Moral and Spiritual Values in Education

A Challenge to Every American

William Clayton Bower

• Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780813151373
• eBook ISBN: 9780813181875
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Theory & Practice

PART THREE

Techniques of a Program of Emphasis

A program of emphasis on moral and spiritual values in every phase of the school’s life involves not only a different approach, but a different procedure. That procedure will consist of three basic techniques: (1) for guiding growing persons in their responses to situations; (2) for analyzing the several areas of school experience in order to discover where potential moral and spiritual values are to be found; and (3) for synthesizing particular experiences into generalized meanings and values by means of symbols.

CHAPTER NINE

Techniques of Guidance: Developing Situations

THE TECHNIQUE of guiding growing persons in responding to situations in moral and spiritual ways consists of at least four identifiable but overlapping steps: (1) developing sensitivity on the part of teacher and pupil to potential moral and spiritual values as they emerge in the process of responding to a situation; (2) identifying the values involved; (3) developing potential values into actual and operative values in the weighing, motivation, and execution of the pupil’s choice of alternatives in action; and (4) giving adequate and appealing symbolic expression to the emergent values.

The specific situation will determine the order of these steps and the way in which they are taken. For example, the case of the Blue Vase, presently to be considered, starts with a symbol and works backward through the other steps. The important thing is that in guiding a growing person in his analysis of a situation, the judging of possible outcomes, and the execution of a choice of alternatives, none of these steps shall be overlooked or neglected.

For this reason, no blueprint of procedure is here suggested that can be taken over and applied in any situation. Instead, a few cases are selected from the actual school and classroom experience of administrators and teachers in the workshops and experimental schools. They are presented not because they are records of perfect handling of the cases or models of procedure, but because they are actual records of what typical administrators and teachers who were sensitive to moral and spiritual values in the everyday school experience of pupils did to develop them into effective operative values. What these educators have done, others can do in their own way in guiding pupils in other specific situations under other and different circumstances, and perhaps may do it better.

For purposes of illustration and analysis two or more cases have been selected from each of the five areas of school experience discussed in this volume. Others will be found under the analysis of the school community, curriculum content, counseling, sports and recreation, and symbolic expression.

I
THE SCHOOL COMMUNITY

The following case is selected because in a rather striking way the behavior of Mary takes place in the social setting of the school as a community in which she seeks recognition and status; because the situation has ramifications that extend beyond the school into the larger community, in this case especially the family; and because the teacher used group counseling as a method not only of helping Mary but of developing a sense of values in the group of which Mary was a member.

Mary was twelve years old. She came to school every day with stories that would have given credit to any writer of fairy tales.

At first all her friends and the teacher believed her, but when none of these stories materialized, other problems began to manifest themselves. Her friends began to turn away from her, but she only told more fantastic stories and to that added stealing and abuse of other children.

The teacher realized that Mary needed help and that the class perhaps needed a little counseling as a group. Each child was asked to write an autobiography. Needless to say, Mary’s was the most romantic of all the life stories, but nevertheless revealing in spots. One thing which Mary said was that her grandmother had come to live with them. This brought the teacher to the conclusion that such a situation might have its bearing on Mary’s behavior, and she decided to visit Mary’s home. Grandmother was there, though none of the affluence with which Mary had surrounded herself was present. During the course of the visit, however, the teacher discovered that grandmother had the same grandeur delusions that Mary was exhibiting in her stories. Mary adored her grandmother and was following in her footsteps.

In order to restore herself in the esteem of her friends, Mary had taken money to try to “back up” her stories of wealth and to buy favor with her friends. When this failed, she turned to abusing them by fighting and other belligerent behavior. Mary really wanted friends. She loved beautiful things and color. Her home was plain and drab; her clothes were also plain and drab. Her friends had the things she desired. Her grandmother had found a way of escaping reality and had set an example for Mary. The teacher made these deductions from Mary’s life story and from her visit in her home.

With this knowledge in mind, she began counseling with her group. Stories were read and told in which it was pointed out that material things of life are not the most important factors of happiness and success. Other stories and studies, such as art, helped the group to become interested in making the best of what they had and to make the best of their homes. Friendship was stressed. Mary was assigned responsibilities which gave her a feeling of importance among her classmates. The parents were called into conference and Mary’s problems were discussed with them.

Mary and her mother planned together to make their home more attractive. Friends were invited to come to their home and were made to feel welcome at any time. It was arranged for grandmother to go to Florida to spend the winter with her sister. Before long Mary became proud of what she could do rather than of what she could tell.

Even a cursory glance reveals that this situation is full of potential moral and spiritual values. Dealing with it constructively had its beginning in the sensitivity of the teacher who realized not only that Mary was much in need of understanding help, but that an important factor in the situation was the attitude of her classmates. Her resourcefulness and imagination in raising the situation into consciousness is evidenced by the clever suggestion that each member of the class write an autobiography which would bring into view conditioning factors in Mary’s and their past experience and present environment. The autobiography gave an important clue in the presence and possible influence of Mary’s grandmother. A visit to Mary’s home disclosed the influence of the grandmother who had the same delusions of grandeur. It also disclosed the drab conditions of her home and the denial of the things that she really wanted. She had unconsciously taken over from her grandmother the mechanism of escape from reality by creating a dream world of wishful thinking. Her friends turning away from her gave her a sense of isolation and insecurity that led to stealing in order to make an impression. This case is an excellent illustration of how when one begins to analyze a situation, its relationships reach out into the wider social environment, in this case Mary’s classmates and a home with an underprivileged tradition and frustrated ambitions and desires. Note also the ingenuity of this resourceful teacher in reading and telling stories that brought out in an objective way some fundamental moral and spiritual values—that material things are not the most important factors in happiness and success, making the best of what one has in improving his living conditions, and the value of friendship. A conference with her mother led to Mary’s active participation in planning and carrying out ways to make their home more attractive, and in winning friends by inviting them to her improved home and making them welcome. The teacher also wisely saw that in accomplishing this reconstruction of Mary’s behavior pattern it would be wise to change the factors in her situation, at least for a time, by making it possible gracefully for the grandmother to spend the winter in Florida. Achievement gave Mary a sense of self-respect and justifiable satisfaction, and established her status of acceptance in the group. This teacher had a considered technique for discovering the moral and spiritual values of this situation and for developing them into fruitful personality results. Had she lacked this technique, or something like it, it is not difficult to imagine how the possibilities of this situation would have been overlooked or mishandled. Any teacher with sensitivity, interest in people, and imagination could do as well.

Let us examine a case of sympathetic understanding since it illustrates in a marked manner the effect upon personality of the failure of the individual to secure recognition and status in the school community, the concerted concern of several of Jack’s teachers and the librarian to help Jack to a constructive adjustment, and the creative effect upon personality development of active participation in the school community.

Jack is sixteen years old and is in the eighth grade. He is from a broken home. His mother and father separated and his father remarried. Jack resents his stepmother. He has a low I.Q. He stands almost at the bottom of his class. He didn’t seem to belong to any group. As he is rather “sissy,” the boys did not include him in any of their activities. He is constantly talking to one of the teachers, thus trying to identify himself with someone.

Through the concerted efforts of several teachers, Jack was helped to such an extent that he told one of the teachers that this had been the best school year he had ever had.

The librarian gave much help to Jack. She asked some of the primary teachers if they would allow Jack to have a short period once a week in which to tell stories to the children. Jack was made a member of the Library Club. The children enjoyed his storytelling and were eager for him to come each week.

The eighth-grade teacher gave him a part in a chapel program. The music teacher gave Jack a chance to play the drum in the band. He was also placed on the school boy patrol, which gave him a sense of responsibility and a feeling of contributing to the group.

Much is still to be desired in Jack’s behavior, but his adjustment is much better. He needs sympathetic understanding as much as any child I have ever seen.

The faculty working together has attempted to cause Jack to feel that he has a definite place in the school activities and that he has the interest and understanding of his teachers. The activities of the year have helped to lay the foundation for the rest of Jack’s high school work.

This is an excellent illustration of the destructive effects of the isolation of the individual from the group through failure to establish normal interaction with the school community. This isolation and its accompanying insecurity began in Jack’s broken home. His low I.Q. and standing at the bottom of his class had quite evidently given him a sense of inferiority. Because of his somewhat “sissy” behavior he was rejected by the other boys and was denied a part in their normal activities. There is something wistful and pathetic about his attempt to identify himself with someone by constantly talking to one of the teachers.

One notes that the concerted attempt to help Jack grew out of the sensitive concern of several teachers and the librarian over human values. Jack was not just another pupil, and a troublesome one at that, but a person who desperately needed understanding and help.

Note also that the method which these concerned teachers used to help Jack was through securing his participation in the normal activities of the school community at which, with his low I.Q., he could experience success. Through telling stories to the children at a regularly scheduled period, through membership in the Library Club, through a part in the chapel program, through playing the drum in the band, and through taking responsibility on the patrol—in these ways he came to think of himself as a real person rendering a real service to the school community and receiving an honored status because of his contribution to its ongoing life. It must have meant much to him to discover that the children were eager for his storytelling hour to come.

II
CURRICULUM CONTENT

From all the areas of curriculum content, let us select two—one from the teaching of general science and the other from the teaching of mathematics.

Let us examine this case reported by a teacher of general science:

As a result of our beautification work on our school lawn, various groups began to take field trips. For the lower age groups this started with a trip around the schoolyard where they began to learn the names and locations of the trees and shrubs, and following this with the important facts that these very plants have much to contribute not only to individual well-being, but to the well-being of the larger world. At various seasons these trips were repeated.

After the children made these trips in their own schoolyard, they planned trips in their community, and thus had the opportunity to compare the plant life of the community with that of the school grounds. They were becoming conscious of the wonders of nature as evidenced by the various leaves, seeds, and twigs they brought home. They not only b...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half title
• Title
• Copyright
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Contents
• Introduction
• I The Educational Situation
• II A Basic Philosophy
• III Techniques of a Program of Emphasis
• Retrospect and Prospect
• A Selected Bibliography
• Appendix
• Index