Teaching selflessness -- an essay, and request for ideas

[ohiopiper]

I'm definately not a teacher and the few times in my life i have been called upon to instruct in certain areas in which i have expertise, my "students" were all adults and eager to learn the latest and greatest in the tactical world.

However, I now find myself in posession of two small creatures that are beginning to resemble human beings. A son and daughter, ages seven and two, to be exact.

I have approached the task of raising them from a mindset founded on principle. My daughter now and my son at her age were required to do certain small things. There was no other option. Picking up toys might take two hours, because I would stand or sit nearby, pick up a toy or two and then expect them to pick up the rest. Comprehension wasn't the issue, it was natural selfishness. A kid wants to do fun things, picking up after ones' self isn't fun. disobediance was met by punishment or reminders of the task at hand, whichever was appropriate.

Soon, forced behaivior becomes habit. When the child is old enough (like my son is now), the principle behind the behavior is explained. The principle guides the person through other similar tasks in life.

What you are seeing is, in my opinion, the same we are seeing here in the U.S. in the current Jr. High and younger kids. The behavior expected of them is minimal, the underlying principle is one of self gratification at the expense of others, or even the expense of ones' future. They are learning the lesson well. Interaction with another human being has become an option, not a requirement to function in society. Enter the ipod and smartphone into evidence.

Without principle, human beings are behaviorally no different from wild animals. I've seen it firsthand in several places around the world. The only solution, in my opinion, is to substitute what you rightly call hedonism with principles that guide them in a socially acceptable manner. Unfortunately, this conversion from delinquent behavior to civilized often requires either trauma or Divine intervention, if not taught from an early childhood. By the teen years, behavior of any sort has become so firmly entrenched that change is resisted out of both habit and the fear of having to re-evaluate and re-identify ones' self.

[Jock Scot]

I'm definately not a teacher and the few times in my life i have been called upon to instruct in certain areas in which i have expertise, my "students" were all adults and eager to learn the latest and greatest in the tactical world.

However, I now find myself in posession of two small creatures that are beginning to resemble human beings. A son and daughter, ages seven and two, to be exact.

I have approached the task of raising them from a mindset founded on principle. My daughter now and my son at her age were required to do certain small things. There was no other option. Picking up toys might take two hours, because I would stand or sit nearby, pick up a toy or two and then expect them to pick up the rest. Comprehension wasn't the issue, it was natural selfishness. A kid wants to do fun things, picking up after ones' self isn't fun. disobediance was met by punishment or reminders of the task at hand, whichever was appropriate.

Soon, forced behaivior becomes habit. When the child is old enough (like my son is now), the principle behind the behavior is explained. The principle guides the person through other similar tasks in life.

What you are seeing is, in my opinion, the same we are seeing here in the U.S. in the current Jr. High and younger kids. The behavior expected of them is minimal, the underlying principle is one of self gratification at the expense of others, or even the expense of ones' future. They are learning the lesson well. Interaction with another human being has become an option, not a requirement to function in society. Enter the ipod and smartphone into evidence.

Without principle, human beings are behaviorally no different from wild animals. I've seen it firsthand in several places around the world. The only solution, in my opinion, is to substitute what you rightly call hedonism with principles that guide them in a socially acceptable manner. Unfortunately, this conversion from delinquent behavior to civilized often requires either trauma or Divine intervention, if not taught from an early childhood. By the teen years, behavior of any sort has become so firmly entrenched that change is resisted out of both habit and the fear of having to re-evaluate and re-identify ones' self.

Gosh! I wish I was cleaver enough to have writen that! Well said.

[Bugbear]

I understand, Mipi. That is why I'm trying to explore these ideas: is it possible to teach and learn about selflessness and sacrifice in a secular sense? If so, how?

Me, as an educator, and you as a parent, what advice would you give me on how to address this question, without getting into religious ideas, since in public school, it would be inappropriate to take such a tack? And the more fundamental question: is it even possible? ith:

Here's a book suggestion along that line, CDNSushi, if you can find it.
Patricia S. Churchland, Braintrust: What Neuroscience Tells Us about Morality, (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2011)

For example, she has an interesting discussion of the "Golden Rule," and ethic of reciprocity variations, and their logical or philosophical difficulties, mixed in with biology, of course.

I think that would be basically what we are talking about here, but I don't see how much could be done if there can be no negative feed back to the behaviors that are causing the problems. You'll have to be sneaky about it.

My thought is to set up a situation that exposes the students to unfair situations that depend on the good or bad behaviour of other students. They then have to be their "brother's keepers" so to speak.

[CDNSushi]

I think that would be basically what we are talking about here, but I don't see how much could be done if there can be no negative feed back to the behaviors that are causing the problems. You'll have to be sneaky about it.

My thought is to set up a situation that exposes the students to unfair situations that depend on the good or bad behaviour of other students. They then have to be their "brother's keepers" so to speak.

Yes. That's the kind of thing I'm talking about. For example, if I were to have students take turns leading the class, they would experience first-hand how hard it is when nobody is willing to sacrifice their hedonism for a few minutes.

But the problem with that, is that in order to TEACH, you first have to KNOW. In order to KNOW you have to PREPARE and LEARN yourself. Teachers don't just walk in front of a class and start talking -- a lot of careful preparation goes into designing a class that will be successful.

But the lesson might be lost on them too. I can't expect that something like this will have any long-lasting or enduring results.

To those who have expressed the opinion that by adulthood, such lessons may be too late -- I respect your reasoning, but also think there's reason to be more hopeful too. If we DID use the religious analogy, we'd have to admit that the majority of spiritual or religious teaching is NOT really aimed at children, but at adults. We go to places of worship, temples, churches, mosques, to learn how to better ourselves (AND our children) but certainly not just our children. I don't think it's ever too late to learn morals and ethics, but I will concede that it may be a much harder road to travel once bad habits have been ingrained in us.

Our students, even in the pure academic sense, have bad habits a-plenty. Most have never actually been taught HOW to study effectively, or how to prepare for exams. You'd be surprised how many dumb errors I get on exams -- students who don't leave multiple-choice questions blank because they don't know the answer, or others who check off multiple responses, and others who will miss an entire page from the test because they didn't look at the other side of the sheet... Or spend most of their time on tough questions with relatively few points when they could be maximizing their points on easy sections with many points available to them.... All simple, common-sense strategies. But growing up, and all the way through school, they've never been taught correctly. And now, those bad habits are so stuck with them, it's brutal to un-teach them, and show them the correct way. (But I digress...)

[Bugbear]

I was thinking more along the line of making a student read something difficult aloud in front of the class because the student in front or back of him or her was talking and not paying attention, then inviting the other students to make comments on his performance. It needs to be unfair and unjust, as well as, uncomfortable.

[Jock Scot]

If I might make so bold and I can only generalise here. The problem young teachers have is that they have little or no experience of life. It is this experience of life that knocks off the sharp edges of youthful idealism and selfishness and hopefully this "golden time" arrives well before aged indifference and cynicism takes hold. A young teacher has only just started to leave all that behind themselves, so passing on what you are looking for must be incredibly difficult.

Had youth, over the years, taken on board much of what their elders(not necessarily betters) had learnt and moved on and built on it,instead of relearning much of what had already been learnt in the previous generations, we could have been on the moon 500 years ago. On the other hand, thank goodness youth of the past and particularly youth of today does question things and reject and invent and adapt and who knows where they will take us?

For many years I had a cutting from a jobs page in a farming magazine over my desk which, I think, said it all:
"Wanted, a farming graduate aged 23 with 40 years experience."

[ohiopiper]

I'll opine that while it is not hopeless once someone has reached the late teen years or adulthood, it is exceedingly difficult. Cast a net around you and find ten people who have made a late life turnaround for the better. I'll bet dollars to donuts that nine of them will fall into one of two categories.

1) were taught morals and principles as children but ignored it. Life experience awakened in them a need for such principles to guide them.

2) were raised under principles and morals and lived by them until the wanderlust of early adulthood came upon them. Now in midlife, they are returning to values they once held.

The one in ten who seeks after something intangible to better himself and the world around without previous exposure to the concept him is rare. They are also the most likely to be able to give you insight into what reaches the mind of an uncivilized cretin posing as a member of modern society and how to goad him or her into stepping onto the road to social functioning.

I would also add that the condition I see, which is what you are describing, is a principle of self entertainment at the cost of actual social interaction. We tolerated it because the gadgets were new. Now it has become entrenched as habit and on its way to becoming the new norm. Those of us who have conversations using actual words (rather than LOL and TTFN) are slowly becoming anachronisms.

When I was a kid, Dad came home from work and turned off the television. It was time to interact with the whole family together. The modern man sits on his sofa staring at his ipad, talking on his smartphone and surfing the internet. All the while mumbling "yeah, whatever. Go ask your mother" while the house, and family, fall apart around him.

I'll have the gall to quote myself:
What you are seeing is, in my opinion, the same we are seeing here in the U.S. in the current Jr. High and younger kids. The behavior expected of them is minimal, the underlying principle is one of self gratification at the expense of others, or even the expense of ones' future. They are learning the lesson well. Interaction with another human being has become an option, not a requirement to function in society. Enter the ipod and smartphone into evidence.

[Cygnus]

I don't know how much leeway or actual control you're given in the classroom, CDNSushi, but I'm reminded of something from when I was first married that I think might apply here.

My wife and I were on our way to dinner when we passed a pet store, and my wife pulled out all of the stops in begging to stop "just to see the animals".

We did not go to dinner.

An hour later we were home with a new puppy, and I was reading through a book on dog training. While that dog has passed on, and we are no longer dog owners, one thing from that book has stuck with me: a "good dog" is made as much by limiting its opportunities to misbehave as it is by good training.

Put lids on garbage cans, keep shoes in closets, and put the dog in a kennel or a different room during meal time. When you can't remove the potential for bad behavior, you have to penalize the dog for breaking the rules - some people use squirt guns, shaking cans full of pebbles/coins, or old fashioned shouting. It may sound bit harsh to compare your students to dogs, but remember that Ohiopiper was the first to say they were like wild animals!

I don't think you can "teach" selflessness to this crowd, because it doesn't sound like you can teach anything to them. If you're at the front of the class banging on about selflessness, they'll still be texting, chatting, and ignoring. I think the first step would be to make it in their best interest just to listen. If you can, have them "check in" their mobile devices when they come into class so they don't have the option to surf the internet or text during class ("put the lid on the garbage can"). If you can, dismiss students from class for talking out of turn and inform them that it does, in fact, count as an absence.

Again, I realize that your hands may be tied in this regard, but if there is any way that you can introduce penalties (and make it in their self-interest to listen), you just might get them to the point that they will pay attention and then you might be able to teach them about being selfless. Of course, you'll also have a reputation as a hard-nosed bastard, but that's just the icing on the cake!

[mull]

"I have students in this group who are functionally illiterate, completely unmotivated, and absolutely disinterested in any subject matter aside from fast cars and sports, enthusiastically discussed..."

I guess I will dissent a little. Your students do not lack in motivation. They are simply motivated in other ways and by other ideas than you. You can try to force them to accept your views or you can teach and lead them by using theirs.
Joe

[ForresterModern]

I keep coming back to the old adage "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink." Your students come to you already pre-formed by a severely flawed system that does not appropriately prepare them to move on educationally but simply adjusts the bar ever lower with grade advancements. You cannot repair that. All you can do is your own part to teach and motivate those that will be receptive and interested. I do and have taught for over 20 years. I also was the rare self motivated learner in my highschool full of dropouts and predominantly vocational education graduates, with a flawed school focus on graduating as many of the students as possible, not on truly educating those who were interested in learning. As such us higher achievers were literally left on our own to scavenge from books and teachers what the school knew would be an adequate but not spectacular education, while the schools aimed at teaching to the lower ability students just to get them a diploma and push them through the system. They taught to the lowest abilities and did not really help the high ability students. I have learned through experience that it is better to teach to the higher ability interested student and let them drag along the less capable or less interested students. The latter will either follow or fail ultimately. You must always do your best to teach those that are willing to learn, and attempt to motivate the small population of others who may be willing to under the right circumstances. Focus on these groups and realize that in the flawed system you are forced to teach in there will simply be those who only coast along without a care in the world. The only way to teach selflessness at your level is to do it by example, as many of your efforts to go beyond the norm with your lessons demonstrate. Just realize there will be times when you will "cast pearls before swine," meaning that you may find the majority of your efforts in vain. However, even if you only move or motivate one mind, you have accomplished a portion of your mission in life. You cannot fix all the problems. You are a teacher----not an "enforcer of learning". So teach, creatively and enthusiastically, aiming high and nurturing any signs of a stirring interest in your students, but always realize that you cannot effect great change on a lot of your preformed preflawed preordained preoccupied students.

Good luck.


jeff