Guest guest Posted January 3, 2007 Report Share Posted January 3, 2007 There have been frequent discussions on this list regarding the deficiencies in the TCM education system, as well as in the text books. I have two questions in this regard: 1. Aside from the current state-board-required textbooks, which English texts do you think are essential for rounding out a good TCM education? 2. What books need to be written to compensate for the current deficiencies in available English TCM texts? Since I teach beginning students, I want to be more aware of information that can help prevent me from presenting an overly simplistic view of Chinese medicine. - Bill ............................................. Bill Schoenbart, L.Ac. P.O. Box 8099 Santa Cruz, CA 95061 office phone: 831-335-3165 email: plantmed ............................................. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 3, 2007 Report Share Posted January 3, 2007 On 1/3/07, Bill Schoenbart <plantmed2 wrote: > > Since I teach beginning students, I want to be more aware of information > that can help prevent me from presenting an overly simplistic view of > Chinese medicine. > I wonder if a little simplicity wouldn't be a good thing early on. Most of us fall back on the eight principles when first getting into clinic. As time passes, we can begin to incorporate more subtlety and accuracy into our diagnosis and treatments. I've always felt that less is more in teaching. We can dump a lot of content on to students, get them to memorize and regurgitate it on a test and a month later we have nothing. But if we dump less content onto them, they remember more, and it goes deeper. Kind of reminds me of herb dosages for acute versus chronic pathologies. Education that is treated like an acute problem only works temporarily, while slowly fed information can be better absorbed and allowed to go in deeper. Just some thoughts. -- Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 3, 2007 Report Share Posted January 3, 2007 I still fall back on 8 principles in the clinic (as I think we all should) when confronted with a difficult case. And I agree with Al that teaching basics is extremely important. For me the problem comes when we say this is All that TCM or Zang-fu is. This really is the fault of the lack of literature we have in English. How excited we were when Fluid Pathology came out. Finally, something deeper! Without these advanced books we have bored students quickly flipping into other modalities... Jeffery Yuen, for example, fills that need for those who know, and they are correct, that there is more to the medicine than is being presented. I can remember thinking how my last year of school was a review... where was the teacher who would take it further? Since I'm starting to teach a class tomorrow I hope to instill in the students that yes indeed this is a fascinating and complex medicine. I certainly don't have a mastery of these deeper layers yet I can tell them the directions I am headed in trying to find them. doug , " Al Stone " <al wrote: > > On 1/3/07, Bill Schoenbart <plantmed2 wrote: > > > > Since I teach beginning students, I want to be more aware of information > > that can help prevent me from presenting an overly simplistic view of > > Chinese medicine. > I wonder if a little simplicity wouldn't be a good thing early on. Most of > us fall back on the eight principles when first getting into clinic. As time > passes, we can begin to incorporate more subtlety and accuracy into our > diagnosis and treatments. > > I've always felt that less is more in teaching. We can dump a lot of content > on to students, get them to memorize and regurgitate it on a test and a > month later we have nothing. But if we dump less content onto them, they > remember more, and it goes deeper. > > Kind of reminds me of herb dosages for acute versus chronic pathologies. > Education that is treated like an acute problem only works temporarily, > while slowly fed information can be better absorbed and allowed to go in > deeper. > > Just some thoughts. > > -- > > Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. > > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 3, 2007 Report Share Posted January 3, 2007 I'm not suggesting that a simple approach is inappropriate for beginners. That's my approach, and the students seem to like it. I'm hoping to get a grasp of where the members of this forum find TCM to be overly simplistic as currently taught in the schools. What do they think is missing, and what is their idea of how to remedy the situation? It's therapeutic for us to bitch about these problems, so it serves a good purpose. But ultimately there needs to be proposed solutions to these perceived problems. - Bill ............................................. Bill Schoenbart, L.Ac. P.O. Box 8099 Santa Cruz, CA 95061 office phone: 831-335-3165 email: plantmed ............................................. >>>>>I wonder if a little simplicity wouldn't be a good thing early on. Most of us fall back on the eight principles when first getting into clinic. As time passes, we can begin to incorporate more subtlety and accuracy into our diagnosis and treatments.>>>>> Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 3, 2007 Report Share Posted January 3, 2007 I just would like to say, that they don’t simplify anything here in Taiwan, and, I am sure the same goes for the mainland. One of the lectures I heard at CMU was given by Eric Brand, and he mentioned that one of the advantages that students in Asia have, that western students don’t have, are the songs to help them memorize the material. Having gone thru TCM School in America, many teachers were oppose to the idea of rote memorization, but there is something to be said about rote memorization and that is that it allows you to internalize the information in such a way that it becomes personal and it also allows you to build meaning. The other advantage of our Asian counter parts is that many have grown up with the ideas of Chinese medicine, or I should say, cultural, environmental and philosophical believes, that gives them a clearer understanding from the beginning. One thing I found interesting here is that the teachers are held to a higher standard of knowledge and practice, many teacher practitioners like the famous Dr. Feng Ye, here in Taiwan, and I am sure for those of you who have been to China or some other Asian country, you probably have met Teachers like him, that can recite entire text’s from beginning to end. But not only Recite but brake the information down and explain it in such a way that it seems simple. I think you would be hard press to find a western teacher that would do the same. It would seem that the teacher would have to delve deeply into the subject matter and become intimate with the information and in doing so, he can convey the information in simpler terms. The text does not have to be simplified; the student or teacher just hast to become acquainted with the text and try to grasp the meaning of the words. Of course the text is also very important and I hope that Teachers in the west scrutinize the content of the text and not choose solely on oversimplifications that lack any depth. There has been many great translations of TCM literature along with Classical literature that should be standard reading in class rooms, for instance Shang Han lun, Wen Bing Xue , the pathomechanism books by Paradime pub. Wiseman and Ye, Practical Dictionary and many other like Bob Flows, Damone, Ergil, exc.. Now in this time there are by far more reliable translations, than 10 years ago, and these text are closing the gab to some extend as far as fundamental knowledge goes between our Asian counter parts, of course much is to be desired, but not everyone is going to learn Chinese. Best regards Gabriel Fuentes --- Bill Schoenbart <plantmed2 wrote: > I'm not suggesting that a simple approach is > inappropriate for beginners. > That's my approach, and the students seem to like > it. I'm hoping to get a > grasp of where the members of this forum find TCM to > be overly simplistic as > currently taught in the schools. What do they think > is missing, and what is > their idea of how to remedy the situation? It's > therapeutic for us to bitch > about these problems, so it serves a good purpose. > But ultimately there > needs to be proposed solutions to these perceived > problems. > > - Bill > > ............................................ > Bill Schoenbart, L.Ac. > P.O. Box 8099 > Santa Cruz, CA 95061 > > office phone: 831-335-3165 > email: plantmed > ............................................ > > > >>>>>I wonder if a little simplicity wouldn't be a > good thing early on. Most > of > us fall back on the eight principles when first > getting into clinic. As time > passes, we can begin to incorporate more subtlety > and accuracy into our > diagnosis and treatments.>>>>> > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been > removed] > > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted February 3, 2007 Report Share Posted February 3, 2007 Hi Bill, I think one aspect of how schools (and many of the available textbooks) fail is that they rarely have a good intermediate stage of complexity, which would be the product of linking together the abstract concepts covered in basic instruction. Maciocia et al are usually very good at enumerating any number of concepts, and eventually if one goes through the information enough one can synthesize something more substantial. While I think most will agree that learning is an iterative process, the available textbooks (and the courses I took) treat it as linear, and when linear thinking runs into circular reasoning that is the basis of a lot of TCM thought badness ensues. One way that this could be improved is following physiological processes through their various ins and outs and talking about them in a cohesive way, as was done in Clavey's Fluids book. This pegs together wide ranging concepts and makes them more real by giving them context. When I was in school I found myself reading and rereading it because it was one of the few texts that seemed to bridge the simplistic thinking of " Foundations " with the somewhat more nuanced material in Internal Medicine texts. Another positive aspect of addressing systems this way is that it allows for a better understanding of the possible interaction of two or more (somewhat arbitrarily designated) patterns in a pathology. Another aspect of this could be pegging treatment principles to an understanding of the underlying [TCM] physiological processes, rather than pattern X or Y. By doing this you inculcate a thought process that allows students to think their way through novel pathology situations and get a better understanding of the possibilities in terms of treatment, so they become more flexible clinically. What I've been thinking about is how to do this sort of teaching, especially in the context of the material that is available and the limited time dedicated to basic TCM theory in school, and I think the solution would be to roll the other courses [in the context of New England School of Acupuncture it would include: point functions, intro to herbal medicine, internal medicine and acupuncture pathology/treatment] into the TCM theory class in such a way that the material becomes monolithic and the potential hours available and duration of the series of courses would be sufficient to " get " the material at a level that would allow for independent creative thinking while being grounded in a strong theoretical construct, as opposed to getting all " woo-woo " or picking a random formulaic approach. Since California has a obligatory herbal component for the education it would be easier to make this sort of change there. Here in Boston I've found it not uncommon for acupuncture only students to have only the loosest concept of pattern diagnosis and a tendency to fall back on a " this point for that problem " approach, which, while not totally ineffective, pretty much ignores everything that I find important about TCM theory, and seems to make it difficult for them to expand their theoretical approaches to problems. Anyhow, that's my two cents. Par Scott - Bill Schoenbart Thursday, January 04, 2007 1:04 AM Re: Recommended books for teaching CM I'm not suggesting that a simple approach is inappropriate for beginners. That's my approach, and the students seem to like it. I'm hoping to get a grasp of where the members of this forum find TCM to be overly simplistic as currently taught in the schools. What do they think is missing, and what is their idea of how to remedy the situation? It's therapeutic for us to bitch about these problems, so it serves a good purpose. But ultimately there needs to be proposed solutions to these perceived problems. - Bill ............................................ Bill Schoenbart, L.Ac. P.O. Box 8099 Santa Cruz, CA 95061 office phone: 831-335-3165 email: plantmed ............................................ >>>>>I wonder if a little simplicity wouldn't be a good thing early on. Most of us fall back on the eight principles when first getting into clinic. As time passes, we can begin to incorporate more subtlety and accuracy into our diagnosis and treatments.>>>>> Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.