral life one must become a moral person, and that implies self-transformation. SKS meetings are like Weight Watchers meetings — you don’t lose the weight in the meetings. You must take action because action is the vehicle for transformation. When we consistently behave in a selfless manner we gradually become selfless people.

In the SKS “action” primarily means organizational activities in and around building the SKS community, and there are a few distinct elements in SKS organizational activities that turn an organ concert into a transformational practice for the students putting it on.

First of all, SKS leaders serve selflessly. Richard Rose, the Zen Master and West Virginian hillbilly who turned me on to personal transformation, never accepted any money for his tireless efforts. When asked how he could be repaid, he invariably served up the following mantra: “Pass it on, just pass it on. If this stuff has done something for you make it available to others.” One of the most profound mysteries of life is that the road to one’s true self is to forget oneself in the service of others. The SKS organizational activities simply “pass it on.”

Even covering a campus with posters cannot be done alone. SKS students use these organizational exercises to learn about themselves by learning about others. And they do this in a conscious and deliberate fashion where something meaningful is on the line. Many students over the years have told me that they got so much more out of putting on events than they ever got from the events themselves. Working together for common goals also fosters the trust and intimacy that can, in the blink of an eye, turn an SKS class into a profoundly moving experience for all involved.

The SKS community, while open to all, requires a sense of trust and intimacy that can only comes from commitment. While there have recently been some encouraging signs that things may be changing, America is still a profoundly materialistic culture. Those who set out to dedicate even a fair proportion of time to the self transcendence must be prepared to swim against the tide most of the time. Through working together on various projects, students see that they are truly not alone in their aspirations.

Performing to SKS mark also means performing under pressure. And pressure is perhaps the only thing that cuts through who we would like to think we are and shows us (and others) who we really are. Armchair introspection, whatever its merits, rarely accomplishes this. With high expectations, accountability and commitment, the SKS students don’t just think about themselves and others, they encounter themselves and others in a meaningful way.

Finally, high energy college students find the process of testing, stretching, and growing in real life situations just plain fun. The SKS organizes many events from poetry readings to trips to a monastery that simply celebrate their time together while exposing them to new ideas and people of differing viewpoints.

The Miraculous

But behind all the posters, events, journals, and organ recitals, there is something truly magical about the SKS. In many an SKS meeting students are moved, often profoundly. Without this miraculous element, all I have written so far might be a template for an encounter group, leadership training or even a successful business, but it would not be self transcendence.

This miraculous quality is the essence of the SKS experience — yet students often report that this is what they find most difficult to explain to their peers and parents. For myself, I do not try to understand it too much, lest it go away. Instead of speculating further, I will share a letter from a Duke student, describing her own experience.

When I first started attending SKS classes I must admit I did not take it seriously. I observed it, like a child examining a curious new toy. I did not expect to get caught up in the game. However, I am truly impressed with the heat that the class produces, the pressure it subjects upon itself. Perhaps I still seem to be an unattached observer, but it is no longer true. I have walked home from this class with tears streaming down my cheeks, touched. Last year, I tried to pop amaranth, an ancient Aztec grain at my friend’s house. I had suggested it in a manner of jest, but we tried it anyway. Amaranth are the tiniest little dark grains, and we poured them into the popcorn popper. It was so incredible to hear the first few kernels popping, and then to watch them bounce wildly all over the kitchen counter. We laughed so hard, it was so beautifully unexpected. Anyway, a couple of weeks ago the memory came to me, and I realized that it was the same feeling that I had towards my SKS class. It is so incredible to watch people turn inside out, revealing their rippled white core, breaking out of shells. So the question I must ask myself is, have I popped? Or am I a lone kernel, left at the bottom, unsuccessful and unpopped?

Through organizational activities the mission of the SKS becomes relevant to the students. The more energy they invest the more they care. We often think that inspiration leads to action. But the SKS experience demonstrates that it is action that leads to inspiration. A successful life requires a lot of hard thinking. Not difficult thinking. Intense thinking. The challenges of working together, of real success, of real failure, exposes students to real-life problems that by definition stir up this hard thinking. As a result, classes are more like soldiers sharing a fox hole than academics batting ideas around.

Personal and organizational transformation

Personal and organizational transformation is, by its very nature, an adventure into the unknown. That is its allure to students. And like any adventure, it has its risks. It cannot be embarked upon with the precondition: “I’ll try it but only if you promise me that in six months I’ll be much happier than I am now.” All too often this is what we are looking for, whether we are willing to admit it or not. But the evidence from the sages weighs in with a contrary point of view. There may be, and probably will be, many a “dark night of the soul.” Like the ancient Israelites lost in the desert, we will long nostalgically for the good old days back in Egypt.

No true exponent of personal transformation should purport to be able to spare the student any of this. On the contrary, good teaching may be like Carl Jung’s notion of the psychologist who, as gently as possible, pulls the legs out from under the student. All that can be promised, a promise born out by teachers from every tradition and our own experience, is that if the student has the courage to see it through, he or she may one day see — as Carter said at King Tut’s tomb — “wonderful things.” Things that leave us in a profound state of awe, speechlessness, and above all, inexpressible gratitude.