“ALL THINGS WITH NO TEACHER”

David Barnhizer

I am dismayed at the comprehensive failure of our K-12 educational systems to effectively provide a legitimate education to our children. It is a failure reflected not only in national and international testing of educational outcomes, but in the substandard job performances of many graduates who lack motivation as well as the ability to read effectively, to analyze based on logic and evidence, ton perform mathematical work at any acceptable level of quality, while being bereft of the significant body of fundamental knowledge required to provide the critical informational input required if the human analytic process is to operate effectively.

This particular essay focuses on what I consider fundamental issues in facilitating the development of skills of critical analysis, strategic thinking and effective action in students in our educational systems. Those skill sets have always been at the center of my teaching and I am offering a few perspectives on what is involved in generating such outcomes.

The Teacher as facilitator, guide and catalyst of the student’s learning

Perhaps because of my initial perspective gained as a clinical teacher, I have always seen myself as a facilitator, guide and catalyst of student’s learning rather than as one who “professes” while students passively write down what I say. Since the espoused goal of legal education has long involved the idea of teaching students “to think like lawyers” the challenge of how this can be done has been a keen focus. The idea is that teaching students to think critically, analytically, strategically and effectively is a central educational goal. Developing in our students the ability to function as a principled professional over their lifetime of practice was my commitment as a teacher of law students and that orientation has applied to my other activities, approaches and methodologies as well.

The driving force behind this view of pedagogic responsibility is that no one will be around to hold students’ hands after they graduate. That perspective applies throughout all educational endeavors because it is absolutely true. No one is going to be there to hold your hand. The discipline of strategic thought, analysis, and performance—in any context or profession—provides a methodology that cuts across the barriers of compartmentalized disciplines, and uses knowledge of the past and present as the foundation for determining the probabilities and risks involved in actions that need to be taken and situations that must be dealt with. Done well, the Way of strategic thought and learning helps to resist and overcome the confines of disciplines that define, constrict and restrict the ultra-specialized and often fragmentary way we are taught to see the world. Such a comprehensive strategic focus and methodology allows us to more fully comprehend our individual selves and our world. It also enables us to act more effectively in that world.

Filling in the “Blank Slate”

The human mind is a device that philosopher John Locke described as a tabula rasa or “blank slate”. Locke’s mind-slate requires information, detail, experience and hard data in order to function at any level of quality. And that information needs to be clear, comprehensive and structured in order that an individual’s mind can manipulate, compare, distinguish and evaluate. If the body of information needed for truly effective and deep thought is not “input” to the person’s mind then it remains a “blank slate”. If it is “programmed” into a mind ineptly, insufficiently, in distorted ways, and without valid data, our “slate” is corrupted, incomplete, subject to error and and open to misinterpretation.

In order for the biologic computer that is the human mind to function at any level of quality and utility, it needs a significant degree of “programming” and data input. Otherwise it is no more than a set of dysfunctional and sloppy neurons. The purpose of education is to assist the student in the process of internalizing and structuring fundamental elements of information. Part of the process involves enhancing a person’s analytical ability to handle and understand that data and incorporate ongoing inputs into his or her conceptual structure.

“All things with no teacher”

I will try to provide an example of what I am saying about education. One of my areas of focus has long been the discipline of strategy. I have been a strategist and strategic consultant in numerous contexts, including as a lawyer, law professor, business advisor, environmental activist, and in state, local and federal governmental contexts on Congressional and Executive Branch institutions as well as various international organizations. This diverse path has included the absolutely fascinating opportunity to serve as the “Special” consultant on economic development working inside a ministry in the Mongolian government on an “Agenda 21” project.

I published a book in 1997 titled “The Warrior Lawyer” (Bridge Street Books) that was based extensively on the Chinese master strategist Sun Tsu’s Art of War and Miyamoto Musashi’s A Book of Five Rings. I offer from Musashi the concept he described as “All things with no teacher”.

“I have lived without following any particular Way. With the virtue of strategy I practice many arts and abilities--all things with no teacher.” Miyamoto Musashi (circa 1645 A.D.)

"All things with no teacher" means that all teachers, including the Japanese sensei of Musashi's experience that he criticizes in his classic A Book of Five Rings, are captured by the strictures of their own formal training, experience, and disciplinary dogma. The result is that we are limited in our ability to fully understand much of the world we encounter, evaluate, judge, and seek to act within. Musashi’s “teacher” is not predominantly what we think of automatically in hearing the term. The role of “teacher” is applicable to many contexts we encounter in which an authority figure engages in teaching and instructing others, whether formalized instruction of the type we see in Western nations, or areas such as martial arts, religion, military activities, and much more.

For Musashi, the excellent teacher is the student's tool and facilitator, one who makes possible what the student goes on to become. The teacher is vital but is only the initial mechanism responsible for facilitating the creation of a system of coherent and comprehensive thought, knowledge, action, and experience, not the final word. The teacher is an introducer, facilitator and mediator, not a prophet or single and everlasting authority. The goal is to initiate a process in which the students are brought along to becoming their own teacher. Although I am not going to discuss it at this point, Musashi’s “teacher” bears little relationship to the mediocracy, inadequacy and “dumbing down” that is occurring in America’s schools and universities at all levels.

The dilemma we face is that our current teachers not only share their knowledge, methodologies, world views and biases, but also subconsciously, or intentionally, inculcate students with precepts that may initially expand their understanding but limit their ability to see beyond the teachers approaches, beliefs and methodologies. They are being turned into converts who do what they are told, engage in violent protests according to what their “teachers” have set in motion. An instructional system that shuts out parents and hides the extent of ongoing indoctrination from the teacher acting as ideological “propagandist” will seem for many young and vulnerable students a cause to be followed. They are being educated to be their own “teachers” throughout their lives but to adopt the beliefs, biases and preferences of their instructors. Preventing students being trapped within the ideological “bubble” of the kind being inflated in America’s schools is an extremely challenging undertaking.

At this point I simply am seeking to suggest an alternative. “All things with no teacher” doesn’t mean the teacher is rendered obsolete or unnecessary. The concept supports the essential goal that students must be taught to accept responsibility for their own learning throughout their life. This includes the proposition that they must seek to grow beyond the teacher in knowledge, skill, and understanding. Maxine Greene offered a great insight in Teacher As Stranger.

“In Plato’s Apology, Socrates compares himself as a teacher with a gadfly and tells the Athenian citizens that he was “Always fastening upon you, arousing and persuading and reproaching you.” To remain immobile, to refuse to inquire was to be caught napping, to resist being stirred into life. But it was not enough merely to awaken: an individual had to be brought, on his own initiative, to regard virtue. He had to be stimulated to take an active role in the search for his perfection; he had to be courageous enough to turn toward the Good.” Maxine Greene, Teacher As Stranger 72 (1973).

The most important principle is that our overriding goal is to help students take personal responsibility for their own learning. It represents the responsibility to create themselves. The learning environment designed and facilitated by the teacher is a critical element that makes possible the insights students take away from the experience. The fabric used for the learning process and the initial design of the educational “tapestry” are selected by the teacher. The teacher’s goal, however, is that the students learn to become the artists and weavers of their own “tapestry”. In that creative process they develop the skills, insights and sense of craft required to continue through their lives the professional and intellectual project on their own terms. This incorporates their values and is designed by them according to their abilities, aims and characteristics.

Musashi’s “Way of the Strategist”

As a university professor, lawyer, consultant to private and public governmental institutions, writer, business-involved individual, and strategist, I have approached this dilemma by focusing on the discipline of strategic thought and awareness. My 1997 book, The Warrior Lawyer, did this through concentrating on the lessons offered 3000 years ago by the Chinese master strategist Sun Tzu in the context of military strategy. His Art of War goes well beyond military contexts and offers profound insights about humans, how they think and act, what they value, and how they achieve their goals. I also concentrated on Miyamoto Musashi’s almost 1000 year old Book of Five Rings. It is that latter work I rely on here in seeking to address the essential ability to understand critical issues deeply, widely and honestly, and to develop the highest degree of critical thinking skills along with understanding how to undertake effective action.

Musashi’s Way of strategy provides a methodology that helps cut across the restricting barriers of disciplines, barriers that blind us to perspectives other than our own and prevent true understanding. Following the path of “All things with no teacher” is constructed by continually gaining knowledge and experience from an array of sources and contexts. The structured acquisition and internalization of knowledge and experience allows us to more fully comprehend not only ourselves, and others, but the world with which we can interact more accurately and effectively.

The irony, of course, is that Musashi's insights, his Way, are his own particular distillation. He would be the first to admit that fact. It is a fabric he has woven according to his particular design, intent and experience. Yet I have never encountered a better rendition of what we need to know if we are to “become” ourselves in the best sense of honesty, wisdom, understanding, and effectiveness.

We are each responsible for going beyond Musashi’s perspectives in creating our own systems of thought and action. Musashi would agree with this without hesitation because he stands for the proposition that the initial or early phase teachers of our development are responsible for laying a foundation that allows us to become our own teacher. In that context we are ever seeking, ever growing, and always learning. This is a never-ending task demanding full commitment. I guess that is why so few people accept the commitment.

Enhanced thinking and problem-solving capability

It should be clear that I am really talking here about creating systems of enhanced thinking, assessment and action capability. The point is that it doesn’t matter if an individual possesses a mind capable of the highest-order thinking. If there is no available or accurate information on which that brilliant mind can work, there is no legitimate or reliable “output”. That is why Musashi’s listing of the nine principles of strategic mastery are presented briefly below.

The knowledge of his system of thought and action isn't limited to only external information or hard data. The strategist's knowledge includes reliance on a greater range of human senses and faculties than we normally use. Knowledge of human nature and of self are a critical part of this awareness. This knowledge is gained by increasing the quality of the information being internalized, processed, and evaluated. This is done through greater alertness, focus, and concentration. It includes becoming more aware of the power of intuitive understanding, and by gaining access to the sources of our natural human power.

The Nine Elements of Musashi's Way

Musashi offers a solution because his system begins with the reality of the “us” along with the “I”. The important truth, for the strategist at least, is that we must learn how to step outside ourselves in order to be objective. If we know others, and observe and understand their strengths and weaknesses, we can better see and evaluate our own capabilities and deficiencies. This includes other’s perceptions of us, and how they respond to us. Musashi is telling us to look at the world, to look at others, to learn what other people do, to learn human nature from observing others, and then say, “Now, let’s think about me and try to understand how I fit into this picture.” It is an interesting reversal of method and perspective because the Chinese and Japanese have tended to focus far less than we do on the “I”, the “solitary I” as the center of the world, than have we.

When we possess a substantive and rich conceptual base we have the ability to evaluate, critique, formulate plans, and make choices. Part of the process is that we also need to understand how “things”, informational “bits” and clusters of specialized data interact with other informational points as part of a system, not just isolated and disconnected “factoids”. Without such integrative conceptual structures, we may have mastered disconnected bits of trivia but lack the ability to understand and integrate reality. When this occurs, our ability to act effectively across the spectrums in which reality must be understood, answers sought, and actions taken is undermined.

Critical thinking and the ability to possess and manipulate a diverse store of knowledge and experience are increasingly vital in our rapidly changing and mutating economy and society. Effective strategic critique, planning, and action require that you actually know something and possess a significant and diverse body of knowledge coupled with experience. Simply taking others’ statements at face value or automatically accepting “Google data” as true is grossly inadequate.

As individuals, if we don’t create a sophisticated, complex, honest and comprehensive conceptual structure, we become overly dependent on external frameworks. These external frameworks, analyses, and sets of alleged knowledge may themselves be flawed. This is so whether they are the opinions of human experts, ideological prophets, or the pre-shaped products of systems such as Google or Facebook that contain the biases, agendas and limits of the designers and moderators.

Musashi describes nine points a strategist must master to achieve his Way. They are:

1). Do not think dishonestly;

2). Become acquainted with every art;

3). Know the ways of all professions;

4). Distinguish between gain and loss in worldly transactions;

5). Develop intuitive judgment and understanding for everything;

6). Do nothing that is of no use;

7). The Way is in Training;

8). Perceive those things which cannot be seen;

9). Pay attention even to trifles.

These nine points are the foundation of an integrated system. They create the Way of the strategist, and deepen our ability to engage in synthesis and analysis. Musashi's nine points of intellectual, critical and strategic mastery include not only acquiring information, but being able to discriminate among information, and to identify the implications of knowledge and action essential to achieving desired goals. I have found Musashi’s nine points to be highly useful not only in my teaching where I seek to incorporate significant elements of his system as part of what can be called “immersive and active” learning, but in how I approach the world and my own thought and action.

2. Become Acquainted with Every Art

Being a serious critical thinker or strategist requires an enormous information and knowledge base. It means you must learn the insights and methods of an extraordinary range of other disciplines and areas of knowledge. This requires an understanding of humans and human nature, including developing the ability to know what people think, desire, fear and want.

The concept of “all things with no teacher” reflects other important insights. These include that if you as a person are too narrow; if you follow just one school of thought; if you become trapped inside the teachings of any one school of thought or discipline; if you are ignorant of psychology, philosophy, science, politics, ethics, morality, religion, etc.; if you have only a limited kind of experience, then you can't know what you need to know to be a strategist. This is part of Musashi's urging to “become acquainted with every art”.

Anyone who wants to master strategy must seek knowledge from a wide variety of sources and in many different areas. Literature, religion, ethics, history, science, philosophy, war, psychology, sociology, economics, and so forth are attempts to capture what humans are all about. They are efforts to understand the nature of the universe we inhabit and our place and responsibilities within it. These areas of knowledge are continually and unpredictably relevant to a great deal of our activities. If we lack this diverse knowledge base, then we are ignorant of strategy and limited in our ability to engage in disciplined critical thinking and analysis.

3. Know the Ways of All Professions

Not only is it necessary to seek voraciously after knowledge in the general sense, it is essential that the strategist know the “ways” of all professions. Musashi means that we should know the mission, the methods, the secrets, the flaws, the assumptions, the techniques, and the values of the various professions, how they work and why. If we know this, we can identify strengths and weaknesses and be able to attack or defend critical points. If you are a lawyer, think about the importance of knowing the methods and underlying principles relied upon by economists, doctors, psychologists, statisticians, pathologists, chemists, police, etc. This knowledge of the ways of professions is something we synthesize and integrate into our own knowledge base. It then becomes part of our own “way”.

4. Distinguish Between Gain and Loss in Worldly Transactions

A fourth aspect of Musashi's way is to learn to "distinguish between gain and loss in worldly matters." This principle has to do with the strategist being able to know the nature of what is a realistic victory, and discerning what is valued highly enough by others, including possible opponents, that it will enhance the probability of obtaining agreement, concessions or the best general outcome. Look at the big picture. Know the world. Have real experience. Don't be too abstract. Know what people value, not only as individuals but as part of institutions. What is important to them, to others, to you, and to your clients? Why is it important? How do you know it is important?

5. Develop Intuitive Judgment and Understanding for Everything

Another of Musashi's principles is the need to "develop intuitive judgment and understanding for everything." Not everything is neatly rational. Such things as guts, instincts, subliminal perception, the distillation of experience that allows you to anticipate, recognize and react seemingly without thought, all describe real human abilities that operate on the edges of our conscious rationality. A very simple example of this process is a dancer beginning to learn a new dance. In the beginning the person has to go through a conscious thought process that might sound something like, "Hey, my feet are supposed to go here, and my partner over there. But we keep bumping into each other." The problem is that a dancer who has to go through a conscious mental dialogue of the kind described above has not yet mastered the intricacy of the dance.

The master strategist, on the other hand, is like the dancer who has fully internalized his/her art form. Such a dancer knows the depth, characteristics and parameters of the stage on which he/she works. The dancer knows where others involved in the performance will be at what time. The dancer knows the lighting and music, and can feel and respond to the audience and play to that source of energy. The dancer knows the air, surrounding and underfoot, feels the time between beats, and uses the power of expression and presence. Such awareness is part of mastery, regardless of the specific discipline.

6. The Way is in Training

When functioning at advanced levels of skill, our brains are incredible tools. They are capable of making instantaneous jumps and transitions, and recognizing patterns while the patterns are still in the process of becoming or forming. Our brains are capable of functioning in ways that are infinitely more varied and complex—at least until the most recent advances in Artificial Intelligence. Developing this potential to the highest level takes constant practice, training and experience. This requires a combination of knowledge, experience, practice, focus, and a balanced spirit.

As a strategist you are training your entire being to perceive, assess, and act, not simply observe. You are training to be able to function through the integrated power of your mind, body, and emotion. No amount of intellectualized information can do this for you. The teacher can only guide, introduce, critique, and facilitate. Each strategist must make his or her own personal leap to the level of perception, awareness, and ability to act that is essential to the master strategist. This process is continuous and takes years of study, thought, practice, experience and action. Becoming a strategist is not about simply acquiring experience, but having the ability to learn from that experience which is filtered, interpreted, critiqued and refined through a constant commitment to drawing out the fullest meaning from what has occurred. You can't learn strategy without constant practice, but practice itself is not enough and experience without insight is insufficient.

7. Perceive Those Things that Cannot be Seen

Related to the idea of intuitive judgment are Musashi's principles of developing understanding for everything and learning how to perceive those things that cannot be seen. When you “know” humans, what they value, how they act and why, and are able to function intuitively, you can see past other's masks and illusions. Musashi tells us that the strategist masters two methods of seeing, what he calls perception and sight. He observes that perception is strong, while sight is weak because it is too specific and narrow. Sight in essence is the trees while perception includes the forest and the trees. He says, "Perception consists of concentrating strongly on the enemy's spirit, observing the condition of the battlefield, fixing the gaze strongly, seeing the progress of the fight and the changes of advantage."

Musashi puts it in these words.

“When you become accustomed to something, you are not limited to the use of your eyes. People such as master musicians have the music score in front of their nose [when they play], or [master sword fencers may] flourish swords in several ways when they have mastered the Way, but this does not mean that they fix their eyes on these things specifically, or that they make pointless movements of the sword. It means that they can see naturally.”

Students’ Acceptance of Responsibility for Their Own Learning

Think of the process as one in which the teacher helps a student weave a personal tapestry of knowledge, skill and values. Musashi advocated the concept of “all things with no teacher” in A Book of Five Rings. He voiced the task in the following words: “I have lived without following any particular Way. With the virtue of strategy I practice many arts and abilities--all things with no teacher.” It is the teacher’s responsibility to draw the student through the experience and to be the student’s facilitator in the creation of a learning environment and the weaving of the “learning tapestry”.

The principle of “all things with no teacher” doesn’t mean the teacher is rendered obsolete. It stands for the proposition that intellectual flexibility, adaptability, and the recognition that “all roads” can lead to a productive learning experience are critical elements of the teaching method. This concept supports the goal that students must be taught to accept responsibility for their own learning throughout their life. This includes the proposition that they must seek to grow beyond the teacher in knowledge, skill, and understanding.

Charles Eliot edited The Harvard Classics with the idea that knowledge could be transmitted on a “five foot shelf” through a wonderful collection of works representing what he considered the best of human intellectual achievement spanning more than two thousand years. In this modern era where our educational system seems increasingly disconnected from the foundation of knowledge that underlies our institutions, laws and aspirations, it seems even more vital that the foundations of what we call the Rule of Law and the core institutions of America’s culture and community be preserved. This cannot be accomplished without a base of shared understandings about humans in community and as individuals as well as coherent views on the roles and limits of government and other potent institutions.

This foundation is not found strictly or even primarily in law books. It was painstakingly developed in our challenging and contentious cultural history, our principles, key institutional and political forms, and grounding values. Many of those factors are contained in the Harvard Classics’ collection of Aristotle, Cato, Livy, Dante, Hume, Locke, Grotius, Pufendorf, Leibniz, Adam Smith and far, far more.

Over centuries the authors and preservers of such works—individual and institutional—enriched each other’s work to the point that the structure of Western civilization, including the Rule of Law, came to be supported by the analysis in ways we can’t begin to understand. We cannot and must not disassociate ourselves from that hard-won system. They penetrate and permeate our language and conceptual structures and it is one key purpose of education to make certain all Americans are introduced to the most critical beliefs, values and institutions.

Without at least some grounding in these or similar sources our social, political and legal actors become increasingly disconnected from the foundations that have provided the intrinsic substance of our beliefs—including those adopted by our nation’s Constitutional Founding Fathers—and the core understandings that have led to the system’s development and evolution. The loss of this shared conceptual structure and political and philosophical language we are experiencing is a critical element of what is going on in the American society today.

That is why my recent post discussed the increasing “dumbing down” of the American educational systems at all levels. Reversing the decline in understanding and commitment is vital. Once we no longer have a set of shared values and principles, it becomes entirely irrelevant whether we style ourselves liberal or conservative or bicker about what is nothing more than performative political posing. This is because we are simply spouting words and slogans that lack substance.