Recycling Ideas, Learning and The Christmas Spirit

CAYR (Christmas All Year Round)

Recyclng ideas or reinforcement of learning works for the positive when the ideas and learning are positive. When otherwise are otherwise. The learning cycle can have an upward or downward spiral which can evolve like a virus creating immunity. Bacteria can multiply in the psyche and are not always the good kind that keep us healthy and protect us from the bad.

Gladwell's ideas of epidemics mentioned in a previous post are much like Dickens' in A Christmas Carol :

"It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humour."

(Dickens, 1843)

Leading up to Christmas, I was ill and not feeling at my best. So, when one day after another, one man screams blue-murder and another says he hates Christmas and another stares vacantly at me not even able to comprehend its Christmas, I try to put up barriers agains infection and instead try to spread good humour, however hard it feels. 

Its not just the person who doesn't have a certain belief or tradition in their culture,  or a moaner or groaner or the 'Scrooge' saying 'Bah Humbug'. Many blame the loss of 'Christmas Spirit' on the 'business' of Christmas. The so-called commercialisation of Christmas is regarded as one of the great epidemics of our time. So is the answer to the problem simple? Not to get involved in it...be part of the solution and not the problem? As Dickens' Ghost of Christmas Past said of what we should make our business:

"Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!"
(Dickens, 1843) 

One of the men, who I had seen become disillusioned over time, complained of people wishing him Happy Christmas when the rest of the year they ignored him. We talked of people having the Christmas spirit all year. Of seeing the caring behaviour of people at Christmas-time being an all year-round norm.

As Scrooge learned from his ghosts so too will I try to learn from mine and say as he did:

"I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year."
(Dickens, 1843)

So the answer: To recycle Christmas all year long. Not just the tree and cards and empty bottles, but the feelings of love and joy and caring for those around us. 

CAYR 
 
 Christmas All Year Round

or more simply put...

  Caring All Year Round

 

Subway on the Train = Straw on the Camel's Back

^{"How Little Things Can Make a Difference"
(Gladwell, 2006)}

^{The old proverb relating to the straw that broke the camel's back came to mind today when I felt the ridiculous urge to cry when I left my rarely bought footlong-subway-veggie-delight-toasted-with-cheese-and-sweet-onion-sauce-with-everything-apart-from-jalepenos, on the train. Gladwell, talks about much more epic tipping points in his book aptly named The Tipping Point.which I was reminded of. Here's what I had to say about it in September 2006:}

^{The Tipping Point}

<sup>Full of facinating facts on how change works and how to make change...how to create social epidemics...a handbook for change. 

How Little Things can Make a Difference, his title continues - and encourages us to start positive social epidemics of our own.</sup> 

 

It asks questions like:

• Why do teens smoke in greater and greater numbers, when every single person in the country knows that cigarettes kill?
• Why is word-of-mouth so powerful?  
• What makes TV shows like Sesame Street & Blues Clues so good at teaching kids how to read?

The title The Tipping Point comes from the study of epidemics where at some stage the epidemic in question reaches its critical mass. For Aids it was 1982 where it tipped from a rare disease affecting a few to a worldwide epidemic. Similar change applies to New York's unbelievably high crime/murder rate which tipped and fell in the mid 1990s. The same tipping point is described in areas from suicide to cigarette smoking to mass shootings to literacy to general attitude change. If you want a message spread or a concept 'sold', this is the book for you. 

In 2006 I said I loved the book and its ideas and looked forward to studying it more closely and starting some positive epidemics.

So instead of thinking of the negative 'straw that broke the camel's back' I thought I should think of some of the positive 'tipping points'.

• Like the girl who now can't put a book down who once asked, when it was suggested we read some books, 'Why?'
• Like the confidence building up in a young person to the point when they feel more able than unable, whether creating a lego building, a piece of writing or animation, playing games or building relationships or navigating and negotiating the difficulties and joys of life.
• Like the journey from childhood to adulthood it takes to go from a 'special' school to college to work and still be a volunteer at our centre and Father Chrismas for the Christmas Parties..

We have started to spread some positive epidemics. Ideas are contagious. Like our pom-pom tree. It started with a nine year old girl who had made one. We then went on to make many. Here stands the Christmas pom-pom tree. Next year there will be many. And you will know where it all started!