Entries Tagged 'Book Thoughts' ↓

One way to define what it means to be educated is to think about people we like to be with. We want companions who are understanding, imaginative, strong, courageous, humble and generous; and we avoid people who are ignorant, unimaginative, weak, fearful, proud and selfish.

So, why don’t educators teach the six virtues of the educated person? We are literally caught in a “vicious cycle.”

TSVOTEP argues that the best public school educators model and teach three virtues — understanding, strong character and generosity. That is the good news. The bad news is they also teach three of the vices — intellectual incompetence, fear, and pride. Therefore, even our best graduates demonstrate understanding that is unimaginative, strong character that is fearful, and generosity that emerges from pride.

That is why the six-virtue definition of the educated person is so important. Only when all six are modeled and taught can the cycle be broken.

An earlier version of this essay was a Guest Commentary in the Asheville Citizen-Times on April 18, 2006.

At a 2006 town meeting sponsored by the World Affairs Council, North Carolina resident Harry Taylor told President Bush that a leader ought to have “a degree of humility.” He then asked the president to describe things he “maybe should have done differently,” specifically mentioning the telephone surveillance of citizens.

The President did not respond to the humility point, but he said, “I’m not going to apologize for what I did on the terrorist surveillance program. . .”

This exchange on CNN caused me to wonder what Americans think about humility. Do we see it as a virtue or a vice? Do we see it as a virtue for those in low-status positions, and a vice for those with high-status? How would Americans respond to a President who displayed humility?
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The 2010 Department of Education is encouraging charter school start-ups. Where are the charter school successes that merit this kind of federal support?

Some are “the charter schools operated by the Harlem Children’s Zone (HCZ).” These are the words of David Brooks (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/08/opinion/08brooks.html). His article started with praise for specific HCZ charters, but it turned into a promotional piece for the idea of charters.

I am for charter schools, too; but Brooks and I like them for different reasons.
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One of the claims in TSVOTEP is that schools teach intellectual incompetence, fear and pride. Several readers have argued that I don’t support this claim.

Before pointing to the book’s support for this claim, I am soliciting comments from anyone whose K-12 experiences taught them to be imaginative, courageous, and humble. Simply click on “comment” at the end of this post and describe that learning. Nobody wants to admit to being intellectually incompetent, fearful or proud; so there is strong incentive to comment.

Other readers recall that the vices of intellectual incompetence, fear and pride were modeled and taught throughout their K-12 experiences. I believe this is a school norm, so I say schools graduate adults whose understanding is unimaginative, whose strong character is fearful, and whose generosity emerges from pride. There I go again — stating this as if it were true. Was this claim supported? Let’s take a look.
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When journalists ask for a summary of TSVOTEP, I say, “It’s based on the premise that, until we define what it means to be educated, we won’t be able to improve education.”

Several of the reporters have responded with, “That makes sense.”

When I state the same premise to education administrators and professors, however, the reaction is a big yawn. As I explained in the earlier post about the book’s audience, members of these groups are not interested in discussing what it means to be educated.

Administrators are not interested because they are trapped in our current model of education. They are trapped in the sense that, when they accept supervisory positions, they implicitly agree that public schools and school districts should be governed politically, and organized in bureaucratic hierarchy (the second and forth elements of our current model). Therefore, their job is to enforce local, state and federal policies, not to challenge them. We understand this agreement because we know that administrators who challenge local, state or federal policies are regarded as not being “team players.” They might even be fired.
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Definitions of the six virtues are based on a framework that relates the six virtues to each other in the following ways.

(1) They are an intellectual pair, a character pair, and a spiritual pair. These domains represent how humans differ from other animals. We have an intellect capable of deep understanding and creative thought. We can develop strong character by confronting our fears. And, when our basic needs for food, shelter and security are met, we can act in ways that reflect a humble, generous spirit.

(2) The first of each pair is a capacity and the second is an ability to act. As Comte-Sponville (2001) wrote, virtues are “what we should do, what we should be, and how we should live” (p. 35 in TSVOTEP).
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When I discussed my book with members of the North Carolina Center for Creative Retirement, their first question was, “Who is the audience?” I said the book is for professional educators, but it might also be a good read for parents and grandparents. They responded, “No – this book is too academic. Normal people are not interested in all the technical stuff about how education is governed. Besides, we can’t keep track of all the abbreviations.”

Several said chapters 1 and 2 were too academic. They suggested that these be curtailed or eliminated. Another disagreed, saying, “You can’t take out the first two chapters. They are the foundation for the whole book.”

Others said there were too many citations. According to them lay readers are not interested in references to other education writers. Another disagreed, saying, “I like the citations. They showed how these ideas are tied with others. They give the book credibility.”

Who is the audience for an educational treatise that is both technical and philosophical? The last paragraph of the Introduction says the book’s ideas are important considerations for parents and grandparents, and for those associated with independent, parochial, or charter schools. This is a broad audience, but not the main audience. TSVOTEP describes the status and direction of public education because public educators are its main audience. A recent experience helped me see, however, that the audience is not all public educators.
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