Character and Realization of Potential
We all know that even if we wished to we could not avoid influencing the character of our students as we teach and work with them, hut we seldom take time to contemplate the kind of influence we actually are having. No doubt some intuitive recognition of the need to he aware of what we are doing here and perhaps to he more circumspect in doing it lies behind much of the current effort to make our courses more student-centered. However, this is at best an oblique approach to the problem, and, while more direct approaches have the disadvantages that quality of character may be neither definahle nor learnable, and that to dwell on the vagaries of character development may divert attention from the acquiring of essential knowledge and skills, still, recent events in our national life and the reports of analysts working with young Americans in the 17-26 age group are such as to urge us to examine more thoughtfully our own roles in the character development of students. Psychoanalysts like Michael Maccoby and his colleagues a t the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, Robert J. Lifton of the Yale Medical School and Frederick S. Perls. founder of Gestalt T h e r a ~ v .have identified certain of character that often are reinforced to the detriment of the individual bv the educational svstem. In discussing this matte; these analysts wbuld distinguish between "active" and "centerless" individuals or tendencies in one individual. The active individual has a strong sense of self. He is predictable in that he is committed to people and ideals. He is self-directed, hut cooperative, seeing himself in control of his powers, able to give expression to his talents and meaning or "life" to persons and things. The centerless individual has no "home or rootedness." Typically he is either alienated and competitive, or depressed and in need of constant stimulation. Fully committed to nothing, he is a "protean" man, substituting many masks for an authentic self. Under the influence of our culture and suhjected to the stress of our educational svstem. individuals havine centerless tendencies may experience a virtually irrev&sihle reinforcement of certain ootentiallv debilitating character qualities. For example, if nearly ail formal learning is acquired through highly stimulating competitive situations, the alienation-competitive character in many of these individuals and the "compulsive consumer" tendency in many others may become controlling. For the former group, winning may now emerge as all important, and these individuals may reach the point where they would rather win than understand or be right, or where they become so anxious about losing that they feel worthless, alienated, or paranoid except in moments of victory. For the compulsive consumer group, the search for excitement, entertainment or novelty-anything that provides an immediate "turn on"-is the only alternative to depression
editorially speaking and boredom. These individuals have learned to key themselves u p for exams, t o become happily involved in what is expected of them, but when left alone, their doubts, misgivings and fears arising out of an inability to understand or to accept themselves, drive them to depression. While the preceding descriptions undoubtedly are exaggerated, many analysts working with our young people and others observing the society a t large feel that the centerless personality may he the rule rather than the exception in this country today. If this is true-and it takes little imagination at least to suspect some centerless character qualities in ourselves and in many of those around us-then surely there is reason to try to help students avoid the enervation caused by the character defects many of them would appear to he susceptible to, even while recognizing that neither our efforts nor educational methods in general can guarantee development of healthy character. Supplying such help may not be as difficult as might first appear for, despite outward appearances to the contrary, a great many students come to college-and even to graduate school-sensing that something may be very wrong in the way they have learned to think and act. Many seem to be hoping, possibly even looking, for something more satisfying-an enlightened code to live by perhaps, a cause worthy of their finest effort, a relationship that will reveal that deeper humanity they hear so much about hut have never realized. If there is a substantive guideline to assist us in our endeavors here it must he based on recognition that the centerless character needs to find in himself the will and desire to accept what he is and to manage his own life accordingly. Perhaps we can find advocacy in the time-tested principle that inherent in every individual are certain powers and potentialities; that the individual through effort can learn what these are, and how to develop and make use of the powers he possesses; and further, that there is sufficient variety and need in the world that the powers and potentialities of all healthy individuals can he used in the betterment of man and to the fulfillment of the individual. We are chemistry teachers, not psychoanalysts or psychologists. Our primary charge and challenge is to help our students develop their intellectual powers through knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of the material world as exemplified hy the principles of chemistry. We are neither prepared nor disposed to examine or evaluate the psyches of students entrusted to us, but as responsible and enlightened individuals who have elected to share in the education of young people we must do all we can to help them realize and give full expression to their true potential.
WTL
Volume 50, Number 9, September 1973
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