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What do we do when adults refuse to be good role models for their children? Who would even ask such a question if this were not such a painfully obvious and so insidiously widespread problem? American society is facing a crisis with no answers because it simply does not even see the crisis. The U.S. is wealthier and more powerful than at any point in its history and more bereft of moral fortitude among its young than at any time since its inception. What to do has been replaced with whom to blame and "I am a victim", has become the rallying cry of a nation wallowing in money and devoid of personal responsibility. It is a bleak picture if one enjoys bleakness and a frightening forecast of the end of an era for the more apocalyptic. Neither perspective is very pleasant.
It might be easy to dismiss this rather morbid reality as the rantings of nay-sayers and so much doomsday hogwash were it not for the simple fact that since the great victories of World War II, America has ever so subtly at times, ever so harshly at other times, pursued a course which has proven financially uplifting, while at the same time depersonalizing to the individual and oblivious to the common morality which should be binding us all. The great national temper tantrums of the 1960's and 70's cleared the way for Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" and other social restructuring plans, but they did so at the expense of national unity, cultural stability, and conscientious certitude. The young people of those time threw out the pretentiousness and artificiality of their parents and opened untold opportunities for freedom and respect and progress, while in their stead they left only pretentious freedom and artificial righteousness. The young people of today have nothing to throw away but themselves.
This is a serious allegation against a country which has devoted so much money and so strong a force of will to improving the lives of its citizens and the peoples of the whole world. Americans still work harder, go to church more often and give more in time and dollars than any other nation in existence today. The United States is the envy of every individual, every country, working for a richer life and a larger bank account. People fight to come here and only rarely fight to leave. Americans are bright, beautiful, creative, happy and free. America has it all. Except good schools.
No country anywhere honors our public schools or emulates our educational beliefs. And yet it is to the schools that the great reformers of the 1960's and 70's turned and it is still to the schools that governments and private citizens turn for help in changing faulty thoughts or fixing social ills. It has proven rather ineffective, definitely inefficient and extremely costly in money and time, but momentum carries over right thinking and the moral void of the "love generation" does not seem to know where else to go. The previous concerns about equal opportunity, individual equality, and human rights have given way to a demand for moral education from an institution that can barely meet the requirements of its academic charters. "Question authority!" and "Don't you tell my kid what to do!" have suddenly been replaced with "Question authority and by the way, would you please tell my kid what to do." This dilemma of ambiguity in the face of tighter budgets and ethical vacuousness only heightens the sense of frustration and desperation many educators feel while it once again places on the schools the responsibilities which previous generations placed on themselves. The real question is not what public educators can do when adults refuse to be good role models, but why are adults choosing not to be adults?
The answers are once again the national temper tantrums of the 1960's and 70's, and the leveling of American society by the great social movements of the same era. If a code of behavior is deemed no longer appropriate or useful, it still must be replaced with another if the social bond is to be maintained and a society is to continue. A group which passes to its children only a sense of disrespect for government, disregard for the law, and disinterest in anything which does not provide immediate and selfish gratification is passing on a tradition of nothingness. And a society which loses its cohesion out of deference to diversity cannot expect to survive.
This, unfortunately, is the legacy of the so-called "boomer" generation. Poor, or non-existent parenting coupled with overwhelming self-absorption have left a younger generation with little guidance or an inappropriate sense of entitlement. And the public schools, which already provide more "parenting" than at any other time since their inception (counseling, tutoring, food service, health care, etc.) now seem the chosen purveyors of moral values in an increasingly coarse and valueless society. As well as becoming the easy target for all the arguments, hostility, violence and maturity issues previous generations worked on with their own parents.
The problem, then, is clear. The solution is tougher. But only because it is the solution people do not want to hear. What should we as educators do? Nothing. The problem should be handed right back to the parents. The public schools are not the proper venue for an education in a basic philosophy of life and behavior. That is a tough fact, but it is the truth and like many truths, it may be difficult to accept.
Secondly, we should stop being afraid to tell people in plain terms that certain behaviors are inappropriate, unacceptable and destructive to society. We must stop couching our objections in euphemisms to preserve feelings. We need to hurt feelings to make a point, and we need to stop apologizing for it.
Next, we need to remove people quickly and permanently from public institutions when their behavior is disruptive, unethical, destructive or dangerous. The multiple chances given to perpetrators of virtually criminal, or even simply annoying behavior, not only fail to restore peace in the school and society at large, they encourage more of the same and undermine by weakness the moral authority of the system and the individual educator together. The fear of "damaging their psyche" or somehow devaluing the individual is nonsense. Adults must show courage in facing their duties to the next generation with steadfast stability and purity of conviction. And if the adults have no convictions, then the greatest gift we can give back to them is permanent custody of their own disruptive children.
We must also redefine our public institutions and remove from the extraneous tasks, duties, and responsibilities which 30 years of law and social restructuring have foisted on them. The United States is the only western nation in which the schools have been forced to be the engines of social engineering and while that is a noble assignment indeed, the results have been negligible at best and wasteful of precious resources. Add to that the emphasis on sports, entertainment and socializing and it becomes disturbingly clear that the schools have abandoned their role as places of education in lieu of making their "clients" happy and bolstering the facade that we are a nation of highly educated, highly motivated, productive learners, when all the indicators point to a decline in literacy, detachment from society on a very personal level, and apathy in general toward anyone or anything the least bit challenging. Teachers are expected to be role models in situations that no other adults would tolerate or even find worth their effort. When did we become Jesus, Buddha and Mohammed?
While they are redefining themselves as schools, rather than clubs, public institutions should also return to the idea of a full day of education for each enrolled student. Odd scheduling, released time, reduced credits for graduation, and an overemphasis on cars and jobs deny the value of education in the face of minimalized choice, money and accelerated independence. Again, this is an active decision by parents not to be parents. What do children learn? That they are on their own, and children on their own are not in a position to develop a sense of heightened morality. They see no role models but their peers and no child is emotionally ready for that responsibility.
Finally, educators must work hard to develop their own sense of morality and their own courage to live by some code. The process is what should be modeled for future generations, rather than any particular philosophy or religious morality. Our young people need to see that life, and therefore morality and behavior, is not static and our innermost convictions can and will be challenged on a daily basis. We must counteract the cultural message of situational morality compounded by lack of genuine certitude or fundamentalist beliefs which leave no room for growth and refined judgment. If we falter, our young people will value what we ask of them as little as they value anything else in their lives. We must say what we believe and we must believe what we say. If not, we should keep our mouths shut.
Our problem, then, is sadly quite easy to define. The solution, however, will be difficult, because it is a call to courage and a call to genuine adulthood. If we are to be role models, we must be firm without being rigid, expect as much as was expected of us, respect the growth process, protect our country and our society, and always, always, remain hopeful of the future.
Responses
to Required Readings
1. A child's interest in the abstract is nothing unusual at all, because most children think only in the abstract and must be trained to think in the concrete. Or they mix the two as the boy did with his star observations. An adult may see the stars as some metaphoric, symbolic representation of the human relationship to the divine, but children see such things as realities with no symbolism attached. A more common, and far clearer, example is the monster-under-the-bed syndrome in which children cannot distinguish between the workings of the mind and the workings of physical reality, even when their own sense of logic tells them they are imagining something. Even the boy's focus on the heavens as an expression of his focus on God was not surprising. What is more often surprising and even a bit disheartening is the adult inability to move freely between the abstract and the concrete as moments of the same reality. Even the interviewer was surprised by what he learned from this boy. The greatest gift he gave this boy was the time to listen to his story and his explanation. The time to see and hear is what ultimately separates childhood from adulthood. For that one brief moment, the little boy gave it back to Robert Coles.
2. Why would children being "ethically introspective" come as a surprise? Children are introspective about everything. Being introspective simply means "I don't know." Adults have to know; children do not. If children speculate about colors and flavors and animals and monsters and all the great mysteries, why would they not ruminate about the ins and outs of right and wrong? What adults most often find challenging is that the introspections these little minds go through are often attempts to understand adult behaviors which so often contradict the spoken word. Granted, many, if not all, children think about their own actions and the results of those actions, but more often than not the central issue of their thought processes is the "fairness" of what has been handed to them by the adults in their lives. One of the more frightening trends in contemporary western society is the tendency for adults to remain locked in this "fairness" criterion as the sole standard for their own behaviors and their responses to the behaviors of others around them. "Fairness" is an infantile way of saying "I am the center of the universe--worship me." Adulthood looks at what is fair and what is right. Children have to be introspective to work this out, but they will never come to a good conclusion if the only adults they know and see and hear are no more mature than they are.
3. Sure, morality can be taught in all classes if morality is defined as a fundamental set of rules needed to govern the smooth operation of a given society. Even the rightness and wrongness of certain behaviors can be dealt with regardless of the formal subject matter of the class. The implication of the question is a dangerous one, however, because it assumes that morality, like math or language or any other school subject, is a learned skill but unlike the other learned skills, will be learned by all equally. This is an oversimplification of the problem. Morality and behavior are often equated and that too is an oversimplification. A prime example is the reaction of Europeans to the nakedness of Polynesian women. They were often viewed as sex objects or as ungodly when the reality of their culture and the location of their islands made bare breasts and genitals both beautiful and practical. European "morality" did more harm than good in many cases of cultural confrontation. Just as it did with the "morality" of the Holocaust. The question being asked here really should be worded "Can behaviors be taught in all classes?" True morality, "the voice within us that has really heard the voice of others", to quote the article, like music or food, can only be interpreted by the listener and not everyone hears well or willingly.
4. Being a "moral witness" means two things--seeing the morality of others and being a moral presence at the same time. A fully functional member of any society should be doing both of these by definition. In the middle of last year I received a new student in one of my classes who obviously felt like the proverbial fish out of water. He was Hispanic in a school that prides itself on being almost 90% white. He had many difficulties adjusting to this environment which has some very subtle and not so subtle ways of making people feel unwelcome. I knew he was a bright and creative young man, but I also knew that his poor work needed some attention. During a class devoted to just writing I sat with him to look at his rough draft and talk about what was going on and I was appalled to learn that he had become the brunt of some rather vicious ethnic slurs. I asked him why he hadn't let me know or reported it since our school and our district have strict policies against such behavior. His answer made me angry. "Why should I report it--nothing will happen and I can take care of myself." It took me two more times to convince him that we needed to fight this and that I was right beside him. He didn't believe me until he learned I had made the promised report to the administrative team and they called him in for an interview. I truly doubt much did happen, but I sensed a trust and appreciation I knew were genuine. He told me he knew at least one person in the school who was serious about helping him. The administrative team thanked me as well since they were having to learn about moving a school out of homogeneity and into diversity. My reward? My student was in our very popular food services/cooking class on his way to becoming a master chef and I was one of the few chosen to sample his final exam--a complete Mexican dinner. And he passed my course.
5. The question of courage always makes me laugh, because the very word calls to mind the image of the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz who wants the precious commodity so desperately and yet jumps at the touch of his own tail. And yet that very image of the silly King of the Beasts flawed by his own worries sums it up so beautifully--courage is knowing ourselves and facing what we know. Courage comes in those moments when we must do the things which define us as individuals, when those things set us apart from the community our very humanness tells us we want to be a part of. It is a way of life that sometimes manifests itself in moments of great selflessness, but if it is not an integral part of our very beings, no critical moment will ever bring it out. Courage must determine our daily lives and daily actions or any seemingly courageous deed is nothing more than a spur-of-the-moment leap to activity derived from adrenaline and maybe even a bit of stupidity in the face of danger. Courage says: "Here I am and I will do the right thing at the right time because I will know it is right no matter the consequences." Courage knows itself first, what it must do second, and always follows knowledge with action. Unfortunately, I do not think I have ever actually seen courage among my students. I have seen whining and nagging, political correctness, submissiveness, anger, self-righteousness, and a host of other superficially positive characteristics, but true courage seems elusive because so few of our students really know themselves. Their senses are dulled by headphones and virtual reality sets and their judgments are clouded by their demands for "fairness" as I mentioned above, but so much of what they expose themselves to only serves to isolate them from their communities and confirm the very greedy need for self-centeredness. Am I cynical? No. Only realistic about my own observations.
6. The children's discussion of courage focused on the commonly held view that courage is the exception rather than the norm and that it only manifests itself at rare, critical moments. Rather than true courage, the children were talking about heroics and while I agree that heroics should be duly recognized, they are not accessible to all. Courage is. Heroics needs witnesses, courage does not. The children seem to understand this because they are conflicted by the notion of deep beliefs not obviated by radical action. This was a very sharp group of students indeed. They seemed to understand that courage is determined by confronting and defining the self far more than by astounding or even idiotic feats and personal endeavors. Because I am teaching creative writing this semester I recently had to confront the issue of pornography in a classroom full of physically mature and emotionally bereft teenage boys. Their goal, of course, was for me to allow them to substitute vulgarity for good writing. Even allowing for their defense of "freedom of expression" and "cultural authenticity" their real goal was nagging me into submission about licentiousness. I was more than a bit surprised that the young women in the class who are the usual victims and targets of male pornography just sat there laughing and smiling about the entire conversation. The boys were at least pleased with their legalisms and logic, the girls seemed to be frozen in some state of oblivion. The reality soon became clear--the boys could not take a moral stance, only a legal one, and the girls chose not to. I reminded them that Hitler made the same observation in pre-World War II Germany and they just laughed. I reminded them also that Hitler controlled Germany because he had the power to and I had the power to control their grades. And that was the end of the discussion. It brought back the words of a teacher I had not long ago in a course I was taking to renew my license--if a society cannot make its choices and decisions on the basis of some shared concept of moral rightness, then the courts will be forced to make those decisions. We have become the most litigious society on earth.
7. In short, a good person knows that goodness is an on-going process and is never too quick to feel saved or safe in the struggle to feel connected to the rest of humanity.
8. If the answer to this question were as easy as asking the question, we would have perfect schools, perfect students and perfect teachers. I would not even attempt to answer this one without a specific case involving students I know and work with. The only general rule is: Be Prepared!
9. No, the Foundation is not giving teens too much credit. The Foundation seems to have expectations for young people and most of them are expectation starved. The current notion of preserving someone's self esteem is based on the false premise that if we continually tell people they are beautiful and accomplished, they will somehow be beautiful and accomplished. Too few adults, and consequently virtually no young people, know or are willing to admit that true self esteem comes from true accomplishment and accomplishment comes from doing, not from being told. By holding out expectations, the Foundation creates genuine goals and genuine accomplishments. The information Ms. Brownlee provides is interesting and valuable, but so much of this information and similar works by other authors has been touted as excuses for poor performance and for further relaxation of already unenforced rules and expectations. I have told my students many times that they are the most deprived generation America has ever produced and not because they lack for material wealth, but because no one expects anything of them. My response to Ms. Brownlee would be, thank you, but only an idiot would think that teenagers and adults are the same. That is not the issue. The issue is adults not acting like adults and teens not being given the opportunities to mature. So, Ms. Brownlee, we also know that an amoeba will react to light and temperature. Who cares? In the end, does that make it a better amoeba? Or excuse it from maturing? Our young people have become so objectified, rubricized and digitized that everyone seems to have forgotten they need to be humanized. So no, the Foundation has not given teens too much credit, but it should definitely ask more of our adults.
10. I am not familiar enough with the projects to make a judgment at this time. Perhaps you could provide me with more in depth information about the projects before I answer this any further.