PVCC Puma Press: October 2003

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	At the forefront, PVCC sociology faculty, Umar Sharif, instructs in the practice of martial arts. He is joined, from left, by Ashanti Muhammad Ibn Sharif, and NTTI supporters and volunteers, Karen Burleson, Joshua Lakind, Alexis Thielke and Chris Lawrence.
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On a hot Arizona night, summer of 2000, Umar Sharif, PVCC sociology and martial arts instructor, was home alone with his 12-year.-old son, Ashanti. With the television broken, Sharif knew that Ashanti, who loves watching animations and programs about heroes and heroines would be looking for something to do indoors. Aware of his son’s love for stories, Sharif decided to introduce to him the Mindmerge Game, a simple storytelling game he had developed as an educational and therapeutic tool. The game allows participants to create an interpersonal adventure where heroes and heroines may emerge.

Twelve basic rules apply to the game, including the following:

every story begins within an agreed upon category;
the story has a title, a beginning, middle and end;
each player contributes only one word to the story at a time;
each player takes a turn in series until the story is complete.

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	Sociology faculty, Umar Sharif, launches teachers’ institute with unique approach to at-risk youth, struggling communities
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Within this structure, a story may evolve, such the following by Sharif and his son:

The Great One

One evening when the darkness came over it, the darkness consumed the town. Ashanti was aware of the problem. He was determined to defeat the darkness. So, when Ashanti saw the darkness, he reached for his sword. His sword had a magical power. It was so powerful that the darkness has to retreat whenever Ashanti raised his sword.

God had a reason to send Ashanti. God was testing his courage. So this was the beginning of the test. He would be forced to face the fear of the end of the light. So, Ashanti had to defeat his fears. First, he could defeat the fear in his dreams. When he found the evil darkness, he took a weapon and made it glow, and then he raised his glowing sword into a hole and lightning struck the sword tip and flowed up and into the heavens. Ashanti’s courage was the result of his powerful dream. So now he was flying to the second evil, HEIGHTS. Now his power to defeat his Height Fear was needed. When he used his power to defeat his evil weaknesses, the fear finally went ‘poof.’ Finally, he was walking to the place named Blackrock. He knew that the evil was finally waiting for him. So, he asked God to give him the strength to defeat the evil at Blackrock.

After developing the game of MindMerge and recognizing its educational value, Sharif authorized the National Teacher Training Institute, Inc. (NTTI), to implement the educational institution’s component of the MindMerge Project. The MindMerge Project is an Applied Social and Behavioral Science project, with the goal of enhancing interpersonal and cross-cultural communications at all ages and levels of human society. Founded in 1997, NTTI is a nonprofit organization, specializing in educational workshops and training of trainers’ programs for parents, teachers and professionals who work with youth.

There are two phases of MindMerge, the storytelling phase in which the story is created, and the discussion phase in which each participant can develop a better understanding of the other players in the areas of unexpressed feelings, beliefs, wishes and desires, hopes, dreams and fears.

In the first phase, there is a process of merging minds through cooperative storytelling, a process Sharif had been observing as a sociologist for decades. Describing the MindMerge process, Sharif says, "The relationship taking place between a man and a woman, a couple, or two friends, two males, two females, that relationship develops because of a process of their thoughts and their emotions being merged together."

Wanting to promote this social phenomenon, Sharif developed the MindMerge Game.

Specific goals of MindMerge include the facilitation of academic achievement among youth (K-12); the reduction of youth violence and childhood injury and the prevention of childhood and teenage substance abuse. The game paradigm encourages and facilitates growth in intellectual, psychological and emotional development.

In the skills and qualities area, it can evoke listening, empathy, imagination, compassion, yielding, cooperation, observation and telepathy. In the knowledge area, it can enhance an individual’s vocabulary, grammar, understanding of story structure, human nature, sociology, words and communication, psychology and metaphysics.

Driven by a dream to provide assistance to at-risk youth, Sharif hopes that MindMerge, among other potential components of NTTI, will provide an avenue for youth to find and make positive choices despite family and environmental risk factors.

Sharif says, "When we talk about at-risk and disadvantaged youth, I as a child fell into that category. I experienced alcoholism in the family, domestic violence, and being sent to an orphanage for a period of time while my mother was recuperating from abuse. Most of the risk factors that are associated with at-risk youth are things that I lived through."

Sharif believes the process of transforming his dream for at-risk youth into reality lies foremost in the hands of educators and the youth’s parents. Of educators, he says, "If the teacher is not successful in nurturing the mind, the child goes astray and then the courts deal with them. If the court is not successful in bringing about an adjustment in the child’s behavior or circumstance, then the juvenile corrections has to deal with that. If juvenile corrections is not successful, then adult detention will ultimately be the place for them. All along the way, society suffers. There has to be a better way!"

NTTI’s Training of Trainers Program is designed to provide selected "post-academic" training to those responsible for the education and development of children: parents, educators, school counselors, juvenile correction officers and other youth professionals. Of post-academic training, Sharif says educational systems are not sufficiently preparing teachers, parents and others to answer some of the questions and address some of the needs that children have today.

He says that children are coming into a very different social environment than they were 3050 years ago. However, the curriculum for educating teachers and youth professionals is pretty much the standard curriculum that has remained for much too long. Sharif says NTTI will bring up-to-date, down-to-earth information, knowledge and training to those people who are the first line of defense for children.

Sharif also believes that educators acquiring the MindMerge post-academic training will be able to address the issue of low academic performance in schools because the MindMerge game is an educational game built around the natural tendencies of the brain.

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The brain thrives on associative links it needs to fill in the blanks, and the imagination loves stories
—Umar Sharif Sociology Faculty
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The game allows educators to incorporate academic information into play. A math teacher can present a math formula; a science teacher, a physics equation; a social science teacher, a social science or history fact and require it as a part of the MindMerge story being generated.

The youth then will retain that information much longer and in greater detail than they would information memorized from a list.

Sharif says, "Somewhere in the area of 750,000 American high school students drop out every year, functionally illiterate; another 750,000 students graduate from high school functionally illiterate. Mind-Merge is a way to address the critical issue of academic performance among our children."

More than that, Sharif believes MindMerge is a way of facilitating social interaction between people from diverse backgrounds: different racial groups, ethnic groups and socio-economic levels. People from all walks of life can get together in small or large groups and do a Mindmerge and within a few minutes be laughing with each other, having fun, Sharif says. In the discussion phase, they will develop a better understanding of each other.

"We are very optimistic that the effects will be wide-spread and profound," says Sharif. "MindMerge also has the potential to allow players to express fears in a non-threatening environment, to create an emotional connection between individuals, help people learn a second language or assist co-workers in dealing with organizational issues."

Sharif believes that the potential for understanding is not just as a metaphor or proverb, but is a characteristic of the MindMerge paradigm which encourages an emotional connection between the participants because they are co-creators of a story.

For example, MindMerge enables couples to bring important issues to the table for discussion. Likewise, it is a tool for employers to use in addressing employee relations and strategic planning. MindMerge establishes a context in which ideas can be brought to the table without the competition, ego and fear of criticism often manifested in group interactions.

Of one of his MindMerge sessions, Sharif said, "We got a culturally diverse group of friends together to do a MindMerge. For some, English was a second language, yet, within a few minutes, the story was unfolding, and we were all sitting around laughing."

In another MindMerge session, NTTI met with a group of counselors and one of the counselor’s 8-year-old son. Sharif said, "To show how dynamic MindMerge is, not only were the adults involved in the Mindmerge process laughing and having fun, but the 8-year-old boy was able to interact with them as an equal participant in the group. The rules were easy to understand, the process was easy enough to commit to, and the fun was just as great for the child as it was for the adult."

Sharif is supporting the charter of the nonprofit NTTI, Inc. through the promotion of a MindMerge publication. NTTI’s direct services to youth fall under the Wu-Te Performance Troupes, a Leadership Development Program for at-risk and disadvantaged youth. NTTI hopes to sponsor 400 Maricopa County youth into Wu-Te Programs to be opened soon. The Program will meet the physical, mental and social well-being needs of at-risk children between 3 and 18 years of age and their families. The sites will be opened in the Maricopa Juvenile Courts' high-contact zones.

The annual sponsorship per child is $1,440 for this year-round, after-school and summer program. A new Charter Associate site can be opened with a minimum of 50 children. The maximum enrollment per site is 100 youth. For more information on MindMerge or becoming a potential sponsor, please visit mindmergeonline.com and wu-te.org.

NTTI's Charter and efforts have gained the support of the following:

Phoenix Police Department;
Planet Help 2001, Phoenix, Ariz.;
Buddhist Qigong Research Association,
National Republic of Taiwan;
Unity of the Southwest, Mesa, Ariz.;
World Martial Arts Association, Phoenix, Ariz.;
ChiYoga Institute, Phoenix, Ariz.;
6cubed Web Development, Phoenix, Ariz.;
Imagine Films, Phoenix, Ariz.;
Millennium III Corporation, Seattle, Washington;
Insty*Prints, Phoenix, Ariz.;
Subway, Phoenix, Ariz.;
Hassan Enterprizes, Glendale, Ariz.;
Radisson Hotel Southbank, Phoenix, Ariz.