Notes from talk on "Educating heroes: Implications for the heroic
tasks of self-education", a talk given at Seattle University, March 2001.
These very rough notes were converted to html with minor changes on Nov.
6, 2001. Comments welcome. Please email them to kagan@lemoyne.edu.
1.
Thanks are
due to the Ernest Becker Foundation and the Seattle University Department
of Psychology for sponsoring the talk.
2.
Heusler’s
inamonoma principle (the principle which explains everything, even itself)
– Tie Heusler's critique in to the desire for one answer which will solve
all our problems; the need to resist the lure of the inamonoma (connect this
to the negative motives of stupidity and slavishness in the B&D of Meaning)
3.
The general
and overwhelming problem – violence, misology, seems to be that something
is a miss and the favored solutions may seem to be inamonomas like
a.
"standards for students" (SATs, Regents,
etc.)
b.
"family values"
c. standards for institutions and teachers (outcomes assessment, etc.)
4.
The issue
of over determination.
a. Cultural changes, family changes, different student populations, different role models, different media, economic structures, interest based elements (test making industries); media attention to violence.
b. The role of future shock; the danger of LORE centered education; even what worked with yesterday's students may fail with today's e.g. new techniques for cheating [the freak out with the computer's in some public/private schools . . .
5.
What I am
proposing is not an inamonoma, it's a look at altering some contributing
factors which may improve our chances:
a. EB's work on esteem, the nisus for heroism and death-denial as motives
b.
the tie in
of these in three historically enduring precedents of education:
1.
Some Greek
(And later Roman)
2.
Asian martial
arts (in the context of Confucian ideals)
3.
Some Jewish
education as explicated by RMBM
4.
ALL of the
above respect learning, teachers, and learners; have some of them as heroes
(Socrates, Epictetus, Hypatia; Musashi, Osensei, Ng Mui; Akiba, Hillel, Brurria)
5. The hoops analogy from the website the need for alternative
solutions that do NOT violate EB criteria of respect for Learning, learners
and Teachers
a. alternative
schools
b. acknowledgment
of learning as a legitimate profession at all levels; with true respect
for diversity of learners and teachers
c.
more voluntary
support for independent learners, independent schools, home schooling . .
.
d.
"digression"
on money and esteem in this culture
e.
honor, and
big $$$ for teachers [including librarians] and students ["digress" again
on the number of my college students who have to work, some of them full-time,
while going to school; contrast this with support of scholars in the Jewish
community of RMBM], including independence increasing not decreasing for
both teachers and students – rather than creating one big educational bureaucracy
which shapes education at all levels to the norm of the public schools today
f.
need to study
effective coaches
g.
not to abandon
children to their parents
6. Some things we can do : [continues on next page]
1. Those of us who teach and work with students should not hide our respect for teachers, learners and learning.
2.
Need to make
it clear to whose who look to us as models that we not only honor others educational
efforts, but that we show respect to our own (and others') educational projects (Like EB did, acc, to Leifer's Bio.)
3.
Need to support
organizations like the EBF concerned with heroic teachers and learners like
Ernest Becker.
|
The following is from
the February 2001 Newsletter of the Ernest Becker Foundation (see their
web site at Lecture Respect plus Cultural Heroism leads to Excellence.
For example, if a culture highly esteems through symbols and action those
who do a particular activity well (e.g., throwing balls through hoops),
then hoop-ball-thrower-throughers will become cultural heroes. Their art
will be practiced and supported (people will put up hoops on their homes,
schools will organize teams, children will practice long hours at ball-hoop-throwing),
and that culture is likely to produce the best hoop-ball-thrower-throughers
in the world. So, if you want excellence in an activity like education,
the culture needs to respect those involved in the activity (students and
teachers). In my book, Educating Heroes,
I applied Ernest Becker's depth-psychology of heroism to some issues in
philosophy of education. I posted the above to my web site as
a partial summary of what I found. In the March 22 lecture, I intend
to review how these findings were suggested by applying a Beckerian approach
to exploring three classical ways of educating (classical Greek, some Asian
martial arts, and classical Jewish (as described by Maimonides). I will
then compare these classical ways with what many are trying to do now
to improve the present states of affairs in contemporary education. If
time permits, or perhaps in the informal session on the 23d, I hope to
show how one way of accomplishing the heroic task of self-education is
presented in Helen Dewitt's recent novel, The Last Samurai (Talk
Miramax Books, 2000), which takes Greek, Asian, and Jewish elements seriously,
while it addresses (among others) issues central to Becker's work. The March 23 afternoon roundtable
is from Note: Educating Heroes is out
of print but photocopies of the entire work are available at cost from
the EBF (206) 232-2994. Both events are co-sponsored by
the EBF and the Seattle University Department of Psychology. |