What Blue Zones Can Tell us About Ourselves.

Yesterday began the first of our Spring TED Series and a group of teachers from our district and a neighboring district got together to watch Dan Buettner’s TEDxTC talk about his work with the Blue Zones.  Blue Zones are defined as:

a region of the world where people commonly live active lives past the age of 100 years. Scientists and demographers have classified these longevity hot-spots by having common healthy traits and life practices that result in higher-than-normal longevity. The name Blue zone seems to be first employed in a scientific article by a team of demographers working on centenarians in Sardinia in 2004.

and are the topic of Buettner’s work with Quest Network and National Geographic.

While not the stuff of our usual TED talks, which focus more on education and related issues, this talk immediately resonated with the group. Our discussion of Buettner’s description of the three Blue Zones he profiled in the talk brought out some uniquely personal insights from many of the members.  Several of the group shared insight into how the characteristics found in the communities in the Blue Zones are so foreign to our lives here in the United States.

Prior to the talk, we spoke about factors such as genetics, geography, exercise, diet, and lifestyle as the prevailing elements that contribute to longevity, and we argued about which one played the most prominent role.  Following the video, we spoke mainly about how our lifestyles were in such stark contrast to the communities in Sardinia, Italy, Okinawa, and Lorma Linda, California.  How we live our lives, and who we choose to live our lives with have such profound affects on how long our lives last.  Yes, genetics are a factor, but there are other elements that these communities all share.  Garr Reynolds created a succinct graphic to depict the points that Buettner distilled in the talk.

Interestingly, some members of the group had recently screened Race to Nowhere, and were able to draw some stark contrasts between the lives of our children today and the lives of the members of the communities in the Blue Zones.   I have not seen the film, but their concern was rooted in the fact that we have essentially eliminated much of the Blue Zone ideals for our children when we place such pressure on them to succeed.

On a personal level, having watched this talk several times now, I expressed to the group that what most impressed me was a section of the talk in which Buettner talked about the term ”ikigai” (生き甲斐 literally: life + value, be worth while–the reason you wake up in the morning) in Okinawa.  One of the surveys given to members of these communities by the research team asked each of them what their ikigai was and, Buettner stated, none of them hesitated.  They all knew exactly what their purpose was in life.

Do I?  I’ve asked myself several times since the first time I watched this, and I’m put off by my hesitancy.  I know my reason for waking up is to help make my family’s life the most beautiful it can possibly be, but I wonder if it changes as you move through life?  Also, throughout the talk, the term “plant-based diet” was uttered countless times, and in looking at my own life, I could do much better there.

Poulain M.; Pes G.M., Grasland C., Carru C., Ferucci L., Baggio G., Franceschi C., Deiana L. (2004). “Identification of a Geographic Area Characterized by Extreme Longevity in the Sardinia Island: the AKEA study”. Experimental Gerontology, 39 39 (9): 1423–1429. doi:10.1016/j.exger.2004.06.016. PMID 15489066.

Humbled

Chalkdust101 has recently been linked to by some insane publications, in my opinion.  Bill Ferriter, who writes at The Tempered Radical, recently had an article featured in Educational Leadership’s “How Teachers Learn” edition titled “Learning with Blogs and Wikis.” In it he dropped the following quote in reference to how he leverages his network to learn now:

This learning has been uniquely authentic, driven by personal interests and connected to classroom realities. Blogs have introduced a measure of differentiation and challenge to my professional learning plan that had long been missing. I wrestle over the characteristics of effective professional development with Patrick Higgins (http://chalkdust101.wordpress.com) and the elements of high-quality instruction for middle grades students with Dina Strasser (http://theline.edublogs.org). Scott McLeod (www.dangerouslyirrelevant.org) forces me to think about driving school change from the system level; and Nancy Flanagan (http://teacherleaders.typepad.com/teacher_in_a_strange_land) helps me understand the connections between education policy and classroom practice. John Holland (http://circle-time.blogspot.com) and Larry Ferlazzo, Brian Crosby, and Alice Mercer (http://inpractice.edublogs.org) open my eyes to the challenges of working in high-needs communities.

Bill has to be one of the clearest minds on topics of teacher leadership and assessment of teacher performance in the game right now, and this is punctuated by the fact that he is a full time classroom teacher.  Bill struggles with many of the aspects that a good portion of us only write about.  For this, and for his ability to ask outstanding questions, I consider it a privilege that he points himself here for guidance in any area.

Also, while at EduCon2.1, I had the pleasure of finally meeting Diane Cordell, who, until then, had been a vital cog in my network whom I had never met.  In addition to providing me with some excellent resources about the One Book, One Town idea that some of my English Department teachers came up with, attended my session on Saturday.  Upon leaving the conference, Diane submitted an article to the School Library Journal about EduCon (which she titled Library Media Specialist Does EduCon) and pulled this quote from me:

EduCon has a strange effect on both session participants and presenters in that there is equal learning done by both parties.

It’s a good feeling when someone actually catches you being competent!  Thanks to Diane and Bill for the mentions.