A second post

This blog is created to satisfy a requirement for a community practice class offered through the Humboldt State University Masters of Social Work curriculum. The first concept of Social Justice I wanted to discuss relates to the curriculum of the community practice class about neuroplasticity of the brain. The brain is a highly adaptive organ. Being part of our bodies, it requires proper nourishment and part of that is adequate oxygen to nurture the plasticity of the mind. If people stop breathing for approximately five minutes, the brain starves. There are few cases where people come with a healthy brain after more than five minutes of oxygen deprivation. One way to nourish this incredibly plastic organ is to get adequate exercise. While students are learning about the neuroplasticity of the brain and how brain exercises can help brains heal from trauma, I advocate for healthy mind, body and spirit to be incorporated still more into the curriculum of graduate school in Social Work department. I hope to see more physical movement curriculum brought into the Humboldt State University Masters of Social Work curriculum so that Social Workers can not only learn new tools to care for themselves, but to advocate effectively for their communities to enjoy the benefits of enhanced health. There is collaboration between the social sciences and physical sciences in providing theoretical bases of health for people. There is Social Justice in reminding ourselves that we exist from the neck down as well as the neck up. This newest class about brain plasticity opens up more possibilities for Social Workers to move forward with new discoveries and dance with this knowledge.

This page will explain much of the evolution of our brains and why they are capable of ever expansive work: www.memoryzine.com/neuroplasticity.htm

Has the dominant culture changed to embrace diversity of all the members of current society? I'm transcribing some traditional poems from historical times in North America. I'm challenging those writings to reach the needs of current inhabitants of North America. Do these poems still represent dominant cultural views?

“Man's Inhumanity to Man”

Many and sharp the numerous ills
Interwoven with our frame;
More pointed still, we make ourselves
Regret, remorse and shame;
And man, whose heaven erected face the smiles of love adorn,
Man's inhumanity to man,
Makes countless thousands mourn.
Robert Burns

This is a time of Quentin Tarantino films glorifying violence. Televisions flash film coverage of events relying on our brain's hormones to stimulate emotional responses to events. Certainly there is more inhumanity to man than before, and there are more men to be inhumane towards. These lessons haven't been yet learned by our species.
During the political response to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon from people using airplanes filled with civilians as weapons, the U.S. government has embodied cruel and inhumane components in its war. The United Nations and Nuremburg trials and Geneva Convention set up international diplomatic agreements on the treatment of prisoners. Still in 2009 governments are not following these agreements as demonstrated at records of atrocities experienced by political prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.

“How Do I Love Thee?”

How do I love thee?
Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Elizabeth Barrett Browning
http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/269.html

Is this still a message that reaches people in contemporary U.S.? Are the values expressed in this poem still held today? Where the values reflected in this artistic piece universally held values agreed upon to pass into future classes of English literature? Are there artistic expressions more universally available in state curriculums to express the experiences of broader groups in diverse populations at that time period in the U.S.? If someone was asking across social economic status, age, ethnic background, gender, spiritual, vocational, and educational backgrounds would this poem have been held across these cultural points of view?

These are some questions about critical analysis of historical culture I am concerned with after studying community practice.