Fresh Perspective – Page 4 – Jeremiah Stanghini

Belief Matters More Than You Think

I came across an article in Scientific American last week that reminded me of a story of mine that I haven’t yet told. When I was a PhD candidate at Sofia University, one of the classes that we were required to take was aikido. I really enjoyed learning this martial art having had past experiences with taekwondo and karate — specifically, Gōjū-ryū. (In fact, I did some googling and even found the dojo where I spent a great deal of my youth!)

Anyway, while at Sofia University and learning aikido, I remember one of the classes quite vividly. In this class, we were learning about the five elements, as they related to aikido. In particular, we were learning about earth. The Sensei (teacher) asked one of the smallest women in the class to come to the front and then he asked me to come to the front, too. He asked her to stand normally and then asked me to lift her off the ground from under her arms. I did it easily. Next, he asked her to imagine that she was the earth element — planting roots deep into the ground. After a few dozen seconds, he then asked me to try lifting her again (in the same way I lifted her before) — nothing. I bent my knees a bit more and put some more force behind my lift — nothing.

I was amazed.

It was quite clear from the first half of this exercise that I could lift her off of the ground, but when she was imagining that she was the earth element, I was — so it seems — helpless. I’ve written before about the importance that our words/thoughts can have on ourselves (and on each other!), but this is a tangible example of how someone’s beliefs are actually effecting reality in a very tangible way. Is there something you’re believing about yourself that may be limiting your ability to lift yourself off of the ground?

I realize that my story is anecdotal, so I thought I’d also include one of the many examples from the Scientific American article:

Psychologists Ulrich Weger and Stephen Loughnan recently asked two groups of people to answer questions. People in one group were told that before each question, the answer would be briefly flashed on their screens — too quickly to consciously perceive, but slow enough for their unconscious to take it in. The other group was told that the flashes simply signaled the next question. In fact, for both groups, a random string of letters, not the answers, was flashed. But, remarkably, the people who thought the answers were flashed did better on the test. Expecting to know the answers made people more likely to get the answers right.

Editor’s Note: As an aside, I’m in the process of moving from Washington, DC, to Ottawa, Canada (the Glebe!), so my posts may become a bit sparser over the next few weeks. I’ll still do my best, but if you don’t see anything for a couple of days, it’s probably because I’m busy with planning/arranging the move.

Soup Scoop Crackers: A Million Dollar Idea

Are you in search of a million dollar idea? Great! I’ve got one. Soup scoop crackers. Sound crazy? Read on.

A couple of months ago, I was eating soup. There happened to be a little bit of nip in the air, so I thought I’d dive into the soup cupboard. After heating my soup on the stove, I got the crackers out of the cupboard and proceeded to sit down at the table. Upon opening the package of saltines, I then dipped my cracker in the soup and used it as a scoop to get some of the ‘stuff’ onto the cracker and into my mouth. Yum. As I sat there doing this with the remainder of my crackers, I wondered: How come there aren’t soup scoop crackers?

There are scoops for salsa and dip in the form of chips, but we don’t have this same luxury for soup. Why? Well, I thought about the way people eat soup. I’ve seen a lot of people who simply dip their cracker into the soup and then eat the cracker (almost as if the soup is warming the cracker and adding some flavor to it). I’ve also seen people who break the cracker into bits and then eat their soup with the broken crackers in it. But there’s another group of people… People like me who like to scoop the stuff out of the soup with crackers.

After I had this idea, I thought that someone must have thought of this, right? Maybe I’ve just missed these soup scoop crackers when I go shopping. It turns out, that’s not the case. I’ve done a number of google searches for crackers and I never see anything resembling a scoop cracker. Then I thought, it’s possible that I’m using the wrong terms, so let me go to the grocery store and see if there just might scoop crackers. I checked Mom’s Organic Market. I checked Whole Foods. I checked Wegmans. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing!

There doesn’t seem to exist something in the form of a scoop cracker. So, all of you entrepreneurs out there (maybe the more food-inclined ones), here’s a million dollar idea: soup scoop crackers.

No-Vacation Nation: What Kind of Balance Do You Want?

Way back in February, I wrote a post about a 25-hour workweek that used data from the OECD. This data showed the paid vacation and paid holidays for OECD nations. In particular, this data showed the requirements for paid vacations and paid holidays for some of the OECD countries. There’s been an update to the data, so I’ve included the graphic below:

You may notice a couple of things. First, it looks very similar to the first one that I embedded back in February. The second thing you may notice… the United States continues its perseverance in not mandating paid vacation. Every time I see data like this, I’m astonished that one of the wealthiest countries in the history of the world doesn’t see fit to require that its people are required to have vacation. Of course, the lack of vacation probably contributed to the US becoming one of the wealthiest countries in the history of the world, but what good is all that wealth if you can’t enjoy it? What good is money if you’re took sick to spend it?

The declining state of health probably had something to do with the separation of one’s mental health from one’s body’s health, but the lack of vacation has probably accelerated it. Of course, just because vacation isn’t mandated by the government doesn’t mean that companies don’t offer it. In order to stay competitive, companies have to offer their employees vacation or they’ll work elsewhere. That being said, there’s a pervasive culture of overworking yourself in the US. Not only on a national-level (lack of holidays), but also at the employee-level.

Take a peak inside a big firm and you’ll often hear about employees who participate in the game of one-upmanship in trying to see who’s worked more in a given week. “I worked 60 hours last week trying to get this report finished for a client.” “Yeah, well I worked 65 hours last week finishing a report…”

At first, one may say that this is putting people and the culture way out of balance. Well, one would be wrong. Balance has a way of maintaining an equilibrium. That is, balance will always be balance. Confused? Think about it like this: stand up from your chair. Are you standing? Good. Right now, you’re balanced. You have some of your weight on your left foot and some of your weight on your right foot. Balanced. Now, shift your weight to right. You’ll notice that you didn’t fall over, right? You simply have more weight on your right side than on your left side. Balanced. Now, lift your left foot off the ground. All of your weight is currently on your right foot. You’re still balanced, right? Now, begin to bend at the waist to outstretch your right arm forwards… while stretching your left leg backwards. At some point, you may fall over in attempting to do this. That’s okay because I’m sure you get the picture by now.

At each stage of this exercise, you’re body was balanced. You were balanced when you were standing straight, you were balanced when your weight was on your right foot, you were balanced when you lifted your left foot, and you would have been balanced had you been able to outstretch your right arm and left foot. It’s simply a question of what kind of balance do you want. Do you prefer the balance where you’re standing comfortable with both feet on the ground? How about the balance where you’re lifting one foot off of the ground?

While the lack of mandated vacation in the US may seem like there’s no balance, there has to be. It just might be manifesting itself in different ways. You have a choice — what kind of balance do you want?

Note: if you’re looking for a creative way to add more vacation days to the US, how about making every religious holiday a national holiday?

It’s All About Perspective: The Blind Men and the Elephant

A few days ago, I shared a photo on Facebook that epitomizes what I believe to be one of the hallmarks of life: perspective. I’ve included the photo in today’s post (you can see it there on the right). I can’t tell for sure because I don’t read Korean, but the photo appears to come from advertisement for house for sale (or for rent). In the first frame, we can see what appears to be a lovely shot of the house featuring a nice pool. In the second shot, a different angle of the house where — again — the pool is featured. In the last shot, the big reveal — the pool is not what it appeared to be in the first two frames.

Some may look at the surface-level lesson — someone could have been severely swindled had they not gone to see this place (if they were going to rent/buy). I prefer to look at in a broader sense: it’s all about perspective. Without considering all of these photos together, one would miss the perspective that the pool certainly isn’t anywhere near as large as it appears. There’s certainly a “swindler” streak to these three photos, so let’s at a story that you may or may not have heard before:

It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.

The First approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
“God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a WALL!”

The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, “Ho, what have we here,
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me ’tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a SPEAR!”

The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant
Is very like a SNAKE!”

The Fourth reached out an eager hand,
And felt about the knee
“What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain,” quoth he:
“‘Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a TREE!”

The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: “E’en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a FAN!”

The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
“I see,” quoth he, “the Elephant
Is very like a ROPE!”

And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!

That story is iconic of what it’s like to have an opinion. We’re all looking at things from our own perspective and believe that what we’re telling is the truest truth. I wrote about this very thing with regard to watching the news a couple of years ago. Depending on where we get our news, we’ll be listening to a different man who’s describing the elephant. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, but it’s important that we recognize that we may only be getting one perspective on the news (or elephant).

This is one of the things that I’ve tried to do on this site. Two of the categories I write under: Fresh Perspective and Perspective. When I write posts for one of these two categories, I’m trying to shed light on the story like we get when we look at the story of the Blind Men and the Elephant. I’m trying to look at the story from the same perspective we have as the reader of the story. That is, we know that all of the men are right in some way, but that they can’t connect the dots because of where their perspective lies.

To give you a sampling…

Fresh Perspective

Just yesterday, I wrote a post about the plethora of weak characters in movies that are women, but aren’t men. A few weeks ago, a post about having less written tests and more oral tests in education. What about having young people run the country? Or a reexamination of the US and terrorism? Maybe we don’t need to workout at all?

Perspective

Is there a modern day version of writing yourself a $10,000,000 post-dated check? Does market economics tell us that we need to pay politicians more? Do you know how long the US has been dependent on oil? Do you think that your team made a blunder with that trade? What would the world have looked like without the “I Have A Dream” speech?

Women in Movies: Why Can’t Men Be The Weak Characters?

A couple of weeks ago, I happened to see a lovely coming of age story in The Way, Way Back. I rather enjoyed it and so did my movie companion. In fact, I even thought Steve Carrell was convincing as a ‘villain.’ The one thing that did bother me about the movie, though, was the weakness of Toni Collette‘s character.

I won’t spoil the plot because I think you can imagine what I’m talking about from the title of this post and my reference to a weak character. Why does the female always have to be the weak character? Why aren’t there more movies where the male character is weak or the female character is strong?

I realize that some folks may think that I’m quibbling over something small, but this subtle norm is pervasive in the culture and it perpetuates itself by people considering it something small. By not kicking up dust about this issue, the issue is allowed to continue on with the perception that it’s not worth discussing. Well — it is worth discussing.

Several weeks ago, I wrote a post about a Kickstarter campaign that is the Yang to the issue we’re talking about. Have you heard of Miss Representation? It’s a powerful documentary from 2011 that dissects the portrayal of women in the media. The Yin. The Yang version is due to come out in February. It’s called: The Mask You Live In. The Kickstarter campaign closed yesterday and they finished with more than 2400 backers and more than $100,000 pledged (125% of their goal).

If you don’t think the portrayal of gender in the media is important, then you simply must see Miss Representation and, when it comes out in February, The Mask You Live In. If you do think that the portrayal of gender in the media is important, then tell your friends! NOW!

Musings on Improving Tests in Education: Less Writing, More Orating?

After having been in education settings for more than half of my life, I was thinking about ways to improve education. More specifically, I was thinking about ways to improve testing. Let’s take one of the classes that I’ve recently taught. In the class, there are two case assignments and two exams. The case assignments can be written at on one’s own time, so a great deal of time and effort can go into perfecting the structure, etc. The exams are taken during classtime, so there is a time limit. The students have until the end of class to finish the exam.

Presumably, the students could get through the entire semester and finish with an “A” in the class without having to say anything. I realize that a great deal of communication in today’s world is completed online and through writing, but isn’t our ability to communicating orally important, too? At least, shouldn’t there at least be some time spent on it?

I understand that some departments and professors are hampered by their ability to fidget too much with the deliverables of their courses (as certain standards and gates have to be met), but I was thinking about what it might be like to have an oral “meeting” at the end of the semester (instead of a final exam). I’d specifically call it a “meeting” to remove some of the stigma that some students place on “exam” or “test.” In this “meeting,” the student would have 3 (or maybe more, depending on the class size) minutes to convince the professor that they learned something during the semester (about the course material). The “meeting” could be recorded, in case the professor wanted to go back and watch the meeting, but presumably, they wouldn’t have to (they could just be grading as they went).

Some students would perform better as they would be used to public speaking, but the grade wouldn’t hinge on one’s ability to be a brilliant public speaker. Part of me thinks that having to convince the professor through speech, that one would have to know the material a bit better than they would for simply regurgitating answers on a test. To add another layer to this, there could be an option for students to record their “meeting” and send a link to the video. One of the stipulations would be that they couldn’t read a speech. Part of the purpose of this “meeting” would be for the students to know the material so well that they could speak about it conversationally. That is, speak about the material in a way that they could convince someone that they knew about it (or maybe teach someone something about what they know).

I’m sure that there are some professors out there who do this sort of test (especially at the graduate level), but I’d be interested to see it implemented at the undergraduate level. I think it’d be a great way to help develop the oratory skills of those who *think* they have less than stellar oratory skills. Plus, I think that the material would stay with the students a little longer than the length of the exam.

The Audacity of Hope: Obama’s Impromptu Speech About Trayvon Martin and Race

This afternoon, President Obama surprised everyone by making an appearance in the White House press briefing room. He spoke for approximately 17 minutes about Trayvon Martin, race, the law, and some other things. Part of the specialness of this speech was that it was impromptu (at least it appeared that it was unplanned) and was unscripted. [I couldn’t embed the video, but you can see it here.]

There were a lot of key things that he addressed in his speech, but what I thought to be the most important was the last few minutes. In the last few minutes, President Obama said that the younger generations are doing it much better than previous generations. The implication here is that the younger generations are less racist (or less unapproving) than previous generations. He talked about how he would listen to Malia and Sasha (his kids) speak with their friends and hear how they interacted. As a result, he thinks that the younger generations are doing it better than the older generations.

As I heard him say that, it made me think about how our countries are governed. Right now, the people who run the country (and by extension, the world) are older. I wonder what it’d be like if we had younger people who ruled the world. Maybe younger people would “get us there faster.” As a way to temper the eagerness of young people, maybe it’d be important to have some people from older generations to be advisors.

I wonder… are there any countries, states, provinces, counties, cities, or towns that are run by “younger” people? Are they more successful? Could we map this onto bigger populations with the same success?

For the first 14+ minutes, it seemed like there was an almost sombre tone to President Obama’s remarks. However, as he shifted to talking about the younger generations, I got the sense that he had hope for the future. I got the sense that he had hope for the future of the country because of the progress he sees in younger generations. While nothing is certain about the future nor are the implications, I’d like to think that it’s rather poetic that the leader of the United States believes in a brighter tomorrow. That President Obama believes that we are getting better as a society. As a people. That we are beginning to treat each other with more respect. More love. More kindness. And the hope is that this will continue with each succeeding generation. Hope.

The Mask You Live In – Gender Stereotypes in the Media

A couple of years ago, a really important documentary came out: Miss Representation. I mentioned it in my series about the people I follow on Twitter. I was surprised that when I did a search of the website that I hadn’t written about Miss Representation. The documentary brings to light how the media portray women. *Spoiler Alert* They don’t do a good job.

After I saw the film, my first reaction is that it should be required viewing in classrooms across the US (and probably Canada, too, as Canada does consume a great deal of US Media). This movie is really important, especially for teenagers and children. They need to see and understand the perversion of the portrayal of women in the media. As can be seen in the movie, a number of young girls seem quite grateful to learn that some of the beliefs that they’d internalized were a result of the media they consumed. I can only imagine the number of young girls across the US that had similar experiences upon seeing the movie. As a man, I was very moved by the the film and whole-heartedly support the cause of MissRepresentation.org (and hope you will check it out and support it, too!)

All that to say is, there’s going to be a “sequel” to the movie — this time, for the boys. Yes, we do a great disservice to our young women, but we also do a great disservice to our young men, too. The Director/Producer of Miss Representation has launched a Kickstarter to help fund The Mask You Live In. Based on some of the dates listed on the Kickstarter page, it looks like the movie is set to debut in February of 2014. I have already made a note in my calendar and can’t wait to see it!

If you have a few minutes, I strongly recommend heading over to the Kickstarter page to watch the trailer. And, if the project moves you, why not donate some money, too?

Spiritual Development of the Frog: Spiritual Development of Frogs, Part 2

In yesterday’s post, we looked at the first half of a paper I wrote about the spiritual development of frogs. There was a focus on the biological development of frogs. Today, we’ll look at the second half of the paper and wrap it up. In this half of the paper, we really get into the “creative” part. Enjoy!

Spiritual Development of the Frog

It is conceivable that all species have some form of spiritual development. It would be ludicrous to assume that we, as humans, are the only species that can experience spiritual development. Given this, it is fair to assume that frogs experience spiritual development. As we learned from an earlier section in this paper, biological development can be tied to spiritual development. As such, a frog’s spiritual development is markedly similar to their biological development.

A frog’s life begins as an egg. Not many eggs make it past this stage, so the eggs that do make it past this stage, must have something rare about them. The eggs that survive this stage have something exceptional about them. These eggs are already into stage one of the spiritual development of a frog – protection. In this stage of spiritual development, the frog has to have the intuitive capacity to have chosen the right egg to be born into that will not be eaten by a predator. Not all eggs make it to stage one of spiritual development, so the eggs that do, are already ahead of the game. It is necessary to say that those eggs that do not make it to stage one are eggs that have remained in stage zero, which is called undifferentiated.

Once an egg has made it past the stages of undifferentiated and protection, they move into becoming a tadpole. In this stage, the tadpole undergoes many transitions. During the tadpole stage, the tadpoles that mature too quickly are not only subject to predation from other species, but from their own kind! Tadpoles that fall into this trap do not move onto the next stage of spiritual development – safety. Those tadpoles that have the compassion and understanding of what is going on in their bodies portray an air of safety to them. They are aware of what is in their environment that can harm them and know not to mature at a rate too quickly, so as not to upset the other tadpoles. To this point, we have learned that a frog begins as an egg in biological terms and as undifferentiated in spiritual terms. If the egg that is chosen is ‘protected,’ then the frog spirit that chose the egg moves onto the next biological stage of tadpole and to the next stage of spiritual development of protection. If the tadpole is smart and ‘safe’ enough, then they are permitted the opportunity to undergo a metamorphosis. Before this stage of metamorphosis, the tadpole has moved into the spiritual stage of safety.

The tadpoles are now far enough on their spiritual journey to have gained the title of ‘safe.’ It is the title ‘safe’ required by the frog Gods before they will permit the tadpoles an opportunity to move through the metamorphosis stage. This metamorphosis stage for tadpoles biologically, is the shift they make into the life of being a froglet. In this stage of froglet, the spiritual developmental stage that coincides is ‘becoming.’ The term becoming was chosen because in this stage of froglet, the frog is not quite a frog and not quite a tadpole. It is, by definition, a transitory state, both biologically and spiritually. It is commonly compared to the Dark Night of the Soul, which was a treatise written by a Spanish poet. However, this treatise is commonly referred to a state in one’s spiritual journey for despair, much like the time for froglets – a time of anguish where multiple changes in their body are occurring.

If these froglets can survive the biological changes occurring in them, then they will be granted the ability to move onto the final stage of biological development – an adult frog. In spiritual terms, this stage is referred to as individuation. All froglets that become adult frogs have tails that have undergone resorption, but this resorption of their tails is what separates them from the froglets. This process is an ‘individuation’ of sorts and as such, is the stage of spiritual development. Once the frogs have become adult frogs, they are individuated and then live lives as normal frogs do.

For those frogs that are lucky enough, they will stumble upon, only by way of intuition, the final stage of spiritual development for frogs – communal. This stage is unknown to most of the frog community and is only accessible for those frogs that spend time looking deep within them. All of the frogs have access to this stage, as all frogs are connected, but only the frogs that pay attention and are mindful have the opportunity to access this spiritual stage of communal. Once the individuated frog realizes that there is a stage of communal, they must swim to find it. There are communities of frogs in the Atlantic Ocean who live on an island not known to any species, except for the communal frogs. These frogs have transcended what it means to be a frog and are living in a state of complete bliss. Being in the company of other frogs who have reached the communal stage only further amplifies a frog’s state of bliss.

Conclusion

There was reasoning offered for pairing biological development with spiritual development. There was an explanation of the biological development of a frog. The stages of biological development of a frog are as follows: egg, tadpole, froglet, and adult frog. The stages of spiritual development of a frog were explained. The stages of spiritual development of a frog are as follows: undifferentiated, protection, safety, becoming, individuation, and communal.

If you liked this paper/series, you might want to check out some of the other papers/series I’ve posted.

Biological Development of the Frog: Spiritual Development of Frogs, Part 1

In continuing to dig through some of the archives of papers I’ve written in the past, I thought I’d share a fun one I write while attending Sofia University. This paper was for a class in the Psychology of Spiritual Development. The prompt for the paper was for students to ‘construct our own synthetic model of spiritual development that integrated/incorporated two or more traditional or psychology models.’ I don’t remember where I got the idea to couch this in the context of frogs, but I remember that this made it more fun to write. Also, I remember the professor telling me that he really enjoyed reading the paper. I hope you do, too!

This paper will give a summary of the biological development of frogs and pair spiritual development with the stages of biological development that a frog experiences. There will be reasoning offered as to why biological development belongs with spiritual development by way of support from other models of spiritual development. The biological stages of frogs are egg, tadpole, froglet, and adult frog. The spiritual stages of frogs are undifferentiated, protection, safety, becoming, individuation, and communal.

Biological Development and Spiritual Development

Biological development occurs across the lifespan from birth to death and it is arguable that spiritual development occurs across the lifespan, too. As we grow and age, we are forever embedded in a learning process. When we are babies, we learn mostly from our parents because they are constantly taking care of us. As we grow out of our baby stage, we begin to learn from other people in our environment, which could include siblings. We then move into early childhood and adolescence where we are not only learning from our parents, but we are learning from teachers, classmates, and any number of other people in our environment (bus drivers, strangers, cashiers, etc.) During these learning experiences, our body is also growing. Our body is in a constant state of change. When we are born from our mother’s womb, we are in one state of being – biologically speaking. This state we begin as babies is not even the same state that we are in the next day. There are multiple processes happening within our body that help us grow. Just as these processes are helping our body grow biologically, there are also spiritual processes that are taking place at the same time.

In M. Scott Peck’s, Stages of Spiritual Growth, Peck highlights that most children are in Stage one on his model. Peck has four different stages of growth and notes that most people progress from stage one to stage two (although not everyone does). Peck is not the only professional to posit that spiritual development occurs at certain ages. In James W. Fowler’s, Stages of Faith Development, Fowler highlights that Stage Zero occurs between birth and two years of age. Fowler has six stages of faith development (including stage zero), that people can progress through. Just as Peck noted with his stages of spiritual development, Fowler notes that not everyone can progress through the stages of faith development. Fowler’s stage six is reserved for those who have reached a state of being liken to that of Mahatma Gandhi or Mother Teresa. The case has been made for a similarity between biological development and spiritual development. In the next section, there will be a description of the biological development of a frog.

Biological Development of the Frog

Before we can understand the spiritual development of a frog, we need to understand the biological development. The unique factor in the biological development of frogs is that there is a metamorphosis. Before there can be a metamorphosis, there must be eggs. The majority of frogs start out as an egg. Most of the time, female frogs will lay eggs in the water, but sometimes, they will lay them on land. If these eggs are laid on land, they will be laid very close to the water. When the female frog lays eggs, they do not just lay one egg, but multiple eggs. These eggs are the subject of much predation and as a result, most frog eggs do not survive. However, those eggs that do survive from predators will hatch within one week.

Once the eggs hatch, they become tadpoles, which are sometimes referred to as polliwogs. Tadpoles have an oval body with long and vertically-flattened tails, much like the image of (a) in Figure 1. In this stage, the tadpole is completely submerged in water. There are no lungs, but there are external gills for respiration. The tadpoles do not have eyelids, nor do they have front and hind legs, but they do have tails that they use for swimming. These tadpoles typically eat algae. Tadpoles are very vulnerable to predation, just as the eggs. Something interesting to note is that their counterparts (fellow tadpoles) may eat tadpoles developing quicker than their counterparts do. That is, the late bloomers survive longer, which is not something that is common among other species, specifically humans. Tadpoles that develop early would grow hind legs faster as in (b) of Figure 1. Tadpoles can remain tadpoles for as long as one year depending on the time of year that they hatch. If they hatch into tadpoles near winter, they may stay as tadpoles through the winter.

Towards the end of the tadpole stage, frogs undergo a metamorphosis. There is a dramatic transformation in a frog’s physiology. These tadpoles develop hind legs and then front legs. The tadpoles will lose their external gills and develop lungs. The intestines shorten in length as they begin to shift from an herbivorous diet to a carnivorous. The position of their eyes shift to allow for improved binocular vision. This shift in their eye position is important and mirrors their shift from prey to predator. At this stage, the tadpole is no longer referred to as a tadpole, as this is inaccurate. However, it is referred to as a froglet. The image of this description can be found in (c) and (d) of Figure 1.

In the final stage of development to adult frog, the froglet undergoes a transformation known as apoptosis, which is the technical term for programmed cell death. The apoptosis for the froglet occurs in their tail. Instead of the tail falling off as in some other species, the froglet’s tail undergoes resorption, which is the technical term for the process of losing substance. This process can be seen by looking at Figure 1 from (c) to (d) to (e). In this section, there has been an explanation of how the frog undergoes biological development beginning with the egg. Then, there was a depiction of the process as a tadpole and as a froglet. Finally, there was a description of an adult frog. In the next section, there will be ties made between the stages of biological development and the stages of spiritual development.

Note: Check back tomorrow for the last two sections of the paper (spiritual development of the frog and the conclusion).