Ethical Education: Towards An Ecology Of Human Development [1st Edition] 1108477402, 9781108477406, 1108769772, 9781108769778

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Ethical Education Ethical education should help students become more sensitive to the perspectives and experiences of others. However, the field is dominated by the teaching of moral values as a subject matter, or by the fostering of character traits in students, or by moral reasoning. This book proposes an alternative to these limited moralistic approaches. It places human relationships at the core of ethical education, in its understanding of both ethics and education. With contributions from renowned international scholars, this approach is laid out in three parts. Part I develops the underlying theory of ethics and education, Part II focuses on the relevant pedagogical principles and Part III provides illustrations of emergent innovative ethical educational practices in schools worldwide. Against a backdrop of divisiveness and apathy, the innovative practices described in this book show how a new vision for ethical education might be centred around caring for students’ well-being. Scherto Gill is Senior Fellow at the GHFP Research Institute, and a Visiting Fellow at the University of Sussex. Scherto writes in the fields of education, dialogue and peace, and with Professor Garrett Thomson, she co-developed the notion of human-centred education, now practised in various countries. Garrett Thomson is Chief Executive Officer of the GHFP Research Institute. He is also a professor at the College of Wooster where he holds the Compton Chair of Philosophy. Garrett writes in the fields of well-being, education, peace and dialogue.

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Ethical Education Towards an Ecology of Human Development Edited by Scherto Gill GHFP Research Institute / University of Sussex Garrett Thomson GHFP Research Institute / College of Wooster, Ohio

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University Printing House, Cambridge cb2 8bs, United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, ny 10006, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, vic 3207, Australia 314–321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi – 110025, India 79 Anson Road, #06–04/06, Singapore 079906 Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781108477406 d oi : 10.1017/9781108769778 © Cambridge University Press 2020 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2020 Printed in the United Kingdom by TJ International Ltd, Padstow Cornwall A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data n am e s: Gill, Scherto, editor. | Thomson, Garrett, editor. | Cambridge University Press. t it l e: Ethical education : towards an ecology of human development / edited by Scherto Gill, University of Sussex, Garrett Thomson, College of Wooster, Ohio. other t itles : Towards an ecology of human development | Cambridge education research series. d es c r i p ti o n : FOE Cambridge Education Research Edition. | New York : Cambridge University Press, 2020. | Series: Cambridge education research | Includes bibliographical references and index. i de nt i fi e rs: lc cn 2019053022 (print) | l ccn 2019053023 (ebook) | isb n 9781108477406 (Hardback) | is bn 9781108769778 (eBook) subjects : lc sh: Moral education – England – History–20th century. c l a s s i f i c at i o n: l cc lc 314.g7 e84 2020 (print) | l cc l c314.g 7 (ebook) | dd c 370.11/4–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019053022 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019053023 isbn 978-1-108-47740-6 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

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CONTENTS

List of Contributors General Introduction Scherto Gill and Garrett Thomson

part i

1

2

3

part ii

4

5

page vii

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theoretical perspectives on ethical education Introduction to Part I Scherto Gill and Garrett Thomson

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Ethics in Education: A Relational Perspective Kenneth J. Gergen

15

Ethical Relationships in Schools: Learning to Engage with Others Scherto Gill

27

Towards an Ethical Understanding of Others Garrett Thomson

43

Conclusion to Part I Scherto Gill and Garrett Thomson

59

pedagogical approaches to ethical education Introduction to Part II Scherto Gill and Garrett Thomson

63

Changing Cultures: Relationship and Sensibility in Ethical Education Sharon Todd

67

Ethical, Existential and Spiritual Re-Orientation Hans Alma and Christa Anbeek

79

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Contents

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Confirming Moral Agency: Through Pedagogy of the Sacred and Pedagogy of Difference Hanan A. Alexander Conclusion to Part II Scherto Gill and Garrett Thomson

part iii

7

8

9

10

93

105

ethical education in practices Introduction to Part III Scherto Gill and Garrett Thomson

109

Re-Learning the Value of Direct Experience: Schools as Ethical Communities Colleen McLaughlin

113

Cultivating Inner Qualities: A Case Study of Developing Ethical Relations in Chinese Schools Yaqing Mao

127

Ethical Relationships in Secondary Classrooms: A Case Study of Pedagogical Practices in the United Kingdom and Colombia Scherto Gill

149

Conclusion to Part III Scherto Gill and Garrett Thomson

169

Towards Systemic Transformation Scherto Gill and Garrett Thomson

171

Notes Bibliography Index

189 192 200

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CONTRIBUTORS

Hanan A. Alexander, Dean of the Faculty of Education and Professor of Philosophy of Education, University of Haifa, Israel Hans Alma, Endowed Chair Contemporary Humanism, Department of Philosophy and Ethics, Vrije Universiteit Brussels, Belgium Christa Anbeek, Professor of Liberal Theology, Faculty of Religion and Theology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands Kenneth J. Gergen, Professor of Psychology, Swarthmore College; President and CEO, Taos Institute, USA Scherto Gill, Senior Fellow, GHFP Research Institute; Visiting Fellow and Lecturer, University of Sussex, UK Yaqing Mao, Professor, Dean of School of Educational Administration, Beijing Normal University, China Colleen McLaughlin, Professor, Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, UK Garrett Thomson, Compton Professor of Philosophy, College of Wooster; CEO, GHFP Research Institute, USA/UK Sharon Todd, Professor of Education, Maynooth University, Ireland

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General Introduction Scherto Gill and Garrett Thomson

Ethical education is very important. Without it, people can be unconcerned about the suffering and plight of others, thereby contributing to a culture of apathy and uncaring; and some can be profoundly ignorant of how different the viewpoints and experiences of others can be from one’s own. Arguably, educational institutions across the globe have played a major role in this uncaring, due to their increasing emphasis on knowledge and information transfer (facts over interpretation), instrumentalisation (learning for the sake of financial gain) and individualism (competitive grades). In many parts of the world, these tendencies are exacerbated by the false dichotomy between traditional moral views based on religion, which tend to be insular and dogmatic, and secular conceptions, which tend towards relativism. Internationally, educational practices have not resolved this tension. This book is directed towards the need for a new approach to ethical education in schools, one that is focused primarily on human relationships. Ethical education can help us appreciate better the lived realities of others, and be more sensitive to their perception of a situation or encounter. Traditionally, the field of ethical education is seen to be dominated by three approaches. Some schools have moral education components in their curriculum, but with a focus on imparting information about social issues and the duties of citizenship. Others emphasise teaching moral reasoning. The alternative to these approaches usually consists in interpretations of Aristotle that embody a non-relational conception of virtues. In short, ethical education tends to be conceived either as the teaching of moral values as a subject matter, or as the fostering of cognitive moral reasoning, or as the cultivation of virtues or character traits. 1 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Western Ontario, on 18 Jul 2020 at 11:18:04, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108769778.001

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All three approaches need to be challenged. The first is that they are not sustainable because ethics cannot be taught only as a subject matter for it does not consist solely in informational propositional knowledge. It also requires the cultivation of the sensitivities that constitute caring in a relationship. The second is that they are limited because ethics is rooted more deeply in the social and emotional aspects of human relationships than in the cognitive grasp of moral principles and in reasoning from these principles. Such reasoning will neither awaken the need nor enliven the ability to appreciate that others may see a dispute quite differently from oneself. The third is that they are reductive as they reduce the richness of the ethical to a list of virtues required for the good life of an individual. In this view, as we shall see, relationship is always a secondary consideration, derivative on the value of the character traits of the person required for their well-being and flourishing. These three approaches are limited in their capacity to enable young people to overcome challenges in their relationships and their feeling for others. Furthermore, these approaches are even more constraining when they are embedded within an instrumentalised conception of education according to which processes of teaching and learning are primarily means to a set of results. This limitation applies even when these results are defined in terms of knowledge, emotions or virtues. Such instrumentalised views of education ignore the importance of living relationships within a school community as non-instrumentally valuable, and instead merely consider relationships to only partially characterise ethical education, hence missing out a core ingredient. Moreover, one might argue that the three approaches fail to adequately distinguish between ethics and morality. A moral theory specifies what one ought to do in terms of what is right. It concerns doing the right thing when this is understood either in terms of promoting the general good or in terms of complying with a set of duties. In this regard, it is juxtaposed with selfinterest. For this reason, morality as a social institution involves the enforcement of morally right actions and the prohibition of wrong actions. Because of this, it is concerned with public and private enforcement through praise, blame and guilt. In contrast, ethics is concerned with the quality of a life for the person living it, that is with her flourishing or well-being. In this sense, a person ought to care more for her friends or relate better to her colleagues. But this ‘ought’ doesn’t imply that she should be condemned or feel guilty for not doing so. It only implies that her life would be better if she were to do so. As such, an ethical ‘ought’ does not involve any enforcement, including

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praise, blame and guilt. Morality commands; ethics recommends. (For more on this difference, see Chapters 1 and 3 of this book.) This difference is relevant to our project because ethical considerations are not felt as an external imposition. They are a part of a person’s development as a person, and as such, they are a core part of educational processes.

RELATIONAL ETHICS To overcome the limitations of the three approaches, we need to understand better the nature of ethics. The chapters in the first part of the book argue that ethics should be understood primarily in terms of relating to others within relationships. Among other things, such relating might consist in understanding and caring. This relational approach takes seriously the claim that all ethical concerns arise in the contexts of human relationships. We shall contrast it with traditional approaches that take the individual as the starting point for characterising ethics, such as virtue theory, and care ethics, even though these are the closest relatives to a relational approach. Virtue Ethics

We assume a virtue theory to be one that attempts to define the rightness of an action in terms of the virtues. According to Hursthouse (1999), the right act is the action in the circumstances that the virtuous person would perform. Virtues are character traits that are necessary for flourishing, claims Hursthouse. To this we might add an important rider: for virtue ethics to be a genuine alternative to exotic forms of consequentialism and deontology, it must be the case that the value of a virtue is not entirely instrumental, that it isn’t reducible to the value of a right action. Otherwise, virtue ethics would be a form of character-trait consequentialism or a form of Kantianism. In fact, Aristotle does explain how a virtue can have non-instrumental value: the exercise of the virtue constitutes flourishing (inter alia); it isn’t just or only a means to it. This implies that the virtues can be good non-instrumentally (Thomson, 2015). It also allows for the possibility that actions have a moral value that is derivative on that of a virtue: actions can be wrong insofar as they express a vice and right insofar as they express a virtue. In terms of ethical education, a strength of virtue theory is that it acknowledges that in addition to being useful, the virtues have non-instrumental

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value. This indicates that the theory won’t reduce the value and content of educational processes to a set of external purposes. In other words, it is less prone to instrumentalise education, especially in contrast to thinkers such as Richard Peters and Paul Hirst who tend to think of education as a provider of intellectual capacities and vocationally relevant skills (Steutel and Carr, 1999). Another educational strength of virtue theory is that it avoids the false dichotomy between reason and passion, or rather cognition and emotion, which tends to plague writers in traditional moral theory. For example, a virtue theorist would claim that to understand a situation might involve feeling in a certain way. This aspect of virtue theory has huge importance for understanding practices that deepen sensibility or sensitivity (McDowell, 1979). Nevertheless, arguably, there are three features of a relational approach that make it interestingly distinct from virtue theory, despite the affinities. First, virtue theory is implicitly individualistic because the virtues are character traits of a person, pertaining to her flourishing. Indeed, some writers read Aristotle’s concept of flourishing or eudaimonia as a process of development of the self (see May, 2010). So, although Aristotle emphasises that we are social animals, he doesn’t stress the relational nature of being virtuous: the fact that the virtues only count as such in relation to relationships. As Sharon Todd argues in Chapter 4 of this book, being virtuous shouldn’t be conceived of as having a set of ready-made traits that one carries around; rather they exist and emerge only in relationships and through encounters. Second, a relational approach looks upon a relationship as a coconstruction by two or more people together. However, having two virtuous people in proximity to one another doesn’t constitute a relationship! The relationship is a factor that cannot be reduced to non-relational claims about the people involved. Consequently, the same will apply to an ethical relationship. Therefore, the idea of an ethical relationship needs a characterisation that transcends the ethical behaviour of distinct individuals, even towards each other. Third, a relational approach takes seriously the claim that meaning arises out of social practices and is itself relational. It takes seriously Marx’s claim that a human being is a social animal who can individuate herself only in the midst of society (Marx, 1973). It is the wrong way around to think that society is constructed out of individuals. Rather, a person can think of herself as an individual only given a social context. In other words, the practices underlying meaning and individuating presuppose a collective transpersonal ‘we’ as opposed to an interpersonal ‘me’ and ‘you’. It is a mistake to think that we

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build the collective from the individual, as writers such as John Searle (1995) do. The reality is the opposite: we separate our individuality from the transpersonal. As Kenneth Gergen indicates in Chapter 1 of this book, the social nature of meaning itself has ethical implications. Care Theory

Care theory is perhaps an even closer relative to the approach advocated and explored in this book. Insofar as it is a theory at all, it claims that caring is a fundamental moral notion (see Held, 1995). Caring is understood as a complex relationship between persons, or between the one who is caring and the one who is cared for (see Noddings, 2013). Noddings defines care as a relation of engrossment such that the person who is caring receives the one who is cared for on the latter’s terms. Tronto and Fischer (1990) construe care as ‘a species of activity that includes everything we do to maintain, contain, and repair our “world” so that we can live in it as well as possible’ (p. 40). Tronto (1994) identifies four sub-elements of caring: attentiveness, responsibility, competence and responsiveness (pp. 126–36). We may interpret care theory in four ways. Insofar as care is understood as a virtue, care theory is a kind of virtue theory, and it is subject to the critiques we presented earlier. Insofar as care theory consists in activism for a set of practices, it is not an ethical theory. Instead, it advocates the promotion of the well-being of and support for care-givers. For example, Eva Kittay (1999) calls for the public provision of care doulas, who care for care-givers (p. 113). Third, when care theorists define caring as a social relation rather than as a virtue, their theory is distinct from virtue theory, and may be thought to be very close to the approach argued for in this work. (We will consider the fourth interpretation later.) This third type of care theory claims that the caring relation is the basis for ethics. Noddings (2013) explicates ethical relations in terms of caring, and caring in terms of the relations between the carer and the cared-for, between giver and recipient. The theory takes caring-for as the paradigm ethical human relationship, and tends to model such relationships on caring roles within society such as mother, doctor, nurse and social worker. In the context of a school, this means that the focus is on the teacher–student relationship. A relational approach would differ from care theory in three ways. First, it would view ethical education as concerned with all relationships within the school, including importantly those among the students. More generally, a relational ethical theory would reject the assumption that caring-for is

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a primordial type of relation. For example, companionship needn’t be conceived as a caring-for. When two friends play together or when two colleagues discuss their analysis of a problem, when two acquaintances catch up on each other’s news: these ways of relating aren’t caring-for. Arguably, the resolving of disputes in a relationship would not constitute a form of caring. Such forms of relating can be more or less ethical. Second, a relational approach concerns the capacities for human relationships that transcend roles, such as care provider and care recipient, teacher– student, and even pupil–pupil. How we relate to each other as people can’t be captured with whether we have performed our respective roles well. Relating well to others requires a set of sensitivities that connect to the other person as a person and not merely in terms of their role. This is an important point because, since roles are functions and functions pertain to purposes, thinking of human relationships in terms of caring roles will tend to carry an instrumentalising element. Third, there is a tendency in care theory to understand caring as an activity rather than as a relation. This is the fourth interpretation mentioned earlier. As we shall see in Part I, the fourth interpretation is individualistic. It doesn’t constitute a relational approach. It is one thing to ask from an individualistic standpoint ‘How can I care more for my companions?’ It is quite another to inquire whether our relationship is a caring one. Part I of the book will explicate the importance of this difference. Towards a Relational Approach

This book is not dedicated to developing a full-blown relational ethical theory. This is because we are more concerned with ethical education as such. Nevertheless, we will develop an approach to ethics that is relational, which might serve as a prolegomenon to a more complete theory. We develop the approach in three ways. First, we examine hermeneutical challenges in relationships: How can I understand others better, both those who are close to me and those who are more distant? Such challenges include centrally the capacity to be sensitive to others, and more aware of others within relationships. Second, relational ethics transforms individualistic questions about oneself and the other person into ones about relationships per se, or from the ‘I’ to the ‘we’, such as How can we enrich our relationships? Seen in this way, there are a host of ethical issues that do not reduce to statements about the individuals. Third, these irreducible relational questions will transmute into an inquiry concerning communities and their cultures.

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ETHICAL EDUCATION Concerning education, we are looking for ideas that neither rehearse welltrodden ground (such as critiques of performance-driven education) nor define overly idealistic solutions (such as those found in alternative models or in whole school transformation). We intend to move the conversation forward by making some explicit assumptions about the aims of education (e.g. the students’ holistic human development) and the nature of learning (e.g. beyond the acquisition of knowledge). Furthermore, we direct our questions towards how to foster ethical education from within the state school system. Although in the literature, progress has been made in defining radical alternatives to the traditional public system, state schooling itself tends not to explore these questions from socio-emotional and relational perspectives. For this reason, the book is divided into three parts which cumulatively construct a vision of ethical education. The first part is directed towards the underlying theory of ethical concepts. The second part focuses on the pedagogical principles related to ethical education. The third is dedicated to innovative practices in ethical education. In addition to the general introduction and conclusion, there will be an introduction and a conclusion for each of the three parts, to enable the reader to see how the diverse perspectives make sense as a unified approach. We believe this approach would benefit a greater number of young people, and it offers an opportunity to engage existing innovative ideas from within the confines of state systems. Nevertheless, we will devote the final chapter (Chapter 10) to characterising how the ideas elaborated in the book would transform the educational system (rather than practices within it). Given the parameters established by the approaches outlined above regarding relational ethics and ethical education, the main question addressed in this work is: ‘Within the context of public education, what educational practices might help young people to become more ethically aware and motivated?’ The answers provided emphasise the daily practices or micro-ethical interactions that build ethical relationships in schools. They seek to understand and transform the implicit ethical spaces in schools, such as the nature of learning activities, student–teacher interactions, opportunities for young people to share, the ethos of the school as a community, the participation of parents, and the overall dialogic and collaborative culture in education.

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In summary, although this book focuses on supporting teachers’ professional learning with regard to ethical education, it is not about teaching ethics to young people as lessons with plans to improve their moral reasoning or character. Instead, it seeks ways for young people to develop ethical capacities in their relationships within the life of a school community, which are equally applicable to their lives beyond the school. It is more about establishing educational processes with a direction than planning for defined results.

BACKGROUND AND FEATURES The book is a collection of essays written by scholars and researchers who have made these questions their life’s passion and who came together to share their understandings in an international symposium organised by the Guerrand-Hermès Foundation for Peace in 2017. The book contains diverse international perspectives and multidisciplinary voices, but they are all directed to well-defined questions within the theoretical parameters already outlined. The book features a strong international orientation: the theories and pedagogies we discuss are inspired by thinkers from diverse cultures, and the practices we examine are drawn from state schools in countries in divergent contexts, including Europe, North and South America, Africa and Asia. The work is also interdisciplinary: the contributors come from a range of fields, including philosophy, sociology, psychology, education, organisational studies, religious studies and spirituality, and cover many aspects of ethical education, from theory, to curriculum and pedagogy to classroom practices.

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Part I Theoretical Perspectives on Ethical Education

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Introduction to Part I Scherto Gill and Garrett Thomson

The theoretical core of this book, which is the main topic of this first part, centres on three interwoven themes: the nature of relationships, that of ethics and that of education. It culminates in the conclusion that ethical education should be concerned primarily with relationships and with an examination of the educational implications of this conclusion.

NATURE OF RELATIONSHIPS A relational approach is premised on the theoretical view that statements about relationships are irreducible to those about individuals. A relationship is more than a set of separate facts about persons. Assertions of the form ‘Mary loves John’ and vice versa aren’t sufficient for Mary and John to be in a relationship. We can discern two reasons for this irreducibility. First, a relational approach is driven by the awareness that all concepts and meanings are ineluctably social. In Chapter 1, Kenneth Gergen argues all concepts are based on social praxis, a set of relational processes. A concept shouldn’t be regarded as an idea or rational entity in the mind, but rather in terms of various social activities such as classifying and describing. As we shall see, Gergen draws ethical conclusions from this point. In Chapter 3, Garrett Thomson emphasises a similar point concerning the public or social role of language in understanding others: because a person’s intentions make sense and seem good to them in a public language, any other person can also make sense of them. According to Thomson, this possibility defines the role of mutual understanding in ethical relationships. In Chapter 2, Scherto Gill 11 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Western Ontario, on 18 Jul 2020 at 11:18:04, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108769778.002

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elaborates a similar strand present in the thought of French philosopher Gabriel Marcel (1889–1973), who proposes that we are constituted in a community that precedes the individual. Thus, the human way of being must be one of communing or inter-being, which has implications for the nature of ethical relationships. Second, a relational view transforms how we conceive the interactions between people. It nudges us from the interpersonal to the collective intrapersonal, from ‘you’ and ‘I’ to ‘we’ and ‘us’. This shift is important in three ways. The concept of we or us permits the ideas of doing things together as a unit, a communal activity, in contrast to the concept of the cooperation of separate individuals. This pinpoints an important difference, say, between playing tennis with a close friend and playing with a stranger: the former is something we did; the latter is something I did with someone else. Second, it transforms the way other peoples’ concerns enter our lives. It is one thing for me to work for another person’s goals, quite another for us to have purposes that are conceived of by both of us as ours. Finally, ‘we’ awareness is a historical collective consciousness of our past. For example, blood and family ties involve such a historical ‘we’-awareness. In summary, as Thomson emphasises in Chapter 3, ‘we’-awareness makes relationships possible. There is now another way to appreciate other people: as part of one’s life, and oneself as part of their lives. In this regard, they are no longer other: one is a ‘we’ (Thomson and Gill, 2020). In Chapter 2, Gill points out that Marcel adopts this kind of approach when he proposes that to encounter is to enter each other’s being as co-subjects, which transcends what is external to the person, such as her role functions and identity labels. For Marcel, this requires a distinction of kind between what we have and what we are, between having and being. A relationship is an encounter with the very being of another; it is a form of co-being.

THE NATURE OF ETHICS There is an important distinction to be drawn between ethics and morality, as both Thomson and Gergen note. Because morality is concerned with what actions are right or wrong, its judgments carry a tone of authoritative demand, which is often felt as an external imposition upon the individual’s pursuit of self-interest. In sharp contrast, ethics consists in evaluative claims about what is good for a person, for her well-being and flourishing. It does not carry an authoritative tone and doesn’t impose an external limit

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Introduction to Part I

on self-interest, but rather transforms and transcends it. This is most evident concerning the ethics of relationships. The dichotomy between morality and self-interest is insufficient when it comes to understanding the life we lead with our families and friends: neither category captures the value of these relationships or the emerging ethics. Ethics isn’t morality, and an ethical education guides us towards better relationships without imposing moral demands. A relational understanding of ethics introduces features that are missing from other theoretical approaches. This is because it takes seriously the thesis that relationships aren’t reducible to claims about individuals. In this sense, a relational approach differs from virtue theory and care theory, which tend to take the individual as the sole or main ontological unit. In this manner, it is clearly distinct from traditional moral theories such as Utilitarianism and Kantianism, which are more explicitly individualistic. In the first paper, Gergen argues that Wittgenstein’s point about the social nature of meaning itself has ethical implications. It transforms the traditional concern with individuals ‘to the more fundamental process of relating’, which has several implications. Most importantly, it allows us to speak of what should be a universal concern: the grounding of a relational ethic. Ethics requires that we restore, sustain and strengthen the social conditions of meaning-making. For example, the undermining of trust erodes the interactive processes that comprise social meaning. Thomson echoes this point from a different angle when he explains how the maintaining of a good relationship requires a hermeneutical process that overcomes the epistemological biases that favour reading our own intentions as always good and the actions of others as harmful or hurtful. Gill shows how Marcel highlights that to know one another involves participating in each other’s being, rather than treating each other as (knowable) objects. Based on the relational nature of ethics, Marcel claims that meaningful relationships with another requires disponibilité or making oneself available to the other person, to be a presence in the other’s life. For Marcel the core of an ethical relationship is love, not the romantic amorous attachment, but instead love is understood as an openness and communion with the other, whereby the one who is loving and the beloved become a mutual presence to each other. This approach is echoed by Thomson who argues that for a relationship to be ethical, it mustn’t be instrumentalised, and that because of this, such a relationship requires that the other person is a part of one’s life (for both persons). He argues that this requirement has epistemological implications for how people should understand each other.

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As we have just seen, in each case, the three authors either directly argue for a relational approach to ethics or they illustrate how such an approach is substantially different from traditional theories.

TOWARDS ETHICAL EDUCATION All three authors are keen to show how the relational approach has radical implications for ethical education. Gergen argues that in the context of a relational ethic, we should see education as enabling participation in generative processes of relating. So, for example, when pedagogy is conceived primarily as a practice of relating, monological teaching in which a knowing teacher transfers knowledge can be seen as a degraded one-way relationship in comparison with dialogic and collaborative learning. Likewise, standardised curricula constitute ethically thin forms of relational practice. Moreover, traditional practices of assessment harm trust and corrode relationships as children learn to be competitive individuals. Inspired by Marcel’s relational ethics, Gill argues that ethical education should help students cultivate co-presence and inter-being and develop an awareness of themselves and others as whole beings. Thomson argues for what is in some ways a similar view but through a different route. In a relational approach, an ethical education is one that provides spaces for students to build good relationships with each other, where a good relationship goes beyond avoiding misunderstandings towards overcoming ignorance, caring to know each other.

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Ethics in Education A Relational Perspective Kenneth J. Gergen

‘What is the Good?’ For Plato this question is essential to the quest for knowledge. Within the public education systems of North America, Plato’s concern lies moribund. Where issues of ethics, moral principles, and human values are concerned, there is a yawning silence, and this long-standing indifference now leads into perilous territory. We approach a global crisis in matters of the good, a crisis in which animosity and bloodshed play an integral role. Our institutions of public education are unique in their capacity to engender a broad moral consciousness. It is now essential to reconsider this capacity. In what follows I will sketch out the grounds for my concern and open discussion on the implications for ethical education. As I shall propose, we approach the world’s conditions in which there is simultaneously a receding interest in issues of the good and an intensification in commitments to the Good. To move beyond the impasse of what could be characterised as a thoughtless relativism and a suffocating foundationalism, I shall outline the rationale for a relational ethic. In this case the ultimate value is placed on the nourishment of the relational process, the original source of moral value. However, in the contemporary world of conflicting traditions, recognition, awareness, and talents are required for encouraging and sustaining this process. Herein lies the major challenge for education. Sweeping reform may not meet this demand, as ethically consequential education can and should be integrated into the daily practices of school life. Educational ethos, curriculum design, pedagogies, and evaluative practices are not simply techniques of knowledge transmission. When ethically informed, they hold the potential for life-giving transformation of global communities. 15 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Western Ontario, on 18 Jul 2020 at 11:18:04, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108769778.003

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THE ETHICAL CRISIS: PASSION, PLURALISM, AND PRIVATE PURSUITS As generally recognised, the recent history of Western cultural life is marked by continuous drift towards secularism. The drift is typically traced to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries when the authority of the Catholic Church was challenged by what we now regard as the power of reason and observation (Taylor, 2007). As ‘Enlightenment thinking’, as we now call it, slowly became instantiated in institutions of science, government, industry, and education, questions of ‘ought’ became peripheral. ‘Objectively’ grounded knowledge tended to be advanced to reflect the world as it is and not what it ought to be. A trust in God-given foundational ‘oughts’ borders on a belief in ghosts, voodoo, or magic. At the same time, while the secular drift is evident within our major institutions, it is neither ubiquitous in the West nor shared in many other regions of the world. At this point, as a Guardian article summarises, over 84 per cent of the world’s population still subscribes to a religious faith, and the number of religions is increasing (Sherwood, 2018). Furthermore, it seems that although religion is on the decline in Western Europe and North America, it continues to grow everywhere else. In the early twentieth century this tension emerges as a struggle between a secular and largely materialistic orientation to life and deep investments in spirituality, human values, and traditions of the sacred. While this tension can be generative, it increasingly takes on a more sinister edge. The emerging plethora of globe-spanning technologies of communication radically intensified these differences. Values and beliefs leap from their geographical boundaries and are everywhere in conflict. Jet transportation enables one to re-locate to virtually any other corner of the earth in less than twenty-four hours. In virtue of the World Wide Web, one may locate the like-minded in any geographical location, near or far. One may remain in close and supportive contact with the like-minded, no matter where they are. In effect, anyone seeking security in a tradition of value or belief can potentially find aroundthe-clock support and throughout the world. Communities of belief may thus engage in continuous reinforcement of their views, strengthening, intensifying, and expanding them further. With this solidification, all that is outside the wall of belief becomes alien, a potential threat. As convictions spread and intensify, so does the world become more deadly. Paradoxically, however, these technologies that intensify a world of conflict also lend themselves to the deterioration of moral relevance. For large segments of Western culture, they undermine commitments to any belief or

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value whatsoever. Everywhere individuals and organisations can make strong claims to the moral high ground – in religion, politics, gender, race, and so on. All too often, such claims may result in the demeaning, oppression, imprisonment, and even murder of massive numbers of people. For those witnessing these effects, strong, passionate, or foundational claims to the good seem increasingly dangerous. Indeed, an inflexible commitment to any moral value seems childish or primitive.1 More problematic is a resistance to fundamentalism which also lends itself to moral indifference.2 Righteous claims to the good pose a danger. If every group can make claims to ‘the good’ in its own terms, then no one’s claims can have commanding force – this includes the claims of government, the law, the church, one’s parents, and so on. Thus, ‘whatever I declare as good is as legitimate as any other’. Indeed, why should one bother inquiring into the good at all? Just live life as it comes, fulfil oneself, and not bother with the rest. This is a world in which public lying, embezzlement, profiteering, fraud, intimidation, money laundering, tax evasion, and the like are not particularly shameful. The only significant problem is being caught. There is little debate about whether such actions are morally evil: to make such a proposal would only be the voice of another ungrounded preference. We thus enter a period of history in which value commitments are moving in diametrically opposing ways. On the one hand, such commitments are moving towards an intense and globally threatening pitch; in contrasting enclaves of the world value commitments cease to be regarded as relevant. How are we thus to proceed? In the space below I explore the possibilities of a relational ethic. Here we may recognise the significance of all ethical traditions but move beyond the particulars of each tradition to consider the process that gives rise to ethics of any kind. It is this process of relating that calls out for nourishment and protection. With this sketch in place we may turn to the challenges of ethical education.

THE RELATIONAL ORIGINS OF GOOD AND EVIL What is it to acknowledge the relational origins of good and evil?3 The range of what humans have come to value over the centuries is virtually boundless – from the love of gods, community, nation, self-realisation, and equality, on the more sweeping side, to family, gun ownership, privacy, and football, on the more specific. One might even find values deeply insinuated into every movement of the day – from the hour of arising, to the choice of what one

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eats, to whom one speaks with, to each of the websites visited as one traverses cyberspace. To be sure, we find many speculations about universal goods, including peace, benevolence, freedom, or justice. But for any value that one identifies in such efforts, there are people in various conditions and contexts who will find war more desirable than peace, self-satisfaction more appealing than benevolence, control more helpful than promoting freedom, and making money more fulfilling than fair trials. One is drawn, then, to the ineluctable conclusion that moral values are specific to various cultures or subcultures in various times and specific places. Such a conclusion is no small matter because it reveals what may be viewed as the primary source of values: human relationships. Whether any activity is good in itself – possessing intrinsic value – remains conjectural. However, there is virtually no activity that some people at some time have not embraced. The value of an activity does not emerge, then, from the activity in itself but from the meaning it acquires in human interchange.4 In this sense, values acquire their meaning in the same way as language: participation in a social process. Virtually all relationships will generate at least rudimentary understandings of ‘what is good for us’. They are essential to sustaining patterns of coordination. It should not be surprising, then, that the term ethics is derived from the Greek ethos, or essentially the customs of the people, or that the term morality draws from the Latin root mos, or mores, thus equating morality with custom. Our constructions of reality walk hand in hand with our logics and our moralities. Let us view this movement from rudimentary coordination among people to articulated values and ways of life in terms of first-order morality. To function within any viable relationship will require embracing, with or without articulation, the values inherent in its patterns. When I teach a class of students, for example, first-order morality is at work. We establish and perpetuate what has become the ‘good for us’. There are no articulated rules in this case, no moral injunctions, no bill of rights for students and teachers. The rules are all implicit, but they touch virtually everything we do, from the tone and pitch of my voice, my posture, and the direction of my gaze to the intervals during which students may talk, the loudness of their voice, and the movement of their lips, legs, feet, and hands. With one false move, any of us can become the target of scorn. In effect, morality of the first order is essentially being sensible within a way of life.5 In the same vein, most people do not deliberate about murdering their best friend, not because of some principle to which they were exposed in their early years nor because it is illegal. It is because such a deliberation is virtually unthinkable. Similarly, it would be totally unthinkable to break out in a tap

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dance at a Holy Mass or to destroy a colleague’s laboratory. To be sure, such ways of life may be solidified in our laws, sanctified by our religions, celebrated in our moral deliberations, and intensified by well-articulated ethical theories. In other words, we live our lives largely within the comfortable houses of first-order morality. It is at this point that we may join hands with writers who argue for moral or value pluralism, such as Isaiah Berlin (1991). In value pluralism, we recognise the possibility of a range of fundamentally different, incommensurable, and potentially conflicting traditions of morality (see also MacIntyre, 2007). While value pluralism can sometimes be equated with political liberalism – standing against fascism or absolutism of any kind – less is said about ‘origins of evil’. But consider: whenever people come into coordination first-order morality is in the making. As we strive to find mutually satisfactory ways of going on together, we begin to establish a local good, which is based on ‘the way we do it’. Simultaneously, the emergence of ‘the good’ creates an alternative of the less-than-good. With the demarcation of ‘the good’ and ‘the less-than-good’, a new range of actions are now invited, some are off limits, others forbidden – a door behind which lies mystery. All children know the joy of breaking the rules, whispering in class, laughing at a prank, and stealing a cookie. And what is forbidden always invites the curiosity of ‘what if . . .’. Further, there is rebellion against the tyranny of the enforcer: ‘Why can’t I . . .?’, ‘Who says I can’t!’, and ‘I don’t take orders from you . . .’. The potential for immorality is furthered by the fact that most cultural traditions carry multiple values, variously important or emphasised depending on context. We place a value on working hard and on playing; on freedom and on responsibility; on obedience and on disobedience; on fitting in and on being unique; on pleasing others and on autonomy; and so on. Thus, the stage is set for choosing the good and simultaneously being scorned or punished for being bad. One should care for one’s family but may be jailed for stealing to fill their needs; women should have the right to abort but be ostracised for doing so; a president should not lie but will be protected by his colleagues if the lie enhances the power of their party. A ‘bad’ act may always seem to be a ‘good’ idea at the moment. And, of course, we now confront the clashes of civilisations, as deeply entrenched traditions of the good come face to face, often finding a threatening evil in the other.

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RELATIONAL PROCESS: THE ETHICAL INVITATION As proposed, as people coordinate their actions, they are in the process of generating both a nourishing way of life and a companionate sense of moral right. This also left us with a paradox: the very production of first-order moralities establishes the conditions for immorality. But whatever is immoral for one may be valued by another. In this sense, conflicting goods will always be with us. The challenge is not that of achieving a conflict-free existence but of locating ways of approaching conflict that do not bend towards mutual extermination. And, given the challenge of moral apathy, are there means of inspiring moral engagement without the demands of singular commitment? It is just here that we can return to the original source of moral commitment and, indeed, meaning of any kind: coordinated action. The value of harmonious relationships is scarcely new to ethical inquiry. However, almost invariably the ethic has reiterated a fundamental assumption of separation. The ethically informed person acts towards others in a way that harmony will ensue: ‘I do unto others’, ‘I am compassionate towards others’, ‘I am caring for others’, and so on. By focusing on the emergence of human meaning we shift from this traditional concern with individuals to the more fundamental process of relating. It is out of this process that the very idea of individuals is created. Human communication is essentially the process of coordination among persons. Like language, moral leanings are not the product of any single person. They depend on relational processes. Without these processes we have no religion, science, political institutions, commerce, education, or organisations. There is nothing to care about or live for – big or small. Regardless of tradition – existing or in the making – the positive potentials of this process are vital. If we all draw life from this process, then it demands our collective attention. Here we may speak of what should be a universal concern, the grounding for a relational ethic. Now consider the consequences of the paradoxical relation between ‘good and evil’. Most typically, challenges to a moral order are met with resistance. As children we are encouraged to ‘be good’ through rewards, and our failures are met with irritation, lectures, correction, penalties, and even physical punishment. In each case a space of alienation emerges between the parties. Then there are the more heinous actions – robbery, extortion, rape, drug dealing, or murder. It is here we find a dangerous regression in the quest for the good. In the case of these more threatening actions, an impulse towards elimination is often unleashed. This is typically accomplished through

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various forms of defence (e.g. surveillance, policing), curtailment (e.g. imprisonment, torture), or, more radically, extermination (e.g. death penalty, invasion, suicidal bombing). Often this shift from alienation to elimination can be accompanied by a sense of deep virtue. In shifting from alienation to elimination, the potentials of any coordinated action are undermined. Particularly placed in jeopardy is the relational process from which reality, rationality, and a sense of the good are derived. As the eliminative impulse is set in motion, and we move towards mutual annihilation, we also approach the end of meaning. It is precisely here that a relational ethic becomes imperative. Required is participation in a process that can restore, sustain, and strengthen the possibility of morality making. In the embrace of a relational ethic we sustain the possibility of morality of any kind (see also Tracy, 1987, 1991). From the standpoint of a relational ethic, there are no individual acts of evil, for the meaning of all action is derived from relationship. Holding individuals responsible for untoward actions is not only misguided but also results in alienation and retaliation. In the case of a relational ethic, individual responsibility is replaced by relational responsibility, or a responsibility for sustaining the potential for coordinating. To be responsible for relationships is to devote attention and effort to processes of sustaining the potential for co-creating meaning. When the wheels of individual responsibility are set in motion, relationships typically go off track. Blame is followed by excuses and counterblame. In being responsible for relationships we step outside this tradition, and care for the relationship becomes primary. In relational responsibility we avoid the narcissism implicit in ethical calls for ‘care of the self’ and as well the selfnegation resulting from the imperative to ‘care for the other.6 One may object by suggesting that this proposal for a relational ethic simply reconstitutes the problems inherent in foundational ethics. Is this not equivalent to declaring that people ought to be responsible for the process of sustaining coordinated relationships? And if so, is this not another hierarchy of the good in which the irresponsible are deemed inferior and in need of correction? Such a critique presumes, however, that lying beneath a relational ethic is some kind of moral authority, a bedrock on which it is established. Therefore, the response to this objection is that there are no such foundations. The logics put forward here are themselves issuing from traditions of the good, no less socially constructed than all others. To be sure, the account provides a form of meta-ethic, but in the end, it can only invite participation. It is not an authoritative pronouncement but an invitation to nurture and sustain a meaningful and viable world.

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THE EDUCATIONAL CHALLENGE While aims of education have been widely debated over the years, many would agree with John Dewey’s vision of education as facilitating full participation in society. Yet however much one subscribes to this vision we might also be concerned with its progressive trivialisation. Dewey himself envisioned, for example, practices through which education paved the way for future citizens’ participation in democracy and for pursuit of the public good. However, in practice, the aims of public education have become increasingly tied to the economy and to the preparation of students for successful competition in the job market. This shift is also congenial with the increased emphasis on scienceand technology-rich curricula (e.g. STEM education), along with the receding investments in the arts. Issues of values, morality, or ethics simply fail to appear on the agenda. ‘Education and moral purpose have parted ways’.7 While there is broad critique of this progressive narrowing in vision, the inattention to issues of ethics is of particular concern. A century ago, one could assume that ethically relevant education would be provided by family and religion – often in tandem. Yet the influence of both these institutions has diminished dramatically over the years. In the case of family, both parents must frequently work, leaving little time for child-centred activities. The steady increase in single-parent households has much the same effect. With the proliferation of smartphones, adolescents increasingly unite with their peers against parental values. In the case of religion, as discussed, the general secularisation and commercialisation of culture has brought with it a decline in religious participation. Given the now perilous condition of the ethical investments, a substantial case can be made for reconsidering the goal of public education. If education is to contribute to the flourishing of society, it seems incumbent at this point for schools to take on the responsibility for ethically relevant education. There are no alternative institutions capable of achieving such ends. A case can also be made that the contemporary direction in education is ethically corrosive. This is so in at least two ways: first is the instrumental orientation implicit in educational aims. The value of learning, for example, rests almost solely on attainment (e.g. test scores, graduation certificate, job placement). Other interests in the subject matter, including their moral implications, are subverted. For example, in science education students typically learn that the aim of science is to predict and control events. Eliminated are the valuational and ethical implications of such a view. It is precisely this orientation, for example, that encourages the development of weapons and the drilling

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for oil, without regard to how the weapons may be used and the effects of oil consumption on planetary well-being. In addition, contemporary education relies primarily on rule-based ethics. There is good and bad, right and wrong, proper and improper comportment within educational settings. Students are taught that they must obey teachers, not cheat, not plagiarise, not fight, and so on, and these demands are made manifest purely in rules and regulations. Such an ethic essentially permits anything that is not covered by the demands. One may demean, disregard, deceive, or exploit, for example, so long as there is no rule against it. A rule-based orientation is not only ethically thin but dangerous to the well-being of society.7 What would ethically rich education look like from a relational perspective? Relational Ethic in Educational Practice

It is one thing to develop a relational orientation to ethics; it is another to propose the kind of actions that would realise the implications of such a view. What is it to ‘act ethically’ from a relational standpoint? While this question may seem transparent enough, preliminary attention is required. As we shall see, the traditional relationship between ethical theory and practice – with abstract formulations dictating action – is problematic. Simultaneously, the relational orientation outlined here throws into critical relief the concept of moral agency. The philosophy of ethics has primarily been an exercise in language. Inquiries into ‘What is the Good?’ are fundamentally discursive, commonly directed towards the articulation of an ideal condition of ethical consciousness. An ethically informed consciousness, in turn, should provide the grounds for ethical action. Yet there is a major problem inherent in these attempts, one that threatens their relevance to our cultural life. This is the challenge of deduction: how is one to derive from a general category of the good or an ethical consciousness, a set of particular actions. The ideal category of the good provides no rules as to what counts as an instantiation. If one seeks to be kind, compassionate, tolerant, or appreciative, for example, what precisely is entailed in the form of action? What does one say, with what tone of voice, in which direction of one’s gaze, and through what posture or movements of the arms and hands? We may all agree that it is good to ‘love one another’, but what it means to love in terms of concrete actions varies dramatically – from a simple smile, to restricting a child’s behaviour, to smothering another in kisses, to smothering them with a pillow. The relational account developed here adds a further level of complexity. One’s actions in themselves do not count as kind, compassionate, or loving, for

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example. One’s actions come into these meanings through coordinated action with others. If one’s self-considered action is ‘compassionate’ and another reacts to it as ‘condescension’, it ceases for the moment to be compassion. Attention thus shifts from the traditional assumption of the ‘moral agent’ who engages in ‘moral action’ to morally rich processes of relating. In this light, an ethically oriented education would be constituted primarily within processes and practices of relating. In the same way that first-order moralities emerge within relationships, so are the second-order practices of coordination. Rather than the traditional emphasis on learning about ethical behaviour, the focus shifts to learning within an ongoing community of practice. Or to extend Wittgenstein’s (1962) philosophy of language, one becomes ethical by participating within a ‘form of life’. Our terms for what is moral or immoral are thus linked to ongoing actions within specific contexts. The language of values becomes a language in use. Ethical knowledge is thus not something that one has but what one does with others. This does not eliminate dialogue about ethics but would integrate such dialogue into ongoing processes of relating. Educational Practices for an Ethically Engaged Society

Let us revisit Dewey’s vision of education in the context of a relational ethic. Here we may see education as enabling participation in the generative process of relating – creating and sustaining intelligible action across the global community. Education would thus encourage and facilitate positive participation in (1) singular or multiple ethical traditions (first-order ethics), and (2) processes of balancing, integrating, hybridising, and restoring in the context of multiple traditions (second-order ethics). To be sure, all forms of education are exercises in relational participation. However, the forms of relationship can vary dramatically, and whether they favour the development of a relational ethic is a central question. Let us consider several sites of ethical education. Pedagogy as Relationship

Teaching is primarily a practice of relating, but the traditional hierarchical relationship in which the knowing teacher transfers knowledge to the ignorant student is poor preparation for ethical relating. Students are essentially confronted with a monologue and thus prevented from taking part in the coactive process of meaning making. They are not invited into the reality and values of the teacher so much as examined on their capacity to mirror what has been said. Because the hero in the monologued form of relating is the teacher or knower, students might

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well come to model this hierarchical form of relating into their way of life. There is pride and honour to be had in becoming a monologic authority, but a relational ethic is subverted. By contrast, an ethically rich education will prefer forms of dialogic and collaborative learning. When classrooms are sites of coactive participation, discussion can be open to multiple standpoints, reflect mutual respect in the face of disagreement, and invite the co-creation of new ideas and action. Such classrooms are not just preparatory sites for ethical being, they are the actual sites for developing and living out ethical relations. Favoured then is a range of emerging pedagogical practices, such as collaborative learning, dialogical learning, strengths-based learning, relational-oriented learning, project-based learning, and unison reading (see Gergen & Gill, 2020). All immerse students in the positive and generative process of relating, thus preparing them for participation in the relational flows of the world while simultaneously placing a value on the process of relating itself. Curricula and Community

Standardised curricula, imposed by governing bodies of various kinds, are similar to monologic pedagogies: they represent ethically thin (and arguably corrosive) forms of relational practice. The greater the distance between those who determine curricula requirements and those designated as students, the greater the danger of alienated relationships. When students’ interests, enthusiasms, curiosities, and ideals fail to be recognised within the curriculum, the classroom relationship resembles one of master and slave. What is required instead are innovations in, for instance, emergent curricula, cocreated curricula, and tailored curricula, all the fruit of dialogic endeavours between teachers and students. Importantly, as curricula become more dialogically derived, the role of the teacher also shifts. Rather than driving student outcomes, the teacher becomes a participant in and partner to the student’s learning. When the teacher is no longer the master, but a learning partner, generative relationships blossom. Educational Evaluation in a Relational Key

Traditional practices of assessment, including exams, grades, and national testing, are corrosive in many ways, especially in their detrimental impact on relationships. Children entering school slowly learn they are alone in a competition of all against all. Teachers become defined as agents of control, surveillance, and judgement. There is little trust at all levels, between

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students, between students and teachers, and between teachers and administrators. Parents, ambitious for their offspring to ‘achieve’, also become alienated – demanding, scrutinising, and threatening. These are the kinds of conditions that undermine the development of a relational ethic. Elsewhere we have made a proposal for a relational approach to educational evaluation (Gergen & Gill, 2020), that is forms of evaluation that simultaneously enhance the learning process, engage students in ongoing learning, and enrich the relational process. In the place of exams, for example, we have pointed to collaborative learning reviews, co-created portfolios, and formative feedback as meaningful for inspiring and sustaining the learning process. Contributing particularly to generative relations, there are practices of circle time reflection, dialogic inquiry, and project exhibition. In all these cases, students not only appreciate and value the contents and processes of learning, they also become more skilled in the arts of relating. School Culture

Ethically formative experiences are scarcely limited to the classroom. They are insinuated into all aspects of school life – in what takes place between classes, during break time and lunch intervals, in the counsellor’s office, in after-school activities, and so on. Collectively, these contribute to the character of school culture, and here too we may attend to practices of ethical relevance. School leadership can be a major factor in setting the tone for school relations at all levels. In terms of relational ethic, a shift is essential from the kind of hierarchical and authoritarian leadership of the past to newly developing forms of shared, distributed, and invitational leading. At the same time, there is also an array of conflict-transforming and peace- and harmony-oriented practices especially relevant to the challenge of ethical tensions. Peer-based programmes in addressing bullying and restorative practices within and without the school community to sustain relational resilience are especially impressive. Practices of appreciative inquiry and narrative mediation have also been adapted to building solidarity within the context of pluralism. We find then, that on every front, there emerge educational practices that are relationally generative. Herein lies the potential for our institutions of public education to respond to the critical need for ethically relevant learning.

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Currently, the teaching of moral ethics in secular education often emphasises commonality – shared values, or common grounds, amongst religions, faiths, beliefs, cultures – as the basis of living well with people in our own community and with those in communities different from our own. Values education, character education, virtues-based and dispositionsbased education are just some such examples.1 This emphasis on common values and unity of people originates in a recognition that our community is constituted in the shared humanity of its members. The social and ethical norms common to all cultures, religions and societies cannot easily be distracted by differences in value scheme, and they stress the shared ways of being human that are fundamental to all traditions. These are seen as timeless, such as a deep care for each other, compassion, responsibility, and peacefulness, and are regarded as the anchors of human togetherness. It is assumed that as long as we have such mutual acknowledgement of those common values that we partake, there is a strong ground for developing ethical relationships. At the same time, however, some scholars have also prized the myriad differences in people and their irreducible otherness. They maintain that the other, and the facets of his or her otherness, is central to questions about the ethical (the relation between oneself and other people), the social/communal (the relations between groups) and the political (the relations between the institutions and persons, as well as the relation amongst the institutions themselves) (Treanor, 2006). Such thinking recognises the potential of learning from the other and the importance of understanding through one’s encounter with others (Gadamer, 1976). It suggests that to flourish together, 27 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Western Ontario, on 18 Jul 2020 at 11:18:06, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108769778.004

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we need more than just the oneness of humanity; we must also cherish the goodness in otherness and locate our flourishing in relationships.2 These two differing positions inevitably raise a question about human solidarity and the place of the other and otherness in ethical relationship and how we might educate children and young people so that they can learn to engage, in meaningful ways, with common values, but also differences or otherness, and to engage with other people whose perspectives, ways of being and ideas about and experience of the world are dissimilar to one’s own. As argued in Chapter 1, the relational is the true foundation of all learning, wellbeing and flourishing, and it is the basis on which moral reasoning and virtuous characters are cultivated. Hence in this chapter, I seek to pursue a dialogue amongst some philosophical ideas, such as those of Gabriel Marcel (1889–1973), Hans-Georg Gadamer (1899–2001) and Martin Buber (1878– 1965) on otherness (including arguments on the nature of being a human person), and a possible appropriation of it in education for cultivating ethical relations. Its main concern lies in an inquiry into the place of others in one’s flourishing life, including those who are close and familiar and those who are distant and different from oneself. The inquiry will help inform how children and young people might engage proactively with others through ethical education. Here ethical education includes processes and practices of teaching and learning that contribute to and encourage an understanding of differences, and an appreciation of others as equally real and human, and that can foster an attentiveness and responsibility for each other, and a commitment to caring relationships. The questions that guide my inquiry are therefore: (1) How should we know the other? (2) What does it mean to be in (ethical) relationships with other people? (3) How do we nurture ethical relationships? (4) What inspirations could we draw from this inquiry for ethical education in schools?

KNOWING THROUGH PRESENCE AND PARTICIPATION Conventionally, when one encounters a person who is different, or the other, one’s desire is to want to know them, and the immediate response is often to place the other person and his or her otherness within the frame of reference that one already knows or is familiar with. Typically, there are two major avenues to assume access to other people’s realities: First, one can know other people and their realities by reviewing the roles they occupy and play in relevant contexts – an engineer, a teacher, a doctor,

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a business manager. Knowing these occupations and what they contain, one presumes that one can know something about other people. In fact, in most social situations, a person’s role or occupation appears to be all that others can have access to. That is also to say that knowing is limited to one’s awareness of what the role entails, that is, a doctor’s job is about treating illhealth and saving lives. Second, one can know other people and their realities by considering their identity categories, such as race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class, religion, nationality and so forth. It is as if under each of the groupings, there is a presupposed sameness to draw about other people or similar characterisations of their identities. Each category is a way to describe other people and serves as a label to portray those who share the same identity. Both conventional ways of knowing the other have been challenged by Gabriel Marcel.3 As a philosopher, dramatist and writer, Marcel has observed that in today’s world, human’s yearning for transcendence, meaning, coherence and truths is amiss (Marcel, 1951). Therefore, Marcel calls it a ‘broken world’,4 and in such a world, people tend to be treated as cogs in machines and each person also risks considering himself or herself and being considered by others as ‘an agglomeration of function’, social, biological, psychological (Marcel, 1949a, p. 1). Given such concerns, Marcel would argue that these ways of attempting to know the other are akin to solving a puzzle or problem by turning another person into something knowable. The other person and their features become someone and something that one talks about, an I–It relation, in the words of Martin Buber (1970). Perceiving a human being as a mystery who is capable of experiencing one’s self and inquiring into one’s experiences, rather than a solvable problem, Marcel (1951) would object to these typical avenues of knowing as follows. With regard to seeking to know the other by describing their roles and occupations, Marcel would maintain that when we define a person by the functions she performs, we are reducing the person to their functions in society. A person becomes a ticket conductor, a lorry driver, a mechanic, whose realities are tied to the functions of checking tickets, transporting goods and fixing machineries. In our current (broken) world, the risk of such an identification is that over time, the person also begins to self-identify (unconsciously) with these functions and the more she so self-identifies, the more she becomes the assemblage of functions she performs.5 When one selfidentifies through the lenses of utilities and functionalities, one sees oneself as

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a means to an end, and is thus instrumentalised (Thomson and Gill, 2020). This approach to knowing the other does not give us any access to their realities, and on the contrary, by doing so, according to Marcel, we deny the other as a subject, as a Thou (Buber, 1996). Likewise, Marcel would take issue with this idea of defining the other by their identity labels or categories. This is as if when people are of the same race, having the same gender or sexual orientation, coming from the same social background, practising the same religion, they will be speaking in a similar language, thinking similar thoughts, feeling similar feelings, appreciating similar values, having similar struggles, worshiping similar deities.6 Indeed, when we identify the other with a bundle of identity categories, then our relationships with them will be centred around these groupings and their contents (Gill and Thomson, 2019). Marcel rejects this approach to knowing the other not only because it tends to diminish a person’s being to a succession of appearances or labels but also because in the spirit of abstraction it can devalue the other person as a human whose being is always a mystery which is necessarily richer (Marcel, 1951). Above all, Marcel would object to these avenues to knowing the other because they offer access to the other from what is external to the person to be known. In other words, functions and identity categories are things that one can have, and they are identifiable items that a person can own. The question is: can these unrelated artefacts truly constitute one’s knowledge of the other? To answer this question, Marcel contrasts between having and being, and in fact, he maintains that the answer all ‘comes down to the distinction between what we have and what we are’ (Marcel, 1949b, p. 155). According to Marcel, having suggests possessing. When one has something, one possesses it, and the something is external to the person. To define a person through the personal artefacts that she possesses implies that such knowledge about the person is outside the intense fabric of life. It can result in two scenarios: first, this kind of knowledge of the other is likely to be motivated by assimilation, absorbing the other into ourselves. In this case, assimilation offers no access to the other, but on the contrary, in assimilating the other, the other ceases to be a person but ends up as a collection of roles and labels. Second, functions and identity characterisations tend to reduce the other to one’s own scheme of references, which one can use to solve the puzzle, which is the other. The other becomes the known, an object, and objectified. When people are regarded as puzzles, their existence is further objectified by what Marcel calls the primary reflection, or thinking about and analysing things in isolation, resulting in abstract generalisations.

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Assimilation and objective abstraction of the other are both forms of instrumentalisation or dehumanisation (Gill and Thomson, 2019), which denote our present broken-ness where each person is divided into discrete multiplicities in a disparate world (Marcel, 1933). Some treat abstract differences with misunderstanding, or fear; others can treat differences with contempt, and even violence. In comparison, Marcel suggests that when one perceives the other as a (human) person rather than as a bundle of their artefacts, the encounter can only take place at the level of being. For Marcel, human’s being is a mystery, ‘something in which I am myself involved, and it can therefore only be thought of as a sphere where the distinction between what is in me and what is before me losses its meaning and its initial validity’ (Marcel, 1949b, p. 117). It involves each person’s participation in the material world through experiences and work; in the lives of others through relationships with family, friends and community; and in the metaphysical world through faith, hope and love developed in communion with others. Being is simultaneously a presence and a participation. Therefore, at the level of being, presence and participation allow an access to other people and their lived realities which, as already mentioned, are ontologically higher and phenomenologically richer. For Marcel, an encounter with the other thus has deep spiritual significance because it is neither a chance, shared interest or taste (in things, places), nor a common affliction that has led to such an encounter. Instead, an encounter presents itself as a mystery, just as human’s being is mystery, where: I cannot place myself outside it or before it; I am engaged in this encounter, I depend upon it, I am inside it . . . it envelops me and it comprehends me – even if it is not comprehended by me . . . it has developed me from within, it has acted in me as an inward principle (Sweetman, 2011, p. 7).

That is to say, the other and their otherness can be known, understood and experienced as an enveloping force, a presence, a mystery, in and through our participation and engagement in an encounter. It is the meeting amongst (human) beings whose nature is characterised by the very mystery we share which cannot be resolved nor understood rationally as if it was no more than a case or a problematique. This may appear to be contradictory to conventional hermeneutical encounter of otherness which requires one’s engaging with one’s pre-judgement and prior assumptions as a starting point, such as Gadamer’s radical conception of prejudice (Gadamer, 1976). However, there

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is no such contradiction because in a hermeneutical encounter, the prejudice, or pre-judgement, or prior assumption is about the thing that people seek to understand through the encounter, and the focus of understanding is not the other person but a different interpretation of it (ibid.). Fusion of horizons is the expansion of one’s perspective as the result of the hermeneutical encounter. The fusion enables each person to understand the thing differently, but not the other person. However, Marcel does make a distinction between the mystery and the unknowable, in that the latter is the ‘limiting case of the problematic, which cannot be actualised without contradiction’ (Marcel, 1951, p. 63). Using an example of being told of the misfortune with which one is demanded to sympathise, Marcel elucidates the significance of regarding the other as a mystery: in this situation, a person can imagine the sufferers’ realities, accept that they deserve sympathy and believe that it is only logical to respond to the sufferings with sympathy, and it is in one’s duty to offer such sympathy. However, a rational response suggests treating the other as a case, and when acting on duty, one is not bringing oneself to a (spiritual) presence. Marcel proposes that to truly encounter is to enter into each other’s being as co-subjects, granted to each other as a presence which can ‘only be invoked or evoked’, and the evocation must be ‘fundamentally and essentially magical’ (Marcel, 1951, p. 208).7 An encounter between persons should thus be transcendent, which means that it must be situated within their experiences of each other that go beyond what is external, for example, from the perspectives of role functions and identity labels. The transcendence will include self-transcendence where one self-identifies equally beyond these perspectives. It is transcendent in both cases (i.e. self and other-transcendence) because human’s being as mystery already implies a person’s intrinsic value, which applies to one’s self, and so too equally to other people (see Chapter 8, Gill and Thomson, 2019). Insofar as we encounter each other as beings of intrinsic value, there is ethical interpersonal relationship.

BEING WITH AS DISPONIBILITÉ To understand what it means to be in ethical relationships with others, we need to start with a conception of the relational. Here I would like to propose that relationships are integral to one’s being, and they are constituted in a person’s well-being, which include relationships with those

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who are close to oneself and those who are different and distant (Thomson and Gill, 2020). In one’s relationships with others, one connects to the intrinsic value of persons. As we have seen, other people matter to oneself because they have non-instrumental value. Insofar as one is able to appreciate the value of other people as such, that value becomes part of one’s life (Thomson and Gill, 2020). Other people enlarge one’s own horizons, and they are constituted in one’s own life, which hence becomes enriched. These interpersonal relationships are ethical because they involve a form of care and caring. An awareness of these relationships in one’s well-being can determine one’s openness to other people. Without such an awareness, according to Marcel, a person can be too ‘wrapped up’ in his or her own life, where there is little scope for caring relationships. Marcel calls this lack of care for others indisponibilité, or unavailing. Meaningful relationships with the other require the opposite, disponibilité, availing oneself to the other, or making oneself available to the other. Availing is to be a presence in the other’s life and to participate in their realities. For Marcel, presence and participation presume a prior relationship and a possibility of more enriched relationships through disponibilité, but not a relationship between absolutely separate beings, nor the similitude towards totality (Treanor, 2006). There are two interrelated points here. The first is about the connection to the wholeness, and the other concerns the relational nature of being. Disponibilité is located within wholeness: the wholeness of one’s being, and the wholeness of being itself, that is the wholeness of all that is. On this point, Marcel has much in common with Buber, in that both see one’s wholeness as involving an openness and a readiness to engage with others as whole persons. Equally, to engage with others as whole persons constitutes the recognition of the wholeness of oneself in relation to the greater wholeness of what is being encountered (Wood, 1999). Disponibilité assumes wholeness as the structural characteristic of being and its constitutive relationships within. It affirms an I–Thou relation, a mutuality rooted in the encompassing wholeness of each person, oneself and others included. It is to open oneself to all possibilities afforded by the encounter in dialogue (Gill, 2015). Seeing each person as already constituted in the greater whole further stresses that relationships cannot be based on having, or possessing any bundles of identifications, but must be rooted in the human as a holistic bondedness.

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The second is the notion of with-ness in relationships, and its metaphysical value, which, according to Marcel, corresponds neither to a relationship of inherence or immanence nor to a relationship of exteriority. It is of the essence of genuine coesse . . . of genuine intimacy. (Marcel, 1951, p. 49)

Marcel describes the coesse, or co-being as embodied, in the feelings and sensations of the body when people are sharing or taking part in each other’s delight, for example, in appreciating the fragrance of flowers. The with-ness brings to the fore the relational nature of our being, in that no person is an absolute individual, separate from others, and not all persons add up to the totality. Marcel sees that between atomic separation and monistic unity lies the relational, which is at the core of the all-enveloping mystery, where there is already an overlap of boundaries in human existence, and hence a genuine intimacy. This intimacy is grounded in disponibilité, or spiritual availability. Bringing these two points together, it is clear that a person who is availing himself or herself to the other is one who is truly capable of being-with in the whole of himself or herself, or as a whole person. For Marcel, participation in this sense is holistic, for instance, through feeling in the mystery of one’s body and in the world, in the mystery of the lives of others, in the larger community and in the mystery of relation to God. Seeing it from this perspective, an ethical interpersonal relationship is a participatory relationship which requires our openness towards the other qua other, as presence, and not an other in relation to oneself. Echoing other philosophers of hermeneutics, Marcel objects to a rigid duality of self and world, as if the self can draw truths and goodness about external realities by presuming one’s own existential stability and power of reason, from over and above the world. According to Marcel, the self-world relationship is an active involvedness. Dismissing the image of barnacles clinging to a ship’s hull, and chemicals dissolved in water, Marcel employs the metaphor of fish inhabiting in its own water environment to illustrate the transformation from the up-against-ness (in the case of the barnacles) and dissolved-ness (in the case of chemicals) to an involved-ness (in the case of fish in water), or participation in each other’s being and in the world, as ‘indissoluble unity of existence and of the existent’ (Marcel, 1952, p. 322). It is such unity that allows for interrelationship between the self, the other, and the world. Marcel sees human’s embeddedness in the world as a mutual presence. Any separation between the person and the world can result in an egoistic understanding of the self (Marcel, 1964, p. 54). For example, when a person is

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too preoccupied and ‘encumbered’ with oneself, one cannot make room for the presence of the other, nor the world, and likewise one cannot be a presence to the other, nor to the world. Unavailing oneself thus closes off possibilities for meaningful relationships. As such, indisponibilité is a form of alienation from the other, which is also a direct consequence of alienation from oneself, a withdrawal, the closing oneself off from communing. Marcel identifies a number of forms of such alienation, for instance, an obsession with one’s health or with success in one’s studies; holding on to an instrumental view of work, pessimism, being fearful and so forth are all illustrations of indisponibilité. Taking pride as an example, Marcel sees pride as an impediment to disponibilité because pride is when a person isolates oneself and closes off relations with others by solely relying on oneself. It arises from self-love and is a form of vanity. A proud person cuts off communion with others (Marcel, 1995, p. 32). Only by opening oneself and availing oneself to the other, such alienation can be transcended, which in turn helps one to return to oneself anew – one cannot liberate oneself from self-obsession, but the gift of the other can make it possible. Marcel regards being as being-in-a-situation where each person’s encounter with the other, and understanding of the world will be shaped by the situation one finds oneself. Therefore, being-in-a-situation is different from being-in-theworld. As a being-in-a-situation (which involves an embodied existence in the world), one is always embedded in particular culture(s), histories, tradition(s) and practice(s). Likewise, the situation is not mere static, monolithic, nor oppressive but is an active situatedness that underlies all understanding, participation, commitment and engagement. It can be transformed through the transformation of the persons. This mutual-embeddedness denotes that each person is finite in some ways and is exposed to myriad influences and narratives. Hence, the self already contains in-cohesion (Marcel, 1995). Through being-with, one’s relationships with others can transcend such embeddedness, limitations and incohesion. Marcel suggests that disponibilité can lead to the development of oneself, an expansion or enlargement of one’s being through participation and engagement with that which is other than myself. This is essentially a process of learning, which Gadamer calls bildung, selfformation or self-transcendence, in and through dialogue. For Gadamer, dialogue is not just communication and interaction for better understanding, it is also a way of being, and fundamentally so (Gadamer, 1975). According to Marcel, it is here that lies the intersubjective nature of transcendent human conditions (see Gill, 2015). Dialogue takes place in the relationship between oneself and the other, and the relationship between the agents and the world.

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In dialogue, one allows oneself to be put into question by the other and by otherness whilst the questions of otherness become one’s own. Dialogue is hence a shared inquiry, and the other becomes a co-inquirer. Both Marcel and Gadamer recognise that there is a threefold relationship in dialogue: (1) the ‘I’; (2) the ‘Thou’, or the other, who is the co-subject with the ‘I’; (3) the ‘it’, or the thing about which ‘I’ and ‘Thou’ dialogue. In this three-fold relationship, the with-ness applies most vividly because it is not one person who looks at the other in a dialogue, but instead, it is one person (the ‘I’) looking, with the other (the ‘Thou’), at the thing (the ‘it’) to be understood. So, within the threefold relationship, when the ‘I’ and the ‘Thou’ engage with one another as whole beings, and through the with-ness, they develop a relation or a bond within a dyad. In contrast to giving opinions or making judgement about someone, which means putting the other into boxes of classifications or categories, and keeping the other at arm’s length, dialogue is true intimacy, a deepening of friendship, or love (Marcel, 1962, p. 227). For Gadamer, however, the ethical relationship that is developed and cultivated here is between two co-subjects. He suggests that the I–Thou relationship can jeopardise the mutuality described in the with-ness, and thereby ‘changes the relationship and destroys its moral bond’ (ibid. p. 354). So, Gadamer prefers to refer to the Thou as the co-subject, or the other, because it helps make it clear that the ‘I’, or the one, is always the other’s other (Gill, 2015). The dialogic relationship is a relationship of we. In sum, to be in ethical relationship involves one’s openness and attentiveness towards the other, and an openness to the openness of the other. This is an active disponibilité which not only makes room for the other in myself, but more importantly it means care. However, availing presence is not what we conventionally call reciprocity, which demands equal contribution and matching benefit. Instead, it is that each person gives something of himself or herself to the other in the (intersubjective) relationship. As shown later, the giving is in part the receiving because presence is mutual. It invites listening and dialogue not due to the confidence in the power of language and reasoning but because of a faith in the encounter, and in the interplay of to-and-fro dialogic processes which can always take us to a new level of understanding. In ethical relationships, we are not only a presence to each other but we are also a presence for each other.

NURTURING ETHICAL RELATIONS THROUGH (RADICAL) LOVE Given the preceding discussions, it is not surprising that Marcel would propose that the most important way to nurture ethical relationship in

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everyday situations be through (radical) love. In Marcel’s conception, love is constituted in a form of openness, availability and communion with the other and is central to his philosophical thought. He proposes that presence assumes love which becomes a binding force for one and the other. For instance, the more the other becomes a presence, a spiritual co-esse, to me, the more she reveals me to myself. This is because love applies to the whole being, and the presence of the other invites me to return to my self and participate in my self as a whole being. In this way, as mentioned, ‘I’ and ‘Thou’ become two subjects of love in mutual presence. In Marcel’s writings, there are a few intertwined aspects of love through disponibilité: First, love implies an affective element. It is not objective knowledge that binds two persons together, nor is it the romantic sentiment (which necessarily involves the ego), but rather it is the pains and delights, sorrows and joys that are comprised in the human bond. It is precisely in these affects and emotions (instead of duties or obligations) that one finds the impetus to stand in solidarity with the other. A fulfilment of an obligation contre-coeur is devoid of love and is not enduring . (Marcel, 1962, p. xxii)

Second, love is an embodied lived experience amongst whole beings. As already discussed, each subject is present in his or her wholeness and participates in the other’s realities as a whole being. Thus the beloved cannot be perceived as having abstract elements, for example, good characters, beauty, nor general features, such as humanity. Love concerns what is present in the wholeness where the beloved is more than an assemblage of wonderful items. Love of humanity is only an extension and expansion of love for whole beings. It is in this sense that love directs our recognition of the other as real, whole and irreducible to parts. Third, love is oriented towards goodness and invites the good in oneself and in the other. The sole focus of love is the beloved (see also Thomson and Gill, 2020), the other, and their whole being and well-being, which are intrinsically valuable. It assumes value and goodness inherent in the mystery of being. Fourth, love transcends. Love is the encounter between co-subjects, each of who is a Thou to the other. It is in the realm of the ‘we’, that is where and how love is experienced. Marcel sees that ‘love posits the beloved as transcending all explanation and all reduction’ (Marcel, 1952, p. 62). The two co-subjects transcend each other in love, but that they do so without possessing each

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other, nor losing oneself. Hence, love does not allow for domination nor slavery. Instead, love is relational mediation, and as we shall see, it is also a gift to one another. All these interlocking aspects are encompassed in Marcel’s core ideas of presence and disponibilité, and together they suggest that love has the potential to restore the broken world and heal the human relationships fragmented and shattered by instrumentality and dehumanisation. In fact, Marcel makes significant claims towards this potential. For instance, in Marcel’s philosophy, love is akin to promise-keeping, which is dialogical and involves one’s commitment to and dedicated care for the other. The commitment is a response to the other, and as already seen, it is different from fulfilling one’s obligation which overtime will be devoid of love and its durability. Instead, a commitment to love in Marcel’s case is a gift/bequest to the other, which does not depend on the other’s characters, virtues or acts, nor does it rely on one’s absolute consistence. It is rooted in faith, belief or trust in the other and is creative because it allows one to draw strength from something that is beyond oneself, something greater, or the transcendent. However, for Marcel, love is not unconditional in an absolute sense. Instead, love ‘implies an ardent and mutual questioning’, which is not blind faith (Marcel, 1962, p. 249). Marcel explains that to love the other is to inspire something from him or her and to inspire something from him or her is equivalent to giving. In other words, to love the other is to offer him or her the opportunity to expand himself or herself, which is the gift. Love allows us to appreciate the other without comprehending the other and absorbing them into ourselves. Likewise, love recognises the other’s otherness and invites hermeneutical endeavour as a pathway to dialogue with the other. In this way, to love is a human calling which defines the ethics of caring and respect whereby all forms of discrimination, intolerance, prejudice, mistreatment must be condemned. Marcel’s ethics of caring instigates a relational way of being and calls us to act out one’s response to the other in relationally congenial ways, where tensions between similitude and alterity, trust and doubt, are held and engaged through our openness and commitment to and care for the other.

IMPLICATIONS FOR ETHICAL EDUCATION Many of Marcel’s ideas discussed in this chapter apply only in the sphere of love, where presence, participation, disponibilité and communion have true

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meaning. In Marcellian ethics, there appears to be an underlying proposition that being human is a vocation (but not necessarily in a religious sense). This suggests that it is in our response to the call for participation and presence in the encounter with the other and the call to engage with the other in dialogue that we become more fully human. Marcel advises that ultimately the ethical relationship between humans is realised in our loving commitment to and dedicated care for one another. As practical ethics, loving commitment and dedicated care can be cultivated in education (and through other forms of upbringing) from early on before children and young people become imprisoned by the ills of the broken world, such as self-absorption, instrumentality and dehumanisation. Clearly, from Marcel’s perspectives, ethical education is not simply about building good moral characters and personal virtues, nor teaching about common moral values and principles. It is more concerned with helping students develop an awareness of themselves and others as whole beings, and learning to engage with and avail themselves to other people as equally real and intrinsically valuable. Drawing on the importance of opening towards the other and their otherness and learning from the other, ethical education should also entail cultivating the arts of listening, dialogue and caring. Equally, ethical education will also be aimed at nurturing loving commitment to each other and enriching generative and meaningful relationships. The key relevant insights of Marcel’s ethics and philosophical thoughts discussed in this chapter can evoke at least five ideas with regard to ethical education for schools:8 Humanisation. For a long time, critics have pointed out that our current educational system is infused with instrumentality, and is driven by testingperformance, resulting in the loss of care and, above all, students’ well-being. Meaningful relationships in schools are increasingly trivialised, and where there are attempts, they can be superficial and devoid of human touch. To counter such a culture, ethical education must be rooted in schools as humanising places permeated with an ethos of caring. Marcel’s ethics suggests that in such an environment, one is most likely to perceive oneself and others as persons of intrinsic value. This constitutes self-respect and respect for others. Likewise, when the place is compassionate, heart-warming and humanising, students, teachers and parents are more open to actively participating in each other’s realities, being a presence and availing themselves to each other. Similarly, an ethos of care can help restore the lost community,

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a major symptom of which is that many students experience isolation, mental health problems and disaffection. Cultivating Persons. Educational systems in many countries dictate a national curriculum that prescribes to the teachers the contents to be learned by the students. What underlies such a national curriculum is often a fixed idea of what kind of end-product education should aim to deliver. This is clearly what Marcel has identified as treating persons as objects, who are reducible to functions, roles and categories. To liberate schooling from such factory-model, ethical education proposes that the aims of curriculum must be aligned with the recognition of human beings as mysteries, and education as formation to be constituted in life itself. Marcel has illustrated that learning should be oriented reflexively towards self-transcendence; relationally towards mutual-enrichment; and outwardly towards greater engagement with others and with the world in order to transform human conditions. This means that curriculum contents cannot be limited to information and knowledge mastery and should include important activities and experiences in and through arts, music, theatre, literature, dance, movements, sports, exploration of nature and community engagement. These latter curriculum activities constitute significant human experience because they can offer students a direct (unmediated) encounter with the other and otherness.9 They can inspire in children and young people an openness to the other and otherness and encourage students to learn from each other. Curriculum thus designed will no doubt invite collaborative learning and mutual support rather than competition and isolation, enriching congenial relationships at all levels. Listening and Dialogue. Pedagogically, ethical education prioritises persistent presence of teachers and a central feature of teaching as listening and dialogue which constitute a ‘pedagogy of encounter’ (Gill, 2016). Listening and dialogue in classrooms can be experienced as a form of love, a spiritual presence to each other, and deep listening can enable students and teachers to hear each other out – into presence and into relationships. The challenge is for the teacher’s presence and listening to be a constancy, and ethical education will provide opportunities for teachers to reflect on their practices and learn how to better facilitate listening and dialogue. Spaces for Sharing. Another challenge to overcome is the tendency of egoism and self-centredness which is a symptom of an overemphasis on test scores

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and individual successes. Where the pressure for attainment is high, students tend to compete with each other for adults’ attention or are punished for their individual failures. As Marcel points out, it entails students treating themselves and each other as objects rather than subjects, which can in turn cause aggression and alienation, where judgements and disappointments abound, and where disponibilité is scarce. Ethical education in schools must therefore create safe spaces for young people to come together and share their feelings, emotions and narratives about the challenges they are confronted with and personal struggles they experience. Equally, teaching and learning should intentionally offer students time and space to attend to and participate in an array of relationships, and discuss ways to enrich friendships and relationships. Marcel points out that hope emphasises ‘we’, and the sharing can transcend the solitary self and egoism. Caring Communities. Ethical education helps stress that the self is always already a part of the ‘we’, which can be experienced more vividly when schools develop themselves as caring communities. A caring community can enable those involved to transcend relationships and interactions defined solely by the roles or functions that people occupy, such as principal, teacher, counsellor, teaching assistant, student and cleaner. It can likewise help individuals to surpass the designated categories for self-identification, such as race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, age, social class, ability and other identity labels. Such transcending does not imply that one abandons one’s responsibility, sense of oneself and place in the world. Instead, in a community, people care for each other, and care about each other because the other is part of one’s self, and friendship and relationship are already constituted in our wellbeing. In this way, learning through being a part of community helps expand students’ horizons and qualities – the real promise of becoming (Marcel, 1951).

CONCLUSION In this inquiry, by discussing Marcel’s thoughts and insistence on the mystery of being human, I challenged the limitation in the conventional ways of knowing the other. By way of Marcel’s writings, this chapter puts forward an idea that we are always already constituted in relationship with the other, which is at the core of our well-being and that human’s being can only be, in Marcel’s word, coesse, or co-presence, and what the Buddhist tradition calls

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inter-being.10 Embedded in this vision of co-presence and inter-being is the infinite possibility for ethical relationships. Being human itself is a calling to our vocation to love, care and give commitment to one another. When each person is an other for others, our relationship is truly given, and our care, love and commitment to each other can only be mutually inspired. This inquiry further permits me to make a case for ethical education in schools. Indeed, to cultivate co-presence and inter-being, education must treat each person as intrinsically valuable, and as whole beings, and the aims of education ought to be directed at cultivating persons. Curriculum wise, ethical education must offer rich opportunities for students to have unmediated experience of the other, where they can be maximally exposed to the diverse otherness in different learning activities. Humanities subjects, including arts, music, drama, literature, as well as philosophy and history, and learning activities within the humanities domains are paramount in enriching ethical education (Nussbaum, 2010). Pedagogically, listening and dialogue are particularly welcoming features in ethical education which can encourage each student and teacher to be present to one self and likewise be present with and to others. Needless to say, evaluative practices in education must also take a relational approach, rather than the alienating testing-based assessment (Gergen and Gill, 2020). In teachers’ professional development, there must be an element of learning to facilitate listening and dialogue, and to be a consistent presence in the classroom. Structurally, it is imperative that instead of dehumanising institutions, schools should be set up as caring communities where members can collaborate and develop a sense of ‘we’. It is in becoming ‘we’ that schools can address power-imbalance, discrimination, exclusion, injustice and other forms of social malaise.

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Towards an Ethical Understanding of Others Garrett Thomson

What does it mean for a relationship to be ethical? In this chapter, I will provide two answers to this question and show how they are related. First, an ethical relationship requires that both parties appreciate and treat the other person as being of equal non-instrumental value. Second, an ethical relationship requires that both parties are disposed to understand each other well in a specific way. This requires overcoming an epistemological asymmetry by reading the intentions of others according to the idea that they primarily will do some good. The two claims are related as follows: an important way of not respecting a person is by failing to understand her by succumbing to the epistemological asymmetry. We will examine this asymmetry in practice by showing how people typically misunderstand each other. Finally, we will briefly explore the implications of these conclusions for relationship-based ethical education within the existing school system. It is a pity that there is scant theoretical attention given to this highly important area, the epistemology of human relationships. The epistemologies of the natural and social sciences predominate. Even social epistemology is inclined to be about testimonial knowledge from others and not knowledge about others in relationships. Political epistemology leans towards how power relations affect the credibility of testimony. These tendencies illustrate the supremacy of scientific models of knowledge that cast a shadow over seedling characterisations of our understanding of each other in relationships. Ethical sensitivity can’t be defined solely in terms of principles. For example, the abstract claim that all people are equally valuable as persons leaves unspecified what this means in practice in various contexts. Rules don’t 43 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Western Ontario, on 18 Jul 2020 at 11:18:05, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108769778.005

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determine their own application: it is one thing to know an ethical rule and it is another to know how to apply it ethically in a context (McDowell 1998, pp. 203–212). On its own, the ethical principle of respect for persons doesn’t answer questions such as ‘What does it mean for me to be ethical in this relationship with my family?’ Because our ethical life occurs mostly in everyday relationships and because relationships are a crucial aspect of well-being, we need ethical thinking directed towards relationships. Furthermore, we need ethical thinking about relationships and their epistemology in the context of education. Secondary education should be concerned with the holistic development of young people and their well-being. Relationships are a hugely important aspect of the lives of young people and they define the culture of a school as a community. Furthermore, relationships comprise major ethical construction sites for young people. Given all this, this field should be an integral part of the curriculum (for its own sake).

TOWARDS ETHICS RATHER THAN MORALITY What does it mean to live in ethical relationships with other people? To explain this concept, we need two preliminary ideas. A Distinction between Morality and Ethics

Following the spirit of Aristotle and Spinoza, we might distinguish morality from ethics. There are many uses of the word ‘ethical’ that make it very close in meaning to ‘moral’. However, there is a pertinent distinction to be drawn here. On the one side, the moral use of ‘ought’ indicates what is right or wrong to do, where this is usually explained in terms of duty for its own sake or the general good. Because of its ties to ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, the use of the moral ‘ought’ has a paternalistic or authoritarian or moralistic tone. It is like an imperative, a command, a prescription. This reflects the fact that, as a social institution, morality is a set of demands that restrict what someone can do out of self-interest. This contrast between moral demand and selfinterest means that, as a complex set of practices, morality has an enforcement problem: how can we get people to act morally? Insofar as a person makes the moral claim that one is obliged or obligated to do A, there will be some threat of punishment if one doesn’t. For many moral demands, the legal system plays an important role of enforcer. For others, we have practices of

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praise and blame, and of shaming, with the resulting feelings of guilt and moral pride. On the other side, the ethical use of ‘ought’ indicates that one has reason to be and act in a certain way because it would be a part of one’s well-being as a person, and good for one’s flourishing. Ethics concerns the life and development of the person for its own sake. For example, getting on well with others is an ethical concern. So too is not being arrogant or too timid. In juxtaposition with the moral, an ethical ‘ought’ does not carry the idea of an external authoritative demand that implies coercive imposition. It lacks paternalism and moralism. This is because it doesn’t require enforcement. Because of this it doesn’t carry the idea of praise, blame, and guilt and culpability. Nozick distinguishes between moral push and pull (Nozick, 1981, pp. 403–413 and pp. 451–457). If I ought to act morally towards you because of your value as a person, then this indicates moral pull. Pull is when your value as a person fixes what action should flow from me. When my value as a person fixes what behaviour should flow from me – this is ethical push. Push is when I act ethically because I am a certain kind of person. Ethics is primarily about push. It recommends us to expand our appreciation of what is valuable for the sake of our own well-being. In contrast, morality is concerned with pull: it directs us to not harm others and violate their rights. When push and pull are out of balance, then one will be pulled to do things for which one feels no push. In this case, morality needs inducements that is non-moral motivations, such as the desire to avoid feelings of guilt. It requires internalised external pressures. Because ethics is not directly concerned with pull, it has no need for such inducements. Morality and ethics often overlap: in many contexts, their ‘oughts’ would command or recommend the same actions. Furthermore, as a result of living an ethical life, a person would be more inclined to do what is morally demanded of her. However, this is only a side-effect. It is a subsidiary consequence of ethics that it often results in actions, attitudes and virtues that would promote or embody morality. But that is not its aim or content. Because they have different contents, the two can diverge. Furthermore, the practices of morality can undermine ethical development. Ethics provides general recommendations for living well, insofar as this nurtures our individual well-being. It is more concerned with our state of being rather than with specific actions. It enjoins us to develop a more fulfilling and free life. To try to reinforce the moral pull with inducements can defeat the push of ethics. Morality is often conceived in terms of rights, as a set of external constraints imposed on one’s pursuit of one’s self-interest. This kind of view

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weds morality to a narrow conception of self-interest. It conceives selfinterest either in terms of getting what one wants (whatever that happens to be) or in terms of the possession of more things of instrumental value (such as money). Such a view implies that, for self-interest, it doesn’t matter ultimately what desires or ends a person has. It only matters that she is able to satisfy them. In sharp contrast, an ethical view indicates how one may need to improve what one wants (for the sake of a better life). It calls us to expand our understanding of self-interest in non-instrumental ways, beyond getting what we happen to want. Importantly, it invites one to expand one’s life by improving one’s relationships with other people. Ethics is closer to the heart of educational processes than morality. As educationalists, we ought to want young people to develop for their sake, for the sake of their lives; thus, it concerns ethics. As such, education is not directly part of a moral project, such as the shaping of young people for the sake of social goals, economic ends or democracy. We oughtn’t want young people to develop because it is good for voting patterns or for the balance of trade. As educators, we ought to want them to develop themselves for the sake of the meanings for their own lives. Let society be shaped around the needs of people rather than the other way around! That the educational development of young people isn’t merely instrumentally valuable implies that education has primarily ethical content. Being in a Relationship as Non-Instrumentally Valuable

The second idea we need is that in a relationship other people are part of one’s life and, to this degree, they are not others at all. This is required as a counterpoint to the tendency to instrumentalise relationships. While relationships can cause us intense joy and acute suffering, we shouldn’t assume that their importance is simply that they cause positive and negative hedonic states. Pushing aside the hedonism, we also don’t want to assume that the importance of relationships is that they cause well-being and ill-being. My friends may help me flourish and my enemies may cause me to ail, (or vice versa!) but such instrumental considerations don’t exhaust the importance of friendship for well-being. Such hedonic and eudemonistic analyses instrumentalise relationships and, for this reason, they don’t characterise well the intimacy of human relations. A better alternative is to postulate that, in a close relationship, the other person becomes a part of one’s life and, hence, a part of one’s well-being (Thomson and Gill, 2020). Characterising relationships in this way is deeply

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different from describing them instrumentally or causally. On the one hand, something that is purely an instrumental means is like a disposable napkin; its value is only in its purpose, and thereafter it is a throwaway, like an expired ticket. It has no value for itself. On the other hand, in sharp contrast, if we characterise a relationship by affirming that the person is a part of one’s life then we assert that her value as a person has become part of one’s own life, and hence of oneself. She is part of me. Insofar as this is true, we cannot think of the person as other. This is because my life has expanded to include her. In this way, ethics indicates how one’s understanding of one’s self-interest might expand to include others, in contrast to morality that regards the good as an imposed limitation on our narrowly defined self-interest. The proposal that we should conceive relationships in this way fits well with the idea that one constituent aspect of well-being is to be appropriately connected to something of value beyond oneself: insofar as a person is connected in relevant ways to the valuable aspect of others, those people become a part of her life and cease to be others. Thinking in this way allows one to posit intimacy as a non-accidental feature of good relationships. This analysis also helps characterise ethical relations in the impersonal case. The shopkeeper or cashier that one sees on an intermittent basis is more than a machine, more than his role and more than the typifications that are normally taken to describe him. Although such impersonal relationships are not intimate, nevertheless, to qualify as human relationships at all, they must be considered as a relationship between persons as such. To qualify as such, the relationship cannot be merely instrumental. The shopkeeper is not a vending machine and the stranger is not a lamppost. Of course, if two persons are in a purely instrumental or functional relation, such as buying and selling, then they won’t be in a human relationship as such.

ETHICAL RELATIONSHIPS As we have seen, we need the idea that each person is a being that is noninstrumentally valuable. From this, one can argue that an unethical treatment of a person requires treating or regarding her as merely instrumentally valuable. This applies equally to all people. Thus, insofar as a relationship is ethical, both parties will appreciate and treat the other person as being noninstrumentally valuable, and equally so. A relationship is more ethical insofar the two mutually perceive and treat each other as persons of equal worth.

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The principle that all people are equally non-instrumental valuables needs explanation and qualification, as well as support. Persons and other conscious beings have primary non-instrumental value. Other things have value through their differing dependence on that primary value: they matter derivatively. To this concept of primary value, we add the idea of equality: all persons are equally valuable in this manner and no individual human life is non-instrumentally more valuable than any other. Does it apply only to humans? Does it imply that when we are faced with saving the life of a child and that of a very old person, we must treat them equally? Does it imply that all people should be treated equally by the state? ‘No’ to these three questions! The specific implications of the principle are not the subject for this chapter. The claim is that the principle is a necessary condition for an ethical relationship. An argument in favour of this claim would be that the unethical features of relationships require various forms of instrumentalisation or dehumanisation or underappreciation because these are all ways of treating the other person as less valuable. Some evidence for this conception comes from some kinds of anger and contempt: in a state of rage, one feels as if the other person doesn’t matter. Another piece of evidence is that relationships become unethical when one person feels disregarded, taken for granted, unfairly treated, patronised, belittled or demeaned by another. All such feelings amount to ways of being treated as less than fully human. Likewise, friendships become diluted and destroyed when one or both persons treat the other purely instrumentally. This thesis also explains in part why and when power relations are unethical: they are so when they instrumentalise or dehumanise or underappreciate, that is, they treat persons with less power as less valuable because they have less power (Gill and Thomson, 2019).

UNDERSTANDING OTHERS The second claim is that there are ways to misunderstand others that constitute (inter alia) an unethical relationship. Or, there are ethical ‘oughts’ about how we should frame our understanding of other people: because we all are subject to a deep epistemological asymmetry concerning other people, an ethical understanding of others must be guided by the idea that they primarily aim for or intend a good. We can explain this thesis through the interaction of three points:

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(a) First, there is an epistemological asymmetry that plagues human existence. This is the tendency, in our own case, to see only our own good intentions, and, in the case of others, to see only the results of their actions (which are often bad). This means that we are prone to apply a double standard: we judge ourselves morally by the good intentions we have, but we judge others by the results of their actions. I am disposed to see my own actions as always good and those of others as bad or, at best, flawed. (b) Humans live in groups and we have affiliations and allegiances. This implies that we tend to identify with some group. Insofar as we do so, we tend to not identify with some other groups. Identity necessarily tends to be exclusionary. It is a question of ‘us and them’ and the ‘them’ tends to get excluded. (c) Third, whenever someone wants something, she necessarily wants it primarily under some description of the thing that reveals it as desirable. This doesn’t mean that the thing wanted is all-things-considered desirable, but it does mean that the thing wanted is perceived as desirable by the person who wants. A person’s intentions always make sense to the person herself. However, this implies that there is a possible impersonal understanding of the intention; because, if the relevant descriptions are in a public language, they must make potential sense to others. This means that we can always see it from the other person’s point of view. There is necessarily a way to make sense of others’ intentions. That is, there is a way of seeing what others want as good.1 These three points form a dynamic. The combination of the first two means that we tend to understand the good that we as a group intend, but not the good a group that is not ours intend. In this way, a personal epistemological asymmetry becomes socialised as an antagonism between groups. This is part of identifying with a group. The declaration ‘This is my identity’ can function like an affirmation of allegiance to perceive in a collective way, which necessarily excludes perceiving the relevant situations in the way of the opposition groups. In short, we tacitly declare: ‘We intended to do good, but they did something bad.’ The unholy conjunction of the first two points stands in contradiction with the claim that all intentions must be for a perceived good. The conjunction makes it culturally and psychologically difficult for people to appreciate that others intend some good. Difficult though it may be, having ethical relations requires employing this third idea, and this involves overcoming the epistemological asymmetry described earlier. In any conflict, there is a reason for

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me to think that there is some description of the situation that my enemy thinks of as good, which I too could recognise as good. I should acknowledge this, but without necessarily agreeing to the other person’s judgements. In principle, one should step into the shoes of one’s enemy by recognising that her point of view must make sense to her. In conclusion, the second thesis is that being in an ethical relationship requires that one not misunderstand others by attributing to them intentions that are not primarily directed towards some defeasible good. Insofar as one does so, one succumbs to the epistemological asymmetry of applying a double standard. How does this second thesis relate to the first, the principle of the noninstrumental value of all persons? The first principle requires that one should not misunderstand people in this specific way. One way to fail to respect the value of a person is to impugn to her primary intentions that are not directed towards some good. Or, to affirm the principle in one’s actions requires that one respect that others’ intentions are aimed at some good. The two claims are connected in this way because when we fall prey to the epistemological asymmetry, we violate the principle that all persons are valuable. Insofar as one succumbs to the childish illusion that one is more real and important than others, one breaches the principle that all persons are valuable. Sometimes we struggle to come to terms with the reality of another person, even those close to us. For example, distant friends often seem less real than ones who are nearby. This illusion amounts to the incapacity to come to terms with a reality that transcends the egocentric perspective of experience. It constitutes an incapacity, and perhaps an unwillingness, to appreciate fully that others have a point of view at all. The claim that all people are valuable is an ethical antidote to this partial feature of our lived experience. The principle expresses the transpersonal standpoint from which distant deaths matter as much as those in our neighbourhood. In affirming the principle, we are not claiming that one shouldn’t care more about local lives and deaths. Rather, we are asserting that, transpersonally, they are equal.

THE EPISTEMOLOGICAL ASYMMETRY We will now characterise in more detail the asymmetry described earlier (Thomson, 2017). We will do so in two steps: first, for close human relations, such as in families and friendships, and in the next section for impersonal relations. In both cases, our primary aim is to reveal in detail the dynamics of unethical relations in order to deepen our grasp of ethical education. A secondary aim is to understand better the connection between the two

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characterisations of ethical relationships given in this chapter. Consider the following: (a) We tend to judge ourselves by our good intentions and others by the results of their actions. (b) We tend to assume that we understand others better than they understand us. (c) We tend to underestimate the differences between ourselves and others. (d) We tend to be ignorant of our ignorance of others. We contend that (a) implies (b) implies (c) implies (d). Concerning the first tendency, if someone close to me hurts me, then I will attend to the effects of his action, the hurt. Given this, I will describe his action as one of causing me pain, and ascribe to him the intention to act in this manner. On this basis, it is easy for me to blame him. Furthermore, I do not see the broader past context that led to him causing me pain, including my own actions. I tend to see my past actions as directed at some good, as a lily-white background. It may not occur to me that he might see them quite differently. The second tendency augments this effect. The egocentrism present in the first principle yields the claim that I can understand others better than they can understand me. The idea is that they can’t have access to my mental states, but I can understand theirs through their behaviour. In short, the same double standard that expresses itself in (a) leads to (b). This reinforces my attribution of bad intentions to the other person: ‘I understand you well but you haven’t understood me: you didn’t see my good intentions.’ Furthermore, I may feel his failure to understand me as an intentional act on his part: ‘He didn’t appreciate my good intentions because he didn’t care enough.’ These epistemological tendencies lead to a new round of imputing negative intentions to the other. Furthermore, we should imagine that my former friend is doing the same concerning me. The third point adds a new dimension to this process. I see the quarrel between us in a certain way, and because I underestimate the differences between us, I tend to assume that he ought to be seeing it in the same way. If he doesn’t, this reinforces my idea that he has ill-will. In short, I assume that my perspective on the situation is the obvious one and that he would have the same view if it weren’t for his ill-will. Concerning the fourth tendency, as we shall see later, the nature of ignorance is such that a person who is ignorant tends to not know that he

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is so; he who doesn’t know that P will tend to not know that he doesn’t know P. In relationships, our ignorance of our ignorance is a very important idea. In my squabble, I have imputed to my friend several layers of bad intentions: he hurt me intentionally; he failed to understand my good intentions; he didn’t see things in the right way. This unethical feature of the relationship is reinforced by the fact that we are both ignorant of the viewpoint of the other and fail to recognise our ignorance. It hasn’t even occurred to us that we each have missed out on something relevant, namely how the other sees the squabble. Given this second-order ignorance, we cannot see the relationship as a failed hermeneutic. Earlier we argued that, insofar as a relationship is ethical, both parties will read the other’s intentions as always primarily directed towards some defeasible good. We also argued that this claim is implied by the principle that, insofar as the relationship is ethical, both persons will tend to respect the other as a person of non-instrumental value, equally. We are now seeing that cumulatively (a)–(d) specify a unified set of predispositions that are antagonistic to these ethical conditions. Ethics involves a willingness on my part to see the relationship and the meaning of my own actions within it from his point of view. This is an epistemological condition of an ethical relationship.

IMPERSONAL SOCIAL RELATIONS How do impersonal social relations differ from personal face-to-face relationships? In practice, this difference is one of degree, and any relationship will involve both kinds of element. Nevertheless, there are at least three fundamental differences. The first is captured by Alfred Schutz: face-to-face relations involve reciprocal mirroring of direct experiences between the persons; impersonal relations involve an ideal type or typification (such as a ticket collector) (Schutz, 1976, pp. 53–56). Another difference is group affiliations and allegiances; this means that insofar as we identify with some group, we don’t identify with others. Social identities tend to be exclusionary in ways that define the ambit of solidarity. Insofar as we identify with one group X to the exclusion of another Y, we will feel solidarity with members of X and not with group Y. The third difference is that impersonal social relations are power-relations, which means that they are political: one group will likely exercise power over the other, and this aspect of the relationship will have a history typically perceived very differently by the two or more sides.

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These three differences amplify the basic principles of the previous section. The dynamics of impersonal relations follow the same general tendencies as face-to-face relationships, but do so in an exaggerated form because of typifications, identity allegiances and historical power relations. For example, the first tendency (i.e. (a) above) becomes magnified because when one identifies with a group, one tends to take for granted the good that we, the group, intend and ignore the good that the other group intends. This tendency is intensified when it becomes a socially accepted norm. It becomes an allegiance to the group to perceive relevant situations in a collective way and a typification to read their actions as directed towards something bad. The tacit declaration: ‘We intended to do good but they did something bad’ becomes a social norm that group members are expected to follow. Consider the importance of this phenomenon for party politics. Furthermore, insofar as it becomes solidified in a culture, it acquires the momentum of being a history. This intensified epistemological asymmetry becomes ingrained in collective cultural memory. Through the second and third tendencies, the asymmetry gets extended. We tend to assume that other groups do not understand us and this becomes a ground for attributing bad intentions to them: ‘They don’t understand us because they don’t want to.’ In turn, the other group perceives this as hostility, fuelling a cycle of impugned negative intentions. In a similar vein, Schutz claims that the in-group takes its interpretations of the world for granted, as an obvious and natural given. In contrast, the out-group does not, and the ingroup may perceive this as a deliberate failure on their part, and a cycle of misinterpretation is established (Schutz, 1976, pp. 243–8). The whole dynamic is also enhanced by the fact that the in-group tends to underestimate the differences between it and the other groups. The fourth tendency indicates that we may be unaware of these processes, ignorant of our own misinterpretations. Given this second-order ignorance, we tend to portray the situation as a natural condition rather than as a failed hermeneutic. When these tendencies are embedded in social group identities, they become antagonistic. Let us contrast these four tendencies with the fifth, namely that all intentions must be for some good. This applies to one’s enemies. There is some description of even their intentions that make sense of their actions in terms of some good. And there is a reason to think that one could access that, namely the public nature of language. This doesn’t mean that one should agree with those judgements, but it does imply that one should recognise that one could step into the shoes of one’s enemy. Such implied by the claim that their point of view makes sense to them in a public language. This condition is a requisite for the understanding of others and ethical relationships require such understanding.

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FROM ERROR TO IGNORANCE So far we have characterised ethical relationships mainly in terms of misunderstanding others. Now we shall examine the issue in terms of ignorance in relationships. There is a general penchant to prioritise eschewing error over surmounting ignorance. Even various definitions of the scientific method (sic) tend to highlight the importance of falsifying hypotheses, which means rooting out error. This illustrates the predominance of sceptical motivations for which the first epistemological law is apparently: avoid mistakes. In this vein, even a hermeneutical approach to human relationships tends to consider how to avoid bad interpretations of others rather than how to overcome one’s ignorance about them. Stated simply, the standard distinction between false belief and ignorance is this: with false belief one believes that P, when P is false. With ignorance, one neither believes P nor not-P. Here is a pithy statement of the traditional view: Cognitive ignorance is the lack of knowledge of fact. Error is a matter of commission. With error we have the facts wrong. Ignorance, by contrast, is a matter of omission: with ignorance we do not have the facts, period. By and large, error is thus worse than ignorance. (Rescher, 2009, p. 1)

In practice, however, this difference is surprisingly difficult to disentangle, especially in the field of human relationships where prejudices tend to make ignorance appear in the guise of false beliefs. For instance, in a quarrel with a friend, I will certainly have the tendency to misread her intentions and understanding of the situation. In this regard, my mistake will consist mainly in making false and unwarranted attributions. However, in another way, my mistake is one of ignorance: I wasn’t tempted to inquire further into her mindset to understand her better. There were whole swaths of her mental life that I hadn’t even considered, such as how she perceived my behaviour. My prejudices disguise my ignorance as false belief. If the distinction between false belief and ignorance seems to collapse in practice in this kind of example, it is because we haven’t drawn the lines well enough, as we shall now see. We aren’t claiming that the distinction should be scrapped. Indeed, the distinction between false belief and ignorance is important because the relevant epistemological virtues are quite different. We try to overcome false belief by being careful in the way we form beliefs. We try to overcome ignorance by exploring new fields, which may sometimes mean generating speculative hypotheses that are likely to be false. We need the distinction

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because error and ignorance often they require antidotes that involve conflicting motivations. This motivational difference is epistemologically and educationally important. The basic corrective to ignorance is the development of curiosity and caring to know, even though these often lead to false beliefs concerning zones of previously blissful ignorance. The remedy to ignorance is exploration and it is an epistemologically necessary virtue, because without it, the best corrective to error would be to remain safely ignorant: the ship would remain in the harbour. It is only once we have embarked on a voyage that the sceptical virtues of avoiding error become operative. For this reason, the first epistemological principle is to overcome ignorance, which has general priority over avoiding error. Metaphorically, this is because to sail a ship carefully requires that one leaves the port. The primordial epistemological imperative is to overcome ignorance, which enjoins us to develop curiosity that may lead to false beliefs. The value of the second imperative, of trying to minimise such errors, is conditional on the first. Our current educational testing system tends to reward the avoidance of error over ignorance. This is an error because the learning process ought to consist in replacing ignorance with beliefs that risk being false. Therefore, transforming ignorance into likely error can be a form of epistemological progress that usually goes unrecognised in current educational practices. Insofar as we proactively cultivate the virtues of avoiding error, we leave fallow those of exploration by placing correct answers above unanswered questions. Let us praise the recognition of ignorance because such acknowledgement is the first step towards asking new questions, even if they are ill-formed and ill-informed. Questions are the epistemological heart. A theory that answers questions that we don’t have or own is motivationally redundant. Questions make theories alive. Therefore, in terms of epistemological virtues and educational practices, the cultivation of questioning is primary compared to more cautious traditional approaches that eschew error. The traditional definition between error and ignorance does not recognise the holistic nature of ignorance. Of course, a person can be ignorant of a single proposition. Nevertheless, the definition misleadingly characterises ignorance only atomistically, in terms of single propositions. In opposition to this, ignorance isn’t always not knowing some one thing. It often consists in not knowing a host of important and related propositions about something. Typically, it has a structure. For example, the person who has never thought about the growth of plants isn’t ignorant merely concerning unrelated specific propositions. She is ignorant of basic principles and their significance for specific contexts.

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Second, ignorance isn’t always a question simply of not knowing some set of facts. It is more like a vice, where the corresponding virtue is understanding. For this reason, ignorance can involve the failure to recognise that there exists something to be known. Furthermore, it involves the inability to appreciate that there is something worthy of being known. This amounts to a failure of caring. Hence, we arrive at the conclusion that ignorance isn’t only the lack of knowledge; it can also be the lack of caring for something that constitutes an area of knowledge. It isn’t merely a lack of information. If ignorance is a vice characterised as a lack of caring, the remedy is wanting to learn and understand: being inquisitive, asking exploratory questions. In contrast, the cure for error is caution, asking questions that check or verify. The first is like the willingness to make a mess of one’s current beliefs, while the second is like the will to tidy up such messes. These are the different irreducible kinds of caring.

TOWARDS CARING TO KNOW Typically, when people fail to understand other people, this is for two reasons: they resist wanting to know because they are prejudiced or they are apathetic and uninquisitive. Thus, it appears that when a person fails to understand another, this is a question of either the presence of ill-will or the lack of good will. It is a failure to care. This indicates that breakdowns in this area of life amount to a form of systematic ignorance rather than just a set of tendencies towards error. Pedagogically, this is important because if correct, the relevant educational programmes should be directed primarily towards fostering curiosity rather than just carefulness; towards exploratory questioning rather than just checking. In general, the epistemological failures in our relationships with other people are like those of a typical ten-year old regarding quantum mechanics: blissful ignorance. More graphically, there are whole universes and continents of subjectivity that one doesn’t even consider, and about which one has yet to be mistaken. If this is a typical state of affairs, then it is hidden by prejudiced ignorance disguised as false belief. We are prone to regard prejudice as a failure of the error-kind rather than of the ignorance-kind. This mistaken diagnosis leads to misguided remedies. This suggests that the relevant educational programmes should be directed mainly towards fostering the kinds of caring that undermine ignorance rather than the less radical kinds that merely correct error.

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This point may have different implications for two kinds of relationships that we outlined earlier (face-to-face and anonymous). Ignorance and false belief have different roles in the two kinds of relationships, and this would need to be explored for the construction of the relevant workshops or programmes. Let us return to the fifth condition (mentioned above), which was about how to understand others. We can apply this condition to the phenomenon of not understanding others itself. Such an application shows that characterising ignorance as a failure to care shouldn’t necessitate attributing to others the will not to care. We don’t want to attribute ill intentions to those who attribute ill intentions to others. The failure to care isn’t necessarily wilful. In other words, insofar as people are closed-off, this isn’t their primary intention. Rather, they are seeking some good, such as self-protection. For example, in face-to-face relations, one might be trying to avoid seeing how the other person interprets oneself. Self-deception is often a form of selfprotection. In impersonal relations, it might be difficult to explore the perceptions of another group because this would require admitting that the assumptions that one sees as natural are not natural at all, but rather social and contingent. Furthermore, it is difficult and painful to admit and appreciate the sufferings of other people. In short, such ignorance isn’t merely a question of ill-will. It has a positive intentional side, such as self-protection. Educationally, this is an important conclusion. If one agrees to the primacy of ignorance and that ignorance includes not-caring, then one smashes into the barrier that attributing ill-will to others (for not caring in their ignorance) violates a fundamental principle. Their intention must be directed to some good. So, to scale this wall, one must assimilate the fact that, in their willingness to remain ignorant, people seek some good, such as emotional safety. If I am happy to remain ignorant about other people, then this isn’t simply a question of my ill-will towards them but rather an emotional good that I seek for myself. This establishes a significant part of an educational agenda: to see others better, one needs to clean the window.

RELEVANT PRACTICES FOR ETHICAL EDUCATION The earlier points about ethics and morality are educationally important. In order that ethical education is not felt as a moral imposition, young people need to have intuitive grasp of the claim that living a better life requires having more ethical relationships. Many people live under the misapprehension that

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self-interest mainly consists in gaining more things of purely instrumental value, such as money, in order to get what one wants. The antidote is the idea of transforming oneself and what constitutes one’s self-interest. They need a non-instrumentalised conception of their own education. These theoretical points indicate some conclusions about the need in schools to create spaces for sharing in which a group of young people can feel safe, private and not judged, and where the facilitators can engender an appropriate atmosphere for listening and dialogue. However, it might be better to start with personal face-to-face mentoring sessions in which the young person can recount their difficulties, problems and joys in their relationships, whether this be with friends or family. Both such sessions are opportunities for young people to have space to consider how their own feelings and emotions have worked in the processes of mutual misunderstanding and blame. In particular, it would be important for young people to see how the principles of epistemological asymmetry (as outlined in (a–d) above) emerge from their experiences. In juxtaposition, at the appropriate time, it is a necessary element of ethical educational practice to see how others with whom one is in close relations with have intended some good even when the results of their actions are hurtful or harmful to one. In other words, it is necessary to practice the art of seeing principle (e) at work in personal relationships. In such sharing, it would be important to encourage the young person to stress not only his errors in understanding others but also his ignorance of others. This means exploring different kinds of questions. Questions about errors might include: How did she misunderstand you? How might you have misinterpreted her feelings? These are quite different from exploratory questions: Ideally what would you like to know about her? What would you ask her? What aspects of her world are you missing or not considering? Spaces for ethical education such as these are scarce in schools, but there are some emergent practices, as the later chapters shall illustrate, that aim to enrich students’ understanding of how to care about others, and how to transcend one’s own ignorance. For instance, Circle Time activities, groupbased experiential workshops, dramas and storytelling are amongst the possible ways that students can learn to develop their understanding of others. To facilitate such experiential and relational processes, schools need to ensure that there is such time in the curriculum for relation-based ethical education. Equally, learning to facilitate experiential workshops should be part of teachers’ professional development.

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Conclusion to Part I Scherto Gill and Garrett Thomson

This first part of the book has indicated why it is not enough for ethics to be defined in terms of an individual person’s character traits, as many writings in the Aristotelian tradition tend to do (Steutel and Carr, 1999). Aristotle’s ethical theory amounts to the claim that virtues are character traits, the exercise of which forms part of a flourishing life for a person defined in terms of the development of the person’s essential nature. In short, the starting point of a typical Aristotelian theory is the individual person, her flourishing, and her activities rather than the social relations that enable them. This implies that the primary ethical concern is me: How can I become more virtuous? This indicates that, in this tradition, relationships themselves are of derivative ethical concern. Questions such as ‘How is this relationship?’ are secondary to those about me or the individual. The theoretical stance of this book argues that this is the wrong way around: we need to start with the ethical nature of our relationships. These are ethically primary. This primacy is threatened even by care ethics which assumes, as a starting point, the individualistic question ‘How should I care for others?’ In contrast, with relational responsibility, Gergen argues, we avoid both the self-negation implicit in the moral imperative to care for the other and the narcissism inherent in the ethical call to care for the self. In summary, a relational approach implies that primary ethical questions have the form: ‘how should our relationships be?’ and ‘how should we relate?’ rather than ‘how should I be?’ or ‘how should I care?’ This shift has educational implications. As normally practiced, education is corrosive of relationships because it is deeply instrumentalised. Within 59 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Western Ontario, on 18 Jul 2020 at 11:18:05, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108769778.006

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most schools, social interactions tend to be defined by the roles of the people involved. This implies that the relationships aren’t between persons as such but between role-holders. Because roles are functions, the resulting relationships are instrumentalised for the purposes of the institution. Additionally, the traditional teacher–pupil relationship is not a good preparation for ethical relating. It is an impoverished form of relating because it consists largely in a one-way transfer of information rather a dialogical inquiry that engages everyone involved. The three chapters in Part I of the book reveal how a non-relational approach to ethical education is insufficient for overcoming these tendencies within public institutions. First, the approach we advocate concerns the capacity for relationships that transcend roles such as teacher–pupil or student–student. It seeks to identify and construct practices that nurture ethical relationships between persons as such. These relationships require mutual sensitivity to the experiential reality of the other that goes beyond their life as a role-holder. Second, the relational approach we explore is concerned with relating that includes more than caring for. This means that, in the context of the life of a school, ethical relationships won’t be defined primarily as teachers caring for students. It will also include the relationships between the young persons, between adults, between both. Such relationships go beyond the roles involved and are constituted by more than caring-for. In such a learning community, we engage in a myriad of other forms of relating: doing things together, debating, sharing, listening, questioning, co-constructing, challenging each other. There is no requirement that these forms of relating should be instances of caring-for. Third, relational approach to ethical education suggests that educational institutions should provide spaces for relational exploration, for instance, through activities involving direct experiences of emotions and feelings, listening and dialogue to engage different perspectives, and encounters and participation in each other’s lived realities as human beings.

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Part II Pedagogical Approaches to Ethical Education

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Introduction to Part II Scherto Gill and Garrett Thomson

One shouldn’t be surprised that the ethical approach advocated in this work has distinctive pedagogical implications. As we saw in the previous part of the book, defining ethics in terms of the qualities of relationships transforms one’s vision of ethical education. At its heart, such education is no longer a lesson or an acquisition, nor a means to something else. The chapters in this part articulate what pedagogy should look like from within a relational vision. They suggest that the core of ethical education is consisted of everyone’s relationships to each other within a school community. Pedagogy is constituted by relationships.

TRANSFORMATIVE CO-CONSTRUCTION We can avoid conceiving this in a static way by considering how the development of such relationships constitutes a transformative pedagogical dynamic. This dynamic is multifaceted, and the writings in this section illuminate different aspects of this dynamic. In a relational account, pedagogy is primarily a process of co-constructing spaces defined by relationships that have ethical qualities, argues Sharon Todd in Chapter 4. Such processes of co-construction involve non-violent responses to another person’s singularity, so that the relationship ‘enables and ensures the other’s existence’. This is what makes them ethical. Note how Todd’s language is reminiscent of the descriptions of such relations in Part I when, for example, the authors described connecting to the reality of another, or how a person becomes part of one’s life or Marcel’s co-esse (being 63 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Western Ontario, on 18 Jul 2020 at 11:18:04, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108769778.007

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with). Clearly, such relationships transcend those defined by roles and identity categories. A second pedagogical aspect is the development of ethical sensibilities. The exercise of such sensibilities is required in a relationship that has ethical qualities. Indeed, the pedagogical process of co-constructing relationships is itself a process of enhancing such sensibilities. In Chapter 5, Alma and Anbeek maintain that, in a relational approach, we develop these sensibilities on a mutual basis. Third, the exercise of these sensibilities in co-construction constitutes a transformative experience. As Alma and Anbeek argue, these sensitivities can be undermined by existential anxiety and threatened by self-identity. Thus, a pivotal point of ethical learning lies in the contrast between two kinds of deep experience. On the one side, there is the experience of wholeness and wonder; on the other side, experiences of brokenness and fragility. The contrast between these experiences constitutes an opportunity for ethical, existential and spiritual re-orientation. This re-orientation may be attained through the development of the moral imagination or through dialogical approaches.

TRANSFORMATIVE CO-DECONSTRUCTION Another aspect of the pedagogical dynamic is that these transformative experiences do not consist only in connecting to the reality of another person, that is, as her being or as her singularity. They also consist in discovering what is most worthwhile and meaningful. The ethical must include our relation to what is most worthwhile, such as the existential and spiritual. This point is argued for explicitly by Alma and Anbeek, and by Hanan Alexander in Chapter 6. In this sense, ethical educational practices would often be highstake encounters for young people. This point stands in tension with a fifth one. Transformative experiences must involve opening oneself to views of what is important that are very different from one’s own. In this regard, ethical relational pedagogy involves a dilemma. On the one hand, it helps young people build up a sense of what is most important. On the other hand, at the same time, the ethical must include openness to encounters that challenge and change one’s views about what is most worthwhile. In this manner, the process of co-construction can also be a process of co-deconstruction of its own results. Alexander extends this tension to the political. On the one side, he advances a pedagogy of the sacred as an antidote to the educational

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minimalism of multicultural societies that lack a shared understanding of the ethical life. In such societies, educational processes tend to be reduced to those required for earning a living. To resist this, we need an intelligent spirituality which expresses itself as the pedagogy of the sacred. This pedagogy involves enabling students to understand worldviews that show how our lives are worth living. They do so perhaps through some connection to a higher good. On the other side, such a pedagogy seems unsuitable for a liberal multicultural society. It cannot be imposed. How can one respect the diversity of views about the ethical life in a pluralistic liberal society? A typical response to this question is to seek a core rational consensus, as do Rawls and Habermas, albeit in very different ways. But this strategy tends to lead to the minimalistic conception of education that reduces it to the economic. Alexander rejects this answer and instead embraces Isaiah Berlin’s more messy diversity liberalism, in which societies will contain a wide diversity of contradictory and incommensurable views. This implies the need for a pedagogy of difference. Such a pedagogy involves learning how to view one’s own orientation from the perspective of another. It involves practices that allow the student to see how others see her own views. Such a capacity allows one to learn from other worldviews. Pluralistic liberalism requires an ethical education in which the pedagogy of the sacred and of difference sit side by side. Although they stand in tension, both constitute aspects of a relationally oriented ethical education because they involve engaging with others, developing relationships. In conclusion, a relational approach to pedagogy concerning the ethical will consist in building relationships that have certain qualities. This construction is a dynamic educative process, one aspect of which contains a paradoxical tension. This tension is that while the relationships will build one’s sense of what is important, they will also shake and challenge it. Pedagogy is constituted by relationships. For ethical education, the quality of the latter determines that of the former.

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4

Changing Cultures Relationship and Sensibility in Ethical Education Sharon Todd

Provoked by the Foundation’s invitation to think through the institutional changes needed for students to become more ethically aware, sensitive and motivated, I began to reflect on what educational assumptions are often made in our desire to promote such ethical qualities. I also began to question, given the prevalence of far-right extremism across Europe, how such qualities can nurture and safeguard the pluralism that lies at the very heart of ethics – after all, how we orient ourselves towards others is the sine qua non of all forms of ethical action. As for our ordinary assumptions about education in promoting ethics, they frequently adopt a metaphor of transportation: education is simply the vehicle through which ethical knowledge or moral conduct is conveyed to the student as a set of skills to be learned – and perhaps mastered. Instead, taking my cue from a range of educational thinkers (Biesta, 2013; Masschelein, 2010; Säfström, 2003; Todd 2003), I work here with the idea that education is involved in the process of becoming present in and with the world in order to live and lead a life with others. For this reason, I imagine education not as a courier for ethics but as one engaged in a form of hand-holding: one hand distinct from the other yet interlocked in a manner that makes it difficult to see their separation. On this model, education and ethics are coimplicated, joined in the enterprise of helping us to live well together. Thus, the idea of institutional change, which was the original incitement for this chapter, needs to attend to the spirit of education as well as to the pluralism that is entailed in ethics itself. Following this trajectory of thought, my purpose in this chapter is to place our actual relationships with others in the classroom at the core of ethical education and at the core of the institutional change needed to foster such education. 67 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Western Ontario, on 18 Jul 2020 at 11:18:06, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108769778.008

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To do so, I draw on a series of interrelated ideas that have been informed by a broad range of philosophical work, including that of Emmanuel Levinas (1969, 1998) as well as phenomenological and Buddhist thought. In particular, I draw on their ideas concerning ethics as a non-violent relation to the Other, a relation that is marked by one’s response to an other’s singularity. My aim here is to outline a few key elements for creating institutional change that recognises this singularity, appreciating the complexity involved in living with others (both in the singular and in the plural) and the challenges this places on educational institutions. I wish to be clear from the outset that such complexity exists not because of the presence of perceived or imagined ‘others’, including migrants or ethnic and sexual minorities, but because living with others always presents us with challenges. Cultural, sexual and religious differences are simply a fact of our human condition that adds to this complexity in their own specific ways – not due to any essential elements of these differences per se, but because legacies of structural and practical forms of exclusion of such differences have contributed to shaping the institutional cultures of schools. I think it is important to think about ‘changes in educational institutions’, then, as encompassing both the people who exist in them and the practices that constitute these spaces as institutions in the first place. In this light, while institutions are governed by rules, regulations, policies, legal frameworks and organisational structures, they institute themselves as institutions through cultures, which are composed of relationships, practices, experiences and shared imaginaries. As Cornelius Castoriadis (1987) understood, institutions operate as institutions through the ongoing imaginary investments in the practices that make up institutional life. Within formal educational institutions, these practices are not only cognitive or intellectual but also embodied, sensate and phenomenal. Thus, it is important to highlight that in order for institutional change to have any real purchase, it is necessary that the transformation of cultures qua embodied practices, and the imaginaries that support them, become the focus of our efforts. This means it is not enough to alter the regulatory frameworks in which schools operate, be these curriculum policy documents or organisational arrangements (although this structural component is also required); instead it is necessary to alter the conditions – and expectations – in which teachers and students actually live their lives in schools. Thus, my opening premise here is that the kind of change that is necessary in promoting ethical awareness and sensitivity primarily involves embodied cultural practices – ones committed to promoting new forms of relationality and new modes of sensibility in pluralistic contexts.

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IMPLIED ETHICS As mentioned above, many educational initiatives focus on ‘instrumentalising’ education as a vehicle through which certain values, virtues, dispositions and attitudes can be ‘taught’ and ‘learned’. Frequently, education is seen to serve larger ends that are defined externally to education itself. As recent EU policy shows, for example, the ‘right’ content knowledge in education is supposed to deliver better workers, create more productive and entrepreneurial citizens, and alleviate the woes of the economy (Todd, 2015). When it comes to ethics, the risk is that we think education is only about delivering the ‘right’ kind of knowledge in the hope that the desired ethical behaviour will follow. This turns education into a field of application – we apply ethical/ moral knowledge to education and seek to make the practices of education fit our anticipated objective. However, seeing education as a practical endeavour that attempts to establish a space of ‘human becoming’ (Biesta, 2013) shifts our understanding of the relation between ethics and education. Biesta (2013) makes an important distinction between a ‘strong’ education that attempts to control its outcomes and the ‘weakness’ of education as a practice that takes risks and works with the uncertainty and unpredictability that emerge in our educational encounters. In so doing, he highlights the importance of education as a process that is fundamentally engaged with living existence. On such terms, the educational question par excellence is not what education ought to teach in relation to this or that principle (‘strong’ education), but what makes education itself a condition of ethical (and existential) practice (‘weak’ education)? Posing the question in this way disrupts the assumption that ethical education is about teaching ethics directly or that education itself is merely in the business of transporting and transmitting principles; instead, what I am advocating here is an understanding of ethics as an embodied educational practice, viewing education as a site of implied ethics as opposed to seeing it as a site of application. Seeing ethics as implied in education, rather than applied to education, allows us to fully appreciate, on the one hand, how educational practices are always already part of a field of ethics (since educational practices enact a form of living with others in schools) and, on the other hand, how ethical practices are always already part of a field of education (since ethical practices are made to manifest in and through our relations in schools through which students become present in the world). This requires viewing the

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relationships between and amongst teachers and students as both ethically laden and educationally significant. The particularities of the practices of teaching, study, play and discussion already disclose certain ways of being along ethical lines. If the relationships embedded in these practices are to become, following Levinas’s (1969) thought here, non-violent and noncoercive in enabling others to exist in their own right, then the educational question for ethics moves away from seeking to instil, cultivate and develop values and character traits and turns instead to seeking to provide the educational conditions through which such non-violent forms of relationality can emerge. Whilst we might want to create more empathic or caring students, we cannot do so by ‘more’ or ‘better’ knowledge, or by ‘demanding’ students become so. Instead, an implied ethics means that educational practices, technologies, discourses and relationships always already constitute certain conditions that make (or not) non-violent relations to the Other possible.

QUALITY OF RELATIONSHIPS Another aspect of the bond between education and ethics flows from this one and has to do with moving away from defining the type of relationships teachers and students might engage in towards exploring their quality. When we discuss relationships from the ‘applied’ point of view, or from the perspective of a risk-free ‘strong’ education (Biesta, 2013), there is often present the belief that changing the ‘type’ of relationship will lead to better ways of living in the world. Such relationships are often defined in terms of roles, behaviours, skills and traits that teachers and students are to embody in order to cultivate the desired relationship. The difficulty here is that the focus becomes more on aligning the form (or kind) of relationship with the relationship itself (or the one we desire) instead of acknowledging that the form a relation takes is shaped around the quality of interaction in the first place. One can think of a teacher who poses as an authoritarian figure (a ‘type’ of relationship) to students, only to have this dissembled in a class where the actual ‘quality’ of relationship is one of disrespect. Focusing on the type of relationship alone can lead to viewing ethics as a series of behavioural indicators whereby relationships are broken down into their performative elements; this reveals a lack of understanding, in my view, of the broader, affective, social and interactive contexts in which they occur. Moreover, placing attention on the ‘type’ of relation can rely too easily on an ‘ideal

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image’ of what that relation ought to be without adequate attention paid to the messiness in which we live our lives on a daily basis. Seeking instead to admit the messy imperfection directly into our ethical concerns reframes ethics as something not divorced from the everyday ways we engage each other in schools. A shift to recognising the quality of relations focuses on to what degree the relations we actually engage in (rather than identifying what type we should engage in) enhance or compromise the existential possibilities of those involved. That is, what is at stake in how we relate to each other in schools is whether both the ‘weakness’ of education and an ethical attention to non-violence are supported within these relations. As mentioned above, the quality of relationality cannot be measured in behavioural terms but can nonetheless be assessed in terms of the extent it enables and ensures the other’s existence. This requires not wishing the other were more ‘like me’ or demanding that the other change according to my image of what I believe an ethical person to look like. It invites instead a difference into the heart of ethical response – and responsibility. Responsibility on this view is not constituted by a set of identifiable characteristics that belong to an individual prior to an encounter with an other. Orientations to the other, such as respect, fairness and compassion, are not something one merely carries into a relationship (back to our transport metaphor again); on the contrary, they emerge only in the relationship itself – in the texture and nuance of the everyday interactions we have with each other. Focusing on the quality of relationships means accepting that the types of relationship (compassionate, respectful) teachers and students have with one another are varied, situated and tied to the specificities of context. On this view, ‘compassion’ or ‘respect’ resists abstract idealisation in the sense that its quality is not gauged according to a predetermined standard but inheres in the complex dynamics of a particular relationship. The point is not that one ‘shows’ compassion or ‘demonstrates’ respect in any single way; neither is it to think of them as characteristics that ‘belong’ to individuals. Rather, it is to see that these are approaches and orientations that arise only in relation to an other in a gesture of non-violence and non-reciprocity. In this sense – and one can perhaps hear the heavy tones of Levinas here – they are embodied sensibilities that are themselves both relational and devoid of egoism. That is, for compassion to become enacted, it cannot be given in an economy of mutuality. I do not give or offer my compassion expecting the other to be beholden to me: the person I express compassion towards does not have to give compassion back in return. For instance, compassion shown by a teacher

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for a child who is experiencing bereavement does not carry with it the demand for the child to show compassion back (or gratitude for that matter); instead, it allows a spaciousness to grow in the relationship so that the child can live with her experiences of bereavement independently and with support from the teacher. Thus, it is important at this point to think about how the quality of relationships is part of a process of enactment, involving felt, lived and embodied orientations with others that change according to the specific context. For instance, that same teacher might show compassion in a completely different manner for another child who is also experiencing bereavement. For one, she might approach the child with a touch on the shoulder sensing the child’s hesitancy; for another, a hug might be what she senses is required. Following Nel Noddings, what characterises the difference here is not that a person is more or less compassionate but that one is attuned to the situation in such a way that it invites a particular response. I wish to develop this idea of ‘sensing’ more fully, seeing this as not only part of what Noddings identifies as the attunement involved in the roles of the ‘one caring’ and the ‘one cared for’ but as a sensibility to the other beyond any roles themselves.

SENSIBILITY: TOWARDS ONESELF AND OTHERS This idea of attunement places sensibility as central to the practice of ethics and education. Sensibility, at least for my purposes here, signals two intertwined elements. First is the understanding that sensibility indicates an orientation towards the world that is sensitive to its nuances, complexities, tones and textures. Second, sensibility has to do with ‘sensation’ and the bodily ways we exist in and with the world that enable us to experience these very things. The two are inseparable. We are receptive to the environment through the body and our senses, making sensibility a relational process through which we do not simply come to know the world as an object but come to interact with others and understand ourselves within the world itself. Such receptivity, however, becomes a sensible orientation outwards when it denotes a way of encountering others without the usual prescriptive categories we project onto them. Sensibility therefore is both a passive reception and an active affirmation of encountering someone – or something – new, without having immediately to ‘know’ and classify what is unfamiliar. It is about residing in the uncertainties and unforeseen sensations of that encounter. John Keats’s notion of ‘negative capability’

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captures this well. It ‘ . . . is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable [impatient] reaching after fact & reason . . . ’. On Keats’s understanding, negative capability is a quality of being open to life without recipes or scripted responses. It is a sensibility that enables us to quietly observe; it is a space of encounter where phenomena are met with curiosity and surprise. The Buddhist scholar Stephen Batchelor (2010) observes these elements of sensibility in practices of meditation. Meditation encourages a quality of attention that enables us to see and experience our attachments to the world, without ‘doing’ anything to change them. Instead, he suggests that meditation offers a ‘skillfulness in patience’ that focuses on living with our sensory experiences, thoughts and feelings. For Batchelor, this experience of sensibility enables us to orient ourselves to our environment and to our encounters with others with a degree of openness and inquiry; it is a quality of relationality that teaches us to exist in the world in attunement with both ourselves and others. The point in raising this here is not to suggest that all students and teachers become meditators (however much I think that would, perhaps, not be such a bad thing!); instead, it is to suggest that the experiences of which Batchelor writes have very much to do with how our sensations, and specifically our capacity for staying with those sensations actually feed into how we act with and towards others. The connection that Batchelor and other Buddhist philosophers and phenomenologists make (as we shall see below) is that if we indeed are patient and tolerable with our own feelings of attachment, we will then be mindful and open to the same in others. There is thus a link made here between sensibility as embodied, sensate experience and sensibility as an outward orientation. However, in thinking about this specifically in terms of education, it is not clear to me that this link is so easily established. In fact, viewing this connection too rigidly risks reducing ‘openness’ and ‘patience’ yet again to a series of techniques to be mastered. In other words, it can once again revert back to a type of relationship instead of being about a quality of relationship. Moreover, it can easily be put in the service of a ‘strong’ education, in Biesta’s sense, if these are turned into definable ‘outcomes’ of educational practices: seeing openness, for example, as a performative competency (or cognitive skill) akin to learning the multiplication table – that is, without the affective components such as curiosity and sensitivity that keep that openness affectively tied to its surroundings in unpredictable ways. In order to resist these ‘strong’ educational tendencies, I think it is useful to reflect on how

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practices of education in schooling contexts contribute to the relations one has to oneself and to others in the first place. Building on Elliot Eisner’s understanding of education as a ‘mind-making process’, Oren Ergas (2017) views education as an activity that organises experience. He places the singular mind and its workings – including musings, memories and ideational movements – at the centre of how we conceive and practice education. For Ergas, mind is not simply a cognitive entity but one embedded in and generated through the body. As each of us encounters the world through the senses,1 we process information based on past experiences, expectations of the future, and patterns of repetition and dissonance. The mind, through what we have encountered previously, what we anticipate we will encounter and what we recognise as same/different, organises this information into cogent systems of meaning. On Ergas’s view, education, insofar as it is a process through which such systems of meaning are made possible, means that it has a powerful formational hold on the mind. However, in having such a hold, it also limits us from living sensibly, since we cannot always experience what is before us as it presents itself to us as something ‘new’, in the here and now, without layering upon its histories of experience that categorise, compartmentalise and pigeon-hole the newness almost as soon as we have encountered it. There is thus a tendency for schooling in particular to familiarise the new and place it into already established frameworks of understanding. For instance, the student encountering a map of a particular place for the first time will categorise the ‘information’ in the map according to what she already knows about maps in general (topographical, physical, political) and the context in which the map is being shown (as part of a geography, science or history lesson). In other words, that student has learned how to ‘read’ the map and can neatly organise information from it into a given framework. For many of my generation in Canada, our map-reading was very much imbricated with the pink of the British Empire. Our readings of maps were encouraged along particular trajectories of thought that have significant bearing for how we were thinking about people living in those places represented by fine lines on a two-dimensional surface (by this time in the late 1960s, early 1970s mostly as Dominions or Commonwealth countries). That is, our actual experience of the maps themselves – how they smelled; their size, surface and shape; and the leaps of the imagination they might have provoked – either went unnoticed or were actively discouraged. We were taught not only that these sensations were insignificant to the material at hand but even more importantly for this ethical discussion that the frameworks and systems of

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knowledge through which those maps were given meaning were colonial to the core. Thus, we were not simply learning to ‘read’ maps but the world itself, as Paolo Freire (1970) would put it. Our embodied experience of maps was itself colonised by colonial systems of meaning. Whilst on the surface, viewing phenomena through the filters of the mind is necessary for our daily living – we need to categorise and make distinctions in order to function in the world – it nonetheless also contributes to the prejudices, biases, stereotypes, misapprehensions and fears that not only feed violence but enact forms of violence against others. One can read the role of education in schooling contexts in two ways: on the one hand, education as mind formation prevents us from encountering the world fully through sensation, since its practices are oriented towards tying those experiences into schemas and regimes of truth and certainty (such as colonialism); on the other hand, precisely because of this power it can also cultivate another relation to those experiences. That is, education also has the capacity to disrupt, provoke and disturb these regimes. This potentiality, it seems to me, echoes Biesta’s (2013) emphasis on the ‘weakness’ of education: to choose an education that is not only about ‘becoming human’ but also about ‘human becoming’, which necessarily involves risk in encountering the strange, the unpredictable and the uncertain. Thus, resisting ‘strong’ educational tendencies means working with this potentiality. After all, it matters what is guiding our practical choices in developing the cultures of schools. How do we think about the other ways students and teachers are engaging with classroom material and the associations, fantasies and, most importantly, bodily sensations through which they experience their lives? Transforming school cultures requires actively grappling with these ‘other’ things that are going on. Importantly, I think, teachers and students are already intuitively relating meaningfully at this level (e.g. think of the feelings of trust or apprehension, the eye contact, the bodily gestures and postures that already feature so heavily in communicative encounters in the classroom). The issue, however, is how to think about tuning into these aspects of encounter in ways that make this not an incidental feature of what schools do but an essential feature of what it means to educate and embody ethical relations. This requires a transformation in both how we practice education and how we ethically attend to the practices of human becoming in these encounters. Such transformation, for Manu Bazzano (2012), entails a reorientation of the self. Combining Buddhist understandings with phenomenological ones of our encounters with the world, Bazzano contends that transformation is

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predicated upon the undoing of the ego. Following Buddhist thought here in particular, he regards the solidity of our egos as being illusory; instead, the ego is constituted through a series of attachments that yoke us to a specific identity or image of ourselves. Referencing Montaigne’s famous phrase, he writes, ‘central to the Buddha’s teachings is . . . the desertion of one’s place in the sun’ (p. 10). Bazzano identifies this desertion as an aesthetic act of encounter that has profound implications for both ethics and education. Rather than viewing this desertion as an act of ontological self-assertion or will, the unravelling of the ego’s certainty and centrality is dependent upon encounters with others. For Bazzano, this comes about not through any techniques (meditation or otherwise) but through the poetry of everyday life itself: Encounter cannot take place by means of techniques but, on the contrary, it is only when techniques fail [my emphasis] that the incident of poetic encounter with alterity becomes possible, and only in encountering alterity what we call the present may occur: the living moment rather than the decree of an end closing the past and opening the future. And yet we cannot inhabit the space of pure encounter with alterity: the lyric intensity is unsustainable beyond a few fortunate moments. But without it, as Buber reminds us, our existence is not living but surviving. (Bazzano, 2012, p. 123)

This moment is poetic because it disrupts commonplace experience, allowing, however fleetingly, an experience of sensing that is not colonised by pre-existing frames of reference. It is in the space of the failure of techniques where newness arises and the transformation of the self – the desertion of ego – becomes possible. This momentary event of existing echoes what Biesta (2013) refers to as the ‘interruption’ into the field of educational certainty, a quality of the ‘weakness’ of education. Reducing education to a series of techniques is based on mechanistic calls for a ‘strong’ education, where teaching inputs easily match learning outputs. For Biesta (2013), ‘education isn’t a mechanism and shouldn’t be turned into one’ (p. 4). Thus, the failure of technique that Bazzano describes is actually a condition for both education and ethics to happen. For Bazzano, the sensibility that arises through the encounter with others occasions a transformation of self, a becoming in the present: ‘who I was until then vanishes: another I comes to light’ (Bazzano, 2012, p. 106). On this view, sensibility to others in our encounters is an exercise in the poetry of living; it enables a new relation to the self (‘another I comes to light’) that is only possible through our encounters with others in the world. Thus,

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the link between our seemingly ‘inner’ embodied sensing of the world and the ‘external’ manifestations of this sensibility in terms of compassion or respect towards others is not causal but interdependent. By this I mean that we simply cannot develop qualities of sensibility without opening ourselves, however fleetingly, to others and we cannot open ourselves without losing a part of ourselves in the process (the vanishing ‘I’) and without also gaining another vantage point. Attunement to these fleeting encounters with the present works against prescribing neat techniques for living ethically and, for that matter, educating meaningfully. Yet, if sensibility is going to infuse the culture of schools, then how might we think this through in ways that do not fall back into a mechanistic view of education itself?

ALTERITY PRACTICES/CHANGING CULTURES I have been arguing here that in order to think through what is fundamentally at stake in ethical education, we need to take education seriously: both as a process involved in human becoming and in the formation of minds. In doing so, I have identified three central elements to promoting the institutional change required in order to foster ethical relationships in schools: (1) viewing ethics as implicated in the very fabric of educational relations (implied ethics) in a way that puts the actual relationships of teachers and students at the centre of change; (2) focusing on the quality of those relationships as a way of enabling non-violence and the recognition of otherness; and (3) seeing sensibility (as an embodied attunement to others and to self) as a quality of encounter that has the potential to disrupt existing relations. Taken together, they encourage a spaciousness in education that is about responsive (and responsible) appreciation for others and I think for this reason alone that putting our efforts towards practices of sensibility and attunement in particular could be well worth our while. In trying to avoid a ‘strong’ educational approach in order to not simply fall into the techniques of practices, I would like to suggest that institutional change requires changing both the form through which teacher and student relationship take shape, and modes of being in school that currently largely ignore embodied, sensate experiences. This requires making room for alternative explorations of embodied ways of being with each other in classrooms and schools more generally. As well as enabling time for reflection and contemplation in order to consider how students and teachers feel, attach, relate and experience the environment, it also means interweaving body

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practices regularly into encounters with others. Leah Kalmanson (2012) calls these ‘“alterity practices” strategies – embodied ritual practices – that develop our capacity for compassion and mindfulness and thereby train us to maintain the urgency of the face-to-face relation . . .’ (p. 125). Alterity practices would focus on the lived interdependency each of us has to others, seeing the potentiality for a sense of openness to emerge. They would allow for an examination of experience, practising a mode of identifying sensations, thoughts and imaginings in ways that do not subsume them into rigid regimes of certainty. Schools would be seeking forms (such as rooms, indoor/outdoor spaces, materialities of classrooms) as well as modes (such as rituals, actions, movements) that align themselves with more fulsome practices of living with the messiness of the everyday. They would become, in other words, spaces that seek to be open to the failures of technique; the gaps in pedagogy that reveal education to be less than perfect, less than ‘efficient’ and mechanistic. And, they would become spaces that encourage another way of being and becoming, outside the scripted roles both teachers and students are frequently so reliant on and burdened with. What I am suggesting here is an institutional change that does not shy away from the difficulties as well as the joys of living a life with others, unlike so many ‘techniques’ that are designed to make things smoother, effortless and more effectual. Changing cultures to allow for life’s rough threads to enter in ways that are mindful of our interdependence on one another seems to me to be necessary if we are going to weave a different kind of ethical future together with, and not simply for, children and youth. For if ethical education is going to truly matter to students, it cannot be simply about ‘preparing’ for ethical life but about engaging the very life that students are living – right here, right now – in a manner that is itself ethical.

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Ethical, Existential and Spiritual Re-Orientation Hans Alma and Christa Anbeek

The point of departure of this chapter is the following question: ‘Which experiences and reflections could help young people to become more ethically aware and motivated within the context of public education?’ This question is asked against the background of four important societal worries: first, the rise of relativism as different worldview positions meet and confront each other in a super-diverse society; second, the existence of populist hermeneutical bubbles, in which people only get information that confirms their own views; third, a general attitude of apathy and uncaring in an economy-driven society that only believes in market values; and, fourth, a hardening of traditional moral positions of minorities who feel threatened in their group identity. As we will argue, we might even speak of an ethical crisis that asks for an ethical re-orientation and transformation. However, we want to add that the ethical should be understood in a broad sense. The crisis is not only about norms and values in a strict ethical sense of what is right or wrong behaviour, it is also about an existential search for identity and belonging, and about sources of inspiration for living a ‘good life’ that transcends the particular needs of a person. For this reason, we will speak of ethical, existential and spiritual re-orientation in this chapter. This encompasses personal and societal explorations and evaluations with regard to diverging views on the ‘good life’ as they can be found in late-modern societies. We refer to these views with the term plural moralities. Let us clarify the concepts we use. Broadly speaking, moralities are about people’s notions of the ‘good’ as they are imagined, articulated and practised in daily life. Explicit reflection on these lived moralities belongs to the field of ethics. In terms of the social psychologist Kenneth Gergen (2019): 79 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Western Ontario, on 18 Jul 2020 at 11:18:05, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108769778.009

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(. . .) the sense of ‘good’ functions as a primitive (we may find it ‘good’ to have peace and quiet); when the sense of good is codified or articulated we speak of it as ‘morality,’ (it is a moral good that we don’t disrupt others’ well-being, for example, by playing loud music); and when we provide a conceptual account of why such morality is imperative, we enter the field of ethics. (p. 25)

Such a distinction is helpful, but we don’t think ethics is primarily about conceptualisation. As we will explain later, it is about reflection on moral choices and actions that need articulation, but not necessarily in discursive language. The existential dimension points to disruptive experiences and the ultimate concerns in the context of the ‘good’ and builds on the human capacity to ask fundamental questions about our lives. It refers to people’s search for meaning in life and touches ‘on the foundations of our existence’ (Alma, 2019, p. 72). It is closely connected to the concept of life orientation, defined as ‘an existential positioning process related to the meaning of the human being, the world and the meta-empirical, directed towards the horizon of the good life’ (Van der Zande and Bakker, 2019, p. 180). The spiritual dimension refers to the experience of what people consider to be of ultimate importance, both immanent and/or transcendent. The political philosopher Connolly describes spirituality in terms of transcendence ‘as an intensification of everyday experience so as to amplify sensitivities, open the self or constituency to experimentation, or augment experimental ties across lines of difference’ (Connolly, 2011, p. 39). For him, spirituality is about what may bring us together despite differences in creed, for it points to what is common in human experiences in the face of shared concerns about, for example, issues of sustainability. Spirituality, in his view, is closely related to political action, as it inspires people to find new ways (experimentation) to come to social transformation. Hence, far from being woolly and vague, spirituality actually connects ethics to action by opening us to the other and inspiring emotional attachment to a common cause. Ethics, without being closely linked to practised morality, existential positioning and spiritual experiences of what we care about most deeply, easily becomes an abstract conceptual exercise that has little to do with what inspires and motivates young people. For this reason, we think that ethical education has to relate to the existential and spiritual dimensions as well, and in this chapter we will explore what this would mean and how it can be done pedagogically. We will first discuss some theoretical thoughts on the risk of ‘moral blindness’ (Bauman and Donskis, 2013), and second we will argue that

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in our educational systems, we need to develop the moral imagination of young people. We will explain what we mean by moral imagination and how it is related to ethical, existential and spiritual re-orientation. Our contribution will be mainly theoretical, but we will explore how theory relates to practice, especially by developing a cycle of imagination that offers pedagogical clues.

MORAL BLINDNESS As Zygmunt Bauman argues, we live in ‘liquid modernity’ (Bauman, 2000). People, information, ideas, food, weapons and so forth are ‘on the move’ and the meaning of boundaries changes. This is the case not only for boundaries between nation states but also for boundaries between worldviews and religions. People have to find new ways for their ethical, existential and spiritual orientation. We witness an age of uncertainty, and Bauman warns for a loss of sensitivity or ‘moral blindness’ (Bauman and Donskis, 2013). Although we should not underestimate the degrees of uncertainty in other historical periods, the globalisation processes we witness today seem to cause unprecedented intercultural dynamics. Uncertainty need not be a negative experience: it may invite challenging explorations of the unknown, for example by travelling. However, the experience of uncertainty may also change into an experience of insecurity or anxiety. This ‘ontological insecurity’ may motivate people to search for security and certainty in local niches (Giddens, 1991; Kinnvall, 2004). Catarina Kinnvall points out that experiences of existential uncertainty and anxiety lead to the reaffirmation of threatened self-identities (Kinnvall, 2004). She uses the term ‘securitised subjectivity’ for people’s intensified search for one stable identity, often accompanied by feelings of fear, loathing and even hatred of the other. We think her political psychological perspective is important to understand the ‘hermeneutical bubbles’, the apathy and uncaring, and the hardening of traditional moral commitments that we witness today. In educational settings, we can’t be very optimistic about the willingness of participants to enter into dialogue with one another, running the risk of having to question one’s own identity claims. People may manifest a close-mindedness, and their need for closure may intensify their adherence to specific cultural norms and beliefs (Kruglanski, 2004, p. 79). Gergen (2009) describes this process in terms of the ‘thrust toward bonding’ . One of the essential ingredients in creating a bond is the co-creation of a real and valued world, and Gergen recognises that the

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demand for bonding may be intensified by the contemporary erosion of secure realities. A bond that is strongly injected with value and truth effectively silences the ‘other’ and undermines possibilities for collaborative action. Bonded relations are closely related to emotions and may result in heated conflict. This brings us to the important question of how people can be empowered to cope with uncertainty and moral incompatibility. Gergen (2009) stresses the necessity of what he calls transformative dialogue, defined as forms of dialogue that attempt to cross the boundaries of meaning, that locate fissures in the taken-for-granted realities of the disputants, that restore the potentials for multi-being, and most importantly, that enable participants to generate a new and more promising domain of shared meaning. (p. 193)

Transformative dialogue, however, asks for an openness and ability to articulate what is of importance to us, which we can’t take for granted. In the next section, we will explore this issue in the hope to find some conditions for an ethical, existential and spiritual re-orientation that helps students to become more ethically aware, sensitive and motivated.

VULNERABILITY, FRAGILE LIFE AND THE NEED FOR RE-ORIENTATION As we have seen, ontological insecurity may lead to ‘securitised subjectivity’ resulting in closed-mindedness and bonding. Yet, the uncertainty that comes with ontological insecurity may also offer chances for a re-orientation that allows for openness towards the viewpoints and experiences of other people and a more caring attitude. We will explore this with the help of the concept ‘contrast experiences’ (Anbeek, 2013; Anbeek and de Jong, 2013; Anbeek, Alma and Van Goelst Meijer, 2018). This concept is inspired by the thinking of Charles Taylor, who argues that two sorts of ‘deep’ experiences drive people to search for meaning: on the one side fleeting experiences of wholeness and wonder, on the other side the fundamental experiences of brokenness and fragility (Taylor, 2007). Anbeek (2013) uses for both experiences the term contrast experiences – they shatter the everyday interpretation of existence and an unknown area appears. She emphasises that in real life the so-called positive contrast experiences and the negative contrast experiences cannot be distinguished from each other so easily. In contrast to experiences the otherness of beyond myself breaks in, sometimes in the shape of wonder and beauty, sometimes in the shape of fragmentation and loss, many times these two forms go hand in hand in creating an openness to the unknown. In this openness, something of

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deep importance may reveal itself, a person feels it bodily and intuits that something of strong value is at stake. This intuition is clear and evident and at the same time elusive and obscure. Both Taylor and Anbeek point to the need of articulation to make the contrast experience a meaningful one that can guide us to ethical, existential and spiritual re-orientation. The implicit understandings need to become explicit in order to be able to guide us in life orientation (Anbeek, 2013; Arendt, 1998; Jackson, 2002; Schillebeeckx, 1989; Taylor, 2011, 2007). As contrast experiences and the values they open us to escape full theoretical articulation, a ‘subtle language’ is needed, which looks for other dimensions of expression. Besides expressing ourselves verbally, people can use images, narratives, actions, practices, rituals and arts to demonstrate what is of value to them. The expressions of what we sense to be of ultimate importance will always be plural; there is no single truth. No single articulation can ever be complete; we are captured in an endless striving to increase articulacy (Taylor, 2016, p. 177). Articulation always leaves a gap where the mystery intrudes, where the claims to truth are not fully grounded, where seeming refutation or contradictions lie half visible (Taylor, 2011, p. 299). Uncertainty remains a characteristic of all our efforts to ground ourselves in a beyond ourselves. We cannot escape this human condition of precariousness, although we can make ‘error-reducing moves’ (Taylor, 2016, p. 301). Another significant issue in the search for giving an account of deep and impressive experiences of vulnerable life is that this is not about thinking and thought but anchored in corporeal experience and bonds with other people. As Taylor argues, language evolves in the interspace of joint attention or communion (Taylor, 2016, p. 50). This means that articulation is not an activity of an isolated philosopher or theologian, but it is an inter-human activity. This inter-human activity is based on dialogue; it means appearing to others and exposing yourself to others. Hannah Arendt speaks here of the ‘miracle of life’, a second birth. We must tell the story of our life, then, before we can ascribe meaning to it. Especially when these dialogues concern deep personal experiences about the fragility of bodily existence, goodness, happiness and the disruptive moments that take these all away, we have to realise that exposing ourselves to others makes us extra vulnerable. This is why acknowledging is crucial. People need to be respected and recognised – otherwise the search for the values that manifest themselves in these experiences will collapse and harm will be done.

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CONTRAST EXPERIENCES AND MORAL IMAGINATION Contrast experiences, articulation and re-orientation stand in a dynamic relationship to one another. Articulation is not just bringing out into the open what was hidden inside the contrast experience; expression always means modification and re-orientation and transformation, thus opening up new possibilities for experience. Contrast experiences don’t emerge in an existential and moral vacuum but in a background of meanings shared with others, creating an openness in which something of great value is at stake. Contrast experiences evoke strong evaluations that question selfevident meanings and inspire ethical, existential and spiritual reorientation. In this section, we will argue that contrast experiences will only open us to the other with his/her viewpoints and values when we can make use of our imaginative capacity. Based on the thinking of the pragmatist philosopher John Dewey, Thomas Alexander describes imagination as ‘the ability to see the actual in light of the possible’ (Alexander, 1990, p. 336). Imagination is not to be understood as free-floating phantasy but as firmly rooted in past and present that holds – when being closely attended to – possibilities for experience and action. Dewey distinguishes between two closely related types of imagination: (a) taking the perspective of others (empathy) and (b) creatively tapping a situation’s possibilities (cf. Fesmire, 2003). Imagination is based in an attentive perception of what is going on in the actual situation, helped by an understanding that is rooted in past experiences and knowledge acquired through cultural transmission. This allows for mental experimenting with the perspectives that are thus brought to the perceived situation, resulting in the anticipation of new possibilities for action. Applied to contrast experiences, the imagination helps us to focus attention on what is happening in a person’s experience, looking for new ways of articulation with the help of our remembrance of other experiences and cultural sources, thus exploring possibilities for re-orientation and transformation. For Dewey, imagination is not complete without action that brings about change, a change that should be critically reflected upon and corrected if necessary through a new cycle of the imaginative process. In fact, the imaginative process is our pivotal way of truth-seeking, a truth that is not ‘out there’ to be found by rational, logical reasoning, but that can only be related to – partially, tentatively – through the imagination that engages our whole being: sensuously, bodily, emotionally, cognitively and socially. From this

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point of view, learning – that has of necessity an imaginative quality (Cf. Alexander, 2013, p. 52) – is more important to truth-seeking than knowing. Alexander stresses the importance of the social dimension: ‘Through this mutual imaginative ability, symbolic action and symbols themselves become possible, as does the establishment of a world of shared experience, in which “you” and “I” become a “we”’ (Alexander, 2013, p. 10). Alexander speaks of the community of social imagination. This conception points to expression, selfreflectivity and creativity as part of an imaginative community life: The idea of the community that emerges is one which through its imaginative, dynamic intelligence actively seeks for conditions that fulfil the deep aesthetic needs of human beings to experience the world with meaning and value in an expressive, reflective, and self-critical way. (Alexander, 2013, p. 147)1

This cannot be taken for granted: ‘Communities need a pluralistic orientation to maintain their imaginative creativity and self-interpretation’ (Alexander, 2013, p. 155). A community that realises this would be called a democracy by Dewey. It places high demands on the education of vision and moral imagination, understood as an imaginative capacity that comes with reflection on ethical and existential questions and sources (Alma, 2015), and opens people to spiritual experiences that bring them together instead of dividing them. Mark Johnson argues that our ethical understandings depend on imaginative activity, because it ‘requires imagination to discern what is morally relevant in situations, to understand empathetically how others experience things, and to envision the full range of possibilities open to us in a particular case’ (Johnson 1993, p. x). He criticises theories of morality that claim to give us moral guidance in the sense of clarifying moral principles and their proper applications. His perspective on moral imagination explains why thinking that there is one right thing to do may be harmful. Moral imagination ‘gives the kind of guidance that comes from moral understanding, insight, and empathy. It helps us develop the kind of knowledge and awareness that is necessary if we hope to be morally sensitive’ (Johnson 1993, p. xi). In line with Dewey’s thought on imagination, he makes a plea for an imaginative rationality that is at once insightful, critical, exploratory and transformative. We can cultivate our moral imagination ‘by sharpening our powers of discrimination, exercising our capacity for envisioning new possibilities, and imaginatively tracing out the implications of our metaphors, prototypes, and narratives’ (Johnson 1993, p. 198). Moral imagination doesn’t imply moral subjectivism. On the contrary, it depends on knowledge of the imaginative

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nature of the conceptual systems and reasoning that characterise our society. We need to study in detail the metaphorical structure of our shared morality, asking what it highlights and what it hides. In the terminology of Charles Taylor, we need to know the social imaginaries that guide our understandings and actions in mostly implicit ways.

THEORY AND PRACTICE We do not want to give a proposal for applying theory to practice. In a relational approach, we need to develop our understanding on a collaborative basis. Much of the thinking on contrast experiences, as it was discussed in this chapter, is based on the practice of existential counselling in a psychiatric setting. And much of the thinking on moral imagination needs further development with the help of (educational) practices. In 1993, Mark Johnson wrote: ‘I am convinced that to take seriously the imaginative nature of morality requires an extensive revision of our traditional conception of ethics’ (Johnson 1993, p. xi). We are convinced this still holds in 2019. We are also convinced that this shouldn’t be only a theoretical endeavour. If we take Dewey’s and Johnson’s approaches to the imagination seriously, we can only develop the moral imagination by exploring, experimenting, acting and reflecting in concrete practices. For this reason, this section should not be read as a ‘guide’ that tells us what to do but as an ‘invitation’ that raises some points to explore further in practice, aimed at the development of both practice and theory. The section introduces the ‘cycle of imagination’ as developed by Alma (2018). The main question this chapter tries to answer is: ‘Which experiences and reflections could help young people to become more ethically aware and motivated within the context of public education?’ We broadened the notion of ‘ethically’ to imply the existential and spiritual dimensions of how we orient ourselves in life as well. Most basically perhaps, education that takes these dimensions into account asks for an attentive perception to what is going on in young people’s worlds and helps them to be attentive themselves. Attentiveness is something that has to be trained, for we tend to overlook important things because we are occupied with our own needs and fears. A good way to train attentiveness is with the help of art. A still life, for example, shows us the beauty and intrinsic value of objects we hardly pay attention to in daily life. Normally, we only look functionally to the world (often including our fellow people): is something (or someone) useful for us

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or rather to be avoided? It is often fear that motivates us to look in this functional way, and indeed it is often necessary to focus on what helps or harms us, for example when we try to find our way in hectic traffic. However, we all come across situations in life that invite us to look again, because we are moved, or astonished, or bewildered by what we see. Contrast experiences need not be dramatic; they also manifest themselves in daily life as moments of wonder, surprise or thrill. They can be the starting-point for ethical, existential and spiritual re-orientation, when we allow ourselves to take time and to perceive attentively what moves us in this way. In educational settings, powerful methods have been developed to train attentiveness with the help of art. Art, one might say, offers us a safe ground for more or less intense contrast experiences. One method that works with art is Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS; Yenawine, 2013). This method guides students through an attentive process with the help of simple but well placed questions, attention being the first step in Alma’s cycle of imagination. The choice of an artwork is of course very important to stimulate this process. The artwork of Guido van Helten, who paints on walls in public spaces, is very appealing to young people. One of his paintings shows the face of an older person on the wall of a house in demolition in Ireland. Viewers of a picture of this wall with its painting see many different things: the face of a man or a woman, the grey colours of the picture or the patches of blue in the sky, the sloppy looks of the surroundings or the green plants that are popping up in unexpected places. They learn that it is worthwhile to take time to look at a painting or another piece of art and to explore it together with others, who look at it in different ways. Entering into dialogue with the work of art and with others, their imagination is stimulated both in its empathic and creative qualities. Students have now entered a cycle of imagination that allows them not only to become ethically, existentially and spiritually aware, but also to express the insights they gain from this awareness and to translate these into transformative action. The next step in this imaginative process is closely connected to attentive perception, as it will inevitably result in associations derived from former experiences, knowledge, and cultural or religious frameworks. When we look at something, we attach meaning to it based on what we have learned about the world throughout life. In the method of Visual Thinking Strategies, associations are explored by asking what someone perceives that makes him or her come to this interpretation. This helps to become aware of where our associations come from, to relate them to what we actually see or hear, and to understand that different people have diverging associations.

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In our example of working with the picture of a painting by Guido van Helten, one viewer associated the face of the person on the wall with that of Christ. Immediately, others followed by associating the woodwork on the wall with a cross, and the patches of red paint with blood. For young people, the associations might be totally different, related to their life world. What do demolition, the face of an older person, the total atmosphere of the picture mean to them? Does the picture remind them of a person they know, of violence experienced in their own surroundings, of their own worries? Reflection on their associations can make students aware of what they have learned from existential, spiritual and ethical sources that are part of their cultural heritage. It can make these resources more personally meaningful. Once different perceptions and associations are ‘gathered’, the next step in the imaginative process can be taken. This is the step of experimentation, and it is a kind of play with all the material that is now available. Now that they have looked at the work of art from different perspectives and have come up with different interpretations, what personal question would they like to ask to the artwork they are presented with? With this step, we move closer to their ethical and existential concerns; students are asked to enter into a very personal dialogue with a piece of art. Of course, we have to prepare for this step by carefully choosing an artwork that enables this specific group of students to relate to it in personal ways, by creating a safe atmosphere and by allowing sufficient time for introspection. In the example of the wall painting by Guido van Helten, we asked viewers what they would like to ask the older person looking to them from this ragged wall. They came up with very personal questions, related to themes in their own lives. It is helpful to go through this period of experimentation in small groups, in which every student is given time to explore his or her personal concern. They need not tell their personal question to the other group members. Experimentation is just about deepening one’s relationship to the work of art by exploring it together with some others in more intense ways because of one’s personal commitment. The instruction might be: ‘Take some time to think about a personal question you would like to ask this artwork. Explore with the others whether you see new things in the piece of art now that you relate it to a personal concern. You need not be specific about this personal concern. Just tell one another what you see and experience now.’ Another possibility is to work with a concern shared by the whole group and ask them to come up with a question to ask to the artwork from that perspective. Whatever way is chosen,

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experimentation is not primarily a cognitive process; it also involves exploration of one’s emotions with regard to the artwork chosen or the (personal) concern one relates to it. Experimentation may result in an insight or expectation or actionintention with regard to the personal issue at stake for the participants. Alma calls this step in the cycle of imagination anticipation. Anticipation is not about an unequivocal answer to one’s question or a direct solution for one’s problem, but it is about a nascent sense of the ethical, existential and spiritual importance of one’s dialogue with an artwork that ‘replies’ to one’s attentive, exploring and committed way of approaching it. Anticipation is best evoked in silence, in a moment of meditation. The process may move fluently to the next step in the cycle: how can one find ways to articulate the insights or expectations gained and/or the emotions that go with them? This step is called expression, and students will have to find the adequate ‘material’ to express themselves: words, gestures, paper and pencil, paint and so on. Whatever material they choose, it will always add its own ‘voice’ to what is expressed and the result will never completely match what they had in mind. Material has its own resistance and brings both restrictions and possibilities. For this reason, there will be no one-toone relation between what students anticipate and what they express: the unruly world that provides them with material for expression, contributes to it in unpredictable ways. The last step in the cycle of imagination is reflection, but it actually plays a role in all of the steps taken (reflection-in-action). What do students learn from looking at the artwork attentively? Where do their associations come from? How open are they to experiment with insights and meanings when it comes to a personal concern? What do they dedicate themselves to in their anticipation? And finally: does their way of expression do justice to this whole process? How do they relate to others in their way of expression? Do they take the sensibilities of others involved into account? Are they able to give expression to what they value most deeply? Going through this cycle of imagination with students provides them with a way of practicing ethical, existential and spiritual re-orientation instead of just learning about it. They also experience that there is no endpoint to this practice: the cycle doesn’t stop, but can be taken up at another point or can be brought to a next level. Pedagogies of ethical education are about lifelong learning.

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CONCLUSION By way of conclusion, we want to highlight some aspects of this vulnerable process of ethical, existential and spiritual re-orientation. In the first place, it is important to take the personal experiences of uncertainty of young people very seriously in the process of ethical education. Every youngster has experiences of insecurity and uncertainty in his or her life. We can think of relatively small events of moving to another city, quarrelling with parents, trying to find friends at school. But they also witness violence in their own or broader surroundings, for example being bullied at school or messages of terrorist attacks that reach them through (social) media. These can all be seen as contrast experiences that ask for re-orientation. Young people can empathise with, understand and learn from the experiences others bring in. This sets the stage not for rational argument but for imaginative exploration. Our second point is that these personal experiences can be part of a hermeneutical process of understanding and articulation that depends on the moral imagination: (a) empathise with the perspective of the other; (b) reflect on one’s own and the other’s perspectives in the light of existential, spiritual and ethical questions and sources; (c) creatively develop new possibilities for shared perspectives and actions. As explained before, moral imagination doesn’t imply moral subjectivism. Young people can learn a lot from existential, spiritual and ethical sources that are part of their cultural heritage. We need to find new ways, however, to make these sources relevant for their experiences and reflections in the globalised landscape they find themselves in. Traditional ways of ‘transmitting’ these sources won’t work in most cases. We need the experiences and articulations of young people themselves, to explore and translate moral and spiritual traditions to make them relevant for our time. Our third point is that we can only learn in educational practices how the moral imagination can be trained. Teachers and students can enter reciprocal processes of finding different modes of articulation of personal experiences. As we have seen, teachers are no guides in the sense of clarifying ethical principles and their proper applications. They inspire their students to mutually enter an explorative process of finding new possibilities for actions that are relevant in the present situation. Fourthly, we would like to point out that there are many fruitful and relevant practices to learn from. Next to the cycle of imagination we presented here, the dialogical model Christa Anbeek has developed based on her

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approach to contrast experiences is a powerful tool (Anbeek, 2013, 2017, 2018, Anbeek and de Jong, 2013). Starting with personal experiences, group dialogues explore ways of articulation and transformation. The guiding question is: What could be of help in finding a way to new meaning in situations that ask for ethical, existential and/or spiritual re-orientation? What resources are of help and which hindrances do you meet on your way? The approach in this quest for meaning is explicitly open in a religious sense, although it can include wisdoms, insights and practices from worldview traditions or wider, from literature, philosophy, film and art. The search is guided by a hunger for meaning, but it is also critical: if something does not fit to the own experiences, it can be rejected. It is a dialogical and hermeneutical process in which the many-sidedness of phenomena is explored from different perspectives. These dialogues are not a search for a final truth; rather, they are truthseeking in full progress and without the possibility of coming to a final conclusion. We do not suggest that this approach offers definitive answers for the societal worries we started this article with. But making young people aware of cultural sources that inspire them, and giving them tools to enter into dialogue with others, is important in preventing (a) relativism and indifference with regard to worldview-positions and (b) being locked up in hermeneutical bubbles. It might help youngsters in their challenging search for meaning in an economy-driven society and in being open-minded in finding their own identity. It will be clear, and this will be our last point, that the explorative approach we suggest will do justice to these fundamental issues in education, ask for another perspective than one dominated by the rationaltechnical paradigm. Taking the moral imagination seriously implies a radical rethinking of how schools equip young people to find their way in life.

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Confirming Moral Agency Through Pedagogy of the Sacred and Pedagogy of Difference Hanan A. Alexander

In response to a global moral crisis characterised by an erosion in ethical values in some social settings – owing to the growth of secularism, decline of religion, and rise of relativism – and a hardening of traditional moral commitments in other cultural contexts – owing to perceived threats posed by these very trends – this book offers a relational ethic of care. Within this framework, the present chapter will consider a conception of the self that is especially conducive, if not essential, to becoming aware of and sensitive to one’s obligation to care for others as well as examining some of the educational processes that can nurture this sense of self, and hence this ethic, in school. But selves and schools live, and hopefully flourish, in particular social and cultural contexts, not in a vacuum. To understand how schools might foster a sense of self among their students conducive to an ethic of care, it will be necessary to consider the sort of society that can promote and sustain such an understanding of the self. Following Nel Noddings (2013), I argue that awareness of and sensitivity to the ethical imperative of caring for others requires the confirmation of an enriched version of oneself grounded in a personal sense of moral agency. This sense of agency entails the realisation that, within reasonable limits, one is free to choose a life path, sufficiently intelligent to understand the consequences of the path one has chosen, and capable of failing to follow that path, returning to it, or adjusting it as one sees fit. Such a deepened sense of self, grounded in the recognition that I am responsible for my own fate, so what I do and believe matters, affords the self-confidence to set one’s own needs and feelings aside, at least temporarily, in order to receive and attend to the needs and feelings of others. 93 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Western Ontario, on 18 Jul 2020 at 11:18:04, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108769778.010

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Properly conceived, open, pluralistic, liberal democratic societies are well-suited to promoting and sustaining such a sense of self. Hence, both faith-based and common schools of those societies, those that initiate into particular traditions and those that educate believers and unbelievers from a diversity of worldviews, ought to nurture moral agency, whether or not the schools are funded or sponsored by the state. Pedagogies of the sacred, which initiate students into intelligent spiritualties that give expression to particular identities, and pedagogies of difference, which teach and learn from and about a variety of worldviews, embody educational processes critical to that end.

ETHICS OF CARE AND DIVERSE LIBERAL SOCIETIES Why are open, pluralistic, liberal democratic societies especially suited to promoting and sustaining a conception of self that is conducive to an awareness of and sensitivity to the ethical obligation to care for others? It is because the sense of moral agency that constitutes such a view of oneself and one’s obligations is actually only fully possible in societies grounded in one or another account of liberalism. The primary alternatives to liberalism today are societies rooted in either ethical or ethnic republicanism, on the one hand, or in one or another interpretation of radical social theory, on the other – Marxism, neo-Marxism, postmodernism, or postcolonialism. Both republicanism and radicalism embrace alternative accounts of ethics that might as well be called monist or absolutist, and the sort of free choice, independent intelligence, and fallibility required of moral agency are significantly diminished in absolutist ethical theories (Alexander, 2015). Republican societies are characterised by a shared commitment to an accepted vision of the common good or a mutual devotion to a particular national or ethnic community. In either case, ethical education is thought to entail initiation into that conjoint ethical vision or political community. Broadly speaking, radical social theorists tend to embrace a total account of distributive justice such that economic and cultural resources should be allocated to diminish, if not eliminate, unequal access to authority and influence. Ethical instruction as conceived in these societies, sometimes called critical pedagogy (Freire, 2000) or counter-education (Gur-Ze’ev, 2003, 2008), is believed to liberate students from those false assumptions and oppressive practices that sustain existing inequitable power relations.

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Unlike objects, people can take responsibility for what they do because they are the agents of their actions: free to choose within reasonable limits, capable of understanding the moral meaning of their choices, and capable of being wrong in what they believe and how they behave. It is pointless for people to consider what sort of life they should live, to compare that life to that of another, or to critique either one, if their beliefs and behaviours are determined by history or society or chemistry or the gods, if they cannot understand the difference between the worthwhile and the worthless according to some account of these terms, or if they are destined to be either good or bad by providence or their very nature or their culture, class, or heritage (Alexander, 2001, pp. 44–48). To the extent that they insist on absolute ethical ideals, however, such as one or another national, cultural, or religious good or total equity in the distribution of social resources such as wealth, influence, and power, both republican and radical politics tend to diminish the capacity of individuals to make choices, which may or may not accord with preferred ideals or interests, according to their own understanding of their circumstances. Similarly, republican and radical political theories rely on preconceived concepts of the absolute good, rather than on the intelligent judgment of individuals to determine which life path is best (or good enough) for them. Although absolutism does allow that a person may err by deviating from a preconceived path, it precludes the possibility that such a path might be inappropriate for me or that I might choose another way if the one chosen for me turns out to be unsatisfactory for some reason. But what sort of liberal society is this open, pluralistic, democracy? Two common but problematic answers can be found in the writings of political philosophers John Rawls (1971, 1993) and Jürgen Habermas (1985, 1991). Rawls advocated for a political liberalism that balances procedural and distributive justices in pursuit of an overlapping consensus among competing comprehensive conceptions of the good, grounded in burdens of judgment, he called public reason. Habermas, on the other hand, bridged liberalism and neoMarxism in a form of multiculturalism that aspires to equal distribution of cultural goods among subjective life-worlds by conceiving rationality as communication in pursuit of intersubjective consensus rather than domination over others. The difficulty with both of these positions is that they seek to overcome the ethical problem posed by pluralism in open societies, or the idea that there may be more than one legitimate account of what it means to live a good life, by means of a consensus grounded in one or another account of reason,

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whether public or intersubjective. The acceptance of this account in turn becomes the price of entry into that society. Ethical education, in these views, requires initiation into a form of personal autonomy grounded in either public or intersubjective reason (Callan, 1988, 2004; Habermas, 1993). But this, of course, significantly limits the very idea of pluralism itself, which is necessary for the degrees of free choice, independent intelligence, and fallibility that ethical education requires. In this respect, these accounts of liberalism are in fact not too distinct from their republican and radical counterparts (Alexander, 2015). I propose, therefore, that Isaiah Berlin’s (1953, 1969) diversity liberalism may serve our deliberations well in pursuit of ethical education, grounded as it is in his distinction between positive and negative liberty, on the one hand, and the assumption of value-pluralism, on the other. Similar to the hardened moral traditions mentioned previously, positive liberty is the idea that in order to enjoy the benefits of freedom associated with membership in a particular public, one must first embrace a specific account of what it means to live a good life. Negative liberty, on the other hand, entails an absence of interference in the actions of another person, provided that those actions do not impose illegitimate constraints on anyone else. Untempered by its negative counterparts, positive accounts of liberty too often distinguish between a person’s actual self and a ‘higher’ self, of which she might not be fully aware. Although one’s empirical self may indeed feel free, one’s ‘true’ self may actually be enslaved. It is justifiable, on this account, to ignore peoples’ actual wishes and to bully, oppress, or torture them to embrace a particular way of life, in the secure knowledge that the true goal of existence – happiness, duty, wisdom, justice, self-fulfilment, or salvation – is identical with the free choice of their ‘higher’, albeit submerged and inarticulate, selves (Berlin, 1969, p. 133). To one degree or another, the republican, radical, and rational political theories appear to fall prey to this difficulty. By way of contrast, value-pluralism presupposes that the human condition is comprised of many different and often incommensurable forms of life. The task of political theory is not to impose one set of universal ideals grounded in reason, such as liberal toleration or distributive social justice. It is rather to seek a modus vivendi for living together across deep difference in peaceful coexistence (Galston, 1991, 2002; Gray, 2002). The publics that schools must serve in open, pluralistic, liberal societies, in this view, are characterised by an extraordinary diversity of rival and often contradictory beliefs and values, and there exists no neutral position, God’s eye perspective, Archimedean point, or ‘view from nowhere’ to adjudicate between them (Alexander, 2015,

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pp. 39–52; Nagel, 1986). This position entails the soft (or weak), and to my mind, trivial, relativistic assumption that our views of truth and goodness are profoundly informed by the cognitive and moral frames of reference within which they are formulated, and without which we could not conceive them. However, it does not embrace the harder (or stronger) incoherent consequence that it is impossible to criticise one framework on the basis of another. It is the latter sort of rampant relativism of which we need to be wary, not the former (Alexander, 2001, pp. 102–107).

ETHICAL EDUCATION AND MORAL AGENCY IN DIVERSE LIBERAL SOCIETIES The ethical problem of pluralism in societies that seek to educate students from diverse religious, cultural, and socio-economic backgrounds has to do with the source of moral authority for any normative claim. Faith-based schools in diverse democracies may face difficulties in teaching children to relate positively to those who follow different approaches to belief and unbelief than theirs, but at least parents and educators agree in principle that the curriculum should follow a particular theology or religious tradition. The common school curriculum, however, is more or less obliged to emphasise cognitive over moral content, owing to a lack of social agreement as to what ethical values public-sector schools of such diversity are actually entitled to teach. And if we recall that whatever else it may entail, education involves the transmission and transformation of worthwhile knowledge (Peters, 1965, 1967; Plato, 2002, 2008), this lack of normative agreement concerning what should count as worthwhile leads inevitably to a narrowing of cognitive content as well as to an emphasis on information useful to individuals to earn a living. Lawrence Kohlberg (1981a) and Paulo Freire (2000) proposed two especially influential attempts to address this challenge. Their approaches follow the liberal and multicultural leanings of Rawls and Habermas, respectively. Consequently, each approach falls prey to the difficulties associated with the political tradition with which it is aligned. Abandoning what he called Aristotle’s ‘bag of virtues’ approach to ethical education, Kohlberg’s account sought to facilitate movement through universal stages of moral development by the cultivation of moral reasoning skills until the student achieves the highest stage defined in terms of Immanuel Kant’s (1997, 2002) categorical imperative, to treat others as ends not merely as means, and Rawls’ (1971) two principles of procedural and

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distributive justices. Moral education, in this view, should promote the rational autonomy of students according to these moral principles. Among the many difficulties of this approach is that it assumes the (questionable) existence of a rational cognitive structure, the moral content of which develops according to the stages Kohlberg drew from the work of Jean Piaget (1997). This leads to the sort of positive account of liberty mentioned previously; if we all possess the same cognitive structure that develops along a universal path, the proper exercise of moral reasoning should always yield precisely the same results. In contrast to what Freire called the ‘banking conception of education’, in which teachers deposit the currency of predetermined knowledge into the minds of students, Freire’s critical pedagogue poses problems to be addressed by a community of students, according to the personal, familial, and cultural heritage each brings to the discussion. Students are called to challenge one another from their various perspectives in a dialogical process until a consensus is achieved that ameliorates the conflict between oppressors and oppressed, in which power is distributed equally among the diverse viewpoints that are brought to bear. This position might appear to entail a strong and problematic form of relativism, since the view of each student is presumed to be as valid as that of any other. This would preclude the critique of one view on the basis of another. However, by assuming a false dichotomy between oppressed and oppressor, Freire actually prefers the position of those seen as weak or dominated over those presumed to be strong or to dominate, in order to achieve an end characterised by absolute equality. Any consensus that is reached, therefore, will not actually equalise power relations, at least not totally, because it will exclude those holding the socalled hegemonic views that may not adhere to the presumed domination-free consensus. This can promote a feeling of victimhood on the part of those who experience themselves as dominated, grounded in the idea that one’s destiny is determined primarily by forces outside one’s self, rather than the sense of personal responsibility necessary for ethical education in which one can exercise control over one’s own life. This criticism mirrors some aspects of the postmodern critique of neo-Marxist multiculturalism, which challenges the idea that any consensus can ever liberate from domination of one view over another, or in Berlin’s formulation grounded in value-pluralism, that any account of positive freedom untempered by its negative counterpart cannot guarantee a modicum of personal liberty.

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These difficulties have led many educators back to an interpretation of Aristotle’s virtue ethics as a normative authority upon which to base ethical education in diverse common schools (Carr, Arthur, and Kristjansson, 2017; Steutel and Carr, 1999). This return to virtue ethics in schools is sometimes known as character education. It holds that education in ethics entails initiation into a moral tradition that espouses a concept of what it means to live a good life associated with particular traits that should characterise a person who lives such a life. Terence McLaughlin and Mark Halstead (1999) distinguished between ‘non-expansive’ and ‘expansive’ approaches to character education. Among non-expansive accounts of character education, the rationale for these traits tends to be limited and dogmatic in ways that may be inconsistent with some of the demands of open, pluralistic, liberal societies. In Berlin’s terms, these approaches tend to embrace versions of positive liberty untempered by its negative counterpart. Expansive accounts of character education, on the other hand, tend to be more nuanced, sophisticated, and dynamic, with rationales more amenable to the assumptions of diverse democracies (Alexander, 2015, pp. 161–78). Positive accounts of the good life, in Berlin’s terms, are tempered by the demands of negative liberty. An especially compelling account of expressive character education can be found in Noddings’ (2013) ethics of care, although Noddings (2002a) expressed reservations about the tendency among some character educators to impose goods on youngsters without taking into account their desires or interests. Influenced by Martin Buber’s (1996) non-conflictual approach to dialogue, according to which one subject is received into the inner life of another, Noddings places ‘feeling with’ one-cared-for by one-caring at the heart of her temperate view of the positive good. This is in contrast both to Kohlberg’s appeal to reasoning towards liberal moral principles and to Freire’s effort to eliminate domination and oppression. In my view, Noddings’ affective account of ethics in education can help to clarify a view of moral authority that can serve the demands of ethical education in both the faith and common schools of diverse democratic societies, the one serving a single religious tradition, the other a community of communities that encompasses multiple approaches to belief and unbelief. Although liberal democratic regimes may differ over the permissibility or desirability of funding all or part of both sorts of schooling from the public purse, the point here is one of principle concerning the very nature of ethical education itself, irrespective of how a particular society comes down on the question of public support for faith schools.

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In her now classic book Caring: A Relational Approach to Ethics and Moral Education, Noddings (2013) considers how a teacher might respond to a student caught cheating on an exam (p. 178). One can appeal to ‘grubby motives’, she points out. For example, the teacher might say to the student: ‘You cheated only because you want to get ahead at all costs, without investing the intellectual effort required to properly understand the material you were asked to learn for the test.’ Alternatively, Noddings suggests that the teacher appeal to what she calls the ‘best possible motive’. In this scenario, the teacher might say to the student: ‘I understand that you might want to get ahead or to help a friend or that you do not want to disappoint your mom or dad or both by receiving a poor grade. But let’s consider together the consequences of your decision to cheat, what it has actually achieved in this case, and what it means for you as a person.’ In the second scenario, Noddings contends, the teacher is confirming in the student an enriched version of herself, better than the one that she may have exhibited in the act of cheating. But what precisely is being confirmed in this scenario, and what does it mean to confirm it? It is one’s sense of moral agency that is being confirmed, which means enhancing the awareness that, within reasonable limits, one has the freedom to choose beliefs, desires, and actions; the intelligence to distinguish between better and worse according to some conception of these notions; and the capacity to make mistakes according to the moral concepts one has chosen to follow. Wherever it may begin, moral authority must ultimately be internalised within a person’s understanding of himself or herself, which requires a recognition that whatever else life has dealt me, I can still be the master of my own fate. These three criteria – freedom, intelligence, and fallibility – are the conditions of moral agency the assumption of which allow for the possibility of ethical dialogue across difference. To confirm a better version of a student’s self is to affirm the possibility that he or she has the capacity to change his or her life for the better, according to some account of what it means to be better. To become more ethically aware, in this view, entails strengthening the recognition that, like me, each human being is a moral agent encumbered in his or her own chosen way of life, according to his or her own understanding, which he or she may not always get right; to become more ethically sensitive involves a willingness to engage the other’s way of life on its own terms as a way of gaining critical insight into both one’s life and that of the other; and to become more ethically motivated entails an enhanced willingness to seek a modus vivendi to live together in peace across that which divides us, in a society in which we can set aside our own feelings and needs in

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order to care for others, even – or perhaps especially – when they are different from ourselves.

PEDAGOGY OF THE SACRED AND PEDAGOGY OF DIFFERENCE Confirming moral agency in a diverse liberal society cannot be accomplished in the abstract or in a vacuum. The realisation that one can in fact improve one’s lot by embracing a better version of one’s self must be embodied in particular moral traditions or conceptions of what it means to be better. But what should characterise traditions of this kind and how can students come to engage them? This requires two complementary sorts of educational processes: pedagogy of the sacred, which initiates one into a particular sort of worldview known as intelligent spirituality, and pedagogy of difference, which offers opportunities to learn from and about worldviews other than one’s own (Alexander, 2017a, 2018). Pedagogy of the sacred is concerned with initiation in a worldview that can form the basis of one’s primary identity while at the same time imparting the values and capabilities needed to engage alternative perspectives in dialogue. It entails the acquisition of intelligent ideals thought to be sacred through instruction in a comprehensive vision of how to live a good life – its languages and history; stories, songs, and dances; customs and ceremonies; and beliefs, values, and practices. Clearly, faith traditions constitute one important option for such an identity-shaping worldview; but non-religious ethical orientations can also serve this role. It is from this sanctified perspective that a person acquires the normative standards against which to judge beliefs, behaviours, and values on the basis of which one can participate in deliberation and debate in the public square (Alexander and Ben-Peretz, 2001). I have called the content of this sacred pedagogy ‘intelligent spirituality’. By suggesting that lives worth living can be discovered through identifying with learning communities devoted to visions of a higher good, such a conception of the spiritual life offers the contours of a curriculum in worldviews suitable for an ethical education in open, pluralistic, liberal democratic schools. Learning here is meant to convey that a community is prepared to adjust beliefs and customs according to engagement with alternative views and changing circumstances, and higher is used rather than highest to suggest that the ideals in question are subject to revision on the basis of that which is learned from experience. Although higher goods that address the whole of one’s life offer comprehensive visions of how one should live, they are also dynamic and evolving, not dogmatic and resistant to change (Alexander, 2001, pp. 139–170).

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But how is it possible to challenge sacred perspectives of this kind, which are grounded in particular traditions, given that there is no objective or intersubjective view upon which to base this sort of inquiry? One answer involves learning to view one orientation from the perspective of another. This is where pedagogy of difference comes into play. It involves instruction from or about worldviews other than one’s own, in which one can learn lessons from one or another tradition of belief or unbelief that might be applicable to one’s life or study a worldview from the outside, so to say, phenomenologically, as it might be experienced by the faithful, or culturally, in its historical or political context. It presupposes that an education worthy of the name must not only initiate into a concept of the sacred according to one tradition or another, but also offer exposure to alternative perspectives. One learns to critique, not only according to the internal standards of traditions to which one is heir or with which one has chosen to affiliate, but also according to the criteria of at least one alternative, if not more. Dialogue across difference is integral to pedagogy of this kind, which generates the possibility of education in a critical viewpoint. Each orientation is strengthened, not weakened, in this sort of critical dialogue through a process of mutual learning. The point of such an engagement is the same in both faith and common schools: to empower students with an inquisitive attitude towards the worldviews to which they are heir or with which they choose to affiliate and explore epistemological, ethical, cultural, and other similarities and dissimilarities between those worldviews and perspectives other than their own in ways that promote understanding of and respect for difference and that generate opportunities for juxtaposition and differentiation as well as engagement, synergy, intersection, and integration. In diverse democracies, the difference in application of these two pedagogies between faith and common schools should be one of emphasis, not of kind. In contrast to a commonly held view that pedagogy of the sacred should be the sole province of the faith school and pedagogy of difference of that of the common school, I would suggest that both pedagogies be present in both sorts of schools, but with different attitudes. Faith schools are permitted to initiate students into particular religious or cultural traditions in diverse democracies. Indeed, it is an important part of the mission of these schools that these traditions become a source of primary identity for their students. However, this mission should be undertaken with the explicit aim of nurturing the moral agency of their students, not just preserving the traditions in question across the generations. Accordingly, those traditions ought to reflect intelligent, not dogmatic, spiritualities, those that are prepared to teach and learn from and about other perspectives in order to engage them in dialogue.

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Common schools, on the other hand, are often precluded from initiating students into particular religious or cultural traditions of belief or unbelief in diverse liberal democracies. They must suppose that students may or may not come to school with strong religious or cultural affiliations that entail belief or unbelief. Yet, the prohibition of initiation into a particular orientation – religious, cultural, ethical, political, or otherwise – does not preclude acknowledging the particular heritages that students bring to school, in whatever forms or to whatever degrees of attachment those heritages are expressed, or teaching and learning from and about various religious and cultural traditions of belief and unbelief. On the contrary, it is precisely this sort of acknowledgement and instruction that is incumbent on the common school as a means of nurturing moral agency, and promoting mutual understanding and respect among their students through dialogue. In both sorts of schools, however, it is by way of this sense of empowerment that awareness of one’s moral agency is confirmed, which in turn enables the self-confidence required to set one’s own feelings and needs aside, even if only temporarily, in order to exhibit sensitivity to others by receiving and attending to their feelings and needs before one’s own. Noddings calls the moment of ethical awareness and sensitivity ‘engrossment’. Unlike the more common term empathy, which involves imagining one’s self in another’s place, engrossment involves reception not projection, in a moment, as described by Buber (1996), in which the other ‘fills the firmament’. However, unlike Buber, who understood dialogue to entail the merger of two subjectivities into one intersubjective relationship through a process of mutual embrace, and Freire, who conceived dialogue as liberating the identity of an individual subject into a multicultural collective of total equality, according to Noddings, the subjective identity of the one-cared-for remains distinct from that of the onecaring, only enriched and empowered through dialogue. The feeling of moral self-confidence that makes this moment possible is accomplished by subjecting all perspectives to critical scrutiny, both my own and those of others, from within and without, in ways that are appropriate to the educational setting in question. The faith school curriculum should facilitate moral agency, first by education in and from a particular worldview, and then in dialogue with alternatives about which students may have learned, whereas the common school curriculum should teach about, and occasionally from, but rarely in, a particular tradition of belief or unbelief. And although teachers may hold particular positions in both sorts of settings and are entitled, sometimes even obliged, to advance those views when educating in or from a particular perspective, their role in dialogue

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discussions is to foster independent judgment and respect for difference by critically engaging views that are different from one’s own (Alexander, 2017b). Both pedagogy of the sacred and pedagogy of difference should find their way into what Elliot Eisner (1994) called the ‘explicit’ and John Goodlad (1979) the ‘formal’ curriculum, in subject matter that is approved for instruction in both faith and common schools. But it is important to emphasise that both pedagogies should also be found in what Eisner called the ‘implicit’ and Goodlad the ‘experienced’ curriculum, especially in relationships between teachers and students and among the students themselves, inside and outside of the classroom. Consider once again Noddings’ example of the student who cheated on an exam, which lies on the border between the explicit or formal and the implicit or experienced curricula. Without naming the ethical traditions in question or discussing them abstractly, Noddings proposes that the student be engaged in a discussion of alternative possible justifications for what many might perceive as a problem behaviour: a neoliberal ideology of achievement (‘I can understand that you might want to get ahead’), a collectivist or altruistic perspective (‘or to help a friend’), and a traditional orientation that honours parents (‘or to disappoint your mom or dad or both’). The purpose of this discussion is not merely to pass judgment on the actual justification or even on the behaviour itself, or to attribute it to the student’s ‘grubby motives’. Rather, its aim is to empower the student to pass judgment on himself or herself by considering alternative behaviours, in line with alternative justifications, in order to become a better version of himself or herself, according to some account of what it means to be better (‘let’s consider together the consequences of your decision to cheat, what it has actually achieved in this case, and what it means for you as a person’). The goal of this sort of dialogue, in short, is to confirm the student’s sense of himself or herself as a moral agent, initiated into a vision of what it means to be a better version of himself or herself, aware of the strengths and weaknesses of alternative possibilities, and who is free, intelligent, and fallible. Having learned from and about worldviews other than his or her own, a student who has experienced these dialogical pedagogies will be equipped with respect for difference and the moral self-confidence to set aside his or her feelings and needs in order to receive those of others into himself or herself as one-caring attends to one-cared-for, even (or especially) if those needs and feelings reflect ways of life that are unfamiliar or contrary to his or her own. Respect for difference and moral self-confidence of this kind are primary sources of the peaceful coexistence across deep difference to which we ought to aspire through education in diverse democratic societies.

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Conclusion to Part II Scherto Gill and Garrett Thomson

In different ways, the chapters in this second part of the book have articulated some important aspects of the pedagogy of ethical education. First is the central idea that ethical education will involve spaces for encounters and interactions between teachers and students and amongst young people themselves, for dialogue and informal exchanges that have a transformative power in their own right. Here ‘transformative’ means that they shake up the assumptions and transcend the boundaries of a person’s worldview and, through this, allow for new shared meanings. The spaces will enable students to experience and reflect on the qualities of existing relationships in the school community, as well as building new relationships. There is also a closely allied point: ethical education necessarily involves a sharpened or deepened sensibility or sensitivity to the reality of others and their lived experiences. All authors stress the contextual and nuanced nature of such perception or attunement. It doesn’t consist in a pre-packaged, easily measurable set of outcomes and cannot be reduced to a recipe. They indicate how such sensibility eradicates the sharp divide between cognition and emotion or feeling. For example, part of care and empathy is sympathetic perception of the needs and feelings of others. Of course, this opening-up to the experiential realities of others is precisely what makes dialogue and encounters potentially transformative. Third, the three authors indicate the spiritual potentialities of such interactions. For example, Todd, in Chapter 4, emphasises a Buddhist phenomenological aspect to the process of becoming human, namely a reorientation towards unravelling the centrality of the self. In Chapter 5, Alma and Anbeek argue for the need for a spiritual reorientation as an antidote to moral 105 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Western Ontario, on 18 Jul 2020 at 11:18:04, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108769778.011

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blindness and existential fragility. In Chapter 6, Alexander argues for a conception of intelligent spirituality that needn’t be wedded to a specific faith tradition but rather to a conception of a higher good that would involve commitment to the claim that life is worth living. All three authors avoid an absolute and predefined idea of spirituality, yet they have in common the idea that ethical education requires an opening of the self to others in a way that constitutes a deepened engagement with what is most fundamentally worthwhile or valuable in life. Finally, all three authors indicate that ethical education in school shouldn’t be regarded primarily as a preparation or training for an ethical life, as something for later on. Rather, it is part of the daily life of the students at the school. Indeed, insofar as ethical relationships are embedded in the living culture of the school, they become integral to all interactions, irrespective of roles. The pedagogy of ethical education is constituted by ethical relationships.

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Part III Ethical Education in Practices

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Introduction to Part III Scherto Gill and Garrett Thomson

The third part of the book is dedicated to teaching and learning practices that can illustrate how ethical education may be possible in public education, but also have a profound impact on students’ relational enrichment, holistic development and well-being. For ethical education practices to be rooted in school communities, the authors first highlighted the structural barriers to overcome. They then discussed the necessary ethics-oriented principles to underpin the institutional processes and practices. The main thrust of these chapters is to demonstrate that by focusing primarily on human relationships, ethical education can truly inspire children and young people to become more open, respectful and accepting in their attitudes and relationships with others. In turn, through such processes, students’ self-awareness is equally developing, which is located within the community, or as part of the ‘we’.

CHALLENGING INSTRUMENTALISATION IN EDUCATION The authors have pointed out that the greatest structural barrier to ethical education is instrumentalisation. In Chapter 7, McLaughlin draws on Dewey’s view that direct experience is paramount to students’ learning and argues that for schooling to be a meaningful experience, it must overcome the instrumental aim that has, for so long, plagued education. She suggests that an attainmentdriven, high-stakes testing-based assessment system is an example of how education is being instrumentalised. Equally, she sees the subject knowledge– oriented and highly coercive curriculum as a similar instance. As a result, 109 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Western Ontario, on 18 Jul 2020 at 11:18:05, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108769778.012

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students’ learning through lived experiences within school community and direct engagement in both ethical relationships and ethical actions has been ignored. In Chapter 8, Mao reflects on Chinese society’s recent changes, including the much-desired shift from the pursuit of economic growth to the quest for holistic human development, including the imperative to cultivate students’ inner qualities. This indicates a promise of a transition from an instrumental view of education towards a more well-being-oriented and whole-person perspective. However, the challenges remain to transcend the materialistic profitbased mentalities to embrace a values-based consciousness. In Chapter 9, Gill echoes similar concerns, and points out that external goals and pressure can make vulnerable students feel disaffected and demotivated about learning.

HUMAN VALUES Each of the authors has laid out values and principles to be underlying ethical education. For Mao, it is an understanding of the relational processes underpinning the unfolding of whole human beings, meanings and community. It should be translated to all aspects of the school’s practices as we shall see. For Gill, a most important concern of ethical education is our respect for young people as whole human beings, which means that teaching and learning practices are to be tailored to students’ diverse needs, and their well-being needs to be prioritised in schools, and there cannot be a one-size-fits-all approach to education. She also stresses the primacy of integrating ethical spaces in the curriculum to embed learning in relationships. In this way, students not only participate in co-creating these spaces, they can also help enrich the myriad relationships. McLaughlin adds that students’ lived experiences in schools, both formal and informal, must be taken really seriously. She suggests that only within a relational environment, students can have the opportunity to experience what it means to be learning within a community, which further strengthens their sense of belonging and enables them to become more caring.

RELATIONAL-BASED ETHICAL EDUCATION PRACTICES Situated within very different socio-economic and political contexts, the rich examples of ethical education practices in the third part of the book have

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indeed offered meaningful insights into the practical applications of ethical education in all aspects of teaching and learning. For instance, in Chapter 7, McLaughlin examined three approaches to ethical education, including experiential learning, dialogue and community-based learning in SubSaharan schools to engage in multi-party conversations (about taboos) to develop HIV awareness, and relation-focused and restorative practices in dealing with bullying. In all three examples, McLaughlin highlights the importance of locating learning in students’ lived experiences in education, and their ongoing reflection on these experiences. To do this, schools must involve all stakeholders in the reflective and relational processes, and consider the potentialities for learning embedded in many possible sites, including formal spaces, such as classrooms; informal spaces, such as canteens and playgrounds; and even staff rooms and governance meetings. These sites must be inclusive, engaging all voices, especially those of the students. In Chapter 8, Mao introduced a large-scale educational innovation initiative in China, reaching hundreds of thousands of primary and secondary students. The cultivating inner qualities (CIQ) pilot is built on a comprehensive theoretical and pedagogical framework, aimed at wholeschool transformation. The author painstakingly documented in detail the six dimensions of or pathways to a whole-school approach to ethical education, including enhancing leadership qualities; strengthening teachers’ personal and professional qualities; integrating CIQ in the whole curriculum including subject-learning; transforming schools’ vision, ethos and governance; actively sustaining home–school partnership and community outreach. The pilot programme has been introduced to some of the most vulnerable students in China, and the team’s initial findings showed that cultivating students’ inner qualities cannot be separated from all the pedagogical considerations underlying the relevant ethical practices. Clearly, relationships in schools are neither static nor spontaneous, but rather they are dynamic and strategically nurtured. Indeed, as the pilot illustrates, it is in the systematic design of educative processes, as well as in the daily intentional practices of collaboration, dialogue, listening and mutual care within and beyond school campuses that relationships become more generative, and more affirmative of our humanity, thereby contributing to our holistic well-being. These features of ethical practices in schools are further mirrored in Gill’s case study in Chapter 9. As a pilot programme carried out in two state schools, one in England and one in Colombia, the case study describes the processes and pedagogical practices involved in creating three ethical spaces

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for vulnerable students, some of who have special educational needs and disabilities. Each of these spaces is designed to meet the young people’s needs during adolescence: the first is the mentoring space where a trusting relationship between the young person and an adult can help the student develop self-awareness which is intimately connected to relationships with others; the second is an exploration space where students can experience, explore and reflect on feelings, emotions and relations in the safety of the group; and the third is an inquiry space where students are enabled to improve their language and cognitive capacities, and question the lived realities of one another and learn to understand each other and things in the world. All three chapters in this part of the book point out that for education to be truly oriented towards the ethical, schools must provide opportunities for teachers’ professional learning and development to enhance their capacity to facilitate students’ experiences, reflections and relationships.

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Re-Learning the Value of Direct Experience Schools as Ethical Communities Colleen McLaughlin

This chapter locates the ethical dimension of education within the students’ lived experiences in schools. Ethical education is concerned with providing relevant, intended and continuous direct experiences to enable young people to grow with a sense of respect and empathy for others, and to engage, think and act ethically. One of the questions raised is: What changes in educational institutions would be essential in helping students to become more ethically aware, sensitive and motivated? These include engaging in peer and adult relationships characterised by care and reflection, and encounters with ethical issues and the relating topics of justice, fairness and equality. Reflecting on such practices in a variety of educational contexts such as in Ghana, Swaziland and Kenya, this chapter proposes a number of steps and practices towards ethical education in schools, including mapping out relational and ethical spaces in schools, integrating the ethos of building schools as ethical communities, consolidating curriculum activities and so forth. Examples can teach us principles to base our educative practices upon. I conclude that in doing so, students and teachers will not only learn about relationships but more importantly they will learn in relationship.

LEARNING THROUGH DIRECT EXPERIENCE My central argument is that young people learn through experience, planned and unplanned, in formal and informal spaces. Schooling provides a space and time in which young people are engaging with each other, with the adults in school and with significant experiences which shape their development. If we are to take seriously the ethical and social learning of young people then schools must provide experiences which enable young people to develop 113 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Western Ontario, on 18 Jul 2020 at 11:18:03, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108769778.013

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a sense of respect and empathy for others; engage in peer and adult relationships characterised by care and reflection; encounter and reflect on ethical issues, and related issues of justice, fairness and equality. This proposition is based on a philosophical position but also on research in this area, particularly by Kohlberg (1981a, 1984), Gilligan (1982) and Noddings (1984, 1992, 2002a).

Direct Experience

It is not a new argument that education and learning are inseparable from experience. In his famous 1938 text, Dewey explored the nature of the connection between education and experience, and proposed: ‘We do not learn from experience . . . we learn from reflecting on experience’ (Dewey, 1916, p. 239). Here, experience and learning are synonymous: an experience requires reflection in order to be educative. This matters, for the reflection in the present helps us to access the future in a constructive fashion: our reflection sets up future possibilities. . . . ‘an experience may be such as to engender callousness; it may produce lack of sensitivity and of responsiveness. Then the possibilities of having richer experience in the future are restricted’ (Dewey, 1938, p. 25). It is up to the teacher and the school to foster and enable that reflective experience. Accordingly, ‘the central problem of an education based upon experience is to select the kind of present experiences that live fruitfully and creatively in subsequent experiences’ (Dewey, 1938, p. 26). Thus Dewey argued that education is ‘of, by and for experience’ (1938, p. 28), that experiences have to be discriminated and reflected upon, and that in order to be educative they have to be defined as worthwhile and of good quality, otherwise it is not education but mere experience. He went on further to say that the worthwhile experience was underpinned by two principles if it was to be educational: that they are humane, based on kind and caring human relations; and that they are democratic, based on ethical social relations, for it is these aspects that ensure educative experiences to be worthwhile. This led to his third principle: that they are continuous. It is about habit in the deepest sense, or culture. By establishing a set of attitudes, emotional and intellectual, which comprise ‘our basic sensitivities and ways of meeting and responding to all the condition which we meet in living’, we are able to foster learning from experience (Dewey, 1938, p. 35). The aim is to reflect on the present to inform development in the future. This becomes an important process to evaluate which experiences are educationally worthwhile. The question we

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ask is, ‘Does this form of growth create conditions for further growth?’ (Dewey, 1938, p. 35) The implications of Dewey’s work are significant. It is clear that all educational activity should be evaluated for their worthwhileness and schools have usually done this via the curriculum, which I take to be the planned learning experience of what society deems to be useful. This is where the practices of schooling become separated from the deep roots of educational thinking. So, the errors start with defining the curriculum as the planned timetable of subject learning, and with the assumption that school should be a preparation for life. This is an instrumental way of perceiving education. By contrast, if learning is to be determined by experience, we cannot be just learning from subject knowledge. We must widen our scrutiny to include those experiences young people have in school that not only are meaningful for their well-being here and now, but also contribute to the community’s well-being and wider flourishing of the world. For instance, we need to include the psycho-social aspects of education and what we have is sometimes referred to as the hidden curriculum. This encompasses all aspects of the daily lived experience of being in a school. Currently, there is a tendency to place many of the psycho-social aspects into formal aspects of the curriculum or create subjects such as Character Education or Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE). This is to deny the complexity of the psycho-social learning that is taking place in schools, and these experiences are not reflected upon in a continuous or systematic way by either teachers or students. If experience matters, and if reflection on experience matters even more, then what are the key areas of learning in the psycho-social ethical dimensions of schooling? We know from research studies (Gilligan, 1982; Gray et al., 2011; McLaughlin and Clarke, 2010; Noddings, 1984, 1992; Kohlberg, 1981a, 1984) that there are key arenas of this kind of learning, including interactions and relationships between peers, as well as between adults and students; learning about self from the socio-emotional aspects of experience (Dweck, 1999); and processes in school involving issues of relationship, power, equity, fairness and responsibility. Dweck has shown that young people learn about self, agency and self-efficacy through feedback, from both adults and peers. This learning shapes our view of whether we can be active in the world and our habits of thinking and acting: two important aspects of the ethical. Kohlberg’s (1981b) studies of learning in the moral domain was based on an interest in how children develop. He came to agree with Dewey that development should be the focus of ethical education. He saw human beings as

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motivated to explore and be heavily influenced by their social environments, especially by role models. He saw the importance of families, peers and processes of decision-making in moral development; he also saw perspective taking and the development of empathy as key elements in this development. His work moved from studying moral developmental stages to the development of ethical education in schools, particularly the development of schools as ‘just communities’. Personal development required engagement with lived experience of ethical issues. Gilligan (1982, 1992), who had studied with Kohlberg, shifted the focus onto relationships and argued for an ethic of care. Her 1992 study showed that there were significant gender differences in how young people saw issues of morality and ethics. Others have recognised that societal expectations are highly gendered, so this may account for it. Gilligan’s emphasis on care and its ethics was taken up by Noddings (1984, 1992), who argued for relational ethics, one not so much emphasising the justice elements of morality but the relational care aspects. Noddings (1984) argues that caring is ‘rooted in receptivity, relatedness, and responsiveness’ (p. 2). This brief description of some moral development studies and approaches to ethical education is intended to highlight the importance of school experience, as well as the significance of sites of learning. Apart from the aspects brought to the fore, such as learning about ourselves and others through relationships with adults and peers; role models; and learning about justice, perspective taking and care in all interactions in school, I have also argued for the totality of the school experience and the active managed reflection on school experience. What then are the current barriers to this approach? Barriers to Direct Experiences

As I have already noted, current policy focuses on moral development in the formal and informal curriculum through PSHE and Character Education. The DFE (2017) notes that there has been ‘increasing recognition of the role that certain character traits or attributes such as resilience, self-regulation, and emotional and social skills can play in enabling children and young people to achieve positive health, education, employment and other outcomes’ (DFE, 2017, p. 3). A research study undertaken on conceptions of character development in schools ‘was seen to be embedded in the school and integral to its overarching aims and purpose, rather than a stand-alone set of lessons or activities’ (DFE, 2017, p. 6). Studies of school cases showed that they viewed their roles as: encouraging students to understand, value and

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demonstrate the positive behaviour traits that would make them wellrounded, grounded citizens; supporting the development of the skills required to function in and contribute to society; supporting social and emotional development in order for students to better understand themselves and work on their weaknesses; and instilling in the students a moral compass, and skills in understanding and interacting with other people (DFE, 2017). This finding is presented in very different terms from those used by Dewey and other key scholars quoted so far. It comes across as rather instrumental and does not include the reflective role for the teacher described earlier. The DFE (2017) research found that, in case study settings with high levels of provision, key messages and values were promoted and reiterated at different levels in order to embed character education across the life of the school. Assemblies, tutor time, PSHE lessons, Spiritual Moral Social and Cultural (SMSC) and extra-curricular activities were all cited as opportunities to drip feed the desired messages to students, and encourage them to reflect upon, develop and demonstrate character traits. This is a rather didactic approach, but some strategies mirrored other research findings, for instance, where staff–student relationships were also seen as key, with staff modelling desired traits, and being approachable and engaging to encourage students to be open with them and take on board their advice. There are also other significant challenges to face. I have already mentioned that one is the conception of moral development as instrumental and didactic. The DFE (2017) study acknowledges the need for staffing time and notes that there are capacity challenges. Competing time pressures were reported to largely come from the introduction of new curriculum specifications and pressures, such as performance-related pay and inspection requirements, that encouraged schools to focus on academic subjects and performance results. Allocating staff time to deliver character education, sharing ideas and resources amongst staff, and having a culture where staff felt valued themselves and could understand the benefit of character education were identified as essential in overcoming this staff capacity as a barrier (DFE, 2017, p. 9). The Jubilee Centre in Birmingham has been a key player in the development of these policies, and Arthur et al.’s (2015) report states that 80 per cent of teachers interviewed on this topic stated that the British assessment system hinders the development of the whole child. In other words, the current system can hold back the development of a child’s moral character. ‘The majority claimed that exams have become so pervasive in schools that they have crowded out other educational goods’ (Arthur et al., 2015 p. 5). These

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structural policy drivers are substantial barriers to a wider and effective view of ethical education. Other research has shown the connection between many of the concerns about young people and their mental health as well as issues related to ethics. One particular example also showcases how the vision of the priorities of a school can drive practices that harm the learning experience of children and young people in this area of moral or ethical development. A recently reported study of the use of break and lunch times in schools by Baines and Blatchford (2019) is discussed below in some detail. They note the ‘substantial changes to schools and education in England’ and the ‘increasing pressure on schools to increase standards whilst also supporting the needs of their students to meet the changing challenges of living in 21st century society’ (p. 4). Over the last two decades, they note that there have been growing concerns about the mental health of children and young people; marked changes in the social lives of children; a decline in children’s independence of movement and corresponding reduction in offline opportunities for informal peer interaction and play outdoors; rising level of online communication and interaction, and increased interest in attendance of adultorganised after-school activities and clubs. These changes suggest that young people are being treated as more dependent on adults, and are being given a more passive role in their social settings and in school. They have decreased opportunities for unstructured peer experiences in schools. Why does this matter? Break and lunch times are the parts of the school day when young people are able to ‘meet friends and socialise, eat, visit the toilet and engage in activities that are meaningful for them in a setting relatively free of adult control’ (Baines and Blatchford, 2019, p. 4). Previous research by these authors has shown that break times are some of the most valued times and experiences they have in school and play an important part in social development. Their 2019 study found that there has been a reduction in the length of break times since 2006 and a really marked decline since 1995. ‘Since 1995 breaktimes have been reduced by an average of 45 minutes per week for the youngest children in school (at KS1) and by 65 minutes per week for students in secondary school (at KS3 and 4). These reductions are caused by the cutting out of afternoon breaks and, increasingly, the shortening of the lunch break’ (p. 6). So here is an example of the reality of the relationship between policy, which focuses upon the formal subject learning as the experience that education should focus upon, and the desire to develop other aspects of the school’s educational plan. This study highlights how current accountability pressures are driving practice. The experience of young people becomes distorted, and schools cut down on

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the important unstructured experiences from which young people learn and develop socially and morally. These practices are going in the opposite direction to the emphasis on the lived experience of the young people.

PRINCIPLES UNDERLYING ETHICAL EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE Shaping some principles based on research and scholarship will be helpful in guiding practices and judging the worthwhile nature of these practices. The argument so far is that reflection on experience is the key to the development of ethical thinking and action in young people’s development of the habits that Dewey (1938) described as important drivers of later action and growth. The following principles may be helpful in guiding our practice. Researchers such as those already cited have shown that ethical behaviour is learned and is contextually related. It is learned through experience and in the relationships that matter to us, as well as in the norms and practices valued by the worlds we inhabit. We know too that schools make a large contribution to ethical, social and emotional learning (Gray et al., 2011; McLaughlin, 2010). The first principle I propose is that young people and their current lived experience matter and should be taken seriously in schools. This principle includes the conception that the school is an ethical community and its practices matter; it is similar to Kohlberg’s idea of the ‘just community’. This principle also entails recognising that a pedagogical willingness to attend to ‘what matters to children’ is essential for their healthy conceptual and moral growth (Rich, Drummond, and Myer, 2008). The second principle is that long-lasting emotional and social learning about ethics is rooted in relationships characterised by respect, acceptance and diversity. Teachers should not just provide learning about relationships but should enable young people to learn in relationship. When young people are asked to articulate issues of significance to them, they raise questions about power (bullying), meaning and purpose, and a sense of exclusion or inclusion (Broadbent et al., 2017). Teachers should focus on the quality, nature and existence of relationships with and between young people in schools. This work should include developing a sense of understanding of the other, of solidarity with others, and an acceptance of difference and ambiguity.

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The third principle is that of belonging and caring. The assumption here is that one learns to care for others by being cared for, and feeling that one belongs. This is captured in Nel Noddings’ words below: The key, central to care theory, is this: caring-about (or, perhaps a sense of justice) must be seen as instrumental in establishing the conditions under which caringfor can flourish. Although the preferred form of caring is cared-for, caring-about can help in establishing, maintaining, and enhancing it. Those who care about others in the justice sense must keep in mind that the objective is to ensure that caring actually occurs. Caring-about is empty if it does not culminate in caring relations. (Noddings, 2002, pp. 23–24)

These three principles could become effective guides to practices in schools, classrooms, staffrooms and playgrounds.

TOWARDS ETHICAL EDUCATION PRACTICE I explore three examples from different spheres of school life to illustrate these principles. The first is an example of an experiential approach to learning – that is the preferred mode of learning because of its relationship to experience; the second is taken from a six-country study in Sub-Saharan Africa on a controversial topic – HIV/Aids and sex education; and the third example considers some approaches to bullying and how to handle it. Experiential Learning

The label of experiential learning is a fairly new one but the concept is not. In 350BC, Aristotle wrote that ‘for the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them’ (1955). More recently, Lewin (1946) and Kolb (1984) have developed theories of learning from and through experience, Lewin through action research and action learning, and Kolb through experiential learning. Both promote: active engagement – with materials and resources, with ideas and perhaps with other people; active sense-making – standing back from the experience, reflecting to create knowledge, extracting meaning and consequences (summarised in the sequence ‘What?’ – ‘So what?’ – ‘Now what?’). Watkins (2008) outlines the common elements in these active/experiential learning models. They entail iterative processes of planning, doing, reviewing, learning and applying. These processes need to be applied to ethical

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learning too, and that includes what we are learning about ourselves and our agency through school experience. Dweck’s (1999) work shows how this is embedded in the daily interactions around learning in schools. When thinking about moral learning and related practices in school, admonition and praise would feature. In the quotation earlier (DFE, 2017, p. 6) on developing character, it could come under the heading of ‘instilling the moral compass’. Dweck (1999) has researched in great detail how young people form their sense of goodness or badness. She has shown that all of us have theories of ability and character, that is, is it fixed or malleable, which deeply affect our later sense of agency or helplessness. She has shown that the use of praise and blame, and feedback are central to the learning about self and agency. Her studies show that the use of praise and blame carries ‘a host of dangers’ (1999, p. 117); the danger of children feeling helpless and dependent on praise as well as the need to save face if confronted with criticism. These are processes deeply embedded in pedagogy, feedback and relationships in school, and her work shows the importance of learning reflection about informal events in the classroom and school if young people are to develop as moral agents. The later example using bullying confirms this. As Kolb (1984) reminds us, learning is viewed as a process and not in terms of outcomes. He defines it thus: ‘Learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience’ (p. 38). This is here a tension with some current views of learning embedded in policy. Paying heed to experience hence has profound implications for learning in classrooms and for how the formal curriculum operates. It requires that we pay attention to how we relate to experience in all learning in schools. Participatory and Collaborative Learning in Sub-Saharan Schools

An example is the research project I worked on with colleagues: an attempt to address the curriculum problem of sex education in six sub-Saharan countries. Sub-Saharan Africa remains the region of the world most severely impacted upon by HIV and AIDS. This had posed a heightened need to include within curriculum the ethical spaces and opportunities to engage children and young people about sex and sexuality, and to enable new ways of thinking about sex and sexuality. By doing so, it also helped transcend ‘dead end debates’ about what should and should not be taught. HIV and AIDS rates are highest amongst young people in this area of the world. There is an urgent need for effective sex education in schools, literally a matter of life and death. It was and is a highly complex socio-cultural task

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since in these social contexts it entailed engaging with taboos and ethical issues. In many of the cultures, it is taboo for adults to talk to children about sex, which is discussed using euphemisms. In addition, young people are presumed ignorant and innocent (Cobbett et al., 2013, p. S70; McLaughlin et al., 2012). This complex moral and social environment meant that, in schools, programmes had resorted to fact giving and didactic pseudoscientific approaches which had not engaged at all with the children’s experience nor accepted the complexity of the teachers. Other research studies in Southern and Eastern Africa found that ‘children are largely given a series of moral injunctions teaching them that “sex is bad”’. When these messages shape teaching, children were found to respond by giving ‘appropriate responses’, mirroring the moral views offered by teachers even though these may not reflect their own practices and attitudes in their ‘out-ofschool worlds’ (Cobbett et al., 2013, p. S71). We worked on this curricular problem by designing a different approach and studying its impact. We began with finding out the children’s experiences, then using participation, reflection and dialogue to resolve the tensions. We asked Year 6 primary school children about their sexual knowledge, their hopes and desires for sex education, and we found that they possessed sophisticated sexual knowledge and were able to articulate what they wanted to know and how they wanted to learn (McLaughlin et al., 2012). We concluded by bringing together students, teachers and community stakeholders to share and discuss the children’s views. This process demonstrated that open dialogue could be a powerful methodological intervention enabling communities to work through tensions and differences about what should be taught. The community members expressed empathy and understanding of the need for a different socio-cultural approach, embodying almost all the features we have discussed about learning from experience. The following extract from a dialogue between students, elders and teachers shows the genuine sharing of experience and the deep reflection on that experience which results in a major shift of approach. The group in Kenya have been responding to a male student who asked what they would do if a young person told them that he has had sex. They discuss how there is a need to educate but also to be appropriate. Here is a recount of their exchange. grandmother: When a child says that he or she is used to having sex, this is as a result of mistakes we parents have made where our children are concerned. For example, a parent chooses to sleep in the same room

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with their 12-year-old son or daughter. Therefore, the activities that take place between you and the man, our children are seeing far and wide whatever you are doing. That child is not sleeping. The child watches and sees what the mother is doing. Such a child starts practicing the same thing he or she has been watching. The duty of us, parents, is to protect our children even though we are poor. We should not wait when a child is 12 years to give them a room of their own, because at times when a child is just 3 years old, you find that such a child can be watching what takes place between the father and mother and starts practicing that subject. Therefore, we parents should take that responsibility, placing our children in other rooms so that they do not see that activity. Thank you. female chief: It has already been agreed that we should start teaching our children sex education at an early age. Mine is still on the language issue [the terminology to be used for speaking about sex]. Mama C . . . has already said that we tell them ‘jongo’ [a euphemism for ‘penis’, used instead of ‘mboro’]. [Laughter] female chief: When we tell them jongo they will continue using the word jongo. I would like this forum to be used to decide the language that should be used. Like in standard one do I tell them the exact word or – ? many: Yes! ms kerubo: What do I do? Or do I use the language we use like when we were being taught science, in standard seven or in standard eight or do we use jongo instead of telling them mtoto analetwa na ndege [children are brought by aeroplanes]. May I know that one? many: [Group express surprise and laughter] ms kerubo: Sssshhhhhh! [Asks for quiet]. Okay I think in the school the teacher – whenever we have school meetings with parents – it is very important for somebody to [take a] stand. A teacher to talk to parents about sex and HIV/AIDS because we might take it for granted that they know everything and you might find out that some of these things they don’t know. So, it is very important we educate the parents. And also, when we are in school, during our discussions with our pupils – let us bring them close to us so that they are free to ask any questions they want (McLaughlin et al., 2012, p. 88).

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This dialogue is all the more remarkable since this increasingly frank discussion occurred in an environment where such conversations would be taboo. It embodies the principles of ethical learning in a community. We learned that experience is not enough and reflection is not a natural or necessarily benign process. In some settings the adults used their power to reinforce their own views and impose them in a more subtle fashion. But where the adults were able to put themselves in the shoes of the young people, imagine their lives and respond to their vulnerability real change took place. We concluded that ‘the creation of participatory spaces will be most successful when such spaces are carefully governed and facilitated’ (Cobbett et al., 2013, p. S82). We wanted to show the need to think carefully about the modes of reflection on experience and the issues of power associated with them. Using anonymously written questions facilitated much more openness and reflection on experience than the verbal elicitation by teachers of questions from rather fearful students. Ethical Approaches to Bullying in UK Schools

The final example of using experience in a topic of importance in young people’s lives is bullying. The handling of difference and conflict in peer groups is a major preoccupation in the lives of young people today. Ethically, its mode of resolution is of vital importance to establish future patterns of growth, as Dewey would frame it. How staff groups react to bullying and the methods they use can have a big impact on the effectiveness of reducing it, as well as the ethical learning taken from it. Rigby (2017) summarises the six most common interventions for dealing with bullying being employed in the United Kingdom. They are: the use of sanctions, strengthening the victim, mediation, restorative approaches, the Support Group Method and the Method of Shared Concern. These latter three methods require the unforced cooperation of students, and time dedicated to guided reflection, led by a teacher, on the experiences and feelings of both those perpetrating and receiving the bullying. Rigby (2017) notes the inadequacy of the use of the research knowledge and understanding in this area: ‘This is particularly true of methods, such as the Support Group Method and the Method of Shared Concern.’ Around 90 per cent of schools in England never employ these methods. Many teachers either are unfamiliar with these methods or are confused about their nature. Yet there is a substantial evidence-based literature

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available to educators, providing strong evidence of their effectiveness, especially in cases of bullying perpetrated by groups. Worth highlighting here is that there appears to be evidence that ethical community reflection on difficult and hurtful behaviour holds the most promise for both changing behaviour and promoting learning. There are small echoes of Lawrence Kohlberg’s ‘just communities’ where democratic school structures, such as Town Hall and Fairness Committee, give students a venue to discuss their issues of justice, fairness, and the common good. This experience is seen enhancing their moral development and strengthening the moral climate of the school or Gilligan’s ethics of care.

CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS If we are to develop our understanding of how young people develop ethically through school experience, we need to build on the work of those already cited in this piece to understand what these issues look like today and we need in-depth qualitative research on young people’s lives in schools as well as on the impact of pedagogical approaches. Some principles do emerge as important from the discussion. First, experience and reflection on it are the bedrock of ethical development and education in schools. There are diverse spaces (both physical and time-wise) for experience and reflection on experience. Second, creation of participatory spaces is an essential element of genuine reflection on experience. Reflection on experience is encouraged and enabled in all the spaces and places of school life, including formal occasions, such as the central processes of teaching and learning, as well as informal spaces, such as in the corridors, playgrounds and even in the toilets. Third, the whole community of the school is involved in the learning and reflection on ethical development. Four, school governance processes are equally sites for reflection on experience and for ethical development. Lastly, the whole adult community of the school should aim to develop good ethical habits by scrutiny of all the possible sites of ethical learning. These principles must be visible and authentic drivers of schools’ practices. Some of the principles clearly indicate some practices are more desirable. Let’s take a closer look at a few. To begin, it is important that professional learning experiences for teachers also focus on these aspects. Without professional learning, there will be no development of practice. The principles can be used to develop sophisticated

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examples and ethical practices. Then, there is, within the school’s timetable, dedicated time given to listening to students’ concerns. By listening, the teachers can know more about students’ lived school experience, and value and engage with it inside and outside the curriculum. Correspondingly, students can also play a meaningful role in the school’s processes and their voices are attended to by establishing school norms, values and policies. In particular, there is an explicit emphasis and focus upon the quality and nature of relationships in schools. The relationships are multiple, including teacher– student relationship, peer-to-peer relationship amongst the students and amongst the teachers, and relationship between the staff, parents and wider community. In a relational environment, the school can co-create curriculum and planned activities focusing upon the development of ethics, caring and enabling the valuing of difference as a central part of what education is about. These highlighted principles and desirable practices point out that there is a continued need of an integrated, coherent and demanding plan for the social, emotional and ethical development of young people through schooling (cf. Banerjee et al., 2015), which is at the centre of schooling and not a peripheral programme.

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Cultivating Inner Qualities A Case Study of Developing Ethical Relations in Chinese Schools Yaqing Mao

This chapter presents ‘cultivating inner qualities’ (CIQ), an initiative case study for developing ethical relations in Chinese schools. In the light of the emergent shift from ‘teaching to test’ to ‘educating whole human beings’, the CIQ project has been launched in primary and secondary schools within the different economic development regions in China, targeting especially marginalised children who suffer from severe social and emotional deprivation and exclusion. The core of CIQ practice is centred on developing ethical relations in schools, including time and space within the curriculum to enrich social emotional experiences, developing relational competencies, fostering trust and caring relationships, and encouraging mutual respect and support amongst teachers and students. In addition, CIQ is an innovative approach to school management and home–school collaboration. Research into CIQ suggests that these core ethical education practices are key to cultivating students’ holistic inner qualities, such as a greater awareness of interconnection between oneself and others, better and more positive interpersonal relationships, a stronger sense of responsibility for each other’s learning, healthier emotional states, and more relational resilience when facing challenges.

BACKGROUND At present, Chinese society is entering a new era with a new historical orientation, which is reflected in the transition from high-speed economic growth to high-quality human development. The main social contradictions have been transformed into the contradiction between unbalanced and 127 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Western Ontario, on 18 Jul 2020 at 11:18:04, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108769778.014

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inadequate development and the people’s ever-growing need for a better life. People yearn for a better life, which has become the goal of Chinese society. In this context, people’s demand for China’s social development is no longer merely limited to the pursuit of quantity at the material level of ‘having’, but more importantly it is the seeking of betterment at the quality level. In other words, the movement is from having to being, or from economic growth to human well-being. This change reflects that the understanding of development presents richness, systemic-ness and comprehensiveness. More fundamentally, the requirement for development is endowed with more intrinsic stipulations, and more emphasis is on the connotative development path. To this end, it is necessary to use a new concept of holistic development of students in an all-round way, to pay attention to the improvement not only of material living standards, but also of personality, emotional quality and sense of responsibility, or inner qualities that can determine social harmony and happiness at a spiritual level. The caring aspect of society cannot be separated from the participation of people with caring qualities. The kinds of quality to be cultivated in basic education (including both primary and secondary education) can determine the kind of society to be developed for the future. Therefore, in the field of basic education, we must reflect on what constitutes ‘better education’ as a way to respond to people’s yearning for a better life of well-being. In this context, students’ holistic development as whole human beings must take priority. For this reason, the orientation of education can no longer be just about training people with (business) talents efficiently, but more about cultivating people’s inner qualities and well-rounded talents. To do so requires systemic transformation in education, that is, to return education to its true nature, which means that education doesn’t have ends other than itself – to educate. This will involve fundamental shifts, from quantity to quality, from economic expansion to meaningfulness, from measuring quantifiable academic attainments to encouraging the development of students’ holistic qualities, including CIQ. It suggests that education should go beyond the cognitive, but also nourish the noncognitive, such as students’ spirits or souls, emotions, relationships as well as their capacities for creativity and imagination. Education should provide processes and environments that are humanising, or that can enable human becoming. In short, education should not be instrumentalised, serving purposes outside itself. Instead, education must be directed at students as whole human beings, ensuring their well-being and the flourishing of the community.

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Instrumental orientation of education has led to utilitarianism in education in China, reducing learning to a narrow mastery of subject knowledge content and limited saleable skills for jobs. Particularly sacrificed by instrumentalisation is students’ social emotional and relational development. Teachers and parents tended to express excessive enthusiasm for students’ growth at a cognitive level, and deliberately ignore their holistic development. In schools, this focus on the cognitive over the overall development of human beings has resulted in most students’ missing the developmental opportunity of healthy human emotions. This has seriously hindered the formation and development of their human sociality and creativity, hugely affecting their confidence in appreciating meanings of life. Therefore, academic content and vocational skills aside, education in China must reconsider its aims and focus, especially in terms of how to provide spaces and opportunities within the curriculum for students to reflect on meanings of life, increase self-awareness, develop socially and relationally in harmony with others, advance ethical conscience, and seek life’s directions beyond successes marked by economic gain. Indeed, reform of the basic educational system is required to enrich the meaningfulness of education, expand on the conception of holistic qualities and focus on whole-person development of students, including good personalities and social emotional qualities. Social emotional development has been argued to include experiencing rich emotions, understanding personal values, caring for others, making responsible ethical decisions, establishing and sustaining positive relationships with others, and effectively dealing with challenging situations. Through whole-person learning, education will offer a better chance for students to acquire self-awareness and good interpersonal skills to assume relational resilience when confronted with difference and ambiguity, and promote the positive, healthy, fully coordinated development of students in an all-round way. In summary, only a holistic and tailored education can respond to the requirements of the new era, within which lies an innovative notion of students’ inner quality. The notion of inner quality should be a key aim of China’s basic education. This not only meets the needs of the new era for different kinds of human quality, but may also solve the long-standing problem of transmitting without educating. Inner quality reflects the aspiration of cultivating whole human beings in a comprehensive way, including nurturing students’ attitudes, values, social emotions and relationships. CIQ is paramount for an ethical way of being and relating within communities. The rest of the chapter will explore the theories and practice of cultivating inner quality in primary education in China.

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THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK UNDERLYING CIQ Cultivating inner qualities in basic education is above all concerned with the enrichment of students’ social emotional experiences and cultivating their relational competences. It is rooted in Kenneth Gergen’s (2007) theory of ‘relational being’. Briefly, Gergen holds that knowledge does not merely arise from external observation or personal thoughts, but from relational processes of coordinated action between people. The way people describe and interpret the world is through relationships. The most fundamental social reality is based on ‘the substitution of mutual separation by the interconnection between people’ (Gergen, 2007, p. 62). The mind is no longer independent beyond the relationship. From the perspective of relational being, the purpose of education is understood as ‘promoting students’ potential to participate in the process of relationship’ (Gergen, 2007, p. 243). The core of education is no longer to produce independent autonomous thinkers, but to ‘promote the process of relationship and contribute to the longer-term and expanding process of relationship flow’ (Gergen, 2007, pp. 204–5), which is reflected as below: Firstly, our understanding of knowledge is to be located in relationships. As discussed, knowledge comes from interrelations and is developed within the community of relationships and involves dialogue (Gergen, 2011). Language, as the prerequisite for meaning, is bound by relationships within the broader practice of cultural traditions. Meanwhile, specific physical situations are also needed, and each situation can be attributed to ‘the resources of introducing new relationships by individuals’ (Gergen, 2011, p. 140). Secondly, students and teachers are relational beings. Both students and teachers exist in webs of relationships, and each web interweaves with other webs, including a multitude of identities. The relationship between teachers and students is not the subject/object relationship of ‘knowledge storage’ and ‘knowledge acceptance’; neither is the relationship between the students independent and isolated, such as ‘you are you, I am me’. The reason teachers are teachers and students are students is determined by the priority relationship between teachers and students, and ‘stimulate the potential of mutual participation’ in the process of the relatedness (Gergen, 2009, p. 105). Thirdly, the relationships among all the people in the school are the ‘I–Thou’ relationships in ‘meeting’ (Buber, 2002). Relations have precedence over individuals. Everyone is an equal subject, and there is no self-priority of anyone

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relative to others. In such a non-instrumental ‘I–Thou’ relationship, ‘I’ approach ‘you’ with the whole existence, all life, and true self-nature of ‘me’, ‘you’ are no longer the experience and use of ‘me’, ‘I’ am not trying to satisfy any of my needs, even the most noble needs through a ‘relationship’ with you (Buber, 2002, pp. 6–7). Finally, school is a process of relational flow. Schools are unbounded. They need to resonate with the surroundings, absorb potential, create new products, integrate them into larger-scale flow of relationships and ‘be formed in such flow of relationships’ (Gergen, 2009, p. 46). There are continuous connections inside and outside the school, and they are structured as a process of coordination and interaction as well as a process of flowing relationships, in which different understandings and meanings are created. Under the inspiration of relational being, CIQ in basic education must focus on enrichment of students’ social emotional experiences and nurturing their relational competences. The flourishing of inner qualities lies in the richness of relationships, or the dynamics of relational performance (Gergen, 2009, p. 102). Feelings and emotions are not owned by individuals, nor are they determined by biological factors. Emotional expressions are embedded in relationships and are constantly constructed and reconstructed in mutual actions, and can only be understood within the context of these relationships and through joint actions. Students’ social emotional experiences and relational competences are essentially the competences and capabilities for relatedness. According to Marx and Engels (1979), ‘Social relations actually determine the extent to which a person can develop’ (p. 295). Education aims at promoting comprehensive whole human beings, and as the classical exposition of Marxist theory points out, ‘the comprehensiveness of an individual is not in imagination or assumption, but the comprehensiveness of his realistic and conceptual relations’ (Marx and Engels, 1980, p. 36). Development includes both ability and social relationship, which is not only realistic, but also ideal. It guides and regulates various relationships through certain social values and social norms. Human social emotion is formed in the process of interaction with social environments and is ‘the product of the interaction between human inner psychological activities and external social situations’ (Guo, 2008, p. 52). Emotional life is situated in the experiences of feelings first and then emotions. If people have feelings without relation to external social situations, they will not be able to become emotional. Therefore, the development of students’ social emotional experiences and relational competences not only

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depends on the real relationships in their lives, but also determines the future development of relationships more broadly. Combining with Chinese traditional culture and national conditions, the development of students’ social emotional experiences and relational competences is mainly comprised in the following three aspects: (1) selfrelatedness or relationships with one’s self; (2) self- or other-relatedness, including other students, teachers and others around oneself; and (3) self and the collective, such as the whole group, the whole class, the entire school and the wider community. Clearly, the development of students’ social emotional experiences and relational competence is essentially a process of relationship construction and promotion, and a process of enrichment and advancement of students’ authentic relationships in real life. Understanding students’ social emotional and relational development from the perspective of process includes two dimensions: recognition and action. The former is a cognitive factor in social emotional experience and relational competence, which plays a leading and dynamic role in the process of relationship construction, and refers to the awareness of ourselves and others; the latter is a behavioural factor in social emotional and relational competence, a concrete performance process of relationship construction, and refers to how one might act in relational contexts. The promotion of students’ social, emotional and relational competence is to promote the development of students’ attitudes, awareness and abilities in understanding and sustaining their relationships with themselves, others and the collective. It includes three dimensions: (1) The cultivation of relationship with oneself, which consists of two aspects: self-perception and self-relatedness. Self-perception refers to the perception of one’s emotions, interests, values and advantages, the identification of the positive qualities of self-development, and the maintenance of full self-confidence (e.g. self-knowledge, self-confidence and self-esteem). Self-relatedness refers to the ability to understand emotions such as stress, develop positive self-reflection, and have strong selfmotivation and entrepreneurial spirit. (2) The cultivation of relationships with others, which is composed of two aspects: identification of others and other-relatedness. Other identification emphasises empathy for others, where the golden rule is ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’, that is, to recognise and understand others’ attitudes, feelings, interests and behaviours, to have the capacity to take perspective from the standpoint of others and to

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understand differences. Other-relatedness refers to interpersonal skills, including respecting differences, transforming conflicts effectively, and establishing and sustaining friendly interpersonal relationships. (3) The cultivation of relationships within a collective, which is composed of two dimensions: collective identification and collective relatedness. Collective identification refers to the recognition of collective values and norms of collective behaviour, having a sense of collective belonging, a sense of honour, and a correct understanding of the relationship between the collective and the individual. Collective relatedness refers to the ability to appreciate and participate in collective norms, adapt to relationship between individual and collective, have clarity about individual’s rights and responsibilities in the collective, and demonstrate pro-social attitudes and behaviours, such as solidarity, cooperation and care.

CIQ IN BASIC EDUCATION The implementation of CIQ in basic education in China started in 2013, and has covered more than 500 primary and secondary schools, involving more than 200,000 students in thirteen counties and districts of Eastern, Central and Western China, and featuring a series of innovative practical explorations. Based on a systematic and collaborative approach, the CIQ is jointly promoted through the concerted efforts of school administrators, teachers, parents and students. The design of ethical education practices is systematic and comprehensive, and includes those aimed at enriching social emotional experiences and relational competences in the classroom, improving teacherstudent as well as peer relationships, reforming school governance approaches, and promoting family–school–community partnership. In this way, CIQ has become a model for a whole-person and all-round approach to ethical development. The CIQ team has since developed resources, conducted step-by-step training in the partner schools and implemented the CIQ framework focusing on the following six pathways towards institutional transformation: (1) improving schools’ leadership qualities, (2) enhancing teachers’ professional development, (3) developing a whole-school based CIQ curriculum, (4) integrating a CIQ approach into subject teaching, (5) building an active, inclusive and open school ethos and (6) strengthening home– school partnership.

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Path 1: Improving Schools Leadership Qualities

School leaders, such as the principals, must first develop a deep understanding of the importance of CIQ; then they should actively deepen their own social emotional experiences and relational competences. When combining CIQ as part of their leadership qualities, the principals can work with the leadership team to formulate the CIQ implementation plans, and will both embody the qualities of positive leadership and demonstrate as role-models, in front of teachers and students, the power of CIQ in learning and wellbeing. Diagnostics. When formulating plans for implementing CIQ, having diagnostics about the school’s existing social emotional and relational landscape is important because this would serve as the basis for innovation. For example, the principal of a project school in Guizhou Province adopted the diagnostic table mapping out the current state of the school’s social emotional learning (SEL) and relational development. Through analysis, the team identified five vertical dimensions and four horizontal dimensions where CIQ can be comprehensively implemented. The five vertical dimensions were: (1) school development strategies and policies; (2) students’ classroom learning; (3) teacher’s sense of safety in their professional capacities; (4) teachers’ classroom practices; and (5) students’ well-being. The four horizontal dimensions were: (1) exchange conditions; (2) incentive implementation; (3) ethos development; and (4) teaching organisation. On this basis, through SWOT analysis, multi-party participation from within and outside the school, and engaging teachers and students in taking part in the discussions and offering suggestions, the school development plan based on CIQ was formulated jointly, and the objectives were identified as part of the shared vision. This has enabled the school to establish common values underpinning concrete action plans for school development, thereby promoting the sense of unity and solidarity amongst teachers and students. Leadership. In the process of implementing CIQ, the principals tend to make a conscious effort to improve their own social emotional and relational competences as a way to strengthen the qualities of leadership. Leadership is different from management, and in CIQ participating schools it comprises modelling and guidance, shared decision-making, comprehensive implementation of CIQ in all aspects of the school, active exploration of governance reform, and promoting the development of teachers’ social emotional and relational competences. For example, the Principal of the project school

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in Guizhou Province took several grounded steps, including a ‘loving breakfast’ each morning to warm the hearts of teachers; appreciating teachers’ participation in the school’s governance processes with ‘birthday cards and inspirational words’; creating opportunities for teachers’ professional learning, including ‘building a learning community’ of teachers and students. All these have helped enrich teachers’ belonging, feeling valued, self-concept and self-confidence. Ethos. To develop an ethos ideal for SEL and relational development relies on the principal’s awareness of the importance of activating teachers’ and students’ motivation for CIQ. For example, the Principal of the project school in Guangxi Province has long adhered to the concept of ‘emotional environment’ and all-round education. To establish a learning environment that enables the expressions and experiences of emotions and stimulates the participation in relational processes, this principal introduced a number of schemes, such as school motivation boards, red scarf broadcasting stations, my-wishes box and warm-hearted dormitories. These helped bring students and teachers closer to each other through listening, sharing and caring. Furthermore, to build trustful, harmonious teacher–student relationships and peer relationships, the principal encouraged and modelled daily greetings, mutual smiles, peer support and emotional experiences. These routines are consolidated through regular sessions and activities where teachers and students have the opportunity to experience emotions and relational challenges, and learn to transcend any differences and move towards mutual appreciation. It confirmed that school ethos is not only in its policies, or a governance document, it is in the lived realities and day-to-day experiences of teaching and learning, where teachers and students develop ethically and relationally. Embeddedness. The principal is regarded as the bedrock for teachers when embedding CIQ in the school’s institutional processes. Strong leadership is required to encourage collaborative team teaching, optimising a curriculum plan focusing on CIQ and inserting school-based research in teachers’ practice. This requires that CIQ not be regarded as an add-on to the curriculum, but instead be embedded in teaching and learning across the entire curriculum. Only in this way, can students truly have the space to experience respect, friendship, happiness and well-being in learning. Likewise, teachers will become aware that their own CIQ is very much connected to that of the students and vice versa.

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Consistency. It is imperative that leaders recognise that a consistent, safe, supportive and caring environment be created both inside and outside the school. It requires that the school communicates with parents directly about the importance of consistency through parent meetings, open days for parents, principal’s reception days and home visits. On these occasions, the intention for a consistent environment is conveyed to the parents, but most importantly, the relevant parent–child activities are proposed to the parents where necessary, special workshops are offered to parents towards their CIQ development, so that they have better social emotional and relational competences, and can provide better home CIQ for their children. In addition, schools will provide regular feedback and updates on students’ CIQ progress through telephone, text messages, social media and other channels, affirming and appreciating students’ CIQ learning and identifying students’ social emotional and relational competences. The feedback and update can form the basis for further parental support and cooperation. Consistent and meaningful interaction between home and school promotes home–school partnership and supports students’ holistic development and well-being. Path 2: Enhancing Teachers’ Professional Development

To promote students’ CIQ, teachers must first be a CIQ learner and rolemodel, by learning and improving their social emotional and relational competences. Therefore, in the implementation of the project, teachers should take a comprehensive view of and accept their own strengths and weaknesses. They must learn to respect others and their differences, and treat others equally; trust students and actively understand their development needs; be caring, patient and responsible; identify and appreciate students’ strengths; be good at listening and communicating with students; recognise, accept and follow collective norms; actively safeguard collective honour; communicate effectively with parents, and establish a good relationship of cooperation and mutual assistance with the community. To this end, the project has highlighted a few important steps by the teachers: Respectful classroom culture. To optimise class processes, teachers tend to take students as the centre, create spaces for students’ initiative and establish a democratic culture in the classroom. This involves, for instance, negotiation with students to establish a warm, friendly and democratic climate, to create a culture of equality, safety, care and trust. In such a climate, students are

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more willing to express their feelings and emotions freely and be ready to seek help from others when they encounter difficulties. Positive teacher–student relationship. Teachers create a good relationship with students with practices of inclusiveness, equality, respect and understanding, which are key to students’ happiness and well-being, and to their love for learning. Teachers’ own CIQ means that they are sensitive to students’ emotional changes and can serve as their emotional guides, defenders of students’ self-concept, appreciators of students’ inner qualities, and inspirers for students to become more caring. Holistic approach to teaching. Teachers present themselves as whole persons and, in particular, they infuse emotional richness into the classroom, create an environment where students actively participate, and are listened to, appreciated and encouraged to reflect on their experiences and learning. More importantly, teachers internalise the concepts and methods of CIQ and draw on different avenues to support students’ social emotional and relational competences. Shared responsibility for learning. Teachers regard parents as true partners in students’ learning and invite parents to fully integrate into the school’s process in promoting CIQ. For example, in one project school, to make parents and students participate in the design of activities in the SEL class, parents often participate in drama lessons and take part in role play and storytelling. During experiential workshops, parents join the students in sharing their feelings, emotions and experience freely, and they also reflect with the students on how to improve parent–child communication. In this way, parents do not see the education of their children as solely the responsibility of the teachers, but rather as a shared responsibility. Path 3: School-Based CIQ Curriculum

The project draws lessons from international experience, and combines them with China’s unique educational and cultural background and the characteristics of school governance. In this way, the project is able to tailor existing materials for the purpose of CIQ in basic education in China and develop a four-step model for school-based CIQ curriculum. The first step is warming up. Before the beginning of each CIQ theme, through games, stories, pictures, dances and other forms, the teacher helps

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students integrate into the characteristics of this theme, relax their bodies and minds, enable them to perceive their emotions, and be ready for learning. The second step is topic navigation, focusing on the theme. After the warm-up activities, the teacher presents a clear introduction to the topic for the students, shares what will be learnt in accessible words for students of different grades, and defines the criteria for success for them, linking the emotional experience of the students with the content of social emotional relational competence to be studied in this topic. The third step is inquiry and problem-solving. This is an important part of CIQ. Teachers use dialogue, role-play, storytelling, peer support, selfreflection and other ways to design activities, so that students can explore ways to solve problems in groups and develop social emotional competence. The fourth step is reflection and application. Teachers guide students’ discussion and deepen their understanding, let students reflect, review and evaluate their learning, and summarise the core learning and how to apply the learning in day-to-day real-life situations. Path 4: Integrating CIQ Approach in Subject Teaching

Often in SEL projects, SEL is outside the curriculum and subject teaching. By contrast, this project integrates CIQ into subject teaching. Teachers’ planning and creativity play an important part in such integration. For example, teachers review the teaching materials and design the classes so students can learn the subject knowledge alongside social emotional and relational learning. In other words, cognitive development or academic studies and the cultivation of inner qualities mutually enhance each other. Subject teaching includes CIQ, and fully reflects an appreciation of students as whole persons, especially their spiritual growth. In this way, social emotional and relational learning elements permeate all aspects of subject teaching and pedagogy. For instance, in subject classes, teachers will have an equal dialogue with students, provide spaces for listening to the students, giving them opportunities to express and articulate their views with confidence, and appreciate students’ achievements without the sense of self-serving. Teachers also guide students to care for community members in the process of group work, and show understanding and acceptance of differences, nurturing a sense of belonging, love and cooperation among students. In turn, the enhanced social emotional and relational competences can motivate

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students in subject learning, and help them build connections between subject learning, their personal interests, and their future orientation in the world. Path 5: Building an Active, Inclusive and Open School Ethos

To construct a supportive school of ‘good humanity’, ‘good relationships’ and ‘good environment’, to imbue the school campus with love and compassion, and to form caring relationships inside and outside the school, the project recognises the importance of an active, inclusive and open school ethos. There are six features: Safe, trusting and dynamic physical environment. Our project school in Yunnan ensures that the structure of the school buildings is in good condition and safe; pays attention to corner places where younger students might be bullied; hangs warm signs such as ‘Welcome to Our Happy Home’ and ‘Let’s Make It Another Good Day’ at the school entrance and so forth. These touches have ensured that the school’s physical environment is safe and equally welcoming to everyone. The school also selects and arranges facilities in the playground from a child’s perspective, including benches for students to sit and rest, green spaces for students to stay close to nature, areas for shared activities where both teachers and students can participate and collaborate in teams, as well as other venues to meet the diverse needs of students, such as small quiet corners under the staircases for those who prefer a little solitude and soft reading rooms for those who rather stay away from physical activities. The same considerations also apply to spaces for staff meetings, offices and quiet conversations with peers. Participatory and inclusive learning environment. Many project schools adopt similar strategies to intentionally develop learning environments that are inclusive and inspire participation. These include, for example, campus broadcasting, motivation boards, wall slogans, exhibition shelves, cultural walls and cultural corners. They are there to enable the recognition and support of all teachers and parents, and to create a culture of active participation. In order to be inclusive, project schools create opportunities, such as seminars and workshops, for teachers to recognise and accept different learning styles, teaching styles and school governing styles, where teachers become more reflexive and share their own approaches to professional learning, teaching and classroom direction. Teachers’ awareness further

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helps to enable students’ participation, and make the learning environment more inclusive. Harmonious relational environment. Relational richness is both the condition and fruit of ethical education. Through CIQ, students are equipped with friendly demeanours and capacities for interpersonal conflict transformation. Peer support programmes help them form more friendships and good interpersonal relations. In all the CIQ courses, there are specific activities for promoting interpersonal harmony. In some schools, teachers create spaces for relational connections before the class, and during the class, teachers follow agreed codes of conduct of respect, understanding, listening and appreciation in their practices. Teachers recognise students’ differences in needs, interests and talents, pay attention to their pro-social attitudes and actions, and provide positive feedback on students’ relational development. Equally important is that teachers also engage in ethical learning, treat each other kindly, show mutual respect, accept difference and take a relational approach to interpersonal conflict transformation. Furthermore, the same ethical processes should apply to school administrators in their way of relating to each other, to the teachers, students and parents. Caring emotional environment. Project schools have many ways to encourage a caring emotional environment, through, for instance, themed projects, paintings, essay writing, dramas, plays and other artistic experiences. Students’ and teachers’ psychological states are sensitively respected and valued. When feelings and emotions are attended to and cared for, students and teachers can share each other’s joy and delight; they can also reflect on attitudes and perceptions, and challenge prejudices and stereotypes. When students experience stress, anxiety and depression, teachers can listen to students attentively, and sensitively guide them in navigating these negative emotions by dealing with root causes. For instance, bullying is not tolerated and teachers identify bullying behaviours and intervene. Open and democratic institutional environment. Project schools tend to shift from the traditional rigidity in school governance to flexibility. By placing students and their interests and needs at the centre, rather than imposing strict rules for moral conduct, schools motivate students’ ethical consciousness through relational processes that encourage self-discipline and responsibility. For example, project schools in Chongqing, Guangxi and Yunnan Provinces have replaced mandatory slogans such as ‘No loud noise in corridors’ with positive, encouraging slogans such as ‘For your quiet study,

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I will walk with gentle steps.’ Some schools set up Principal’s Mailbox, Principal Open Days and teacher open forums to cultivate an open and democratic climate of pluralistic participation. Teachers, students and parents are encouraged to make suggestions for improving the governance processes and the institutional culture. Collaborative off-campus environment. Project schools have many good ideas towards developing a collaborative off-campus environment, including building home–school communication platforms, organising thematic activities on Children’s Day and Parent Open Day. These help promote communication about students’ learning, progress and aspirations. Digital platforms such as school websites, teachers’ portals, teacher–parent online forums and social media are also helpful so that information about CIQ and social emotional and relational learning can be maintained and shared within the school community as students transition from primary to secondary schools or from secondary to further education. On- and off-campus environments provide multiple avenues for parents and other community members to participate in schools’ processes. Path 6: Strengthening Home–School Partnership

As an open system, schools should be closely linked with families and communities, and therefore an interactive and mutually supporting environment among schools, families and communities should be established to sustain CIQ. To this end, project schools have explored several creative ideas. Common vision. Introducing CIQ into home–school partnership requires a common vision that recognises students’ social emotional and relational competences as important to their whole-person development and wellbeing. To develop such a common vision, project schools tend to establish an executive committee comprising school principals, vice-principals in charge of moral and ethical education, class teachers, community representatives and members of parents’ committees. The executive committee would meet and explore CIQ as a common vision and focus on the collaboration between family and school through a home–school partnership. Any activities proposed by the executive committee are then integrated into the overall strategic plan of the school and included in the school calendar. This ensures that CIQ is a common vision among

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all partners and integral to both formal and informal educational activities. Capacity building. Most project schools offer parent schools, which are occasions to strengthen parents and community members’ capacity to support CIQ. There are special lectures, experiential workshops and other forms of learning activities. The focus is always on understanding the importance of the social emotional and relational learning, including communication; relationships; identifying, experiencing and expressing emotions; developing relational resilience; and co-creating ways to transform interpersonal conflicts. Parents and other community members’ capacity building can have a significant impact on students’ social emotional and relational development. Alignment of contents. By organising and compiling Parent Guidelines on CIQ, the school ensures that learning materials, outlines of activities and other resources are shared with all partners, extending CIQ to families, home spaces, communities and beyond. This makes it possible for the wider community to develop socially, emotionally, relationally and ethically. By sharing learning contents, CIQ topics can be introduced to many more contexts, including, for instance, ‘How to transform interpersonal conflicts in our families?’, ‘What is an ideal home for one and all?’ In this way, more people in the communities are able to perceive children and young people as whole human beings, become aware of their feelings and emotions, listen to them, respect them, appreciate them, and help them take responsibility for social emotional and relational development. Shared information. Through the training of school leaders and leaders of parent–school partnerships, the project schools are able to share and communicate information with staff across the domains and with all parents and other members of the community. Students’ accomplishments, large or small, are communicated to parents in a timely manner, and likewise, their emotional difficulties, friendship and relationship challenges, and other socialdevelopmental matters can be shared with parents. This enables caring practices to be shared between all partners. Joint actions. All project schools are committed to welcoming parents as partners in CIQ. Each school provides receptive spaces for parents to participate in the schools’ activities beyond open days and class observations. In addition to supporting parents’ social emotional and relational development, parents can also serve as learning volunteers on the CIQ programmes,

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offering their own stories and expertise during relevant teaching and learning activities.

EFFECTS OF CIQ IN CHINESE BASIC EDUCATION The Implementation of CIQ in Chinese basic education has resulted in a tremendous impact on students’ holistic development, enhanced principals’ leadership capacities, enriched teachers’ professional development and enabled school overall improvement. In this chapter, we summarise some of these effects captured in our ongoing research. The Effect of the Project from a Comparative Perspective

The project teams have been able to trace participating schools’ progress through pre- and post-pilot surveys, and through comparative studies with control schools. Here we capture some of the findings. Students’ social emotional and relational competence. This has been significantly improved in project schools. The pre- and post-survey data of students’ social emotional and relational competence between project schools and the control schools in 2015 and 2018 shows that the students’ social emotional competence development in project schools was not ideal at the beginning of the project implementation, while the data presented in the posttest showed that students’ self-awareness, collective-awareness, emotionalawareness and peer relationships were significantly better than that of students in non-project schools, indicating that students’ social emotional competence in project schools had improved significantly. A two-year follow-up survey of 468 students in a pilot school in one of the project counties in 2016 and 2018 found that students’ social emotional and relational competence had improved in all six dimensions; that is, self-awareness, self-responsibility, other awareness, other responsibility, collective awareness, collective responsibility, and social emotional and relational competence. School environment. The supportive climate for the social and emotional learning of the school had been improved. The students in the pilot schools perceived school ethos, teacher–student relationship and parent–child relationship significantly better than those in the non-project schools. In 2015, the scores of physical environment, parent–child support and teacher–student relationship perceived by project school students were significantly lower than

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those of control school students. After nearly three years of project implementation, the scores for all dimensions were significantly higher than those of the control school. Motivation for learning. Students’ motivation for academic learning and their academic results also improved. In the study of 100 project schools in three project provinces, it was found that gender and grade factors aside, relationships between students and subject teachers, including Mandarin teachers, science teachers and mathematics teachers, were significantly improved, and accordingly, these students’ academic results in relevant subjects also improved. The Effects of the Project from Anecdotes

The project team also observed classroom practice in project schools, and interviewed principals, teachers, students and parents. These comments and descriptions offer a rich illustration of how the CIQ programme has been practised and experienced by participating schools. Integrating CIQ in a school’s vision and development plans. One of the project schools in Dongli District of Tianjin follows an educational philosophy of ‘establishing an ethical school community and educating whole human beings’, and fosters an educational ecology of ‘devotion to cultivation, awaiting the flowers’ blooming’, and has created an ideal community ‘fit for the child’, including meeting their needs in physical, emotional, intellectual, ethical and spiritual development. The school sees these values as key to the school’s development towards ‘Life Education’. For this school, CIQ has two focuses: first, the social dimension, emphasising students’ perception of society, the development of pro-social attitudes and behaviours, the compliance with social ethics, and the values-oriented approach to social development. Its essence coincides with the idea of the school as an ethical community, and it aims to essentially awaken the goodness of the human heart, emphasising the ethical as the relational which is self-transcendence and self-development through enriching relationships with others. The second focus is the emotional dimension, aiming at mobilising the inner emotional and ethical compass; taking self-responsibility, self-improvement and self-motivation as the main means of development, with its ecological essence being ‘following the rhythm of life’. CIQ as student development. In Shunyi District of Beijing, project schools emphasise that ‘active development’ requires students to have inner qualities,

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including clear self-awareness, good interpersonal relationships and other ethical qualities such as honesty, diligence, self-confidence, responsibility and gratitude, all of which would be comprised in what counts as an educated person. To cultivate these core inner qualities, the schools have created an overall supportive climate of safety, inclusiveness, equality, harmony and fraternity. Integrated CIQ curriculum improving qualities of students’ learning. In terms of course content, the project schools in Shunyi District of Beijing fully grasped the connotation and dimensions of CIQ, and explored integration of CIQ in all domains of teaching and learning, including subject knowledge, key skills and competences. For instance, previously, mental health education and sexual health education were taught separately, and now they are integrated into the CIQ to form a greater curricula system, focusing on learning to learn, real-life adaptation, and social and communal participation. Collaborative learning, project learning, team learning, circle time, inquiry-based learning and other innovative pedagogies ensure the integrated curricula. Oriented from classroom to society, from self-concern to care for others, and from fear of difference to accepting and embracing difference, integrated CIQ also introduced weekly practices, including experiential learning in the classrooms for students and action research–informed professional learning for teachers. These also contribute to the development of a learning community. Enhanced teachers’ professional learning. Through the pilot, we have learned that the breadth of a teachers’ horizon can determine the space for students’ development. There is a mutuality between teachers’ professional learning and development and students’ learning and development. All project schools strive to be learning communities, and in Shunyi District of Beijing, teachers and students took this further. In 2016, they decided to jointly develop a shared vision of the learning community, and the CIQ has enabled trusting relationships between teachers and students. This led them to make a two-way proposal binding teachers’ professional learning with that of students’ learning and development. The campus thus becomes a true learning community, and each one, a teacher or a student, is both learner and facilitator of learning, and they support each other’s learning. The school ‘Little Lotus Point’ campus radio broadcasts stories of learning from teachers and students, where they give an account of the development of their joint learning projects.

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OVERALL REFLECTIONS ON IMPLEMENTING CIQ IN BASIC EDUCATION After five years, there is much learning to be gained about promoting CIQ in Chinese basic education. Here we reflect on some significant learning. The Need for Comprehensive Reform of the Educational System

To promote the development of students’ social emotional and relational competence, it is necessary to adopt a holistic, coordinated, strategic vision, including comprehensive reform of our education system. It is necessary for education to take the holistic development of students as the overarching aim of education. We cannot just make a partial repair which can further reinforce the fragmentation. Whole-person learning and students’ holistic human development must be the anchor of overall school development planning, such as principals’ and teachers’ professional growth; parents’ awareness and engagement in the school’s process; the development of school culture, governance structures and policies; the enrichment of teaching resources; the building of a school ethos and climate; and the cooperation between home, school and community. Integrating CIQ in the Whole Curriculum

In terms of curriculum design, we should take the cultivation of students’ social emotional and relational competence as a clear objective. This means meeting students’ ongoing developmental needs, and being sensitive to their present and future well-being. The CIQ must penetrate the curriculum across subject domains, avoiding the division between the cognitive and noncognitive, and teaching the whole person instead. To these ends, we should continue to draw international lessons from innovative approaches to curriculum and integrated learning, including collaborative learning. At the same time, we can also attach importance to the Chinese experience of the teaching strategies that promote CIQ in the light of the practice of curriculum reform in China. Mobilising Concerted Efforts of All Stakeholders

Promoting CIQ in Chinese basic education requires a concerted effort and multiple partners. Dialogue amongst relevant groups is a starting point to

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recognise the significance and mission of CIQ, understand the processes involved to transform the system and the necessary approaches and steps for its implementation in schools. More importantly, the dialogue can clarify the resistance to change and how to find leveraging points to enable transformation. School leaders are the leading group of systemic reform, and students and teachers are important partners. There are other stakeholders, such as parents, leaders of communities, leaders of corporations and businesses, as well as educational administrators at all levels, who are equally important collaborators. Teachers Whole-Person Learning

Teachers’ whole-person learning, especially cultivating their social emotional and relational competences, is the key to CIQ implementation. Their professional learning and development and their professional reflection through research are the most important contributions to CIQ. Teachers must be provided with the opportunity to attend to students’ needs, attune to their social emotional and relational developmental paces, and offer the appropriate support to the students. Thus teachers’ corresponding needs must be met, and their CIQ is given priority in their professional development agenda. After all, teachers’ well-being can determine students’ well-being, and teachers’ whole-person learning and the flourishing of their inner qualities can have a direct impact on students’ whole-person learning and the flourishing of students’ inner qualities.

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Ethical Relationships in Secondary Classrooms A Case Study of Pedagogical Practices in the United Kingdom and Colombia Scherto Gill

Ethical education involves relational nourishment and enrichment for the student. Indeed, if relationship is a core aspect of human well-being, it must be a key focus of ethical education (Gergen and Gill, 2020). According to the approach promoted in this book, ethical education shifts the emphasis from individuals as the building blocks of relationship towards the relational processes as the focus of teaching and learning. In fact, we could see that as relational processes are always already embedded in humans’ being, they must be both the condition and fruit of ethical learning. Locating the ethical in the relational suggests that schools should provide safe, non-judgemental and nurturing pedagogical spaces for students to become open, caring and responsible. This involves, for instance, experiences of self, other, and realities of the world, opportunities for deep encounter, listening and sharing, as well as explorations through questioning, dialogue and imagination (Gill, 2015). These spaces are ethical because they are sites for shared inquiries where students and teachers learn about what it means to be human together, and that our being together can be experienced as part of our flourishing life in the world (Gill and Thomson, 2019). In this chapter, I draw on a case study of a pilot project in two secondary schools, one in the United Kingdom and one in Colombia, to illustrate how such ethical spaces can be co-created, sustained and enriched. This case study regards ethical education practice to consist of at least three aspects: (1) exploring students’ self-awareness which is intimately connected to relationships with others; (2) experiencing one’s feelings, emotions and relations; and (3) inquiring into one’s own and others’ lived realities, and things in the world. All these respond to the particular needs and challenges of adolescence 149 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Western Ontario, on 18 Jul 2020 at 11:18:04, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108769778.015

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as we shall see and contribute to enriching and deepening students’ relationships with one’s self and others, with goodness in the world and more importantly with learning. Despite the very different contexts of the pilot, there are common structural challenges confronting both schools, such as an instrumental view of education and a testing-driven educational system. These challenges result in some students feeling disaffected and demotivated about learning, as well as competition amongst students which serves as a breeding ground for separation, isolation and intolerance. Likewise, the pilot unites the two schools in its intention to involve teachers and students in co-creating ethical spaces for young people to experience what being with each other means and feels like. Hence, there are similar pedagogical features which the case study will demonstrate, such as the ways that students are respected and cared for. There are equally similar institutional processes that help enrich the ethical spaces for teachers’ professional learning and development. All these enhance students’ and teachers’ well-being. To present the case study more fully, this chapter begins by considering the needs for relational development during adolescence. It then articulates the conceptual framework underpinning the ethical education practices. Following a detailed description of each ethical space, the pedagogical intentions underlying it and the learning processes that the students embarked on within each space, the case study discusses how the participating students have experienced these spaces and reflects on teaching and learning practices that have enabled these experiences. Finally, drawing on the rich illustrations of the case study, it makes suggestions in terms of ethical education practices in secondary education.

ETHICAL EDUCATION, RELATIONSHIPS AND WELL-BEING In this book, the contributors have argued that ethical education must distinguish itself from the teaching of morality and other moral education practices, such as character education and virtues-based education. Instead, ethical education must focus on relational enrichment where young people can have the opportunity to encounter and relate to each other as co-subjects (see, e.g., Chapter 2 of this book). In particular, as Marcel (1951) suggests, being a person cannot be simply regarded as playing a role, nor characterised by a set of identity labels, but instead humans’ being must be experienced as a mystery, and hence the importance of having the ethical spaces for such

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experiences. In addition, I have also argued that the relational goes beyond relationship between two people, and therefore, young people must have spaces in education to experience what it means to be part of a community, or part of a ‘we’ (Gill, 2017). This can entail that students learn to interrogate their own self-interests in the light of those of others and perceive themselves within a group or community, including sharing deeply with one another and doing things collectively, such as collaborating in learning. It is in such relational environments that students learn to become caring – caring for other people and caring about things beyond themselves, including the plight of distant others and the goodness in the world. We participate and are present in other people’s lives in a loving and compassionate way precisely because other people are part of our well-being, rather than merely instrumental to it (Thomson and Gill, 2020). Thus, students’ ethical life and relational development in school is not merely preparation for adult life, it is part and parcel of their well-being in education (also see Dewey, 1931). Together, these relational arguments have advanced a vision of ethical education that is primarily focused on exploring self- and other-awareness, experiencing emotional lives, and understanding others in and through relationships and relating. Ethical education as such should be made available throughout a child’s life, and it is particularly pertinent during adolescence due to the unique relational challenges that confront young people. It is to this we now turn. Adolescence and Students’ Need for Ethical Education

Adolescence is often considered the most multifaceted developmental stage in a person’s life. It is part of an exciting journey where one becomes fully alive in the mind, experiences richer feelings and emotions, and seeks meanings and connections to beyond oneself, including relationships with other people and with the world (Gill and Thomson, 2012). At the same time, adolescence is considered to be riddled with complexities and paradoxes. For instance, whilst adolescents are generally considered egocentric (see, e.g., Geldard and Geldard, 1998), they may have the idea that everyone is watching them as if they were on stage, may make up personal fables (Dacey and Kenny, 1997) and may act out as a part of attempts to develop a coherent identity for themselves (Blos, 1967). Other psychologists also maintain that as adolescents become more fully self-aware, they are increasingly able to appreciate and to think critically about others’ perspectives (Rosenblum and Lewis, 2006).

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Most writers tend to agree that with the overwhelming combination of the onset of puberty, physical change, increased sex drive and cognitive maturity, adolescence is a time of gradual movement towards a more sophisticated sense of self, understanding of others and overall worldview (see Kroger, 2004; Steinberg, 2008). It is a unique time when the young person undergoes pronounced changes through which they learn to find their place in society, form loving bonds and personal relationships, make decisions about their life ahead, and take responsibility for their decisions and actions (Kroger, 2004; Steinberg, 2008). Thus, we have argued that adolescence should be understood as a significant time in one’s life in its own right (Gill and Thomson, 2012). This is the time when a young person explores who she is, identifies her talents and gifts, cultivates interests, develops friendships and other interpersonal relationships, and learns about her place in the world. Although there has been a tendency to divide the adolescent’s development in discrete dimensions, that is, the physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual, these are in effect interdependent. Let’s take the cognitive and noncognitive development as an example and we can see that they are both constituted in a young person’s ethical and relational development (Keating, 2004; Lazarus, 1984). As a start, cognitive development can influence the adolescent’s present and future relational orientation in a number of ways. First, formal and reflective thinking enables the adolescent to hypothesise and critically engage in discussions about relationships with others and to imagine different future relational possibilities, including deciding strategies and connected courses of action. Second, young people’s increased ability in metacognition also helps them to reflect on and conceptualise their own thoughts, ideas and perspectives. In this way, young people can have the capacity to evaluate their relationships with others and where these relationships are in life’s directions. In doing so, they may alter their learning trajectories, plans and actions accordingly. Third, formal thinking enables young people to better conceptualise the thoughts of other people, which in turn can provide them with the opportunity to inquire and interrogate their own assumptions and prejudices, resulting in understanding others and enhanced self-awareness in and through relationships. Clearly, changes in the way young people reason about their own and others’ thoughts and perspectives during adolescence can bring new possibilities for their perceptions about emotions and relationships (Rosenblum and Lewis, 2006). Thus, adolescents’ cognitive development has a significant impact on their emotional life (Rosenblum and Lewis, 2006). This means that whilst they undergo dramatic changes in motivation, sexual interest, emotional intensity and

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social relationships, which often manifest as mood swings, rebellion and emotional turmoil, they are also capable of developing increased selfawareness, experiencing compassion and understanding how others feel (Rosenblum and Lewis, 2006). This also suggests that students must be regarded as whole human beings rather than individuals whose development can be partitioned and fed separately. Education should be aimed at cultivating the holistic qualities of students, and as per our early discussion, these qualities must be comprised in part in students’ well-being. This is not only meeting a core developmental need of adolescence but also making a lifelong contribution to young people’s lives by transcending some of the negative trends in adolescence, including risk-taking, anxiety and depression, and other mental ill-health. Given the key challenges and opportunities for learning and holistic development afforded during adolescence, it seems that ethical education can best support students by providing meaningful spaces where they can seek to explore and develop in a well-rounded way. Within such spaces, they can learn to understand themselves, others and the world around them, and more importantly, they can form better relationships with each other and with learning (as opposed to apathy) and develop relationally and responsibly with others. Let’s explore. Ethical Education and the Importance of Safe Spaces for Students

For many young people, especially from the age of 14, life becomes increasingly dominated by preparation for exams. Under the current instrumental view of education and learning, schools have increasingly modelled after factories, where the only products are students’ attainments measured by test scores (Gergen and Gill, 2020). Most young people have suffered both directly and indirectly from these practices. Their daily experiences are plagued by the sense of dread, fear of failure, deflating comparisons, pressures from teachers, tensions with parents and the threat of a gloomy future. Meaningful social and relational lives are side-lined, and many students are disaffected (ibid.). Schools are also pushed to the limit: teachers are experiencing burnout, their performance targets are linked to students’ test scores, professional development is mostly limited to raising students’ attainments, inviting teachers and administrators to join students in battling the cycle of ill-being (ibid.). Ethical education is connected to students’ well-being, so the question is: What would ethical education entail within the current systemic structure of

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schooling? According to the needs of adolescence briefly reviewed here, it seems that particularly pertinent are three kinds of ethical space: (1) mentoring space for one-to-one support for students’ personal development; (2) group exploration space for students’ sharing feelings, listening to each other and social-emotional development; and (3) inquiry space for group-based conversations, questioning, dialogue and thinking together, and for challenging assumptions and prejudices. It has been argued that apart from promoting personal, social/emotional and cognitive development, through participating and engaging with each other within these three spaces, students can also learn to understand themselves and have a sense of direction with regard to their learning and personal development (Gill and Thomson, 2012, 2016). Likewise, they learn to understand, appreciate and care for others and become motivated to take responsibility for their own learning and support others’ learning (Gill and Thomson, 2012, 2016). Clearly, the safer the learning environment, the more respectful, caring and accepting the teacher, the more dialogic the formal and informal interaction, and the more listening involved in the relatedness, the more likely it is that students will be able to experience themselves in wholesome and integrated ways. Ethical spaces are sites where adolescents can mature into persons they would like to be and become, assume responsibility with confidence in their own growth and hence be more understanding and accepting of others (e.g. Rogers, 1961). For ethical education to flourish within these three spaces, there are several pedagogical and learning objectives, which I highlight here. Within the mentoring space, the aim is to help the student engage in and care about learning; to better understand herself and her relationship with learning; and to be interested and responsible for personal development. Within the group exploration space, the objective is to enable young people to experience their feelings and emotions in direct ways. These are not always encouraged in other formal social settings in which, on the contrary, people are implicitly asked to hide and even to deny their feelings, especially in the Western cultural contexts. In the inquiry space, the focus is on developing students’ thinking, analytical and critical capacities, articulating one’s thoughts, ideas and perspectives as well as questioning one’s own and other’s assumptions and prejudices. Thus, there is an explicit emphasis on developing the cognitive, including reading, writing, listening and speaking. These three spaces also represent a recognition of students’ development as whole human beings. Meaningful relationships demand the engagement of whole persons. This suggests that ethical education is not a mere add-on activity

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but should be embedded in the entire educational process itself. The question remains: How do we create these three ethical education spaces within our current schooling structure? And to what extent are such spaces significant for students’ ethical development? I now report on a case study that specifically explores ethical learning within these three spaces within state school settings.

ETHICAL EDUCATION: A CASE STUDY Since 2015 and 2016 respectively, the Seaside Learning Centre (pseudonym) in the Southeast of England and Hillside School (pseudonym) in Quindio, Colombia, have been collaborating with an international think-tank to pilot a three-year innovative programme. It aims at the holistic development and growth of young people as human beings and focuses on nurturing human relationships between students, teachers and other stakeholders within the school as a learning community, including students’ relationships with learning and with the world. The pilot is centred around co-creating three ethical spaces as already discussed and facilitating students’ experiences, learning and inquiries within these spaces. The Participating Schools

Both learning centres recognised the importance of ethical education for adolescents and had their intention aligned with the objectives of the pilot – to encourage students to explore their self-interests, become open, accepting and understanding of others, and to develop an overall attitude of compassion towards others and motivation towards learning. The Seaside Learning Centre is part of a larger comprehensive state school in the United Kingdom. As a specialist centre, Seaside caters for students who are identified to have special educational needs and disabilities (SENDs), including language and speech difficulties, behavioural challenges and autism. Due to their SENDs, these students are given individual support, including smaller class sizes, human-scaled staff–student ratio and one-to-one support, made possible by state funding attached to students with Education Health and Care (EHC) plans in place. In total, 8 students, 6 boys and 2 girls, took part in the pilot for 3 years, from the ages of 14 to 16. The facilitators and mentors of these spaces were trained in-house to lead the programme.

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The Hillside School is a comprehensive state school in Colombia, catering for students from diverse backgrounds. As it is located within a profoundly disadvantaged area, its main challenge is to have sufficient resources to support all its students’ needs. Furthermore, due to Colombian society’s recent violent past and turmoil, the school has a high number of students with SENDs, who, unlike its UK counterpart, are not funded by government for additional special educational plans. This means that many of these students struggle in mainstream classrooms. In total, seventy students aged 14 from the Hillside School took part in the pilot, and in the exploration space and inquiry space. The students were divided into groups of seventeen/ eighteen each. Most of the facilitators and mentors are drawn from Hillside staff team and trained in-house, while several are employed as specialists from outside of the school. At the Seaside Learning Centre, where the pilot was carried out within the conventional educational setting and constraint, it involved thirty minutes mentoring space for each student each week, and one hour a week rotating between the group exploration space and group inquiry space. By contrast, due to the Hillside’s relative autonomy, the school’s administrator allocated all the time and spaces necessary for the pilot each week, including thirty minutes of mentoring space for each participating student, one hour of group exploration space and one hour of group inquiry space. Three Ethical Spaces

Although the three spaces are technically timetabled separately and facilitated by teachers with different expertise, they must be understood as parts of one holistic programme, with a common vision and inevitable rich overlap between the spaces. The Mentoring Space is a protected weekly one-to-one time when a trained mentor and the student can develop a trusting relationship. Within this space, the mentor supports and nurtures the student with care. It often starts with a lot of listening, on the part of the mentor, as the student is invited and encouraged to tell personal stories about his or her background, families and friends, interests, as well as past and present experience in education. Such listening expresses a respect for the student and can enable the student to find her own voice, but also allows those students who have few opportunities to talk to anyone to be heard with openness and non-judgement. Both listening and sharing can form the basis for a flourishing relationship, and likewise the

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foundation on which the student can build her learning objectives, overcome personal challenges and deepen relationships. Over time, the mentor and the student will reflect together on the student’s experiences and engagement in education, the development of their personal qualities, strengths and values, and how these might impact their decisions and actions in learning and in life. In this process, the mentor encourages the student to identify immediate, medium- and long-term learning objectives and provides support for a tailored learning plan. In doing so, mentoring helps students develop a sense of direction and identify meaningfulness in their lives, of which their education here and now is a part. The trust, respect and relationships can transform the attitude of apathy common amongst disadvantaged adolescents into motivation and proactivity. Furthermore, through mentoring, the student can experience first-hand what it means to develop relationship with a trusted person, whose presence in one’s learning and life can become an anchor on which to further one’s relationship with oneself and with others. There is also an added value. In the Seaside Centre, each student is in the care of multiple personnel and different agencies. As the relationship between the mentor and the student deepens, the student can begin to trust the mentor to be a point of contact with other teachers and other agencies and to help facilitate a coordinated and holistic support for the student. The Group Exploration Space supports students in their social, emotional and relational development by offering opportunities for direct experiences of emotions and feelings, by facilitating group conversations about these experiences, during which there are open sharing, listening, caring, and encountering and exploring differences. The space is held by an experienced facilitator, but the activities are co-created with the students. The space is safe, open, non-judgemental and informal, especially through the emphasis on sharing and connecting rather than seeking ‘right’ answers. Students are given time until they feel fully comfortable to share and take part. Hence, it enables them to share (in both verbal and non-verbal ways) their feelings, emotions and experiences with others of a roughly similar age, in a confidential and intimate setting. Students are encouraged to engage with emotions and emotive perceptions in creative ways, such as seeking nonthreatening and non-verbal ways of expressing themselves, roleplays, music, body sculpture, drawings, and storytelling. In turn, the openness can enable students to assume confidence in making contributions to group discussions. Such a way of being together can be therapeutic and liberating and can

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encourage and nurture caring and an empathetic understanding of others. It can help young people reflect on their emotional and ethical lives and those of others and develop ethical relationships with what is beyond themselves. Within the exploration space, relationships and friendships are intensified, where students learn to develop self-understanding as well as understanding and appreciation of others in the group. This is when students begin to experience what it means to be part of a community, or a ‘we’, and what it means to be caring. The Group Inquiry Space provides opportunities for young people to formulate and share thoughts, ideas and understanding through language. In the beginning, the emphasis is on students learning to communicate with each other, to articulate what they think and how they feel, and to be curious about other’s feelings, ideas, assumptions and perspectives. Hence, there is a lot of time on developing language and linguistic sensitivity through, for example, activities such as reading aloud (e.g. stories or literature) and listening to words or conversations. These also contribute to students’ learning to ask good questions, reasoning, thinking critically and interpretation. Given the richness of learning, these opportunities are distinctively different from the students’ everyday class work. For instance, the group inquiry does not have an end-point, and students do not have to come up with a finished product, such as an essay or completed worksheet. The openendedness stresses the relational process underlying questioning and reasoning and the emotions motivating students’ investigations. By doing so, the inquiry space can facilitate the development of students’ relevant qualities and capabilities without them experiencing frustration, apathy, alienation and other negative emotions/reactions often associated with their struggle to cope with the challenges in the traditional classrooms. Common Features in the Design of the Spaces

For both the Seaside Learning Centre and the Hillside School, the piloted spaces were created with some common pedagogical features. First, these are offered to students as safe spaces, where there are clear boundaries with regard to respectful attitude towards each other, and also consistent values. It might appear controversial that an intentionally created safe and open space will require boundaries. However, as most of the students participating in the pilot come from chaotic family situations, boundaries and consistent values can actually serve as an ethical framework that enables the

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students who are vulnerable in many ways to experience a sense of safety and security. At both Seaside and Hillside, a number of the students came from unstable families. Furthermore, in their primary schools which are in deprived areas, the rate of teachers’ annual turnover was high. Therefore to make these spaces safe, both schools endeavoured to make sure that the same mentors and facilitators remained a constant presence until the students settled into the groups, at which point the community can provide the strength of emotional bond. This consistent presence in the students’ otherwise tumultuous and hectic home life seemed to provide them with much desired stability and confidence. Second, these sessions embody respect for persons and care about their wellbeing. Embodying respect and care cannot be abstract; instead, it is grounded in very concrete practices. For instance, within the mentoring space, mentors showed deep respect for students’ stories and took confidentiality really seriously. This allowed students to share freely personal struggles and joys. At the same time, the mentor also ensured that he or she sought students’ permission to follow-up on where the student might have been exposed to risks or damage to his or her well-being. This was a delicate balance between respect (for student’s autonomy and confidentiality) and care (for their wellbeing and safety). Similarly, in other spaces, students were free to share personal issues, and were listened to with respect, and the group’s solidarity was often heralded as a meaningful support to each other. Third, these spaces encouraged openness and flexibility within the above boundaries and values. In the exploration and inquiry spaces, facilitators’ main task was to hold the spaces for the groups who soon realised that the processes were both open and flexible. For instance, the group could follow an interesting topic, or a particular thought, and go deeper with it in the conversation for as long as they liked; equally, they could also take a gentle pace when engaging in an activity, without the pressure of it becoming outcome driven. There is no prescribed way to go about the conversations as everything is constituted in a cycle of dialogue. Fourth, these spaces are led and facilitated by adults who recognised the importance of caring relationships in students’ learning and well-being. Time is precious in education, and in traditional classrooms, teachers hardly have time to respond to students in a tailored manner due to the pressure of ‘delivering’ course contents. Therefore, teachers’ giving time was received by students as a form of genuine care. Equally, mentors and facilitators would respond to students in ways appropriate to their diverse

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needs and personal processes. There was no one-size-fits-all approach, only a human-centred and personalised relational approach. Indeed, these spaces respect where students are in their learning journeys, attend to their needs and well-being, and help them to engage in the sessions in a more emotionally connected way. In doing so, the students come to know and trust these adults, which is the basis for the students to then trust each other. Lastly, these spaces were inspiring spaces characterised by light (where possible), beauty (e.g. decorated with students’ drawings or flowers from the school’s garden), hospitality (e.g. smiles and open/inviting manner from the mentor, facilitator and students), and diversity (in terms of students’ needs, interests and backgrounds, as well as the teachers’ approaches). Thus these spaces reassure the young people of their dignity and self-respect, and can inspire them to become more willing to accept differences in other people, acknowledge other’s equal worth and begin to develop patience for ambiguity. In sum, these spaces were ethical and ideal for young people to share, to explore, and to experience, within the safety of the group setting, their feelings, emotions, attitudes and relationships with one another, and with the world.

REFLECTION ON THE CASE STUDY The pilot programme carried out at the Seaside Centre and Hillside School has been well-received by both students and staff. In fact, the designated ethical spaces have inspired the team’s imagination and also collaboration from students (and support from parents) to make the programme richer, more lively and more engaging. The case study itself was an action research, which was intended for the participating staff and the researchers from the think-tank to document students’ experiences, reflect on the pedagogical features, and consider ways to further improve learning and enrich relational processes. Therefore, due to the small scale of the pilot and the learning aims of the case study, the research did not involve any structured before-and-after measures, nor intend to formally compare students’ academic or social, emotional and relational progress. Instead, the case study involved reflective and evaluative conversations with students and staff to draw out the significant learning experiences facilitated and enabled by the programme.

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In what follows, I draw on anecdotes and individuals’ experiences to paint a picture of the kinds of learning opportunities afforded by these three ethical spaces. As the programme in the United Kingdom completed a three-year pilot, there were extended field notes; semi-structured interviews with students and with mentors and facilitators; and many informal conversations amongst the team. By contrast, as the programme in Colombia is continuing for one more year, these insights were drawn from weekly team-based reflection and evaluation, as well as ongoing group-based conversation with students and parents. In general, the case study suggests that the ethical spaces offered by the programme have played a significant part in supporting students’ whole person growth and relational development. In this regard, students’ learning includes (1) enhanced self-awareness, (2) richer and more meaningful relationships with peers and other adults, and (3) greater openness in one’s attitudes towards others, better understanding and acceptance of others, and more caring. Clearly these three most significant and common aspects of students’ learning experiences are the fruit of ethical education practices, which include, for instance, caring, presence, listening and whole-person engagement. Let’s explore students’ experiences and pedagogies separately. Students’ Learning

The three aspects of students’ learning experiences are overlapping, and they reflect the holistic nature of ethical education. Enhanced self-awareness. All three spaces helped enhance students’ selfawareness. They became more reflective about who they are, rather than merely accepting what they were told they are. They were also able to discuss their feelings and emotions rather than being carried away by them. This allowed them to reflect on their relations to significant issues and ideas in their lives. For instance, at the Seaside Centre, when Hariri arrived at the group at the age of 14, he was experiencing racist bullying in school by several older students who were calling him a ‘black Muslim’, threatening him with violence, and encouraging Hariri’s peers to ignore him (McCarthy Sommerville and Gill, 2018). In the first year of the pilot, during both one-to-one mentoring session and group sessions, Hariri often exhibited frustration and anger with his teachers and his peers. His mentor’s patience and persistence in listening to Hariri helped him to open up and, in both the exploration and inquiry spaces,

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the group reflected with Hariri what it meant to be a Muslim in twenty-firstcentury Britain, and what kind of challenges Hariri had to confront on a daily basis at home and at school due to his Muslim identity. Personal sharing, listening and conversations with teachers and peers helped Hariri reflect on who he wanted to be, and enabled him to distinguish between his own sense of himself and the image of young Muslim imposed by fear-based public discourse (McCarthy Sommerville and Gill, 2018). Similarly, in Hillside School, David who came from a difficult family background was very quiet in sessions for an entire term. His mentor and the other facilitators kept a watchful eye on him, but never pushed him to talk. Session after session, despite David’s silence, his mentor was a consistent presence, attentive and listening. Suddenly one day, during mentoring, David burst into tears and began to talk, expressing his heartfelt appreciation for the genuine openness and willingness to listen, which he had never before experienced and empowered him to begin to share and reflect on his story. Richer and more meaningful relationships. Mentoring, social-emotional learning and cognitive development can provide the adolescent with opportunities to build richer, more meaningful, respectful and caring relationships with one another and with the adults involved. In the case study, according to the students, they felt that their intrinsic value as persons was recognised by their peers and other adults, and they were not coerced into doing things against their will. Interestingly, by not imposing an agenda, the students became more open and more willing to be directed by the teachers. Rachel’s experience was an example. She was enrolled in the mainstream school, rather than the Seaside Centre, but she came to Seaside Centre for the pilot programme because the mainstream classroom couldn’t cope with her disruption and interruption. Initially, Rachel wore the same indifferent attitude in all three spaces, refusing to connect with other students, or participate in the dialogue, but without disruption or interruption. She didn’t leave the group either. In the final year of the pilot, however, she began to make use of the Seaside Centre as a safe space in her free time. During most break times she was to be found sitting chatting with other Seaside Centre students or sitting quietly in a classroom or in the ‘soft room’. When she felt unable to stay in her mainstream lessons, she would often come to find her mentor in the Seaside Centre, rather than wandering (or storming) about the corridors as she would have used to.

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Three years into the pilot, Rachel’s relationships with her mentor and teachers deepened in ways none had anticipated. It also helped her to become more mature and more motivated in learning. At the end of her secondary education and the end of the pilot, to her own and her parents’ surprises, Rachel not only completed the necessary courses to progress to college, she was also accepted to embark on vocational training for hairdressing. At her first apprenticeship in a local Hair Salon, Rachel sent an email with photos of her looking comfortable in the workplace, and thanked the team for the support she received over the previous three years and for the relationships she was enabled to develop at the Seaside Centre. Without the nourishment of such relationships, students such as Rachel would struggle with education and find education of little meaning (McCarthy Sommerville and Gill, 2018). Greater openness, better understanding and more caring. Within ethical spaces, students were encouraged to explore their emotional landscapes, including vocabulary for emotional awareness. The deep sharing experienced in all sessions helped students to feel more open and to readily engage with differences. Here we found similar examples from both the Seaside Centre and the Hillside School. Following mentoring sessions, and the continued dialogue and conversations during group sessions, students became more proactive in proposing topics for discussions. In the Seaside Centre, the students decided to talk about their life options and imagine how they might live their lives in the future. During one such group exploration session, we witnessed Jacob who had previously been self-centred and unwilling to listen, working in a triad with Tom who has speech and language difficulties and a researcher (ibid.). When it was Tom’s turn to share his dream of the future, his words were entirely undecipherable to the researcher who appeared to be struggling to understand. Jacob, seeing this, diplomatically asked: ‘Tom, would you mind if I told her what you just said?’ Tom was grateful and enthusiastically agreed. Jacob then reported Tom’s words, allowing the discussion to continue. The relational awareness, responsibility and care reflected in Jacob’s actions here were outstanding. He cared about the process of sharing, was aware of the barrier to shared communication, and took initiative to support the relational process. A similar anecdote was found in the Hillside School. During a group inquiry session, one of the students, Emilia, struggled to imagine what she might be and become in her future life. The group noted this situation and decided it might help Emilia if she could make reference to people she

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admired. Emilia, coming from a very deprived family, had a difficult earlier life, and found it impossible to recall a hero/heroine or role model in her life. Her peers in the group, instead of telling Emilia what they each wanted to be and become, shared stories of their personal favourite role models and what each of these persons had inspired in the student about their own future life. The session illustrated that the students have developed compassion for what Emilia had gone through, understood her difficulties and become caring in their way of supporting her. Students have experienced transformation despite the fact that the ethical education programme only took 90–150 minutes a week as opposed to the vast amount of time devoted to the entire content-driven curriculum. What was really fascinating for the case study was to observe that as students’ experiences of ethical education heightened, their relational horizons were broadened, and their relational development deepened; the other aspects of their academic studies seemed to be equally strengthened (ibid.). Ethical Education Practices

Ethical education practices are centred around ways of relating to the students, acknowledging their value as persons, respecting their needs and enhancing their potential for development. This requires the mentors and facilitators to hold at the heart of all their interactions a genuine care for every student’s holistic development; be authentic in their relations with each other and with students through a persistent presence; and engage with students as whole persons. Caring. Pedagogical practices as applied in these ethical spaces are generally aimed at making students feel valued as persons. As one of the facilitators reflected: ‘I personally try hard to make the group the sole focus of my attention . . . ; I convey . . . that they matter, their opinions matter and their voices are welcome and worthy.’ This caring approach was acknowledged and appreciated by the students. According to another, this required the teachers to relinquish a classic notion of the teacher as ‘purveyor of knowledge’ role, and instead, they acted more as a supportive friend, guide, collaborator and co-inquirer (also see McCarthy Sommerville and Gill, 2018). Such human relationships with the students cultivated by mentors and facilitators were also modelled in the staff’s own interactions and connections with one another as colleagues. What the students witnessed included introspection, reflection and positive emotional risk, such as facilitators sharing

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their own personal experiences and showing a willingness to express emotions. Equally, mentors and facilitators tended to enter each space with a willingness to accept the uncertainty of not having a pre-planned programme. This enabled all conversations, sharing and inquiry to be based on where students were at the time, a truly collaborative process tailored in a flexible manner according to the emerging needs of the group. Indeed, caring practices are very much reflected in the teachers’ concerns for meeting the students’ needs, both immediate and long-term, catering for their experiences in the here and now, and staying attuned to optimal moments where learning takes place. Listening. Furthermore, to stay attuned to the students’ needs and experiences demands good listening. As one of the teachers said, it was necessary to listen to the student in such a way that as a mentor, she could hear beyond the student’s words and understand the feelings and emotions that the student was experiencing. Similarly, the safe spaces invited students to feel that they would be listened to and the intention to listen helped draw out the voice in the student. In the exploration space, activities, especially ones that involved contemplation and quietude, also called for listening – listening to voices beyond those heard in the circle. Each person was also encouraged to listen to their own innermost voices or the voices of being, and when listening deeply and mutually in this way, it seemed possible that students would let go of presumptions and judgements about others, including others who are distant, and become more open towards otherness. In these myriad ways, caring was perceived as a form of love and acceptance, which can inspire deep connection with oneself and with others. When, in education, each young person is cared for so holistically, listened to so attentively and intensely, it would be possible to hear everything human in them out (Palmer, 2009). Presence. In all three ethical spaces, the teachers strived to be an authentic presence to students. According to the teachers, the practice of presence is about being engaged in the moment, and about giving one’s full attention and commitment to the flow experiences, activities that the students were involved in. According to the teachers on the pilot programme, to be present to students and with students requires cultivating and deepening self-acceptance and selfcompassion. They suggested that self-acceptance be the foundation for ethical relationships with others and with the world. To this end, both teams included

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such cultivation in the piloted spaces, such as meditation, breathing and visualisation. These activities allowed them to shift their attention from dayto-day school and home lives, which could be ‘busy and frantic’, to what is important in front of them in the here and now. The result was often a state of calm in both the teachers and students, which was considered to be connected to everyone’s well-being. Likewise, when young people experienced physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual wellness in these spaces, they were more able to embrace uncertainty and ambiguity in engaging with others. In a time of unprecedented access to technology and social media, the value of the activities in these ethical spaces also provided students with opportunities to appreciate teachers’ presence, as well as silence and stillness experienced, which enabled them to be truly present to themselves, their surroundings and the other people around them. Thus both teachers and students could experience themselves both as a being amongst beings, and as part of the group: me as we (Gill, 2019). Whole-person engagement. The practices within all three ethical spaces were intended to nurture all aspects of the student as a whole person, as opposed to being directed solely towards the academic or the intellect. Nor do I mean to endorse a view of the whole person as sliceable into distinct parts (the intellect, the emotions etc.). Rather these labels should be understood to refer to aspects of a whole person which are mutually supportive and cannot be understood as alienable from one another. Within the ethical spaces, especially during exploration time, the facilitators encouraged the students to explore all senses by listening to music; engaging in bodily movement, such as body sculptures, role-play, participating in visual and hands-on arts, and dramas; or simply lying on the floor in stillness. These opportunities to acknowledge the significance of our often-undervalued sensory perceptions were offered to students for the most part without a great deal of explicit rationalisation or discussion, allowing students to simply experience their perceptions without being concerned to intellectualise them. These practical activities also eased the group dynamic. It was striking that students who were reticent to speak in whole-group discussions were found to be more active and more engaged in these imaginative and creative activities that do not rely on verbal articulation. Equally, stories that embodied emotions, demanded compassion, invited sympathy and prompted a change of heart were read aloud in the inquiry space, and then discussed amongst the group through reasoning and understanding. Poetry and other literature are also shared, which enabled students to

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step into other people’s lived realities and reflect on life, meanings and things in the world. Ethical issues were brought to the group where young people learned to take perspectives from someone else in both fictional and real-life contexts. Taking these practices as a whole, the strengths of these ethical spaces also depend on the school leaders’ recognition of the programme’s vision, and the team’s creating an institutional space for the mentors and facilitators’ professional learning and development. For instance, the Seaside Centre brings the pilot team together every Wednesday afternoon for informal feedback and evaluation. The conversations flow as the team share teas and cakes together. This is a nurturing space where teachers feel safe and confident in reflecting on their practices, seek innovative ideas and support each other’s learning. At Hillside School, the team also come together once a week, and they dialogue about their practices, share stories of students’ progresses, and appreciate and encourage each other’s learning. Such mutual learning and mutual support constitute teachers’ well-being.

CONCLUSION Ethical education in secondary schools is crucial for students’ well-being and whole-person growth. It supports their relational development through encounter, personal sharing and dialogue with others. The three spaces piloted, and the connected educative processes and pedagogical practices can provide rich insights about ethical education. In practice, it involves the creation of safe spaces for young people to explore themselves as whole human beings, step into others’ lived realities, experience their own and others’ emotions, learn to be open and accepting, feel gratitude, become more self-aware and finally locate themselves within a web of human relationships and rich connections in the world. Recalling Standish’s (1995) appeal that each student should be allowed to return to the state of being a whole person who hasn’t lost touch with their innocence, playfulness, curiosity and openness, it seems that the ethos of this ethical education pilot has enabled young people to embark on a journey of returning to precisely such a state of being.

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Conclusion to Part III Scherto Gill and Garrett Thomson

Ethical education distinguishes itself from moral education particularly in that the ethical is situated in the relational rather than the moral development of the individuals. From both conceptual and pedagogical perspectives, the first and second parts of the book have made this distinction really clear, highlighting the educative significance of the ethical, not only as part of students’ learning and holistic human development, but also as part of their well-being. Making convincing arguments for an innovative approach to ethical education is one thing, illustrating how it can be applied in the current public educational system is another. The latter would seem to be more difficult especially given the kinds of structural obstacles that education is confronted globally. That is why the three chapters in the final part hold an important place for this book – they brought together ethical practices within existing state schools in very different parts of the world. It is these practices and examples that have made our proposed approach to ethical education real and possible, thereby inspiring hopes for educational transformation. A number of significant questions are implicit in this part of the book concerning how ethical processes and practices in education can be truly integrated in schools. First, for schools to fully embrace the relational as a focus of ethical education, it requires a fundamental structural change in the system of education. Although all three chapters have shown that ethical practices are possible even under the current configuration of schooling, all the projects reported are essentially created as a response to existing structural frustration. Clearly, systemic transformation must be envisaged so that all students, regardless of their ages, socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds, personal 169 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Western Ontario, on 18 Jul 2020 at 11:18:03, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108769778.016

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conditions and needs, can experience enriched relationships with teachers and peers, mutual understanding, holistic development and well-being. What might such an ethical structure entail to support a completely different vision of learning? How do we start the process of the new envisioning? Who would initiate such a structural change? Second, the authors in the final part of the book have argued for ethical principles to ground a school’s ethos, policies, cultures and governance. They all emphasised on relational values that have been promoted throughout this book, such as direct experiences, encounters, respecting students’ needs, human flourishing and well-being. However, none of the case studies offered insights into how these principles and values came to enter the discourse of the school, and how they were introduced to the school’s processes. Therefore, we must ask such questions, for instance, how might the different stakeholders participate in these important considerations for education? What are the optimal processes school leaders might instil so that these values, ideas and cultures are shared across the role boundaries and disciplines? More crucially, how might our students also play an active part in shaping the ethos and culture of the school? What ethical practices must be in place to foster their capacities to take responsibility? Lastly, although the authors discussed the significant contribution of teachers in promoting ethical practices, no one had gone further to reflect on how teachers should be educated, guided and prepared to embrace the ethical in both their own being and their teaching. Traditional teacher training, especially the training to prepare secondary teachers, is often limited to subject-teaching. In the context of this book’s concern and interest in the ethical, does it require a different conception of teaching all together? How would the change in the structure and in the practice in turn alter the way teachers are cultivated? What about their own ethical qualities as Chapter 8 reflected upon? What kinds of institutional environment are needed for teachers’ professional learning and whole-person development? Without posing these and other similar questions, it is impossible to consider systemic re-envisaging.

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The chapters in this book are directed towards the question ‘How can we improve educational practices with regard to ethical education within the existing schooling system?’ We restricted this question in such a manner to make it more precise and practical. Now it is time to remove that constraint. We can now challenge our current educational system itself. Indeed, education today requires an articulate, well-thought-out and widely shared vision of what education should aim for, and how the structure of the system might be delineated so that what we do in schools actually supports the aims of education including those that pertain to ethical education. One might define the structure of a social system as the ways in which relevant institutions are systematically organised in relation to each other, as defined by a set of principles. This means that claiming that a social structure or system is ethical isn’t the same as describing the human relationships that occur within it. Structure isn’t reducible to relationships between persons. It requires identifying the principles that shape, define and govern the relevant institutions. For example, the political-economic system is structured by the ways in which key institutions function together. In this case, the institutions include the nation state, the Central Bank, productive companies, financial markets, lending institutions, trading companies, consumer outlets and the legal frameworks that make these institutions possible. Generally, a system is characterised by a two-way dependency between part and whole: the whole depends on the parts and vice versa. For instance, the economic system depends on the institutions that partly constitute it, and the institutions are defined by their roles within that system. Notice that these institutions aren’t like some super-person. They are not like Hobbes’ Leviathan, nor are they 171 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. University of Western Ontario, on 18 Jul 2020 at 11:18:03, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108769778.017

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a collection of buildings. They are partly constituted by a set of functions or roles organised and designed around certain purposes within the framework of the system. In a similar vein, the educational system isn’t a collection of schools. It is the way in which various institutions are interrelated according to the principles that define the way they work together. These institutions include schools, examination boards, teacher training colleges, local authorities, the national curriculum authority, the ministry, national school inspection offices, various institutional employers, a framework of laws, and from there the wider global economy. These institutions themselves are partly a complex set of roles and functions that individuals can assume within the framework of the system. Thus, we can distinguish at least three levels of inquiry or three scopes of evaluative questioning: practices, institutions and systems. The following three questions are fundamentally different: ‘Does this teacher perform her role well?’ ‘How should we define a teacher’s job within the school?’ and ‘How should we define a learning institution?’ The first is about someone’s teaching practice, and such a question implicitly assumes some institutional standards that define the role. The second is about the institution, that is, the roles that define the institution, and this question implicitly takes for granted the system itself. The final question is about the system and the role that schools should play in a society. How does this pertain to ethical education? As we outlined in the Introduction, this book is motivated by the idea that our society needs to be more compassionate, kind and attentive. It needs a conception of ethics that is centred positively on the well-being of people rather than simply on a set of negative moral rules that prescribe and prohibit certain actions and limit the pursuit of self-interest for the protection of the common good. A positive conception of ethics requires that we are more caring towards each other, where this care involves sensitivity to the needs and feelings of others. Furthermore, this conception requires that ethical practices are relational; they occur within relationships between people that go beyond the role defined. We need an ethic that transcends rules and roles. It is a need that we each have as human beings, because human relationships lie at the core of our well-being. That is what our lives are: living with others. In this chapter, we don’t want to ask how teachers’ practices can help with this. We don’t want to explore how schools can improve ethical education, for instance, by becoming sites for ethical and relational development. Rather we want to ask: How can a public educational system become more ethical? By

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this we mean how can an education system itself be conducive to and embody ethical living in relationships. We shall assume that such ethical living will require concern for the well-being of persons and will constitute a vital aspect of one’s own well-being. Thus, we will answer the question by sketching the nature of an education system that is centred around the well-being of persons. The outline will consist in two parts: the theory and the application to the system.

THE THEORETICAL There are four principles underlying an educational system that enables and embodies human well-being and as such is ethical. Non-Instrumentalisation

Time at school cannot be mere preparation for adult life; it is itself part of life. The system shouldn’t instrumentalise this time, treating it as only valuable for the sake of a set of goals or purposes. The principle of non-instrumentalisation claims that students and teachers should be respected as persons, quite apart from their roles or functions. For education to be respectful, what we call ‘a school’ will be first and foremost a community of persons rather than a purpose-driven institution. Hence, time at school should be generally happy or joyful, and not drudgery, and students’ (and teachers’) well-being should matter. This implies that education must attend to the needs of young people, which means, above all, providing nurturing spaces for young people to learn to address those needs themselves. Indeed, education concerns fundamentally human persons and their lives. This matters much more directly and profoundly than the growth of national economy and the advancement of knowledge and technology, for example. Other things matter in relation to that.1 How can an educational institution not instrumentalise the student but rather treat her as a person? What does this first principle mean in practice? We will briefly sketch three applications of the principle. Later, the reader will see how these illustrations are important for the characterisation of a new educational system. The first area is motivation. The school treats the student as a person by enabling her to cultivate wider interests and to engage with learning activities as non-instrumentally valuable. This means that the student enjoys them and

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is motivated by them. In contrast, young people often experience school as a place of coercion, where they are made to perform activities that seem meaningless and a chore to them, and at best have only some instrumental value. The first constitutes treating the student as a person, whereas the second instrumentalises her. The key to this difference is taking the time to cultivate the emotional appreciation of the non-instrumental value of learning activities. The second area is relationships. An institution treats a person as a person (inter alia) by treating her time at school as a lived experience that meets her current needs and that is by-and-large happy. It is a time of well-being. During adolescence, young people are discovering new adult-like relationships, and this process is often painful and exhilarating. As part of their current well-being, young people need time to understand and come to terms with these processes in a self-reflective way: to understand blame, anger and fear as well as love and integrity, in the context of their relationships and everyday interactions. By applying the first principle, a learning institution needs to foster significant relationships as human beings beyond the instrumentalisation of roles. Often students do not see their teachers except as teachers, and this implies that they expect to be perceived of primarily as only students rather than as persons. This means that the relationships are perceived primarily as instrumental or functional. Insofar as this is true, the young people do not have a sense of being in a community that cares for them as persons. The third area is cognition. At this age, young people tend to ask questions, challenge bad reasoning and develop new relationships to authority. The praxis of the first principle requires that the learning institution respond to this kind of need and help young people towards feeding their own cognitive development. Systematic failure to do this counts as an instrumentalisation, as treating the young person as a vessel, that is, a violation of the first principle. There are three immediate implications. To make their own curricular choices, a student needs guidance to make good choices and to grasp more deeply what counts as a good choice. This implies that students need to grasp why they are learning and this kind of meta-knowledge may enable a young person to learn better. This implies that schools can respect young people by directly challenging their cognitive powers rather than feeding them information. This suggests that students need time specifically directed to their cognitive learning needs. We have briefly explored some implications of the first principle for educational practice. This first principle is hugely important for redefining

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the ethical nature of education. It reframes education because it means that learning is an activity to be engaged in primarily for its own sake; such activities have non-instrumental value and should be designed accordingly. It redefines ethical by making the ethical primarily part of the everyday practices of being in relationships and living together in a community rather than a set of aims. Development of the Human Being

The first principle doesn’t mean that educational processes shouldn’t have a set of goals. It implies that we shouldn’t treat those activities as if they were only valuable instrumentally for achieving those aims. What are those aims? The second principle is that the primary aim of education ought to be the development of the human person. This implies that the main aim isn’t some set of external purposes. However, generally speaking, education tends to be conceived either as a means to socio-economic goals, or academic ends. Teachers and students experience the conflicts between these aims on a daily basis. While much time in the classroom is spent on academic studies, schools themselves as institutions are usually seen as serving social ends. So, while many students need practical or vocational training to meet the demands of workplace, at the same time, schools want to maintain high academic standards. Whereas a pragmatic and economy-minded school principal might scorn the attitudes that once made students learn Latin and Euclid’s geometry, one can imagine an English teacher lamenting how writing business letters tends to replace the love of literature and the appreciation of poetry, or a physics teacher bemoaning how the applied sciences tend to water-down pure theory. One might sympathise with both sides. These tensions are manifest as a shortage of time: there is not enough time to comply with the academic rigours of the curriculum and to prepare students for working life in a complex society. The idea of finding a good balance between these two conflicting demands makes little sense unless there is a third position that enables them to be reconciled. This position, we shall argue, is the development of students in a humane way. Socio-economic and academic ends are secondary because economic, social and academic values are themselves derivative on the values of living. Therefore, the primary aim of educational processes should be the development of the human being. This doesn’t mean that schools should become factories that produce readily fashioned persons. Rather, schools should be sites that facilitate and guide young people towards holistic human development, including supporting their self-responsibility for such human becoming.

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Well-Being

The third principle defines the kind of development in question, namely that the educational activities should be directed to the well-being of the person as a whole. This includes helping a person enrich her future life in a way that is directed towards the whole of her well-being rather than merely the intellectual and vocational. The value of living well isn’t characterised by how useful a person’s life is, or how it is instrumentally valuable. First, we need to better understand the non-instrumentally valuable aspects of our lives – life for living’s sake.2 We do not assume that human well-being will be the same for all individuals at all times in all social contexts. There are huge relevant differences between individuals and social conditions, and any theoretical account of well-being must be able to take those differences into account. However, this does not preclude the idea that we can describe the general contours or features of the concept of well-being. It means rather that such a description must be sensitive to relevant differences (Thomson and Gill, 2020). What does it mean for a human person to live well? An answer provides a normative framework for the concept of human development needed for a vision of human-centred education. We argue that being well is constituted by non-instrumental goodness along the necessary dimensions of our way of being. These define living well. Well-being is understood in terms of four dimensions along which we live. (1) We live through our outer activities, which aren’t merely discrete experiences and actions; they are also complex webs of activities nested within wider engagement and life’s broader processes. The value of these activities consists in the extent to which they accord with the patterns of desirability in our desirings. Their valuable nature is to be understood in terms of the structure of the individual’s web of desires (Thomson, 1987, 2002, 2005). (2) We also simultaneously live through or in our awareness. For the value of our activities to count towards our being or living well, we must be aware of them as valuable in relevant ways. In other words, I live well (in part) by being connected appropriately to the valuable nature of the activities that I engage in. Because of this, the quality of our lives is partly constituted by the quality of our awareness (Thomson and Gill, 2020). (3) We live in our relationships which typically involve doing things for other people and being with others. It is part of our well-being to be with

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others. Minimally, other people are part of my life simply insofar as I relate to them as persons. People are part of my life in a fuller sense insofar as I have good quality relationships with them such that I no longer regard and feel them as others but rather as constituting an ‘us’. The quality of one’s relationship depends directly on how the other person treats one, as well as vice versa. It is reciprocal. Insofar as I am appropriately connected to other people, my life is better in ways that are constitutive of my well-being. (4) Our lives are also constituted by our self-consciousness. It is part of my life that I am aware of myself. This pertains to time. With regard to the present, for a person to live well, she will appreciate her value: perceiving and feeling herself as non-instrumentally valuable. This is a form of selfrespect, which does not depend on what one does or has done. In a similar vein regarding the past, for a person’s life to flourish, she needs an appropriate sense of her past life: to perceive some past activities as processes that form a valuable part of her life. Likewise, concerning the future, well-being requires one to have a sense of one’s future life as containing worthwhile possibilities (Thomson and Gill, 2020). An educational system should be dedicated towards the holistic development of persons, understood in terms of their well-being. We have tried to supplement this claim with a lightning sketch of a rich conception of wellbeing. A methodical application of these ideas would indicate how the activities in a school or learning community might be mapped onto these elements of well-being. We will illustrate how this might be achieved in the second part of the chapter. The Nature of Learning

The final principle highlights three often-neglected aspects of the nature of learning. Learning typically involves the cultivation or strengthening of qualities. For example, training in mathematics is not just a question of knowing equations or skill in applying them to solve problems, but it also consists in the development of the non-moral virtues or qualities that a good mathematician embodies, such as diligence, curiosity and sticking to the point. These qualities do not replace knowledge and skills; indeed, they require them. Nevertheless, the qualities are more than knowledge and skills because they involve caring in appropriate ways. They involve internalising standards, which is one of the reasons why they are educationally important. Furthermore, these virtues or

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qualities are corrective and circumstantial, without thereby being subjective. This means that to nurture them requires a person to reflect critically regarding what she cares about and doesn’t. Therefore, the educational process will encourage such reflection. Such caring requires, and can be fostered by, appreciation or evaluative perception. For instance, a good scientist cares about the details of how an experiment was set-up. It means, for instance, that she might perceive a piece of evidence as dubious or an observation as unsystematic. Learning involves developing qualities, and what these are depends on the area of study. However, we need to avoid thinking that such learning processes should be primarily subject matter–driven because, given the second principle, human development has a higher priority. Therefore, in the first instance, we should think of the development of qualities in terms of the holistic nature of well-being, as just outlined. These qualities primarily involve being able to relate well to other people, which include being open in one’s feelings to the realities of other people. The qualities concerning self-awareness involve an appreciation of oneself. The virtues concerning motivation relate primarily to being proactive, or seeing something as worth caring about. Second, learning processes usually point in two directions: outwards and inwards. On the one hand, they point outwards because learning usually involves being connected to the valuable nature of something beyond oneself. As a student develops, she strengthens her connection to the valuable aspects of what she is learning, for example, she sees what is important in this part of astronomy or in this area of history. On the other hand, learning points towards the person herself because it is a process of self-development and such processes will always need a self-reflective aspect. This suggests the importance of the third of the often-neglected aspects of the nature of learning: it breaks the traditional divide between reason and passion, or more generally, between the cognitive and the non-cognitive. This implies that perception can be evaluative: one can perceive something as, for instance, threatening or important or valuable.

TOWARDS ENVISAGING A NEW EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM To move away from specific practices towards envisaging a public (secondary) education system, we have outlined four theoretical principles. We now need to see what this guidance might mean in practice for an educational system. Systemic change towards the ethical requires a radical re-thinking of educational institutions and processes, especially the curriculum, pedagogy and

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assessment, or the three key aspects of schooling in the words of Basil Bernstein (1975). It also requires reimagining what a learning institution is and the ways that it frames activities for students. Curriculum

The above principles suggest that public institutions should put aside the assumption that the curriculum consists mainly in a menu of academic subjects – of knowledge and skill content that needs to be delivered. The standard model of secondary education tends to value academic learning either for its own sake or for external socio-economic ends. In both cases, it values an external end over and above the development of the student as a person. This means that the needs of a field tend to dictate the curriculum. For example, curriculum designers tend to ask: ‘What does a young potential scientist aged 16 need to know and be able to do?’ and map out a plan of study from there. From this point of view, it is very hard to cut the curriculum, as most reductions would look like a travesty to the integrity and complexity of the subject. In effect, an academic subject generates its own requirements of the form: ‘A person knowledgeable in this field must know X.’ For this reason, a student treading the path of taking exams in sciences is treated as the first step of a potential scientist subject to these requirements. This is same for the other disciplines. We rightly want expert scientists to design the science curriculums in schools, but they are precisely the people who will tend to put the demands of the discipline above the needs of the students, even though science education should be conceived as part of the holistic development of young people. A discipline may have demands but adolescents have needs. It is a question of priority, and we have already argued that the priority should be the person. Accordingly, therefore, first and foremost, a curriculum should be considered as a map of how each student’s time is allocated to a variety of activities that accord with her current well-being and needs. In short, the curriculum should not treat students merely instrumentally and, therefore, it would be designed with their actual needs and well-being in mind. Second, a curriculum would not be directed primarily towards the goals of national economic growth and academic excellence but rather aimed at the development of the students as human beings. Third, this development is holistic, and a curriculum would carve out spaces accordingly rather than merely for the academic and the vocational. Combining these points, a curriculum should enable the young person to gradually recognise that she is primarily responsible for her flourishing. Thus,

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it would provide opportunities for the young person to find challenging activities that she can enjoy and to identify her learning paths. Fourth, it would be built on the idea that learning requires developing relevant qualities, and not merely the acquisition of knowledge and skills. For a curriculum to nurture the whole person, it would need to be tailored to the individual students’ needs. This would include, of course, opportunities for developing deeper relationships and for discussions about relational experiences (Gill and Thomson, 2012). Since it has her longer-term developmental trajectory at its core, a buffet-style model, in which each student is like a solitary consumer, would be inadequate. Rather, it should offer opportunities for the young person to reflect on her holistic development with others and with adult guidance. This kind of curriculum does not preclude academic learning. On the contrary, considered attention to the development of the full human being will increase the intellectual capacities of each student because blocks to the exercise of intelligence are often social, emotional and motivational. On this basis, we suggest three core aspects for a curriculum designed to embody an ethical education. These are time and space for one-to-one mentoring, for deepening relationships, and for cultivating cognitive capacities and qualities. We will now explore each of these in turn. Direction

The meaning of this period is to enable the person to take responsibility for her development and to own her learning processes. During this time, with the support of a mentor, the student constructs aspects of the rest of her curriculum. This process of construction is itself deeply educational, and it consists of four key elements. The first element consists in identifying personalised learning pathways and specifying what activities she needs to undertake during various time periods of, for instance, a week, a month, a term and a year. This process should be based on the student’s recognition of the qualities and skills that she needs to develop and improve, in addition to the areas of knowledge that she needs and wants to learn. In this, the guidance and direction of the mentor is critical. The mentor works closely with the student to construct and consolidate personal objectives and trajectories. The second element of direction time consists in helping students overcome the emotional and relational problems that may plague their lives in the future and that impact negatively on their well-being. To help the student

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work through these difficulties, the mentor may guide her through a process of healing, perhaps with help from a counsellor or a psychologist. The third element consists in developing the student’s self-awareness and self-understanding of her talents, interests and temperament. Once again, the mentor advises and guides the student through a process of self-discovery. Finally, direction time itself is a self-reflective learning process, during which the student evaluates, with the mentor, her progress in learning, such as the development of relevant qualities pertaining to self-respect and self-guidance. This requires that the mentor helps the student understand the standards that constitute improvement. From this, the mentor guides the student in constructing her tailored learning trajectories. This process involves setting challenges for the student that she can embrace so that the relationship supports the student in becoming more responsible for her learning. Because meeting challenges requires good preparation, a demanding education cannot be conceived as a set of discrete activities. Group Exploration

The meaning of this second aspect of the curriculum is for young people to share their experiences and feelings with other people of their own age and to deepen their relationships. These sessions provide an opportunity to build care for others, as well as take responsibility for one’s own emotions. Much of group time would be directly experiential, for example, using deep dialogue, group dynamics, role-play exercises, and group team-building sessions and other activities to explore feelings about one’s relationships. By listening to each other, they learn to care more for each other. In this way, the young people can feel, sympathise, laugh and cry together. The activities during group exploration would help young people unblock their feelings of anxiety, anger and sadness that tend to block caring for others. Some of the sessions might be organised as discussions or creative outlets, such as art, music, poetry and drama. This aspect of the programme provides a space that is important for the present well-being of students as well as their development as persons. However, it is very important that it is not instrumentalised, made into a tool for improving academic performance. It is a time to be appreciated for itself. Furthermore, we emphasise the experience of feelings rather than their control, regulation or management. The term ‘management’ suggests that feelings and emotions are instrumental to some purpose, and tends to

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emphasise the idea that they are obstacles to be overcome, energies to be harnessed and resources to be exploited. Emotions are primarily part of one’s life and being. The student should have opportunities to experience feelings with others and to reflect on how she relates to the other people in her group to nurture the qualities that one needs in order to get on well with others. Cognitive Development

The current education system is dedicated almost exclusively to the systematic study of the disciplines in part because of the assumption that this is the best way in which students can develop cognitively. It also tends to prioritise knowledge over abilities, and over qualities. However, this fails to meet the conditions for full human development. It does not address the serious motivational problems that many students face. It ignores the difference between pointing outwards and inwards. While studying an area of knowledge, directly connecting to the content is fundamental, but this requires inner preparation. It doesn’t happen by magic, but when it does happen it is like magic because the student is more self-motivated. For the student’s appreciative attention to point outwards requires that it points inwards as well. One needs to perceive in new ways what one is doing. It is partly for this reason that we recommend a distinct time period for the development of cognitive skills. This is a quiet space where the student looks at her own cognitive development explicitly and directly without the pressures of trying to understand some subject matter. Language capacities form a crucial foundation for a person’s work in any other field, academic or otherwise. The basis is primarily the capacity to listen and talk, and read and write. Much of this concerns how the student directs her attention. From this basis, more abstract thinking capabilities, including comprehension, systematic analysis, argumentation, deduction, criticism, questioning, making the relevant connections and strategies, can develop. The meaning of the cognitive development part of the curriculum is to devote attention directly and exclusively to these capabilities in small groups, and sometimes on individual basis, starting from the fundamentals. These are coaching sessions. The time for cognitive development is not remedial. It addresses each person from where they are and defines the next step forward. So, this part of the curriculum would include training and practice in critical thinking and problem-solving at all levels. They should be given the opportunity to challenge the views of authors, question accepted knowledge and to embrace uncertainty.

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Other Elements of the Curriculum

Of course, these three elements would not constitute the whole of the curriculum. We would expect students to have time and space in the curriculum dedicated to their specialist studies and to general knowledge. There would be the opportunity to explore briefly new fields, even outside the school environment. We would also build into the curriculum time for students to work on individual and group projects (Gill and Thomson, 2012, 2016). Teaching and Pedagogy

This skeletal curriculum has dramatic implications for teaching and pedagogy. To show this, we will briefly contrast the traditional conception of teaching with an alternative one and argue that neither is adequate for ethical education. The traditional view of teaching in secondary education is mainly the transmission of knowledge and the motivation of students. The teacher’s task is primarily to impart both knowledge and the love for the subject to young people. This traditional conceptualisation has some severe weaknesses. First, it is wedded to a conception of learning as the acquisition of knowledge. This view is undermined by the claim that education should be human-centred. It is located within a system that regards education instrumentally and thereby ignores the primacy of a person’s life and the part that a young person ought to play in determining her own learning. Additionally, the conventional conception is situated within a narrow understanding of learning. Knowledge is not an entity or commodity that can be imparted or delivered, and even academic learning requires the development of qualities. The traditional model ignores the fact that the enthusiasm of a teacher may not suit all students: learning to love learning requires a process of preparation. By contrast, in progressive and alternative secondary schools, teaching is conceived as facilitation, following the principle that students should learn according to their own interests and motivations and should direct their own learning. Any teacher action beyond facilitation would be an imposition and would interfere with the natural growing and learning process. Teaching is typically limited to providing a suitable environment for individual and group learning and supporting this work. The above outline suggests that the traditional and alternative perspectives are complimentary. For instance, growth from within is good, but so too is rising to

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meet external standards. This suggests that we need a different approach. We can avoid the idea that young people can learn only by being taught, without thinking that guidance is interference. An ethical curriculum would require re-conceiving the teaching profession. It dissolves the idea that there is one way of being a teacher. In such a curriculum, there are at least four very different pedagogical roles. First, there are mentors, who are responsible for direction time. Second, there is the facilitating of students’ interactions during group time, which requires appropriate training. Third, there is coaching to enliven students’ intelligence during cognitive time. Finally, there are specialist tutors, who have expert knowledge in a specific subject field and supervise students’ projects. The first three of these roles are very different from the traditional work of a teacher. In effect, a radical view of teaching is to regard teaching as consisting of different kinds of professional activities, each requiring different processes of professional learning and development. Indeed, the transformation of the educational system will no doubt entail rethinking the ways that teachers are educated and trained. Learning Feedback and Review

Since the advent of high-stakes testing and the linking of students’ exam grades with teachers’ levels of pay, it is easy to slip into viewing the educative process primarily as a means to achieving better grades. Ultimately, this is deeply unnecessary and harmful, as well as self-defeating. To show this, we will challenge some theoretical assumptions built into the current use of performance targets, and we will argue that the functions of educational assessment can be better served in a more human-centred way. Theory: There is a strong tendency in management sciences to identify measurement with what is measured because of the idea that all scientific concepts need to be operationalised. Operationalism states that a procedure of measurement defines the relevant theoretical term. This operationalist idea is unsound. The main problem becomes apparent when we consider the question: ‘What are we trying to measure?’ Given operational definitions, there is nothing to measure! This is because the thing being measured is defined by its measurement. To escape this circularity, the thing measured must have some specification apart from the way we measure it. Therefore, one must separate what is measured from the measurement of it. This is an important conclusion for education because it permits questions such as: ‘Why do we want to measure X?’ ‘Is the way we measure X a good way to do so?’ Operational definitions render these kinds of question logically

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impossible because they identify what is measured with the way it is measured. Operationalism constitutes a grave misunderstanding of the role of values in education, through which the measurement becomes a target that is identified with the value of the learning activities. The seduction occurs in two steps. The first consists in instrumentalising the learning activity. The mistake is the assumption that the value of the activity lies entirely in a set of goals or intended results. This implies the activity has only instrumental value, and that it is only a cost that should be minimised in the name of efficiency. This way of thinking destroys the non-instrumental value of the activity and erodes the possibility of appreciating the learning for its own sake. The second error consists in identifying the goal of an activity with the measurement of the achievement of the goal, such as a score on a test. Because of the second mistake, the measurement becomes the goal; the goal of the educational process becomes identified with passing exams or achieving performance targets. Within a performance attainment–driven education system, learning activities become drained of value and learning becomes merely an instrument to achieving measurable targets. This is a grave mistake because with a learning activity, one needs to be sensitive to the underlying noninstrumental values; instead, one is connecting to the appearances or signs of value. The hollow nature of this confusion is apparent when we consider efficient ways of attaining the performance targets but without connecting to the relevant values at all. For instance, one can reduce unemployment figures by altering what counts as employment; to maintain a high attainment level, schools refuse to admit students who would fail; a hospital can turn away fatally sick patients to keep its mortality rate low. None of this means that learning should not be evaluated; it does imply that the measurement should not become a substitute for the valuable qualities. How to avoid this in practice is the next point. Practice: Assessment is the wrong word when it comes to serve the three main purposes of educational evaluation (i.e. valuing the intrinsically worthwhile aspects of learning): (1) the learning and feedback needs of students, which are connected to teachers’ need for feedback on students’ learning and their own teaching; (2) the informational needs of other institutions, such as further education colleges and universities, and employers; and (3) the informational needs of the government regarding the qualities of education that schools provide. These three types of informational needs should be kept apart. There should not be one grand process called ‘assessment’ that attempts to serve all three purposes at once, which is, of course, what happens now with public exams at the end of secondary education. This lumping together involves grading

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young people in a way that harms their learning processes for the sake of ends that are not theirs, such as public accountability. It makes learning hollow. Moreover, it is a punitive system. Of course, there is a clear logic to the idea of public accountability: taxpayers pay the government to provide public services, and the government is responsible for ensuring those services are of good quality, which requires that schools be accountable, through measurement figures. While this train of reasoning makes sense, the contortions it produces do not. However, there are many ways of making schools take full responsibility for students’ learning and well-being that do not involve treating them as numbers nor misshaping their education. Such ways require, at minimum, separating the various needs that ‘assessment’ is supposed to serve, rather than amalgamating them thereby turning grades into something akin to a currency. The idea that the three purposes of assessment can be kept separate is liberating, because it allows each to be met distinctly according to its own requirements. Especially important is that the learning needs of students do not have to be mixed up with the requirements of employers and the state. If institutions, employers, parents and governments have their information needs about students already satisfied by other means, there is no need to grade students for the sake of external needs. Under such conditions, students will not need grades and we can define learning feedback on its own terms, and that is as an integral part of the learning process. Learning Communities

An institution that embodies the four principles of ethical education outlined at the beginning of this chapter can hardly be called ‘a school’. It doesn’t engage in schooling, and the curriculum, pedagogy and evaluative practice would be radically different. An ethical educational institution is a learning community. The members of a learning community, which include students, staff, parents and others, will have a strong sense of belonging and of being together as persons of equal non-instrumental value. This reflects the nature of the relational as an ethical basis for learning and flourishing (Gergen and Gill, 2020). In a community, these qualities are known to be shared. Such mutual knowledge requires opportunities to make itself manifest such as community meetings. A learning community is comprised of persons who are learning, and all members of the community will be regarded as learners, albeit in different

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ways. Furthermore, each member of the community knows that the community exists for the sake of learning and development, especially for that of the students, and this mutual recognition constitutes a shared culture. This shared culture defines the human-centred norms accepted by the community, a culture of care and compassion, friendliness, and warmth. This means that the community needs some time for relational enrichment so that every person can feel that she is a member of a community, including parents.

SOME CONCLUSIONS Let us now step back and review the overall argument. Ethical education helps enable students to live ethically, that is, to relate well to others and to themselves for its own sake (rather than as a moral command or merely as a means to something else). We have argued that the DNA of this idea implies four principles, which, in turn, when implemented, would radically transform the contours of our educational system, including the curriculum, pedagogy, evaluation and the very nature of a learning institution. Now, we argue that such changes would amount to a structural transformation in accordance with the criteria outlined at the beginning of the chapter. Of course, we haven’t directly examined the implications for all the relevant institutions such as the Ministry of Education, examination boards, teachers’ training colleges, further and higher admissions offices, and so on. Nevertheless, if the argument succeeds, we have provided a skeletal description of an educational system that embodies the ethical. The global search for educational excellence has been driven largely by goals external to education, namely, preparing for the workforce and competing in international marketplaces. Thus, educational institutions tend to be subordinated to economic goals, and this has led to an increased centralisation in education in many parts of the world. The introduction of management practices, such as performance appraisals and target-setting, has been gradually orienting education in more countries towards pre-determined measurable outcomes. These management practices are thoroughly instrumental, and as such lead to alienation. In contrast, education centred on the holistic development and well-being of humans would constitute a very different public educational system from the existing one. A structure of a social system consists in the ways that relevant institutions are systematically organised in relation to each other as defined by a set of principles. The human-centred principles we have

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proposed are not defined economically or academically, and a system structured around them would require quite different kinds of institutions from those currently in place. We have illustrated that schools would become learning communities; the job of teaching would be replaced by a varied set of professions, which would require quite different training; and examination boards would be abolished. Of course, by a long way, we have not described all the elements of such a radically different system, but we hope that we have done enough to show that the public education system can be structured differently. In other words, we have been able to demonstrate that there are other more humane alternatives. Within such alternative systems, we would not require specific relationally rich programmes as corrective add-ons. The system itself would ensure ethical education.

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NOTES

1 Ethics in Education 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

6. 7.

See also Stout (1988) on the failure of foundationalism and its contribution to moral malaise. A resistance to religious foundationalism is scarcely the result of multiple and competing claims. The remainder of this discussion draws from Gergen (2007). Also see MacIntyre’s (2007) discussion of the way in which these ways of life are realised in individual identity and responsibility. Although drawn to various versions of care ethics (e.g. Levinas, 2005; Tronto, 2005), I see acts of caring as practices congenial to relationally responsive being, but as only one form of activity among a far richer vocabulary of action. The proposal for a relationally oriented ethical education can also be contrasted with current programmes in socio-emotional education, programmes that represent the values of a particular culture and for which students can be tested (see Newman, 2018). Chad Wellmon’s (2018) commentary on the state of higher education. See also Gibney (2017) on the emerging generation of sociopaths.

2 Ethical Relationships in Schools 1. 2. 3.

See for instance, in Birmingham, United Kingdom, the local council has promoted an agreed religious education syllabus to cultivate virtues prized by all religions. See, for instance, Hans-Georg Gadamer’s writing on philosophical hermeneutics; Emmanuel Levinas’s theories of alterity; Gabriel Marcel’s philosophy of being and relative otherness. I do not make any attempt to outline Marcel’s philosophical thoughts around otherness because he is well recognised as a philosopher who does not develop his ideas in a systematic way. Instead, his inquiries into philosophical question are captured in different journals written over time. Although his Gifford Lectures provide a more central place for his main body of work, in this chapter, I have decided to draw on his relevant ideas and argument without starting with an overview.

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Notes to Pages 29–74

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

In one of his plays, ‘The Broken Heart’, Marcel describes the broken world as a human world whose heart has stopped beating: ‘Don’t you have the sense that we are living . . . if you can call that living . . . in a broken world. Yes, broken like a watch that has stopped. Its mainspring no longer works. To all appearances nothing has changed. Everything is in place. But if you put the watch to your ear . . . you hear nothing. Remember, the world, or what we used to call the world, the human world . . . before, it must have had a heart. But it seems that heart has stopped beating.’ Marcel is more concerned with this person’s losing the sense of wonder and the need for the transcendent, thus rendering their being in the world more technical rather than spiritual. This is an ontological concern rather than an epistemological one, which however, does allow us to seek the knowledge of the Other through a recognition of their place in the world/cosmos. Marcel’s own view is that this ontological concern must be beyond a mere concern for a person’s psychological state, mood, attitude, to include the wholeness of their being, including their spirit and the aspiration for the transcendent. Not to mention that globalisation means that more and more people are born into interracial, multi-lingual, multi-faith, dual-nationality families, and this assumption about the other based on their identity categories or labels can risk essentialising. Here Marcel proposes that presence is incomprehensible: ‘In so far as presence, as such, lies beyond the grasp of any possible prehension, one might say that it also in some sense lies beyond the grasp of any possible comprehension.’ Each of these aspects is subject to contention and debate, which is beyond the scope of this paper. So what I am doing here is drawing from Marcel’s philosophy some insights into the questions of my inquiry. For instance, Schuller (1986, p. 281) explains how music invites the audience to encounter the other, in this case, the composer, or the cultural tradition where a folk music originates in the following manner: ‘Curiously, a work may actually tell us more about the composer than the composer perhaps intended. Of course, what it tells us may be primarily subjective, in the realm of interpretation – ours. But there is no question that, as folk dances or folk music reveal much about the people who created it, so art music tells the keen observer much about the character of a given composer, and often the milieu, the environment in which he lived and worked.’ For example, Tich Nah Hanh, The Heart of Understanding, which proposes a nonduality in understanding the interconnectedness between people, and sees that we are all part of an integrated whole.

3 Towards an Ethical Understanding of Others 1.

This doesn’t imply that all virtue is knowledge as Plato claimed.

4 Changing Cultures 1.

In Buddhism there are six senses; in addition to the usual five, ‘mind’ is also considered to be a locus of sensory information in the form of ‘ideas’.

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Notes to Pages 85–176

5 Ethical, Existential and Spiritual Re-Orientation 1.

According to Alexander, aesthetic needs are about the feeling that one’s life is meaningful and has value, which is an urgent human need.

10 Towards Systemic Transformation 1. 2.

This sentence would need to be modified to include other conscious beings and to not make it species specific. We employ the term ‘well-being’ to indicate this group of values. Often writers tend to use the term ‘happiness’ in this context. This, however, may wrongly suggest purely hedonic, that is subjective, pleasures. Though feeling happy is an important part of human life, it is not the only relevant value. One might also use the term ‘flourishing’ which has an advantage over ‘well-being’.

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INDEX

alterity, 78 appreciative appreciative attention, 182 appreciativeinquiry, 26 Aristotle flourishing, 3–4 virtue ethics, 59, 99 attitudes, 69, 114, 129, 160 attunement, 72–73, 77, 105 availing, 33–34 awareness ethical awareness, 68, 93, 103 other awareness, 143, 151 self-awareness, 129, 149, 181 ‘we’-awareness, 12 Berlin, Isaiah, 96, 98 bildung, 35 Buber, Martin, 33, 103 co-creation, 25, 81 co-esse, 37, 67 collaboration, 111, 127, 141 collaborative learning, 14, 25 co-presence, 14, 41 curriculum hidden curriculum, 115

human becoming, 75, 77, 128 human-centred education, 176 identity label, 30, 150 instrumentalisation, 1, 31, 48, 109, 173–174 instrumentality, 38–39 intention, 49–53, 57 intrinsic value, 18, 32, 39 I–Thou, 33, 36, 130 Kant, Immanuel, 97 knowing the other, 29–30 Kohlberg, Lawrence, 97, 99, 115, 119 learning experiential learning, 111, 120, 145 social emotional learning, 134–135, 137–138, 162 listening, 40, 154, 156, 161, 165 lived experience, 110, 113, 115, 174 Marcel, Gabriel broken world, 29, 38–39 disponibilité, 13, 33–38, 41 Noddings, Nel, 5, 72, 93, 99–100, 103–104, 119 non-violent, 67–68, 70 otherness, 28, 31, 36, 38–40

Dewey, John, 22, 84–86, 114–115 dialogue, 35, 40, 82, 102, 122, 146 dispositions, 27, 69 educational institutions, 60, 68, 113 encountering, 75, 157 epistemological asymmetry, 43, 48–50 evaluation, 26, 167, 185

performative, 70, 73 public education, 15, 79, 109, 188 reciprocity, 36, 71 social emotional, 129–131, 134, 136–138, 146 social praxis, 11 spirituality, 80, 101, 106

first order morality, 18–19 Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 35 generative process, 24–25 Gilligan, Carol, 116 having and being, 30

value-pluralism, 96, 98 virtue theory, 3–5, 13 virtues, 1, 3–4, 54–55, 59, 177 whole person, 33–34, 146–147, 154, 166 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 13, 24

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