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themselves
ARTHUR
T.
JERSILD
When
Teachers
Face Themselves
A PUBLICATION OF THE
HORACE MANN-LINCOLN INSTITUTE OF SCHOOL EXPERIMENTATION TEACHERS COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
Digitized by the Internet Archive in
2012
http://archive.org/details/whenteachersfaceOOjers
When
Teachers
Face Themselves
ARTHUR
T.
JERSILD
Professor of Education, Teachers College
Columbia University
TEACHERS COLLEGE PRESS TEACHERS COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
COPYRIGHT 1955
by teachers college, columbia university lc:
55-12176
FOURTEENTH PRINTING, 1970
MANUFACTURED
IN
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
The
'work underlying this book was done under the
auspices of the
Horace Mann-Lincoln
Expemnentation
in association
Institute of
School
with Dr. ]ane Beasley and
with the assistance of Miss Leah Noble, and Dr. Ann Walsh.
Ann
Green, Dr. Jeanne
Foreword
T
book is Professor Jersild's most recent study of the relation between self-understanding and education. His discussion centers on the teacher whose "understanding and his
acceptance of himself
any
effort
is
the most important requirement in
he makes to help students to
know
themselves and
to gain healthy attitudes of self-acceptance." Professor Jersild sees
no short cut
to self-understanding, but his interviews
and
conversations with hundreds of teachers suggest to him the seriousness of their search for intimate in
what they
are doing.
and personal meaning
All too often, this quest
is
under a heavy burden of anxiety and loneliness and Professor Jersild describes
what
this
means.
He
pursued hostility.
stresses the
hopefulness, however, and not the discouragement in teachers are doing to face and understand themselves.
argument
is,
in
most
instances, inferred
what His
from the kind of
data a psychologist naturally seeks. These data are reproduced in considerable detail in the
Appendix.
In the text
vn
itself,
FOREWORD however, the author does not hesitate to speculate with great sensitivity
upon
the
more
subtle meanings of the data.
Professor Jersild writes with disarming lucidity about abstruse conceptions.
He
many
has the courage to discuss forth-
rightly important topics that are generally skirted in discussions about education.
I
believe that
When
Teachers Face
Themselves will help any but the most recalcitrant reader to face himself
more
realistically.
Stephen M. Corey, Director Horace Mann-Lincoln Institute of School Experimentation
Vlll
Contents
foreword
Stephen M. Corey
vii
CHAPTER ONE Introduction
1
Background and Theme Major Concerns Underlying Sources
CHAPTER
2
4 11
TWO
Anxiety
20
Anxiety as an Essential Concept in Education The Nature and Some of the Conditions of Anxiety Some Theories of Anxiety Anxiety and Fear Perception, Feeling, and Impulse in Anxiety Anxiety in Childhood and Youth Teachers' Reactions to the Personal Implications of Anxiety
25 27 29
40 42 53
63
CHAPTER THREE Loneliness
65
Conditions Contributing to Loneliness Loneliness and Self-Alienation Homelessness
66 74 75
IX
7 5 3 1
CONTENTS
CHAPTER FOUR
Meaning
78
Education and the Search for Meaning Helping Others through Facing Oneself Hopelessness and Despair The Paradox of Meaninglessness
80
91
Religion
95
Humility
96
The Search
for
82 88
CHAPTER FIVE Sex
100
CHAPTER
SIX
Hostility
106
Externalized Hostility The Feeling of Being Abused Using the Arts of Love to Accomplish the Purposes of Hate Hostility in Education Attitudes toward Authority Hostility, Guilt,
The Right
to
and Anxiety
110 1 1 1 1
1 1
1 1
120
Be Angry
123
CHAPTER SEVEN Compassion Love of
Self
125
and Love for Others
So Small -in the
Infinite
—And Yet So Great BIBLIOGRAPHY
Scheme of Things
130
—
134 135 139
APPENDIXES
Appendix A Appendix B Appendix C Appendix D Appendix E
145 149 159 162 169
When
Teachers
Face Themselves
ONE
Introduction
X
.his
tions, hopes,
book
is
concerned with the
satisfac-
strivings,
and heartaches that pervade the teacher's
which
and work. It deals with aspirations and struggles numbers of teachers have described and which all of us It
searches into meanings
centers
on
in other
teachers,
walks of
we
most of what
life.
the help of teachers.
It
The
This
is
these findings a personal
helped prepare
it
large share.
While
it
contains applies to people
it
has been written for teachers with
research findings underlying
noted mainly in the Appendix.
on what
seek to embrace.
all
life
The
mean from
are is
a personal point of view.
document, for the voices of those
speak through
it
emphasis in the text
it.
Many
who
of them, in the
course of the study, glowed with the dedication of their calling, bristled
with anger, trembled with
troubled souls can weep.
Many
of
fear,
wept
them unveiled
as
only
a little of
the pride and shame and tenderness people usually keep con-
cealed
from one another, and they
also
voiced hopeful ex-
WHEN TEACHERS
FACE THEMSELVES
They spoke
pectations of things to be.
in
the language
through which people reveal their weaknesses. This
is
also
the language of humility and courage and kindness, through
which people reveal
The
their strength.
author and his associates have also tried to speak with
this voice, for the
concerns expressed by the people in
Many of them said Many spoke of their
study are our concerns. anxious
—
so have we.
too, have tasted the loneliness that flows
the tides of
life.
Many
said
are involved in this search.
unless
we
they have been loneliness
through so
—we,
many
—we,
they search for meaning
Many
this
of
too,
expressed faith and hope;
shared this hope, there would be no point in under-
taking a study such as
this,
and
it
would be
foolish to remain
in the teaching profession.
Background and Theme This book
is
one of
a series of writings carrying the
that education should help children and adults to selves
The
theme
know them-
and to develop healthy attitudes of self-acceptance.
present volume considers
what the concepts of self-understanding and self-acceptance mean for teachers. It discusses concerns teachers feel they must face in their personal and
when they examine the meaning of what and what they teach and when they seek to share the
professional lives
they are
personal problems of their pupils.
This
is
the fourth installment in a continuing inquiry.
The
inquiry began with a theoretical statement concerning the
meaning of the concept of selfhood for education (24). 1 The next phase of the inquiry was centered on children what
—
1
141.
Numbers
in parentheses refer to items in the Bibliography,
pages 139-
INTRODUCTION they think and
feel
about themselves and what problems
when they try to help children to face The inquiry into the role of the teacher was
teachers encounter
themselves (23).
continued in a third undertaking, consisting of a workshop for high school teachers of psychology (27). Other writings
by
the author dealing with theoretical and practical considerations related to the
ography. All of the
work
with children, in
theme of
this
book
are listed in the Bibli-
— conferences with involved— book
that has preceded this
teachers, in the literature
has emphasized
dealing with the theoretical issues
one
The
fact.
self is the
and acceptance of him-
teacher's understanding
most important requirement
to help students to
know
emerged again and again
mean
in
any
effort
he makes
themselves and to gain healthy
attitudes of self-acceptance.
students
in classrooms
The crucial question that has What does this effort to help intimate, personal way in the
is this:
in a distinctly
This book endeavors to explore some of
teacher's cnvn lije?
the issues that must be explored
when we
seek an answer to
this question. It
has
become
work
increasingly clear over the years, as the
in this inquiry proceeded, that self-understanding requires
something quite different from the methods, study plans, and skills
of a
education.
"know-how"
sort that are usually
Methods and techniques, group work,
and other devices are useful can be used merely so used, they
as a
at certain points.
role playing,
But these edu-
primarily needed.
They
kind of external manipulation.
When
cational techniques are not
we
emphasized in
what
is
do not further and may even defeat the purpose
are seeking here.
What
is
needed
is
a
more personal kind
of searching, which will enable the teacher to identify his
own
concerns and to share the concerns of
his students.
WHEN TEACHERS
FACE THEMSELVES
Major Concerns In this
book we have drawn heavily on an empirical study
(described on pages teachers.
Among
of the personal concerns of
13-19)
by
the concerns voiced
the problem of meaning.
Many teachers have
amine the significance of the
work they
ing of the education.
life
name
are doing in the
agree that
all
it
felt a
They
these
is
need to ex-
is
of scholarship and
that learning *is good.
a fine thing to
scholarly pursuits, to do research, to acquaint the
our cultural heritage.
partici-
they are living and the mean-
These people do not deny
They would
who One of
those
pated in the study, two especially stand out.
encourage
young with
accept the idea that education
should help people to use the methods of science and to think
But they recognize that
logically about current problems.
these undertakings are often rather empty. that
is
There
much
is
meaningless along the academic road, from the kinder-
garten to the doctor's degree.
Much
of
what goes on
consists
of scholarly motions, lacking the vital spark of personal concern.
The
search for meaning
is
not a search for an abstract body
of knowledge, or even for a concrete is
a distinctly personal search.
intimate personal questions:
What values am in
I
seeking?
my relations with
What
What,
others, in
body of knowledge.
The one who makes in
really counts,
my existence
my work
it
for
I
me?
as a person,
as a teacher,
is
concern to me, perhaps of ultimate concern to me? teaching
It
raises
of real hi
my
seek to transmit the meanings others have found in
and that is good as far as it goes. But young people to discover meaning, have I perhaps evaded the question of what life might mean to me? How
their search for truth, as
I
try to help
INTRODUCTION can
I,
my
in
study and
my
that engage
my
teaching and in the countless topics
thought, find a
This search for meaning is
true that the lessons
of course, an ancient search.
is,
we
home within myself?
are taught in school
It
and college
usually center on objective facts rather than personal mean-
They
ings.
tell
us
how man,
through the
into rhe nature of things as he looks
the
world
teachers
which he
in
who
tell
upward and outward upon
now and
But
lives.
ages, has penetrated
then, also, there are
Through the ages, voices calling man home to himself,
us to look inward.
have again and again been
raised,
upon him once more and what and why am I?
calling
to face the timeless question:
When the teachers in this study raised the ing,
they raised
therefore ironic
Who
question of mean-
human race. It is many have said concern-
a question as old as the
when
people say,
as
ing the theme of this book and of the works that preceded that here tion is
that the learner should seek to
is
not
something "new," that the "latest" idea
is
new
at
all.
know
tence goes back to the time
when
he
first
wonder, and to dream. In each human taken up anew when seeks to discover the this timeless search
matter?
when
What difference
he
the
first
does
it
same search
begins to ask:
Many
child joins in
What
selves.
But questions such
it
are old,
move on
in
think they have learned even to stop asking them-
again as long as there
The
does
children learn to stop
putting them to others, and there are many, as they
who
is
groping endeavors,
why. Each
make? Such questions
but they are not alwavs welcome.
school,
his exis-
began to think, to
life this
a child, in his first
how and
himself. This idea
meaning of
Alan's inquiry into the
it,
in educa-
as these are
question of meaning arises
upon himself and
also
bound
to arise again
and
is life.
when
when
a teacher looks
inward
he looks outward upon the world
— WHEN TEACHERS He
about him.
how
sees
FACE THEMSELVES
boldly scientists proceed to explore
how
the properties of the physical world and yet
among them
great ones
inner
He
life.
can move
He
himself.
by
we now
sees that
at supersonic
speed does not make
are
speed
him
then realizes that such to find himself, or to lose
sees the fabulous strength
breaking the secret of atomic power
science has increased the average life
man
life
He
when he
turns
many
span by
years
been somewhat delayed?
A teacher's questions about meaning do
not become
from the world of science
even here questions of meaning
religion, for
asks:
sees that medical
acquire meaning, or acquire richer mean-
ing, because death has
sistent
by Does
has gained
—and then he
he also have the strength to face himself? but he asks: Does
man
have machines in which a
—and
easier for
it
baffled the
questions concerning man's
to the
arise.
less in-
world of
According
to one recent investigation, about nine out of ten people in the
population that was studied professed religious
only about one to
make
(46).
in six held to these beliefs in a
a vital difference
We
can ask:
portions typical?
emerge
if
we
say and
know
after the
What do
total
way
be. Actually,
be as
it
is lip
them?
How
service?
lines?
life? it
pertains
We
It is
How much of what they much
is
scholarly posture,
strikes the correct pose
and
How
do not
vidual scholar and teacher himself.
to
much is interwoven with their know what the answer would not matter much what the answer might does to others. The thing that matters to the indi-
proper of
life
these people formally profess, and
mean
manner of an actor who
recites the
seemed
own
Were the tests adequate? Are these proWhat findings analogous to these might
actually
it
that his
but
could make a similar study of scholars and edu-
cators, asking:
what does
way
within the privacy of
beliefs,
from
is
what
these questions
this distinctly personal
mean
for
point of view that
NTRODUCTION
many
of the teachers in the present study raised questions con-
cerning the meaning of their
The
search for meaning
personal search.
It is
some
is
learning.
real
much
a distinctly
said,
it.
and people can draw en-
of what
is
done
in the
his
ing in the forest. But a at
underlying
this
in
it,
all,
and
book)
uneasy
name
of
encounter with the problem must take
own
place in the privacy of each person's
no clearing
can be
It
others, like them, feel
life.
Even
D. H. Lawrence (37) has pointed out, the meaning can embrace within
although
a scholarly enterprise,
extent, with others,
But the
been
an important aspect of
couragement from the fact that about the emptiness of
and works.
lives
as has
is,
not just
the pursuit of learning shared, to
own
known little
it is
self
may
clearing
is
be only a
then, as a
person
little
clear-
infinitely greater than
better (according to the philosophy
to dwell in such a clearing,
with things that count, than
just to
and to work
go through the
It is better to have such a home in the wilderness than move through life in a mechanical way, unreached, untouched, and unmoved bv what one learns and uninvolved in
motions.
to
what one
teaches.
The second is
pervasive concern with
anxiety. Chapter
Two
discusses the
which
way
this
book
deals
anxiety permeates
the lives of teachers and their pupils. It takes the position that the concept of anxiety should be regarded as an essential topic in all teacher-training
One
sponse teachers cussed.
programs.
of the most impressive features of this study
Many
made when
at
the
once related
and were eager to explore
it
its
was the resubject of anxiety was dis-
to their personal experience
meaning
in their
own
lives.
Others, of course, did not see the subject as having any rele-
vance for them.
The
writer had not expected so
much
readiness to face the
WHEN TEACHERS
FACE THEMSELVES
problem of anxiety. While there
we
of us, fense
also build defenses against
to see anxiety as
is
A
selves.
not
are
it,
something that
similar defense
logical problem,
There
anxiety in the lives of
is
to see
is
as
it
and one
common
affects others,
many who seem
de-
not our-
an interesting psycho-
own
pervasive reality in our
as a
all
lives.
to succeed quite well, for rather
long periods of time, in avoiding direct awareness of their
There
anxiety.
are others
who do
not recognize anxiety ex-
cept dimly, at times, through feeling vaguely depressed, edgy, driven, irritable, or uneasy, or through having a tendency to
become angry about
when or
little
things, or to feel abused or rejected
mildly criticized, or to hurt others, or to feel impatient,
restless,
or defensive, or through
a
need always to be
right,
or to say something, or to impress everyone, or to be endlessly
busy and on the go.
The
who
people
have the courage to face anxiety and
who
its meaning accept the fact that they, like all some degree anxious. They recognize that many teachers and students have lived with the burden of anxiety day after day, scarcely knowing that the burden might be
seek to explore people, are to
lightened.
offered ities
They
them
realize that schools
little
in the
way
and colleges have usually
of help except academic activ-
that sidestep anxiety, or perhaps even increase
When that he
a
is
it.
may
person pursues the subject of anxiety, he
among
those
who
have been involved
struggle against awareness of being anxious. this struggle
may
to
all
persons, involved in a
in a
On
appearances be well-organized, busy
round of meetings, conferences, home-
the surface, such people lives.
long
Those who make
work, community projects, research, and professional productive
find
They may
may
activity.
appear to be leading rich and
say that they like their teaching,
that they find educational pursuits rewarding.
But
if
the inner
— INTRODUCTION dimensions of their personalities could be examined,
would show
a large
amount of
tension, appearing, say, in dis-
discouragement,
proportionate resentment, competitiveness, efforts to impress or to placate, to play the safe.
Many
many
game and
to play
it
of them, in their anxiety, probably place excessive
demands on themselves and
others, have inordinate needs for
approval, persistently avoid writings or discussions dealing
with subjects that carry unpleasant reminders of something they do not wish to face, or
now and
then are swept by intense
waves of anger against themselves, or by unaccountable longings or feelings of depression.
There as
many
or,
the
realization that
one cannot
They may know that they all
mankind and
others, ture,
— —
on the other hand, people who have faced
persons in this study indicated, wish to face
are,
by
they
may
it
be able to
without becoming anxious.
share the experience of anxiety with
realize that,
living with
live
by accepting
it
in themselves
and seeking to understand live
with
less strain
its
and tex-
and learn to be
more compassionate in their view of themselves and more humane in their relations with others. There veal
are other pressing personal concerns that teachers re-
when they push
aside the curtain behind
which people
the teaching profession, as in other professions,
conceal their inner selves.
Many
in
commonly
teachers expressed a deep
loneliness, a loneliness related to the fact that so often (amono-
among others) there is little mutual understandcommunity of feeling with associates or even with "friends." Many were disturbed by their hostile tendencies tendencies that prevail in the life of everyone. There are few teachers as
ing or
unforbidden, frank and direct channels for expressing hostility in education,
but
much
tion or scholarship
is,
of
what
is
indirectly, a
done
in the
name
means of venting
of educahostility.
WHEN TEACHERS
FACE THEMSELVES
We fall in with institutionalized expressions of hostility when, for example,
we
unhesitatingly inflict hurt on others, get chil-
dren by the millions into situations where they will
we know
advance they will
in
fail,
know
stances are such that they cannot help but
from the pain of
fit
in education
failing again
when we
fail
—and
that the circum-
fail
and get no bene-
We vent hostility
and again.
who are less inwhen we join in the
snobbishly scorn those
telligent or less learned than ourselves, or
antagonism that often prevails between colleges of
and schools of education. Such
liberal arts
institutionalized manifestations
of hostility were not, however, the central concern expressed
by
the people
who
took part in
who
hostility was, to those
this study.
identified
problem, and they wished to face
it
it,
The problem
of
a distinctly personal
as such.
Closely related to the problem of coming to terms with hostility
pressed
is
—
a
an even larger concern, which
concern about emotion
a desire for insight that
upon
many
in general.
teachers ex-
Many
expressed
might enable them to draw more freely
might enable them to know what their Freedom to think is a perennial issue in but an even more significant issue in the lives of
their feelings, or
real feelings were.
academic
many
is
life,
freedom to
feel:
freedom to allow feeling to surge
within themselves without being compelled to snuff
deny
who
it; is
freedom
not afraid?); of hate (who
tenderness
(who does not
own
is
not swayed by
possess it?); of joy
does not have some capacity for
not
it
out and
to experience the full impact of fear (and
it? )
;
it?); of
(what person
of compassion
(who does
a rich potential store?).
Other concerns expressed include the burden of conformity, under which many labor (in the name of being sensible and socially well adjusted)
to live
up
;
the oppressive load imposed
to an impossible ideal 10
—
a
by
striving
kind of striving some edu-
INTRODUCTION cators cultivate as though
were
it
when
have in "being themselves" wields authority or
who
many have
concerns
a virtue; the difficulty
dealing with someone
to them, a
is,
many
who
symbol of authority; the
in the sphere of sex.
In an earlier book the writer, in commenting on the poignant
way
children reveal their problems to teachers they
trust, said that
one can hear through them a cry of pain, a plea
and eager
for help arising from millions of troubled people. Perhaps this
statement seems extreme, but
same statement can
When
as truly
it
was true
in
its
context.
The
be made in the present context.
one works individually with teachers and gives them a
chance to share
a little of that secret
burden each of us usually
bears alone, one can hear this same cry of pain and plea for help..
This does not mean that pain
ant condition in their
But
it
does
mean
that
is
the only or the predomin-
They know many who usually
lives.
joy as well as pain. find
it
necessary to
conceal their troubles and their hurts would like to find an
opportunity to share them.
The hopeful
thing about
it is
that they have the courage to
utter this cry and to phrase this plea. Indeed, students in edu-
cation courses are prepared, under appropriate circumstances, to reveal needs in their personal and professional lives that
schools of education have barelv to ask for
more than
begun
to meet. Students dare
colleges following the usual safe and im-
personal channels of education have dared to give.
Underlying Sources
THEORETICAL ROOTS While
this
book centers on personal concerns,
several theoretical areas.
chology, particularly
as
One it
of these
pertains to
is
it is
rooted in
developmental psy-
growth and 11
to the con-
WHEN TEACHERS
FACE THEMSELVES
ditions influencing the emotional lives of children
As one
studies developmental psychology,
through observation of people, one quently of the power of the
This impulse
is
human
in
through writings or elo-
being's impulse to grow. it is
strong also in a
chance for
the inner dimensions of personality.
Develop-
how
mental psychology reveals the business of bruised,
adults.
reminded often and
strongest in the young, but
older people, for as long as there
growth
is
and
life,
how
is life
there
is
boldly children venture into
often they are frightened, hurt, and
how strong the surge of life is. From developmental we learn how great is the human capacity for
psychology self-repair.
This capacity
been deeply wounded
A second
persists
even though
one stage or another
at
influence on this
person has
book comes from psychoanalytic
psychology, especially from the works of Sullivan (48-50), and
a
in his life.
Fromm
(9,
Horney (15-19),
10) and the
light these have
shed on issues raised in an earlier day by Freud (6-8), Adler
and Jung (29-31). These writers have greatly increased our understanding of the difficulties that beset a person in his (1),
growth and
There
to
They
draw attention to resources sources of hope on which man can rely.
search for himself.
are important areas of
analyst or a therapist can
genius
also
who
can show
human
work on but
how
a
for
experience that an teacher cannot.
The
the full range of the benefits of
psychoanalysis and psychotherapy might be incorporated into along.
How-
areas are already obvious.
There
the regular educational process has not
many of much in the
common
ever,
the
is
professional
also
A
be made part of the
come
work of a good therapist work of the teacher.
that can
book comes from meaning of man's existence,
third influence that runs through this
philosophical inquiries into the
especially those of Kierkegaard (32-36) 12
and Tillich
(52, 53).
INTRODUCTION Kierkegaard's explorations of the concept of selfhood, the
human
nature of the
struggle, the conditions of man's anxiety,
the personal character of meaning, and the subjective dimen-
much that is now in the forecontemporary thought. The issues with which he
sions of truth have anticipated
front of
dealt have been
echoed again and again by the students,
teachers, and colleagues likewise, voices
many
who
took part in
this study.
when he
of their concerns
Tillich,
speaks of
man's predicament in facing the problems of emptiness and rejection and inquires into the nature of man's courage to be himself.
THE EMPIRICAL STUDY Several thousands of people helped in one in the
undertaking
written
this
statements,
book
The
discusses.
opinion
lengthy
polls,
way
or another
help came through
con-
personal
ferences, and the sharing of clinical experiences.
Some
of the
were colleagues and students who have undergone
participants
the experience of psychotherapy and
might mean
discover
what
of those
who
engaged
in part-time
this
who
in their
have been seeking to
work
as teachers.
Most
took part were students (in large part, teachers or full-time graduate work) in courses
taught by the writer. In these courses a position familiar to those
who
cussed. It
An
have read earlier writings in is
was
dis-
reviewed briefly here:
essential function of
child to
this series
know
good education
himself and to
grow
is
to help the
growing
in healthy attitudes of self-
acceptance.
A
teacher cannot
make much headway
in understanding others themselves unless he is endeavoring to understand himself. If he is not engaged in this endeavor, he will continue to see those whom he teaches
or in helping others to understand
13
WHEN TEACHERS through the
bias
FACE THEMSELVES
and distortions of
his
own
fears, desires, anxieties, hostile impulses,
The
unrecognized needs, and so on.
process of gaining knowledge of self and the struggle for and self-acceptance is not something an in-
self-fulfillment
It is
It is not something he does to or for something in which he himself must be involved.
The study
involved four procedures: a survey of reactions
structor teaches others.
them.
to the idea of self-understanding as a basic aim in education; a series of personal conferences; a as revealed
by written responses
survey of personal problems to an inventory;
and ratings
and evaluations of lectures and discussions dealing with various aspects of self-understanding.
the findings that emerged
The book draws
heavily on
from these procedures;
however, bound by them.
Response to the Idea of Self -Understanding.
—
is
not,
In the
first
it
survey, over a thousand teachers and students of education
were asked to express
their views
anonymously concerning
the concept of self-understanding in education and
its
implica-
They were also asked to indicate what they was needed most if education for self-understanding was become part of the education of every child. They had a
tions for them. felt
to
choice, for example, of asking for workshops, of indicating that
more
attention should be given to distinctly personal and
emotional aspects of the teacher's work, or of expressing a desire for personal help
(The questions used
through means such
in this part of the
as
group therapy.
study and a tabulation
of responses appear in Appendix A.)
Eleven groups, numbering from 33 to 149 and totaling 1,032 persons, responded to these questions.
The groups
in-
cluded classes taught by the writer, a few classes taught by other instructors, and the faculty of a high school.
In
all
these groups, the concepts of self-understanding and self14
INTRODUCTION acceptance had been discussed, but the emphasis varied considerably according to the views of the instructor.
The
time
given to the theme ranged from a short twenty-minute talk in
one group to
The
many
class sessions in
some of the
others.
responses of these people indicate that the idea that
the school should least, a
promote
selj -under standing is, in
theory at
very acceptable one. In most groups over ninety per
cent indicated that they thought
it
was "promising and worth
trying."
Likewise, nine out of ten people indicated that the idea that
understanding of others
tied to self -understanding was, to
is
them, a "promising" and not an unpleasant or distasteful concept.
Fewer
people, but
cated that the idea
"most significant"
The most sisted of
two thirds, indiof self-understanding was or might be still
from one
in their
own
half to
professional education.
significant feature of this set of questions con-
four options relating to the kind of personal help the
people desired or the kind of personal commitment they
would make
in an effort to put this idea to
was workshops,
much
or very
special courses, etc.
little
work.
One
option
(which might mean very
involvement). Another option was pro-
vision for discussing personal
and emotional
issues
(implying
a personal commitment but permitting the participant to keep
himself at arm's length in the discussion).
psychological services for others.
A
third option
This option,
if
was
chosen
alone, suggests that the person sees self-understanding pri-
marily
The
as
something other people should be helped to achieve.
fourth option was personal help such as might be gotten
from group therapy.
Of
all
the options, this indicates the
commitment and
the deepest involvement.
permissible to check one or
more than one of the four
strongest
15
It
was
options.
WHEN TEACHERS
When
a
FACE THEMSELVES
count was made of those
who
chose either the
option of therapy or the discussion of personal and emotional issues,
four
or both, the
fifths of the
tallies
showed
that
from about
half to over
people in the several groups had selected one
or both of these options.
In six of the eleven groups, over
seventy per cent made such a choice. Between about one
and one half
in
fifth
each group indicated a desire for help such as
might be gotten from group therapy.
What
do these figures mean?
They mean
that at least as far as verbal assent
concerned,
is
people in groups such as those canvassed here lean strongly
toward incorporating the concept of self-understanding into the educational program.
The
climate of opinion
is
also favor-
able to the idea that this will require teachers to face personal issues in their
own
lives
—through therapy or — manner
discussion of
"personal and emotional issues"
a
that differs
how many
people really would
in
from the usual academic work.
The
figures
do not reveal
take the initiative in
becoming deeply involved
of their personal and emotional concerns visions for
if
the necessary pro-
we know how
doing so were made. Neither do
many would
take the plunge into therapy
were actually
offered.
The
in a discussion
if
the opportunity
writer's general observation has
been that when some kind of group work with
a personal
reference, explicitly planned to foster self-understanding,
offered in
body represented
Due
is
connnection with courses attended by the student in this study, there are
many volunteers. when actually
to a variety of factors, such as reluctance
faced with an opportunity and difficulties in timing, scheduling,
and
staffing, the
number
is
usually smaller than that of
the people who, in this survey, indicated a desire for such
work. Moreover, 16
this
kind of group activity, while
it
seems
INTRODUCTION to be significant, also falls short of a systematic
under the guidance of
group therapy
a professionally trained therapist or
analyst.
We
cannot assume that other groups
would respond
institution
in a teacher-training
groups have responded.
as these
Groups of undergraduates probably would react differently. People who have had no contact with the concept underlying this book and no interest even in taking courses or in coming to talks that might deal with this concept would probably respond differently. It
does seem to be significant, however, that a favorable re-
sponse was shown, for example, by a group of high school
(Group B) who had had only
teachers
brief contact with the
writer's point of view, at a meeting held at the school at the
end of
a
busy day, and by
(Group G), who had no
a
group of curriculum majors
special reason for favoring a dis-
tinctly psychological approach.
Personal Conferences.
had indicated, like to
—
It
was suggested
who
that those
in the first part of the study, that
they would
have some personal help might come once or oftener
for personal conferences of an hour or
they had in mind.
some of them
more
to
tell
what
Eighty people came to be interviewed,
several times.
In the interviews, which were
who had had considerable experience in individuals and who had been involved to some
conducted by people counseling
extent in the practical aspects of therapeutic work, most of
them revealed themselves during the five years
this
quite openly and freely. In addition,
study has been in progress, several
hundred other people, students writer, have disclosed
some of
in
their
courses taught
by
the
problems and reactions in
written individual and group reports.
The
Personal Issues Inventory.
—We were now ready 17
for
WHEN TEACHERS
FACE THEMSELVES
The
the third part of the study.
records of interviews were
examined for recurring personal problems and concerns, and the language those interviewed had used in expressing their
The problems and con-
problems was extracted from them. cerns revealed in
all,
but
it
into a
fell
was decided
number
of categories, about thirty
to focus attention
on the nine
that
appeared to receive the greatest emphasis: meaninglessness, loneliness, sex, attitudes
toward authority, freedom to
feel,
feelings of homelessness, feelings of hopelessness, hostility, distress
because of discrepancy between the "real"
demands and expectations imposed by
On
self
self
and the
or others.
(shown in Appendix B) was devised which included thirty-six statements of problems or symptoms, four in each of the nine the basis of the interviews, an instrument
This instrument
categories listed above.
after as the Personal Issues Inventory.
On
is
referred to here-
the left side of each
page, statements of personal problems were given as examples
"What
of
there
own
On
the right side of each page
"My
was provision for responding under the heading, feeling, as
myself,
is
heading. it's
others have said."
that
The
consider what I'd like to understand about
I .
.
Several choices were offered under this
."
respondent could check "I've
one of the areas
in
which
standing myself"; or, "IVe ularly see
it
as
I
felt this
an issue on which
not been an issue in
my
felt this
probably need help
life"; or,
I
way, but
I
need help";
way, and in
under-
don't particor,
"This has
"I'm not sure."
This instrument was administered to two groups of students (a total of 229 people) near the
end of the semester, after the
students had had considerable opportunity to
become
ac-
quainted with the theme underlying this book and to develop their attitudes
toward
it
through
cussions, individual conferences, 18
class discussion,
and the
like.
group
Most of
dis-
these
INTRODUCTION people were graduate students at Teachers College, Columbia
The
University, working for a master's or a doctor's degree.
median age was over thirty
who
specialized in a
years.
They
represented people
wide range of educational
areas,
including
curriculum and teaching, guidance, nursing education, psychology,
religious
education,
physical
teaching of social studies, language larger of the
people
who
who were
responded to the Personal Issues Inventory
relatively unselected
in
who
either elected or
who from
Originally they were a
group within the student body
were required
developmental psychology.
people
The many
carrying other responsibilities.
cannot be called a random group. whole,
the
art,
and others.
two groups met on Saturday and included
part-time students
The
education,
arts,
They were
as
a
to take a course not, in the main,
the start were seeking to ally themselves
with the writer's views concerning the importance of the concepts of self-understanding and self-acceptance.
(One of
the courses had not originally carried the writer's name; the listing in the
catalog had merely stated, "Instructor to
Announced.")
However, by
the
time
the
semester
Be was
nearly over, these people had had an opportunity, over a period of
many
weeks, to become familiar with the underlying
idea and to accept or reject
Ratings and Evaluations.
body of
it.
—There
is
an additional large
material that has influenced the content of this book,
including ratings and evaluations growing out of
many
work with
small groups and with several large classes, reactions to
specific topics introduced in classes
(including the topic of
anxiety), lengthy personal documents, and the like.
19
TWO
Anxiety
O,
urs
is
is
called an age of anxiety,
an age of anxiety. Ever since
stress
man
and so
1
it is.
Each age
has been affected
by
the
of conflicting tendencies within himself, he has been
He
anxious.
threats that
he also bears
Man
is
is
not only apprehensive about dangers and
overhang
his physical existence; as a
this additional
burden: he
is
human
being,
anxious.
capable of a kind of uneasiness, apprehension, de-
pression, disturbance, or distress arising
from conditions that
threaten his existence from within. These feelings are usually tied to
unresolved problems of the past.
A
person resides on
1 This chapter, unlike most of the others, does not take its departure from empirical findings but introduces, instead, considerations pertaining to the concept of anxiety which, in the writer's judgment, need to be brought into the mainstream of educational thought. At the end of the chapter some findings pertaining to the way teachers react to this concept and its implications are commented on. brief summary of the main quantitative findings is given in Appendix E. I am indebted to Professors Millie Almy and Stephen M. Corey, Dr. Jane Beasley, and Professor Anne McKillop for counsel and encouragement in connection with the preparation of this chapter and those that follow.
A
20
— ANXIETY an island between what has been and what
can glory in
his past
or dread
The
lives,
it.
— or rue
it.
He
is
yet to be.
can dream of
past lives in the present within
He
his future
most people's
often in the form of unresolved problems. These prob-
lems produce anxiety, especially
when
person does not rec-
a
ognize them for what they are.
One danger man
shares with other creatures
him from the time he
certainty that faces
Life and death are close companions.
is
to
all,
some people, and
young and
brings
life
life
leads,
and death
moments of
is
terror
old, at times of accident, catastrophe, or
other great danger. But
We
it
linked to a
Wherever
death comes close behind. This closeness of terrifying to
is
born: he will die.
it is
not a chief source of our anxiety.
learn to live with the prospect of dying, for usually the
He who moves most fully into life feels most removed from death. He who is least afraid of living is least afraid of dying. And he who has had a reasonprospect
ably
is
quite remote.
full existence
back and
would
relive his past,
not, at
any stage along
life's
way, go
even though he might wish the
stages had been different
and even though he
new stage brings him nearer More conducive to anxiety
earlier
realizes that
each
his end.
than the certainty of physical ex-
tinction are the conflicting tendencies within man's inner
life.
These psychological forces that contend with one another
may
appear in
his
conscious awareness, or they
may
reside
mainly in what some have called the unconscious, hidden, or unrecognized reaches of
At
the level of awareness, for example, one
that to live
and
may
oneself. still
his life.
means to venture; but
leave regret, guilt, or
Yet
if
a
venture
may recognize may go wrong
some other tendency
to punish
one does not venture the impulse to venture
persists, so that
some people
are as disturbed 21
by
conflicts
WHEN TEACHERS
FACE THEMSELVES
concerning what they have not done
as others are
concerning what they have done.
An
by
conflicts
example of
this ap-
peared in the present study: some people said they
felt guilty
about sex experiences they had had, while others said they
To
guilty about sex experiences they had not had. to strike it
safe
some
—and
On
sort of balance
live
felt
means
between venturing and playing
to find a perfect balance at
times
all
is
impossible.
the level of awareness there are also other issues that
To
produce
conflict.
struggle
between dependency on other people and the
live
means to
There
struggle.
is
a
need to be independent; the need to be accepted and approved
by
others and the need to assert oneself and to live a
one's
own, even
those
whose good
if it
life
of
hurts others or brings disapproval from
will
is
To
very important.
live
means
to
face the inevitable and often conflicting promptings of love
and
hate,
producing tensions so strong
at times that
some
people will not take the risk of loving and dare not boldly risk feeling anger,
and so
live uneasily in a state
To
calm built upon inner tensions.
live
means
of outward also to seek
acceptance and to face the possibility of rejection; to love
and to take the chance of losing what one
loves.
These and
many
other alternatives are tied to living, and conflicts are
bound
to arise.
These
Some
conflicts
human
part of the price
theories of anxiety,
size the role
his parents
may
lead to anxiety,
which
is
beings must pay for being alive.
which
will be noted later,
of a person's relations with others
when he was
a child
—and
he has concerning himself. But anxiety
empha-
— notably with
consequent attitudes is
linked to a larger
set of circumstances than those involved in the relations be-
tween as
a child
human
later (if
and
his elders.
relations can be,
he uses 22
Even it is
if
these relations are as
good
likely that a person sooner or
his capacities for
thinking and doing) will be
ANXIETY subject to anxiety because of the complexities and the hazards
The
involved in his relation to himself and to the universe.
theory here
is
his faculties
and
human
that a
being,
by
virtue of the nature of
and predica-
limitations, will face possibilities
ments that will lead to anxiety.
Man is finite, are right or
wrong, wise or
foolish.
made
In a decision he
have taken another. In
his plans for the future
course, but, as he sees
it,
it,
in
he might
he elects one
elect another.
The
actively he avails himself of the right to choose, the
more
he might
still
He
responsibility he will feel for the course he chooses.
make
faces
that, in retrospect,
the past he took one road, but, as he later sees
more
He
yet he has a vast amount of freedom.
innumerable alternatives; he makes choices
will
And
choices that have consequences he cannot foresee.
the greater the realm of choice, the greater the possibility of conflict
between contending
desires
and impulses within him-
but the
possibilities for aspiration
self.
Man's powers are
limited,
and action within the
limits are
He
almost staggering.
is
igno-
rant, in a relative sense, yet his capacities for discovery are
tremendous.
He
his limitations,
has every reason to be
pride are very great. as
is
He is easily tempted
equal to every occasion
make
it
as
he views
—
to regard his
powers
yet reminders of his inadequacies
impossible for him to rest easily in this delusion.
tempted, especially
tist
humble
yet the possibilities for smugness and for false
if
he looks upon himself
He
wise scien-
as a
and a scholar, to regard the knowledge he has gained, and
the theories he has brought forth, as final and conclusive
he can never escape from uneasy doubts. soars
and
leashed, he
truth
—
his is
As
his
—yet
imagination
powers of observation and reasoning are untempted to conclude that he has found absolute
yet he can never fully avoid reminders that often he 23
WHEN TEACHERS
FACE THEMSELVES
When he contemplates what man's mind has accomplished, he is tempted to believe that if men would only use their reason and properly discipline their
is
fallible
and
foolish.
minds, they could achieve endless and unlimited progress and
conquer pain and fear
name of
often, in the
—
yet he
is
reminded that men have
truth and right, perpetrated cruelty and
error.
Even when men make pacities, then,
the most ambitious use of their ca-
they are faced with their
more towering
their pretensions
own
and the
flnitude;
become, the more likely
that such reminders will produce conflict and anxiety. conflict
and anxiety are
inevitable, for
man
it is
Such
so constituted
is
that he will put his faculties to use and seek even to transcend himself.
But anxiety such as the foregoing, which a person faces more or less openly and knowingly as an aspect of the uncertainty that goes with living, is not the most burdensome kind. People can learn to take these tensions more or less in
They
stride.
As we have
will
said, a
even seek experiences that involve person
who
into situations that are likely to arouse anxiety.
welcome from
this anxiety,
tive in
disturbing in
its
effects
ful in the effect
of
less direct
ways not
it.
on
origin.
This
is
is
anxiety
the kind of
by unresolved problems of the past, which, by the person himself, leave him
fully recognized
unable to face the conditions of his realistic
more destrucand more harm-
one's dealings with others
and more hidden
anxiety generated in
has
will not
painful consequences,
its
on the growing personality, it
He
move
but neither will he try to run away
order to avoid
life in
More
conflict.
seeks to live will actively
way
because he
is
at
life in a
dition prevails, for example, in a person 24
forthright and
odds with himself. Such
who
a
suffers
con-
from
ANXIETY irrational guilt
when heaven and
forgiven him.
Such
earth have long since gladly
when
a condition prevails
a person har-
bors illusions about himself that the realities of again and again to expose
him
teacher appears to
knowledge but
is
—when,
life
for example, his
to spring
from
threaten
work
a desire to
as a
advance
actually a vehicle for competitive drives, or
the expression of an insatiable need to gain recognition and to
overcome
The
a feeling that he
anxiety that
conflicts involving
is
is,
really,
most disturbing
something
false
is
not
much
good.
that arising because of
or devious, including pre-
cariously maintained pretenses concerning oneself and others.
This kind of anxiety
is
especially
burdensome because
it
is
necessary to be so careful in keeping up the pretenses and in
avoiding circumstances that might expose them.
from the
fore necessary to avert one's eyes
anxiety
It is
there-
fact that the
exists.
Much
that goes
on
anxiety of this kind.
in
To
education say this
really a kindness, for although
it is
is
a
means of evading
may sound
harsh but
is
painful to face anxiety,
it
is
even more painful to try endlessly to evade
it
does not
it
or to pretend
exist.
We will have more to say concerning this and other specific aspects of anxiety. deal
more
At
a later point in this
chapter
we
will
particularly with theories of anxiety and with dif-
ferences between anxiety and fleeting episodes of fear, anger,
and other emotions.
Anxiety as an Essential Concept in Education
The concept as
of anxiety has for a long time been regarded psychopathology, important in psychiatry, psychoanalysis, 25
WHEN TEACHERS and
psychology.
clinical
be regarded
and
as a crucial
It
FACE THEMSELVES has also, in recent years,
come
to
concept in the practice of medicine
in the profession of nursing.
Increasingly, theologians
and clergymen are recognizing the importance of anxiety in
work of the pastor (42, 52). The concept of anxiety should be regarded
the
cept in education as well. Anxiety the personal lives of teachers, and the lives of
we
all
is
it
pupils. If in education
as a
key con-
an important element in penetrates variously into
we
try to evade anxiety,
thereby try to evade the challenge of facing ourselves;
we
evade an essential task and make added trouble for ourselves
and others.
The theory underlying this book is that to teach we must know the people we teach and the obstacles to learning (and teaching) that exist. To know the people we teach we must recognize that anxiety plays, or may be playing, an important role in their lives and in our own. The one who cannot learn is often an anxious child. The one who will not learn is often an anxious child. The rebel, the cut-up, the scatterbrain, the is often hostile child, the child who is aggressive and defiant only not those who tremble who are It is an anxious child.
—
anxious.
For
know those whom he teaches and their must know himself and seek to face his own
a teacher to
anxieties,
he
anxieties.
This, in brief,
is
the rationale for bringing the con-
cept of anxiety into teacher education. Attention to this concept
is
at least as
important in teacher preparation
as the atten-
tion that has been given to academic aspects of educational
psychology. In the writer's judgment, as the attention that has been given to
it is
just as
important
methods of teaching and
supervision or to such subjects as the history and philosophy
of education. Actually, these disciplines do not rule out the 26
ANXIETY
The
treatment of anxiety.
some depth,
The philosophy
meaning of
face anxiety
—
studied in
things,
is
of education,
in large
if it
really cuts
measure an endeavor to
especially the anxiety of meaninglessness
emptiness.
Yet, as
taught in a
way
and
we know, history and philosophy can be
that
is
almost purely academic, with
attention to the personal implications of the
no
if
in part a history of man's efforts to evade or
is
to face anxiety.
into the
history of education,
little
human
or
strug-
gle.
The Nature and Some
of the
Conditions of Anxiety
Anxiety
may
arise as a reaction to
anything that threatens
one's existence as a separate self or that jeopardizes the atti-
tudes one has concerning oneself and one's relations with others.
Anxiety occurs both
as a
response to a threat and as a
way
of alerting a person to evade or be on guard against anything that
might threaten an
irrational attitude or style of life
has adopted in trying to cope with the problems of his
Anxiety can be described
it is
of distress, uneasiness,
or disturbance arising from some kind of stress
disorder,
within the personality. that
as a state
he
life.
The
essential feature of this stress
is
due, at least in part, to inner or subjective conditions
from external or objective threats and danWhere there is anxiety, there is some kind of threatening
as distinguished
gers.
condition,
dislocation,
within the
self.
beset
by
Such
conflict
within himself
—
tween what he
rift,
disharmony,
a condition prevails
or
inconsistency
when
a
person
is
between opposing impulses and tendencies when, for example, there is a difference be-
is
and what he pretends to be and 27
his pre-
WHEN TEACHERS tense
one
threatened in some
is
who knows
ignorance; or he
but
who
There
way
is
(he
is
eager to see himself as
the answers, and then
eager to see himself
is
uneasy because he
feels
those
FACE THEMSELVES
is
reminded of
is
bitterly
his
generous person,
as a
ungenerous toward
question his generosity). a state of anxiety
when, for example,
a
person
skill-
fully uses democratic techniques to ingratiate himself with
them (possibly for ends
others, or to manipulate
worthy), but cannot bear to face himself
as
that are very
an ordinary
human being whose motives are rather mixed and include many very undemocratic leanings. There is anxiety when a on rigorous scholarship happens
person's insistence
on
in part,
a desire to
openly to face doubts
now
and needs to see himself,
this
and then,
to rest,
dominate others, but he cannot bear
as
in spite of
uneasy
motivated only by an interest in
scholarship.
There
is
anxiety
when
the aggressive people
who
habitually
dominate educational meetings suspect (by the intensity of their impatience
when
other people are talking), but dare not
face the thought, that they talk so
much
because of
pulsion to talk rather than because they have so
a
com-
much
to
contribute. There is anxiety, likewise, if those who do not talk, but would like to, feel tense and aggrieved but do noth-
ing about
There
it.
is
anxiety
good fellowship
as
when
a person
who
puts on a
show of
he dashes from one meeting, conference,
who appears to be living a life companionship, now and then is disturbed by
party, or tea, to another, and that
is
full
of
the deep current of loneliness that runs through
his life.
There is anxiety when a person, claiming that teaching to him means everything, uneasily, once in a while, is confronted with the thought that 28
his
work does not
satisfy all his needs
ANXIETY and that perhaps something important
is
missing from his
life.
These
are only a
producing conflicts
few of
may
which anxiety-
the situations in
occur, and each of these situations
represents, of course, only a surface manifestation of a deeper conflict.
Some Theories
of Anxiety
Theories concerning the origin of anxiety have already
been touched on. Prominent among these are the theories ad-
vanced by Freud (8), Horney (18, 19), and Sullivan (50). Other theoretical contributions have been made by May (38),
Mowrer
(in
Hoch and Zubin
has discussed conditions in
anxiety and has
made an
[14]), and others. Tillich (52)
human
existence that underlie
interesting distinction
between anxi-
ety as a psychological and as a philosophical and religious
problem.
Many
of Kierkegaard's works of over a hundred
years ago, notably the book entitled (35), deal with anxiety as
it
The
Sickness unto Death
appears in connection with a
person's struggle for selfhood.
FREUDIAN THEORIES Freud advanced several conjectures concerning anxiety.
One
of these related the origin of anxiety to separation from
the mother in infancy. has
on
many
ramifications,
The concept
of "separation anxiety"
and some features of
later in the discussion of loneliness.
it
are touched
Freud's classic
work
on anxiety (8) deals with the phobia of horses exhibited by little Hans; underlying this phobia, according to Freud, was anxiety stemming from ambivalent attitudes toward his father
—
attitudes associated
with an Oedipus complex. 29
WHEN TEACHERS
FACE THEMSELVES
horney's theory more space will be given to Horney's theory of anxiety than to any other. There are several aspects of In this chapter
anxiety that Horney's theory does not touch upon, and leaves
many
questions unanswered (as do
ety, including the present one), it
but
it
accounts of anxi-
all
has a merit that makes
especially meaningful in this book: there
tinctly
personal about
it.
A
it
is
who
person
something
reads
dis-
Horney's
account of anxiety with an open mind cannot help recognizing
Moreover, many of one's
characteristics within himself. sociates are reflected in
Homey holds up The account
to
one
human
that follows
is
way
as-
or another in the mirror
nature in her discussion of anxiety.
The
abbreviated.
certain liberties with the theory
by applying
The
people in the educational profession.
writer has taken particularly to
it
theory applies to
others equally well, of course.
and Attempted Solutions.
Basic Anxiety
Horney's concept
(18, 19), there
linked to a child's helplessness
world that
is
hostile, unjust,
is
a
to
kind of basic anxiety
when he
has to deal with a
and unaccepting and with an
environment that blocks the free use of
his
energies and
Conditions that interfere
hinders his efforts to be himself.
with the child's freedom to grow do not his elders are malicious
—According
arise
simply because
or harsh or wish to do him harm.
They
may occur partly because these persons are so absorbed in their own problems or in their own anxieties that even though they love the child as much as it is humanly possible for them to love him, they
still
do not have the inner freedom to
notice,
accept, and encourage him.
A but
child in such circumstances it is
is
thwarted and frustrated,
dangerous for him to show anger openly or to fight 30
ANXIETY back. So he develops certain defenses and "strategies" in cop-
own
ing with his
inner response to the threats that are visited
upon him from without. While
may be the moment and under
these strategies
only measures he can possibly take at the
the circumstances to protect himself against a forbidding en-
may become
vironment, they
they function
when
like
so strongly entrenched that
acquired personality
Anxiety
traits.
these strategies are threatened, as happens
She
take.
when they
one another.
conflict with reality or with
Horney
arises
three major directions such strategies
lists
also indicates that
may Nor are
may
they seldom appear in pure form;
the same person
use different strategies in different cir-
cumstances.
these
ways of behaving,
in themselves,
signs of disturbance.
One
may
strategy a person
environment that thwarts his
own
right
is
move
to
with others, to outdo or to
rise
employing he
is
medium
this strategy
a person in
becomes
a person
He
seeks to control, to
above them. In the scholarly
world, the strategy of aggressiveness using scholarship as a
become
Such
against.
and competitive.
aggressive, expansive, vie
develop in coping with an
his striving to
may
take the f©rm of
for outdoing others.
A
person
pursues learning not primarily because
curious (although at times his curiosity will be strongly
aroused), or has a practical need for knowing, but as a means of vying with others.
of such a neurotic
One can
find
employment of
much apparent
scholarship at
all
evidence
academic
levels.
Another strategy thwarted in
his
may
that
striving
for self-realization but
who
openly to oppose those
be used by a person
thwart him
withdraw, to remain aloof and detached. strategy does not
move
is
to
A
move
is
who
is
unable
aivay, to
person using
this
freely and fully into the center of 31
— WHEN TEACHERS
FACE THEMSELVES
things with his feelings as well as his actions and his thoughts
now
now
yielding,
now
resisting,
now comgo his own way-
cooperating,
peting, free to like or dislike, to join or to
according to the promptings of
his
own
purposes and desires.
Instead, he remains emotionally uninvolved.
may
world, a person's bookishness
when
it is
a
way
his
His thoughts flow freely but
person
who
of meeting
A
his conflicts.
one who, so to speak, teaches with
A
be a form of detachment
not something spontaneous or freely chosen but a
means of side-stepping heart.
In the scholarly
detached teacher
head but not with
his feelings
do
is
his
not.
has developed a strategy of detachment as
problems
life's
blooded, although he
is
likely,
is,
emotionally, rather cold-
sometimes, to give the opposite
appearance. In the sphere of sex, for example, the detached
person full
may go from one
affair to
But the sexual
of passion.
another as though he were
exploits of detached persons
are actually rather pathetic and futile, involving tional closeness ing.
with another person and
little
Although such people seem potent, they
emotionally impotent.
When
a person
who
no
real
emo-
sharing of feelare, in a sense,
has a capacity for
entering into a deeply affectionate relationship with a
member
of the opposite sex reads or hears about the exploits of these
detached people, he
may
be impressed.
capacity for relatedness to others
may
A person with a strong actually have
at all for the fly-by-night affairs of the
He may
even see himself
as
is
talent
comparatively impotent until he
recognizes that the detached individual, quate,
no
detached individual.
who
seems so ade-
a compulsive and probably also a very lonely and
unhappy person.
A
third strategy that
environment
may
be developed by a child in an
essentially hostile
and thwarting
is
the strategy
of compliance, conformity, self-effacement, and appeasement. 32
ANXIETY
The
compliant one moves with the
bucking
who
person
like the
it
becoming
yields, instead of
a
to
may meekly
what he should
of
resorts to aggressiveness.
He
who
uses
bystander like the one
the technique of detachment.
compliant one
tide, so to speak, instead
In the educational world, the
accept everyone
He may
learn or think.
verdict as
else's
be so compliant that
he gobbles up any and every kind of academic fodder. But this
compliance
means of
a
is
form of
self-protection, not a
self-fulfillment.
means of
Strategies such as the foregoing, undertaken as a
may appear in many forms and are likely The same person may use compliance as a
protecting oneself, to be mixed.
maneuver
in
one
situation, aloofness in another,
But what
siveness in yet another.
To
expedients.
is
important
is
himself, so to speak.
playing an assumed
The
them
—
a
way
of
his
he were free to use
in an unfettered
When
He
denying
would
enterprises he
his resources
and to draw on
manner.
though they were an
life as
—and not driven endeavor appease — he begun The — order a
or to
essential part of his
to compete, to
withdraw,
a process of alienation
has
from
%
Idealized linage.
as the foregoing,
In
to support strategies such
according to the Horney theory,
will resort to all kinds of additional expedients. his
is
person goes on to incorporate these strategies into
nature
himself.
role.
devious ways he has adopted are not
enterprises reflecting his "real" self if
and aggres-
that these are
the extent that a person lives according to
these strategies, he
undertake
is
He
a
person
will use
powers of reasoning and imagination to convince himself
that his strategies are an intrinsic part of his real nature.
may see
his
competitive striving for
power
possesses a kind of primitive strength in a
as
He
evidence that he
world where one 33
— WHEN TEACHERS must
bite or be bitten.
he
this light
that
it is
—
surrender his
he succeeds in seeing himself in
moment, from painful
competitiveness has a compulsive quality
his
not he
compliance
When
spared, at least for the
is
awareness that
FACE THEMSELVES
who
his
drives, for
he
own
He may
driven.
is
tendency to give
in,
see his
to efface himself, to
and wishes and to calculate always
rights
what others want and wish
—
as a sign that
who
generous person rather than one
is
he
a noble
is
and
impelled to appease
others in irrational ways. If he acts according to the strategy
of detachment, he it
alone
—
may
one
see himself as
a strong, reasonable individual
who
is
able to
go
with a lofty talent
for disinterestedness and objectivity.
According
Horney, there
to
is
tendency for
a
such as these to become integrated into what she
The
"idealized self."
idealized self
through which a person gains a
is
a
strategies calls
the
kind of pseudo-identity
false rationale
and integration
of strategies and "solutions" he has been driven to adopt in his dealings
with others. This idealized
might be called the
or potential,
real,
a person's actual resources for
Gershman
self differs self,
from what
which represents
growth and
self-fulfillment.
(11) refers to this idealized self as the epitome of
a person's defense system. It
is
important to bear in mind that these "solutions"
(which do not
really resolve the
problem) have
to outlast the occasion that required them.
meekness, for example,
may
persist
become an adult and, when viewed
own
A
a
tendency
strategy of
even after a person has objectively,
is
a strong
right.
Likewise, a tendency toward aloof-
ness and detachment, or
toward compulsive competitiveness,
person in
his
can become so strongly entrenched ditioned personality
youth and
as
trait,
so to speak
an adult retains the 34
in
trait
childhood
—
—
as a
con-
that the person as a
even though the external
ANXIETY conditions of his
no need for
have changed and, objectively, there
is
any longer.
it
Anxiety as
life
Discrepancy between Real and
a Result of
—Anxiety comes
into this picture, according to
Ideal.
Horney, when
which a person has built as a defense in an compromise with life and in a desperate need to pro-
a false system, effort to
tect himself against hostile circumstances,
threatened.
Anxiety
threatened.
It enters
between the
ancies
aroused
is
when
by
into the picture
idealized
tampered with or
is
a neurotic solution
is
virtue of discrep-
image and the
real self.
There
many ways in which such threats may occur. Anything that is false is, of course, precarious. There
are
danger of being exposed others.
There
is
—
to oneself
and
the healthy part of his nature
unhealthy attempts
For example,
a
come
person
and self-effacing
of revolt against this will feel that he
who
is
is
tries to
rage.
the promptings of
cope with what he per-
world by being meek, com-
of dealing with
to feel a surge
life.
At
times he
being put upon, that others are taking adInstead of always enjoying a
glow of subservience, he
feels defiant.
if
into conflict with his
bound now and then
way
vantage of his good nature. virtuous
person uses
at solution.
ceives as a predominantly hostile pliant,
also, incidentally, to
also the possibility of collision if a
a mixture of incompatible strategies or
He may
But when he
feel the
feels this
will
have moments
when
own
is
likely to externalize
compulsion to appease.
feel
abused by others and
self
who,
fail
He
to recognize that
in effect, has invited others to take
if
directed outward
—
—even
is still
a
is
it is
than
likely to
he him-
advantage of
"good nature." But the upheaval of anger even
he
beginnings of an upsurge of
way, he
his difficulty, to see himself as a victim of others rather as a victim of his
the
is
his
if brief,
and
very disquieting thing:
it is
35
WHEN TEACHERS
FACE THEMSELVES
incompatible with his view of himself suffering, compliant sort of person.
as a charitable,
So
long-
involves, as indi-
it
cated above, a threat to his idealized image of himself. threatens to
unmask and expose
And
has so carefully cultivated.
It
the picture of himself that he this,
according to the theory
The
here under review, produces anxiety.
may
anxiety
be so
horrible and terrifying to the appeaser that he plunges into
the task of banishing any impulse to be defiant.
He may
solve with desperate fervor to let his compliance sees as the
We
good part of
have in such
his
nature
—
re-
—what he
take possession of him.
person a form of goodness that
a driven
is
demonic.
who
In like manner, the one
and
who
uses aggressiveness as a strategy
has built an image of himself as an enterprising,
strong person may suffer from misgivings that become threatening. A compulsion to compete and to achieve power over others is a very cruel kind of compulsion. A which is different from person who is driven to compete energetic,
—
competing is
a slave.
in a zestful,
There
this slavery.
—
way is in bondage. He when he would like to rebel against times, too, when the promptings of
spontaneous
are times
There
are
compassion and friendliness, which are potential within every
human
being, clash with his aggressive need to
people.
This
is
is
When
threatening.
to hold a view of himself
as
a
person
someone who
is
move
who
against
struggles
hard suddenly
confronted with impulses within himself that are "soft/'
there
is
assumed
There
conflict. self
is
conflict
between
and tendencies that belong to
and that might have been
his idealized
his potential
a part of his real self.
or
self,
So he be-
comes anxious.
The detached with threats to example,
may
person
his
is
also
detachment.
bound,
A
now and
then, to
meet
young man or woman,
for
be moved toward emotional closeness with a 36
ANXIETY person of the opposite sex even though, as noted
may
or she
danger of
he
previously have entered into sexual relations in
an unfeeling way. There
volvement
earlier,
in
danger of deep emotional
a
is
There
this relationship.
Now
falling in love.
is
in-
perhaps even the
such an involvement, moving
the person toward intimacy and tenderness and perhaps an
attachment to another,
all-out emotional
from standing aloof and apart
different spectator.
To way
So there
some people
something very an unconcerned
and conflict and anxiety.
collision
is
who
is
like
have carefully cultivated
a
detached
of living, the threat of becoming intimately involved
emotionally with another to almost
any means
to
so frightening that they resort
is
ward
off the threat.
They may
pre-
tend that they really are incapable of feeling deeply about
anyone.
If their
detachment
aggressiveness, they
may go
that he or she does not have feelings:
is
what
— every
a streak of
the other person
takes to really stir
it
up
their
not physically attractive enough, or has other
person has
his
own
means of supporting the need
between himself and others
—
a
to
may
be quite
brand of limitations
they are used by the detached person a
tell
and shortcomings. These shortcomings
faults real
he
combined with
is
to pains to
as
—but
an afterthought,
as
keep an emotional distance
need stemming from lack of
emotional closeness to himself.
One can sometimes tions
between
pupils
who
a pupil
see a similar
development
and a teacher
at school.
There are
have cultivated an attitude of aloofness, seeming
not to care about anything or anybody,
who
react with
seems almost a savage kind of hostility (for a time)
come
in the rela-
what
when they
Such a teacher wave of fellow-feeling, which
into the hands of a kindly teacher.
threatens to release in
them
a
they have sought to suppress.
The
pose of being aloof, remote and removed from others 37
WHEN TEACHERS and from the mainstream of
The detached still
person, for
a creature of
FACE THEMSELVES life, is a difficult
all his
Now
emotion.
one to maintain.
seeming lack of
feeling,
and then he may
surge of anger toward someone (and being angry
is
is
feel a
definitely
from being uninvolved), or he may feel a surge of tenderness for someone (and one cannot have both a feeling different
of tenderness and a need for aloofness and feel comfortable
There
about
it).
trickle
—and perhaps even
And
this is
The
armor through which
are cracks in his a flood
—
a
of emotion might enter.
threatening and produces anxiety.
person whose detachment takes the form of moving,
through scholarly pursuits, away from the personal into the impersonal, from the emotional into the intellectual, vulnerable.
He
suffers
also
is
from anxiety when someone or some-
home
thing threatens to bring
him
to
that he
is
using his
scholarly activities as a stratagem: he has taken flight from self into
One way
an ivory tower.
induced by
this threat
threat of exposure
is
is
to
people show the anxiety become enraged. And since the
so painful, they sometimes try to enclose
themselves even more firmly within their academic tomb. In the present study
it
was not
possible to explore, in a
when some-
systematic way, the theory that anxiety arises
thing threatens a person's idealized image of himself, for to
do
so
it
would have been necessary
to delve into the unrec-
ognized or unconscious aspects of the idealized image. possible, culties
It
however, to look into some of the recognized
was
diffi-
people have because of the demands and expectations
they place upon themselves.
A
large proportion of the people
showed
that they placed heavier
than they were able to meet.
who were
demands upon themselves
Many
revealed a lack of con-
fidence and assurance that they were 38
interviewed
worthy
in their
own
ANXIETY This was shown, for example, by the need constantly
right.
compare themselves with others and to assure themselves
to
that they
were better than
Many
others, or at least as good.
demands they were placing upon by complaining that others were demanding more than they could live up to. It is probably correct to assume that frequently, when people tell of the exorbitant demands others place upon them, they are attributing to others stern oughts and shoulds that they are imposing upon them-
indirectly expressed the
themselves
selves.
up
They
are saying, indirectly, that they are not living
to an ideal of
On
what they ought
to be.
the Personal Issues Inventory almost
two
thirds of the
people in two groups, totaling 229 persons, identified a dis-
crepancy between the selves as
real
and the
ideal
—between
them-
they are and as they think they ought to be
"one of the areas
in
which
I
—
as
probably need help in under-
standing myself."
This discussion does not imply that
They range.
definitely are desirable
when they
But the idealized image of
person, in striving to live
ideals are undesirable.
up
fall
within a healthy
when
unhealthy
self is
a
to an impossible expectation,
devotes his energies to unrealistic aims and, in the process, fails
to discover
Also,
by
self, a
person
and neglects to develop
striving futilely to live
may
find
it
up
his real strength.
to an idealized
image of
come to terms with with all human beings.
impossible to
ordinary shortcomings he shares
the
sullivan's theory Sullivan's theory of anxiety (50), like Horney's, takes into
account the concept of the developing
dependence on others. The
self
and the
child's self develops in
personal field in which there are persons
who
child's
an inter-
are significant
39
WHEN TEACHERS to his
FACE THEMSELVES
growth, and well-being.
life,
Sullivan, has
Anxiety, according to
significant in the child's interpersonal world.
ing on his attitudes toward himself, for his
The
"reflected appraisals."
according to Sullivan,
about him.
The
If others
The
toward the child have
these significant people
way, the
who
roots in the disapproval of people
its
is
attitudes of
a crucial bear-
self is
made up of
child's earliest appraisal of himself,
what others think and feel about him in a derogatory
in terms of
think and feel
child's attitudes
are
toward himself
will be derogatory.
attitudes that prevail in the child's interpersonal relations
become a part of the intrapersonal feature of his being and go into the making of what we call the self. When what Sullivan refers to as the "self-system" has been formed, anxiety
may
be aroused by anything that
even
if
the picture of self
is
is
alien to
it
or threatens
it,
and unhealthy one.
a false
Anxiety and Fear
One way
of clarifying the concept of anxiety
guish between
may
what
commonly known
is
to distin-
is
as fear
and what
be described as anxiety.
In this section
many
such distinctions are drawn.
the differences outlined may, to versial,
and so they
are.
insist that this is fear
some
The purpose
and that
is
readers,
in listing
Some
of
seem contro-
them
is
not to
anxiety, but to try to
com-
municate some of the meanings and experiences related to both fear and anxiety. a certain reader this, in
might
If
something
list
the present context,
distinctions
may
experience or
40
described as fear that
is
writer believes that
not a serious shortcoming.
help others to identify elements of their
assist
in clarifying his
is
as anxiety, the
even the
own
critic,
meanings.
through
The own
a negative process,
Moreover, even
if
one does
ANXIETY not fully accept
a
given distinction, one can
This point
a difference.
implications; and one
its
on
insist
a letter-perfect definition
meanings
until the
is
form of
—
There
resistance
at all.
the criterion of objectivity -subjectivity
is
.
dog advances toward me, and
snarling
On
fear.
—
I
This
get scared.
A
subjective.
is
that
is, all
dog
friendly or
is
instance there
is
sake, so to speak,
To
person has a phobia of dogs,
anxiety
—
anxiety
am
is
the
dog
but for what
danger ]rom 'without I
held in a safe leash, etc.
is
state this distinction
so
is
let
dogs touch off an irrational and unrealistic
complex of inner disturbance, regardless of whether ticular
A
as such.
the other hand, an important element of the threat
in anxiety
us say
Generally
objective, in the sense that there
is
an external danger that others would recognize
hit,
to
is
specific criteria that help distinguish
speaking, the threat in fear
a
of
and
from anxiety.
One is
it
concept becomes only an academic matter
some rather
are
way
to resist
to keep fiddling with
and ceases to have any personal significance
fear
recognize
labored here because one
is
responding anxiously to the idea of anxiety to avoid
still
it
not feared for
(this fellow
danger
its
own
symbolizes.
another way, fear
afraid as long as the
a response to a
is
a par-
In this
is
a response to
is a mean guy and might mean fellow is around);
pom within
(the presence of
an unpleasant person touches off strong feelings of
hostility, or
even an impulse to murder, and these are more disturbing than the physical danger represented by the
Yet another distinction
is
inating in his fears (although
he is
is
by no means
perfectly so), while
quite undis criminating in his anxiety.
frightened, and for
a superior
who
has the
good
mean person).
that a person tends to be discrim-
reason,
power
to
fail
when
For example, he
he
is
criticized
him or demote him. 41
by
On
WHEN TEACHERS the other hand,
may
body, he
if
he has
a
FACE THEMSELVES
deep need to be approved by every-
be seriously disturbed by criticism from some-
one whose opinion really does not mean much from
a practical
point of view.
Generally speaking, the response in fear tends to be proportionate to the external stimulus, while in anxiety quite disproportionate.
it is
often
After having been in contact with
dangerous germs, a person
is
somewhat
and takes pre-
afraid
cautions until the danger of infection or incubation
is
past.
But the anxious person may take elaborate precautions be-
yond
that.
Usually fear
"conscious" in the sense that a person rec-
is
ognizes and perceives quite realistically
him. Anxiety
what
it is
that scares
"unconscious" in the sense that the decisive
is
ele-
ment in the distress is frequently not recognized for what it As implied by the foregoing, there is a difference also
is.
in
the duration of fear and anxiety. Fear tends to be temporary; it
may
danger
last is
long and often recur, but
when
over, the fear usually subsides.
the objective
Anxiety, on the
other hand, tends to be persistent; the disquiet lingers even after the
danger
past or the obvious physiological effects
is
worn
(such as occur in intense fright) have
Other
off.
differences, in general, are that fear tends to be acute
and anxiety chronic; fear tends to be sive; fear tends to
specific, anxiety perva-
be localized, anxiety not
be fixed, anxiety more
so; fear tends to
fluid.
Perception, Feeling,
and Impulse
Many rough
in
Anxiety
distinctions
between fear and anxiety can be
made, but the meaning of anxiety 42
is
perhaps shown most
ANXIETY
when it is viewed in terms of the three classic compocommonly regarded as belonging to a typical emotional
clearly
nents
experience, namely, the perceptual
of the exciting event)
;
component (perception
the affective, or feeling, component;
and the impulse component (the tendency to
toward or
The
against, etc.).
changes that occur
move
bodilv (visceral and skeletal)
emotion are not
in
fight, flee,
now
the center of
attention.
In anxiety these three components are
less clear, less easily
than in what
we
identifiable,
and
upon
or in any of the other classic "emotions."
as fear
less specific
usually look
PERCEPTION
we
In the typical instance of fear (as usually defined), perceive is
not so
An
what
it is
clear,
we
and
are afraid of. In anxiety the perception
it
may
anxious person says,
etc.,
but
don't
I
I
be utterly unclear and confused.
know why. The
that excites the emotion
is
He may
feel
perception of what
it
is
There is no clear condition which he can attribute his un-
fuzzy.
or object or circumstance to easiness.
low, guilty, depressed, uneasy,
feel
uneasy and depressed and think that
he can perceive, or partially perceive, what the disturbing event
is
when
(as
he fixes upon
a
symbol, such
as a
dog
if
he
has a phobia of dogs; or projects his feelings, as an angry
person does
when
tributes anger to is
he does not see himself as angry but at-
someone
else
and then, so
seems to him,
it
angry because the other fellow has given him grounds for
anger), but, as the phrasing of the examples indicates, the
perception his
is
emotion
faulty. is
What
he perceives
as the
not really the "exciting event"
thing arousing
—
instead
it
is,
so to speak, the trigger.
As an example of
unclearness of perception 43
we may
cite
WHEN TEACHERS the anxious person
mild
show
so badly
who
within him:
on guard
so eager to perceive
disturbed
The
of disrespect.
lies
uncertain, so
him
is
FACE THEMSELVES
it
by
a
little
criticism or a
circumstance that disturbs him
is
because he
so sensitive, so
is
against rejection (and at the same time
it)
that a
little
rebuff from others puts
agony. There is, of course, an element of clear percepsomeone actually did make the casual remark he perceives as the event that caused him such agony. But this in
tion;
explanation does not take account of the condition that caused
him
become so deeply disturbed by it. would be possible to point to many examples of
to
It
a faulty
perceptual element in the anxieties of teachers and pupils.
who
teacher
grimace
who
anxious
is
may
already uncertain of himself
is
as a sign
see a little
of ridicule and feel deeply hurt.
may
A
A
pupil
perceive a minor question as a major
and so on.
insult,
FEELING
The
feeling
component
in anxiety, in contrast
anger or joy. in anxiety at
all,
his
is
An
also blurred or
extremely varied
with ordinary experiences of fear or
important thing about the Reeling element
that an anxious person
at least as far as
own
is
may not
view, feel anything but anxious (unless or until he
has acquired a good deal of insight into his
This does not mean, however, that there
One
"feel" anxious
he can discern: he may, according to
of the
many
feelings that
is
own
feelings).
absence of feeling.
betoken anxiety
is
a feeling
of fear, although in the sphere of feeling, fear and anxiety
made of the same psychological stuff. The by the anxious person may be very intense (as when a person is disturbed by a phobia) and it may appear in any of a vast number of manifestations, ranging from terror,
are not necessarily
fear experienced
,
44
ANXIETY uncontrollable fright, and horror to apprehension, foreboding,
uneasy anticipation, and the
One
of the
ways
like.
a person feels anxiety
The anger may range from
of anger. flaring of
bad temper or a deep,
dull,
through feelings
is
towering rage or
a
a
racking feeling of hatred
to milder forms of annoyance, irritation, edginess, exaspera-
and the
tion,
like.
one's temper" are
The feelings that one has when one "loses among the prominent feelings connected
with anxiety.
Losing one's temper, and the feeling of anger involved in often represents a "feeling" of anxiety although
it,
When
usually recognized as such. his
temper with
a child, for
it
not
is
an anxious teacher loses
example, there probably
some
is
kind of blocking or thwarting that touches off the anger, but there is
the added fact that
is
Anger may
involved.
more than an
flare
external thwarting
because the inner expectations
are so terrible, not because the provocation
A
so great.
patience quite
when
thwarted he
from outside
teacher striving to live up to an ideal of
beyond what anyone can achieve pupils do not confirm the impossible
be
will
demands
placing on himself and, through himself, on them.
is
teacher
is
and
skill
A
who cannot forgive himself the weakness of making may fly into a temper when he makes an error or
a mistake
when
a
pupil makes a mistake that
malicious. Again, a teacher or parent
is
neither serious nor
who
is
in conflict
himself because he cannot accept his sexual impulses
is
with
likely
to be anxious about behavior in others that appears to have a
sexual meaning,
frightened at
all;
he
but he
may
rage, having nothing to
Anger it is
is
perhaps
may
feel
feel
anxious or even
nothing but pure and righteous
do with anxiety.
so often the feeling as
not
component
in anxiety that
appropriate to link anxiety and anger as 45
it is
WHEN TEACHERS to link anxiety
and
FACE THEMSELVES
Sullivan (48, 50),
fear.
many
described some of the
occasions
among others, has when peevishness,
annoyance, and outright anger are the feelings associated with
As
a condition of anxiety.
(perhaps in most)
when
more meaningful
it is
simply to
many
fact, in
situations
teacher or a student gets angry,
What
to ask,
What is anxiety, we
ask,
question of
matter of
a
a
is
he anxious about? than
he angry about?
When we
raise the
recognize that the explanation for his
anger cannot be found in what happened but in what the
happening triggered off
One anxiety at
of the is
many
in him.
reasons anger
that anger
is
frequently associated with
is
one often has when one
a feeling
odds with oneself but manages to make
someone
that
else is to
it
is
appear to oneself
As noted above, one way of
blame.
evading the discomfort of anxiety one might experience from facing the fact that one
is
person
a hostile
anger onto others, and then to
feel
is
to project one's
angry with them. Ex-
amples of projected anger can often be found with examinations or seminars.
A
in
connection
person seeks to evade the
pain of facing the discrepancy between his real performance
and the performance he expected of himself by blaming the teacher for giving a stupid examination or for being unfair.
He may his
feel
weak
anger toward
spots and view
a critic
him
as
who
touched on one of
dogmatic or
anger springs from inner thwartings, but
it is
diabolic.
The
directed outward.
In most schools, examination time provides a field day for the activation of anxieties and for the marshaling of a vast
array of feelings, anger prominent
among them,
that divert
both the student and the teacher from the inner volved.
It is interesting that
of examination often arouses
be noted that an objective 46
issues in-
the so-called "objective" type
much
In passing,
it
may
grounded on
a
sub-
anxiety.
test is actually
a
ANXIETY concerning
jective base: the particular bias the instructor has
the facts that must be that
is
remembered and the
particular phrasing
the only correct one.
Another feeling component of
a state of anxiety
This feeling
of being "blue" or depressed.
may
is
a feeling
range from
deep despondency and melancholy to milder forms of the blues.
It
may
—
take the form of a longing or yearning
hard-to-describe feeling that there missing, that a deep desire loneliness, discussed in
is
something lacking or
The
unfulfilled.
is
experience of
Chapter Three, probably often repre-
sents a condition of anxiety.
Another phenomenon of feeling associated with anxiety anomalously, a curious absence of feeling. define, but
it
"I feel dead,"
This
hard to
may be expressed variously by such phrases "I feel numb inside," "I feel so empty."
Another indication of
when
as
conflicts that involve anxiety appears
—
in attitudes revealing inconsistent currents
example,
is
is,
a person expresses a
of feeling
for
very loving or generous
and condemning
attitude
toward humanity but has
feelings
toward large groups of human beings. The teacher
who he
hostile
claims that he loves children but dislikes parents; or that
likes girls
but dislikes boys, or vice versa; or that he
bright children but shows in
many ways
a
likes
deep contempt for
dull children; or that he likes teachers but not administrators;
or that he likes Whites but not Negroes; or that he feels
compassionate toward Gentiles but not Jews, and so on, betraying an inconsistency of It is inevitable
some people than
that each person will be to others;
But
a generalized feeling
this
drawn more
any honest teacher
admit that there are some pupils in better than others.
is
this kind.
is
of active
will
whom
his class
to
openly he likes
something quite different from ill
will
toward
others.
47
WHEN TEACHERS
FACE THEMSELVES
IMPULSE It is
through the impulses connected with anxiety that a
person can often get the most revealing clues to anxiety in himself and in others.
It
The impulse in anxiety is may even be the opposite more or
In a condition of
citement, the impulse take note of
it.
When
is
often quite devious or obscure.
what seems
of
less
appropriate.
uncomplicated emotional ex-
usually fairly clear,
one stops to
if
frightened, one has an impulse to
flee;
when angry, an impulse to attack; when joyful, an impulse move toward and into the joy-producing situation and prolong it. Where there is anxiety and it is experienced anger or
and be
impulses to attack or to
fear, these
fairly clear;
pulses, springing
but they
Inconsistency of Impulses. anxiety
may
up
—The
be quite inconsistent,
impulses associated with
at least is
time shun competition, then seek
when
ment of
his greatest
may
it;
he
may
feel
may
is
will belie or destroy his victory.
mo-
live
up
is
a
flee,
or to
There
is
confusion of motives
to an external standard of
involved in compulsive competition.
person whose anxiety
likewise behave in
an impulse to run
ways
when
is
linked to his sexual desires
may
He may
have
that are inconsistent.
may way of
temptation threatens, but he
have an impulse to go out and actively get in the 48
one
triumph, an anxiously competitive person
underlying the striving to as
at
an impulse
have an overwhelming impulse to weep, or to
worth such
For
surface.
related to an endeavor to
a confusion of impulses, just as there
also
on the
he wins, or feel deeply depressed; at the
do something that
A
secondary im-
to impossibly high competitive standards
to exult
as
that are not so clear.
example, a person whose anxiety live
to
flee will also arise
are, in a sense,
from impulses
to
ANXIETY
He may
temptation.
who do
have an impulse to punish those
what he fears to do, but he may also have an impulse to admire and envy them; and he may go to great lengths to peep at them by reading about sexual exploits.
The complexity creased
by
of impulses connected with anxiety
is
in-
the fact that the anxious person not only has im-
ways when
pulses to act in several conflicting
his anxiety has
actually been aroused; he also has an impulse to evade, escape,
or blunt the impact of anxiety. In acting on this impulse, he
may
Many
resort to an almost endless series of maneuvers.
of these have the character of compulsive acts, acts a person is
or
driven to do, regardless of whether they solve the problem
make
deaden
In order to ameliorate his anxiety or to
worse.
it
its
pain, he
may
resort to alcohol
and drugs. Some
persons acquire a knack for going to sleep threatens or
becomes
acute.
when
anxiety
In others, conflicts that are
anxiety-producing express themselves in the form of psychosomatic ailments. Resistance.
—Much
that
is
done
in response to
an impulse
to evade anxiety falls in the category of resistance. Resistance tied to anxiety
is
one of the most significant phenomena con-
nected with learning, yet those
who
have been most con-
cerned with the psychology of learning have taken notice of
it.
Resistance of this sort
may
little
take the form of not
learning (not noticing, not hearing, not catching the meaning,
not trying, not going to a certain source, not remembering the assignment).
A common
form of
resistance
is
to avoid
contact with writings on subjects likely to arouse anxiety, or,
while reading such writings, to carry on an active criticism
fire
of
and rebuttal.
Another form of touch off one's
resistance
is
to avoid people
anxieties.
49
whose
ideas
WHEN TEACHERS Flight Reactions. in fear,
is
—One
FACE THEMSELVES
impulse that
way that would openly show he common methods of flight from
is
a threatening truth
and so
is
glimpsed,
One
in flight.
do so
of the most
is
ward
words.
flight into
it
by
off
Another form of
arguing, dis-
flight
is
to treat emotional problems as
One way,
logical problems.
for example,
of resisting the emotional implications of anxiety
much
example of
it
that
flight
home and
personal meaning
its
from emotion into
at school,
is
arguments or complaints
on
their
tional
own
is
Another
lost.
logic, often
encountered
the procedure of taking a child's
at face value,
arguing
arguments
his
merits rather than seeking to examine the
emo-
A
child
meaning they have for him and for
may say,
to spend
is
time and effort in getting a precise, logically perfect
definition of
at
If
forth.
though they were so
as
in a
anxiety in education, and in
the scholarly professions in general,
cussing,
arises in anxiety,
to flee, but the anxious person does not
oneself.
for example, that he was not given his turn, or that he
always gets the smallest helping, or that he others are praised. Although he the feeling he has about
—
this feeling
it is
may
is
criticized
be wrong on
the important thing.
But to face
to face the fact that even though one
ulously fair as a parent or as a teacher, there
something lacking, something withheld,
where
counts,
all
is
still
as far as the
metic-
may
be
emotional
—can be very
threaten-
might induce,
we
argue
the issue on logical grounds and do not try to face the
emo-
experiences of the child are concerned ing.
To
evade the anxiety
this threat
tional meanings.
There are other ways of fleeing from emotional involvement in order to avoid anxiety. The person who is anxious because of irrational expectations or doubts regarding himself
may
try to avoid any close friendship, or love, or marriage, 50
ANXIETY
by
constantly
balancing one
prospective
mate
or
friend
against another, seeking through a process of logical weighing
and measuring to avoid any intimate emotional relationship.
A
form of
related
of what
is
flight
threatening
feel if
it
meaning
into a discourse dealing
of avoiding the anxiety
one were to face the personal implications
of the bitter hostility often ple,
to dilute the personal
One way
with impersonal aspects.
one might
is
by carrying
shown by
delinquents, for exam-
to deal with delinquency primarily as a sociological
is
problem. Another
way
of avoiding the personal implications
of an emotional problem aspects.
After a
is
to deal only with
class session,
members had faced
mechanical
its
which many
for example, in
the problem of anxiety about as well as
people can in class discussion, one of the students
(who had
not previously taken part) complained that the real problem
was physiological and
that the instructor should have spent
the hour in dealing with bodily changes in emotion.
an-
Still
other example, which the writer has frequently encountered, pertains to the concept of self-understanding: there are
who seem is
eagerly to accept the idea that self-understanding
important and then at once proceed to
strip the idea
potentially anxiety-producing personal implications
ing
it
some of
its
by apply-
to others rather than themselves.
In teaching and in
all
the learned professions
it is
a justifi-
able source of pride to be scientific in one's approach to
But
things.
insistence
on being scholarly and
also serve as a defense against anxiety.
scientific
This does not imply
that the typical scientist or scholar or teacher
energies to evade his anxieties.
can
is
using his
But there are occasions when
anxiety prompts scientific and other scholarly undertakings, just as
it
enters into other pursuits.
The study
of psychology
itself
can be used 51
as a
means of
WHEN TEACHERS
FACE THEMSELVES
when
evading anxiety. This happens
a student of psychology-
clings to a theory or a set of facts as an
evading personal
issues.
academic device for
There probably
is
no system of psy-
chology that has not sometimes served people
as a protection
against the anxiety of examining themselves.
Work as an Endeavor to way of blunting or evading
Blunt or Avoid Anxiety. anxiety
—One
to distract oneself
is
by
keeping busy. In the educational world (and in other spheres of
life)
work
of a compulsive nature
is
one of the most widely
used means of warding off or deadening anxiety.
—
Work
and
more work can serve this end work that others call overwork; work that makes one a drudge; work one takes on even though one's work basket is already full; work one does on the plea (to oneself) that it must be done, and on the plea that one's performance of this or that
portant but indispensable; driving,
any kind of work,
as
busy to face oneself,
drug
Of
to blunt the
long
may
as it
is
duty
restless,
work
not only im-
is
relentless
work;
that keeps one too
serve the purpose, functioning as a
impact of anxiety or to avoid
its
activation.
work is a form of evasion or blunting of anxiety. Nor is the work done under the spur of anxiety useless: it may be quite productive. And some of the work may be essential and inescapable, since a person who uses work as a narcotic gets himself so boxed in that a piece of work must course, not
indeed be done or study letter
all
—he must
this lesson
give this report or practice this piece
or meet this appointment or write this
or the consequences
may
be serious
thing, the thing that betokens anxiety,
into that
The
box
is
—but
the important
that he got himself
in the first place.
person
who
uses
work
as part of his
evading or anxiety-blunting technique pulsion to drive others to 52
work
may
own
also
anxiety-
have a com-
just for the sake of
working,
— ANXIETY
without
them
2iviri£
chance to discover the kind of work
a
through which thev might be most useful or creative. The grievances teachers have about tasks that seem arbitrary and
meaningless probablv often stem from the compulsion of
work
a
means of
In any class in school, picked at random, a great
amount of
work and
administrators to
coping with their
Anxiety
in
anxietv prevails. ious,
showing
they are
at
to
assign
as
anxieties.
Childhood tmd Youth
There
are children
who
are obviously anx-
forms of ''problem'' behavior that
in various
odds with themselves. There are those
to be "blocked'' in their learning; those
who
who seem
are frightened
at
trying themselves out, timid, afraid to express themseiv^.
as
though struggling against
who
are deeply hurt
those
who
a barrier
on the defensive. There as
criticizes
overdo or underdo, or always
them mildly;
strive desperately to
and on the go. or are alwiys
please, or are endlessly restless
having
within themselves; those
when anyone
are those
though they care too
who seem nonchalant, bewhen actually they cir>
little
not bear the pain of caring too much.
There are those who constantly bring severe punishment upon themselves by their misbehavior, surliness, rebelliousness,
and defiance.
surlv child
is
which means child's
We
cannot, of course, infer that every
an anxious child, but a
state
we can
of disharmony and uneasiness in the
relationship to himself
—when,
peatedlv and for no apparent reason
misbehaving in
a
way
YYe can infer anxiety those
who would
infer anxiety
that if
he
is is
not at
all
for instance, he reis
surly or defiant or
suited to the occasion.
defiant, let us
saw even toward
befriend him, or quick to take offense where 5?
WHEN TEACHERS none
viously
but
intended, or
is
is
not just a healthy kind of protest and self-assertion
When
himself.
we
Anxiety appears ous" behavior.
who
children
is
meeting the present
manner
in a
that
many forms
of so-called "nerv-
shown by the nail-biters and by the driven by a kind of uncontrollable restlessis
is
anxiety in
many
of the forms of behavior generally
considered polite and desirable.
quick to deprecate himself,
who
not simply responding to a
an excess or fever of activity.
There
is
and damaging to
painful experiences in the past.
also in the
It
are
is
by
has been distorted
futile
it is
matter of habit, seems to over-
a child, as a
can assume that he
present situation but
ness,
he misbehaves in a manner that ob-
if
so out of proportion that
is
react,
FACE THEMSELVES
It
who
appears in the child criticizes himself
who
unduly,
holds himself to a standard no one else would impose
on him, who
is
frightened at the thought of being anything
but perfect. Such a child's uneasiness stems from distortions within himself in the form of excessive expectations, oughts,
and shoulds.
When
likely that there
is
a child
judges himself very harshly
a large gulf
between what he
and achieves, on the one hand, and the is
reaching, on the other.
himself
is
as
though
so
much.
The
exorbitant
an inward condition, but he it
were
ideal
his parents, teachers,
is
it is
and does
is
toward which he
demand he
places on
likely to externalize
or peers
it,
who demanded
who are anxious are not solely those who show fright. They are the children who are not responding to the demands of the moment in a realistic way or to the The
children
opportunities of the situation for are responding in a flicting a
way
that
what they
shows they
are.
Instead, they
are driven
by con-
demands, expectations, grievances, and fears that are
carry-over from the past. 54
The
anxious ones are the young-
ANXIETY sters
whose response
to the objective situation
is
distorted
by
own subjective condition. The demands by others are confused and obscured by the demands they make on themselves. They are unable to meet life and all it has to offer, or to say yes or no on the a response to their
placed upon them
strength of healthy wishes of their own.
When
a teacher faces a class of forty children, forty chil-
dren are there in a physical sense, but psychologically there are
many more. Each
child brings to his present state the
child (or children) he once was, the child he child,
perhaps the impossible child, he
If, as
this
is
now
is,
and the
striving to be.
we could look upon a particular child from view, we might discover a kind of multiplicity
teachers,
point of
within him.
We
might see that although he seems quite
composed, he harbors within him the character of
a rejected
who uses various strategies to avoid the hurt of rejection. He may live according to the inner protective devices of a child who has been abandoned and might be abandoned again. He may contain within himself, psychologically, the child who bases much of his life on the premise that he must
child,
be suspicious, guarded, cautious, careful in
with even the kindest people, because once only by being defensive that he
The
felt
all
his
dealings
in his life it
was
he could survive.
ghosts of old hurts, the souls of agonies of an earlier
day, live on in
many
colleagues with
whom we
of our children at school
work, and
—and
in ourselves.
in the
And
it is
to the extent that each of us has the courage to look into the
haunted house within himself where these ghosts reside that he can gain some insight into the
way
the lives of others are
ravaged by anxiety.
The view who are all
that there
may
be, so to speak, other children
part of the child
we
actually see can be illus55
WHEN TEACHERS trated further.
The
child
FACE THEMSELVES
who
seems so free to decide whether
he will study or not study, be an obedient pupil or a trouble-
maker, a
may
not be free
at
all.
His present attitudes may have
driven quality. If he rebels, this need not
His present rebellion
to rebel.
guard actions against
mean he chooses
be a carry-over of rear-
imagined enemies belonging to
Sometimes the driven nature of
his past.
his
way
of
when he over and over again does things that are many children who do this, and
obvious, as
him
real or
may
There
pain.
life is
cause there
who oblige by punishing again and again these youngsters who are driven almost to destroy themselves. The child who obviously sticks his chin out for a blow is probably no more troubled than the one who allows himself many
are
adults
to be hurt again
who
and again and carefully conceals
it.
A
child
thus conceals things may, for example, be a youngster
who, hours
after,
"kicks himself" for a
little
mistake he made,
or winces in anguish at the thought of some
little
"foolish"
thing he did or said, or blames himself for mistakes that no
one
would hold
else
against him, or puts himself
on the rack
of feeling rejected.
STUDIES OF CHILDREN'S PROBLEMS
Many age,
who
studies of children, particularly at an early school
show
that in the typical class there are several youngsters
are obviously troubled and
themselves and to others.
who
In a review of studies in this area that while not 2
Among
Ullmann
less
exist as
"problems" to
2
Ullmann (54) pointed out
than eight per cent of school children are
the investigations in this area are studies by Rogers (45) and Other studies dealing in one way or another with emo-
(54).
problems in childhood and adolescence have been reported by Havighurst (12), Symonds and Sherman (51), Powell (41), and Hertzman
tional (13).
56
ANXIETY regarded as "maladjusted" by teachers, servative (and, are
many
tify children
vealing
we
lines of
is
con-
might add, not very meaningful). There
evidence indicating that
who
figure
this
when
teachers iden-
are problems or troublesome, they are re-
more concerning
their
own
ideas of
what
child
a
should be like in his external behavior than concerning the
man
The
study by
Wick-
(56) showed, for example, that teachers were
likely,
emotional condition of the child.
some years ago,
classic
who were
to rate as "problems" children
aggressive, disobedient, or destructive, while they tended to
overlook the child whose sive
affliction
was not shown
in aggres-
ways.
Rogers (45) used
a
number of
ratings
and other means of
detecting maladjustment, such as evidence of being rejected;
truancy; school failure; reading disability; being a "misfit" academically, intellectually, or chronologically.
per cent of the children in the fourth,
Forty-eight
fifth,
and
sixth
grades in the population studied by Rogers could be labeled
not well adjusted according to a combination of of the criteria used.
at least
two
Nearly one eighth of the pupils
in
these three grades could be considered seriously maladjusted.
Rogers pointed out that when to four or
who
more of the
criteria
a child
is
maladjusted according
used in his study, he
is
a person
has a long and often tragic history of unhappiness and
unfortunate
One
of
life
.circumstances.
many
indications of anxiety in children appears in
connection with their worries (26). Large numbers of chil-
dren say, for example, that they worry over not passing
tests
(even though most of them will pass), over not being pro-
moted (although most of them will be), and such a state of worry prevails, it betokens inner stress that
may
the like. a
When
condition of
include self-doubt, feelings of self57
WHEN TEACHERS
FACE THEMSELVES
disparagement, and feelings of inadequacy quite out of keeping with reality. Studies at the high school and junior high school levels
many
indicate that
with others and
among youngsters Hertzman
[4],
What we
disturbances, such as inability to get along
a considerable
amount of
self-rejection, exist
(See, for example, Fleege
in these grades.
and Spivack [47].) are heading toward is the general conclusion, on [13],
empirical grounds, which has been stated earlier on theoretical
grounds: Every child
some
is
we may
children,
to
some extent an anxious
child; but
assume, are more anxious than others.
EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS The
observation that so
profound and pervasive there
is
learners are anxious has a
significance.
In the writer's opinion,
no observation of more general import
made with less
many
that can be
in part,
Un-
respect to the nature of the educator's task.
he grasps the concept of anxiety and understands, at
how
it
might affect the
child's private life
least
and
in-
fluence the learning and teaching process, the teacher will be
unaware of
To
a crucial factor in his
say that every child
that he
is
is
work.
an anxious child does not imply
therefore neurotic or that there
Nor
herently bad about being anxious. is
is
does
something
it
in-
imply that
it
necessarily the teacher's fault or the school's fault or the
fault of
anyone
be more clever
in particular,
many
children
anxious to not being anxious.
and that
if
somehow we could
would be converted from being
No
matter
how
clever people
were, some anxiety would probably remain. But the burden of anxiety need not be so studiously ignored, nor sary, in the
many
name
of education, to
of the conditions that aggravate 58
is it
neces-
condone and encourage it.
Just as
we
encourage
ANXIETY every effort to relieve physical pain, especially needless phys-
we
ical pain, so
should encourage every effort to relieve or
ameliorate needless psychic pain in the
form of anxiety.
Just as one cannot deal with physical pain unless one that
there and
it is
under which unless
is
it arises,
aware of so
one cannot deal with psychic pain
one faces the fact that
it exists
aware of the conditions underlying anxiety as gloss
exists, as fully as
we
it.
and seeks to become only by facing
It is
can, without putting a false
on the human struggle, that we can begin
tically
own
it
we
with the children
knows
nature and the conditions
its
to deal realis-
teach and with the nature of our
humanity.
Conflicting Views Concerning the Value of Anxiety. this
point
it is
—At
necessary to face the fact that people in educa-
tion (and in psychology) differ quite sharply concerning the
uses and values of anxiety.
who
On
the one hand there are those
take the view that anxiety, while painful,
thing.
Their arguments are about
vides an incentive to
is
good habit formation;
really a
good
Anxiety pro-
as follows: it is
only because
of anxiety that some children will behave, conform, toe the
mark, and learn what they are supposed to learn; under the
may learn more subject matter than much of the productive work of the
spur of anxiety, a student
he otherwise would;
world has been done by anxious people. In emphasizing arguments of
was
this sort,
one educator,
discussing anxiety,
education
is
more, not
at a
meeting where the writer
commented less,
anxiety.
what we need in There are others who
that
take a quite different view of the matter.
Anxiety as a Spur to Activity. stances, anxiety least for the
may
—Under
certain circum-
be a spur to activity and learning, at
moment. Because of
industrious, vigilant, careful to
his anxiety, a
person
may be
do what others expect (or 59
WHEN TEACHERS not to get caught
he
may
have
as a
nonconformist)
As one means
done.
Because of
.
compulsion to work incessantly
a
in an earlier section),
his anxiety,
FACE THEMSELVES
may
he
may
and he
get a vast
his anxiety,
was noted amount of work (as
of dealing with the conflicts underlying
be highly competitive, and in the process
outdo others in the volume of enterprises he undertakes; he
may
be a compliant conformist, and in
wise
may
playing
his
compliance he
many things. As one of his may become a perfectionist and
accomplish
it
he
safe,
devices for in that role
achieve a degree of accuracy and meticulousness that extraordinary; he
may
(in
like-
quite
is
keeping with the Horney theory)
resort to detachment, in his
detachment taking refuge
in an
ivory tower and there turning out a large volume of scholarly
work.
Much
of the
work he performs may be productive and
socially useful.
Anxiety in Relation
to a
of motivation just described
son
who
is
motivated by
a lot, but he learns a free
Philosophy of Life.
we
as
who
does the driving.
kind of motivation
only basic motivation there tended that
The permay learn a lot and do one who is driven, not as
anxiety
and performs
this
kind
essentially negative.
is
his
and spontaneous person
be contended that
—The
is
in life.
should promote
this
It
is
It
good, or
might
also
might is
the
be con-
kind of motivation in
education and not do anything drastic to minimize
it.
This
contention does not, however, in the writer's judgment, rest
on the merits of anxiety
which amounts
as such.
It rests
to a philosophy of
life.
on
a broader premise,
This
is
philosophy
a
that views the achievements of life in quantitative terms, as
though there were a lot
of things.
tive terms, as
from
intrinsic value in learning a lot
It is also a
philosophy that views
though living consisted
tensions, frustrations, hurts, 60
and doing
life in
nega-
some
relief
in seeking
and conflicts and
as
though,
ANXIETY without such
There
a different
is
no value
irritants,
in the
what one does
there
would be no
activity or striving.
philosophy: the philosophy that there
unless one
is
achieving some kind of self-ful-
According to
fillment in the process of learning or doing.
view,
this
it
cannot be taken for granted that learning ten facts
in history or ten
even
The
is
volume of what one knows or the quantity of
theorems in geometry
a little bit better,
living of a
life,
is
ten times better, or
than learning one fact or one theorem.
according to
this
view, consists not simply
coping with hurts and frustrations (which do, of course,
in
occur);
it
involves also an
onward sweep,
a positive
ment, an endeavor toward self-fulfillment,
grow. Life should not be regarded
move-
an impulse to
simply a struggle against
as
the road blocks a stubborn environment puts in the way, for
has an impetus of
it
potentials with
Anxiety
Waste.
as
something positive
own,
its
which
it is
—
If
and
a zeal
we
in life that
adopt the premise that there is
worth
seeking, and that this positive value
is
striving for
we must
apparent that
assumed
is
chapters.
It
is
liabilities
in this chapter,
it is
not the amount that is
elaborated in later
expressed especially in the chapter on the
ultimate test of the significance of
what
becomes
rather than assets. This
and
search for meaning, in which the view
of
it
regard most of the forms of anxiety
described in this chapter as
premise
is
and worth
best expressed, in the
of the individual, through self-realization,
life
is
a striving to realize
endowed.
learned.
is
On
is
set forth that the
what we teach and
learn
learned but the personal implication this basis,
we would
not condone
anxiety or encourage the conditions that produce anxiety.
We
would not encourage conditions that drive spend their energy in keeping up the pseudo-
certainly
people to solutions
of competitiveness,
compliance,
and detachment, 61
WHEN TEACHERS which were described
FACE THEMSELVES
earlier in this chapter.
encourage conditions that make pretend to be what he possible flicts,
demands upon
is
We
would not
necessary for a person to
it
not or that drive him to place im-
himself.
the dividedness within the
We would see
the inner con-
the compulsions a person
self,
develops in his endeavors to evade or to blunt the impact of anxiety, as a ficial
form of waste,
form of
a
self-defeat,
not
bene-
as
either to the individual himself or to society.
Anxiety
as a Barrier to Learning.
—Even
if,
however,
take the position that the only task of the educator
people to learn academic subject matter, whether
is
it
we
to get
any
has
we would still have to view anxiety more of a hindrance than a help. There is an increasing body of data indicating that many of
personal meaning or not, as
the difficulties children and adults have in learning are not
due to poor teaching methods or poor learning habits but spring from, or are related
work of Ephron (3), with a few cases, how
as
emotional problems.
to,
such
The
for example, illustrates dramatically, crucial a part emotional disturbances
may play in reading disability. One of many recent studies tween anxiety and academic
touching on the relation bea
study by Penty (40)
Among
other things, Penty 's
failure
of poor readers in high school.
is
study shows that while youngsters with often drop out of school,
it is
a
reading disability
possible for such youngsters,
if
they receive some psychological support from others, to stick it
out and to maintain enough courage and hope to graduate
from high school. In the process, many of them show great
improvement
Even
if
in reading.
our philosophy were to
theory that
it
does them good,
let
we
still
simply on academic grounds and for face the problem of anxiety. 62
children suffer, on the
would have
reason,
utilitarian reasons,
to
ANXIETY
Teachers' Reactions to the Personal Implications of Anxiety
One
work underpeople made when the conOne would hardly suspect
of the most impressive features of the
lying this book was the response
cept of anxiety was discussed.
anxiety of being a particularly popular subject for a lecture
or a class discussion.
It is
virtually impossible to talk about
anxiety, or to listen to a talk about anxiety, or to join in a
discussion of the meanings of anxiety without
what anxious view the
developed so strong
oneself. Unless a person has
a defense against
awareness of
human
strain of the
own
his
becoming some-
anxiety that he can
struggle in a completely de-
tached way, the subject of anxiety has a sharp emotional
bite.
members of
class
For
this reason, the
favorable reactions of
groups in which anxiety was discussed were rather unex-
The
pected.
people in these groups
who
expressed themselves
expressed an overwhelming sentiment in favor of dealing with
They
the subject of anxiety.
expressed a desire to try to face
the implications of anxiety in their
of their
way
own
lives.
iMany went out
to say that the treatment of anxiety
was one of
the most meaningful experiences they had had in their post-
graduate work.
When
rating forms and direct requests for
written statements were used, a large
number expressed them-
selves as strongly favoring consideration of anxiety as a central issue in education.
tionnaires,
Some
evaluation
of the results obtained from ques-
slips,
and the
like
are
presented in
Appendix E.
Our
evidence concerning the exact meaning a consideration
of anxiety has for graduate students in education, and the value
it
might have for them,
stands out: People
who
is
limited.
But certainly
care to express themselves (and 63
this
more
WHEN TEACHERS
FACE THEMSELVES
people in the groups in question expressed themselves on the subject of anxiety than on
any other topic among the dozen
or so that were considered) not only favor the idea of bringing anxiety out into the open for as as possible
full
and frank
but are generally eager to have
though there
is
nothing pleasant, and
much
threatening, about anxiety, they are far
the thought of facing
this
that
a discussion
Even
done.
is
painful and
more comfortable
in
than in the idea of continuing to avoid
it
it.
Why, we
might
ask,
was the sentiment of those who ex-
pressed an opinion so strongly in favor of facing the issue
The
of anxiety?
writer hazards a personal interpretation,
based in part on testimony such as that already cited, on bits of conversation with thirty or more of these people, on writ-
what
ten comments, and on grapevine information concerning the
members of
selves.
The
the classes were talking about
interpretation
meant, to them, a
way
is this:
Facing the
of sharing a
mate personal meaning.
The
human
among them-
issue of anxiety
situation
discussion of anxiety
with
was
inti-
a dis-
them was real, even if painful. It them personally, instead of telling them, as so many discussions in education do, how to do something to somebody else. It penetrated to some degree the wall of isolation that keeps people emotionally separate from cussion of something that to
was something
that involved
one another.
Many when
said that
anxiety
was
they
felt a
strong surge of fellow-feeling
discussed. Actually, of course,
delve into the problem of anxiety in a meaningful
out feeling a current of compassion that flows out to others because
for oneself.
64
it
—
a
one cannot
way
with-
kind of compassion
springs
from compassion
THREE
Loneliness
A,lmost
all
study spoke in one
the people
way
who were
interviewed in
or another of their loneliness.
this
They
spoke of feeling isolated and cut off from others. All of them, directly or indirectly, mentioned barriers that separated
them
from other people or separated other persons from them. In a sampling consisting of the first group of eighteen interviews, every person, according to two independent judges, expressed loneliness in
one
way
Almost
or another.
half of the 229
people responding to the Personal Issues Inventory identified
one or more conditions of loneliness in their lives
Many
as representing a
which they probably needed help
problem
in facing.
of the people interviewed spoke directly of their
loneliness,
while others expressed loneliness indirectly yet
poignantly.
Some spoke
of the
artificial
human
relationships; of the remoteness
people
who
nature of
many
between people, even
are supposedly close associates; of the barriers of
mistrust that keep people
from expressing
their feelings or 65
WHEN TEACHERS
FACE THEMSELVES
revealing themselves; of the danger of showing oneself to others as one really
down
is;
of the danger of being hurt, or looked
on, or thought queer
need to keep up
a
if
one shows
how
one
of the
feels;
posture and a pretense.
Conditions Contributing to Loneliness
A4any circumstances contribute tion of an adult.
and
to the loneliness
isola-
Prominent among these are conditions
in-
fluencing his development during childhood years.
ALONENESS One
aspect of the child's growth as an independent indithat he seeks and maintains a great deal of privacy.
vidual
is
There
are
many
reasons, and very healthy reasons, for reserv-
ing the right to keep his thoughts and feelings to himself.
he grows older, he
everyone
One
is
As
careful not to bare his naked self to
—nor does or can he completely bare
indication of strength in a personality
be alone, walk alone, think and
feel alone.
is
it
to anyone.
that one can
The
further a
maturing person goes toward choices, commitments, and con-
him are of ultimate significance, the more he where he stands alone alone at least in the
victions that to is
—
in a position
sense that he takes full responsibility for himself.
vote in each mature person's
person himself itself loneliness,
who must but it may
life is a single
cast
it.
The
vote, and
Such aloneness
is
decisive it is
the
not in
contribute to loneliness, for
when
each person keeps his thoughts to himself, the other does not quite
know how
to approach him,
nor does he
know what
might share with him. Each person becomes, little
island
unto himself. 66
he
in a sense, a
LONELINESS
As
person matures, he will also become increasingly
a
aware of
of differing from others
his aloneness, in the sense
in his tastes, interests, hopes,
desires,
Such
and sentiments.
mean
conditions of being alone do not, however, necessarily that he
is
lonely, for he
own good company
his
is,
good company
in a sense, in
—when he
is
free to
—
draw upon
in
his
resources and has the courage to be himself. Different, however,
because there
is
a rift
is
the state of being alone that arises
within oneself or because there
thing strange and alien in one's relation to others.
we
call loneliness
rather than aloneness because
it
is
some-
This
state
involves an
element of sadness and often helplessness.
SUPPRESSION OF FEELING There
are strong cultural forces that bring about loneliness.
Quite apart from inner needs connected with
many
there are
pressures in society and
in child-rearing at
home and
his
many
own
growth,
circumstances
at school that lead the
growing
child to isolate himself and to keep himself at a distance from
others
—and
eventually from himself.
child to think that
it is
Anything
that leads a
not right for him to feel or to show
his feelings to others contributes to the process
by which he
cuts himself off.
From
an early age nearly
all
children are told not to cry,
not to show that they are hurt or afraid, not to reveal that they are angry.
This process goes on
greater extent, at school.
Even
at
home
been observed, for example, that children
home than
and, to an even
at the preschool level feel freer to
to shed tears in a nursery school.
it
has
cry at
But the process
of destroying the child's right to feel often goes on both at
home and
at school.
In the elementary school there
is
a great
amount of sup61
— WHEN TEACHERS
Not many
pression of feeling.
boys, feel free to cry or to
very dangerous for them to direction.
are
(It is
FACE THEMSELVES
probably not
their fears,
and
often
it is
their anger except
by
a coincidence that boys,
under greater pressure to conceal
number
many
children, at least not
show show
their feelings,
in-
who out-
approximately four to one in showing various
girls
forms of "problem" behavior.) In high school and college
person to show any feeling anger, and those indirectly.
it is
almost unthinkable for a
—except In
pleasure, perhaps,
all his
years as a student, the
writer does not recall once seeing a teacher
The
who wept
in class.
unmoved—and were supposed —and probably would have been
teachers remained
main unmoved
and
to re-
by some anxious members of the class if they had been moved even when the class was in contact with deep human feelings. ridiculed
In literature classes, for example, students and instructors
study writings that recreate
There
pain.
There
passion.
with
tears.
are
It is true,
moved by such
He
visibly.
deep for writings
life's
tragedy, tenderness, joy, and
who draw upon deep wells of comsome who write as though on pages wet
are writers
of course, that a person can be deeply
expressions of feeling without showing
can be stirred by "thoughts that do often
tears."
become
But so often, just
lie
it
too
in the literature class, these
another assignment. There are objective
tests
(preferably multiple-choice) to measure what the student
gets
from the outpourings of these great minds and
though they were merely another
We ness
academic
set of
hearts, as facts.
contribute to the growing child's isolation and loneli-
whenever we,
know how
he
both boys and
in effect, tell
feels.
Yet there
girls that
express intense emotion 68
him
is
that
much
would make even if
we do
not wish to
in the school life of
the sturdiest child
the pressures against
it
were not so
LONELINESS In seme schools,
strong.
it is
true, there
much
is
gaiety and
At
laughter, but painful emotions are often squelched.
elementary school
the
example, millions of children feel
level, for
the sting of failure, the lash of sarcasm, and the pain of rejec-
There
tion.
who, week
are thousands
torture of helpless rage. If
encounter countless hurts imposed, some that gle
—
these
if all
all
these children,
—some
deliberately and maliciously
arise in the natural
were
know the and others' who
week,
after
course of
strug-
life's
free to cry, as well they might, there
would often be a flood of tears at school. But such signs of distress would be unseemly. It is better, for the sake of decency and order, to keep up a pretense that all is well. And bv a strange irony, which persists in our culture from a more primitive time, to
show
more appropriate,
it is
if
one
would be
frigrhtenin^ to teachers r
schooled themselves never tions of their
We lumps
deeply moved,
through signs of anger (sarcastic laughter, for
it
example) than through grief and affection. feeling
is
own
lives
o
show
let
An
outpouring of
who
have risddly
emo-
the hurts and tender
in public.
ask that the child hold back his tears and swallow the in his throat,
swallow
his rage
and
his fear
We
ask compassionate teachers to do the same.
like
swallowing
a
sword.
takes long practice, and
It it
can be done, but leaves scars.
and
his pride.
To
do
it is
If the
this
is
not easy;
it
school
is
in a
"respectable" neighborhood, in which stolid parents in stolid
homes
aid
and abet the school's policy of suppressing emotion
and denying the child the right to that he
feels
will be in
—
good order, and
of course, those for
include
a
feel
—
or the right to
show
the policy will be quite successful. Everything
whom
rather large
children," children
who
all
the children will be fine except,
the ordeal
number
of
is
too great. These will
"emotionally
disturbed
conceal their feelings but harbor 69
WHEN TEACHERS vengeful thoughts, children
low them
into adult
life,
FACE THEMSELVES
who
nourish grievances that fol-
who
children
suffer
from psycho-
somatic ailments or take refuge in dreams of glory tragically different
from the
who
reality of their lives.
They
will also include
whose lives are from themselves people who have forfeited the freedom to feel, who cannot draw fully and wholeheartedly on their emotional capacities, who feel baffled and at a loss when others show those
quietly join the multitude of people
lived in isolation
from others and
in alienation
—
their feelings.
Fifty-nine per cent of the group responding to the Personal Issues Inventory identified
freedom to
feel as
one or more problems related to
"one of the areas
in
which
I
probably need
help in understanding myself."
REJECTION Another condition
when
that contributes to loneliness
children are judged predominantly
by
is
created
an impersonal
standard of value and are not accepted for what they are. repudiate the child as a creature set
him apart from
worthy
ourselves, as
kinship with him,
when we
petitive standard.
We
though
deny the
to judge
him) primarily by the marks he
twenty or
a
hundred
we had no human
(or, as far as
he can
gets.
when we applaud
who
We
right and
child's right to respect
when we judge him
children at school
own
judge him according to a com-
affection
many
in his
We
tell,
and
seem
repudiate
the one child in
wins the prize and pay
little
heed
to all the rest. We cast a child out from emotional communion when we look only at the grade on his report card and have no concern, at least as far as he can tell, about how he feels, about whether it was through fear that he did poorly or whether his less than perfect performance at school springs 70
LONELINESS from
a feeling of
surprising
being abused or a desire to rebel. So
when we
find that these children,
some years
as teachers in their twenties, thirties, forties,
press loneliness
and say that they
feel
it is
and
not
later,
fifties,
ex-
out of touch with others
Their experience of feeling out of touch has a long
at school.
history.
BARRIERS BETWEEN TEACHERS There
is
much
in the school situation that cuts teachers off
from one another.
What
name
goes on in the
of discussion,
faculty meetings, committee meetings, and the like often does
not bring people emotionally together but keeps them emotionally apart. intellectual
who
teachers
Everything
and logical
level.
may
be discussed solely on an
Even though
there are individual
try to break the ice, seeking to reach out to
others and asking others to reach out to them, there usually
many who keep a nice distance. One condition that expresses a teacher's loneliness and also contributes to it is that feelings, when they are allowed to
are
show, are often projected
feelings.
Instead of openly reveal-
ing his feelings as his own, he imputes these feelings to
This
others.
but
it
grief.
is
especially noticeable in connection with anger,
appears also in connection with fear, tenderness, and
Anger,
as has
been noted above,
is
one emotion
that,
curiously, often seems to be permissible; yet even anger quite
commonly can be teacher
is
expressed only in a secondhand way.
The
not free to admit to himself, "I hate that child (or
fellow-teacher, or parent, or principal, etc.)" and then pro-
ceed to face this feeling and what
it
means.
Instead,
it
is
usually necessary to avoid so blunt an encounter with his real feelings;
he must
justify his
first
attribute
ill
will to others in order to
anger at them. 71
WHEN TEACHERS When
a teacher feels angry, hurt, abused, spiteful,
venge-
unfairly treated, full of grievance, and the like, there are
ful,
two
One
facts that are important.
another
is
that this feeling
thing or someone. In
is
many
more important, but
the
FACE THEMSELVES
is
directed toward or against somerespects the
first
By
a thing apart
else
(perhaps justifiably), the anger
his
though
person often keeps a lonely
it
were
Even
essential feature of oneself.
feeling a bit guilty, perhaps not daring to ask
meaning of
aired,
is
detached
a sense,
so to speak, outside oneself, as
and not an
his anger, then, a
is
a process of attributing a grievance to
something or someone
becomes lodged,
of these facts
usually the latter that
it is
with the result that the feeling becomes, in
and impersonal.
way;
that he feels this
in
perhaps
vigil,
what the hidden
anger might be, keeping himself removed from
the personal implications of his anger and keeping others
removed from him. If
I
am angry (whatever
justifiably),
the reason and
an important fact
is
that
it is /
no matter how
who
feel anger.
The anger is mine. It is something of me. It is an emotion me that might provide a bridge (although not a particularly inviting one) between me and another person. It is also an in
emotion
that, if
I
could confront
a bridge that brings
me
its
meaning, might serve
closer to understanding myself.
coming forth candidly with
my
anger,
as
But
project
if,
instead of
it:
gripe about the weather, events or characters in the day's
political
the I
news, the principal, the
community,
etc.,
then
it is
size
not
I
of
I
classes, the parents,
who come
with myself.
center attention on objective and external aspects of the situ-
ation and thereby immediately divorce myself even
own
anger and from any opportunity for sharing
(which means sharing something else.
72
in
me)
with
from
my
my
anger
someone
LONELINESS
FEAR AND STRANGENESS Some
features of loneliness
One
anxieties.
go back to childhood
fears
and
shown by a child is the fear In some of the writer's was reported as quite common
of the early fears
of being alone, or being left alone. earlier studies (28)
after the age of
ways.
It
may
his parents are
on
a walk,
shopping
this fear
one or two years. The fear appears out of sight for a
when
or
It
moment when
the child in the
may
a doctor or a barber or
appear also left
is
baby
mother and
trip loses sight of his
faces about him.
by
in various
appear in the tension shown by a child
for the
the family
is
on
a
carriage
only strange
sees
when
when
the child goes to
time in a hospital
first
himself.
This apprehension appears
for
it
may
arise in a child
form of
also in the
separation and abandonment. Often
it
a fear of
seems quite groundless,
whose parents
are near at
hand and
have no thought of actually leaving him. But there
when
certain element of reality
being
left alone,
for he
is
a
The
seems to be most conspicuous after
but
he
is
child
fear
reached an age
a child has
This early fear of being alone
human
closeness to
his physical
psychological dependence on others.
may
contain the beginnings
of a feeling of loneliness, a condition that exists
needs
a
of abandonment
aware to some degree not simply of
also of his
is still
afraid of
is
actually unable to fend for himself
physically or psychologically.
when
young
contact but cannot find
someone
in this condition
is
else
it,
when
seeks
but does not receive
it.
a
person
emotional
A
person
out of psychological communication with
other important people.
A
child so situated
is
like a stranger,
helpless in an alien country.
Probably
all
children, at one time or another in their early 73
WHEN TEACHERS lives,
FACE THEMSELVES
have had acute experiences of being strangers
or at school or in the neighborhood. There
when
strangeness
him and he
to
will of others
a child
feels
This
is
whom
important
is
thrown; when he
feels
terror.
as the child
may have
moves on
an especially
into adult years.
absence of secure and friendly anchorage in relations
with others
—which
less in his loneliness
at first threatens to leave the child help-
through separateness from others
have the effect eventually, his
his lot is
an aspect of loneliness that
important influence
The
such a feeling of
is
in a situation that
out of touch, unable to count on the good
with
and perhaps even
distrust
is
home
at
if
confidence in himself.
simply a condition that people;
—may
severe enough, of undermining
So ultimately
loneliness
not
is
with other
exists in a person's relations
a condition that exists in his relation to himself.
it is
Loneliness and Self-Alienation
There
are people
who
or hardly anyone, to
are lonely because there
whom
is
no one,
they can turn, with the excep-
odd person in the neighborhood or a pet they can share some intimacy. But these are
tion perhaps of an
with not
whom
among
the loneliest people as long as they are able whole-
heartedly to seek and enjoy the companionship of another creature. in the
This creature need not be one
scheme of things
most others have or someone
who
cat or a dog or a a
cast off, or a child
who
maimed or crippled. bird. As long as a person is
who
figures
much
—he may be an aged person whom has It is
little
influence,
may even
be
a
able to maintain
wholehearted flow of feeling and has the capacity to go
out to
this
other creature, he cannot be counted
among
the
loneliest ones.
Even
the person 74
who
happens to be physically alone, hav-
LONELINESS ing no other creature near at hand to in
an intimate way,
lonely ones, for he
Who,
is
whom
he can reach out
not necessarily the loneliest
may
still
among
the
turn to himself for company.
It is the person who is own thoughts, the one who is alien to his own feelings, the one who is a stranger to himself—he is the loneliest person of all. And a large proportion of the people who took part in this study seemed to realize this fact:
then,
the loneliest one?
is
home with
not at
his
that loneliness denotes not simply a lack in relations with
others but also, perhaps primarily, a lack within oneself.
did not ask merely that a friend should
relieve their
gay companions should divert them from
solitude or that their loneliness.
come and
They
They
asked for help in understanding them-
selves.
Homelessness
Some
of the most poignant expressions of loneliness are
voiced through feelings of homelessness.
Homelessness was
one of the categories of experience that emerged from our conferences with individuals and was included in the Personal Issues Inventory.
Over
a third of the people
to this Inventory identified lessness as a personal issue
who
responded
one or more conditions of home-
they needed help in understanding.
In expressing the condition referred to here as homelessness,
some
said
they had roots nowhere; some said they went from
what they were seeking; some that they felt at loose ends, without any sense of belongwhether they were at work or on vacation, at home or
place to place without finding said ing,
on the
job.
Some
in a physical
had
lost this
The
and
said that while
they had once had a home,
a psychological sense,
home and
they
felt that
they
had not been able to find another.
condition of homelessness, as here described, 75
'
is
an
WHEN TEACHERS
FACE THEMSELVES
much
expression of loneliness and also has chologically, with
many
the people in this study.
of where he
less
work or
or what job he holds, whether he
is
may
at play, it
He
He
with others.
world without
dwelt
in
though he moved about
It is as
It is
as
though he
an empty house.
much
person feels homeless because he expects
of himself or others (the condition identified as
discrepancy between real and ideal).
some of those who
feel
It is
which they
also likely that
homeless are not able wholeheartedly
to seize the emotional possibilities offered in
at
not absorbed by what he
is
light or substance.
It is possible that a
too
is
be inferred that he also faces the
does not find satisfying values in his activities or
in his relations in a
common, psyby
When a person feels homeless, regard-
problem of meaninglessness. does.
in
of the other conditions mentioned
find themselves
by
the situations
(the condition identified as
lack of freedom to feel).
The the
condition of homelessness
self.
find a
For
home
this reason, its
is
cure
a
kind of emptiness within
is
in the physical sense.
not to build or rent or
The
keenest experience
may occur when a person is well housed and with his family. One person in this study spoke
of homelessness is
dwelling
of his feeling of homelessness as being most acute at the very times its
when
height
ing at
the
—on
a
home and
meaning of home should presumably be Christmas Eve, for example. Instead of
at
feel-
experiencing the sentiments appropriate to
the occasion, he sometimes able feeling of sadness.
He
was swept by an almost
intoler-
attributed this feeling as an adult
unmet needs for affection as a child. book (20) the writer described the condition of a child who was psychologically homeless even though, to
In another
physically, he had a 16
home and
shared
it
with several brothers
LONELINESS and
He was hungry
sisters.
for a kind of emotional accept-
ance and warmth his busy parents apparently were unable to
So he
give.
He
tried himself to
the
fill
empty emotional
space.
constructed a whole imaginary family: father, mother,
and two children; and
in his
fancy he enjoyed with them
homelike intimacies
his actual life did
though imagination
is
home
vide a
he could, by other means,
tried, as best
to maintain a makeshift
"good" boy
So the child gave up the
for a homeless child.
imaginary family and
not afford. But even
powerful, fantasy alone cannot pro-
He became
home.
in his relations
with
his virtue to avert disapproval
an excessively
seeking through
his parents,
and to win some acceptance.
He also went out to others, by being docile and helpful, to win a bit of fatherliness from this man, a bit of motherliness from that woman. Out of his condition of homelessness as a child grew a state of homelessness which for a long time afflicted him as an adult. The is
state of
not at
being homeless
home with
himself.
is
He
an inner
is,
in
state:
the person
many ways,
an aimless
weary wanderer, who can find no place to rest and no rock on which to build. Linked with his emptiness there one, a
may
be yearnings and longings and an awareness that some-
thing
is
lacking.
He
is,
so to speak, seeking something he
never has found: "a stone, a a homeless
—he must
learn to be at
easy undertaking for one the people
leaf,
an unfound door."
one would find a home, he must
who
home with
who
took part in
such
himself
This
not an
himself.
feels homeless.
this
that this might be the real issue
If
first find is
But many of
study seemed to recognize
when they recorded
that to
face their feelings of homelessness they needed help in under-
standing themselves.
77
FOUR
The Search for Meaning
L.n
the
first
chapter the problem of meaninglessness was
introduced as one that faces teachers and people of the present day. that runs through
all
The
all
other thinking
search for meaning
is
theme
a
chapters of this book, just as the problem
of meaninglessness arose in most of the interviews and in a large proportion of the written statements in this study.
search for meaning constitutes, in
Where
many
there
is
is
essentially a search for self.
respects, the substance of the self.
meaning, there
something has meaning, one is
meaning, there
viction
is
is
The
A^eaning
is
is
involvement.
committed
conviction.
to
it.
When
Where
there
Such commitment and con-
something different from conformity, or merely
playing a part, or living as a cog in a machine, or losing one's individuality in 78
what Kierkegaard has
called the "featureless
THE SEARCH FOR MEANING crowd." the self
ing
is
Where meaning is lacking in one's work as a teacher, is uninvolved. The substance is lacking, and teachan empty formality.
just
The problem a lack of vails
—
meaning
when
largely
It is
by
the
virtue of
a kind of emotional emptiness that pre-
—
things don't matter
that the lonely person feels
partly because of a lack of
lonely.
It is
tion of
meaning such
as is
meaning or
a distor-
found in pretenses and inner
harmonies that the anxious person
About
many ways
of meaninglessness overlaps in
problems of anxiety and loneliness.
dis-
anxious.
is
sixty per cent of the people
responding to the
Personal Issues Inventory indicated that meaninglessness was a
problem on which they would
standing themselves.
like to
have help in under-
In expressing this problem,
many
said
—what
they were not sure what they wanted from life was important to be or do or get from life; some
it
said that
what they were doing or what was happening didn't seem to mean much; some said they saw little or no meaning in
many
Some
of the things they had to learn or teach.
meaninglessness
by
got involved in so
they had
little
The need
expressed
default, so to speak, indicating that they
many
activities
and
responsibilities that
time for themselves.
for helping children and
grown men and women
to face and find something essentially meaningful glares at
us
from headlines
Man
has
telling of tensions in the
made fabulous progress
dimensions of his world and in controlling erties,
world we
live in.
in exploring the external its
physical prop-
power has not been matched by a cultivation draw upon other resources of his humanity. frightened lest he use his power to destroy himself.
but
this
of his courage to
We
are
Modern man,
for
all his
contrivances,
is still
as
much
in
need
of finding himself and facing the meaning of his existence as 79
WHEN TEACHERS he was
many
in education
eras ago.
No
FACE THEMSELVES
invention in science or gimmick
can obviate the necessity for
The problem
of meaninglessness
this search.
—which
Tillich has re-
ferred to as the anxiety of emptiness and the anxiety of
meaninglessness
—
Meaninglessness
their captive pupils.
and graduate teaching.
in college in the
Even
name of
learning
religion, as has
in a meaningless
among
not simply
prevails
is
a
is
Much
teachers
common
and
condition
of what goes on
simply an academic enterprise.
been pointed out
earlier,
can be pursued
way.
Education and the Search for
The
Meaning meaning in education what we learn and teach. In
crucial test in the search for
the personal implication of
is
some educational
sound strange, for
circles this will
seems to be assumed that a body of information
is
it
often
in itself
meaningful.
we as educators are to face the problem of meaninglessness, we must make an effort to conduct education in depth If
—
to
move toward something
beyond the facade of behind which
and
that
is
personally significant
facts, subject matter, logic,
human motives and
strivings are often concealed.
—
rejection of subject matter
far
This does not mean the
from
it
helping the learner to relate himself to
and to
fit
what he
and reason
a person's real struggles
—but
it
what he
does is
mean
learning
learns into the fabric of his life in a
mean-
ingful way.
Such an endeavor means an
effort to
overcome the
prevail-
ing tendency in education to encourage the learner to understand everything except himself. 80
— THE SEARCH FOR MEANING It
means an
effort to achieve a better integration of think-
ing and feeling on the part of both children and adults. It
means an
effort to cut
through the pretense of "interest"
which children and
in learning,
adults so widely adopt in
order to conform or to escape disapproval from their elders. It
a
means
also that the process of learning will
not be used as
means of competing with others and gaining power over
them. Actually, each subject that
is
taught in elementary or high
way
school or college could, in one
or another, for certain
could, in
Each subject one way or another, help some young person dis-
cover his
skills
be deeply charged with meaning.
learners,
The study
and explore or use
his resources.
of history, to give only one example, can be
an intensely meaningful experience, for history the substance of his pride, his
perhaps
all
human hopes and
fears:
shame, his courage, his joy.
—can
be taught in such a
direct line of emotional and intellectual historical characters
is
filled
with
man's struggles,
Much of history way that there is
a
communication from
and actions to the intimate personal
lives
of the learners.
The same
is
true with respect to literature and
academic subjects. education and
all
It is
all
other
certainly true with respect to physical
the arts,
skills,
and
enterprises can be undertaken in a
crafts, for
manner
each of these
that has a direct
and
immediate personal implication.
But
instead,
much
of
what
teachers have to learn,
of what they have to teach, and of pupils
who
much
attend our schools are compelled to study
not meaningful but meaningless, largely because
assumed that knowledge has value apart from for the one
much
of what the millions
who
acquires
it.
When we
its
we
is
have
meaning
consider the problem 81
WHEN TEACHERS of meaninglessness,
it is
FACE THEMSELVES
not extreme to say that one of the
basic troubles in education
is
that as educators
we
have not
had the courage to face the personal implications of our calling.
Helping Others through Facing Oneselj
To must
help a pupil to have meaningful experiences, a teacher
know
This means,
the pupil as a person.
as has
been
repeatedly emphasized in this book, that the teacher must strive to
know
himself.
In the school there are countless opportunities for helping
He
the child in his search to find himself.
discover his aptitudes and difficulties,
and to
can be helped to
some of
face
abilities, to
What
realize his limits.
his inner
the teacher does
strongly affects the pupil's attitudes regarding his worth as a
person since,
as has
been noted,
life
at school
is
heavily
invested with praise and blame, pride and shame, acceptance
and rejection, success and
failure.
between
student has or might have a sig-
a teacher
nificant effect
To
and
on what
a
Everything
a child thinks
and
feels
in the relation
about himself.
have insight into the child's strivings and the problems
he faces, the teacher must strive to face the same problems within his
own
life.
These problems
are largely emotional
in nature.
To is
be able to understand and sympathize with
hostile
must face
(and his
all
own
children are,
implications of his anger as
with
his pupils, in his
it
less),
who
the teacher
and try to accept the
occurs, say, in his annoyance
impatience with himself, and in his
feuds with other teachers. 82
more or
hostile tendencies
a child
THE SEARCH FOR MEANING
He
must seek
to understand the devices
responsibility for himself
by blaming
To appreciate another's his own fears. He must
fears, a
others.
person must try to examine
them
face
he uses to avoid
they appear in
as
his
phobias, squeamishness, fear of misfortune, timidity, uncertainties,
unwillingness to take a chance,
worry concerning
what others may think of him. Unless a teacher can, at
least to
some
own
extent, face his
anxiety, he will be
uncomprehending when children help-
lessly express theirs.
He may
eties
be harsh
break through in such signs
when
children's anxi-
as inability to learn,
tinence, inattentiveness, restlessness, irritability,
A the
and the
like.
teacher's understanding of others can be only as deep as
wisdom he
The more life,
imper-
the
possesses
when he
looks inward
upon
genuinely he seeks to face the problems of
more
himself.
own
his
he will be able to realize his kinship with others,
whether they are younger or
older, like
him or unlike him
in education, wealth, religion, or professional rank.
How does one achieve understanding of self? One broad
principle
is this:
To
gain in knowledge of
one must have the courage to seek accept what one
may
find.
If
it
in
to
one has such courage and such
humility, one can seek professional help and one can
on many resources
self,
and the humility
everyday
draw
life.
One can learn from experience of life's joys and tragedies. One can profit from trying to catch the meaning of one's anger, joy, depression, fear, desire to inflict pain, and so forth.
A valuable intellectual
help in self-examination, which
but
may
also strike at a
the reading of books written
be mainly level,
is
by compassionate people who
have made some progress in their
know
may
deep emotional
own
painful struggle to
themselves. 83
WHEN TEACHERS The method
of "participant observation" offers one means
of taking a look at oneself. sees
FACE THEMSELVES
One
and what one's feelings are
records what one hears and
on a discusThen, with the help of others, one record and compares it with records kept byone
as
listens in
sion or visits a class.
examines
this
other observers. This comparison notices
is
granted.
may show how what one
determined by habits of thought that are taken for
What one perceives own subjective
"objectively"
tion of one's
state,
often a projec-
is
may
and thus
tell
more
about oneself than about the people one observes.
This broad principle
also holds: Just as
it is
within an inter-
personal setting that one acquires most of the attitudes in-
volved in one's view of oneself, so it is likely that only in an interpersonal setting can a person be helped to come to grips
with some of the meanings of these attitudes. A relationship that can promote knowledge of
when one
self prevails
seeks private therapy or joins with others in a
group therapy
situation.
1
It exists also, to
some degree, when-
ever one enters into relationship with people in any walk of life
a
who
person
can help one gain perspective on oneself. In
may
be helped to see
devices as others see them.
his anger, fear,
The way
a
group,
and protective
others express themselves
1 In an earlier study (27) in this series, a workshop consisting of teachers of psychology in the high school recommended that all high school teachers (not just psychology teachers) should be provided with such opportunities to grow in self-understanding as might be obtained through group therapy under the leadership of people professionally trained for such work. Such a proposal would involve many practical considerations that will not be discussed here, and it might not be an adequate solution for some people. It is mentioned here, however, to emphasize the point that many teachers recognize the need for help if they are to make full use of their personal and professional potentialities. As indicated in the first chapter, over forty per cent of the people in a majority of the groups answering the questionnaire on self-understanding stated that they thought they would need personal help such as might be gotten from group therapy if they were to put the concept of self-understanding (which over ninety per cent endorsed) into practice in their professional work.
84
THE SEARCH FOR MEANING or respond to him
may
help him perceive in
new and
a
some of the evidences of shame,
revealing light
self-
self-efface-
ment. anxiety, vindictiveness, and other outcroppings of deep-
which ordinarilv he
seated attitudes of
to witness a mimickingr of his
plaving peer
Some
may throw some
not aware. Similarlv,
is
conduct bv light
a child
or
bv
on unrecognized
a role-
conflicts.
of the richest possibilities for self-examination can
be found in relationships with others from
and from year
to year.
month
to
In the teaching profession
month
we
have
hardly begun to explore and to tap these resources for growth
although some
in self-knowledge, area.
from behind tions
work
being done in
is
people could encourage one another to
If
the curtain that
commonly
conceals
this
come out their emo-
from others and from themselves, these emotions might
be faced in an insight-producing way. In a larger sense, particular procedures that are used for
growing
in self-understanding
courage to face
this
are
less
manv wavs. It is not something that is all. Those who are blind to themselves a capacity- to acquire
who
attained once and for
have
search
the
through
No
all
a little
of
it.
and
more; and an outstanding mark of those
have acquired the deepest knowledge
are seeking.
since
important than the
need. Self-knowledge can be acquired in
is
that they
still
one procedure alone will give the answer, for
selfhood,
when
channels of experience
as
genuine,
long
as a
is
pursued
person
lives.
FACING THE ROLE OF FEELING IN THINKING In the foregoing section the emphasis has been on the need for facing our
own
emotions
if
we
are to
in understanding the emotions of others.
make anv progress But there
is
a
need
for facing emotion also in dealing with what, on the surface, 85
WHEN TEACHERS may seem
to be the purely intellectual
the school's program. ally
Much
governed by undisclosed
desire; intellectual
To
fear or anger.
of
what seems
To
shared.
FACE THEMSELVES
of
what
and academic aspects of
is
feelings.
called thinking
Logic
the extent that this
is
is
meaning
not revealed or
think straight, to communicate what
it is
we
what someone
important to
are
else is
know how we
feel,
feeling influences our thoughts and the thoughts of
others. It
thinking
true, the full
to be an intellectual discourse
trying to communicate,
how
by
often ruled
arguments are often the instruments of
thinking, and to think effectively about
and
is
actu-
is
is
necessary to take account of emotional factors in the intellect
if
is
to be given a chance to function
freely.
We
let
our feelings govern the nature of our reasoning,
without knowing that
own
bias
onto
we
a discussion
are doing so,
when we
of a historical
issue,
discipline or scholarship, or a decision as to
or
project our
a
problem of
what courses
a
high school student must take to be allowed to go to college, etc.,
without once asking ourselves:
ing, or
in
am
I
perhaps projecting
Is this really
my own
meek but compulsive compliance
to
pure reason-
prejudices or yielding
what
others have de-
manded? During the presidential campaign of 1952 a forum was held whose avowed purpose was to try to inquire beneath the reasons people usually gave to others and to themselves for sup-
porting one candidate or opposing another. the
forum were
became apparent that
it
even to ask themselves: apart
from the
The members
instructors and graduate students.
was very
Is
difficult for these
It
of
soon
people
there perhaps an emotional reason,
logical reasons
I
give, for
my
support of one
candidate or bitter opposition to another? What, on an emotional level, does this 86
campaign mean, and what do the can-
—
a
THE SEARCH FOR MEANING
my own
didates symbolize in
toward the
from what
and
personalities, parties, I
believe
arguments used
in the
The
much
of
least try to
human
venture was a
parties.
that to ask people in education even
might be an emotional
bias in the reason-
nature.
Maybe
it
is.
is
simply asking
But unless we
at
understand the role of feeling in our thinking,
we
We
are
are simply going through the motions of thinking.
not making
feel
I
spent in a rehash of the hackneyed
ing they use to support a political candidate
too
do
issues, as distinguished
campaign materials of both
Someone might say to consider that there
How
life?
think about them?
I
The hour was
failure.
emotional
full use
of our capacity to reason.
FACING THE PERSONAL IMPLICATIONS OF IDEAS
One complaint
often
made by
teachers in training
is
that
they have to learn a lot of theory without being shown
how
This
to put the theory into practice.
probably not the basic problem.
the realities of
Any life
it
is
that
as it applies its
roots in
has an immediate practical meaning to
who are willing to Often, when teachers a
problem, but
theory in education that has
those
method,
a
meaning of the theory
teachers are resisting the to themselves.
is
The problem may be
accept
it.
look for a practical application
gimmick, a prescription,
a rule of
thumb
—they
— are
trying not to grasp but to avoid the meaning a theory might
have for them. Theory and practice are often out of gear in education because
we
as teachers
like to externalize rather
immediate response often
something to someone
The
is
—
like all other
human
beings
than internalize a theory. to
become manipulative:
Our to
do
else.
writer has faced this problem repeatedly in his 87
work
WHEN TEACHERS with the concept underlying tion of education self
is
FACE THEMSELVES this
to help the
book: that an essential func-
growing
child understand him-
and develop healthy attitudes of self-acceptance. In some
classroom situations dealing with self-understanding which the writer has had an opportunity to observe, teachers have
done almost everything except the one thing that
They have They have gotten the
gotten long check
lists
talked to parents about the pupils.
young people
seemed to be
They have
their
to express
is
needful.
of children's interests.
by
a vote
They have
what
them
to
most urgent and important problems.
supplied movies and exhibits and have used
kinds of paraphernalia.
But
seemed to leave out the one
in
doing
all
this,
essential thing: their
all
they often
own
direct,
personal involvement.
Hopelessness and Despair
Many
people interviewed in connection with this study
expressed themselves as rather hopeless of ever finding a solu-
some problem or problems in their lives. In no was there a consistent or pure attitude of hopelessness. The people who said or implied that they were without hope with respect to a particular difficulty also showed they still had a lot of courage left. tion for
instance, however,
The concept
of hopelessness was also included in the Per-
sonal Issues Inventory.
Over
a third of those
responding indi-
cated that one or more of the conditions of hopelessness described in the Inventory represented a problem in their
own
lives.
What we ments such things in
treated as hopelessness
as the following:
life I
was expressed by
"I feel that there are
have missed and never will
find,
state-
important
no matter
how
THE SEARCH FOR MEANING hard
things in
age
how much
try or
I
it is
life I
have had to give up, and
too late to
may
struggle
sometimes
I
wonder whether
is
it
I
suspect that at I
believe
my
life's
often seems rather hopeless;
worth while
who
true that a person
them probably there is a more
feel that there are
complicated and mixed up that
feel that life is so it is
I
for them; Although
note of hopelessness in
a
is
make up
be worth while,
I
There
accomplish;
I
to keep
all
up the
struggle."
these statements, and
by
shares the feelings expressed
faces a large area of emptiness in his terrible condition of emptiness
—
it
But
life.
the condition
of despair.
The utmost condition of meaninglessness in life is a state of despair. Where there is awareness of hopelessness, there is an awareness of what might be, and ray of hope. There
a possibility, as the Prophet has
is still
the well of pain might yet be filled with joy.
said, that
prospect
state of despair the is
this in itself contains a
to surrender.
is
bleaker than
The one who completely
up the quest for meaning.
He
deeper than death.
It is a
is
To
despair
despairs has given
up the struggle
has given
be himself or to find himself. Despair
this.
In a
like death,
kind of living death.
It
but
to
it is
what
is
Kierkegaard has called "the sickness unto death."
Death death there
is
is
not in
itself a
a recurring
is still
But the one
symbol of
theme
The
prospect of
in the history of a life in
which
a surge of
growth. Death can never be denied.
who
in search of selfhood faces death
is still
incorporates the thought of existence.
despair.
He may
it
into the larger
go even further and accept death
thing swallowed up in that his identity lives
life.
He may
on even
hold but others deny.
on
as
his
some-
believe, or try to believe,
after death
He may
to believe, that he will live
and
sweep of
—
believe, as in the
a belief that
many
some have sought
memory 89
of those
who
WHEN TEACHERS He may
remain.
though
FACE THEMSELVES
somehow he
believe that
some have endeavored
believe,
to believe, that he can find eternal
not through timeless existence, but through fullness of
According
ence.
even
will survive
He may
bones have been interred.
his
life,
exist-
to this belief, a self that plunges deeply
fully into the possibilities of living captures
as
and
and embraces the
essence of immortality, whether or not the spirit survives the
body. These are some of the ways of accepting or seeking to accept the threat of death and the inescapable fact that death will occur.
As was
stated earlier, he
himself as one
prepared to of dying, the one
he
Who
He
die.
His
fully accepts to live
is
if his
despair
it is
otherwise. For
complete, has died while
is
a living death.
is
The
are these despairing ones?
despairing ones, ac-
cording to the view presented here, are not those who, in study, spoke of areas of meaninglessness in their
they
felt
alive in the search for selfhood.
They have
the humility, to accept the fact that there
They
in their existence,
are
lives,
among
not found
those
say that there
are
those
most
who
alive.
is
still
the courage, and
something empty
something of deadness
but by virtue of facing
who
among
is
this
or said
lonely or homeless or hopeless. These people are
in their lives.
best
one who, though facing the prospect
is
despairs,
alive.
who accepts himself He who is best able
In a state of despair,
still lives.
who
is still
who
will die.
The
this
condition they
despairing ones are
have the courage to face their
anxiety, hostility, loneliness, and search for meaning, as did
the people in this study
who
openly affirmed that they needed
help and courageously asked for
more
likely
to be
among
The despairing who pretend to
it.
those
adjusted and claim to be above ordinary
"adjustment"
may 90
human
ones are
be well
frailty.
Their
be a form of despair: Adjustment to con-
— THE SEARCH FOR MEANING Adjustment by way of surrender of
formity.
feeling.
Ad-
justment to a condition of not even daring to face the issues of anxiety and meaning. Adjustment gained at the price of
not daring to ask the question:
There
is
when one
lessness
But there
when
Who and what and why am
says, "I dortt
know what
something deeper than
is
this
—
really matters."
there
is
person says, in effect, "Nothing matters.'
a
despairs
when
humanity
I?
doubt and fear and perhaps an element of hope-
—
despair
A
person
he renounces the most intimate possessions of
meaning, and choice.
passion,
feeling,
presses despair
,
when
he says that existence
is
He
ex-
simply a mechan-
chain of cause and effect, one event in an endles«
ical link in a
succession of antecedents and consequents, and that the searcn for meaning and value, or even the notion of the uniqueness
of humanity
good to
It is
in
itself, is just
feel
an
illusion.
sympathy for those who weep, but more
need of sympathy are those
feeling feeling
loneliness or
those
who
hope for anything
The Paradox
When
who
lives
it
else.
One's heart goes out to
say that
life itself is
people feel that meaninglessness
—
as so
empty.
of Meaninglessness
many
in this study did
of despondency. But there for
despairingly have sur-
It is
say their lives are empty, but more deeply in need
of compassion are those
own
who
good to go out in fellowto those who feel lonely, but more in need of felloware those despairing ones who do not dare to face their
rendered the right to weep.
is
a
is
a
problem
—they
paradox
in this
in their
express a kind
despondency,
expresses both an awareness of emptiness and an under-
current of hope. There
is
hope because concern with mean91
WHEN TEACHERS
FACE THEMSELVES meaning might
inglessness in itself implies the possibility that
be found.
If a
ask for help
person did not have some hope, he would not
—he would
give
up
Where
in despair.
there
is
some assurance
a desire to seek for meaning, there remains
that life has, or might have, meaning. Aiost teachers
who
raise
the problem of meaning probably have an unspoken faith that life
some worth, and an unvoiced conviction
has
that their
existence might have a significance richer than anything they
have yet discovered.
This hope, which
persists in spite of
roots deep in the soil of
life's
standing characteristic of the seeks to understand. lessly
In his
disappointment, has
early experiences.
young
first
child
is
how,
proceeds
a
though he had implicit
what, a why. Early in
though
as
it
though the child
is
were
A
accounting of things.
material he
teachers
is
who
remnant of
compelled to took part in
hope
this
this
who were
persists
even
this study,
much
that
body of academic
This hope
learn.
hope
persists in the
even when, by their
is
own
empty and meaningless
were
remains true that many many who responded to deep suffering when they
persists, it
interviewed and
questionnaires in this study revealed testified that there
areas of emptiness
and meaningless-
ness in their lives; that they tried helplessly to live possible expectations; that they real feelings.
he
and to give an
are compelled to teach.
Granting that people
an early
often rebuked when, in school, he seeks to
testimony, they see so
what they
at
faith that there
his strivings, likewise,
possible to get
grasp the significance, for him, of the vast
in
word-
and then through language, he seeks to examine, to
stage of life he strives as a
out-
that he actively
explorations, at first
probe into the what, the how, and the why. Even
is
One
There 92
is
were not
in
up
to im-
touch with their
pain and probably often an element
— THE SEARCH FOR MEANING of tragedy
when
people say, as did a goodly number in this
study, that they feel lonely, homeless, and hopeless. If a limited
encounter with the idea of self-discovery
much awareness
so
of lack, meaninglessness, and loneliness,
and so many evidences of
become even gloomier
if
would not
disquiet,
it
the picture
these people launched into a further
and deeper search into themselves? The answer
would
elicits
not be better to avoid
this,
to leave
And
Yes.
is
untouched these
longings and yearnings, to leave uncovered these undercurrents of tragedy?
of his
The answer
life,
he
is
likely to feel uncomfortable.
that he has been pretending.
is
as
long
if
the trouble
by
feel actively disturbed
a process of repair
even
as the conditions are there,
trouble, even
meaning will find
will face feelings that are
To
before he started to inquire.
them can be the beginning of
mean
He
He
But these conditions were there
disturbing and depressing.
And
No.
is
true that often, as a person inquires into the
It is
is
if
and growth. hidden, they
not directly perceived and
experienced through states of restlessness or aimlessness or
vague apprehension, depression, boredom, anger, or frustration,
such
as
were discussed
in the
there are dislocations in one's
The problems The ful,
if
—
and although
it is
is
somehow.
looks at these are old
the search for selfhood
healing, the person
worse before he
ing oneself as one
a price
When
they seem utterly new.
search for meaning
likely to feel
one pays
when one
that are faced
and troublesome, even
life,
chapter on anxiety.
—having
who
feels better. It
is
—
is
pain-
undertakes
it is
only by accept-
the courage to perceive and the
humility to appreciate and to savor one's loneliness and hostility
and the meaninglessness of so much of what one does
that the process of healing
The
position in this
book
and repair can get under way. is
that
we
should face the question 93
WHEN TEACHERS
FACE THEMSELVES
of meaning in education, not evade or avoid
This
hurts.
writer has been told
not enter into
on which not
a position
is
by some people
all
even
it,
if
it
The
will agree.
that education should
We should not touch upon issues that We should not press into the deeper lest the student become distressed. We
this area.
might arouse anxiety. areas of
meaning
should not even discuss anxiety (so a few have said), for to
do so might make people more anxious than they already
Yet what
is
cant that
we can undertake
the alternative? Actually, there at
any
is
nothing
are.
signifi-
level in education that will
not arouse anxiety in some students.
As
has already been noted, in the most conventionally
oriented and psychologically naive learning situations, chil-
dren face scale.
and rejection on
failure, ridicule,
They
monumental
a
constantly face conditions that create anxiety or
aggravate that which already prevails. So to center our attention only
what
on the academic, and to avoid any emphasis on
has implications for the
even though
it
self,
will not rule out anxiety,
fusing to look at in education
We
might rule out some occasions for anxiety.
do not avoid the actuality of anxiety by ignoring life as it
is.
completely
is
The only way
it
or
by
re-
to sidestep anxiety
to stop educating children alto-
gether.
But, even apart from
Should we,
this,
proceed in our pedagogy mechanical
what
is
the alternative?
in order to avoid the risk of stirring people up,
way with
as
though
we were
dealing in a
disembodied facts? Should the teacher
of English, for example, in sharing a
with hate or passion or
tears,
poem or
a
novel
filled
avoid these emotions because
they might evoke a resonance of feeling in
this
or that
member
of the class? Should he blunt the impact, strip out the passion,
dry up the
tears?
94
Should he water things
down
so that
no
THE SEARCH FOR MEANING one will
anything?
feel
If the
poetry, drama, or fiction? fullest
is
is
why
Yes, then
teach
No, then why not try for the
impact and the deepest possible significance?
The same teach
If
answer
question can be raised concerning everything
—every
subject, every
skill,
every
art,
we
every craft that
part of the curriculum.
What is the alternative?, becomes even more insistent when we look at the children we teach. If we look at them realistically, we see that their lives, like the But the question,
lives of teachers, are guilt,
touched by anxiety,
and many other conditions of
these children as they are, realistically as
we
hostility, loneliness,
distress.
we must
If
we
are to face
face the conditions as
can.
Religion
Many
of the people interviewed in connection with this
Some spoke
study spoke of religion.
some voiced
bitterness
and
hostility.
in a mood of charity; Some spoke with quiet
assurance of their faith; some spoke of their religion as though
they were trying by means of it to escape from anxiety and were not succeeding very well. There was not enough material or enough of a common thread in the statements about religion to provide the basis for a separate chapter in this
book. But one feature of the com-
ments on religion does
into the present context
fit
—
the search
for meaning. Several people,
seemed
when
referring to religion, did so in
to be a rather self-conscious
manner,
gion were hardly a proper thing to discuss talks to another. is
as
though
when one
what reli-
teacher
In the opinion of the writer, this attitude
rather depressing, emphasizing again
how
people have been 95
WHEN TEACHERS
FACE THEMSELVES
schooled to avoid sharing with others the things that concern
them most.
another
It is
symptom of
a tendency to avoid the
implications of the search for meaning. Religion,
if it
means anything
intimate personal meaning.
through
cere, seeks
The
at
his religion to
ultimate concern. Religion
is
my
assurance that
life is
which
my
It is
becomes
a final decision.
the ground of
I
I?,
build
For
being?
worth
it
he
him
to
is
sin-
of
is
some, the utmost in
when
many
people, the
Who
he asks,
and
a religious question
when
other questions:
What
raises
What
living?
if
is
the foundation of
What
is
my
the substance on
hope?
not just the credulous and unlearned or those seeking
an easy escape
who
raise questions of religion.
tions face every scientist
These ques-
and every scholar when he has gone
to the outermost reaches of his discipline, is
what
find
at least for
is,
question of meaning a person raises
what and why am
has a profound and
In the view of
the search for meaning.
pursued to
all,
religious person,
if
not before. So
anomalous that when questions of religion are raised
education, they are often raised apologetically
—
as
though
it
in a
person should apologize for seeking, or claiming to have found, the ultimate answer to the meaning of his
life.
Humility book humility has been mentioned as essential to the search for meaning. Why is this, and what is meant by In this
humility?
Humility
makes It is
one
is
it less
is
a
form of inner strength,
a
kind of dignity that
necessary for a person to pretend.
something quite different from weakness. The humble not humble because he 96
is
spineless.
To
be humble
is
THE SEARCH FOR MEANING not the same
as to
be obsequious, or an easy mark, or
a
person
without robust convictions.
Why He
is
the one
who
seeks for
meaning humble?
cannot help but be humble
when he
looks
beyond the
appearances of things and contemplates the vast reaches of the unknown. The more he grows in understanding, the more he realizes how much there is that yet lies hidden. He realizes that this fact
He
he cannot see the distant scene, but he can accept
without
bitterness.
cannot help but be humble
human growth. What
marvel of
when
he looks upon the
parent can contemplate, for
example, the development of language in a child without a feeling of
reverent
awe?
What
teacher has not had an experience of
wonder while watching
the mental
life
of his pupils
unfold?
When a person seeks to realize the meaning of his own emotions, he cannot help but be humble. He is baffled by the play of love and hate in his life. He cannot penetrate the clouds of anxiety that move across the horizons of his inner world. He is
perplexed
by
the conditions that sometimes
move him
to-
ward depths of longing. He is bewildered by the complexity of his feelings, which lead him at times to accept what he should reject and to reject what by rights he should accept. He is baffled by the worries that assail him and the forebodings that sometimes seize him.
He
cannot help but be humble
poignancy of
his
grief;
when he
considers the
the weight of his melancholy
on
occasion; the inexpressible quality of the joy that sometimes
wells
him
up
as
in him; the
ominous waves that threaten to engulf
he stands on the brink of despair; and the
surges through
him
as
he
tastes in
advance
a
happy
of his hopes. 97
thrill
that
fulfillment
WHEN TEACHERS He
cannot help but
feel
FACE THEMSELVES humble
as
he absorbs
that he
all
can know, and in so doing glimpses depths he can never
fathom and heights he can never and valleys of
What
are the
Above
He
who
marks of one
he
all,
scale in the majestic peaks
his inner life.
one
is
who
is
is
humble?
able to wait
and to be
silent.
can wait, for he does not expect that he should immedi-
from within or have
ately understand each question
He
query from without.
to each
a
response
can wait, for he does not
expect to reach an instantaneous insight or to have an instantaneous answer or to offer an immediate competing or echoing remark
when
not knowing
when he
is
—
He
others speak.
at least
does not feel guilty about
not always.
Nor
does he feel guilty
by doubts concerning something he once
assailed
thought he knew.
Being able to wait enables him to listener
when
them out
if
he thinks
more, he
is
a
good
it is fit
or timely to do
listener to his
own
listener,
is
a
good
so.
But even
inner voice, which
often speaks very slowly and indistinctly.
good
He
listen.
others have something to say, and he will hear
If
he were not a
he would not give himself time to experience
the impact of his feelings, to catch the meaning or at least to try to capture the meaning of a nascent
mood
or a vaguely
pleasant or disquieting thought that crosses his mind.
This It is
ability to
wait and to
when
acquired only
with some of
make
a
listen is
his pretensions
exorbitant demands
not just a cultivated pose.
person has become able to dispense
and has begun to learn not to
upon
himself.
He
is
then able to
appreciate, without enthusiasm but also without protest, the
simple fact that so
much
in his life
and
in life
about him
uncertain, untried, untested, and unknown.
There
is
a condition opposite to that of humility
98
—
is
a false
THE SEARCH FOR MEANING kind of pride and a harsh kind of arrogance, which cannot tolerate doubt.
This arrogance
is
a
form of
anxiety.
It is a
condition of feeling mortally threatened unless one has diately at
hand the absolute and certain answers
to questions
When
pertaining to the nature of man's existence.
imme-
such an
cannot search for meaning; and
attitude prevails, a person
even the meaning he has found, or thinks he has found, probably only an academic possession. carious truth
embraced by one whose
faith
is
the kind of pre-
It is is
so
weak
that he
does not have courage to doubt.
The humble
person can tolerate himself not only as one
whose knowledge imperfect.
is
imperfect but also
as
one
who
It is
only
he can tolerate himself as an imperfect creature, without
feeling apologetic about listen
is
Here humility interweaves with compassion and
provides a person with the beginning of wisdom.
when
himself
and to
it,
that he can have the
freedom
to
learn.
The humble person is willing to accept truth and to seek it it may be found. x\ humble teacher, for example, will accept a child as one who, in a given situation, may give a
wherever clearer
and more profound glimpse into the meaning of things
than the teacher himself.
And
a
humble scholar
when a less learned person why, he may be more profound than the
realizes that
is
is
one
who
puzzled and asks
erudite person
who
knows the contents of a hundred books but never wonders what his erudition means.
99
FIVE
Sex
W.
hen teachers face themselves, one of the
cant aspects of
life
they face
istic
of healthy selfhood
and
abilities.
is
is
sex.
An
signifi-
important character-
acceptance of one's sexual appetites
Sex provides the consummate physical experience of fulfillment. It
is
also, for
many,
a
self-
stumbling block in the search
for selfhood.
There
is
much about
sex that
is
paradoxical.
It is
through
sexual intimacy with a loved person that one realizes the deepest
experience of relatedness to another
human
also possible to enter into sexual experience
detachment that
may
is
But
it is
the antithesis of relatedness to others. Sex
be an expression of tenderness, but
It is a
being.
with a kind of
vehicle for sharing, but
it
it
can also serve hate.
can also be a means of giving
without taking or taking without giving.
It
may
instrument of conquest, as a means of venting
be used as an hostility, as a
tool for taking revenge, as an endeavor to assuage feelings of 100
SEX inferiority, as a relief
or
womanhood, and
One tion
Sex
from
of the problems about sex
an
is
life
as a
is
that
it is
often, in educa-
problem and
as
nothing
essential possession of one's being, a gift
has
manhood
so on.
and elsewhere, treated
which
anxiety, as proof of one's
through
most absorbing physical experience of
its
else.
life.
One of the tragedies of our culture is that large numbers of human beings are unable to use or enjoy this gift. The lack of access to the sexual part of themselves may occur both among those who see sex as an aspect of a mechanistic lifeprocess and among those who see it as a gift from the Creator. Although there our culture about this
who
is
is
sex, the data
perhaps hardly a parent or teacher in
not, or has not been,
obtained from those
who
participated in
study were limited. 1 Although sex was one of the cate-
gories represented
on the Personal
about
people identified
in
somewhat anxious
a third of the
which they needed help
Issues it
as
Inventory, only
an area in their
in understanding themselves.
lives
The
reasons for the comparative lack of mention of sex, both in
interviews and on the Personal Issues Inventory, can be a
matter of speculation only. Even in a therapeutic situation, of course, feel free to
it
often takes
many
sessions before
some persons
speak about sex. In the present study, interviews
seldom numbered more than two or three.
It is possible, also,
was not mentioned by many who did express condifficulties because they felt that some of these difficulties were, in a sense, more fundamental. The most self-revealing confidences concerning sexual problems would probably disclose that sex is not the sole problem,
that sex
cern over other
nor even the central problem. But regardless of
this,
many
teachers undoubtedly have important problems relating to sex 1 It is
hoped to deal more
fully with this topic in a later study.
101
WHEN TEACHERS
FACE THEMSELVES
more thoroughly than it was possible to explore them here. This holds whether we believe (as some people still do) that sex is the key to all human perplexities or take the view (which is increasingly being advanced) that problems pertaining to sex are usually imbedded that could be explored
with others and
in a larger context of difficulty in relations
with oneself.
Many
who
of those
problems did so in the
raised sexual
One such
context of other concerns discussed in this book.
men and women spoke
concern was loneliness; both
troubled because their sexual relations consisted, so
closeness or psychological intimacy.
like
it is
Sexual problems were
meaning and meaninglessness
when people said, in effect, "I have man (or woman), but he (or she) thing to me;
seemed
without any emotional
to them, of a physical connection
also discussed in the context of
of being
it
sexual relations with this really doesn't
mean any-
going through some motions, and these
motions alone don't matter enough." This concern about the
meaning of sexual
would be youth,
less
when
those interviewed.
among people
prevalent
sex
is
was expressed by some of the
relations
among
older persons
new, so
to speak,
to find a sexual "outlet" (as
It is
likely that
it
in the full flush of
and the biological urge
Kinsey so poetically puts
it)
is
strong enough to sweep other considerations aside.
Some
of the people
who were
about their sexual partners,
A
being exploited.
as
interviewed complained
though they
few boasted about
felt that
they were
their sexual freedom,
and yet the very fact that they boasted revealed that they
were uneasy,
as
though recognizing that
from one sexual adventure person, one relations
who
to another
and
a
person can
still
move
be a very lonely
has not found anything meaningful in his
with others or any substantial meaning within him102
SEX self.
Some spoke
Quite
guiltily.
a
few spoke with regret about
sexual experiences they had not had, deploring the fact that
they had avoided sex (and time was running short); others regretted sexual experiences they did not regard as measuring
up
to the promise of their
The
who
people
own
sexuality.
many
participated in this study revealed
of the contrasting attitudes toward sex that can also be observed in everyday these attitudes
were
life,
and
it
was impressive
to note
tied to a larger pattern of attitudes
others and themselves.
Some
how
toward
people, for example, spoke of
sex as something belonging to a larger emotional context, in
which there tion.
At
mutual regard and some tenderness and affec-
is
were people who seemed whose only desire appeared to be with someone who happened, at the
the other extreme, there
to be sexual opportunists,
to find physical release
moment,
to strike their fancy.
The motives underlying these and other approaches to sex of course, diverse. The person who will accept the idea
are,
of sexual relations only with a person with
ready formed an emotional set of values
hand, he
tie
may
whom On
and a mature emotional outlook.
may
he has
al-
be a person with a healthy
be a frightened person
who
the other
carries the idea of
emotional affinity to such an extreme that he effectively cuts himself off from sex altogether.
opportunist
may
The motive
of the sexual
be to make a conquest, or to establish a
fleet-
ing illusion of intimacy and closeness with another person,
or to satisfy a gnawing need to prove his potency.
The
fact that
even
a relationship
intimately as a sexual relationship a passing desire to
involving
may
two people
as
represent to one simply
enjoy the sensations of the
moment
while,
represents a profoundly significant emotional
to the other,
it
experience
one circumstance, among many, that contributes
is
103
WHEN TEACHERS
FACE THEMSELVES
problems of loneliness and meaninglessness, discussed
to the
elsewhere in this book. In the sphere of sex, as in connection with other currents of there
life,
is
a great deal of projection.
Several people, in
when
interviews, said in effect, "Sex has avoided me,"
they might better have
reality
Some people
find
it less
in
have avoided sex."
"I
said,
threatening to attribute their lack of
courage to outer circumstances than to look into the role of evasion they themselves are playing.
problems
also takes place
when
a
factoriness of sexual experiences he has
out inquiring what his
own
Projection of sexual
person blames the unsatis-
had on others, with-
responsibility in the matter might
be.
In the writer's opinion, the relatively infrequent mention
of sex by the participants in this study, even though the level of self-revelation was comparatively deep,
is
another indica-
tion of the great need in teacher-training to face the facts of life.
Every person original
feels the
promptings of
sex,
form are healthy. By the time he
even long before, he
may
also
is
which
in their
a teacher,
and
have acquired impulses that are
not so healthy, such as an anxious need to seek a solution for the problems of
through
life
sex, as
though
it
had
kind of
a
magic, or a desperate desire to keep sex out of his
though sex
classes ings,
it
were
a horrible threat.
something of
is
vital
and take part
in
Yet
concern to
group
life,
in spite of the fact that
all
people, one can go to
discussions,
committee meet-
curriculum conferences, symposia on needed research
education, and the like, and never hear any mention of
even
when
in
sex,
the discussions are supposed to deal with real con-
cerns.
As long
as
as
we 104
evade the issue of sex in education
—
in the
SEX education of teachers and in the education of the children
they teach
—we
are play-acting. This does not
have to magnify sex
as the
not. Neither should
we
for
it is
from unit
mean
only real problem in
minimize
it as
life,
that
for
we
it is
something subsidiary,
As long as we remain aloof (wholly or by relegating it to a little
not something subsidiary.
this aspect
of
life
on sex education), we are promoting and abetting the
conditions contributing to other problems so
liness,
many
of the
—
lone-
meaninglessness, anxiety, obsequious or rebellious
atti-
teachers
who
took part in
this
study found disturbing
tudes toward authority, homelessness, and hopelessness. Call
passion as
what we will, sex, Eros, the emotion tied to life's to renew life, cannot be denied. Whether we regard it
it
an expression of human love or
force,
we must face its power and if we would take the
promptings
as
an elemental physical
seek to be at first
step
home with
its
toward accepting
or understanding ourselves.
105
SIX
Hostility
T
face anger and hostility as an aspect of one's
.o
one must draw to the
fullest extent
self-acceptance, sympathy, hostility affect us
Anger
is
They
all.
tive
Anger and
are inevitable.
linked from an early age to a person's efforts to
by
a person's wishes are thwarted,
others.
and
is
It is
mobilized
linked as a primi-
emotional companion to the child's earliest strivings.
a sense,
we may
call
anger the handmaiden of
efforts to assert himself
anger, although is
life,
one's capacity for
and understanding.
protect himself from interference
when
upon
it is
and to be himself. As long
own
With flares
human
being's effort to be a person
right.
the passage of time, children not only
on the occasion and then persists 106
show anger
that
subsides; they also acquire
form of
potential
beyond the occasion. Attitudes of
hostility,
attitudes of hostility, a lingering or residual
anger that
as life lasts,
often misplaced and takes foolish turns,
an essential factor in a
in his
In
a child's earliest
HOSTILITY as is
noted in more detail
may
later,
prevail in the
form of
grievances or a chronic disposition to have a chip on one's shoulder.
They may appear
They may
prevail in the
to bristle or rebel
in a
tendency to be
form of prejudices, or
(or to cringe)
authority figure, or in a tendency to
annoyances
may
in a
tendency
dealing with an
become angered by
little
do not merit so much wrath.
that, objectively,
Attitudes of hostility
when
sarcastic.
also
appear in a tendency to be
defensive or suspicious or to assume that others have un-
blow (especially by way of a cutting or belittling remark). Hostility may appear in the form of activities and interests that, on the surface, have the mark of pure scholarship. While hostility is usually unpleasant, it is also inevitable. It is impossible to face all the demands of life without feeling friendly intentions, or in a compulsion to strike the
put upon.
many unavoidable of life without becoming angry. And repeated of anger may lead to an attitude of hostility. It is It is
frustrations
experiences
first
impossible to meet the
probably impossible for even the best students, under the best conditions, to submit to rules and regulations and
all
the re-
quirements that come under the heading of discipline without feeling at times that others are thwarting, blocking, or coer-
Even under
cing them.
the best circumstances, in the hands
of the most skillful parent and the most competent teacher, discipline
is
likely, at times, to
that rules must be imposed.
that
it is
something
first
ously from within.
bound
taste.
Life
is
such
nature of discipline
imposed from without, not spontane-
Somewhere along
the way, a person
is
to feel aggrieved.
Hostility, while to protect
vast
have a bitter
It is in the
it
originally
and preserve
amount of
grows out of
a person's efforts
his individuality, eventually entails a
suffering.
There
is
suffering
when
107
a person
WHEN TEACHERS
FACE THEMSELVES from an
earlier
day. This burden weighs heavily on the people against
whom
burden of
carries a
the hostility
directed, but
is
who
the one
is
Much
is
it
happens to drive
how much himself.
hostility
whom
underground.
it.
it is
It is
directed.
often very
Hostility appears in
therapy or psychoanalysis often find that
even after they have
considerable progress in understanding themselves. is
person seeking to understand himself.
of great value to a Hostile attitudes
one can catch a glimpse of them) and angry moods has the courage to consider
what they mean) can give
cant clues to self-discovery. person, like anger in a
(although often rather
person preserves
to assert himself.
Moreover,
waking up, so
placed
—he
hostility in
(if
(if
one
signifi-
an older
young child, often serves as the means awkward and misdirected) by which
his right to
Sometimes
be himself or realizes
it is
compulsively compliant person is
many
often works like Satan in the garb of a saint.
It
who undergo
Recognition of hostile tendencies
a
Fre-
it.
fool others and also fool the hostile person
their hostile tendencies are hard to grasp
made
harbors
people frequently do not even suspect
they are governed by
which
disguises,
more heavily on
(or the earlier, simpler expression of
punished by the person against
elusive, so elusive that
People
who
painful to the person
quently, in childhood,
anger)
often weighs
it
hostile.
is
Hostility
hostility like a leftover load
to speak.
feels hostile
His
by way of
first
his right
hostility that a
begins to
show
that he
may at first be miswho have pushed him
hostility
toward people
around and taken advantage of him, perhaps not realizing
at
he
of
anger such
who has invited them to do so. But a wave as this may be the beginning of a healthy process
self-repair
if,
in
due time, the person begins to perceive that
first
that
it is
the abuse inflicted
brought on himself. 108
upon him by others he has
of
in reality
HOSTILITY In the present study
all
the people
expressed hostility, some openly, some
who were by
interviewed
indirection.
Many
probably would have denied vehemently any suggestion by the interviewer that they
ample,
("The other teachers and the cultural
was
were expressing
by heatedly describing
—
for ex-
school are frightfully unbalanced,
level of teachers
through
expressed
also
my
in
hostility
the faults or frailties of others.
is
horribly low.")
Hostility
people
Several
self-criticism.
spoke of their difficulty in meeting the high expectations they placed on themselves. One, for example, mentioned inability to be lenient with respect to her
own
Another
inadequacies.
spoke of the exorbitant demand placed on himself by the feeling that he should
Many
know
all
the answers.
of the people interviewed
their
hostility-
Some complained about administrators, They griped about restrictions;
through grievances. colleagues,
showed
and students.
working conditions;
salaries; the rigidity
of the administrative
by people in superior positions; the demands placed upon them by parents, children, or other teachers; and so on. Such complaints often have a hierarchy; the superior attitudes assumed
realistic
when
basis.
But there
a person looks
is
evidence of disguised hostility
upon everyone and everything
else as
being in the wrong.
The
four statements that, in the preparation of the Personal
Issues Inventory,
were selected
as representing
more or
less
consciously recognized hostility were the following: "I sometimes lose
my
that disturb
temper or have feelings of anger or intense rage me;
I
often feel bitter and resentful at being
pushed around or imposed on by others without being free to complain or show
my
resentment;
Even though
I
try to get
along smoothly with others, so often other people don't really consider
my
feelings; I
have a feeling that one must be on
guard and not take things lying
down, for people 109
will take
WHEN TEACHERS
FACE THEMSELVES
Of those who responded
advantage of you."
to the Inventory,
about half identified one or more of the statements tive
as descrip-
of an area in which they probably needed
help
in
understanding themselves.
"The four statements
above give only a meager clue
listed
to the role of hostility in the lives of teachers. Hostility often
appears in actions and states of mind that do not contain any clear element of anger
motive to
inflict
and that seem utterly devoid of any
hurt or to take revenge.
Externalized Hostility
One
of the it
wrong with angry or
commonest ways of dealing with
—
externalize
to state the
"problem"
from an early makes
own
it
The
As with
age, are
fact that anger
usually a
is
all
children, feel
necessary for us to avoid the sharp impact of our
else
who
angry or
is
many
already noted, this
is
under pressure not to show or even
anger by pretending that
someone
to
others, or to attribute to others a state of being
bitter or unfair.
rather painful emotion, coupled with the fact that
it,
is
what
hostility
in terms of
it is
not
in the
we who
are angry but
wrong.
of those interviewed in connection
study spoke of their problems
as
though they existed
outside themselves and could be blamed entirely
One
situation or person.
individual, for example,
on some
who
re-
about
many personal problems, spent most of his time talking how "frightfully in need" of help other people were.
Many
of the teachers discussed their problems as existing
vealed
exclusively in the
Actually,
many
problem of
behavior and attitudes of their pupils.
of their pupils were very irritating; but the
hostility
faults of others. 110
cannot be faced by simply
listing the
HOSTILITY
The
Feeling of Being Abused
In one of her most revealing writings,
Horney
discussed the feeling of being abused in a
(15) has
manner
that
is
helpful both for understanding oneself and for understanding
She points out that the feeling of being abused
others. first
be based on a hard core of reality, but that
especially troublesome it.
Every
child in a sense
parents and
teachers
reasonableness
be
—he
among
is
when
—which
are
it
irrational elements are
is
an abused person.
at
becomes added to
Even
if
perfect models of patience
his
and
no parent or teacher could possibly
bound here or
there to meet people in authority, or
or in the neighborhood at large,
his peers,
may
who
vent
upon him. Further, he must yield to rules and which he would not impose upon himself and which often seem foolish, coercive, and
their hostilities
restrictions, necessary for society,
unfair.
But the feeling of being abused can readily go beyond the sphere of righteous and realistic anger to an attitude that unrealistic.
A
justification,
angry.
Now
child, for example,
may
feel abused,
because of what his teacher demands, and be let
us say that after having been angered he
becomes guarded, defensive, and inclined to be This attitude teacher,
him.
who
Now
is
is
likely to arouse anger or
rebellious.
annoyance
in the
then short with him or otherwise punishes
may be started. The child gets a He may be overly ready to take offense.
a vicious circle
chip on his shoulder.
He may
is
with some
see others
through the haze of
his feeling of
having
been mistreated, and so even when people come to him with
good
intentions, he
may
see
them
as
coming with bad
tions. Ill
inten-
WHEN TEACHERS As
FACE THEMSELVES
many circum-
has already been suggested, there are
stances in
life at
school that aggravate feelings of being abused
—circumstances such
as
examinations, excessive
and regulations. Each of these
strict rules
concerned, but
as far as the teacher
is
inclined to put his
own
may
a student
if
One
who
Perhaps
his parents
were unduly
severe.
that
he was the victim of cruel people in
is
irrational.
that in looking that
When
tility
this
may
person
may
his
re-
school
also contain
use selective recall, so
he seizes only upon events
his life,
need to find someone or something to happens, he
upon conditions
when
A
back on
his present
fit
blame.
to
in this rationale.
Maybe he was
or in his neighborhood. But the afterthought
much
is
a rationale of himself as having been an abused
Maybe
jected.
abused
feels
There may be strong elements of truth
child.
out of touch
is
childhood and, through an elaborate afterthought,
up
to build
may
realistic basis for feeling aggrieved.
of the devices of the adult his
already
This feeling
be embroidered and elaborated until the person
review
justifiable is
sour interpretation on things, his
feeling of being abused will be intensified.
with the original and
homework,
be
a person, in his
projecting his present hos-
own
in his
own
is
earlier life.
Accordingly,
thoughts or in his conversation
way on how tough a time may not be giving a realistic
with others, dwells in an aggrieved he had as a child, he
account of
his
may
or
childhood, but he
is
definitely revealing hostile
attitudes prevailing in the present.
Another quite common form of projecting abused
is
to think in a
social class
mood
one was reared
feelings of being
of resentment or self-pity of the
in,
or to blame
all
the
woes of
life
on economic circumstances. There is no denying that economic circumstances do have an important bearing on a person's
life,
but they 112
may
also
be used
as a substitute target
HOSTILITY and
scapegoat for feelings of resentment that might better
as a
be faced openly and directly in an effort to deal with one's hostility in a rational
way.
Using the Arts of Love Accomplish the Purposes of Hate
to
Many conditions of hostility
are so subtle and so thoroughly
disguised that they are difficult to detect. hostility is disguised as love. There are people, whose hostility takes the form of an insatiable need for power over others, and who dominate others with
Sometimes
for example,
seeming kindness.
They may
be extremely "nice," "thought-
ful,"
and "considerate" in the eyes of those they are trying to
bend
to their will.
The
arts of love
may
be used
as
instruments
of hate.
The
arts of love are
way by
sometimes used in a hostile
who are overprotective in their dealings One way to reject a child is to go through the
parents and teachers
with children.
motions of doing everything for him and giving him everything he wants except the one thing he most needs
warmly accepted Seductiveness
is
for his
own sake. way of using
another
without
having
any
obvious
to be
the arts of love in the
service of hostility. This kind of seductiveness ticed
—
may
sexual
be prac-
connotations,
although at adolescence and beyond the seducer often uses
A
may
sexual motivation as a
means of conquest.
employ
lures to get students to "fall" for him.
He may to
a
wide range of
compete with parents for students'
make them
every
known
lovable,
loyal to himself and to
no one
teacher
affection, or try else.
He may
use
more understanding, attractive, entrancing, and wonderful than any other teacher in device to appear
113
WHEN TEACHERS the school. lot,
He may
notice
flatter,
perform thoughtful
victims'
FACE THEMSELVES
acts,
and
in
little
many ways prey upon
hunger for attention and approval and
aim of such
a
seducer
is
mean
things that
love.
a
the
But the
not to go out to others with whole-
hearted love and friendliness. others abjectly attached to
His hidden aim
him and
is
to
make
then, later, to reject
them. 1
One arts
who uses the may be an unrecognized need to may have left so sharp a sting that he
of the driving forces in a hostile person
of love to hurt others
take revenge.
Old hurts
must get even, although he does not recognize
this to
be the
Old wounds may have left pains so deep that someone Old injuries to the pride may have been so harsh that someone else must suffer. When such a drive prevails, there is hostility in one of its most pitiable forms. Such a case.
has to pay.
hostile person
is
a sick person.
He
is
so sick that he will use
even the sweetest syllables in the language of love and the tenderest gestures in the art of loving to accomplish his bitter end.
There
are always people waiting to
seduction. All
human
become victims of
beings have a great hunger for approval
some people, and at certain points in the lives of all people, this hunger may be so overpowering that a semblance of affection is accepted as though it were the real and affection, and
in
thing.
There someone
may
be,
are people so starved for attention that whatever else offers, is
no matter what
his
underlying motive
like a precious gift.
A
1 powerful account of the demonic craftiness of this kind of motivation has been given in Kierkegaard's classic "Diary of the Seducer," a section of Either/Or (33).
114
HOSTILITY Hostility in Education In an earlier chapter
While
in education. as
genuine and
as
it is
who
was
stated that hostility
prevalent
is
who
are
generous in their attitudes toward students
as
possible for a
others
it
there are innumerable teachers
human being
are punitive or
who
to be, there are also
many
unthinkingly carry out puni-
tive practices.
One
of the most obvious manifestations of hostility in
education appears in the feuds that sometimes prevail between
members of
the teaching
a long-continued,
When
staff.
bitter feud,
hostile tendencies carried
it
is
a
person
likely
is
involved in
that unresolved
over from his earlier experience,
rather than the unpleasantness or unfairness of the people with
whom culties.
he
is
carrying on the feud, are responsible for his
There
are
many
As was mentioned
expressions of hostility, however, that
open feud.
are less obvious than an
as the
diffi-
earlier,
we
are venting hostility or serving
instruments of hostile attitudes
when we
needlessly
expose students to failure and humiliating criticism. general expression of hostility in the academic world
One is
to
treat difficulty in learning as a deliberate kind of rebellion,
which should be punished. There hostility in intellectual snobbery.
when we
feel
ourselves or
inferior to our
There
are
contempt for people
who,
as
we
see
it,
is
also
We who
an undercurrent of
are venting hostility are not as bright as
have academic wares that are
own.
many
practices in education that, in the writer's
opinion, directly or indirectly express hostility even the element of hostility it is
may seem
hard to account for the
rather remote.
rigidities that
though
For example,
appear in course
requirements and in courses of study, or for the great areas of 115
WHEN TEACHERS
FACE THEMSELVES
meaninglessness discussed earlier in this book, particularly at the high school and college levels, without assuming that
somebody had These
a great
rigidities
need for pushing somebody
A
who
teacher
are
is
not noticeably hostile while performing the
This happens,
hostility.
not easy to trace the hostility
act as an agent or instrument of hostility
He may show passive
act.
it is
most responsible.
may
even though he
around.
may, of course, become so commonplace and
hallowed by tradition that to those
else
acquiescence in policies that express
in the writer's opinion,
when
school
people slavishly and without a second thought impose arbitrary academic requirements that happen to be unsuited to
many time,
students just because someone, somewhere, at
had the power to write
his
own
some
prejudices into the
curriculum.
Again,
it
is
perhaps only by assuming hostility or ac-
quiescence in hostility that
goes
by
we
much that For example, in many
can account for so
default in school systems.
schools with elaborate budgets for other things, the provisions for guidance or therapy for seriously disturbed pupils are
woefully inadequate and the methods of dealing with such pupils very cruel.
Many
teachers, of course, struggle as best
they can against such cruelty; obviously they cannot be accused of being hostile just because they are in a school
where children
can suspect hostility
when
are ill-treated.
staff
But we certainly
administrators and teachers are
complacent about such mistreatment or even abet
Even ity.
scholarliness
may
members
it.
function as an expression of hostil-
This can be seen most obviously when scholarly disputes
are expressions of personal animosities
between
scholars.
The
violence and sarcasm that creep into scientific papers are also
an
illustration.
Book reviewing 116
often provides an outlet for
HOSTILITY
When
hostile feelings.
hostility crops
are probably right in assuming that
with
a
may
also
mixture of other motives.
be
moved by
out in these ways,
it is
The
we
usually interwoven
person
who
hostile
is
a strong desire to further
what he
regards as the truth.
During the course of attitudes
a
week
teaching profession,
it
would be
own
spent in observing one's
and the open and disguised feelings of others
in the
possible to get a great pile of
data on the play of hostility in the professional activities of the
And why
scholar and the teacher. are
human,
not? Scholars and teachers
We would probably get as large
too.
even larger one,
if
we
a pile, or an
observed people in some of the other
professions.
To
say that hostility enters so freely into the
scholar and the teacher
is
not to find
fault.
It
life
of the
does provide
another point of emphasis, however, for the theme of
book, namely, that we,
The
as teachers,
blinder our hostility
is,
we can
destructive
it is
we are likely to be The more courage and
the harsher
with others and with ourselves. humility
this
need to face ourselves.
bring to bear in facing our hostility, the
less
likely to be.
Attitudes toward Authority It is
usually in relations with parents and parent substitutes
that the conditions leading to hostility first occur.
grow
older, attitudes
As
children
toward parents and toward other author-
ity figures in their early years color their attitudes
toward
other people. This process continues even when, supposedly,
they have become independent and responsible people in their
own
right.
Judging from what one can observe
in
everyday 117
life,
there
WHEN TEACHERS is
a vast
FACE THEMSELVES
amount of carry-over of childhood
One sees it group when the boss
attitudes
toward
sudden change in
authority into adulthood.
in the
atmosphere
or the chief or someone
in a
with seniority or greater prestige enters.
been informal
easy exchange of small talk ceases. a ribald story
who
People
The
stiffen into a posture of respect.
and
The one who was telling who previously
suddenly becomes prim. Those
were bored now hang on the words of Mr. or Mrs.
when their pronouncements are quite inane* One of the many fascinating observations is
have
free
that old attitudes of resentment
can be triggered off by people
in
Big, even
group therapy
toward the father or mother
who
for one reason or another
symbolize these characters, even though objectively they are quite different.
Thus, to one participant,
certain "strong" traits
may
An
woman
with
represent the strong father; and a
man, to another man or woman, mother.
a
may
represent a demanding
older person's attitudes toward authority
may
be
projected onto a younger person, and so on.
Many
of the people interviewed in this study voiced prob-
lems concerning their attitudes toward, or their relations with, people in authority, and the category of attitudes toward authority was included
Although not with
all
this aspect
those
One
many
Personal
Issues
Inventory.
obviously did voice some kind of
of the four statements pertaining to author-
ity expresses rebellion.
put upon
the
indicated that they needed help
of their relations with others were thereby
expressing hostility,
resentment.
in
who
Another expresses annoyance
at
being
because of a tendency to yield too readily to de-
mands from that parents
others.
(In connection with this,
it
may
be noted
and teachers sometimes invest children with
authority and allow themselves to be pushed around to an
unreasonable extent.) 118
One
statement, without openly express-
— HOSTILITY ing resentment, reveals a tendency to be put
when
in the presence of a person
likely that is
where such
who
seen as a superior;
is
The
often an undercurrent of resentment.
the standards
conform
rather than
of others
who
Often, no doubt, a person
may
(which this
it is
freedom occurs, there
a curtailment of
describes a strong tendency to
upon or subdued
—
fourth statement
to act according to
personal
convictions.
expresses this kind of coercion
be largely self-imposed) feels resentment, but
can only be inferred.
Of
the group of 229 people
who
responded to the Personal
Issues Inventory, fifty-five per cent
recorded that relations
with people in authority represented an area in which they
probably needed help in understanding themselves. Attitudes toward authority constitute
important problems teachers must face
Here,
as
the problem
is
selves.
true of
all
when they
face them-
the topics discussed in this book,
primarily a subjective one.
simply
resolved
Many
is
one of the most
by manipulating
external
It
cannot be
circumstances.
naive forms of such manipulation have been widely
used in educational circles to deal with "status" problems that
is,
figures. titles
The
problems pertaining to attitudes toward authority
Everyone
is
called only
by
his first
are dropped, so that there are
name. Professional
no doctors or
professors.
administrator becomes very folksy and informal. People
sit in a
circle so that there
delegates
management
to
is
a
no head of the class
table.
committee.
abandoned and only the discussion method
is
A
teacher
Lectures are used.
And
so
on, ad infinitum.
These devices may, sort of atmosphere.
in
some circumstances, produce
a
cozy
But to deal only with externals may leave
the basic attitudes completely untouched.
sory takes place in the
Much
that
is illu-
name of "democratic procedures," 119
WHEN TEACHERS
FACE THEMSELVES
although these procedures are probably good
But even
they go.
in a situation that has every appearance of being
democratic, there
To
attitudes.
amount of projection of personal something more is needed than the
a great
is
get at these,
who
presence of a benign authority figure
motions of sharing
may
ity figure
his authority.
not, for
all
which people
goes through the
Actually, the
members of
What
psychological authority figure. in
as far as
is
official
author-
the group, be the
essential
is
a climate
are free to express their feelings regarding
one
another and to uncover feelings they themselves do not recognize but others
may.
Hostility, Guilt,
and Anxiety
We touched
Hostility, guilt, and anxiety are closely linked.
on
this
when we
discussed theories concerning the role of
Hostile attitudes, whether or not clearly
hostility in anxiety.
perceived for what they
are,
frightening.
are
frightening to a child because his hostility
is
They
are
usually directed
upon whom he most depends, and who therefore greatest power of retaliation. The people who give
against those
have the
offense are likely also to be those the child goes to for love
and protection. is
It is
dangerous to strike out against them.
It
threatening even to have the impulse to do so, for this im-
pulse involves inner conflict.
There
is
between the
conflict
impulse to love and the impulse to hate, between the surge of the child's anger and his impulse to be a grateful offspring.
These childhood
conflicts related to hostility are likely to
persist into later years.
teachers
—
By
the time
we
are old
enough to be most of us
or even to enter training for teaching
—
have been schooled for years in suppressing and repressing our hostility.
But the residue of grievances and resentments may 120
HOSTILITY be there. Although
still
with
we may
and blindly driven by
it,
some of
we are stuck until we can face
be blind to unless or
it.
it,
meanings.
its
Many of the conditions that caused resentment in childhood may also persist into later years. This happens when a teacher in his twenties
dominated
in
—and
even
parent
and benign person, but coercive as one
continue even
he
who
if this
away and seldom is
old,
may
a
is
One who
parent
who
still
is
is
a
kindly
seems kind can be
as
older teacher's parents are dead or live
Such
cross his path.
a teacher,
although
might be)
as a child
if,
on
coerced and dominated by the image and
this
with
on the other,
and,
domination and resentfully
it
resists this
happening and
is
feel his anger, let alone face
it
way.
in a rational
has angry thoughts and vengeful feelings that go
what he regards
nature feels guilty.
as his better
teacher cannot help recoiling
he does
—
appearances be
all
unable to recognize what
strive to deal
against
fifties
seems unkind. Parental domination can
cannot allow himself even to
and
to
teachings of his parents,
he rebels against coercion but
may
be in conflict (much
the one hand, he
memory and
and
forties
his
obvious or subtle ways by his father or mother.
The dominating
far
in
when he
A
has a "death wish," as
when
for an instant, has a feelingr he secretly, J o of relief on hearing that a principal he dislikes has been in an accident
and
his
flash
too, his
mind
leaps to the thought that
he dismisses the thought. There
when
it
is
might be a
fatal,
but in a
murderous thought,
he hears that his most troublesome pupil
racing fancies see this pupil out of the
way
then in the same instant the fancy fades.
sick,
and
— and
This wish that
another person be dead or forever out of the fleeting that the teacher does not recognize
is
forever
way may
it
for
Yet although fleeting and not fully recognized, 121
it
what is
be so it is.
an out-
WHEN TEACHERS
FACE THEMSELVES
cropping of hostility of a kind he has been trained from childhood to suppress, and therefore to
produce
guilt
and anxiety. The
from such murderous impulses
it is
disquieting and likely
guilt
and anxiety that flow be especially
are likely to
acute unless this teacher can learn, to some degree, to accept hostility as
an aspect of his existence and to be at
himself as a hostile person.
accept himself as one
who
When
he can do
has hostile impulses,
compulsion to punish himself
a brutal
He may
—or
he will
without feeling
others
even be able to smile indulgently
home with
this,
—
for them.
when someone
quips that a death wish a day keeps the doctor away.
For one who has long suppressed
his
who
himself the right to be angry at those
very
thwart him,
difficult to regain the ability to feel a full-bodied
of anger or an upwelling of rage. in
denying
hostility,
The
old sequence of events
childhood through which suppression took place
the impulse to attack, fear of attacking
and of
guilt because the impulse to attack conflicts
to love
and to seek love), and anxiety
impulses
—can
it is
surge
—
anger,
retaliation (or
with the impulse
tied to these conflicting
have so powerful an effect that
it
is
almost
impossible for an older person to acquire again the ability to
be angry in a forthright and spontaneous way. This does not
mean
that such people are never angry.
who
be irascible people
anger
is
They may
devious and rooted in conflict.
A
person
not have the freedom to be angry, and to direct against the real offender,
happens when
as
a
actually
are hard to get along with, but their
may
w ho
does
r
his
anger
turn the anger against himself,
person suffering from guilt (which
kind of self-imposed punishment) abuses
his health
is
a
or places
himself in a situation where he will meet a painful accident.
Or
he
when
may
blindly take out his anger on others, as happens
a teacher does not face the conditions that 122
have actually
HOSTILITY angered him but colleagues
is
hostile
who happen
toward
his students or quarrels
to be convenient targets but
with
had noth-
ing to do with the origins of his hostility.
The Right There
are
to
many
Be Angry
people
who
have, to a large extent, sur-
rendered the right to be angry. These people are not limited to those
who
keep turning the other cheek when even the one
who
seriously advocates this policy
flail.
Among
who
those
there are some, as noted above,
of anger. There castic or to hit
someone
within oneself the
full
simple condition:
am
Some people
who
I
to use a
actually
show
a great deal
between freedom to be
a difference
is
would begin
have surrendered the right to anger
sar-
and freedom to accept
in the teeth
and impact of
force, meaning,
this
an angry person. (with
actually strike out at others
polite phrases) in a desperate effort to
ward
off
fists
or
and block the
full
sweep of an upsurge of anger within themselves. One
way
to blunt awareness of one's
that the other person
is
own
anger
really the hostile
in a sense, justification for one's
sponsibility in this out,
making
it
a social
possession, before
When that he
is
a
way
means, in
angry, he
is is
make
it
one and the one
own
effect,
phenomenon
one has fully taken
person
to
seem
who
shows antagonism, there
started the fight. If the other person is,
is
anger.
Shifting re-
throwing one's anger
rather than a personal it
home
to oneself.
able fully and freely to accept the fact less likely to hit
out than he would be
if
he tried rather desperately, in mid-phase, so to speak, to "do
something" about
who
is
his anger.
subject to anger and
To accept who often
means that one can allow oneself
to
oneself as a person
does become angry become aware of what 123
.
WHEN TEACHERS the anger
FACE THEMSELVES
about and thereby deal with the anger-producing
is
circumstance more effectively.
To
accept oneself as an angry person also means to accept
who
oneself as a person
This
for anger. in
which anger In
one
draw on
situations
appropriate and even necessary.
is
human being
has a capacity and a susceptibility for rage means that is
(who
able to accept oneself even
is
who
there
tion, as seen
by
is
angry
foolishly
human
by
his
own
(who conforms
afterthoughts?
)
,
or even
so perfectly to an exalted,
image of himself that he does not allow himself once
in a while
—perhaps only by way
feel malice
toward someone
Observe that
this
being who, like
all
radically different
by punishing ferent
one
has not often been angry without justifica-
others or
maliciously angry idealized
if
times?), or unjustifiably angry (what
isn't, at
being
from
else?
of a fleeting thought
concept of accepting oneself
humans,
is
given to anger
from giving way
anger, as one
as a
who
human
to anger in a blind It
way,
is
condoning of one's anger.
who
forgive himself even for being stupidly angry, difficult aspects
dif-
To
subject to
is
has the right to be angry, as one
one of the most
to
something
is
others or brutally punishing oneself.
a self-righteous
—
)
accept oneself as an angry person, as one
in
his capacity
many
expression, acceptance of oneself as a
its full
who
has the right to
important, for there are
is
who
can
to succeed
is
of the struggle for self-
acceptance. If one has succeeded in this struggle, or partially so, it
does not mean that one will henceforth be above anger,
or always deal with
it
in a beautifully "integrated"
one thing can be counted on.
A
person
who
has
way. But
made some
progress in this aspect of the struggle for self-acceptance likely to feel his anger in a
more
more healthy way,
constructively, and to live with
bring far
less
it
to deal with
it
in a fashion that will
needless suffering to himself and to others. 124
is
—
SEVEN
Compassion
W,
hen teachers face themselves, they face
may
struggle; but they
The
Compassion of others. It is
also look
greatest of these rewards
It is
is
forward to great rewards.
growth
in
compassion.
inextricably linked to acceptance of self and
the ultimate expression of emotional maturity.
through compassion that
peak and the deepest reach
We
is
hard
a
a
person experiences the highest
in his search for self-understanding.
often think of compassion as something soft, perhaps
touched with sentimentality. Compassion sometimes has connotation, but
meaning. There
it
is
also has a
something soft and tender
in compassion,
To
be compassion-
but also something rugged and very hard. ate,
this
more profound psychological
one must be able to accept the impact of any emotion
love or hate, joy, fear, or grief
enough and with and to enter into
moved by passion in
—
tolerate
it
and harbor
sufficient absorption to accept its a fellowship of feeling
the emotion.
its fullest
This
is
it
long
meaning
with the one
who
the heroic feature of
is
com-
development: to be able to face the ravage 125
WHEN TEACHERS
FACE THEMSELVES
of rage, the shattering impact of terror, the tenderest prompt-
embrace these in a larger context, which involves an acceptance of these feelings and an appre-
ings of love, and then to
ciation of
To
what they mean
to the
who
one
experiences them.
be compassionate means to partake in passion:
the
passions of others, the passions that arise within oneself.
It
means
it
as a
spectator might.
fellowship.
who
is
It
means
It is a
way
of entering into emotional
home
to take feeling
Compassion
is
the weak.
The
It is
human
compassionate person
He
gives the measure of
It
being.
is
He
fear.
who goes out in who is having a tough He partakes in courage,
partakes in joy, but also in grief.
compassionate person
is
who
not just one
sweet emotions, for he also enters into bitterness.
not the emotion of
It is
not just one
but he also hates.
loves,
but also in
power and
the hard-gotten property of the strong.
good-hearted manner to someone
time.
its
stronger than anger, mightier
than love, more powerful than fear. a person's strength as a
one
to oneself as
willing and has the strength to sustain
realize its force.
a
view
to participate in feeling rather than simply to
The
range of compassion
is
The
goes about with
life's
harshness and
the range of
human
emotion.
Anger may be used sion.
To be
to provide one illustration of
compassionate with one
who
is
one allows oneself to enter into the meaning of does not as
mean
enraged
that, at the
other person.
as the
absorbed in rage
moment
as the
compas-
enraged means that this rage.
It
of compassion, one becomes
If
one
did,
one would be so
primary emotion that there would be
no room for compassion. Neither does it mean that one feels sorry for the one who is angry (one might feel sorry, but that is
not the essence of compassion), nor that one deplores
anger (one might 126
feel that the
anger
is
his
deplorable, but that
is
COMPASSION not compassion).
The primary
pertains to anger
to feel the impact
is
of the emotion of anger.
dones
it,
This does not mean that one conin
nor that one joins the fray to fight with the person
whom
the anger
is
any of these
who
compassionate with one
One might
directed.
separate consideration, do
as a
it
and to savor the meaning
nor that one hastens to confirm the angry person
his anger,
against
quality of compassion as
is
angry
know,
to
is
or might not,
things.
To
be
in
an
emotional way, the nature of anger.
To
feel
who
compassion for one
angry means that one
is
own capacity for One realizes, as it
must draw upon one's experience of anger.
anger and one's were, through a
process of fellow-feeling, the rack and grind of anger, the bitterness of
it,
the driven character of
which one can be possessed by destroy that goes with in
it,
feel
the suffering and
it
it,
the helpless
who
in
often involved
is
sometimes ensue from
it.
To
angry means to enter into the
is
might be
way
the impulse to rend and
the self-hate that
guilt that
compassion for one
meaning of what It
it,
it,
if
one were that angry oneself.
means, for the moment, a kind of acceptance of the fact
and the
To
state of anger.
feel
compassion for one
draw upon realize what might be,
is
joyful or sad, one must
these emotions consist of and
what
as a personal experience, to those
To
sorrow.
who
one's capacity for joy or sorrow in order to
feel
compassion for one
who
their quality
who is
rejoice or
frightened or
lonely or sexually aroused, or hungry or jealous or anxious,
or in a to
mood
draw upon
appetites,
Why
is
of tenderness or melancholy, one must be able one's
own
resources for experiencing
what
these
moods, and emotions mean. compassion so intimately tied to understanding and
acceptance of
self
and others? The answers have already been 127
WHEN TEACHERS
FACE THEMSELVES
we must
implied. First, to understand another person
be able
what he is thinking but also what he is It is not enough to know what is in his mind; it is also to know what is in his heart. Second, to under-
to realize not simply feeling. essential
stand oneself one must be able to be at
emotions. This second condition
would understand
If I
face
my own
anger, taste
home with
must be able
I
home with
be at
it,
deepest emotional connotation of that word.
my
anger
if
anger in
me
obscured with a feeling of feel
/
must accept
who
person, as one
if,
about
As an
I
before
might even
I
himself
able to
is
I
permit myself to
To know my
it.
angry
whose
I
may have many second
or that episode of anger, perhaps feel sorry
afterthought,
would have gone
in the
know
has the right to be angry, as one
or foolish, or realize that
it,
offense.
angry,
this
it
cannot
?nyself, for the time being, as an
right to anger should be respected.
thoughts about
know
I
to
immediately clouded over and
guilt;
have already passed judgment on
I
it,
anger
is
own
essential to the first.
is
another's anger, it,
one's
feel that
I
when
had
I
I
was too quick have been just
a little
been equal to the occasion,
into a towering rage, for one
become
to take
passionately angry.
who accepts And so on.
These considerations are important, but only of secondary importance.
emotion
essence of compassion
know,
to enter into the
thus enters into, and in this sense seeks to accept,
to feel the impact of one's
passionate toward oneself. This others.
is
itself.
When one to
The
I
is
own
emotions, one
essential to
is
com-
compassion for
cannot, for example, accept another's fear in a
way unless I can accept myself as a person who now and then, or who once was a very fright-
compassionate is
frightened
ened
child.
Let us look briefly 128
at
compassion
in
relation to another
— COMPASSION emotion
—
the emotion of joy, although usually
think of compassion as pertaining to gladness.
we do not One can be
compassionate in relation to joy only to the extent that one
draw upon
able to
savor
it,
relish
one's
own
capacity for
home with
be at
it.
it
oneself.
it
who
deserves to
One cannot
be joyful and has the right to rejoice. unless one possesses
one's ability to
it.
one
as
is
share joy
one had the money or the
If
power one might, of course, do much to provide means or from which others obtain joy. But this is not the
situations
same one
as
who
The
compassion. is
joyful
compassionate with
ability to be
— whether
this
one be another or oneself
implies the highest degree of self-acceptance and should per-
haps be regarded
To
as the farthest
be compassionate means,
reach of self-fulfillment.
among
view emotion from the standpoint of
we
look
at
emotion
we might
out hate. But to love for the one
who
is
is
of.
not to surrender the ability to hate,
loves deeply often hates intensely. if
there
is
such
The con-
a condition,
is
fear:
from loving or hating or rejoicing or
drawing upon any and one
kind of accounting
a
say that to love fully, one should cast
dition that rules out love, fear that keeps one
we
When
self-fulfillment.
way, we have
from what we usually think
quite different
Ordinarily
in this
other things, that
all
of the emotions that flourish
when
Qneself.
One might be without fear: the
say that
fear.
one
who
frightening things. that one
if
one had enough courage, one would
But courage does not mean the absence of has courage to be himself will dare to face Similarly,
to
be jovful does not
must exclude sorrow, for the one
most fully
is
The one who
the one
who most
who
mean
can rejoice
exposes himself to sorrow.
takes a chance at jovful self-fulfillment takes
the risk of shattering disappointment.
But
if
sorrow takes the 129
WHEN- TEACHERS FACE THEMSELVES
who
place of joy, the one
would rather that
feel
removed from
farthest
is
has the courage to be himself
sorrow than
The
feel nothing.
condition
feeling joyful or sorrowful
is
to
feel nothing.
The
opposite of despair
or even a state of there
is
faith.
an opposite,
is
not simply
is
hope
a condition of
Rather, the opposite of despair,
if
self-acceptance and compassion.
Love of Self and Love for Others
The concept
of compassion incorporates the meaning of
love for others and for oneself.
Compassion involves
acceptance and acceptance of others
The
person
who
know
The one who
is
who
the one
accepts himself
the meaning and to grasp the impact of
own
self-
profoundest sense.
can most fully accept himself
can most fully accept others. seeks to
in the
what what
is
happening
is
happening to others. The relation between acceptance of
self
in his
inner
life,
and acceptance of others
writings, talks
and apparently
it
is
and he
is
responsive to
emphasized in
many
current
needs to be re-emphasized.
In
with other teachers, the writer has again and again met
with objections to the concepts of self-acceptance and
self-
understanding on grounds that amount to self-rejection and a denial of compassion.
Some people
object to the idea of self-acceptance on the
ground
that a person
danger
of
becoming
self-accepting person tion,
who is
accepts himself
falsely
complacent.
anxious,
we
is
Actually,
the
in relation to self-
that instead of helping people to
should make them more 130
in
anything but smug. Another objec-
touching on the concept of anxiety
acceptance,
smug and
is
become
anxious; only
if
less
people
COMPASSION Both of these
are anxious will they have an incentive to learn.
views are based on a concept of motivation that
reflects
a
punitive attitude toward self and others.
another objection
Still
is
that the concepts of self-accept-
ance and self-understanding involve
According to
tion.
this
a futile
kind of introspec-
view, in order really to get things
done we should direct our thoughts outward and not inward.
But ful.
just
doing something
In seeking to
is
know
not in
oneself,
motives that are involved
itself
one
valuable or meaning-
tries to
when one
sets
understand the
out to get things
Without such self-examination, what one sees may be what one does may be without much meaning. It has also been said that what we need in education is more self-denial rather than more self-acceptance. In the writer's judgment, an objection such as this represents a form
done.
distorted and
of self-rejection and rejection of others, coupled with mis-
understanding of the underlying idea.
The
notion that
it is
only by self-denial that one can be of
The
service to others deserves special attention.
idea that
love of others and love of self are incompatible
is
widely held.
Actually, this idea goes counter to fact; and
it
also collides
with some widely held rules of conduct, such
as the
bodies both love of
self
admoni-
This admonition em-
tion to love one's neighbor as oneself.
and love for others;
it
definitely
does not imply that one should hate oneself in order to love others.
As Fromm, Homey, and
hatred of
self is
Sullivan have emphasized,
linked to hatred of others; without healthy
love of self there can be no genuine love for anyone
Many
of the teachers
who were
interviewed in
expressed or implied the belief that oneself that one can serve others. the really devoted teacher gives
it
is
this
else.
study
only by denying
Some seemed to think that much and takes nothing. 131
WHEN TEACHERS There
many
of course,
are,
FACE THEMSELVES people in the teaching profession
who seem to live according to this belief. There are teachers who go all out in helping others without demanding any rights for themselves. There are some who tolerate acute discomfort without feeling that they have a right to see to their own comfort. There are some who believe they must suffer fools gladly without having the right to be foolish themselves.
There
are
some who seem
to think that they should be able
to absorb the bitter anger of others without having the right to be angry themselves.
There
should go out in love to
all
for
them
some who think
are
creatures but that
to ask for love, or to seek
it,
it is
that they
not proper
or to demand
it
with
a
kind of savage passion.
A
teacher
come home right
may is
teacher.
He
who
way,
cannot
not actually realizing
his
One
own
poten-
Sacrifice
can devote oneself to others in
means of escaping anxiety or atoning
as a
In order to
really count,
is
stops at the halfway mark.
not compassion.
make
one's efforts in behalf of others
one must do more than go through the motions
of being a good-hearted person. ing person.
to others but
to himself and experience emotion in his
a compulsive
for guilt.
go out
tries to
be noble, but he
tialities as a
of self
who
One must
One must
be an understand-
be an accepting and compassionate
person.
One cannot understand
another's hurts in a
manner
that will
enable one to minister to him most effectively unless one has
enough concern for oneself to realize and to appreciate what means in one's own experience to be hurt. One cannot understand another's hunger for affection, nor sense his craving for being accepted, nor realize how starved he is for companionship, unless one can draw upon one's own realization it
132
COMPASSION what this hunger means and what the nature of the experience is by which the hungry one can be filled. Without self-acceptance a teacher may, to be sure, accomplish much for others and teach them many things. The good of
he does
may even
own capacity, for the one who is friend may read into the teacher's
exceed his
desperately seeking a
friendly acts an emotional content they do not actually pos-
But to go all out, to feel for others (as distinguished from going through the motions of doing for others), to feel sess.
with others
(as distinguished
of cooperating with them),
upon
own
his
essential that the teacher
it is
capacity for feeling.
he respects his feelings and
them
from going through the motions
as part of himself.
is
And
he can do
home with them,
at
if
this
draw
only
if
he accepts
This means self-acceptance, which
involves compassion for oneself.
Where there is a lack of ability to accept oneself and one's own feelings, the process of giving, as has been suggested above, may be an unhealthy compulsion. One person may be as
greedy to give
much
the same.
as
another
One
not.
to take,
and for motives that are
For the moment, compulsive giving may be
very satisfying to the one is
is
can see
who
receives, but in the long
this at times
when one
run
it
observes the reac-
Here is an adult who comes laden He plays the games the children want to play. He
tion of children to adults.
with
gifts.
defers to every
whim and
wish, and his patience and forbear-
ance seem inexhaustible. But after a time the children
He
tire
of
They look on him as something of a Here comes another; his bosom does not swell only with bounty for others. He joins the children in play, but he also has some ideas of his own about how and what him.
is
boring.
stuffed shirt.
to play.
His patience
is
thin at times, he gets annoyed, and in 133
WHEN TEACHERS now and
other ways
somehow he want him
to
he goes to
FACE THEMSELVES
then his emotions
show through. But
has a spark; the kids get sore at him, but they
come back. And when one
this
of them
person rather than to the one
One
erous in such a deadly way.
is
who
in trouble, is
so gen-
brings his bounty; the other
brings himself.
So Small
in the Infinite
Scheme of Things— In education there are
many
influences that emphasize the
importance of quantity, number, and assume, almost as though
were
it
to learn a lot about a subject
is
size.
Many
teachers
in the nature of things, that
better than to learn a
little.
We
often take for granted in our measurements that large numbers are better than small numbers.
one
who would
better than a
When we
not take
low
I
Q.
it
And
We
have to look far to find
for granted that a high
I
Q
is
so on.
enter the sphere of selfhood, however, these
quantities,
numbers, and dimensions are not so important.
When we
deal with the concepts of selfhood, self-acceptance,
and
self-fulfillment,
smallest quantity
is,
we move
number, short of nothing,
is
where the
into a dimension
in a sense, the greatest,
all-important.
and the smallest
The
ultimate test
what we teach is its implication for the inMeanings may be shared, but they are realperson. personal experience by one person, and by him alone.
of the meaning of dividual ized as a
The
ultimate statistic in the world of the self
is
N
not the
= 1, and many, nor even the few, but a statistic in which that one is you, or I. This does not mean that the you or the I dwells in isolation in a separate world. The self and the other are closely bound together. But the final repository of meaning
is
within each person 134
as a separate self.
COMPASSION
—And To
Yet So Great
who
those
quantity, this self
are
accustomed to think of value
a difficult thought.
is
of yours, or this self of mine,
number,
In time,
in terms of
us pursue
what does
it.
This
count?
it
In
expanse of visible and invisible
sion, it is so small in the vast
things.
let
one among the countless many. In dimen-
just
it is
Yet
it is
bound
to a fleeting
moment
in the eons
that have gone before and will follow.
—
This
self
shadow
a dot, a speck, a
—
is
from one point of
view quite near to nothing.
Yet
it is
everything.
dot and a shadow, yes, but the shadow of a mighty
It is a
the center of ultimate significance in the
rock. It
is
person.
It is
existence
the core of individual existence.
you or
find
If life is
If there
here within myself that
here
I
I
must
is
value,
is
worth
it is
living,
something
is
it is
must embrace
here
I
must
in existence that
is
it.
realize its
worth.
of ultimate concern,
—
Here in this self my self, your where time touches on the eternal. Here the finite and
here
—
self
it is
it.
If there
it is
of each
the only
can know.
I
meaning,
If there is
life
It is
I
must cling
to
it.
the infinite are joined. It is
through
my
—and through your —
self
self
timacy of individual existence this self that
The
is
realized,
and
it is
intimacy and relatedness with others
self is the citadel
of one's
own
that the in-
also is
through
achieved.
being and worth and the
stronghold from which one moves out to others. It is to this
self
(which
is
concept of respect for
self
and acceptance of
the fountainhead of respect and compassion for
others) that this
book
is
devoted.
What
does this concept 135
WHEN TEACHERS mean
in practical terms?
as best
means that each teacher
will seek
he can to face himself and to find himself in order to
further his step,
It
FACE THEMSELVES
own
growth.
an effort to
ences in
grow in
educational
To some
may mean,
this
an
initial
self-discovery through group experi-
settings,
which
becoming more enter group therapy; are
widely available; some may wish to some may seek individual therapy. These sonal expedients.
as
More fundamental
courage the process of self-discovery,
is
are
among
the per-
the idea that to en-
we must
raise the ques-
tion of personal significance in connection with everything
we
seek to learn and everything that
is
sery school through postgraduate years.
taught from the nur-
What
does
it
mean?
What difference does it make? What is there in the lessons we teach, the exercises we assign, the books we read, the experiences we enter into, and in all of our undertakings, that can help us to find ourselves and, through their search?
136
us,
help others in
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141
Appendixes
A. Self-Understanding
Questionnaire Used to Test Reaction to Idea of Self-Understanding
Do
not sign your name.
Sex: Male
Female
Age: 20-30 Over 40
30-40
_
Marital Status: Single
Married vorced) 1.
2.
(inc.
widowed or
di-
The
idea that a major goal in education should be to help young people to understand themselves and to develop healthy attitudes of self-acceptance a.
Makes me
b.
Is
c.
Is
uneasy and resistant. I doubt its practicability. promising and worth trying. feel
challenging, but
The
idea that to help young people to understand themselves it is necessary also for the teacher to be involved in the process of growing in self-understanding strikes me as being Rather unpleasant and distasteful. a. b. Quite sensible, but probably not much could come of it.
Challenging and promising from the point of view my own personal and professional growth.
c.
of 3.
Assuming
that the theory has merit
a teacher, nurse,
(Check a.
b. c.
d.
as
clergyman,
etc.),
and
is relevant to your role (as what are the main obstacles? you wish.)
many or as few items as I am not prepared to venture
into this area.
My
load as a teacher is already heavy enough. The administrative set-up makes it impractical. There may be obstacles, but none great enough to
keep
me from
at least trying.
145
SELF-UNDERSTANDING 4.
you feel favorably disposed to the idea, what provisions would you wish for? (Mark one item or several.) Workshops, special courses, seminars, etc. a. Better arrangements for discussing personal and emob. If
tional aspects of the teacher's
work.
d.
Specialized psychological services for the students. Help of a distinctly personal sort, such as might be gotten from group therapy.
e.
Other?
c.
Any
other comments?
146
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