Introduction

Traditional Education, education reform, including Social Emotional Learning (SEL) are extrinsic educational approaches, and therefore work from the outside in. They are based on a worldview wherein students' minds need to be shaped to conform with intended learning outcomes. The student' retention capacity and understanding are then tested, based on certein criteria. From this education-centric vantage-point, what students learn, how they behave and communicate, must be visible and should be mapped, and measured. Because subjective processes are invisible from this third-person vantage-point, they can neither be mapped nor measured. For this reason, student' personal experiences have not really been the focus of traditional Education. Being mindful, discerning, wise, an original thinker, a genius, loving, and affectionate, these are all attributed to who we are from within. A feature of a good educator is that s/he finds a balance between teaching academics and stimulating the intrinsic motivation of students. This is traditionally emphasized in the earlier stages of the educational process. Think pre-school and primary education.

The IOLEE learning framework considers both intrinsic and extrinsic learning to be part of the overall learning process. Its ultimate goal is to help students be the best that they can be. In order to attain this, they need to be able to achieve balance, resilience, and wellbeing on all levels. IOLEE's learning framework for wellbeing strives to cultivate health and wellbeing as a state of being (1). Reducing dependance on the ever-increasing medical and technological advances that have made us alienate from our own mind and body.
IOLEE simple concept map of
​World Café dialogue format.
(1) Wikipedia. Wellness is a pursuit of overall health in a physical and mental matter. It is a multidimensional state of well-being. Achieving wellness is a state of acceptance and satisfaction with our present condition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Well-being

Development of the Intrinsic Learning Framework

As briefly mentioned, IOLEE's learning framework for wellbeing, assists in extending the extrinsic framework of traditional education with a first-person based or intrinsic learning framework. Intrinsic learning is the form of learning that living systems-based, philosophical and wisdom traditions (1) use as a basis for studying one's relationship with reality, and that which transcends it.  The learning outcome is a cathartic process that sets one free from affliction, making one self-directed, self-motivated, and giving one freedom of choice. Liberation is a term used in many traditions to describe this unafflicted state of being human. Within the context of Modern Education, IOLEE's intrinsic learning framework connects intrinsic contemplative practices, such as Mindfulness and centering-prayer, with the extrinsic learning context, framework and practices, such as Social Emotional Learning, and STEM. While contemplative practices form the basis for intrinsic learning, it is through an intrinsic learning framework that students actually learn to discern, decode and effectively investigate the laws, dynamics and mechanisms that reign the subjective. This connects awareness with the embodied experience. As a result, the learner becomes more aware how internal patterns translate into objectively visible experiences, such as behavior, interpersonal communication, and action. Both intrinsic and extrinsic learning form an integral part of the larger educational and learning process.
(1) Some of the most ancient and modern living systems traditions which the IOLEE framework draws on are: 

Multiple Intelligences + 1

Howard Gardner in his book "Multiple intelligences: New Horizon" describes MI as "a computational capacity—a capacity to process certain kind of information—that is founded on human biology and human psychology". He describes MI (1) as a problem-solving skill of our mind. Which implies that the MI are seen as the way we relate to the immediate world outside. Gardner also explored the idea of an existential intelligence, but he mentioned that he has resisted the integration of this as a ninth intelligence. We assume that this is because he couldn’t trace this back to any neurological and or psychological functions. As part of the intrinsic learning process students in much depth explore the cognitive, affective and biological foundation of these intelligences, and how they’re brought together and interconnected by an existential intelligence.  
(1) The theory of the multiple intelligences. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_multiple_intelligences

The Observer Effect

Quantum mechanics (QM) deals with levels that are smaller than the atoms that define matter. Yet in QM experiments, electrons are "forced" to behave like particles, not like waves, when observed by a conscious detector-oserver. Which implies that the mere act of observing affects reality at this minute level, making it appear as matter (1). This effect also depends on the "amount" of observation. When the level of the observation goes up, the interference weakens, and in contrast, when the observation of electrons goes down, the wave interference patterns increase.

The aformentioned experiment has been extensively researched and replicated by physicists since the early 20th century. The relevance of these findings in studying human experience is self-evident. When observing the subjective world from the first-person, it may be experienced as dynamic and wave-like. While when one observes from the third-person, body and mind may be experienced as matter-like. From this perspective one perceives the body, how one behaves, acts, and communicates. When the observer psychologically focusses attention on disturbances that happen within the subjective, the wave-like quality including the electromagnetic activity in the nervous system and physiological activity in the neurohormonal system, is affected. This is influenced towards greater density, making one feel blocks, resistance, burning and or pain). When unfocussed, the observer's attention keeps life's flow in a wave-like state. Blocks, resistance, burning and or pain, spread out and resolve into a wave-like field. Hundreds of learners have reported the importance of  their own role as the conscious detector-observer in influencing discomfort and disorder towards flow, balance, and alignment. 

(1) Weizmann Institute Of Science. (1998, February 27). Quantum Theory Demonstrated: Observation Affects Reality. ScienceDaily. Retrieved November 21, 2019 from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/02/980227055013.htm

Aware Discernment

Social habituation has made us mentally project into the third-person, away from the first-person that we were originally born into. This mostly happens due to trauma-based toxic distress. Which literally means that we can only perceive, recognize and understand ourselves from how others see us. What happens inside (from the first-person) is sub and unconscious. Seeking consensus is our conditioned mindset. This grows into a complete disconnect between the first-person or true self (Carl Jung), and the third-person or persona (Carl Jung). Jung suggested that the true self has a complementary male (animus) and female (anima) aspect, which is a vantage-point within our personal experience. The persona reflects how we see the world, and everything in it, including the way we behave and communicate, based on a third-person vantage-point. The divide between the true self and the persona, gradually grows into a misalignment with all of life.  Within an educational context, this misalignment between the intrinsic and extrinsic, may reflect as learning disability, misbehavior, and depression, to name a few negative expressions.
IOLEE simple concept map of
​functional forms of awareness.
When the intrinsic and extrinsic are aligned, their perspectives inform, complement and reinforce each other. Existential intelligence or The Self (Carl Jung), is an aware-discerning-presence, maps and interconnects what we think with what we feel, with what we sense, with what we perceive, with how we pay attention, speak, behave, and act. This intelligence transparently maps the intrinsic with the extrinsic and vice versa. It makes sense of all the ways in which data about the environment is gathered and internally processed. The intrinsic learning process consciously aligns mental, emotional and physical awareness, with self-relational, social relational, and feedback-relational awareness, from the inside out and from the outside in. It also harmonizes the individual with the collective. 

Structuring the Intrinsic Learning Process

IOLEE can be facilitated both individually and or in groups, through in-person or online classes, workshops, individual mentoring programs, facilitator and train-the-trainer programs. Within such experiential programs, learning is inductively facilitated through the use of simple to understand instructions that point to intrinsic experiences. Knowledge evolves from how these complex experiences affect how we think, feel and sense, dynamically reorganizing and harmonizing mind and body. These intrinsic experiences and their connection with extrinsic one's are described as a whole self-adaptive experience.

Intrinsic learning evolves our individual consciousness to become transparent with what transcends it. This is the basis from which individual members of a community advance into being entangled as a whole. We say: "The whole is more than the sum of its parts". A principle that is in much more detail described in Complexity Science and Quantum Mechanics, and put into practice in the dialogue formats: Open Space Technology and the World Café.

Organically guiding Systems Towards Integrity

Our mind-body is a living system, which is comprised of many different biological parts that are orchestrated to function as a whole by our human consciousness. At the beginning of life, our personal experience is perfectly attuned to our consciousness, including all of the biological parts which it orchestrates. In Systems Science this is described as the whole that is more than the sum of its parts, and is self-adaptive in nature. As an example we can look at how schools of fish organize themselves (1). If our body and mind would function with the same capacity to self-adapt, our world would be much more peaceful, and people would be much more resilient and wellbeing the norm of our society.  Why is this not the case? Trauma-based conditioning disrupts the way that our consciousness relates to and organizes itself and all biological parts. It loses integrity, self-adaptive behavior, synchrony, through the lack of feedback, and elicts disruptive responses throughout all biological subsystems. This constantly influences these systems towards unbalance. We see the effects of this unbalance within our own mind, body, in the way we communicate with others, the way we organized our political system, our economy and the way we relate to our planet's natural ecosystem, and beyond. Conditioning makes us see things from one conditioned perspective, the third-person, and interpret reality in a unidimensional and objectifying way. Unidimensional also means that we tend to think linearly. 

The Intrinsic Language of Emotions Framework (iLoEF) maps cognitive responses (mental reaction), with biological-responses (sensations), with experienced emotions (feelings). These responses structure mind and body in specific ways, and adhere to certain laws and dynamics, showing language-like characteristics. One of the laws is that a response is undifferentiated or forms a whole, having cognitive, affective and biological aspects. Another is that they can be read as though reading a book. Recognizing, decoding, reading, understanding, acknowledging, embracing, and resolving responses internally, restores feedback, the system's self-adaptive nature, synchrony, balance, and resiliency of the learner's consciousness, mind and body. This process, in which the intrinsic and extrinsic learning processes inform and complement each other, is circular, non-linear, dynamically growing our individual and collective wisdom, readjusting our course of actions, reflecting increasing levels of harmony. To show how this works and how this can cultivate wellbeing, heartfelt communion, co-conscious dialogue, collaboration, new more sustainable developments, organizing a circular economy, and positively impact our planet's ecosystem, is the objective of this framework for wellbeing.
(1) Self-adaptive behavior of schools of fish. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9T0OlAOv0c

How is Intrinsic Learning Facilitated

The IOLEE educational framework incorporates an Intrinsic Language of Emotions Framework (iLoEF). This describes how we tend to internally/intrinsically react to situations from how we think, feel and sense. Which can be associated with a body-map that resembles a matrix of different zones of complex activity. As the body and mind are part of the same continuum, what happens physically, also happens on the level of feeling and thinking. A good example is when you feel fear. Fear may be sensed as tension, the muscles in your body contract. This internal response, which depends on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis or HPA, is described in great detail in Western scientific literature. IOLEE describes a total of three of such axes within the body's psychophysiology, which are responsible for a large number of complex reactions in body and mind. Within the intrinsic learning process (1), this framework is used much like a roadmap that aids in recognizing, mapping, tracking and studying complex reactions, and how these appear to the outside-world. What makes frameworks, such as IOLEE, unique is how they help one become aware of the intrinsic mechanisms that extrinsically appear as socially conditioned patterns. The personal integration that follows, gradually restores balance and autonomy on all levels. We assist learners in growing more emotionally independent.

But what if conflict arises in relationship with others? Do learners have to be supported by social workers and psychologists? Not really! The triggered intrinsic response-patterns that used to be unconscious, which are usually responsible for emotional crises, are now recognzied. This immediately disempowers them, while facilitating resolution at all levels. At first this is learned as an integration practice, which after time develops into an intrinsic capacity or competency, which we refer to as emotional metabolism. This intrinsic process, mediates self-regulation, trauma-resolution, catharsis, and cognitive reframing. The challenge is having learners understand that moments of crisis are the times you learn most from life. The support system that facilitates intrinsic learning outside of the classroom involves IOLEE certified facilitators. These may be teachers, parents, social workers and psychologists trained in the facilitation of the IOLEE framework, teaching and investigative approach. The objective of facilitation always to assist learners in trusting their own internal compass, capacity to recognize, and resolve experiences as these arise in relation to the world outside. 

(1) Experiences with IOLEE in the Classroom.

Features of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Learning

The following intrinsic and extrinsic learning processes can be seen as multiple complementary perspectives of the same overall learning experience. Based on the IOLEE framework and integration practice, these become transparent to each other.

Intrinsic Learning
  1. Based on a first-person reference frame (1), inductive teaching and learning methods should enable students to gain access to levels within themselves, interconnecting and aligning with third-person methods that work from the outside in. 
  2. This reference frame (1) should attune to what students experience from the inside, enabling them to effectively observe, recognize and interpret within themselves the complex reactions that control their inner world. 
  3. This transparently interconnects the cognitive, affective and physical levels, from where experience unfolds. Because the first-person is the perspective in which students were originally born, they will be able to more effectively learn how to recognize, map, follow and decipher unconscious patterns. 
  4. Because mind and body are part of the same continuum but seen from different perspectives, reintegration can happen more natural and effortless. 
  5. In this process, students can discover how their unconscious patterns tend to constantly influence their mind, body, and the way they communicate towards imbalance, and take back control.  
  6. By helping students be more conscious of what they experience inside, in connection with how they behave, speak and act, integration gradually resolves and sheds negative experiences, restoring balance from the inside out, from the emotional to the physical and from the personal to the collective. Learners will be able to "see" things simultaneously from different interconnected perspectives. 
  7. Because intrinsic learning starts from the subjective-end of the learning spectrum, alignment can be found with other stakeholders via a growing transparent communication. It interconnects Mindfulness with Education, lifestyle and nutrition-oriented interventions.
​  
(1) C Monsanto, M Dijkhoff. (Intrinsic) Language of Emotions (Framework).

Extrinsic Learning
  1. The extrinsic learning process should be directly informed by the intrinsic processes within learners. Resulting from an evolving intrinsic learning process, learning becomes more self-adaptive, self-directed, empathic, transparent, and interactive.
  2. Individual integration within a group, referred to as group-integration, gradually resolves and sheds negative habitual interpersonal experiences, restoring balance interpersonally. This contributes to dialogue, co-conscious empathy, and group-intelligence (the whole is more than the sum of its parts). 
  3. ​Group-intelligence enhances out-of-the-box thinking, creativity, and innovation, to name a few traits.    
  4. There are numerous approaches that focus on creating the extrinsic conditions for wellbeing, which can be personalized using IOLEE’s framework. These approaches focus on dialogue, collaboration, environmental conditions, lifestyle, and nutrition, which all contribute to wellbeing. 
  5. Examples of such approaches are: Open Space Technology, Compassion & Empathy, and Changemaking education, The Whole Child (ASCD), and Social Emotional Learning.  
​
Barbara Michelman. A Lexicon for Educating the Whole Child (and Preparing the Whole Adult). 

Learning Outcomes

  • The IOLEE learning process creates the space in which students can study, the laws, dynamics and mechanisms that reign their subjective experience; 
  • It also enables them to recognize, map, track, and resolve the complex reactions to the world; 
  • The reframing that results from this process, realigns one cognitively, affectively and biologically, with how one speaks, behaves, and acts, resulting in greater resilience, wellbeing and alignment with one's talents and life-purpose; 
  • This translates into more transparency, empathy and effectiveness in interpersonal communication, and growing sense of heart-felt connection; 
  • What's more, it reorganizes members of a community into greater intersubjective alignment through group-integration (resolution), group-consciousness (empathy) and group-genius (original-thinking).

Disclaimer

Trauma-based conditioned patterns disrupt and decrease our internal capacity to metabolize memories and the associated toxic stress. This affects all levels within us, as mind and body are part of the same continuum. Although IOLEE is non-therapeutic, its educational framework is designed to positively affect the capacity of learners to recognize the patterns that disrupt balance. This consciously and effortlessly restores the capacity of learners to process experiences as these internally arise in connection with the immediate world outside. With continued practice this develops into a self-directed competency, which enables the learner to apply on-demand the experientially acquired knowledge and capacity to resolve, within learning, health, social-emotional, work or other contexts. Hence, health claims can only be attributed to the learner's own efforts and competencies, and not to IOLEE, its learning framework, educational or investigative methods. Feel free to contact us in case you have any questions. 

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