Maine Phi Beta Kappa
“Educating
Citizens of Character”
Malcolm Gauld
President, The Hyde Schools
Hyde School Auditorium
May 5, 2005
LBJ’s Great Society
When I was a boy, Lyndon Johnson spoke of the “Great Society,” a future that would feature space travel, medical advances, excellent schools, racial equality, technological progress, etc. Forty year later: we put a man on the moon in the very decade that Kennedy boldly predicted, we’ve transplanted human hearts, we communicate on the Internet, and we’ve got leaders of all races in every walk of life. How about our schools?
In workshops supporting the book my wife and I wrote (The Biggest Job We’ll Ever Have – Scribner – 2001), we have spoken to audiences of parents all over the country. We always ask, “If you had a choice, would you rather have the schools we have today or the ones we had when LBJ was president?” About 80% would rather go back to the days of LBJ. Why are we able to demonstrate so much progress in all these areas and yet we cannot show much in the area of education?
15-Minute sound bite
My 15-second sound bite dedicated to improving American education: It’s time to switch our priorities from aptitude to attitude, from ability to effort, from talent to character.
When it comes to kids, who they are matters more than what they can do. For years we’ve told them, “I don’t care about your grade; I just care about how hard you try.” That is a lie. They know it.
So, let’s move our priorities to attitude over aptitude, effort over ability, and character over talent.
What’s in the way?
At our workshops, we ask parents to apply the Olympic diving competition’s “degree of difficulty” concept to parenting: “Think about the difficulty our parents had in raising us as compared to the difficulty we currently have in raising our kids. Whose job is harder?” The overwhelming majority believe that today’s parents have the higher degree of difficulty.
Here are three barriers to educating and raising citizens of character.
1. The Cult of Self-esteem
Many families and schools have become locked in the debilitating grip of the “Cult of Self-esteem,” a prevalent mindset in our homes and schools suggesting that kids need to feel good about themselves all the time. The premise behind this mindset says, “If we make kids feel good about themselves, they will do great things.” It’s time to peer through the other end of the telescope: if kids do great things, they will feel good about themselves.
Kids were not meant to feel good all the time. The journey to gain genuine self-esteem requires them to endure difficulties and overcome obstacles along the way. They will likely feel a dearth of self-esteem before the journey ends. Although self-esteem is not a gift bestowed for the asking, once earned, it can never be taken away. The Cult of Self-esteem has directly contributed to many of the specific problems we have in our schools today—from absenteeism and cheating to drug use, guns and violence. In effect, these behaviors have become the substitutes for the effort, sacrifice, and hardship necessary for cultivating authentic self-esteem.
2. The Achievatron
A year ago in an article titled “Stressed for Success?” in the NY Times (3/30/04), columnist David Brooks wrote:
Many of you high school seniors are in a panic at this time of year, coping with your college acceptance or rejection letters. Since the admissions process has gone totally insane, it's worth reminding yourself that this is not a particularly important moment in your life.
You are being judged according to criteria that you would never use to judge another person and which will never again be applied to you once you leave higher ed.
For example, colleges are taking a hard look at your SAT scores. But if at any moment in your later life you so much as mention your SAT scores in conversation, you will be considered a total jerk. If at age 40 you are still proud of your scores, you may want to contemplate a major life makeover.
We cling to a preoccupation with grades and test scores despite the fact that no correlation between them and later success and fulfillment has ever been conclusively demonstrated.
Cheating is at an all time high in all studies.
Many top students avoid taking challenging courses for fear of adversely affecting their GPA.
A Hyde graduate, one who recently earned a Fulbright, recently wrote:
Unfortunately, an educational system valuing only achievement can make it extremely easy for test scores and awards to lure the “good kid” into a false sense of fulfillment. This fulfillment is false because it founds itself on the static expectations of someone else, like grades and rules for behavior, and not on standards for one’s own potential. Many students can meet the standards set by teachers or a school’s curriculum, but remain apathetic children, too lazy or cowardly to risk challenging themselves much beyond the status quo of their own boredom.”
3. The Most Supervised Generation
In his book On Paradise Drive, David Brooks refers to this generation of children as “the most supervised generation” in American history.
Whereas we lived lives of “unsupervised loitering,” the lives of today’s kids are heavily scripted.
The net effect: Time spent in unsupervised play has completely given way to that spent in adult-supervised skill-enhanced activities.
As parents, we baby-boomers have serious difficulty with allowing our kids to fail. We need to get out of the way.
Three Things I Have Observed About Character
1. Character is Inspired
We won’t teach much character if we simply post a list of ideals – i.e., Respect, Tolerance, Honesty – and beg the kids to pay heed. In his book Dumbing Us Down, John Gatto presents a comparison of the painter and the sculptor as a metaphor for great teaching. Gatto observes that a painter begins with a blank canvas and transforms it by adding patterns of color to create a new design. A sculptor begins with a mass of stone and transforms it by subtracting matter to reveal a shape that was always there waiting to be exposed to the world. Gatto maintains that the great teachers are sculptors rather than painters. We don’t pour character into our students; we summon it forth with values-forming challenges and experiences.
Over the years, I have been approached at graduation ceremonies by appreciative parents who have made comments like, “Thank-you so much! You and this school truly gave my kid character.” Although such compliments are gratifying, they are inaccurate. We don’t give our students anything. Instead, we help them uncover something that was always there. Sometimes it is buried under a lack of confidence or under a heap of family dysfunction. In any case, great teachers remove the barriers and ignite a dormant confidence that can help a kid “take off.” Rather than add qualities to students, the great teachers inspire or draw out the qualities that are already present in all the students they teach. Parents play a similar role.
2. Site vs. Context
The second point – site vs. context – further clarifies the power of inspiration. The dynamic of context vs. site can be demonstrated in our use at Hyde of a high ropes course, an effective and powerful character development site. The high ropes course fosters courage, risk taking, and trust. A sixteen-year old girl named Debbie has climbed the rope ladder to accept the challenges offered by the course. The course asks her to face the risks expected by these challenges. It also demands that she place her trust in a peer who stands on the ground thirty feel below holding her safety belay line. Thus, her life is literally held in the hands of her partner.
Now, what happens after Debbie descends from the ropes course, unfastens her harness, unstraps her helmet, and debriefs the experience with her peers? Let’s assume she goes home to a dysfunctional family. Debbie cannot possibly reap the maximum benefit of the ropes course if she spends most of her time living in a context that does not reinforce its lessons. If her parents do not value courage, risk-taking, and trust, then the value of the ropes course will vanish.
In short, we’ve got to “influence the influencers” and the two biggest influencers in kids’ lives are their parents and the youth culture. Any program of character development that does not address this context will ultimately have minimal effect.
3. “Use it or lose it”
Character is like a muscle that must be exercised and maintained with values-forming exercises and challenges
In other words, “use it or lose it.”
I’m 51, I don’t have all the character I need
Conclusion
In the interests of luck and superstition, we end every Biggest Job workshop with a story about the great cellist Pablo Casals, a musician noted for his beautiful sound and relentless practice. Casals was once approached by a reporter who asked, “Mr. Casals, you have long been considered the greatest cellist in the world. At age 96, why do you still practice six hours a day?” Casals’ response: “Because I think I’m making progress.”
The students, the best teachers, indeed, the best people, are those who approach their own character development they way Casals approached the cello. Although I don’t play the cello, I suspect it’s a lot like parenting: it’s hard, it’s doable, and it’s never too late.