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Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D. is president of Speedlearning 100, based in Seattle, providing programs that at least triple reading speed and double memory, to executives, business leaders, staff, students, and the general public from 8th grade on up.Jackie has been teaching for over 30 years and is the creator of the Deep Teaching Process. For 20 years, he managed mission planning teams for NASA space exploration missions at the California Institute of Technology's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

1) What do you mean by "Deep Teaching"?

During my doctoral work, I developed a process for teaching that is based on active engagement and participation with the world around us. It was developed in response to my observations of the adults returning to school to complete degree programs that I was teaching. While many were successful in business, they virtually all lacked critical thinking, problem solving, and reasoning skills and many had even been classified as poor students during most of their early education.

But I discovered that they all wanted to – and could – excell when the topics, assignments, and discussions were crafted to demonstrate their value in a global context and when the student was challenge to participate in the discovery process.

Deep teaching emphasizes the lack of clear boundaries in the world, the interdependence of all life, the fleeting nature of scientific "truths," the ever-changing character of our universe, and the importance of perception in our journey through life.

Deep teaching is a style that recognizes the intrinsic sacredness and value of all living and non-living beings and sees humans, as Fritjof Capra says of deep ecology, "as just one particular strand in the web of life." Deep teaching recognizes ecology as the central field from which all others must emanate. It redefines our notion of power. It is about learning to see relationships.

In particular, the importance of recognizing our intimate connection to the natural world is stressed as an effective tool to learn about humans' role in the environment and the world. Understanding our place in the natural world may be a pivotal awareness that must be developed if we are to heal the many wounds we are experiencing today.

For example, global climate change is now understood to affect all fields of study, all disciplines, from economics and project management to transportation and the sciences.

2) In the old days we used to refer to levels of processing as shallow and deep processing. How is your perspective the same or different?

Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess in the early 1970s spoke of a distinction between a "shallow" and a "deep" ecology. The view that humans are separate from and above the natural world is considered a shallow, human-centered view. Deep ecology recognizes humans as just one of many strands in the web of life and views the earth as a complex collection of interdependencies.Similarly, I define a "shallow" and a "deep" teaching.

Shallow teaching is anthropocentric, striving to create in students a sense of superiority and control over the natural world, whatever the field of study. Teaching human power relationships as defined by modern Western culture is the foundational principle of shallow teaching. Shallow teaching also emphasizes the separation of fields of study, physical laws as the sole basis for all life, the perception that there are unchanging truths in our world, and that knowledge is gained by those who memorize the most raw data. Shallow teaching emphasizes the importance of the individual and reinforces the concept of rigid boundaries in the individual and in society.

Deep teaching redefines our notion of power, restructuring our relationship with the natural world by teaching that one gets the most power by sharing all that they have. Strength comes from sharing, not from taking.

In this new paradigm, for me to be strong, you do not have to be weak; for me to have all that I need, someone else does not have to go without; for me to be safe, I do not have to build high walls; for me to be secure, I do not have to have large amounts of money. The notions of power, strength, safety, and security are redefined in terms of sustainability, not the attainment of personal isolation and wealth.

3) Are most contemporary teachers somewhat superficial teachers?

By these definitions, yes, but not necessarily by choice. Contemporary teacher training programs still emphasize the tenants and techniques birthed in mass education practices in the US, when mass schooling was developed to turn farmers into factory workers. While the nation needs few factory workers anymore, little has changed in the way children are taught in public schools and most teachers are faced with huge constraints in the classroom that distract them from teaching more expansively.

So much emphasis is placed on teaching so students pass standardized tests and that they conform to rules and regulations that many teachers feel they don't have the flexibility to teach students to think and reason and to allow them to be creative.

And fears of legal entanglements from our litigious society keep teachers from getting to know students true needs and obstacles. A teacher in many school districts can face dismissal for giving a child a hug.

4) How does it relate to "speed learning"?

Most of us are taught in US elementary schools to read one word at a time, to say words aloud in our head while we read, and to intentionally read slowly to remember more. ALL these practices have been shown to be the exact opposite of what our brains really need to read, learn, and remember. The Speedlearning program, which includes a 2-day 12-hour workshop and a 21-day practice plan, will at least triple your reading speed and double your memory by teaching you how to undo what you were taught in school.

In the program, eighth graders to C-level executives learn to use their peripheral vision to read 6 or more words at a time, quiet the voice in their head that slows down reading to a snail's pace, and use a high powered note-taking and memory system.

Speedlearning gives students and professionals, the tools to become top performers in academic and business pursuits. But by giving people tools to eliminate the fear so many of us have of information overload and not being able to understand and keep up with world affairs, Speedlearning can help people become engaged again in their community, politics, or world affairs.

And by creating more time for people to see the meaning in the information, my hope is that they can find the time to reawaken their connection to the natural world.

5) What role do critical thinking and scholarship play in your mind in regards to Deep Teaching?

In order to see the connections that exist in our world as Deep Teaching demands, students must be taught to embrace learning as a life-long process and to think and reason out problems and situations. To teach students in this manner is to teach thinking and reasoning skills. With this approach, the emphasis in the classroom becomes less on facts and figures and more on understanding the underlying conceptual framework. It is an empowering way to teach because it validates the native intelligence that we all possess.

A vital element of the process of teaching students the skills for reasoning involves letting go of the traditional view that learning is measured by the quantity of material covered. When teaching critical thinking skills, it is important to cover less so that the students learn more. No other concept is as revolutionary, critical or as much misunderstood as this one.Studies done by the Center for Critical Thinking at Sonoma State University in California show dramatically that students taught in this manner have a much better grasp of a subject, do much better on tests, and perform better in their chosen careers.

6) So, what does it mean to cover less so that students learn more?

In essence, it means that the teacher becomes a facilitator, not a lecturer, providing an environment where the students discover for themselves the points at hand. It means that teachers need to remodel their lesson plans, turning their lectures into interactive discovery-based experiential learning activities where students find out for themselves rather that having the teacher just tell them. And it means that students need to be taught to effectively listen, write, and read critically and to learn to assess their work while they are doing it.

7) In your mind, what is "scholarship "?

Hundreds of articles have been written of late discussing the definition of scholarship and of being a scholar, yet after reading them, one still wonders.I think Henry David Thoreau had it right: "Men have a respect for scholarship and learning greatly out of proportion to the use they commonly serve." To me, relevance is the lacking component in most scholarly endeavors and efforts to teach.

In Deep Teaching, gaining scholarship – learning - about an issue or subject involves doing learning activities that foster critical thinking, awareness, reasoning skills, personal experience, and activism. Traditional "fact-packing" styles of learning are rejected in this process.

At the end of a term in which a student has been required to memorize facts and figures and cover the maximum amount of material, the common response after the exam is "thank goodness I don't have to know that anymore."

For a student to be able to embrace and find the connections in the knowledge, teachers must learn to teach reasoning and thinking skills along with the knowledge base. This will ultimately result in a more engaged citizenry.

8) How does responsibility fit into "deep teaching" and why is it important?

Taking age-appropriate responsibility for our actions in the world is an important aspect of Deep Teaching. The facilitator helps the student assess their own level of responsibility and own it. A powerful moment that turns learning into a profound personal experience occurs when a student takes responsibility for their contribution to our world's sorrows and its joys. The educator who knows techniques for encouraging these moments and supporting the feelings that arise is practicing deep teaching.

It can be frightening for an individual who has spent a lifetime insulating themselves from full participation in our environmental and social dilemmas to suddenly realize that they are a participant and a contributor.

For example, when I have taken adult students on a tour of the Hyperion Waste Water Treatment Plant in Los Angeles, a huge facility that sends over 400 million gallons of wastewater into the ocean every day, students are shaken by the realization that what they flush down their toilets really does not go away. Without proper attention, acknowledgment and processing with a facilitator, this awareness can turn into numbness and cynicism. Properly addressed, this awareness can turn into a greater sense of connection with the natural world and community.

9) What is the role of creativity in your model of "deep teaching"?

Using the creative arts to explore one's connection to the issue is a powerful technique in deep teaching. Tapping into everyone's natural creativity can open the mind, heart, and soul and create a conversation on a level that words cannot. There is no finer way to challenge assumptions and avoid the pitfalls of language and definition than to communicate in lines and colors and shapes. Tapping into one's creativity unleashes energy that allows for the possibility of developing unexplored relationships in one's universe.

For example, with young children, I conduct an astronomy activity called "The Planet You." After discussing the planets in our Solar System, the child is asked to envision themselves as a planet. What would that planet look like? Where would all the elements in their lives be on that planet? This can be done with adults as well and the powerful discussion that ensues would never have surfaced with just a lecture on the facts. Students then see a planet as a dynamic set of interactions, not just a ball of rock or gas in space.

10) What is the role of rote learning or memorization in your model?

Modern brain research has revealed that new brain pathways are created as we learn. The University of California, Irvine, released a report this past Tuesday (http://today.uci.edu/news/release_detail.asp?key=1638) about how researchers, "using newly developing microscopic techniques, have captured first-time images of the changes in brain cell connections following a common form of learning." It is "the first time anyone has seen the physical substrate, the 'face,' of newly encoded memory." Now there is proof that memory has a biological basis and is not just a consequence of behavioral actions.

Repetition makes a rut also known as a furrow, in the convolutions of your brain. The rut (fissure or groove) is a deep, narrow roadway between the elevated, rounded ridges on the surface of your brain. But the key is that while rote learning and traditional memorization will allow you to retain the knowledge long enough for the test, if you don't use it in context, you loose it.

A research report from Johns Hopkins (7/23/07) appearing in the journal, Neuron, by David Linden, says our experiences, the things we see, hear and do, can trigger long-term changes in the strength of neural connections between the nerve cells in our brain. And these persistent changes (repetition) are how the brain encodes information. Without context and relevance, things learned by rote are soon forgotten. Our experience and research in Speedlearning makes it clear – context is everything. Deep Teaching methods result in long-term memory creation through learning that becomes part of the student's life.

11) What is the role of reflection in deep teaching- and how do we get people to think more deeply and reflect on the importance of what they are learning?

Our fast-paced society rarely encourages taking time to pause and reflect, yet this is critical to a meaningful academic experience and if we are to redefine our relationships with the world. With After each learning activity, reflection time should be built in, but all too often, a student must rush on to the next learning activity. And today, some propriety education universities even have five week classes, leaving absolutely no time for reflection and integration. Using combinations of art, meditation, writing, and other forms of expression, the individual needs time to let new awarenesses sit and settle in to their being.

Most structured academic experiences do not allow for adequate reflection time, but a teacher can compensate through activities with carefully crafted discussions, art experiences, meditation, and writing.

12)Is there a web site where people can learn more about your "deep teaching and speed learning"?

I will be publishing my book about Deep Teaching soon.Excerpts can be obtained at http://www.teachingforchange.com. I discuss many of these issues in my book, "Healing Our World, A Journey from Darkness to the Light." See http://www.healingourworld.com. More about Speedlearning can be obtained from http://www.speedlearning100.org and the website about all my work is http://www.drjackie.org.

13) Any final thoughts?

The Deep Teaching process can bring vitality and excitement back into the classroom. It can also provide the opportunity for the student to have a receptivity that does not occur when the teaching is shallow. Now more than ever is the time to focus on our teaching, time to focus on what is in our heart and to decide what we want to pass on to our children.Today, we must all consider ourselves teachers and learners of a new way to view the universe and our place in it. Now more than ever, we must look at our teaching and our learning as if our life depends on it - because it does.

Published August 13, 2007