On leading students into and out of identity crises
We collected a lot of language from students and faculty in the various feedback forums about “listening to diverse perspectives,” “valuing diversity,” and “learning to work with people with different backgrounds and beliefs.” We seem to have a sneaking suspicion that by confronting opposing viewpoints, students will have to examine and even challenge their most dearly held beliefs and assumptions, and as a result they will become better people: having challenged and examined their commitments they will feel more confident in them, and be more motivated to work on behalf of them. But they will also have more insight into – and sympathetic understanding toward – people who don’t share those same commitments. At a recent SoGE meeting, we talked about how we want our students to be able to talk to a businessman with dollar signs in his eyes about the climate implications of his newest venture; we want them to be able to travel to Morocco and encounter vastly different attitudes toward gender, and react by wanting to learn more about the culture they are in, while becoming more reflective about – but not necessarily less committed too – their own feminist principles; we want them to be able to reason with Donald Trump supporters without storming out or throwing punches (okay, maybe that’s aiming a little high).
This all reminded of some literature mentioned by Michael Cholbi at one of the year-end pedagogy workshops sponsored by E&D. He introduced us to the language of William G. Perry, a mid-20th century Harvard education professor. (A chapter by Perry from the 1970s can be found at the end of this post.) Perry’s scheme of intellectual and ethical development for college students is based on his work with Harvard undergraduates, which he undertook over several decades (1950s-1970s). The “scheme” is summarized here:
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The basic flow is from Dualism (“Authorities know the answers, we just have to read what they tell us to”) to Relativism (“Everything is relative; everybody has their own opinion about what is right and they are all pretty much equally valid, I guess” – how many students do I know who are stuck at this stage!), to – if we’re lucky – Commitments (“I’ve made commitments, but living authentically entails constantly examining them. I must be wholehearted while tentative, fight for my values yet respect others, believe my deepest values to be right, yet be ready to learn. This is simply what an examined, authentic life entails.”)
Perry himself was ambivalent about the application of his descriptive scheme to some kind of “prescriptive program intended to ‘get’ students to develop” (Perry, 107). I tend to agree that there is probably not a way to prescribe, instigate, and then assess this kind of development. Perry did come around, however, to the idea that “teaching and curriculums [could] be optimally designed to invite, encourage, challenge, and support students in such development” (107). In particular he saw the value of understanding faculty mentors who could observe and sympathize with the growing pains involved in moving from one stage to the next.
Perry puts it this way:
In the poignant realization of our separateness and aloneness in these affirmations, we are sorely in need of community. Our mentors can, if they are wise and humble, welcome us into a community paradoxically welded by this shared realization of aloneness. Among our peers we can be nourished with the strength and joy of intimacy, through the perilous sharing of vulnerability. (97)
Another favorite quote:
It is in the affirmation of Commitments that the themes of epistemology, intellectual development, ethics, and identity merge…. Commitments structure the relativistic world by providing focus in it and affirming the inseparable relation of the knower and the known. (97)
It should be possible to use language from “Perry’s scheme” to articulate the goals we have been tossing around of having students “stretch themselves,” “listen to diverse viewpoints,” etc, in order to “find their own voice” or “recognize themselves as actors in their own narrative.” Instead we could say – perhaps more assertively, with the force of social science research backing us up – something like:
We strive to have Commitments, and to fearlessly examine them throughout our lives. Endeavoring to have agency in the world, we will continue learning, reflecting and acting on our commitments in college and beyond.
Fearless and critical self-examination is certainly one of those experiences that would lead to the above outcome (I’m muddling my assessment terms now – apologies, I am not a real social scientist).
All this talk of commitments rang a bell, and I found that it nearly precisely matches the wording of one of the anonymous suggestions we gathered from our faculty in the early stages of gathering feedback on GenEd. I’ll end with someone else’s more eloquent articulation of my own thinking. When asked what LC graduates should have learned, one faculty member replied:
They should know what their values and commitments are. They should be able to engage and genuinely listen to and collaborate with people who have different commitments and values. And they should be able to think critically about how individual actions, social behavior, and public policies support or contradict those values and commitments. In other words, LC alum should know what they believe in and have the tools to stand up and take action to create the kind of world in which they want to live.
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