TEACHING - NO LONGER A VOCATION

TEACHING - NO LONGER A VOCATION

By Randall Butisingh

This article was written in 1971, a few months before I retired.

I was very dissatisfied with what was taking place in school; where political expediency ousted teaching ethics resulting in a breakdown of discipline, insubordination and the degradation of Education in the schools of Guyana.

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Teaching had always been regarded as a vocation, and it was expected that the men and women who entered its ranks did so because of that sense.

The earliest teachers were volunteers who gave their spare time to educate the young ones of their time. Robert Raikes, an Englishman was one of the first of this kind. His pupils were the scum of the English slum – the stray boys as they were called – and his first task was to teach them Religion, and later Reading and Writing.

From that humble beginning sprang the Church Schools which gave formal lessons in the Three R’s and also taught them Religion… Teachers were remunerated but the pay was so small that only the dedicated offered their services. To these it was an opportunity for service to their fellow men.

Even in this country, in the nineteenth century, teaching attracted to a great extent, the dedicated and conscientious worker. Teachers never used to grudge giving services during unofficial hours; to them, it fitted with the sense of vocation.

Vocation knows no holiday and working in an occupation in which one is dedicated is a holiday in itself. The good teacher enjoys this perpetual holiday and is bored and unhappy when he is away from his charge.

For the past half century and more, much has been done to mar the spirit of devotion, though it is not entirely eradicated. The payment by results system, in Dual Control, when government came in and paid the bills, has been one of the ugliest blots in the administrative system. If teachers gave extra service, they gave it through compulsion; they struggled hard to survive, and in the struggle, some resorted to unethical means. The smartest and not always the most conscientious survived.

This state of affairs, where results mattered most, proved a bane to real progress because, if volition which is consistent with the spirit of dedication is removed, then vocation becomes a misnomer, and true education, that what is worth knowing and becoming suffers.

At present the payment by results system does not obtain, but teaching in the context of Guyana, has been made attractive in the form of more pay for teachers, opportunity of training for all – formerly only the few academically best were selected for training – protection of a trade union which can resort to the strike weapon and go-slow tactics, and numerous holidays.. These have attracted into the profession many who have no love for teaching, self-seekers, opportunists, who can never inspire or motivate their pupils.

Some of these square pegs however, are intrinsically good, with a potential for other type of occupations, but unfortunately, the system offers them no scope for their development, neither has it been able to discover their hidden talents. So the potential technician, craftsman, farmer, fisherman and others find teaching a field for financial exploitation, and also a stepping stone to more lucrative employment… With the promise of free education for all, what will happen to the army of youths of average ability who will pass five or more subjects at the G.C.E “O’ level? Surely the teaching profession, the civil service and the industries will not be able to absorb all of them in white collar posts. Many of them will roam the streets and be a burden to state and society.

The type of Education which does not take aptitude into consideration cannot successfully build a young nation that is struggling for economic sufficiency through Cooperatives. Technical skill and brawn are the things most needed… Without them our Education would be unproductive, it would produce unproductive teachers who would perpetuate un-productivity.

A manual- based Education is the best thing for our schools. Pupils should be made to use their hands right from the beginning and produce. This productivity should continue all through the school… No school should be without a Garden, a Handicraft and a Domestic Department. Here is where the children would learn that there is dignity in labour and would enjoy the fruits of labour. Every School, if properly organized will be able to pay some of its expenses. If this is done, when the pupils leave school, they will be able to wrest a living from the Agricultural lands, Forests, Water and other resources of the country.

Again proper incentives should be given to the manual-type worker if this type of occupation is to be stressed. The scavenger who does the dirtiest work but very essential job should be better paid than the clerk; the farmer should be rewarded with bonuses and national honours and compensated when his crops get destroyed by floods or pests.

The indispensable service of the farmer should be properly recognized as his profession is a noble one and people owe him its sustenance. Also a National Farmers’ Day should be held every year when public recognition could be paid to them.

Because of the security which teachers enjoy and the unwillingness of many to go the ‘second mile, they should be made to do by compulsion what their counterparts of the past did voluntarily. What reason is there why teachers should not work more than five hours a day, five days a week and during vacation? This does not mean that they will have to do routine work all the time, but they can surely help the Nation in social work like Adult Education, Youth Club activities and classes for the underprivileged. They can also find some time visiting parents, arranging their own refresher courses, writing text books and learning to use their hands among other things.

The holidays given throughout the year should not mean exemption from duty for teachers. They should be considered on duty and be available for utilization in the National cause, especially as they are paid for these periods.

At present, apart from the three months’ holidays teachers get every year, a month’s leave every three years, many hours are lost to teaching in this country by teachers who take leave for illnesses real, or imaginary, and for selfish reasons.

Is there any wonder, taking all these things into consideration that Teaching has ceased to be a Vocation for many?

——

Update: All the recommendations concerning Farming that I have made in this article were later implemented by the People’s National Congress (P.N.C.) Government administration.(1964-1992)

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

INTERVIEW WITH TWO STUDENT DOCTORS, 2001

This is an interview I had with two student doctors in the USA, who interviewed me in 2001 when I was 89 years old. — Randall Butisingh

Question; How have you kept your health over the Years?

Answer: My state of health is not fortuitous. Apart from being born into a strong, healthy family, I had a good start from babyhood. I was breast fed from for many months. My parents had a small dairy, and as a child, I was given milk fresh from the udders of the cows which were grass fed. I liked fruits and in my days as a child, we had them in abundance. I exercised a great deal during my life; I ran, I swam, I boxed, I played cricket, I did acrobatics. I remember as a child, I never liked to be a mere spectator in a sporting event. I always liked to be a participator. Throughout the years, after surviving all the childhood illnesses, except typhoid and whooping cough, which I never contracted, I believe I built up a good immune system.

Mentally, I improved with old age. At eighty-nine, I think clearer, learn faster and remember better. My eyesight has very much improved after cataract operations so I can do much reading and writing. At present, I read Oriental philosophy and Comparative religion. I read and write poetry. I am interested in music also and did some practice on the violin at the age of seventy-five. I started to play the recorder (German flute), only a few months ago and have acquired some degree of proficiency. I can also translate music to accommodate it on the recorder.

Apart from being a teacher, which I am all my life, with a few breaks in between where I garnered good experiences in other occupations, I am a learner . I learned shorthand and typewriting, Hindi and Urdu while at school and the Arabic Script after I was eighty. I believe that when one stops learning, he ceases to live, and it is never too late to learn.

Question: Whom do you admire most in life? How do you feel that influences you in how you live your life?

Answer: The person I admire most in my life is Mahatma Gandhi, the architect of India’s freedom. Although I never saw him, I wept when he died as many did all over the world. I have read his autobiography and several of his biographies. I have also translated a hundred page biography of him from Hindi to English.. His doctrine of love and non-violence and self-denial appealed to me. He taught that I can live comfortably on very little; while others are poor while being rich, because they are never satisfied. I can be rich without having much because I want nothing and can share from the little that I have.

Question: Knowing that you live two months in the U.S.A. and two months in Guyana, what are the differences?

Answer: I enjoy living with relatives in the United States. My physical needs are well taken care of, but I am pampered and dependent. I have, however, made many good friends here, ranging from early twenties to past middle age. I am a good teacher, and there is always something which I can teach someone, . Here I am exposed to the best programmes on television, to music, to art, (I did six paintings of sceneries at a class I attended), to philosophy. I can follow the issues of the day, be an armchair traveller where I can see the countries of the world in the comfort of the living room, can communicate freely by telephone and e-mail. Here I have all the time of the world at my disposal.

In Guyana, however, I enjoy more independence. I do most things for myself, including cooking and washing. I move around more freely with the friends I have there. I am in an organization that propagates Hindi. I teach Hindi, set question papers for the Hindi examinations, edit a Journal, write Welcome and Farewell addresses in Hindi for High Commissioners and Hindi professors, give talks at religious gatherings and correspond with the newspapers.

Students: Thanks!

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

Suffering is the crucible in which the character is burnished.
Taken from “FLASHES OF LIGHT”  by
Randall Butisingh

SUFFERING QUOTATIONS

ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL
A religious man is one who holds God and man in one thought at one time, at all times, who suffers harm done to others, whose greatest passion is compassion, whose greatest strength is love, and defiance of despair.
New York Journal American, April 5, 1963

ALBERT CAMUS
In the depth of winter, I finally learned that that there was within me an invincible summer.

ALDOUS HUXLEY
At least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political idols..

CORITA KENT
Love the moment.  Flowers grow out of dark moments.  Therefore each moment is vital.  It affects the whole. Life is a succession of such moments and to live each is to succeed

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

CLOTHING IN CIVILISED COMMUNITIES

This article written in the sixties when male teachers were allowed to remove their jackets in school; later they were allowed to come to school without jackets, but they could wear a shirt-jac or shirt and tie… During the seventies, the tie was discarded.

——

In an article captioned “Mini-skirted teacher” by Lucian, I would like to add that clothing in civilized communities is not only an article for the protection and adornment of the body, but it has a religious and cultural significance as well.

Among the religions, there is a tendency to dress in a manner which is sexually sobering, hence the purdah which is an extreme system of covering the whole body, including the face, by Muslim women. The shalwar and sari of the Hindus are garments which cover the whole body, but are elegant in appearance.

On the other hand, the tendency of primitive peoples is to wear as little clothing, if you may call it so, as possible. In most cases, only the regions for which Eve and Adam improvised their attire with the leaves of the fig tree are covered.

The argument that this or that piece of garment is superfluous or inconvenient cannot hold water. Usage and adaptability will take care of that.

Guyana is a hot country and from the point of view of suitability where comfort is concerned, would be that worn by the Arawaks. Our belles will be cool and attractive in the outfit worn by Miss Guyana for world scrutiny; but after all we are civilized, and this type of apparel, notwithstanding its practical utility, will be regarded as indecent.

The teaching profession calls for a certain dignity in appearance, and this dignity is dictated by convention and as Lucian rightly said, obligation. Dignified clothes hide contours, even deformities, both of which attract either salacious or morbid interest.

In our society the use of the tie as a cultural symbol is voluntary in certain categories of workers, but obligatory in the teaching profession where it is the duty of the members to main cultural standards.

Teachers are not models for fashion in the classroom. Fashion is an ephemeral phenomenon. Its designers pander to the excitement and attraction which current taste can reject. Teachers, too, must not initiate changes, but must confirm to what is accepted by society.

The time for discarding the tie by the male, even if reason prompts, and for permitting teachers to dress unconventionally and without modesty has not yet arrived… Let whatever is dignified and decent in apparel be retained in the classroom until such time as custom otherwise decrees. Perhaps a dignified national costume may be evolved.

Footnote: When a Miss Guyana entered for a Miss World contest in the seventies, she displayed what was worn by the Arawaks, an indigenous Amerindian tribe in Guyana.

. - Randall Butisingh

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

REDUCING POVERTY IN AFRICA

This is my letter to Brian and Kristen Konkol, recently appointed as missionaries in South Africa. They are dedicated and committed individuals, who were missionaries in Guyana before moving to South Africa a few months ago. They are now settling in and have asked my advice on: “How to reduce Poverty in Africa”. Here is my reply dated April 21, 2008. Your comments and advice on this most important subject are welcome. Feel free to contact Brian and Kristen Konkol with your help and ideas at: (bekonkol@yahoo.com

To: Brian and Kristen Konkol:

Before I attempt to give my opinion on “how to reduce Poverty in Africa”, I will attempt to define Poverty. In my opinion Poverty is a relative term. How? An individual may have very little, and it takes very little to sustain life. He may live in a one room shack with one or no shirt on his back, but he works honestly for the little that he has; he is always cheerful and will gladly share the little he has and his shack with a needy stranger. He is the personification of contentment; his conscience is clear, his sleep at night is sound and unbroken and he lives without fear. Would you call such an individual poor?

On the other hand a person may be laden with this world’s goods, like an overlade camel, much more above his needs; But he is the personification of greed; he cannot have enough; he is discontented; always wants more and more, never share what he has with the needy for concern that it will diminish him. This makes him grouchy, irritable, and cheerless. His sleep at nights is unsound and broken because of fear that someone may come and rob him of what he has. Would you call such an individual rich?

Now, how about reducing Poverty in Africa! Africa is a continent, beautiful and potentially rich, but it has been exploited by foreigners and recently, after independence by its own leaders. There were very few leaders, among them being Nelson Mandela, who did not succumb to the plague of corruption. Billions of the country’s wealth and foreign aid have been stashed away in foreign banks by corrupt politicians while those whom they have been supposed to serve go hungry.

This brings us to the question of education. If the populace is not adequately educated in order to understand the issues and the ability to confront injustice wherever it rears its ugly head, exploitation and corruption will continue to have a field day. Recently two benevolent Americans have been working in this field. They are Oprah Winfrey who is spending millions to educate over a hundred girls in South Africa to become leaders in the future and Bill Clinton who is spending millions to improve Agriculture in one of the countries in Africa.

It should also be noted that Poverty is an attitude in some of the countries. The men leave all the hard work to the women. When they do not hunt or fish, they gather in groups and idle away their time while the women work in the fields. Recently a group of women banded together in a community, and refused to slave for their idle husbands.

We need people who can educate, motivate and inspire these people, raising them from their present level, especially the women to one of respectability. Here is where you and Kirsten can fit in and I know that with the meager physical resources you have but the abundance of will, dedication and commitment, you will make things happen.
Africa does not need to be spoon fed. But while they are given the tools to progress, effort should be made meanwhile to eliminate hunger and disease.
Remitting of debts will be of little help if attitudes do not change.
Love, joy and peace,

Randall

randallbutisingh@hotmail.com

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

INTERNET NEUTRALITY

The Internet was created some 15 years ago and its real effects are now being felt around the world. It has literally overturned the way we communicate and do business and its democratic influence threatens the vested interests in business, governments and repressive entities. Internet neutrality must be maintained if the Internet is to achieve its fullest potential. The plan for Humanity Lobotomy has to be prevented.

The following video discusses this important issue of “Internet Neutrality”, which is the democratic use of the Internet by all users based on their connection speed. In today’s Internet the Internet provider (telephone or cable company) supplies a connection only and does not control the content with fees to large users, however the large media corporations see the effect of the democratic media on their monopolies and are in the process of locking down the Internet by establishing various levels of service.

This issue of Net Neutrality which threatens to lobotomize the communications future of the Internet has become a hot issue in the USA elections in 2008, where members of Congress are being queried and measured on their stance on this most important subject, as it is the Congress that will give the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the power to allow a tiered Internet to become a reality.

This could spell the end of the Internet as we know it as speed limitations are put on “free services” not paying the premiums. The Internet could then follow the way of the printing press, radio and television back in the hands of monopolies and oligopolies. If the USA implements any laws that affect Internet neutrality other nations will surely follow, and therefore this is a very important issue that has to be addressed to ensure a democratic Internet in the years to come. Here is the Video entitled “Humanity Lobotomy” - Second Draft:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JP_3WnJ42kw

I do hope you find this content interesting and would pass it on to your friends

.– Cyril Bryan

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

SCIENCE AND EVOLUTION

Quotes by Charles Darwin – 1809-1882

“A scientific man ought to have no wishes, no affections, — a mere heart of stone.”

“We can allow satellites, planets, suns, universe, nay whole systems of universe[s], to be governed by laws, but the smallest insect, we wish to be created at once by special act.”

“Nothing before had ever made me thoroughly realize, though I had read various scientific books, that science consists in grouping facts so that general laws or conclusions may be drawn from them.”

“It is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.” -

“”The fact of evolution is the backbone of biology, and biology is thus in the peculiar position of being a science founded on an improved theory, is it then a science or faith?” “In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment.”

– Charles Darwin – author “The Origin of Species”

One of the most influential scientists of the nineteenth century, Charles Darwin (1809-1882) is best known for establishing the theory of organic evolution by natural selection. This English naturalist discovered that natural selection was the agent for the transmutation of organisms during evolution, as did Alfred Russell Wallace independently. Darwin presented his theory in Origin of Species.

The concept of evolution by descent dates at least from classical Greek philosophers. In the eighteenth century Carl Linnaeus postulated limited mutability of species by descent. But most naturalists were concerned with identifying species, the stability of which was considered essential for their work. Natural theology regarded the perfection of adaptation between structure and mode of life in organisms as evidence for a predetermined divine plan

After University, Darwin to join the crew on a British government survey ship, the H.M.S. Beagle, as an unpaid naturalist on a five-year voyage to South America and the South Pacific Islands.

While in Brazil, Darwin found various fossils and made geological and biological observations, took records, and collected specimens of every kind as the ship cruised back and forth along the coasts of South America. Darwin had begun to notice evidence that animals and plants had undergone evolutionary changes. In some areas, species had become extinct, yet Darwin noticed similar but not identical species in other areas nearby.

He was perplexed over the fact that existing species had demonstrated characteristics similar to those of extinct species. He also found slightly similar, though clearly different, species located in a variety of places around the world, but also completely lacking in other parts of the world. Moreover, Darwin was intrigued that the flora and fauna of oceanic islands were likely to resemble the same animal and plant species found on the neighboring continents. He thought it peculiar that islands with the same geological and physical features could be home to completely different animal species.

Four years after having set sail, Darwin landed in the Galápagos Islands, where he would make the most significant observations of the expedition. Darwin noticed that there were around 14 different types of finch birds on different islands of the Galápagos. Each type of finch appeared to have adapted completely to the island on which it lived. Moreover, some with sharper, finer beaks fed on insects and were more suited to stabbing their prey, while others ate seeds and had more powerful, parrot-like bills for breaking the shells. Another curiosity was the giant tortoises that appeared similar but possessed many distinctive features. The local island inhabitants could tell at sight from which island any of the giant creatures had come. Darwin began to ask if all of this biological diversity was arbitrary or whether a pattern of meaning could be discerned. Then a possible explanation began to emerge; he realized that species had to be mutable and diverged instead of fixed in form according to their original ancestry. A common ancestor could explain the similarities, but Darwin began to guess that each species could have given rise to new ones.

Upon returning to Britain in October 1836, Darwin’s ideas came into focus and he began to synthesize a theory to explain his premonition. He began by asserting that if species had transformed, the issue of diversity was satisfied, and species were related by descent from common ancestors. Recent study of Darwin’s unpublished manuscripts and entire works reveal a continuity of purpose and integrity of effort to establish the high probability of the genetic relationship through descent in all forms of life. Darwin work created a paradigm shift of consummate importance to the history of science and ideas.

(By Cyril Bryan with excerpts from Discover and Sociology Magazines)

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

WRONG SENSE OF VALUES

A letter to the British Guiana press during the days of Colonialism…

In my opinion the problem of unemployment is a problem of the character and of prejudice. Much blame can be laid in this direction on the inadequacy of the Educational System.

No matter how much can be said in favour of an academic training, if too much stress is laid on it, as it is at present, a wrong sense of values will be fostered and habits inimical to the best interests of the individual and society will be cultivated.

The white collar consciousness of most of the products of our schools is deplorable and should be viewed with alarm. It is not one that can realize National Independence and stability. Man’s basic needs are food, clothing and shelter, and any proper system of education will pay regard to these needs of the individual and help to equip him in order to fulfill them.

It is surprising how much land is allowed to remain idle, while youths who have finished school fritter away their time in idleness or roam about to do mischief. If they were taught the use of their hands and the dignity of labour, and were equipped with a resourcefulness of character, the situation would not be as grave as it is today.

We have no Secondary Modern Schools in this country to cater for that dangerous period when our children leave the Primary School, so until we have that necessity, our Primary Education must fit the child to bridge that gap between his leaving school and the time he is either apprenticed or find suitable employment. In this respect, systematic manual training by apt teachers will be of great importance.

Gardening, woodwork, needlecraft, domestic science and the like must predominate in the curriculum. Too much time is wasted in the spelling of unimportant words and in calculating irrelevant sums. Let our education fit the child to live and to live with, and we shall at the same time be tackling the sinister problem of delinquency.

— Randall Butisingh

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

EDUCATION

“We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought.”
–  Bertrand Russell

“We are shut up in schools and college recitation rooms for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bellyful of words and do not know a thing.”
–  Ralph Waldo Emerson

“An education isn’t how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It’s being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don’t.” -
–  Malcolm Forbes

“Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way.”
–  Kurt Vonnegut

“If I ran a school, I’d give the average grade to the ones who gave me all the right answers, for being good parrots. I’d give the top grades to those who made a lot of mistakes and told me about them, and then told me what they learned from them.”
–  Buckminster Fuller

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

EDUCATION AUTOMATION

By: Buckminster Fuller 1895-1983, inventor of the geodesic dome and many futuristic products. From his book: “Education Automation – freeing the student to return to his studies” 1962.

I am convinced that humanity is characterized by extraordinary love for its new life and yet has been misinforming its new life to such an extent that the new life is continually at a greater disadvantage than it would be if abandoned in the wilderness by the parents. For an instance of misconception extension there is my own case. I was born in 1895. The airplane was invented when I was nine years old. Up to the time I was nine years old, the idea that man could fly was held to be preposterous, and anybody could tell you so. My own boyhood attempts to make flying machines were considered wasted time. I have lived deeply into the period when flying is no longer impossible, but nonetheless a period in which the supremely ruling social conventions and economic dogma have continued to presuppose a non-flying-man ecology.

My daughter was not born into the kind of a world that I was; so she doesn’t have to struggle to sustain the validity of the particular set of spontaneously-logical conceptions that were pronounced “impossible” in my day, nor need she deal with the seemingly illogical concepts that the older life thought to be “evident”‘ and “obvious” in my day. The new life is continually born into a set of conditions where it is easier for it to acquire more accurate information, generated almost entirely outside of family life and folklore, regarding what is going on in human affairs and in nature in general; and, therefore, the new life has the advantage of much more unshaken intellectual courage with respect to the total experiences than have its as yet living elders who have had to overcome these errors, but who retain deep-rooted delusively-conditioned, subconscious reflexes

I said I started a number of years ago exploring for ways in which the individual could employ his experience analytically to reorganize patterns around him by design of impersonal tools. To be effective, this reorganization must incorporate the latest knowledge gained by man. It also should make it an increasingly facile matter for the new life to apprehend what is going on. It should eliminate the necessity of new life asking questions of people who don’t know the answers, thereby avoiding cluttering up the new minds with bad answers which would soon have to be discarded. I felt that the evolving inventory of information “decontaminated” through competent design might be “piped” right into the environment of the home. Please remember my philosophy is one which had always to be translated into inanimate artifacts. My self-discipline ruled that it would be all right for me to talk after I had translated my philosophy and thoughts into actions and artifacts, but I must never talk about the thoughts until I have developed a physical invention — not a social reform.

That is the philosophy I evolved in 1927 when at thirty-two I began my own thinking. I have been operating since then on the 1927 premises, looking exploratorily for tasks that needed to be done, which would, when done, provide tool complexes that would begin to operate inanimately at higher advantage for the new life. I am the opposite of a reformer; I am what I call a new former. The new form must be spontaneously complimentary to the innate faculties and capabilities of life. I am quite confident that humanity is born with its total intellectual capability already on inventory and that human beings do not add anything to any other human being in the way of faculties and capacities. What usually happens in the educational process is that the faculties are dulled, overloaded, stuffed and paralyzed, so that by the time that most people are mature they have lost use of many of their innate capabilities. My long-time hope is that we may soon begin to realize what we are doing and may alter the “education” process in such a way as only to help the new life to demonstrate some of its very powerful innate capabilities.

Buckminster Fuller – 1962

Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983), the creator of the geodesic dome and many unique products, was truly one of the great thinkers and inventors of the 20^th century. His life story and books are truly fascinating, and demonstrates how a university dropout can achieve the pinnacle of success in science using the intuitive processes that are innate in everyone, but which can be dulled by the “education factories” teaching yesterday knowledge.

Many of the concepts and words like Synergy, Holistic, “Paradigm shift”, ” “Thinking outside the box” “Comprehensive thinking”, and research methods used today have their geneses in his writings.

Learn more about his life and works by visiting: http://www.bfi.org/our_programs/who_is_buckminster_fuller

Cyril Bryan