Moral Emotions and Human Interdependence in Character Education: Beyond the One-Dimensional Self 9780367503307, 9780367503314, 9781003049500

Table of contents :
Cover
Endorsements
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of
Contents
List of tables
Acknowledgements
PART I: Character education: a critique
1. Diverse disciplinary perspectives underpinning Social and Emotional Learning and character education
2. Positive psychology and the triumph of technique
3. Faith in therapy: the teacher as ‘therapist’
4. Beyond therapy and technique: learning about virtues and vices
5. The politics of character education: a loss of virtue?
PART II: Phenomenological understandings of moral emotions and character formation
6. A phenomenology of moral emotions
7. Merleau-Ponty’s lectures on Child Psychology and Pedagogy
8. Reclaiming ‘spaces which the heart feels’
9. Character education and a ‘thousand contingencies’
10. A pedagogy of interdependence
Index

Citation preview

“This book lays bare the misguided simplifications that underpin much recent work on social and emotional education, and explains the potential harms arising from well-meaning therapeutic interventions and character education programmes. In place of these nostrums Bates offers a rich, insightful and nuanced analysis of childhood, adolescence, and teaching. Freed from lists of positive and negative emotions, or desirable character traits, teachers are invited to explore how character emerges through networks of relationships and to reflect on our shared moral lives.” Lee Jerome, Associate Professor of Education, Middlesex University “Agnieszka Bates has produced a timely and scholarly account of a topic that is currently high profile in the policy landscape. The book includes a strong theoretical exploration and draws on Merleau-Ponty’s work in order to illuminate character education, what it means and why it is important, in an original manner. It extends our thinking in the area of morality and ethics and provides some fascinating insights into practices that are perhaps more complex than is sometimes imagined. This book should be of value and interest to educationalists, policy makers and policy analysts.” Meg Maguire, Professor of Sociology of Education, King’s College London “Amidst concerns over a narrowing of students’ school experiences and reductive ‘toolkit-type’ pedagogical practices, character education is having something of a resurgent moment. Bates’s book presents a radical, policy and practice informed critique of mainstream character education and offers an alternative approach, framed as a moral and practical endeavour. Drawing principally on phenomenology, this lucid and insightful text offers a compelling read for teachers, school leaders, academics and policy makers alike.” Dr Malcolm Thorburn, Honorary Fellow, University of Edinburgh

Moral Emotions and Human Interdependence in Character Education

Moral Emotions and Human Interdependence in Character Education challenges contemporary mainstream approaches to character education predicated on individualism, ‘essential virtues’ and generic ‘character skills’. This book synthesizes perspectives from phenomenology, psychology, cultural sociology and policy studies into a unique theoretical framework to reveal how ideas from positive psychology, emotional intelligence and Aristotelian virtues have found their way into the classroom. The idealized, self-reliant, resilient, atomized individual at the core of current character education is rejected as one-dimensional. Instead this book argues for an alternative, more complex pedagogy of interdependence that promotes students’ well-being by connecting them to the lives of others. This book is an essential read for academics, researchers, postgraduate students and school teachers interested in character education and social and emotional learning. Agnieszka Bates is Associate Professor of Education in the School of Education and Lifelong Learning at the University of East Anglia, UK.

Theorizing Education Series Editors Gert Biesta, Maynooth University, Ireland and University of Edinburgh, UK Stefano Oliverio, University of Naples "Federico II", Italy

Theorizing Education brings together innovative work from a wide range of contexts and traditions which explicitly focuses on the roles of theory in educational research and educational practice. The series includes contextual and socio-historical analyses of existing traditions of theory and theorizing, exemplary use of theory, and empirical work where theory has been used in innovative ways. The distinctive focus for the series is the engagement with educational questions, articulating what explicitly educational function the work of particular forms of theorizing supports. Education in the Age of the Screen Possibilities and Transformations in Technology Edited by Nancy Vansieleghem, Joris Vlieghe and Manuel Zahn Manabi and Japanese Schooling Beyond Learning in the Era of Globalization Masamichi Ueno, Yasunori Kashiwagi, Kayo Fujii, Tomoya Saito and Taku Murayama Phenomenology and Educational Theory in Conversation Back to Education Itself Edited by Patrick Howard, Tone Saevi, Andrew Foran, and Gert Biesta A Pedagogy of Equality in a Time of Unrest Strategies for an Ambiguous Future Carl Anders Safstrom Moral Emotions and Human Interdependence in Character Education Beyond the One-Dimensional Self Agnieszka Bates For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/Theorizing-Education/book-series/THEOED

Moral Emotions and Human Interdependence in Character Education

Beyond the One-Dimensional Self

Agnieszka Bates

First published 2021 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 Agnieszka Bates The right of Agnieszka Bates to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978-0-367-50330-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-50331-4 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-04950-0 (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Taylor & Francis Books

For Jenny and Norman

Contents

List of tables Acknowledgements

x xi

PART I

Character education: a critique 1 Diverse disciplinary perspectives underpinning Social and Emotional Learning and character education

1 3

2 Positive psychology and the triumph of technique

18

3 Faith in therapy: the teacher as ‘therapist’

36

4 Beyond therapy and technique: learning about virtues and vices

53

5 The politics of character education: a loss of virtue?

69

PART II

Phenomenological understandings of moral emotions and character formation 6 A phenomenology of moral emotions

91 93

7 Merleau-Ponty’s lectures on Child Psychology and Pedagogy

117

8 Reclaiming ‘spaces which the heart feels’

139

9 Character education and a ‘thousand contingencies’

162

10 A pedagogy of interdependence Index

186 201

Tables

2.1 An illustration of Haidt’s (2003) approach to classifying compassion, anger and happiness relative to the degree of prosocial action tendency and self-interest 2.2 An illustration of Tangney et al.’s (2007) approach to the classification of positively and negatively valenced self-conscious and other-focused moral emotions

20

21

Acknowledgements

I wish to express my deepest gratitude to the following people for their important contributions to the writing of this book. To Meg Maguire and Lee Jerome for their valuable comments and encouragement in the early stages of writing. To Nigel Norris for numerous conversations and penetrating insights that contributed to the argument developed in Chapter 7 of this volume. To Anthony Steinbock, whose work on moral emotions can profoundly change our understanding of what it means to be a ‘person’ – it has done so for me. I am thankful to Jenny Bates for her thoughtful comments and to Norman Brady for his continuous offering of critique and insight. To all children and young people living through this age of global crisis and none of it of their making. My hope is that this book, in some way, makes a contribution to the argument for character education informed by an understanding of human interdependence.

Part I

Character education: a critique

Chapter 1

Diverse disciplinary perspectives underpinning Social and Emotional Learning and character education

As I write this book, the world is in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, UK schools are under lockdown and the passing days and weeks have been marked by statistics on infection rates and death tolls. Of all the lessons to be learnt from the Covid-19 crisis, perhaps the most critical is the need to understand our interconnectedness. This can be seen in terms of our global interconnectedness as the pandemic rapidly spread from Wuhan to engulf the rest of the world and more localized forms of interconnectedness relating to communities and the value of mutual support in a time of crisis. The Covid-19 pandemic raises numerous questions about our values, including educational values relating to Social and Emotional Learning. In particular, the dominant narrative centered on character traits such as self-reliance, resilience, ‘grit’, aspiration, positivity and optimism now appears superficial and one-dimensional. Despite the taken-for-granted assumption that it is not emotionally intelligent to be angry (Goleman 1995), we have witnessed the unifying role of morally-driven public anger at perceived government mis-management of Covid-19 in England, and high-profile breaches of lockdown rules by those who appear to have disrespected the nation’s collective effort and sacrifice. Here, the paradigm of the atomized ‘I’ was called into question by the paradigm of the interdependent ‘we’: my concerns were no longer about the implications of my actions for me alone but also for us, as my well-being became entangled in our collective hope, fear and grief. Although this book is obviously not about Covid-19, the crisis has spectacularly highlighted the importance of our interconnectedness and, by implication, the critical and heretofore neglected role of moral emotions and human interdependence in character education. Chapter 1 outlines the key assumptions concerning the role of moral emotions in character formation and introduces the overarching themes of the book: the individual in society; childhood and child development and the pedagogies of character education. It also discusses the terminology of ‘emotions’ and ‘character’ developed within diverse disciplinary discourses. Most matters relating to Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) and its sub-category of character education may be regarded as falling within the field of psychology. However, cultural sociology, philosophy and psychoanalysis also offer important understandings of how the development of

4 Character education: a critique

character can be supported in schools. Examining ideas and assumptions about ‘character’ from the perspectives of diverse intellectual traditions enhances our appreciation of the multiple dimensions of character. It also exposes problems arising from approaches to character education which are grounded in research generated within rigidly defined disciplinary boundaries.

The emergence of emotions work in Social and Emotional Learning and character education The formation of character has persisted as a distinctive purpose of education, even though the methods and approaches to character education have undergone numerous shifts. This book evaluates key developments in character education, as a sub-category or branch of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL). The emergence of SEL as a ‘field’ in educational research, in the USA and other countries, is associated with the publication of Promoting Social and Emotional Learning: Guidelines for Educators (Elias et al. 1997) and the launch of the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) in 1994 (Osher et al. 2016). Examples of now well-established SEL programs dating back to the mid-1990s include the American Knowledge is Power Program, the Penn Resilience Program and its English counterpart, the UK Resilience Programme. By 2003, there were 242 nationally available prevention and positive youth development programs in the USA (Elias and Moceri 2012). A new, US-based Journal of Character Education was launched in 2003. In 2012, the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues was founded in England and subsequently became home to over 30 scholars engaging in research and developing resources for character education grounded in neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics (Arthur et al. 2017). The year 2015 saw the publication of the 600-page Handbook of Social and Emotional Learning (Durlak et al. 2015) which invited contributions from over 90 researchers and accelerated SEL as a research field with significant influence on education policy and classroom practice. Two years later, Frydenberg et al. (2017) published a 450page volume on Social and Emotional Learning in Australia and the Asia-Pacific. The circulation of curricular resources, prevention programs and SEL interventions in ‘positive psychology’ (Seligman 1991, 2002), ‘growth mindset’ (Dweck 2006) and character education (Lickona 2004; Duckworth and Yeager 2015) has been facilitated by their prominent authors. Psychological theories have also been popularized by science journalists such as Daniel Goleman (1995), author of the international best seller on Emotional Intelligence. To capitalize on the rapid growth of the ‘happiness industry’ (Davies 2015), for-profit technology companies started providing individual schools and entire school districts with digital platforms for tracking data on social and emotional learning and developing students’ social awareness, emotions regulation, ‘grit’ and ‘growth mindset’. For example, at the time of writing, the American tech giant Panorama Education claimed that their data services supported over 9 million students in 11,500 schools across 46 states in the USA, as well as 15 countries throughout the world (Panorama Education 2020).

Diverse disciplinary perspectives 5

Despite the spread of SEL, concerns about students’ emotional and mental well-being continue to be raised at regular intervals by international organizations (WHO 2013; OECD 2017) and a decline in well-being has been reported in some countries. In the UK for example, one in ten students has been identified as at risk of experiencing anxiety, depression or self-harm (DOH/DfE 2017). According to the Australian mental health report 2012–2018, 24% of 15–19year-olds meet the criteria of ‘psychological distress’ (Mission Australia 2019). In 2018, the UK’s 15-year-olds reported the lowest levels of life satisfaction compared to students in other European countries, with exam pressure and fear of failure cited as key factors (The Children’s Society 2020). These concerns have given rise to therapeutically-focused interventions and apps designed to help users to manage negative emotional and mental states such as stress and urges to self-harm (NHS 2019). It appears that a perverse dynamic has been created in education systems that generate extreme levels of pressure and distress and then apply interventions to promote student resilience as a ‘protective shield’ (Fenwick-Smith et al. 2018: 2). In this context, ‘character education’ has emerged as a generic term to denote programs in moral values, ethics and citizenship that receive significant support from policymakers in countries such as the UK, the USA, Canada and (as ‘values education’) in Australia (Shenfield 2016). Whereas Social and Emotional Learning is shaped mainly by the knowledge and methodological approaches generated by psychology, character education has also drawn from philosophy, especially Aristotelian virtue ethics and Kantian deontology (Lapsley and Yeager 2013). The term ‘SEL’ thus encompasses a range of approaches to Social and Emotional Learning and the enhancement of educational well-being. However, in recent years, SEL and character education have followed a similar direction of travel in terms of the quantification and measurement of emotions and character. For example, both approaches recommend the use of psychometric data for the common purpose of ‘training’ students’ minds in compassion, happiness or resilience similar to training bodies in the gym (Layard 2007). The collaboration between behavioral psychologists, data scientists and economists has yielded a range of behavioral interventions to develop character ‘skills’ for the employment market, such as the ‘Big Five’ set of skills: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and emotional stability (Heckman and Kautz 2013; OECD 2017). Driven by a belief that ‘what you measure affects what you do’ (Forgeard et al. 2011: 79), the ‘new science’ of happiness (Layard 2005) relies on measuring well-being. For example, some researchers have for some time now worked on developing ‘units of happiness’ to inform cost-benefit analyses of policies for increasing well-being (Helliwell et al. 2015). A similar pull towards interventions, measurement and tracking of ‘essential virtues’ required to lead a good life (Lickona 2004) can be observed in character education (Arthur et al. 2017). The reductive view of ‘character’ as a fixed set of measurable character ‘skills’ has given rise to ‘emotions work’, educational practice focused on direct instruction

6 Character education: a critique

to develop the ‘ideal’ self: a positive, resilient, productive, high-achieving, self-reliant individual. This ‘ideal’ individual is ‘one-dimensional’ in the sense of pursuing the positive and suppressing the negative dimension of experience, as well as brushing aside conflicting motivations and desires. Emotions work relies on techniques for regulating negative emotions, ‘off-the-shelf’ manuals for teaching about character and high-tech apps for modifying behavior that obviate the need for a deeper understanding of character. Crucially, emotions work is targeted at students as individuals, negating the vital importance of the social context within which character develops. By elevating achievement-driven character traits to moral virtues, emotions work creates a number of moral problems. Its narrow focus on personal goals may encourage students to become self-absorbed and inward-looking (Smeyers et al. 2007). The advocacy of resilience and optimism ‘against all odds’ may engender an inflated self-perception of one’s own capabilities and indifference to the condition of others. When emotions work recasts moral values such as compassion as measurable behavioral traits, they can be inculcated in students without a deeper moral engagement or authentic connection to others (Furedi 2009). In the pursuit of the ‘ideal’ self, feelings of inadequacy or failure may arise in children and young people, with lasting consequences for both individual and societal well-being.

A moral emotions approach to character education Part I of this book is, therefore, devoted to exploring the issues raised by contemporary approaches to SEL and character education aimed at the individual and neglecting human interdependence. Part II develops an alternative approach to character education, grounded in a phenomenology of moral emotions. Here I draw on the methods and insights yet to be explored in character education, offered by phenomenology (Merleau-Ponty 2002, 2010; Steinbock 2014; Welsh 2013). The phenomenological method relies on suspending taken-for-granted assumptions to see how meanings are constructed in our everyday encounters with others (Steinbock 2014). By adopting other perspectives on emotions: linguistic, historical and cultural, this method shares the interest of cultural sociology in an intertextual reading of a range of texts: academic, literary, popular culture and institutional (Illouz 2008). Phenomenological insights support the thesis that character is formed through inherently social processes of interpersonal development and, consequently, character education needs to pay attention to the person, interpersonal relations and the broader social environment within which character is formed. A phenomenology of moral emotions (Steinbock 2014) recognizes the full spectrum of emotions, ‘negative’ as well as ‘positive’, as integral to the human experience. Emotions are moral in the sense of opening up the ‘interpersonal nexus’: revealing our mutual dependence, to ourselves and to others. Other-centered moral emotions such as love, hope and guilt open up the interpersonal connection. Conversely, emotions such as pride and in particular individualistic manifestations of pride, may close down the interpersonal nexus.

Diverse disciplinary perspectives 7

Despite the taken-for-granted assumption that pride is a ‘positive’ feeling of excitement and joy at one’s personal success, pride is morally problematic when it arises from an assertion of one’s superiority and self-sufficiency. Experienced in this introspective way, pride diminishes the interpersonal nature of learning and achievement. The moral emotions approach to character education thus seeks to facilitate a shift from self-centered to other-centered relations: from my concern about the implications of my actions for me alone to the implications of my actions for others. Translating such understandings of moral emotions into classroom practice is not about determining why one should not be proud or when one should show humility but about creating opportunities for students to explore what their emotions can tell them about themselves and about learning and living with others. Phenomenology also sheds unique light on the three overarching themes explored in this book: the individual in society; childhood and child development; and pedagogies of character education. First, with regard to the individual in society, phenomenology rejects the view of the atomized, self-sufficient individual and posits that individuals are mutually dependent, or interdependent. Human interdependence means that character develops within and through interpersonal relationships, in the processes of forming attachments to others that are imbued with deep emotional significance. From this perspective, asserting the primacy of rational detachment and self-reliance as character traits espoused by a society of atomized individuals may undermine both individual and collective well-being, unlike the caring (and cared for) character espoused by a society of interdependent selves. Second, to fully appreciate the significance of childhood and child development, we need to challenge the prevalent views of children as ‘miniature adults’ and of character development as predicated on the mimicry of adult behavior. As Merleau-Ponty (2010) points out, childhood is not a time during which children simply lack the capacities and analytical categories of adults. From birth, children are reciprocally engaged with others and connected to the world as a totality of embodied experience. Child development has its own inherent organization, not as a process of ‘moving from ignorance to knowledge’ but from an open-ended phase that contains many possibilities to a more defined phase of adulthood (Merleau-Ponty 2010: 37). Supporting character development relies, therefore, on a balance between actively directing the child in a given situation and respecting the child’s experience of the situation. Third, in relation to pedagogies of character education, the phenomenological perspective sheds light on pedagogy as both a knowledge-based activity and a moral practice (Merleau-Ponty 2010) in which caring for the child and acting in her best interest is the teacher’s main concern. Although phenomenological pedagogy has been well-established in some European countries and Canada (van Manen 2012; Howard et al. 2021), its potential to transform character education is yet to be fully explored. Its central question: ‘How are we to act and live with children, helping them create their human capabilities, while realizing that we are apt to do damage?’ (van Manen 2012: 8) gets to the heart of character education which does not simply teach about character and virtue but is itself a moral practice.

8 Character education: a critique

The above question also highlights the importance of caution in the use of techniques, manuals for direct instruction and instruments for measuring students’ personal qualities that are not accompanied by a deeper understanding of the interactions and contexts within which character develops. Without continued critical appraisal, character education may gravitate towards idealization and the cult of the ‘perfect’ self (Nussbaum 2001; Cigman 2012; Jerome and Kisby 2019) or towards a transmission of beliefs and opinions that may amount to indoctrination (Hand 2018). In this respect, this book draws inspiration from Herbert Marcuse’s (2002: 79) argument concerning the vital importance of critical thinking in challenging societal relations that normalize a ‘happy consciousness’ and eliminate as ‘negative’ any patterns of thought and behavior that do not conform to the ideal of a ‘one-dimensional’, positive individual. Part I of this book seeks to untangle the complex intermeshing of knowledge about ‘emotions’ and ‘character’ produced by diverse epistemic communities from cultural factors and political actors shaping the ‘one-dimensional self’ found at the heart of current mainstream approaches to character education.

‘Emotions’ and ‘character’ in diverse disciplinary discourses According to a number of commentators, SEL has been characterized by conceptual ‘messiness’ and ‘confusion’ (Allen and Bull 2018; Ecclestone 2012). This ‘confusion’ partly stems from elision between concepts such as ‘emotional well-being’ and ‘well-being’ (Ecclestone 2012). For example, for the economist Richard Layard, ‘happiness’ denotes ‘feeling good – enjoying life and wanting the feeling to be maintained’, whereas ‘unhappiness’ denotes ‘feeling bad and wishing things were different’ (2005: 13). When happiness defined as ‘feeling good’ is used in education policies for student well-being, the elision of ‘well-being’ with ‘emotional well-being’ can confine social and emotional learning to techniques for inducing the feeling of happiness, as if happiness simply amounted to ‘feeling good’. The elision between character ‘traits’ and character ‘skills’, introduced by the economists Heckman and Kautz (2013), has been subsequently replicated by the OECD (2017) in their new international comparison of SEL skills for ‘well-being, connectedness and success’, reducing the complex processes entailed in the development of character traits to an inculcation of skills. This section presents some of the debates on the terminology of ‘emotions’ and ‘character’ in diverse disciplinary discourses. ‘Emotions’ in psychology, phenomenology and cultural sociology The elision of happiness with ‘feeling good’ (Layard 2005) bypasses the ongoing psychological debates on the nature, role and classification of emotions. Whereas in most of these debates emotions have been defined as internal, subjective states, two opposing views are posited, first, that the body is the ‘main stage for emotions’ as evidenced by the bodily changes in our experience of emotions (Damasio 2000:

Diverse disciplinary perspectives 9

287). Second, emotions have a cognitive dimension that involves evaluation, appraisal or judgement (Ratcliffe 2008) and, consequently, emotions do not just involve bodily changes but are manifestations of a system of meanings and values that binds us to others through interpersonal relations. In parallel, contrasting classifications of emotions have been developed from the basic distinction between positively valenced and negatively valenced emotions such as happiness and anger respectively. Positive psychology focuses mainly on the positive/negative distinction and techniques for the regulation and measurement of emotions, with a view to increasing one’s emotional well-being and flourishing (Seligman 2002). By contrast, social psychologists such as Jonathan Haidt (2003) offer a more complex classification of emotions that distinguishes between self- and other-oriented emotions, as well as low or high degree of pro-social action tendencies of particular emotions. The prosocial dimension highlights the role of moral emotions in connecting the individual to the interests and welfare of others or society as a whole. These more complex classifications of emotions are underpinned by an assumption that it is possible to ‘specify relations between various emotions and to create a language for emotional life’ analogous to the language that reveals the ‘necessary relations between atoms and elements’ in chemistry (de Rivera 1977: 98). A classification of emotions similar to Mendeleev’s periodic table of elements is, therefore, seen by some psychologists as enhancing understandings of the complexity of our emotional lives. However, as Thamm has argued, developing a classification of emotions by trying to demonstrate interconnections in a list of emotion concepts or ‘labels’ is futile, because: Viable classifications systems of any natural phenomenon cannot evolve with attempts to assign labels to categories prior to the elaboration of each category’s underlying structural dimensions, conditions, and states. (2006: 12) The tendency to compartmentalize emotions obscures their temporal dimension. William James, a psychologist considered to be the father of American psychology (Seel 2012), pointed to the ‘trouble’ with empiricist understandings of emotions stemming from how they are viewed: too much as absolutely individual things. So long as they are set down as so many eternal and sacred psychic entities, like the old immutable species in natural history, so long all that can be done with them is reverently to catalogue their separate characters, points, and effects. (James 1890: 449) For James, the continuous change in what we feel and think does not consist in the (re)combining of the same set of basic, immutable sensations. In contrast to the compartmentalized accounts of emotions as reified, fixed states, James saw

10 Character education: a critique

emotions as multifaceted, multiply determined and constantly changing, thus contributing to an infinitely complex and nuanced emotional life. The phenomenology of moral emotions (Steinbock 2014) presented in this book is broadly aligned with James’ understandings. It is also aligned with the view of emotions offered by cultural sociology (Illouz 2008). Phenomenology and cultural sociology share a view of emotions as not reducible to ‘epistemic’ activities of measurement, prediction and control (Steinbock 2014). Their thrust is descriptive rather than normative, aimed at deep understandings rather than routine application. Both perspectives offer an account of the processes through which the lived experience of emotions becomes entangled in their cultural representations. Being able to disentangle lived experience from its cultural tropes is vital for reclaiming our connection to others and to the world, a connection that has been systematically erased in recent years by the culture of ‘new individualism’ (Elliott and Lemert 2006). The view of emotions either as subjective internal states or as arising from the interpersonal nexus reflects the view of the individual as respectively atomized or interdependent, with profound implications for character education. ‘Character’ in psychology, psychoanalysis and phenomenology Many definitions of ‘character’ have been generated in psychological research, in terms of: desirable traits regularly displayed by a person; sets of habits that pattern individual actions; a general disposition to engage in morally good actions; a capacity for empathy, self-discipline or acquisition of pro-social skills and knowledge about values (Lapsley and Yeager 2013). A similar normative approach has been adopted by Angela Duckworth’s Character LAB (2020), which defines character as ‘everything we do to help other people as well as ourselves’ and includes ‘strengths of heart’ such as gratitude, ‘strengths of will’ such as grit and self-control and ‘strengths of mind’ such as independent thinking. The emphasis on character strengths, or virtues, is also central to the neo-Aristotelian approach to character education, with ‘virtues’ defined as stable ‘dispositional clusters’ which enable ‘praiseworthy functioning in a number of significant and distinguishable spheres of human life’ and the development of phronesis or ‘practical wisdom’ (Arthur et al. 2017: 18). As Doris (2002: 1) has noted, the strengths and virtues approaches to character assume that good character ‘inoculates’ the individual against the challenges and stresses of life and that a ‘person of good character will do well’ in all circumstances. As implicit in the original meaning of ‘character’ (Greek for ‘to mark’ or ‘to engrave’), character indicates consistency, predictability and a disposition to behave in particular ways (Lapsley and Yeager 2013). However, these definitions are problematic for two reasons. First, one’s behavior is extremely sensitive to changing situations (Doris 2002). Second, a static view of character does not account for the complex dynamics and social contexts in which character is formed.

Diverse disciplinary perspectives 11

An alternative, socio-biological view of humans and a process-focused analysis of the ways in which societal structures shape our essential needs, motivations and character traits has been developed by the psychoanalyst Erich Fromm. Fromm defined character as the ‘form in which human energy is channeled’ through the processes of assimilation (a mode of acquiring things) and socialization (relatedness to others), in order to satisfy our fundamental needs of physical and mental survival (Fromm and Funk 2019: 6–8). We assimilate things to survive as biological organisms. We relate to others because, as ‘social animals’, we have to live in groups and complete isolation would be incompatible with our mental well-being. Fromm argued that ‘the discussion of the human situation must precede that of personality’ and, consequently, psychology should be based on ‘an anthropological-philosophical concept of human existence’ and a view of the individual as ‘endowed with a body as well as a mind’ (1949: 47). Fromm’s theory of character is aligned with the phenomenological theses of interdependence and embodiment, with implications for character education that are explored in Part II of this book.

The structure of the book This book synthesizes theoretical perspectives from philosophy, psychology, psychoanalysis, cultural sociology and policy sociology to investigate the role of emotions in character education as a sub-category of the broader field of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL). Underlying this interdisciplinary synthesis is a belief that exposing ideas about character to different intellectual traditions helps us to identify the range and depth of problems with the ‘off-the-shelf’ teaching manuals, popular advice literature and high-tech apps mass-produced by the global ‘happiness industry’ (Davies 2015). Therefore, Part I of this book offers an interdisciplinary critique of emotions work. Part II develops an alternative, phenomenological account of moral emotions and character formation as a foundation of a pedagogy of interdependence. Chapter 2 examines the key influences on Social and Emotional Learning, in particular positive psychology (Seligman 2002) and emotional intelligence (Goleman 1995). The educational outcomes arising from these approaches include highly individualized forms of socialization of children and young people that rely on behavior management techniques found in programs such as the Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (SEAL) curriculum for English primary and secondary schools (DfES 2005, 2007) and its subsequent iterations. Three core problems are identified with such programs: first, a focus on direct teaching about emotions to the detriment of interpersonal relationships within which character develops; second, the damaging suppression of ‘negative’ emotions such as anger; and lastly, an overemphasis on one ‘super’ emotion such as happiness, optimism or compassion. This critique takes as its main point of reference Jonathan Haidt’s (2003) social psychology of emotions to emphasize that a range of pro-social emotions, negative as well as positive, support the development of students’ moral sensibilities.

12 Character education: a critique

Chapter 3 discusses the intellectual antecedents as well as the wider societal and corporate influences that have contributed to the expansion of the teachers’ traditional role from supporting students’ cognitive and moral development to becoming their ‘therapists’. The origins of this therapeutic ‘turn’ in education are explored through the lens of cultural sociology to explain how therapy and self-help evolved into dominant western cultural narratives that subsequently spread into education (Illouz 2008). The application of pre-determined classifications of mental ill-health and ‘undesirable’ emotions such as sadness has given rise to therapeutic treatment involving one-size-fits-all applications of standard techniques for managing ‘symptoms’. This therapy culture contains the fundamental contradiction of promoting the ideal of self-sufficiency whilst creating a dependency on therapeutic interventions. In schools, this contradiction is deepened by the prevailing culture of performativity and its negative impact on student well-being. Chapter 4 presents a critique of character education built on neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics, and in particular examines the work of the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues. Whilst virtue ethics has the potential to counter the weaknesses in emotions work, it has been criticized for its orientation to individualism to the detriment of the public and political, as well as teaching resources that fall short of their aspiration to promote ‘critical’ thinking. Chapter 4 builds on these critiques by raising three further objections: the positioning of the teacher as an objective observer and ‘paragon of virtue’; the assumption that children are ‘potentially human’ and progressing to ‘full’ humanity (Arthur et al. 2017: 62), and a reliance on a transmission model of learning about virtues and vices that weakens the relationships of interdependence through which character develops. Chapter 5 seeks to unmask the ideology and politics of character education by focusing on the dominant discursive communities and key actors who have influenced character education and Social and Emotional Learning in recent years, in the UK and internationally. Three recurring themes are explored: first, the theoretical and practical weaknesses permeating the plethora of UK education policy initiatives. Second, the commercialization of SEL through the exploitation of psychometric data within a corporate–educational nexus. In order to instill ‘desirable’ character ‘skills’, new digital technologies, apps and wearable devices have been developed to monitor, track and control individual students’ social and emotional learning. Third, the culture of ‘new individualism’ (Elliott and Lemert 2006) favors winning the ‘game of one’ and fosters indifference to the condition of others, giving rise to the narcissistic character and the character ‘consumed by quantity’. Chapter 6 marks the beginning of Part II by presenting a phenomenological, moral emotions approach to character education as an alternative to emotions work and the dominant policy narrative of the ‘ideal’ one-dimensional self, made up of ‘desirable’ traits such as self-reliance, grit and productivity. Phenomenology rejects Descartes’ ontology of separation and its view of the individual as an atomized self. It posits that individuals are interdependent rather than self-reliant

Diverse disciplinary perspectives 13

and self-grounding. Drawing on Anthony Steinbock (2014), this chapter discusses the complex structure of the moral emotions of self-givenness (pride, shame, guilt), possibility (hope, repentance, despair) and otherness (trusting, loving, humility) that arise when the teacher approaches her students in the integrity of who they are rather than as ‘diminished selves’ (Furedi 2009) in need of ‘improvement’. Unlike social psychology and virtue ethics, phenomenology reveals the opening up of the interpersonal nexus as essential to developing moral emotions in children and young people. Chapter 7 centers on Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s (2010) Sorbonne Lectures on Child Psychology and Pedagogy (1949–52) and their implications for character education. Based on extensive research in the fields of psychology, psychoanalysis, physiology, anthropology, sociology and cultural studies, Merleau-Ponty (2010) presented a critique of the prevailing cognitivist and behaviorist views on child development formulated by Jean Piaget and John Watson respectively. Whilst acknowledging the difficulty of accessing the child’s world, Merleau-Ponty emphasized the need to appreciate that the child experiences and perceives the world in her own terms as an embodied, social person. Although Merleau-Ponty did not focus on moral emotions as such, his view of pedagogy as both a science-based activity and a moral practice provides valuable insights into current approaches to character education, with their reliance on Aristotelian virtue ethics and emotions work based on behaviorist techniques for habit formation strongly resonant of John Watson (1914). Chapter 8 takes as its subject the nature of the adolescent experience as understood from both the phenomenological and psychoanalytic perspectives and its implications for character education. Adolescence is defined here as a transitional period marked by the physical changes of puberty, the breaking of primary ties with parents or carers and a restructuring of personality referred to as individuation. The intense emotions and conflicts experienced in adolescence call into question the techniques of emotions work that remove the need to understand complex social and emotional dynamics. The chapter draws on Deborah Britzman (2015) to reveal the weaknesses in the ‘static’, neo-Aristotelian approaches to character education that seek to eliminate the ambivalent, ‘bothered’ experience of the adolescent self. Erich Fromm’s (1949) theory of social character is also applied to argue for the importance of seeing adolescent development as located in dynamic, situated relationships with peers, parents and teachers, as well as wider society. Chapter 9 begins by considering the question: ‘Is good character “taught” or “caught”?’ and critiques the notion of teaching about character isolated from the interpersonal and social contexts within which character develops. This chapter then presents a pedagogy of interdependence illustrated by seven workshop plans on the themes of: the family; moral aloneness in the age of social media; optimism; sharing; authority; exclusion; and indoctrination.

14 Character education: a critique

The final chapter summarizes the principles of a pedagogy of interdependence as an alternative to emotions work. In the age of the increasing commodification of social relations, environmental destruction and pandemics, defining character education as a moral practice based on mutual dependence has become a moral imperative. Here, I argue that emotions work, by reducing ‘character’ to virtuous traits or skills, creates subject–object relations that are potentially damaging to both individuals and communities. A pedagogy of interdependence works with rather than against difference and takes togetherness rather than separation as a point of departure. Therefore, against the prevailing ontology of separation, a phenomenology of moral emotions recognizes the formation of ‘good’ character as situated, complex and dynamic, supported by a pedagogy that enables students to connect to themselves and to others. It is important to emphasize at the outset that the critique of the methods, tools and techniques applied in SEL and character education presented in Chapters 2–5 does not imply that they are deemed to be valueless. Indeed, we can all greatly benefit from some of those techniques in our everyday lives to handle the stresses of modern living. Similarly, character traits such as resilience and integrity are de facto of critical importance. However, whilst the internet is awash with SEL resources such as resilience toolkits for schools, many of these resources adopt a one-size-fits-all approach irrespective of the age of the learner. Most feature activities and skills borrowed from the adult world such as mindfulness, emotions management, coping skills and self-efficacy. The commercialization of emotions work has led to a global market for SEL products which is forecast to grow from $1.2 billion in 2019 to $3.7 billion by 2024 (MarketsandMarkets 2020). This book challenges the primacy and continued proliferation of generic techniques for addressing the emotional well-being of students without a deeper reflection on the complexity of character formation and the recognition that the reciprocity, trust and solidarity that are craved by young people emerge in relationships of interdependence.

References Allen, K. and Bull, A. 2018. Following policy: a network ethnography of the UK Character Education Policy Community, Sociological Research Online 23 (2): 428–458. Arthur, J., Kristjánsson, K., Harrison, T., Sanderse, W. and Wright, D. 2017. Teaching Character and Virtue in Schools. London and New York: Routledge. Britzman, D.P. 2015. A Psychoanalyst in the Classroom: On the Human Condition of Education. Albany: State University of New York Press. Character LAB. 2020. Available at: https://characterlab.org/character/. Accessed 10 July 2020. Cigman, R. 2012. We need to talk about well-being, Research Papers in Education 27 (4): 449–462. Damasio, A. 2000. The Feeling of What Happens: Body, Emotion and the Making of Consciousness. London: Vintage Books.

Diverse disciplinary perspectives 15 Davies, W. 2015. The Happiness Industry: How the Government and Big Business Sold Us Well-Being. London: Verso. de Rivera, J. 1977. A structural theory of the emotions, Psychological Issues 10: 1–178. DfES (Department for Education and Skills). 2005. Excellence and Enjoyment: Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning. Norwich: HMSO. DfES (Department for Education and Skills). 2007. Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning. Norwich: HMSO. DoH/DfE (Department of Health, Department for Education). 2017. Transforming children and young people’s mental health provision: a green paper. London: HMSO. Available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachm ent_data/file/664855/Transforming_children_and_young_people_s_mental_health_provi sion.pdf. Accessed 18 November 2019. Doris, J.M. 2002. Lack of Character: Personality and Moral Behavior. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Duckworth, A.L. and Yeager, D.S. 2015. Measurement matters: assessing personal qualities other than cognitive ability for educational purposes, Educational Researcher 44 (4): 237–251. Durlak, J.A., Domitrovich, C.E., Weissberg, R.P. and Gullotta, T.P. (Eds.). 2015. Handbook of Social and Emotional Learning: Research and Practice. New York: Guilford Press. Dweck, C. 2006. Mindset: How You Can Fulfil Your Potential. New York: Random House. Ecclestone, K. 2012. Emotional well-being in education policy and practice: the need for interdisciplinary perspectives and a sociological imagination, Research Papers in Education 27 (4): 383–387. Elias, M.J., Zins, J.E., Weissberg, R.P., Frey, K.S., Greenberg, M.T. and Haynes, N.M. 1997. Promoting Social and Emotional Learning: Guidelines for Educators. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Elias, M.J. and Moceri, D.C. 2012. Developing social and emotional aspects of learning: the American experience, Research Papers in Education 27 (4): 423–434. Elliott, A. and Lemert, C. 2006. The New Individualism: The Emotional Costs of Globalisation. London and New York: Routledge. Fenwick-Smith, A., Dahlberg, E.E. and Thompson, S.C. 2018. Systematic review of resilience-enhancing, universal, primary school-based mental health promotion programs, BMC Psychology 6 (30): 1–17. Available at: https://bmcpsychology.biom edcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40359-018-0242-3. Accessed 25 August 2020. Forgeard, M.J.C., Jayawickreme, M.L., Kern, M.L. and Seligman M.E.P. 2011. Doing the right thing: measuring wellbeing for public policy, International Journal of Wellbeing 1 (1): 79–106. Fromm, E. 1949. Man for Himself: An Enquiry into the Psychology of Ethics. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Fromm, E. and Funk, R. 2019. The Revision of Psychoanalysis. London and New York: Routledge. Frydenberg, E., Martin A.J. and Collie, R.J. (Eds.). 2017. Social and Emotional Learning in Australia and the Asia-Pacific: Perspectives, Programs and Approaches. Singapore: Springer. Furedi, F. 2009. Wasted: Why Education Isn’t Educating. London: Continuum. Goleman, D. 1995. Emotional Intelligence. New York: Bantam Books. Hand, M. 2018. A Theory of Moral Education. London and New York: Routledge. Haidt, J. 2003. The moral emotions. In Davidson, R.J., Scherer, K.R. and Goldsmith, H.H. (Eds.) Handbook of Affective Sciences, pp. 852–870. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

16 Character education: a critique Heckman, J.J. and Kautz, T. 2013. Fostering and Measuring Skills: Interventions that Improve Character and Cognition. Cambridge: National Bureau of Economic Research. Helliwell, J., Layard, R. and Sachs, J. 2015. World Happiness Report 2015. New York: Sustainable Development Solutions Network. Howard, P., Saevi, T., Foran, A. and Biesta, G. (Eds.). 2021. Phenomenology and Educational Theory in Conversation: Back to Education Itself. London and New York: Routledge. Illouz, E. 2008. Saving the Modern Soul: Therapy, Emotions, and the Culture of Self-help. Berkeley: University of California Press. James, W. 1890. The Principles of Psychology. New York: Henry Holt. Jerome, L. and Kisby, B. 2019. The Rise of Character Education in Britain: Heroes, Dragons and the Myths of Character. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. Lapsley, D. and Yeager, D. 2013. Moral-character education. In Reynolds, W.M., Miller, G.E. and Weiner, I.B. (Eds.). Handbook of Psychology: Educational Psychology, pp. 289–348. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Layard, R. 2005. Happiness: Lessons from a New Science. London: Penguin. Layard, R. 2007. Happiness and the teaching of values, Centerpiece 12 (1): 18–23. Lickona, T. 2004. Character Matters: How to Help Our Children Develop Good Judgment, Integrity, and Other Essential Virtues. New York: Touchstone. Marcuse, H. 2002. One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society. London and New York: Routledge. (Originally published in 1964). MarketsandMarkets. 2020. Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) market by component, type, end user, and region – global forecast to 2024. Available at: https://www.ma rketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/social-emotional-learning-market-245017024. html. Accessed 23 August 2020. Merleau-Ponty, M. 2002. Phenomenology of Perception. Abingdon: Routledge. (Originally published in 1945). Merleau-Ponty, M. 2010. Child Psychology and Pedagogy: The Sorbonne Lectures 1949– 1952. (trans. T. Welsh). Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Mission Australia. 2019. Can We talk? Seven Year Youth Mental Health Report 2012–2018. Sydney: Mission Australia. NHS (National Health Service). 2019. BlueIce. Available at: https://www.nhs.uk/app s-library/blueice/. Accessed 10 July 2020. Nussbaum, M.C. 2001. Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development). 2017. Social and Emotional Skills: Well-being, Connectedness and Success. Paris: OECD. Available at: https:// www.oecd.org/education/school/UPDATED%20Social%20and%20Emotional%20Skil ls%20-%20Well-being,%20connectedness%20and%20success.pdf%20(website).pdf. Acce ssed 18 November 2019. Osher, D., Kidron, Y., Brackett, M., Dymnicki, A., Jones, S. & Weissberg, R.P. 2016. Advancing the science and practice of social and emotional learning: looking back and moving forward, Review of Research in Education 40: 644–681. Panorama Education. 2020. Our story. Available at: https://www.panoramaed.com/a bout. Accessed 10 July 2020. Ratcliffe, M. 2008. Feelings of Being: Phenomenology, Psychiatry and the Sense of Reality. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seel, N.M. 2012. James, William (1842–1910). In Seel, N.M. (Ed.) Encyclopedia of the Sciences of Learning. Boston: Springer.

Diverse disciplinary perspectives 17 Seligman, M.E.P. 1991. Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life. New York: Pocket Books. Seligman, M.E.P. 2002. Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment. New York: Free Press. Shenfield, R. 2016. Perspectives on moral ambiguity and character education in the drama classroom, Drama Australia Journal 40 (2): 95–104. Smeyers, P., Smith, R. and Standish, P. 2007. The Therapy of Education: Philosophy, Happiness and Personal Growth. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Steinbock, A.J. 2014. Moral Emotions: Reclaiming the Evidence of the Heart. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Thamm, R.A. 2006. The classification of emotions. In Stets, J.E. and Turner, J.H. (Eds.) Handbook of the Sociology of Emotions, pp. 11–35. New York: Springer. The Children’s Society. 2020. The Good Childhood Report 2020. Available at: https://www. childrenssociety.org.uk/what-we-do/resources-and-publications/good-childhood-report2020. Accessed 29 August 2020. van Manen, M. 2012. The call of pedagogy as the call of contact, Phenomenology and Practice 6 (2): 8–34. Watson, J.B. 1914. Behavior: An Introduction to Comparative Psychology. New York: Henry Holt. Welsh, T. 2013. The Child as Natural Phenomenologist: Primal and Primary Experience in Merleau-Ponty’s Psychology. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. WHO (World Health Organization). 2013. Mental Health Action Plan 2013–2020. Available at: https://www.who.int/mental_health/publications/action_plan/en/. Accessed 18 October 2019.

Chapter 2

Positive psychology and the triumph of technique

As discussed in Chapter 1, both Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) and character education are aimed at developing stronger moral sensibilities in students (Elias et al. 2008). However, what constitutes ‘moral sensibility’ is highly contested. For example, social psychology considers the role of moral emotions in developing a sense of what is ‘moral’ in one’s own actions and those of others. For the prominent social psychologist Jonathan Haidt (2008), ‘morality’ encompasses a system of values, practices and psychological mechanisms that enable social relations by checking selfish impulses. Moral emotions, in Haidt’s account, are emotions that are ‘linked to the interests or welfare either of society as a whole or at least of persons other than [oneself]’ (2003: 853). Haidt identified four ‘families’ of moral emotions along the binary distinctions of self-conscious/other-suffering emotions and other-condemning/other-praising emotions. Examples of moral emotions in the selfconscious family include shame, embarrassment and guilt, whereas compassion is the ‘prototypical’ other-suffering moral emotion. The other-praising family of moral emotions comprises gratitude and elevation while anger is an other-condemning moral emotion. Moral emotions include both negatively valenced emotions such as shame and guilt, and positively valenced emotions such as happiness. Critically, moral emotions provide a motivation to do ‘good’ and avoid doing ‘bad’ (Tangney et al. 2007) and thus support individuals in adhering to moral standards. From this perspective, the use of generic techniques for inducing positive emotions and suppressing negative emotions in many SEL programs is unlikely to cultivate the moral sensibilities that arise from moral emotions such as anger and guilt. Viewed through the lens of social psychology, this chapter examines problems arising from the dominance of Seligman’s (2002) positive psychology (PP) and Goleman’s (1995) emotional intelligence (EI) in Social and Emotional Learning. For example, the applications of PP and EI in both primary and secondary schools tend towards a single ‘super’ emotion such as happiness, optimism or compassion and banish negative emotions, particularly anger. PP and EI offer a range of techniques and ‘happiness exercises’ as a route to emotional well-being and improved academic performance. Resonant of soma, the ‘happiness pill’

Positive psychology 19

routinely taken by the population in Aldous Huxley’s (2007) dystopian novel Brave New World, the reliance on techniques for managing emotions is based on their supposed efficacy in making all of life’s problems disappear. Like soma, PP and EI techniques are administered to provide relief from negative emotions, but with the unintended side effect of stunting a more rounded character development that rests on understanding the whole spectrum of emotions. To illustrate the ‘triumph of technique’ as it appears in educational practice, this chapter analyzes three models of an ‘ideal’ school: the ‘positive school’ (Seligman et al. 2009), the ‘emotionally intelligent school’ (DfES 2007) and the ‘compassionate school’ (Coles 2015). By taking an alternative view of compassion developed by Martha Nussbaum (2010), we will also explore the roots of our experience of compassion in our interdependence and attachment to people and events beyond our control.

Moral emotions in social psychology: compassion, happiness and anger As a social psychologist, Haidt focuses on the relationship between moral standards and societal well-being, as well as on how moral emotions support individuals in adhering to moral standards (2003, 2007, 2008). According to Haidt (2003), two main components of moral emotions pertain to the interests of society or of people other than oneself and make emotions ‘moral’: elicitors (‘triggers’ of emotions) and action tendencies (the motivational-cognitive state of readiness to take action in response to the emotion). Both components vary in degree. The elicitors can be triggered by situations that either directly affect the individual (‘more self-interested elicitors’) or affect unrelated others (‘less self-interested elicitors’). Action tendencies vary in degree of pro-sociality. Low pro-social action tendency occurs when the action taken in response to the situation would benefit the individual himself, whilst high pro-social action tendency is related to actions that benefit the social order. These distinctions enable the following classification of happiness, anger and compassion, relative to the underlying degree of self-interest and pro-social action tendency (Table 2.1). Table 2.1 presents three moral emotions: happiness, anger and compassion, which have been central to emotions work in the three ‘model’ schools discussed later in this chapter. Compassion is a ‘prototypical’ moral emotion (Haidt 2003). Triggered by the perception of suffering or sorrow of another person, compassion is characterized by high pro-sociality due to its focus on ‘the other’ rather than self-interested concern. Regarding action tendencies, compassion makes us want to help, comfort and alleviate the suffering of others. Compared to happiness, compassion is characterized by a less self-interested, more prosocial orientation. By contrast, happiness occurs primarily when good things happen to the individual himself, although happiness may also be experienced when good things happen to another person, this is typically a family member

20 Character education: a critique Table 2.1 An illustration of Haidt’s (2003) approach to classifying compassion, anger and happiness relative to the degree of pro-social action tendency and selfinterest Moral emotion

High degree of pro-social action tendency

Low degree of pro-social action tendency High degree of self-interest

Compassion

Low degree of self-interest ✓

Anger

✓

✓

Happiness

Low degree of self-interest

High degree of self-interest

✓

or friend. The location of anger in two columns in Table 2.1 indicates that anger can be triggered either by perceived injustices against the self or in disinterested situations when the injustice happens to others. As Haidt points out, anger is one of the least appreciated moral emotions, as evidenced for example by references to anger as the ‘hidden destroyer’, which: make anger sound like a dark primal urge that must be suppressed by cultural and educational forces. But for every spectacular display of angry violence, there are many more mundane cases of people indignantly standing up for what is right or angrily demanding justice for themselves or others. (2003: 856) The moral importance of anger is that it acts as a guardian of moral standards, motivating action that seeks to ‘repair the moral order and make violators mend their ways’ (Haidt 2003: 859). Building on Haidt’s work, Tangney et al. (2007) developed a classification of moral emotions along different dividing lines, starting with the distinction between positively and negatively valenced emotions. These are further subdivided into self-conscious and other-focused moral emotions (see Table 2.2). In considering the educational implications of the social psychology perspective on moral emotions, it is important to bear in mind that emotions are not ‘fixed’ states (James 1890) that are experienced in a uniform way, irrespective of culture, personal circumstances or life stage. For example, developmental psychology points to a marked shift in children’s concept of ‘emotion’ between the ages of 6 and 11 towards a progressively more sophisticated understanding of different elements of emotion (Harris 2008). As Harris (2008) explains, young children have been found to understand two components of an experience of emotion: the situation and the behavioral or bodily reactions to the situation. Older children understand three components: the situation, the bodily or

Positive psychology 21 Table 2.2 An illustration of Tangney et al.’s (2007) approach to the classification of positively and negatively valenced self-conscious and other-focused moral emotions Moral emotions

Positively valenced

Negatively valenced

Self-conscious

(Moral) pride

Other-focused

Other-oriented empathy

Shame Guilt Embarrassment Righteous anger Contempt Disgust

behavioral reaction to the situation and inner mental states. This means that emotional concepts and inner mental states such as those associated with guilt and shame may not be understood by younger children. With maturation and experience, children also acquire the ability to reflect on a situation from different points of view, using varying criteria. This reflects Piaget’s stages of cognitive development (Harris 2008) and is accompanied by an increasing capability for self-regulation, with positive implications for children’s social relationships. Although developmental psychology points to the importance of developmentally appropriate practice, in all three ‘model’ schools discussed below, the selected ‘super’ emotion is ‘administered’ to both students and teachers. Another problem with the application of psychological concepts to SEL programs is a predominant focus on direct teaching about emotions to the detriment of the interpersonal relationships and social contexts in which character develops. For example, the recommended criteria and questions to guide the design of developmentally appropriate emotion regulation programs focus on individual students rather than student–teacher relationships:    

Emotion Differentiation … is anger or disappointment or joy being regulated? Focus of Regulation … is it the situation that needs to be modified or is it the emotion? … System being Regulated … are regulation efforts focused on physiological or behavioral responses? Type of Strategy … does the individual use cognitive or behavioral strategies? (Torrente et al. 2015 as cited in Osher et al. 2016: 654)

The focus on the student as a self-centered, atomized individual may lead to highly individualized forms of socialization of children and young people. As Furedi (2009: 102) points out, the shift from valuing our community, nation or religion to ‘valuing ourselves’ represents a significant reorientation from socialization that traditionally involved an inter-generational transmission of values to one that relies on the expertise of scientists, policy-makers and employers. This has opened SEL

22 Character education: a critique

to shifts in emphasis that may serve political or economic rather than educational ends. As noted in Chapter 1, many SEL programs promote a one-dimensional ‘productive’ character and emphasize the teaching of those ‘skills and values’ that can ‘lead children towards productive futures’ (Elias et al. 2008: 264). We shall return to this issue in Chapter 5, in the discussion of SEL policies that generate tension between meeting children’s genuine emotional needs and inculcating ‘desirable’ character ‘skills’ such as resilience or ‘performance virtues’. Therefore, to take the understandings of moral emotions developed by social psychologists into the classroom, teachers need to appreciate the range of moral emotions, negative as well as positive, that support moral behavior. They also need to bear in mind developmentally appropriate practice and be aware that seeing the individual as an atomized self is not the only way the individual can be viewed, a perspective which is explored in detail in Part II of this book. Lastly, as the father of American psychology William James (1916) emphasized in Talks to Teachers on Pedagogy, whilst psychology is a science, teaching is an art. Consequently, applying science to teaching requires a creative interpretation of general ideas to the particular circumstances of working with specific students. James saw fear (of punishment) and love (being loved and appreciated by the teacher) to be as important to learning as the cognitive and behavioral aspects of pedagogy. Ultimately, it is creative, tactful and loving teachers, rather than techniques, who make the crucial difference to students’ education. As discussed below, however, mainstream SEL approaches seem to have rejected both James’s insights into the role of the teacher and the understandings of moral emotions offered by social psychologists such as Haidt (2003, 2007). Instead, much of SEL practice has been taken over by techniques for inculcating the ‘prescribed’ positive emotions and suppressing negative emotions. Let us turn to two figures whose work made this possible: Martin Seligman and Daniel Goleman.

Positive psychology, the ‘positive school’ and ‘happiness exercises’ Since its launch in 1998 at the University of Pennsylvania, positive psychology (PP) has found its way into SEL programs worldwide and, through hundreds of popular, ‘pop psychology’ publications, training workshops, corporate programs and university courses, it has become a global cultural phenomenon (Ehrenreich 2009). PP first began in the 1960s with Martin Seligman’s experimental research on learned helplessness that evolved into learned optimism and, more recently, the ‘new science of happiness’ (Seligman 1972; 2002). The ‘science of happiness’ has been taken up by former Prime Minister David Cameron, who set out to monitor happiness in the UK (Stratton 2010), as well as the former President of the European Union Herman Van Rompuy, who sought to popularize PP among 200 world leaders (Evans 2011). PP has also been used by the US Army and athletes (Positive Psychology Center 2019). In 2017, Buckingham University

Positive psychology 23

in the UK announced that it was to become Europe’s first ‘positive university’, following the lead of TecMilenio University in Mexico (Buckingham University 2019). The Buckingham University website identifies a ten-point action plan for a positive university, including opening the study of the PP module to all students, ‘positive’ PP-trained tutors; ‘positive achievement’ and ‘positive awareness’. Martin Seligman, the world’s leading PP authority, flew from the USA to the launch of the University of Buckingham as ‘the Positive University’. Martin Seligman began his career in the 1960s as a behaviorist psychologist and author of the theory of learned helplessness, defined as a passive response to problems beyond our control. During experiments in which dogs were subjected to painful electric shocks, Seligman found that when the dogs were unable to escape the shocks, they made no attempts to even try to escape and, in subsequent experiments, exhibited a consistent behavioral pattern of being unwilling to learn how to escape. The repeated experience of receiving uncontrollable shocks led to the behavioral pattern defined as learned helplessness, whereby the dog ‘stops running and howling and sits or lies, quietly whining, until shock terminates’ (Seligman 1972: 407). The experimenters went on to test whether learned helplessness could be reversed and found that dogs could indeed be ‘immunized’ against learned helplessness when the experimental conditions allowed them to ‘master’ the shock. Seligman’s (1995: 5) interest later moved on to children, guided by the following questions: ‘Could experience with mastery, or acquiring the psychological trait of optimism, immunize children against mental illness? Against physical illness?’ His subsequent research on depression found that certain ‘explanatory styles’ of bad events preceded depressive symptoms (Peterson and Seligman 1984). Specifically, participants with depressive symptoms explained bad events in terms of ‘internal’, ‘stable’ and ‘global’ statements, for example attributing a negative experience to their own stable shortcomings, as in: ‘I’m incapable of doing anything right’ (p. 349). Peterson and Seligman found the sources of this undesirable explanatory style in the parenting technique of the child’s mother and childhood traumas, e.g. the loss of a parent. In the classroom, teachers’ critical feedback framed in terms of ‘internal’, ‘stable’ and ‘global’ statements that convey messages such as: ‘You cannot do anything right’ is detrimental. This is in contrast to statements such as: ‘You’re not concentrating at the moment’. The outcome of this research was a range of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) techniques which proved to be successful in helping people who suffer from depression (Gillham et al. 1995). These techniques were subsequently rolled out to the broader population in order to develop resilience and learned optimism and to counter the perceived ‘epidemic of pessimism’ (Seligman 1995: 6). Seligman’s optimism-directed explanatory styles found their way both into his model of ‘positive education’ and ‘positive parenting’. For example, ‘A Practical Guide to Positive Parenting’ by the UK’s National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC 2012) recommends positive

24 Character education: a critique

discipline techniques such as keeping criticisms to a minimum, criticizing behavior rather than the child, using positive reinforcement and modeling positive behavior. To model positive behavior, parents are encouraged to ‘look on the bright side’ when stressed, because stress may be ‘catching’ (p. 17). The guide also explains that techniques for positive parenting are effective with all children irrespective of age, personality and culture. Positive parenting stems from the children’s wish to please their parents and, therefore, ‘guarantees’ happier, better-behaved children and more relaxed parents (NSPCC 2012). School-based applications of the ‘science of happiness’ include programs such as the US Penn Resilience Program and PERMA Workshops (Positive Psychology Center 2019), the UK Resilience Programme (Challen et al. 2011) and Seligman et al.’s (2009) model of ‘positive education’. Ignoring developmental psychology, these applications are recommended for both teachers and students. For teachers, applying PP in their day to day practice may mean an inappropriate use of ‘positive’ language combined with ignoring bad behavior, based on the assumption that downplaying bad behavior will make it ‘less likely to be repeated’ (NSPCC 2012: 9). However, the combination of ‘positive reinforcement’ for good behavior and a reduction of ‘negative reinforcement’ for bad behavior may engender in students an inflated selfperception of their behavior. School leaders are graded by inspectors for a ‘positive culture’, evidenced by ‘positive pupil behaviour’ and ‘positive pupil attitudes’ (Ofsted 2019), within an overarching expectation for schools to respond positively to any new initiatives and policies. However, as explained in Chapter 3, this positive response may obscure significant moral dilemmas experienced by teachers faced with policies that they do not ‘believe in’ (Braun and Maguire 2020). For students, ‘positive education’ means learning PP through direct instruction and, irrespective of age, engaging in regular ‘happiness exercises’ (Seligman et al. 2009). For example, the habit of learned optimism can be developed through ‘happiness exercises’ such as ‘Three Good Things’ and ‘Using Signature Strengths in a New Way’. The former consists of regularly writing down three good things that happened each day and writing a reflection next to each, as an answer to questions such as: ‘Why did this good thing happen?’; ‘What does this mean to you?’; ‘How can you increase the likelihood of having more of this good thing in the future?’ (Seligman et al. 2009: 301). The latter involves completing a Signature Strengths test (available on the authentic happiness website), taking a series of lessons in identifying one’s own character strengths and then using these strengths to overcome challenges. To embed positive education in the curriculum, Seligman et al. (2009: 305–306) recommend a range of activities in different school subjects, for example:  

using ‘resiliency concepts’ to interpret misfortunes experienced by fictional characters in novels studied in English lessons considering how the current brain research on ‘pleasure and altruism’ sheds light on the work of philosophers such as Aristotle or Bentham in Religious Education

Positive psychology 25

 

debate on measuring the happiness of nations in geography learning how to let go of ‘grudges’ against team members who did not perform as expected in athletics and games

The preoccupation with the ‘bright side’ of life suppresses the important and inescapable negative aspects of experience. And yet, opportunities to reflect on one’s failure to successfully deal with problems or to calmly let go of grudges are vital in developing an understanding of the complexity of our emotional lives. The key question asked in the ‘positive school’: ‘Children what went well last night?’ (Seligman et al. 2009: 306) excludes negative aspects of children’s experience and, like soma in Huxley’s (2007) Brave New World, may be used to trigger some respite from ‘the facts’. Dismissing negative ‘facts’ such as poverty, inequality and environmental degradation, Seligman et al. (2009) point out that most aspects of life have improved in the last 50 years: there is about three times more actual purchasing power, dwellings are much bigger, there are many more cars, and clothes are more attractive … there is more education, more music, more women’s rights … Everything is better … everything except human morale. (Seligman et al. 2009: 294) For PP scholars, well-being does not originate in the environment but rather is created by the individual committed to learning optimism and other PERMA traits. We will revisit the theme of optimism in Chapter 9 to consider ‘cruel optimism’ (Berlant 2011) that arises when poverty, inequality and environmental degradation are dismissed in order to be ‘positive’. Also important to our focus on moral emotions is Seligman’s definition of ‘happiness’, which significantly departs from that developed by social psychologists. For Haidt (2003), happiness is a moral emotion because it motivates pro-social action related to the individual and her closely-related others. By contrast, Seligman divided happiness into three measurable, skill-based ‘realms’ that can be taught to students (Seligman et al. 2009: 296). The three realms encompass: positive emotion; the state of flow (an ‘engaged life’) and the meaningful life (being aware of one’s ‘highest strengths’ and using these strengths to ‘belong to and serve something you believe is larger than the self’). Seligman justified this reframing on the grounds of making happiness ‘measurable’, an issue that will be explored in more detail in Chapter 5.

The ‘emotionally intelligent school’ and techniques for managing emotions To understand the emergence of the model of an ‘emotionally intelligent school’, it is important to consider the origins of the term ‘emotional intelligence’ (EI) and its interpretation by key EI advocate, the psychology graduate, journalist

26 Character education: a critique

and writer, Daniel Goleman. The term was first introduced by social psychologist researchers Peter Salovey and John Mayer (Salovey and Mayer 1990), and then brought into the public domain in a book by Goleman (1995) that quickly became a world-wide bestseller. The theory of EI stems from a review of research that was at the time ‘scattered over’ a range of diverse books, journals and ‘subfields of psychology’ (Salovey and Mayer 1990: 189). Salovey and Mayer saw this research as lacking a unifying theoretical concept, which they termed ‘emotional intelligence’ and defined as: the subset of social intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and action. (Salovey and Mayer 1990: 189) This initial conceptualization posited three elements of EI: accurate appraisal and expression of emotion; regulation of emotion (in oneself and others) and utilization of emotion to solve problems in adaptive ways. Importantly, for Salovey and Mayer, emotional intelligence was predicated on the ‘informational content’ of emotions and their role in helping us to understand our own actions as well as the actions of others (Mayer et al. 2008: 505–506). EI therefore involves the ‘capacity to reason accurately with emotion and emotional information, and of emotion to enhance thought’ (Mayer et al. 2011: 545). However, EI theory was subjected to a number of revisions in the aftermath of Goleman’s ‘journalistic rendering of EI’ (Mayer et al. 2008: 504). Goleman’s books made a number of inflated claims about EI. For example, the existing data apparently showed that EI can be ‘as powerful, and at times more powerful, than IQ’ (Goleman 1995: 34) and ‘nearly 90% of the difference’ between top and average performers at work was due to EI (Goleman 1995: 94). As Mayer et al. pointed out: ‘Our own work never made such claims, and we actively critiqued them’ (2008: 504). However, following the publication of Goleman’s (1995) book, many researchers adopted his definition of EI as a range of positive attributes and subsequent work on EI ‘continued to expand the concept’, both in popular publications and scientific articles (Mayer et al. 2008: 504). According to Mayer et al. (2008), as research on EI expanded, positive attributes and psychological traits were added that had little to do with emotional intelligence defined as a capacity to reason accurately with emotion and emotional information. These additional positive attributes and traits included: emotional self-awareness, empathy, reality testing, assertiveness, selfregard, self-actualization and many more. For Mayer et al., these revisions are ‘disappointing from a theoretical and construct validity standpoint, and they are scientifically challenging in that, with so many independent qualities, it is hard to identify a global theme to these lists of attributes’ (2008: 504). Similarly, some of the ensuing empirical research revealed the ‘expected’ positive correlation between EI and students’ academic achievement but did not consider

Positive psychology 27

that academic achievement ‘often washed out when IQ was partialed out’ (Mayer et al. 2011: 541). In other words, once the impact of IQ on the measures of academic achievement has been taken into account, the effect of EI may be diminished. Despite Mayer et al.’s (2008: 504) attempts to correct Goleman’s version of EI theory, Goleman continued to publish books based on his own EI model. In 2003, he turned to ‘destructive emotions and how to overcome them’ (Goleman 2003). The book on ‘destructive emotions’ was written as a ‘dialogue with the Dalai Lama’ and prominent western scientists from diverse disciplines such as cognitive science, neuroscience and human development, including Francisco Varela and Mark Greenberg amongst others. Goleman defined destructive emotions as ‘harmful to oneself or others’ and sought to identify their causes, their harmful effects as well as the ‘antidote’, guided by the following questions: What is the medicine? How to counteract them? Should we look to drugs, to surgery, to gene therapy, or to psychological therapy, or should we look to meditation? (Goleman 2003: 53–55) Together with hatred, anger is cited as the ‘most obvious’ destructive emotion, which can be modified by ‘training’ the mind (Goleman 2003: 25). In promoting techniques for the regulation of anger and other ‘destructive’ emotions, Goleman’s account is silent on both the moral dimension of anger highlighted by Haidt (2003) and the circumstances in which it may arise. Whereas positive psychology focuses mainly on developing positive emotional habits, Goleman’s EI emphasizes regulation and mastery over negative emotions. However, both the mental ‘training’ in emotion regulation for adults, based on ‘secularized’ versions of Buddhist practice (Goleman 2003: 221) and a ‘gym of emotional skills’ for young learners (p. 225), hollow out the deep meaning of emotions as rooted in our attachments to people and events that we are unable to control (Nussbaum 2010). Whereas at the heart of the Dalai Lama’s spiritual practice is ‘nothing more than acting out of concern for others’ (Gyatso 1999: 244), the conversation with His Holiness reported by Goleman (2003) included a discussion of the ‘Business Case for Emotional Education’: ‘As it turns out,’ I answered, ‘there is a very good business case for what His Holiness is suggesting. It’s good for the bottom line.’ ‘What’s that?’ the Dalai Lama asked about the unfamiliar phrase ‘bottom line.’ ‘Profit.’ (2003: 227–228) For Mayer et al. (2008: 504), the reframing of their emotional intelligence theory following the publication of Goleman’s book was an example of issues

28 Character education: a critique

that arise when ‘the journalistic version became the public face’ of a scientific theory. In the UK context, the emergence of the ‘emotionally intelligent school’ is an example of how education policymakers turned to a popular ‘journalistic’ interpretation of a scientific theory rather than the theory itself. The Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (SEAL) curriculum for primary and secondary schools developed by the Department for Education and Skills (DfES 2005, 2007) referenced Goleman’s book Emotional Intelligence and adopted his ‘five domains’ of EI: self-awareness, managing feelings, motivation, empathy and social skills. These five domains were translated into the direct teaching of social and emotional ‘skills’, to a set of predetermined learning outcomes. The SEAL curriculum rested on Goleman’s inflated claim that ‘emotional and social abilities are more influential than conventional intelligence for all kinds of personal, career and school success’ (DfES 2007: 8). Ignoring developmental psychology, SEAL recommended EI techniques for ‘all who learn and work in schools’ (p. 4), students as well as teachers. In alignment with Goleman’s model, SEAL focused heavily on ‘managing feelings’, in particular anger, frustration and stress. Managing negative emotions was to be accomplished by addressing the following core questions about the school’s learning climate, social climate and the physical environment: The learning climate: Are pupils and staff given opportunities and time to calm down when they get angry or frustrated? Are pupils supported to practise how they might calm down and manage their feelings? Are pupils and staff given the opportunity to talk about the way they are feeling? The social climate: Does the approach to discipline encourage staff and pupils to reflect on their feelings and learn to manage them effectively? Are staff and pupils encouraged to take responsibility for their own behaviour? Physical environment: Are there places to go to calm down? Are the reminders about stopping and thinking before acting, handling anger, etc. around the school? (DfES 2007: 23–24) SEAL recommended that direct teaching follows a cycle of: establishing ‘ground rules’; regular ‘circle time’ lessons (whole class discussion of social and

Positive psychology 29

emotional issues); ‘Bubble Time’ (confidential student–teacher conversations), as well as assessment and monitoring of the impact of SEAL. SEAL recommended a highly-codified language for teachers that deployed ‘positive’ techniques such as descriptive praise and active listening. For example: Draw attention to these throughout circle time using non-verbal praise, verbal praise and stickers … Try not to say anything negative. If a child’s behaviour is annoying, use proximity praise – praising another child in the circle for showing the desired behaviour. (DfES 2005: 52) Demonstrate and model empathy, for example really listen to what the pupils are saying … Model social skills, for example active listening, friendliness, interest in others. (DfES 2007: 45–46) The primary SEAL also prescribed ‘a very visible moral values system’ in the form of ‘Golden Rules’ that were to apply to ‘all parts of the school’ (DfES 2005: 54). Although the rules were supposed to ‘come from the children’s own ideas’ the SEAL guidance offered a replicable, mantra-like example assortment of rules: (DfES 2005: 54) We We We We We We

are gentle are kind work hard look after property listen to people are honest

We We We We We We

do do do do do do

not not not not not not

hurt anybody hurt people’s feelings waste our or other people’s time waste or damage things interrupt cover up the truth

An excessive use of such techniques, combined with targets which require students to demonstrate improvement in their EI skills, runs the risk of suppressing negative emotions to display ‘fake identities’ (Smeyers et al. 2007: 235), thus undermining the very core of emotional intelligence: the ability to ‘reason accurately with emotion and emotional information’ (Mayer et al. 2011: 545). The 50 learning outcomes of SEAL constructed the ‘ideal’, emotionally intelligent person possessed of an almost superhuman inventory of social and emotional ‘skills’, personal traits and qualities. In the case of SEAL, therefore, Mayer et al.’s message to EI researchers needed to be also taken seriously by education policymakers:

30 Character education: a critique

groups of widely studied personality traits, including motives such as the need for achievement, self-related concepts such as self-control, emotional traits such as happiness, and social styles such as assertiveness should be called what they are, rather than being mixed together in haphazard-seeming assortments and named emotional intelligence. (2011: 514) Instead, with the adoption of Goleman’s popular version of EI, the SEAL policy turned teachers into ‘pop-psychologists’ working within a conceptually ‘haphazard’ framework, in a climate where the sharing of personal feelings in the ‘public’ spaces of circle time or teachers’ professional development sessions was not only encouraged but also expected. Importantly, the idea that a ‘haphazard’ assortment of ‘Golden Rules’ could be a substitute for a ‘very visible moral values system’ (DfES 2005: 54) is problematic. It implies a view of morality as a simple choice to work hard, listen to others, and to be gentle, kind and honest, that can be achieved without a deeper understanding of moral dilemmas or conflicting values. And yet, this deeper understanding is essential to developing stronger moral sensibilities (Elias et al. 2008). Much more was thus to be accomplished to improve the SEAL curriculum when it was discontinued and replaced with ‘character education’ following a change of government in 2010. A detailed discussion of character education is presented in Chapter 4. The remainder of this chapter turns to the third ‘model’ school, organized around another ‘super’ emotion, compassion.

The ‘compassionate school’: assorted techniques for ‘Acts for Love’ Unlike the de-politicized and decontextualized models of the ‘positive’ and the ‘emotionally intelligent school’, the model of a ‘compassionate school’ emerged from a critical appraisal of the competitiveness and lack of compassion in the neoliberal state (Coles 2015, 2016). Rather than looking to the ‘new science’, Coles and the community at the Compassion in Education (CoED) Foundation look to ‘older spiritual and ethical truths’ (2016: 47) in order to counter competition and consumerism with collaboration, service and compassion. As explained above, for Haidt (2003) compassion is a ‘prototypical’ moral emotion because it is both disinterested and motivated by a high pro-sociality of action. By contrast, Coles (2016: 48) defines compassion as ‘love in action’ encapsulated by the ‘simple mnemonic, Acts for Love’. Acts for Love is an acronym that lists the values of a compassionate person that ‘apply equally to young people, to teaching and support staff, to managers and governors’:

Positive psychology 31

A: aspirational, altruistic, action orientated, appreciative C: creative, campaigning, collegial, charitable, courageous T: trustworthy, truthful S: spiritual, sacred, self-aware, sustaining, sympathetic F: fair, forgiving, fun O: open, optimistic R: respectful, responsible, resilient, reflective, reflexive L: loving, learning O: ordinary V: visionary E: equitable, empathetic, ethical, emotionally literate(Coles 2016: 48) The expectations of an ‘ordinary’ compassionate student to be ‘visionary’, ‘reflexive’ as well as ‘fun’ sets a challenging, possibly unattainable ideal. Just as in the ‘positive school’ and the ‘emotionally intelligent school’, compassion has been elevated to the status of a ‘super’ emotion that provides an organizing principle for all school activities and systems, including: ‘the spiritual, moral, social, cultural and intellectual development of students’; students’ ‘physical and mental health’, as well as broader ‘faith’ and ‘secular movements’ that are committed to ‘values and character education, to educating the heart, to emotional literacy and to the building of empathy and resilience’ (Coles 2016: 50). The ‘compassionate school’ model embeds compassion within the curriculum, the organization and systems of the school, as well as everyday activities such as meditation, mindfulness, empathetic listening, dialogic teaching and cocreation. As Mayer et al. (2011: 514) might say, this model has mixed together ‘haphazard-seeming assortments’ of techniques and approaches from positive psychology and emotional intelligence and named it the ‘compassionate school’. However, compassion is not ‘love in action’, defined as such to fit into a ‘simple mnemonic’ (Coles 2016: 48). As explained by Martha Nussbaum (2010), a philosopher who draws on psychology and psychanalysis, a range of emotions including empathy, guilt, shame and disgust may facilitate or impede compassion. The cognitive-emotional capabilities that support compassion: the ability to feel concern for others, to respond to others with empathy and to imagine the world from the point of view of others, are a deep part of our evolutionary heritage. From birth, children develop a capacity for ‘compassionate concern, for seeing another person as an end and not a mere means’ (p. 36). When looked after and cared for, children learn to understand, through feeling guilt, what their aggression does to another person, the parent or carer for whom they increasingly care. But a compassionate concern for the needs of others can develop only when children have been allowed to be needy, weak and vulnerable themselves. Therefore, the climate in the family and the culture in society may facilitate or impede the development of compassion. The dominant social ideals of a ‘strong’, ‘self-sufficient’ character interfere with the cultivation of compassion, as does the culture which blames the suffering person for her own misfortune. Deficiencies in compassion can also arise from a dynamic of disgust:

32 Character education: a critique

When a particular sub-group in society has been identified as shameful and disgusting, its members seem beneath the dominant ones, and very different from them; animal, smelly, contaminated and contaminating. So it becomes easy to exclude them from compassion, and hard to see the world from their point of view. (Nussbaum 2010: 38) Similarly, the cultural stereotype of the ‘real man’ as someone who is in control and has no weakness or need may inhibit men’s compassion for women and other men considered to be weaker or subordinate. The ideal of control and self-sufficiency masks the reality of human interdependence and mutual need. Nussbaum’s understanding of compassion highlights how important it is for children and young people: not to aspire to control or invulnerability, defining their prospects and possibilities as above the common lot of human life, but, instead, to learn to appreciate vividly the ways in which common human weaknesses are experienced … [and] how social and political arrangements … affect the vulnerabilities that all human beings share. (Nussbaum 2010: 39–40) Far from being a fixed ‘super’ emotion, experienced in a uniform way irrespective of culture, circumstances or stage in a person’s life, compassion is a complex moral emotion that opens the interpersonal connection through the recognition of our mutual dependence.

Conclusion This chapter developed a critical appraisal of mainstream approaches to Social and Emotional Learning by taking as a main point of reference the social psychology of moral emotions (Haidt 2003, 2007; Tangney et al. 2007). Social psychology emphasizes the importance of a range of emotions, positive and negative, in developing a sense of what is ‘moral’ and adhering to moral standards. However, the prominent models of the ‘ideal’ school, the ‘positive school’ (Seligman et al. 2009), the ‘emotionally intelligent school’ (DfES 2007) and the ‘compassionate school’ (Coles 2015), share a reductive focus on the positive aspects of learning and behavior. Although Social and Emotional Learning in each of the three ‘model’ schools offers some helpful techniques for dealing with emotional difficulties, their overarching focus on suppressing negative emotions is detrimental to character formation. It encourages a one-dimensional character, disconnected from unpleasant thoughts and feelings and particularly from the moral emotion of anger as a guardian of moral standards (Haidt 2003). Identifying one ‘super’ emotion as an ‘antidote’ to diverse problems and ‘prescribing’ it to all who study and work in school defies both developmental psychology and the more nuanced accounts of

Positive psychology 33

moral emotions that reveal the complexity of our emotional lives (Nussbaum 2010). The introspective orientation of emotions work encourages students to become self-absorbed and inward looking (Smeyers et al. 2007). Lessons in resilience and optimism ‘against all odds’, combined with an excessive use of ‘positive praise’ by teachers, may engender an inflated self-perception of students’ own capabilities. A systematic denial of the negative aspects of experience may stunt a more rounded character development that embraces the whole spectrum of emotions as they arise in the ordinary everyday experience of learning and living with others. Overall, therefore, a routine use of techniques for blocking or suppressing negative thoughts and unpleasant possibilities may take SEL into the territory of ‘deliberate self-deception’ (Ehrenreich 2009: 5). These problematic aspects of SEL programs call for teachers to take a critical stance to policy guidelines, emotion regulation techniques and manuals for teaching character. Extreme caution needs to be exercised in relation to generic techniques that are recommended for ‘all who learn and work in schools’ (DfES 2007: 4) regardless of age, personality, background and culture. Max van Manen’s (2012: 8) question: ‘How are we to act and live with children, helping them create their human capabilities, while realizing that we are apt to do damage?’ provides a basis for reflective engagement in pedagogical practice that pays attention to potential harmful ‘side effects’ of the positive, emotionally intelligent and compassionate approaches discussed above. We will return to this question in the following chapter. Rather than contributing to an ‘epidemic of pessimism’ (Seligman 1995: 6) or interfering with learning and other ‘productive’ activities, negative emotions are a clear reminder of our human interdependence and vulnerability to people and events beyond our control (Nussbaum 2010). As detailed in Chapter 6, their moral tenor does not depend on how well they are regulated to achieve one’s ‘ideal’ self but on how they open up or close down interpersonal relations (Steinbock 2014). The next chapter brings the sociological perspective to bear on emotions work. A sociological study of moral emotions sheds light on how morality emerges from the interplay of values, norms and cultural codes that distinguish right from wrong, good from bad and acceptable from unacceptable (Turner and Stets 2006). Eva Illouz (2008), a sociologist of culture, offers a framework for examining the one-dimensional character as both a product and a reproducer of the dominant cultural narratives.

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34 Character education: a critique Challen, A., Noden, P., West, A. and Machin, S. 2011. UK Resilience Programme Evaluation: Final Report. Available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/ system/uploads/attachment_data/file/182419/DFE-RR097.pdf. Accessed 5 May 2020. Coles, M.I. (Ed.) 2015. Towards the Compassionate School: From Golden Rule to Golden Thread. London: IOE Press. Coles, M. 2016. ‘An old intelligence of the heart’: towards the compassionate school, Education and Health 34 (2): 47–52. DfES (Department for Education and Skills). 2005. Excellence and Enjoyment: Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning. Norwich: HMSO. DfES (Department for Education and Skills). 2007. Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning. Norwich: HMSO. Ehrenreich, B. 2009. Bright-sided: How Positive Thinking Is Undermining America. New York: Picador. Elias, M.J., Parker, S.J., Kash, M.V., Weissberg, R.P and O’Brien, M.U. 2008. Social and emotional learning, moral education, and character education: a comparative analysis with a view toward convergence. In Nucci, L.P. and Narvaez, D. (Eds.) Handbook of Moral and Character Education, pp. 248–266. New York: Routledge. Evans, J. 2011. Herman Van Rompuy is thinking positive. Available at: https://www. globaldashboard.org/2011/12/19/herman-van-rompuy-is-thinking-positive/. Accessed 31 August 2020. Furedi, F. 2009. Wasted: Why Education Isn’t Educating. London: Continuum. Gillham, J.E., Reivich, K.J., Jaycox, L.H. and Seligman, M.E.P. 1995. Prevention of depressive symptoms in schoolchildren: two-year follow-up, Psychological Science 6 (6): 343–351. Goleman, D. 1995. Emotional Intelligence. New York: Bantam Books. Goleman, D. 2003. Destructive Emotions and How We Can Overcome Them: A Dialogue with the Dalai Lama. London: Bloomsbury. Gyatso, T., the Fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet. 1999. Ancient Wisdom. Modern World: Ethics for a New Millennium. London: Little, Brown. Haidt, J. 2003. The moral emotions. In Davidson, J.R., Scherer, K.R. and Goldsmith, H. H. (Eds.) Handbook of Affective Sciences, pp. 852–870. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Haidt, J. 2007. The new synthesis in moral psychology, Science 316: 998–1002. Haidt, J. 2008. Morality, Perspectives on Psychological Science 3: 65–72. Harris, P.L. 2008. Children’s understanding of emotion. In Lewis, M., Haviland-Jones, J.M. and Feldman Barrett, L. (Eds.) Handbook of Emotions (3rd ed.), pp. 320–331. New York: Guilford Press. Huxley, A. 2007. Brave New World. London: Vintage Books. Illouz, E. 2008. Saving the Modern Soul: Therapy, Emotions, and the Culture of Self-Help. Berkeley: University of California Press. James, W. 1890. The Principles of Psychology (Vol. II). New York: Henry Holt. James, W. 1916. Talks to Teachers on Psychology: And to Students on some of Life’s Ideals. New York: Henry Holt. Mayer, J.D., Salovey, P. and Caruso, D.R. 2008. Emotional intelligence: new ability or eclectic traits? American Psychologist 63 (6): 503–517. Mayer, J.D., Salovey, P., Caruso, D.R. and Cherkasskiy, L. 2011. Emotional intelligence. In Sternberg, R.J. and Kaufman, S.B. (Eds.) The Cambridge Handbook of Intelligence, pp. 528–549. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Positive psychology 35 NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children). 2012. Encouraging better behaviour: a practical guide to positive parenting. Available at: www.resourcesorg.co. uk/assets/pdfs/EncouragingBetterBehaviour.pdf. Accessed 3 March 2020. Nussbaum, M.C. 2010. Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities. Princeton, NJ and Oxford: Princeton University Press. Ofsted (Office for Standards in Education). 2019. School Inspection Handbook. Manchester: HMSO. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-insp ection-handbook-eif. Accessed 20 December 2019. Osher, D., Kidron, Y., Brackett, M., Dymnicki, A., Jones, S. and Weissberg, R.P. 2016. Advancing the science and practice of social and emotional learning: looking back and moving forward, Review of Research in Education 40: 644–681. Peterson, C. and Seligman, M.E.P. 1984. Causal explanations as a risk factor for depression: theory and evidence, Psychological Review 91 (3): 347–374. Positive Psychology Center. 2019. Penn Resilience programme and PERMA workshops. Available at: https://ppc.sas.upenn.edu/services/penn-resilience-training. Accessed 17 February 2020. Salovey, P. and Mayer, J.D. 1990. Emotional intelligence, Imagination, Cognition and Personality 9 (3): 185–211. Seligman, M.E.P. 1972. Learned helplessness, Annual Review of Medicine 23: 407–412. Seligman, M.E.P. 1995. The Optimistic Child: A Proven Program to Safeguard Children Against Depression and Build Lifelong Resilience. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin. Seligman, M.E.P. 2002. Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment. New York: Free Press. Seligman, M.E.P., Gillham, J., Revich, K. and Kinkins, M. 2009. Positive education: positive psychology and classroom interventions, Oxford Review of Education 35 (3): 293–311. Smeyers, P., Smith, R. and Standish, P. 2007. The Therapy of Education: Philosophy, Happiness and Personal Growth. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Steinbock, A.J. 2014. Moral Emotions: Reclaiming the Evidence of the Heart. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Stratton, A. 2010, 14 November. David Cameron aims to make happiness the new GDP. The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/nov/ 14/david-cameron-wellbeing-inquiry. Accessed 10 July 2020. Tangney, J.P., Stuewig, J. and Mashek, D.J. 2007. Moral emotions and moral behaviour, Annual Psychological Review 58: 345–372. Turner, J.H. and Stets, J.E. 2006. Moral emotions. In Stets, J.E. and Turner, J.H. (Eds.) Handbook of the Sociology of Emotions, pp. 544–565. New York: Springer. van Manen, M. 2012. The call of pedagogy as the call of contact, Phenomenology and Practice 6 (2): 8–34.

Chapter 3

Faith in therapy: the teacher as ‘therapist’

As we have seen in Chapter 2, positive psychology and emotional intelligence have been deployed in social and emotional learning as ‘antidotes’ to a perceived ‘epidemic’ of pessimism (Seligman 1995) and the destructive effects of anger (Goleman 2003). Recent years have also witnessed growing worldwide concerns about mental health (WHO 2013). In the UK, a policy paper written by the departments of Health (DoH) and Education (DfE) referred to a ‘mental health crisis’ in the form of a ‘diagnosable mental health condition’ affecting one in ten students (DoH/DfE 2017: 3). The most common conditions include: anxiety (3.3% of school and college students); depression (0.9%); conduct disorder (5.8%), hyperkinetic disorder (1.5%), as well as self-harming by 2% of children aged 5–16. To address this crisis, 61% of UK schools offer counselling, 50% appoint a member of staff as a dedicated mental health lead and 90% organize staff training on how to support students’ mental health and well-being. Government proposals for transforming mental health provision include recruiting 1,700 additional therapists and training 3,400 staff to deliver ‘evidence-based treatments’ (pp. 3–4). The current mental health crisis has prompted an expansion of the traditional teacher role of supporting the intellectual, cognitive and moral development of students to include the ‘therapeutic’ role of identifying children ‘at risk’, early intervention and, if necessary, referral to specialist services. The prevention of mental ill-health includes tackling poor behavior and bullying, creating a whole-school environment that is ‘safe, calm, orderly and positive’ (Ofsted 2019: 52) and ‘signposting’ all students to ‘appropriate self-help’ whether or not they require treatment (DoH/DfE 2017: 43). The logic underlying the therapeutic role of schools thus links the one in ten children ‘at risk of experiencing a mental health crisis’ to preventative measures that encompass all children and infuse the school environment with a therapeutic ethos. According to a number of commentators, this therapeutic ‘turn’ in education is a manifestation of the wider phenomenon of the ‘therapy culture’, centered on a belief in the inherent emotional fragility of the individual and therefore a need for psychological intervention (Ecclestone and Hayes 2009; Furedi 2004; Illouz 2008). Therapeutic education assumes that early diagnosis and treatment of children and young people ‘at risk’ can ‘prevent problems escalating’ and

Faith in therapy 37

thus bring ‘major societal benefits’ (DoH/DfE 2017). However, examining the therapeutic discourse of the current mental health malaise through the lens of cultural sociology offers a radically different perspective by challenging the binary distinctions of health/pathology and nature/culture. Cultural sociology is also concerned with how ‘faith in therapy’ has emerged and infused everyday lives and social institutions as psychological narratives of the individual’s ‘self’ were taken up by the wider public in the form of ‘pop psychology’ and ‘advice’ literature (Illouz 2008). The origins of contemporary therapeutic culture can be found in early twentieth-century America, where clinical psychology blended with popular interpretations of psychotherapy and gained institutional legitimacy in the American corporation and subsequently across a wide variety of social and institutional settings (Illouz 2008). Before examining the potentially harmful effects of ‘therapeutic education’, this chapter first turns to the origins of the therapy culture.

The emergence of the therapy culture: a cultural sociology perspective As explained by a prominent cultural sociologist Eva Illouz (2007, 2008), cultural sociology presents four core propositions. First, making sense of ‘who we are’ is shaped by cultural ‘scripts’, discourses that structure the social through particular systems of values and ideals, explanatory frameworks, habits of thought, shared narratives and moral categories. Second, some of these discourses use cultural ‘codes’, i.e. symbols and systems of meaning that are ‘more powerful and binding’ than others, particularly those taken up and codified within institutional settings (Illouz 2008: 9). Third, culture is such a complex phenomenon that it defies simple, causal, variable-based models of change. Fourth, cultural sociology is concerned with identifying social groups as carriers of cultural codes. Using these propositions, Illouz explains how the therapeutic discourse, as a set of ‘linguistic practices’ with a ‘strong institutional base’ within the professional class of ‘psy-experts’ (psychologists, psychotherapists and psychiatrists), found a receptive audience amongst certain groups such as the new middle classes, women and corporate managers and then gradually diffused throughout American society. This diffusion would not have been achieved without the dual status of psy-sciences as both professional and popular. ‘Pop’ versions of therapeutic discourse: … scattered in a dazzling array of social and cultural locations (TV talk shows, the Internet, the publishing industry, the private practice of clinicians, business consulting, school curricula, prison training programs, social welfare services and a plethora of support groups). (Illouz 2008: 10)

38 Character education: a critique

Illouz (2007) traces the rise of faith in therapy back to early twentieth-century America, with Sigmund Freud’s lectures at Clark University in 1909 as pivotal to the emergence of a new cultural sensibility. In a series of five lectures, Freud presented major ideas of psychoanalysis that made psychotherapy fashionable in American popular culture. These included the centrality of dreams for psychic life, the sexual character of desire, the role of the unconscious in determining our destiny and, importantly to therapeutic education, the ‘family as the origin of our psyche and ultimate cause of its pathologies’ (p. 37). However, psychoanalysis could inhabit American popular culture only because of the erasure of the more ambiguous, ‘darker’ aspects of Freud’s theory pertaining to the complexities of psychic suffering. For example, rather than promising a ‘cure’, Freud would explain to his patients that: ‘much will be gained if we succeed in transforming your hysterical misery into common unhappiness … with a mental life that has been restored to health you will be better armed against that unhappiness’ (Breuer and Freud 1955: 305). As Illouz (2008) explains, a selective, more ‘optimistic’ interpretation of Freud’s theory combined with other strands of clinical psychology (e.g. ego psychology, humanist and object-relation theory) as well as themes already deeply ingrained in American culture such as the pursuit of happiness, the search for the ‘perfect’ self, individualism and self-reliance. The existing dominant cultural theme of self-reliance contradicted the very basis of the therapeutic relationship: the client’s presumed dependency on the expert advice of the therapist. Reconciling these seemingly incompatible orientations was possible when the therapeutic discourse moved to the realm of popular culture and ceased to be the exclusive domain of ‘psy-experts’ (Illouz 2008). Over time, these tendencies led to the explosion of the ‘happiness industry’ in America and globally (Davies 2015), with the central concepts of psychanalysis propagated by self-help books, lifestyle magazines, management manuals, advertisements and movies. For example, therapy plays an important part in TV shows and sitcoms such as Wanderlust, Big Little Lies and Anger Management. Celebrity psychotherapists such as the Speakmans have offered on-screen help with addictions, phobias and anxiety whilst ‘agony aunt’ columns feature not just in lifestyle magazines but also in many daily newspapers. Popular chat shows such as The Oprah Winfrey Show encourage public displays of emotions and disclosure of intimate aspects of the self, thereby weakening the traditional boundaries between the public and the private. Big screen portrayals of the character’s arc from psychological trauma to a cathartic cure and dramatic recovery have captivated audiences for decades, though they bear little resemblance to everyday experience (Gabbard and Gabbard 1999). As Philip Rieff (1966, 2008) observed, Freud’s insights into the inevitable tension between personal desire and social order in the modern secular society have been replaced with individualism, freedom from repression, narcissistic self-obsession and self-promotion (see Chapter 5).

Faith in therapy 39

Another important factor contributing to the diffusion of the therapeutic script in all aspects of life was its institutionalization, with therapy becoming part of the routine management of organizations such as the American corporation. One of the key figures in the development of the therapeutic discourse in the field of corporate management was Elton Mayo, author of the Hawthorne studies conducted at Western Electric between 1924 and 1927 (Illouz 2007: 12). Mayo’s training as a Jungian psychoanalyst influenced both his approach to interviews with workers and the interpretation of data he collected in the Hawthorne project. For example, his research interview guidance recommended the non-judgmental approach of the therapeutic interview aimed at eliciting trust and uncensored emotional accounts: Give your whole attention to the person interviewed, and make it evident that you are doing so. Listen – don’t talk … never give advice … As you listen … from time to time summarize what has been said and present for comment (e.g., ‘is this what you are telling me?’). (Mayo 1949: 65) Mayo’s findings challenged the Taylorist (1911) model of scientific management prevalent at the time which posited that workers were incentivized primarily by extrinsic financial rewards. Instead, Mayo found that workers were incentivized by workplace relations imbued with care and attention to their feelings. Importantly, emotional problems reported by his female participants mirrored their family history. By revealing a discursive continuity between the family and the workplace, the Hawthorne studies introduced: the psychoanalytical imagination at the very heart of the language of economic efficiency. More than that: being a good manager increasingly meant displaying the attributes of a good psychologist … being able to grasp, listen to, and deal dispassionately with the complex emotional nature of social transactions in the workplace. (Illouz 2007: 15) A key theme that emerged in subsequent research in the field of organizational behavior has been emotional intelligence (Goleman 1995), discussed in Chapter 2. The overarching narrative theme of the therapeutic schema is that of selfrealization, with therapy in the form of expert advice and self-help as the means to achieving this goal. However appealing and ‘natural’ it appears to be, the narrative of self-realization is beset with contradictions. For therapy to ‘work’, the therapeutic discourse needs to put at its center a vulnerable, emotionally deficient, ‘diminished’ self, a ‘sick’ individual (Furedi 2004: 95). According to

40 Character education: a critique

Furedi (2004), a demand for therapeutic interventions is generated though determinist images of vulnerability. In the context of therapeutic education, Ecclestone and Hayes point to a circular logic used to justify interventions for emotional well-being based on assumptions of a generic psychological need that ‘warrants’ therapeutic interventions: Therapy culture produces that need … and then, in turn, therapeutic interventions of a crude popular type, as well as skilled psychological activities, become welcomed and desired, and leading to successful outcomes within that culture. (2009: 380) It is important to note here the difference between the notion of ‘vulnerability’ discussed in Chapter 2, which arises from a view of people as interdependent, and the psychological vulnerabilities that Furedi (2004) writes about. Whilst acknowledging mutual dependence does not diminish individuals but is essential for their development, Furedi appears to be critical of an asymmetrical dependence of the deficient, ‘diminished’ self. In this regard, Furedi points to the fundamental contradiction in the therapeutic culture which promotes the ideal of self-sufficiency whilst, at the same time, encouraging a ‘state of dependency’ of clients on their therapists (2004: 103). This dependency has come to define the culturally sanctioned model of good relationships which are akin to those between therapists and their clients. Importantly for our focus on emotions and morality, such relationships are supposed to be non-judgmental, because therapists are ‘not charged with maintaining the moral order’ (Furedi 2004: 95). On the contrary, therapists empathize with their clients’ predicament in order to gain access to their inner lives and establish a relation of ‘permissiveness’. Therapeutic relationships thus remove the notion of moral culpability from the individual’s pursuit of healing. By identifying the roots of one’s values and moral schemes in early childhood and deficient families, the therapeutic discourse ‘exonerates the person from the moral weight of being at fault’ (Illouz 2008: 184). At its most extreme, the therapy culture erodes social bonds by replacing social concerns with the concern for oneself. According to Illouz (2008: 2), the therapeutic script is unable to offer us a coherent scheme for connecting ‘the private self to the public sphere because it has emptied the self of its communal and political content, replacing this content with a narcissistic self-concern’. These issues are discussed further in Chapter 5.

The shifting boundary between health and pathology The spread of the therapeutic discourse to diverse social contexts beyond the family and the workplace has been accompanied by a shifting ideal of ‘good’ health. Mental health and well-being became both a social policy imperative and a sought-after market commodity (Illouz 2008), shaped by professional

Faith in therapy 41

organizations and in particular the American Psychiatric Association (APA). For many years, the debate on mental disorders had split American psychiatrists into two main opposing camps: advocates of classifying mental disorders according to symptoms and, alternatively, according to the underlying causes (Hacking 1995). Clinicians from different theoretical schools found it virtually impossible to agree on the underlying causes and the diagnosis of specific patients. Agreeing on the symptoms was easier and consequently, an a-theoretical, symptoms-based classification won the debate. This debate was reflected in changes to the highly authoritative handbook for healthcare professionals in the USA and much of the world, APA’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Since its creation in 1952, the DSM has undergone five revisions. A major shift in diagnosing mental disorders occurred when the second edition of the Manual, the DSM-II, was revised and published in 1980 as the third edition, the DSM-III. As explained by prominent psychiatrist researchers Allan Horwitz and Jerome Wakefield (2007, 2012), the DSM-III classification marked a significant shift from the psychodynamic, causes-oriented approach of the DSM-II towards a more ‘objective’, evidence-based portrayal of mental disorders. The DSM-III was viewed by many as a ‘turning point in psychiatric history’. For example, the then president of the American Psychiatric Association referred to it as a ‘triumph of “science over ideology”’ whilst another prominent psychiatrist pointed out that the ‘old psychiatry derives from theory, the new psychiatry from fact’ (Horwitz 2012: 568). The diagnostic entities listed in the DSM-III were thus presumed by many to provide ‘factual’ information and categories based on ‘underlying natural entities’ (Horwitz 2012: 568). The DSM-III expedited diagnosis by providing health professionals with definitions and lists of symptoms of several hundred distinct disorders, rendering them easy to diagnose and measure. It isolated mental disorders from personal histories and contexts in which they arise and made them comparable across different patients displaying the same symptoms. However, because of its focus on symptoms rather than the underlying causes and contexts, the DSM-III subsumed under the category of ‘mental disorders’ some natural behaviors and emotions that arise in response to stress or problematic relationships. For example, as noted by Illouz (2007: 60), according to the new diagnostic criteria, disobedient behavior was subsumed under the category of ‘oppositional disorder’, defined as negativistic, disobedient, and ‘provocative opposition to authority figures’. Similarly, a diagnosis of ‘major depressive disorder’ (MDD) as predicated on at least five symptoms that include: ‘sadness or lack of interest or pleasure, last for at least two weeks, and create clinically significant impairment or distress’ proved problematic (Horwitz 2012: 573). MDD criteria excluded patients who experience MDD symptoms following bereavement, i.e. the death of a close person. Such patients are considered to be suffering from a natural, non-disordered response to loss, unless their symptoms turn out to be long-lasting and extremely severe. However, many losses apart from bereavement can trigger similar symptoms.

42 Character education: a critique

As Horwitz (2012) points out, symptoms of MDD may also be triggered by other distressing events such as the loss of a job, a life-threatening illness of someone close or an end to a relationship. The key problem with the DSM-III revisions of ‘mental disorder’ was a pathologization of a range of behaviors that are integral to the human existence. This pathologization has subsequently been diffused in popular culture, legitimating the dominant cultural script of ‘negative’, undesirable emotions and behaviors as unhealthy and therefore requiring ‘treatment’. When the inevitable struggles of everyday life get a medical label such as ‘disorder’ or ‘syndrome’ they trigger professional intervention, but the medicalization of our human struggles also serves the commercial interests of the mental health ‘industry’ (Furedi 2004). The pathologization of negative aspects of behavior creates a one-dimensional, ‘mentally healthy’ character measured against a constantly shifting ideal of ‘good’ health. Those who cannot keep up are ‘at risk’ of being subsumed under the category of ‘mental disorder’. As Horwitz (2012: 568) explains, the DSM-III classifications were ‘so widely accepted that it is difficult to realize how arbitrary many of them initially were’. An analysis of the socio-political and cultural contexts of the DSM-III reveals that its publication coincided with a loss of legitimacy and credibility faced by psychiatry in the 1970s and early 1980s. The DSM-II had focused on the underlying causes and unconscious mechanisms rather than symptoms and this meant that psychiatrists struggled with the diagnosis and measurement of mental disorders. However, it was the diagnosis and measurement that were the cornerstones of professional legitimacy. The issue of legitimacy was exacerbated by competition from other professionals: clinical psychologists and social workers who also claimed expertise in psychosocial problems. As Ehrenreich (2009) has observed, the availability of effective antidepressants created a demand for a classification of symptoms that would enable a quick diagnosis and prescription by a general practitioner. In this context, the DSMIII classification proved to be an ‘antidote’ to a range of problems experienced by the profession. It translated the diverse, distressing life problems into discrete, specific disorders that could be targeted with drug treatments. It warded off critics and provided an alternative to lengthy and more expensive psychotherapeutic treatment. The new classification thus gained acceptance through its usefulness and efficiency in diagnosing a host of mental disorders. However, it also created a range of new problems, discussed below.

Nature/culture and the harmful effects of classification The revisions made to the DSM make it difficult to establish whether the numerous statistics pointing to the ‘mental health crisis’ in schools across England, such as those cited in the introduction to this chapter, properly reflect the nature of the crisis and, consequently, whether they generate proper educational responses to the crisis. For example, Harwood and Allan’s (2014) empirical study of ‘psychopathology at school’ reveals the extent to which

Faith in therapy 43

medical diagnosis of children’s behavioral and emotional problems tends to dominate over alternative interpretations, replacing pedagogy with interventions to ‘manage’, pacify and medicate children. The crisis is at least partly related to teachers’ new task of ‘raising suspicion’ of mental disorders, which, in turn, gives rise to new modes of educational practice (p. 104). In the primary school, the ‘disorderly’ child is likely to receive ‘treatments’ such as learning in separate classrooms, specialist interventions and medication. By the time the child has moved to secondary school, treatment intensifies in order to ‘ameliorate’ problems that are now typically diagnosed as ‘entrenched’ (Harwood and Allan 2014: 161). The potential harmful effects of medical ‘treatment’ also stem from how the diagnosis itself may change students’ feelings and behavior, as well as the ways in which they think about themselves ‘in part because they are so classified’ (Hacking 1999: 104). The DSM-5 classification may be especially harmful to the more rebellious adolescents who are likely to respond to a highly authoritarian school culture with negativistic, provocative behavior (see also Chapter 8). Such behavior may be diagnosed as ‘oppositional disorder’. Once they find out how they have been labelled, children may experience themselves in new ways and the diagnosis may become a self-fulfilling prophecy. According to the DoH/DfE (2017: 8), ‘conduct disorder’ in children leads in adulthood to ‘antisocial personality disorder in about 50% of cases, and is associated with a wide range of adverse long-term outcomes, particularly delinquency and criminality’. The DSM-5 definition of ‘conduct disorder’ (CD) refers to symptoms associated with limited empathy, guilt and other pro-social emotions, as well as persistent behavior that violates: the rights of others or major age appropriate societal norms or rules. People with CD often show aggression to people and animals, destruction of property, deceitfulness or theft, and/or serious violations or rules … To be diagnosed with CD, the symptoms must cause significant impairment in social, academic or occupational functioning. (SAMHSA 2016) This definition claims scientific objectivity but also blurs the boundaries between ‘nature’ (objective symptoms viewed as ‘real’, natural entities) and ‘culture’ (subjective, culture-based understandings of societal norms or rules). A compelling example of the blurring of boundaries between ‘nature’ and ‘culture’ is offered by Horwitz (2012). A belief in prevention has encouraged routine screening for depression and other mental disorders targeted at adolescents. Specifically, screening programs for adolescents were developed in the USA in response to research that identified large number of adolescents as suffering from anxiety, depression, substance abuse and other disorders. Their advocates see screening programs also as a way of improving school performance and interpersonal problems. Horwitz’s analysis of diagnostic instruments

44 Character education: a critique

reveals that, depending on the instrument, between 5 and 10% of the school population is identified as requiring treatment. The first-stage of screening includes questions such as: ‘Have you often felt sad or depressed? Have you slept more during the day than you usually do? Do you feel tense and nervous when you’re around other people?’ (Horwitz 2012: 573). Typically, around one third of students taking the screening test respond ‘Yes’ to a number of such questions and are, therefore, referred to the second stage, an intensive interview that uses the DSM criteria. However, screening is also likely to mislabel normal adolescent ‘angst’ as a mental disorder, because the screening instruments: confuse ubiquitous feelings of sadness, irritability, oversleeping, nervousness, embarrassment, restlessness, and the like with mental disorders. These so-called symptoms are common results of normal responses to life stressors, family and school problems, and the natural intensity and lability of adolescent emotions. (Horwitz 2012: 573) The definition of ‘conduct disorder’ above illustrates another harmful effect of the DSM commitment to ‘evidence-based practice’ and the concomitant reductive view of therapy: the focus on managing symptoms within a one-sizefits-all approach instead of paying attention to the internal experience (McWilliams 2012). For psychotherapists such as Nancy McWilliams, the harmful, long-term effects of DSM-III have included a major shift from traditional therapeutic approaches to the pharmacological industry’s paradigm of treating personality disorders as separate from the personality and context, as if a given symptom pattern were ‘a thing in itself’ rather than an expression of a person’s complex and unique individuality (p. 563). As a result of this shift, psychotherapists have been under pressure to redefine psychotherapy itself and aim to: improve people’s behavior only to the point where it is no longer inconvenient to the larger community … The term behavioral health is replacing mental health and psychological health as an organizing concept, as if the internal aspects of experience are only incidental to an emotionally and psychologically satisfying life. (McWilliams 2012: 564) The ‘oversimplification and desiccation’ of psychotherapy into routine, manual-based treatments assumed to work with all patients displaying particular symptoms (McWilliams 2012) opened the floodgates to ‘a motley of believers drawn from the rich mixture of eclectic therapies that run rampant in America’ (Hacking 1995: 14). These ‘believers’ claim new forms of ‘lay expertise’ as life coaches, well-being consultants and trainers, personal development advisers and

Faith in therapy 45

mentors. Diluting the specialisms of counselling, therapy and psychology enables other professional groups such as teachers, youth workers and teaching assistants to become designated as ‘lay experts’ (Ecclestone and Brunila 2015). As the Green Paper on ‘transforming mental health provision’ explains: appropriately-trained and supported staff such as teachers, school nurses, counsellors and teaching assistants can achieve results comparable to those achieved by trained therapists in delivering a number of interventions addressing mild to moderate mental health problems (such as anxiety, conduct disorder, substance use disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder). (DoH/DfE 2017: 38) The current School Inspection Handbook taps into the culture of self-help by tasking schools with ‘developing pupils’ confidence, resilience and knowledge so that they can keep themselves mentally healthy’ (Ofsted 2019: 59). Faith in therapy has thus morphed into faith in therapists, and the ‘lay’ therapists increasingly include the children and young people themselves. The shifting boundaries between normal/pathological and the blurring boundaries between nature/culture have contributed to a dominant cultural script that generates anxiety about feeling anxious. As Horwitz and Wakefield (2007) point out, anxiety, fear, worries and apprehensions are painful but also ubiquitous and unavoidable aspects of human existence. However, ignoring the biologically designed nature of emotions and reframing socially inconvenient, yet natural, fears as disorders has led to an over-diagnosis of emotional disorders. This pathologization may be deployed as a form of social control rather than therapy: clinical attempts to alter these common emotions might be more related to enforcing conformity to current social norms than to correcting defects within individuals. Calling natural fears that aren’t suitable to modern circumstances ‘mental disorders’ … might mislead us about the sources, nature, and appropriate responses to emotions of anxiety. (Horwitz and Wakefield 2012: ix) The therapy culture does not simply lead educators into a purely medical arena but also involves some important moral issues. For example, positive psychology, as an ‘antidote’ to a perceived ‘epidemic’ of pessimism (Seligman 1995), has replaced moral meaning with therapeutic values in a belief that being happy makes one good (Furedi 2009). However, as Furedi argues, therapeutic education in its various forms is fundamentally a-moral, because it views ‘treatment’ as detached from a commitment to moral values. In many US schools, for example, ‘empathy’ has been rebranded as the ‘skill’ of being nice and considerate. Furedi (2009) concludes that the therapy culture thus encourages a

46 Character education: a critique

shift from the cultivation of shared values to the teaching of social and emotional skills reframed as ‘personal’ values, skills and attitudes.

The teacher as a ‘therapist’ The teacher as a ‘therapist’ is caught in a double bind of the dominant therapeutic script between her own emotional needs and those of her students in the context of increasing and often contradictory policy demands. As we have seen above, the UK government’s response to the ‘crisis of mental health’ has included proposals to ‘transform children and young people’s mental health provision’, based on ‘clear evidence’ that schools ‘play a vital role in identifying mental health needs at an early stage, referring young people to specialist support and working jointly with others to support young people experiencing problems’ (DoH/DfE 2017: 4). The DoH/DfE Green Paper tasks schools with this transformation through a number of measures: whole-school approach to ‘tackling mental health’, roll-out of ‘universal prevention approaches’, one-day ‘Youth Mental Health First Aid’ training for school staff and a new curriculum enabling every child to learn about mental well-being. However, these proposals are problematic on two counts. First, as discussed above, the therapy culture has been associated with a number of potentially harmful effects arising from over-diagnosis and therapeutic techniques used as forms of social control. Much of the work of the teacher as a ‘therapist’ focuses on managing and treating ‘symptoms’ rather than trying to fully understand and support students’ emotional difficulties, mirroring the one-size-fits-all application of standard techniques promoted in recent years in the clinical practice of psychotherapists (McWilliams 2012). Conflating normal upbringing problems with medical problems may amount to soft social engineering rather than educationally sound pedagogies (Furedi 2009). Importantly, in alignment with the self-help theme of the therapeutic script, character traits such as confidence or resilience are expected to be put to use to enable students to ‘keep themselves mentally healthy’ (Ofsted 2019: 59). To this end, ‘innovative approaches’ such as ‘digital tools for self-help’ have been offered by the NHS Apps Library. For example, the BlueIce app offered on the NHS website is an ‘evidence-based app’ designed to: Help young people to manage their emotions and reduce urges to selfharm. It includes a mood diary, a toolbox of evidence-based techniques to reduce distress and automatic routing to emergency numbers if urges to harm continue. (NHS 2019a) The ‘mood diary’ can be used to ‘see patterns and identify triggers’. The app offers ‘personalised’ activities for reducing distress that include: ‘a music library, photo library, physical activities, relaxation and mindfulness exercises, and

Faith in therapy 47

spotting and challenging negative thoughts’. The mindfulness exercises bear a close resemblance to some of the EI techniques of the SEAL curriculum discussed in Chapter 2. For example: Name thoughts and feelings To develop awareness of thoughts and feelings, some people find it helpful to silently name them: ‘Here’s the thought that I might fail that exam’. Or, ‘This is anxiety’. (NHS 2019b)

This calming breathing technique for stress, anxiety and panic takes just a few minutes and can be done anywhere … Let your breath flow as deep down into your belly as is comfortable, without forcing it. Try breathing through your nose and out through your mouth … Keep doing this for 3 to 5 minutes. (NHS 2019c) The crucial difference between the BlueIce app and SEAL techniques is that whilst the former is supposed to be a ‘mental health tool’ designed to alleviate symptoms of ill-health, i.e. the urge to self-harm, the SEAL curriculum was designed to enhance the well-being of ‘healthy’ individuals. The BlueIce app is thus an example of the conceptual confusion pointed out by critics of therapeutic education, such as Kathryn Ecclestone (see Chapter 1). Even more concerning is that people who access this app can click on the link that takes them to information that ‘more than half people who die by suicide have a history of self-harm’. This information could unsettle some users of the app, thus cancelling out the intended calming effects of mindfulness techniques. Second, the proposals for transforming mental health provision are in tension with the ongoing demands of school improvement framed in terms of academic performance in high-stakes tests. The negative consequences of highstakes performativity such as anxiety, burnout and moral dilemmas arising from engaging in practices that do not benefit all children have been experienced throughout the teaching profession for many years (Troman 2000; Ball 2003; Braun and Maguire 2020). Importantly, teacher anxiety and burnout have also been found to be transferred onto the students (Hutchings 2015; Bates 2016). Evaluating the proposals for ‘transforming mental health provision’ (DoH/DfE 2017) through the lens of cultural sociology shows that education has been caught up in the politics of the therapeutic culture, which utilizes its dominant themes of therapy and self-help to shape individuals and social relations in particular ways (Illouz 2008). The snapshot in the history of diagnoses of mental disorders presented in this chapter illustrates how they reflect a complex matrix of factors, such as competition between different professional groups,

48 Character education: a critique

economic considerations and cultural fashions. The major changes made to the DSM-III illustrate how diagnostic systems may conceptualize the same psychosocial phenomena in very different ways. In the US context, this has led to a sharp rise in diagnoses of disorders that require pharmacological treatment, generating a ‘pandemic largely driven by marketing pressures orchestrated by Big Pharma’ (Castiglioni and Laudisa 2015: 3). In the UK, the ‘Concluding Observations’ of the fifth periodic report by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child raised two concerns in relation to the new NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) guidelines for the diagnosis and management of attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder and related disorders (UN CRC 2016: 15). First, the actual number of UK children given psychotropic drugs was not available. Second, a significant increase was reported in the prescription of psychostimulants and psychotropic drugs to children with behavioral problems, including children younger than six, despite growing evidence of their harmful effects. Given the risks of over-diagnosis, therapeutic education may not only cause harm but also divert attention from the first part of the question posed by van Manen (2012: 8): ‘How are we to act and live with children, helping them create their human capabilities, while realizing that we are apt to do damage?’ Similar to the teacher who works in the ‘positive’ or ‘emotionally intelligent’ school environments discussed in Chapter 2, in order to avoid doing ‘damage’, the teacher as a ‘therapist’ needs to be sensitive to the effects of classification, aided by questions such as: How might a particular ‘label’ affect how this child and her family see themselves? How may this classification affect their future behavior? In performative mass education systems, these effects are not restricted to the identification of potential ‘mental disorders’. They extend to behavior and, as discussed in Chapter 4, also to the personality and character of students. As cultural sociologists remind us, the therapy culture is a ‘cultural formation’ (Illouz 2008), a classificatory ‘label’ for a complex, dynamic, evolving phenomenon that has undergone many changes since its beginnings in early twentieth-century America. The current therapeutic script with its themes of self-realization, self-help and self-control constitutes a major re-writing of Freud’s insights into ambiguity and conflict as central to our psychic lives. According to Elliott and Lemert, this re-writing often results in one-size-fitsall, ‘oppressive’ practices based on ‘fast and final’ solutions which amount to: compressing complex individual and collective problems down to the point of psychologism – to a belief that focusing attention on private life is all that is needed for coming to terms with the riddles of being-in-theworld. (2006: 209) However, avoiding the ‘damage’ of such practices is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for developing ‘human capabilities’ (van Manen 2012). By

Faith in therapy 49

offering an alternative understanding of emotions, cultural sociology can aid the teacher as a ‘therapist’ in developing students’ emotional capabilities that counter the dominant view of negative emotions as ‘pathological’. According to Illouz (2008), emotions implicate cognition, affect, evaluation, motivation as well as the body in specific, situated interactions with others. Emotions arise because of our affective entanglements in relationships and the sense of our dependence on others. The problem with the therapeutic script of emotional self-control is that it leads to indifference and a ‘suspension of one’s emotional entanglements in a social relationship’ (Illouz 2008: 103). Shame, anger, guilt, contempt, affection and admiration are ‘names we give to feelings about social relationships when these relations are threatened or at stake’ (p. 104) rather than signs of emotional immaturity or dysfunction. Whereas self-control means being indifferent and removing oneself from the reach of others, being ‘emotional’ means foregrounding one’s relationships with others. Developing students’ emotional capabilities thus calls for an alternative framework for understanding emotions, developed in more detail in Part II of this book.

Conclusion This chapter focused on the problematic aspects of the therapy culture and its educational ideal of a one-dimensional self, an individual who is not simply positive but also emotionally and mentally healthy, within a constantly shifting ideal of ‘good’ health. The therapy culture promotes a schema for understanding the ‘self’ in terms of health and disease, suffering and self-realization. This schema has undergone a number of shifts and, as a result, the current dominant script constitutes a major re-writing of the original ideas in Freud’s theory pertaining to ambiguity and emotional conflict as natural conditions of psychic life. The re-writing of these ideas was accompanied by a re-classification of the distinctions between health/pathology and nature/culture. This, in turn, led to major changes to therapeutic practice. Traditional person-centered talking therapies aimed at understanding the causes of mental disorders as essential to healing have increasingly been replaced with psychopharmacological treatment. With the global spread of the therapy culture, emotional health became a new commodity ‘sold’ in the form of self-help books, lifestyle magazines, advice literature, business consulting, internet products, apps for mobile devices as well as school curricula. The focus of therapeutic education on the identification and early treatment of students ‘at risk of experiencing a mental health crisis’ (DoH/DfE 2017: 13), within shifting boundaries between ‘normal’ and ‘pathological’ creates its own risks. Over-diagnosis may not only profoundly affect the well-being and behavior of individuals and their families but also lead to over-prescription of psychotropic drugs. The ascendancy of therapeutic education and its ultimate aim of making everyone feel better and happier is also manifested in a tendency to replace moral meaning by therapeutic values, in a naïve belief that being ‘happy’ makes one ‘good’ (Furedi

50 Character education: a critique

2009). When natural sadness risks being diagnosed as a symptom of depressive disorder and indifference is considered to be an essential trait of a ‘healthy’, ‘happy’ person, the time is ripe for re-writing the therapeutic script. Cultural sociology offers a critique of therapeutic education and sheds light on an alternative understanding of emotions. Emotions implicate cognition, affect, evaluation, motivation as well as the body in specific, situated interactions with others (Illouz 2007, 2008). Emotions arise because of our affective entanglements in social relationships and the sense of our dependence on others, not as a sign of our immaturity or dysfunction but as a means of foregrounding our inherently social nature. Consequently, character is not a simple, fixed outcome of autonomous individuals choosing certain desirable emotions or traits, nor a product of deterministic environmental processes, but rather it emerges in a continuous interweaving of the two. To support the development of students’ emotional capabilities, teachers need to develop understandings of emotions and character that go beyond the dominant view of the individual as a ‘diminished self’ (discussed in Part II of this book). Importantly, they need to exercise great caution when faced with changes to practice introduced through policies such as the recent policy pertaining to ‘transforming’ the mental health provision for children and young people classified as ‘at risk of experiencing a mental health crisis’ (DoH/DfE 2017: 43). The changes in UK education policy have been compared to ‘pendulum swings’ (Barker 2010), where each swing marks the time in government of one of the two major political parties, Labour or Conservative. The swing of the pendulum towards social and emotional learning embedded in the SEAL curriculum (Chapter 2), came to an abrupt halt in 2010 when the Labour government lost power first to the Conservative-Liberal coalition and, in 2015, to the Conservative government. With the pendulum swinging in the opposite direction, concerns about social and emotional learning and educational well-being were replaced by concerns about educating character. The question of developing human capabilities against the backdrop of these new concerns is discussed in the following chapter.

References Ball, S.J. 2003. The teacher’s soul and the terrors of performativity, Journal of Education Policy 18 (2): 215–228. Barker, B. 2010. The Pendulum Swings: Transforming School Reform. Stoke on Trent: Trentham Books. Bates, A. 2016. Transforming Education: Meanings, Myths and Complexity. Abingdon: Routledge. Braun, A. and Maguire, M. 2020. Doing without believing: enacting policy in the English primary school, Critical Studies in Education 61 (4): 433–447.

Faith in therapy 51 Breuer, J. and Freud, S. 1955. Studies in hysteria. In J. Strachey (Ed. and Trans.) Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 2). London: Hogarth Press. Castiglioni, M. and Laudisa, F. 2015. Toward psychiatry as a ‘human’ science of mind: the case of depressive disorders in DSM-5, Frontiers in Psychology 5 (1517): 1–12. Davies, W. 2015. The Happiness Industry: How the Government and Big Business Sold Us Well-Being. London and New York: Verso. DoH/DfE (Department of Health, Department for Education). 2017. Transforming Children and Young People’s Mental Health Provision: A Green Paper. London: HMSO. Available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_ data/file/664855/Transforming_children_and_young_people_s_mental_health_provision. pdf. Accessed 18 November 2019. Ecclestone, K. and Hayes, D. 2009. The Dangerous Rise of Therapeutic Education. London: Routledge. Ecclestone, K. and Brunilla, K. 2015. Governing emotionally vulnerable subjects and ‘therapisation’ of social justice, Pedagogy, Culture and Society 23 (4): 485–506. Ehrenreich, B. 2009. Bright-sided: How Positive Thinking Is Undermining America. New York: Picador. Elliott, A. and Lemert, C. 2006. The New Individualism: The Emotional Costs of Globalization. London and New York: Routledge. Furedi, F. 2004. Therapy Culture: Cultivating Vulnerability in an Uncertain Age. London: Routledge. Furedi, F. 2009. Wasted: Why Education Isn’t Educating. London: Continuum. Gabbard, G.O. and Gabbard, K. 1999. Psychiatry and the Cinema. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press. Goleman, D. 1995. Emotional Intelligence. New York: Bantam Books. Goleman, D. 2003. Destructive Emotions and How We Can Overcome Them: A Dialogue with the Dalai Lama. London: Bloomsbury. Hacking, I. 1995. Rewriting the Soul: Multiple Personality and the Sciences of Memory. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Hacking, I. 1999. The Social Construction of What? Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Harwood, V. and Allan, J. 2014. Psychopathology at School: Theorizing Mental Disorders in Education. Abingdon and New York: Routledge. Horwitz, A.V. 2012. Social constructions of mental illness. In Kincaid, H. (Ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Social Science, pp. 559–580. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Horwitz, A.V. and Wakefield, J.C. 2007. The Loss of Sadness: How Psychiatry Transformed Normal Sorrow into Depressive Disorder. New York: Oxford University Press. Horwitz, A.V. and Wakefield, J.C. 2012. All We Have to Fear: Psychiatry’s Transformation of Natural Anxieties into Mental Disorders. New York: Oxford University Press. Hutchings, M. 2015. Exam factories? The impact of accountability measures on children and young people. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Merryn_Hutchings/ publication/309771525_Exam_Factories_The_impact_of_accountability_measures_on_ children_and_young_people/links/5822faa408aeb45b58891444.pdf. Accessed 5 October 2019. Illouz, E. 2007. Cold Intimacies: The Making of Emotional Capitalism. Cambridge: Polity Press.

52 Character education: a critique Illouz, E. 2008. Saving the Modern Soul: Therapy, Emotions, and the Culture of Self-Help. Berkeley: University of California Press. Mayo, E. 1949. Hawthorne and the Western Electric Company. London: Routledge. McWilliams, N. 2012. Beyond traits: personality as intersubjective themes, Journal of Personality Assessment 94 (6): 563–570. NHS (National Health Service). 2019a. BlueIce. Available at: https://www.nhs.uk/appslibrary/blueice/. Accessed 10 July 2020. NHS (National Health Service). 2019b. Mindfulness: Moodzone. Available at: https:// www.nhs.uk/conditions/stress-anxiety-depression/mindfulness/. Accessed 10 July 2020. NHS (National Health Service). 2019c. Breathing exercise for stress: Moodzone. Available at: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/stress-anxiety-depression/ways-relievestress/. Accessed 10 July 2020. Ofsted (Office for Standards in Education). 2019. School Inspection Handbook. Manchester: HMSO. Available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/ system/uploads/attachment_data/file/843108/School_inspection_handbook_-_section_ 5.pdf. Accessed 15 May 2020. Rieff, P. 1966. The Triumph of the Therapeutic: Cultural Responses to Psychoanalysis. London: J.M. Dent & Sons. Rieff, P. 2008. Charisma: The Gift of Grace and how It Has Been Taken Away from Us. New York: Vintage Books. SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Serviced Administration). 2016. DSM-5 Changes: Implications for Child Serious Emotional Disturbance [Internet]. Available at: https:// www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK519712/. Accessed 28 August 2020. Seligman, M.E.P. 1995. The Optimistic Child: A Proven Program to Safeguard Children against Depression and Build Lifelong Resilience. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin. Taylor, F.W. 1911. The Principles of Scientific Management. ForgottenBooks.org. Troman, G. 2000. Teacher stress in the low-trust society, British Journal of Sociology of Education 21 (3): 331–353. UNCRC (United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child). 2016. Concluding observations on the fifth periodic report on the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Available at: https://www.unicef.org.uk/babyfriendly/wp-content/uploads/ sites/2/2016/08/UK-CRC-Concluding-observations-2016-2.pdf. Accessed 22 August 2020. van Manen, M. 2012. The call of pedagogy as the call of contact, Phenomenology and Practice 6 (2): 8–34. WHO (World Health Organization). 2013. Mental Health Action Plan 2013–2020. Available at: https://www.who.int/mental_health/publications/action_plan/en/. Accessed 18 October 2019.

Chapter 4

Beyond therapy and technique: learning about virtues and vices

Chapters 2 and 3 discussed problems arising from emotions work that seeks to engender ‘super’ emotions such as happiness and suppress or even pathologize negative emotions. The ‘super’ emotions approach to Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) relies on inducing positive emotional states through repetitive techniques, with potentially negative consequences that range from excessive self-absorption to intentional self-deception (see Chapter 2). The therapeutic approach examined in Chapter 3 postulates the emotionally fragile self whose life project of self-improvement entails staying mentally healthy. These approaches to SEL place the pursuit of emotional well-being firmly at their core, with morality assumed to be inherent in their application. This chapter considers an alternative mainstream approach which posits that emotional wellbeing and ‘human flourishing’ are predicated on the pursuit of a virtuous life. A virtue ethics approach to character education has been developed by neoAristotelian scholars at the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues (henceforth referred to as ‘Jubilee Centre’) founded in 2012 at the University of Birmingham. In 2019, the Jubilee Centre approach was endorsed as an official requirement in English schools in the School Inspection Handbook (Ofsted 2019). Specifically, the School Inspection Handbook refers to developing students’ character as one of the most significant dimensions of their personal development. It defines character as a ‘set of positive personal traits, dispositions and virtues that informs their motivation and guides their conduct … [and] gives pupils the qualities they need to flourish in our society’ (Ofsted 2019: 58). School Inspection Handbooks are produced by the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) and have the authority over professional practice in English state schools similar to the authority of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manuals (DSM) over the medical profession (see Chapter 3). According to Jubilee Centre scholars, the aim of ‘teaching character and virtues’ is to develop ‘critical, reflective and applied thinking that makes for better persons and creates the social conditions where all human beings can flourish within the framework of a democratic society’ (Arthur et al. 2017: 2). Aristotelian virtue ethics conceptualizes the self as imperfect, with self-improvement as its ultimate telos (‘end’ or ‘purpose). The reliance on judgement and practical reason in pursuit

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of the ethical life enables neo-Aristotelian scholars to revitalize a coherent moral scheme that has been lost due to the rejection, since the Enlightenment, of a teleological view of human nature (MacIntyre 1985). Due to its focus on civic virtues, virtue ethics also holds the potential to challenge the individualistic tendencies in the technicist and therapeutic approaches to emotions work discussed in Chapters 2 and 3. However, this potential is diminished by two key assumptions underpinning the Jubilee Centre’s approach to ‘teaching character and virtues’. First, the neo-Aristotelian assumption of ‘virtuous’ character as inextricably bound up with the atomized individual is problematic because it encourages introspective individualism. Second, a view of children as ‘potentially human’ and, in agreement with an earlier argument by Nancy Sherman, ‘in progress toward full humanity’ (Arthur et al. 2017: 62), generates pedagogies that rely on role modeling and imitation of ‘moral exemplars’ rather than on helping children to ‘create their human capabilities’ (van Manen 2012: 8). To begin with, this chapter outlines the neo-Aristotelian approach to character education developed by the Jubilee Centre scholars.

The Jubilee Centre approach to ‘teaching character and virtues’ Since its foundation in 2012 as an interdisciplinary research center, the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues has become a home to 30 scholars from a range of disciplines brought together by a common interest in ‘how character and virtues impact individuals and society’ (Arthur et al. 2017: 1; Carr 2018; Carr et al. 2017; Kristjánsson 2010, 2015, 2018). In addition to theoretical works and empirical research, Jubilee Centre scholars have developed a vast range of teaching resources, including The Character Curriculum (Jubilee Centre nda). Their ambition to shape the field of character education is reflected in the first and, at the time of writing, only distance learning MA Character Education in the world. This master’s course focuses on the theory and practice of human flourishing within a ‘broad’ understanding of character ‘encompassing aspects of wellbeing, ethics, citizenship and social and emotional education’ (University of Birmingham 2019). Importantly, as Arthur et al. (2017: 1) emphasize, the Jubilee Centre approach to character education is ‘not about moral indoctrination or mindless conditioning’ but about the ‘development of critical, reflective and applied thinking’ essential to individual and societal flourishing. According to Harrison et al. (2016: 1), Aristotelian virtue ethics is ‘viewed by many as the best philosophical basis’ for character education. As a normative theory, it tells us what kind of persons we should strive to become, unlike utilitarianism and Kantian deontology, which focus on how we should act. At the center of the theory is ‘virtue’, a character trait or disposition that represents a golden mean between the extremes of ‘deficiency’ and ‘excess’. Virtues such as courage, truthfulness, patience and friendliness lie between these two undesirable extremes. For example, courage pertains to bravery in the face of danger and is

Beyond therapy and technique 55

a golden mean that lies between cowardice (as the extreme of deficiency) and rashness (extreme of excess). In Arthur et al.’s (2017: 16) account, ‘virtue’ can be understood as an ‘acquired disposition to do what is good’. Each virtue comprises: a unique set consisting of perception/recognition, emotion, desire, motivation, behaviour and comportment – or style, applicable in the relevant sphere – where none of these elements (not even ‘correct’ behaviour) can be evaluated in isolation from the others. (Arthur et al. 2017: 28) This ‘componential view’ (Kristjánsson 2018) of virtue is considered important because, without the right emotion or motivation, certain behaviors or character traits that might be deemed socially desirable are in fact morally problematic. For example, resilience has recently been elevated to the status of a ‘super’ trait but, as Kristjánsson (2015: 6) observes, resilience may be ‘positively dangerous’ when disconnected from moral constraint. The character of a repeat criminal offender or a billionaire tax evader may display a lot of resilience but lack the moral compass to steer them away from the vices of dishonesty or greed. In this regard, neo-Aristotelian scholars have developed categorizations of different types of virtues that should be prioritized in the classroom, in addition to prototypical virtues (Arthur et al. 2017), as well as ‘virtuous emotions’ (Kristjánsson 2018). The four types of virtues include: moral virtues (such as compassion, gratitude, courage, justice, humility, self-discipline, honesty); performance virtues (resilience, determination, confidence, teamwork); civic virtues (service, volunteering, citizenship), and intellectual virtues (autonomy, perseverance, reasoning) (Arthur et al. 2017: 10–11). The prototypical virtues include courage, justice, honesty, compassion, gratitude and humility/modesty. Their prototypical nature means that these virtues are ‘embraced by representatives of most cultures and religions’ (p. 37). In the Aristotelian scheme there is also a ‘meta’ virtue, phronesis, also referred to as ‘moral wisdom’, ‘good sense’ or the ‘capacity to choose intelligently between alternatives when the demands of two or more virtues collide’ (p. 1). The prototypical virtues feature in many ‘off-the-shelf’ resources for teaching character and virtue, where they are contrasted with vices such as: greed, excess, vanity, arrogance, dishonesty, apathy and anger (for example in Virtue, Vice and Verse, Jubilee Centre ndb). As explained in Chapter 2, social psychologists categorize anger as a moral emotion because it can be triggered by perceived injustices against the self or others, thus acting as a guardian of moral standards (Haidt 2003). However, the Jubilee Centre’s approach to anger and other negative emotions resonates with that of the advocates of emotions management such as Goleman (1995). Specifically, Arthur et al. (2017: 134) recommend Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence book as a ‘good’ source that explains ‘the emotion system clearly’. They also use a sequence of steps for recognizing and managing emotions resonant of Goleman’s approach

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deployed in the Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (SEAL) curriculum (DfES 2007) examined in Chapter 2. For example, Arthur et al.’s example lesson plans for teaching emotions include steps such as: recognizing emotions and their causes, managing the ‘emotion system’, positive action to ‘manage’ emotion, ‘using emotion’ to engage and make a difference in the world (2017: 134–138). A similar SEAL-like sequence of steps is recommended for developing ‘virtue knowledge’ in the primary classroom. As explained by Harrison et al. (2016), ‘virtue knowledge’ depends on children being able to: 1 2 3 4

Recognise and name particular virtues Recognise and name situations which call for those particular virtues by… … recognising the emotions we and others feel in particular situations Observing what it is that people who have developed the virtue can do particularly well (2016: 67)

Importantly, learning about character and virtues in the primary and secondary classrooms involves ‘producing’ specific emotions (Harrison et al. 2016: 164) and ‘using emotion’ (Arthur et al. 2017: 136) to achieve particular goals. The problem here is that, if ‘producing’ or ‘using’ emotions becomes a habit, then practical reason may be replaced by ‘mindless’ techniques for the regulation of emotions that neo-Aristotelians have set out to transcend. However, Jubilee Centre scholars emphasize that what distinguishes neoAristotelian character education from the SEL focus on behavior modification is the role of emotions as an essential component of virtue. As Kristjánsson (2018: 2) points out, we are drawn to virtue ethics because it helps us to make sense of ‘the moral salience of our emotional lives’. Analogous to the golden mean, emotional moderation becomes a component of virtue when emotion is not ‘too intense or slack’ but when it is felt ‘at the right times, about the right things, towards the right people, for the right end and in the right way’ (Aristotle as cited in Kristjánsson 2018: 20). Similar to virtues, ‘virtuous emotions’ are thus defined in terms of their mediality, i.e. in terms of the individual adopting medial emotional states. Not feeling the ‘proper’ emotion at the right time ‘is evidence of moral failings’ (Kristjánsson 2018: 2). However, feeling the ‘proper’ emotion at the ‘right’ time may be highly challenging because, in the case of emotions, the golden mean in the sense of not being ‘too intense’ or ‘too slack’ involves: (a) occasions, (b) objects, (c) people, (d) motive (i.e. goal), and (e) way (i.e. degree). Since one also needs to feel the relevant pain and pleasure correctly, and for each parameter of mediality one’s reaction can fail by being excessive, very excessive, deficient, or very deficient, there are at least forty failure modes for each emotion (2018: 20)

Beyond therapy and technique 57

Such complexity could be both conceptually confusing and almost impossible for teachers and students to put into practice. The idea that individuals are ‘fully virtuous only if they are regularly disposed to experience emotions in this medial way’ (p. 20) may be setting an unachievable ideal. Even more concerning is an implicit view of children as passive recipients of received wisdom within a transmission model of learning: in the early stages, character education is to do with ‘emotional sensitization’ that involves ‘setting up moral schemas in the young’ (Kristjánsson 2018: 25). In the more advanced stages, when virtue begins to become a habit, the student’s moral progress happens ‘via learning to attach emotional value to virtuous actions and loving them for their own sake’ (p. 26). This schema thus posits virtuous actions, rather than other people, as the object of one’s love. This neo-Aristotelian account of ‘virtuous emotions’ can be contrasted with the cultural sociology perspective on emotions as arising from our interpersonal relationships and interactions (Chapter 3), as well as the phenomenological view, according to which feeling moral emotions reveals us as interdependent (developed in Part II of this book). As discussed later in this chapter, this schema radically departs from the account of emotions developed by Martha Nussbaum, a philosopher who has also engaged with Aristotelian philosophy. The Jubilee Centre’s focus on virtues and virtuous emotions as somehow separate from the individual is reflected in the references to ‘educating the virtues’ (Kristjánsson 2018: 26) and ‘teaching character’ (Arthur et al. 2017; Harrison et al. 2016). Such impersonal language that reifies ‘character’ is also reflected in the key principles for character education, which state for example that: Character is educable and its progress can be measured … Character is largely caught through role-modelling and emotional contagion … Character should also be taught … Character results in academic gains for students … Character demonstrates a readiness to learn from others Character promotes democratic citizenship (Arthur et al. 2017: 179) The teacher’s character here is a ‘tool’ for developing students’ character. As the Jubilee Centre’s (2015) ‘Statement on Teacher Education and Character Education’ explains to teachers: ‘the single most powerful tool you have to impact a student’s character is your own character’. The demands of virtue education thus also encompass the teacher, whose role as a character educator could be referred to as a ‘paragon of virtue’. Arthur et al. (2017) cite a number of authors who specify what this means. The teacher as a ‘moral exemplar’ has qualities such as honesty, respect, sensitivity to others, patience and, in addition, is a good listener, is likeable, shows compassion and caring – ‘the list is almost endless’ (p. 13). The list also

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includes the teacher’s commitment to moral principles, a focus on inspiring others in order to ‘move them to moral action’, as well as a ‘relative lack of concern for one’s own ego’ (p. 14). It would be wrong to challenge these criteria, and educational researchers have for many years focused on aspects of teacher professionalism such as responsibility for the formation of young lives and a vocation or ‘calling’ to a public service (Grace 2014). However, given Arthur et al.’s (2017: 1) aspiration for character education to be based on ‘robust and rigorous research – and evidence-based approach’, it is easy to envisage teacher recruitment and performance management systems that evaluate teachers against ‘almost endless’ lists of criteria to gain ‘objective’ knowledge of ‘who [they] really are deep down’ (p. 110). In their attempt to develop instruments to measure virtue in ‘people in general and in young moral learners in particular’ the Jubilee Centre scholars have found that self-report instruments may not generate sufficiently objective data, due to ‘possible response biases … caused by self-fabulations, self-confirmation tendencies and social desirability norms’ (pp. 109–110). The search for ‘objective’ knowledge of who students or teachers really are ‘deep down’ intrudes into the private sphere of morals and values. Concern about potential ‘self-fabulations’ also suggests a lack of the moral emotion of trust in the Jubilee Centre approach to measuring virtue (see Chapter 6). Having conducted a systematic evaluation of the Jubilee Centre’s teaching materials, Jerome and Kisby (2019) concluded that some of the materials fall short of Aristotelian aspirations. They also noted that, given limited evidence of the effectiveness of these materials, character education ‘advocates’ may be prone to an unduly ‘optimistic bias’. The Jubilee Centre’s approach has also been criticized for undue emphasis on the individual over the public and the political (Suissa 2015). Specifically, the balance between the individual and the collective seems to be tipped towards an individualistic focus on the inculcation of virtues, rather than the social and political contexts that support or constrain the cultivation of particular character traits. A cursory engagement with contemporary political problems can be discerned from Arthur et al.’s comment on the similarity between Aristotle’s ideas and current sensibilities: the Athenians had experimented with democracy and were faced with many of the same challenges that we encounter in modern Western democracies, including demagoguery and public disaffection or apathy. (2017: 26) Contemporary society faces challenges that go beyond demagoguery, public disaffection or apathy, as discussed in Chapters 5 and 10. The Jubilee Centre’s critique skates over the surface of ‘the political’ defined by Judith Suissa as the ‘whole realm of human enquiry and experience’ that addresses the question: ‘how people like us are to live together’ (2015: 110). According to Suissa, a deeper engagement with the political would entail engaging students in the debates on human needs, as well as social obligations related to these needs that

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go beyond students’ immediate environment. Social inequality, austerity and poverty call for radical solutions and, in the classroom, for debates on the ‘kind of society we want’ (p. 114). Suissa’s argument can be illustrated by the sample lessons on ‘planning’ and ‘making social change’ (Arthur et al. 2017: 138–139). The lessons pivot on ‘social change’ within students’ ‘immediate environment’, even though the lesson title refers to ‘civic virtues’, specifically to ‘using emotions to help us engage (the civic virtues)’. The first small-group activity engages students in planning to ‘make social change’ by identifying ‘things in their world’ that they would like to change, because they annoy them or make them unhappy, sad or angry (p. 139). A depth discussion of their emotions follows, in order to provide students with ‘motivation for action’. In the second activity, the students are asked to use their ‘practical intelligence and virtues’ to plan what they could do to change the situation. As Arthur et al. (2017: 139) recommend, students should select ‘something in their immediate environment’ as this will enable them to see the impact of their actions on ‘something tangible’. These activities reflect an assumption that ‘it is more feasible to start with the individual child, student or classroom than the whole school system or society at large’ (p. 44). However, an approach that puts emphasis on individuals and their character traits reinforces the dominant policy discourse that ‘views the system as here to stay and individuals as to blame for social problems’ (Suissa 2015: 114). Another problem with this approach is that it conceptualizes individuals as atomized and children as ‘potentially human’ (Arthur et al. 2017: 62).

The atomized individual and the ‘potentially human’ child As explained in Chapter 1, seeing individuals as either atomized or interdependent leads to a particular identification and framing of character traits considered to be socially desirable. Asserting the primacy of rational detachment and control over one’s emotions in order to adopt medial emotional states (Kristjánsson 2018) suggests a view of the individual as atomized. Although neo-Aristotelian virtue ethicists do not explicitly refer to the distinction between the independent and interdependent self, virtue ethics appears to subscribe to the ontology of separation, which assumes that the individual is an atomized self, a person who is ‘separate’: distinct and disconnected from other persons and the objects in the world (see Chapters 6 and 10). This becomes clear on reading Kristjánsson’s (2018) account of virtuous emotions. For example, Kristjánsson considers four ‘broad ontological objects’ at which emotions are directed: external events; myself as a person; another person and transpersonal ideals (such as beauty, truth or goodness). In line with Aristotle’s thinking, Kristjánsson (2018: 9) arrives at the following categories of emotions, depending on their ‘targets’:  

emotions directed (‘targeted’) at external events, e.g. fear emotions directed at myself, e.g. pride

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emotions directed at another person, e.g. compassion emotions directed at transpersonal ideals, e.g. awe

At the center of the Aristotelian emotional universe is the atomized individual who responds to other entities and events that are distinct, separate and ‘targeted’ or ‘directed at’. The problem with the ontology of separation is that it promotes a self-sufficient, self-grounding individual, diminishing the importance of interpersonal relations in character formation. However, we are a social species and the individual is never solitary. Character develops in and through interpersonal relations and emotions arise from our attachments to others, over whom we lack control (Nussbaum 2010). The Jubilee Centre principles for character education revolve around direct teaching of character. The Character Curriculum and other ‘off-the-shelf’ resources provide both the rationale, language and tools for teachers to use in the classroom. Another resource, designed to assist teachers in assessing the stage of children’s moral development, is the Character Development Ladder (Arthur et al. 2017: 62). The Ladder is the product of a re-working of moral psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg’s (1981) stages of moral development. The Ladder describes progressive stages of ‘moral excellence’ that correspond to different developmental stages of children’s moral functioning. Four stages of moral development have been identified: ‘moral indifference’; ‘emerging selfcontrol’; ‘self-control’, and ‘virtue’. An assessment of a child’s stage of moral development is meant to enable teachers to adjust their teaching to the specific stage. For example, at the stage of ‘moral indifference’, when children are ‘amoral’ and unaffected by their classmates’ problems, the teacher may motivate them to act morally by tapping into their ‘desire to avoid pain or punishment’ (Arthur et al. 2017: 64). When children at this stage abide by the rules, they do not do so for the sake of virtue. At the stage of ‘emerging self-control’, children begin to display knowledge of virtue but at times are unable to act on it. The difference between the two highest rungs of the Character Development Ladder is that, at the stage of ‘self-control’ children habitually engage in virtuous actions, albeit without finding their actions ‘completely pleasurable’, whereas the stage of ‘virtue’ is characterized by an acquisition of an integrated collection of virtues and acting virtuously with pleasure. Inherent in the design of the Ladder is the assumption that to educate character means to shape and ‘even interfere with students’ moral development’ (Arthur et al. 2017: 55). This assertion resonates with the famous statement by Anna Freud (1960: 13), Sigmund Freud’s daughter, that the ‘life and movement’ in the classroom demand ‘constant interference’ on the part of the teacher. Anna Freud’s statement is often taken to mean that extreme caution needs to be exercised in the classroom, because of children’s vulnerability and the harm that teachers’ actions may engender (see Chapters 7 and 9). By contrast, Arthur et al. (2017: 55) refer to this statement to emphasize the importance of educating character in a ‘deliberate, explicit and structured way’. This focus on deliberation

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and structure is premised on a notion of children as ‘potentially human’ and ‘in progress toward full humanity’ (p. 62). The teacher’s role in children’s moral development is defined here not just in terms of a ‘moral exemplar’ but also an objective, detached expert nudging the ‘potentially human’ students to progress to ‘full’ humanity, or at least to the next rung of the Character Development Ladder. However, the detached expert role appears to be lacking the very virtues of compassion and humility that the teacher is expected to instill in his students. Thinking about children as ‘potentially human’ may also be detrimental to the respect and love that infuse good education. As explained in Chapter 2, Nussbaum (2010) emphasizes the importance of seeing children as vulnerable and ‘real’ and seeing adults as equally vulnerable and imperfect. Facing up to the reality of our vulnerability and mutual dependence is essential both for mutual respect and for feeling compassion for others. Conversely, a proud teacher, a superior ‘moral exemplar’, may be disconnected from a sense of her own imperfection and unable to feel humility, compassion and love. In the phenomenological view of emotions discussed in Chapter 6, loving is not about trying to make others ‘better’ persons, to ‘form them in our image’ or ‘implant a teleological purpose’ but rather about being open to others as bearers of value (Steinbock 2014: 225). When juxtaposed with neo-Aristotelian education, the phenomenological account of moral emotions brings into sharp relief the emotional detachment permeating the Jubilee Centre approach. Although the Centre’s scholars have sought to ‘fit in’ emotions within the schema of character and virtues (Kristjánsson 2018: 14), emotions play a peripheral role and, as evidenced by the golden mean discussed above, are regulated to avoid emotional states that are ‘too intense’ or ‘too slack’. It is important to note at this point that Nussbaum (2010) does not set out to diminish practical reason or endorse emotional excess. Her account locates the roots of our emotional experiences in our mutual dependence and vulnerability to people and events that we cannot control. However, the idea of human vulnerability does not sit well with the Jubilee Centre scholars’ belief in self-control as an important stepping stone toward a fully integrated collection of virtues. According to Kristjánsson, it is ‘easy to over-egg or even fetishize’ our vulnerability and dependence on others: by turning non-self-sufficiency, transitoriness, and evanescence into essential elements of the unique beauty of human existence (as Nussbaum, 1986, comes close to doing). Any such tendency for fetishizing vulnerability is, however, alien to Aristotle. (2018: 190) However, according to Nussbaum (2013: 180), human life unfolds not so much through the realization of one’s virtue or character strengths but through the ‘discovery of one’s own infirmity and, ultimately, mortality [that] gives new meaning, as life goes on, to the sense of non-control’. The importance of living with a sense of non-control is revisited in Chapter 5.

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Nussbaum’s work is also important in addressing the pedagogical question of helping children to ‘create their human capabilities’ (van Manen 2012: 8, my emphasis). The Jubilee Centre approach relies so much on the child’s imitation of the teacher as a paragon of virtue and following other ‘moral exemplars’ that it inhibits children from being creative in the process of self-formation. The moral, intellectual, performance and civic virtues that the Jubilee Centre recommends should be prioritized in schools also fall short of Nussbaum’s (2003) capabilities that include a broader range of entitlements to support human development. These capabilities include: Life; Bodily Health; Bodily Integrity; Senses, Imagination and Thought; Emotions; Practical Reason, Affiliation; Other Species; Play, as well as Political and Material Control over One’s Environment. Importantly, Nussbaum’s capability approach rests on human interdependence and a political conception of the person who seeks a life that: is social through and through, and who shares complex ends with others … She leaves the state of nature not because it is more advantageous in self-interested terms to make a deal with others, but because she can’t imagine being whole in an existence without shared ends and a shared life. (2003: 450) At this juncture it may be helpful to reflect on the possibilities and pitfalls of the Jubilee Centre’s approach to character education discussed so far in this chapter. Its schema for human flourishing is a solid foundation for supporting character formation that goes beyond techniques for ‘mindless conditioning’ (Arthur et al. 2017) and management of mental health ‘risks’ recommended by positive psychology and therapeutic scripts respectively. Neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics seeks to do justice to the complexities of moral life and, by cultivating students’ moral wisdom (phronesis) and practical reason, support them in effective deliberation about actions that are morally-appropriate in given circumstances (Carr 2016). It is also important to note that the Jubilee Centre community of scholars is not a homogeneous ‘entity’ and the works discussed above have been selected either because of their focus on teaching character in schools or on moral (‘virtuous’) emotions. The richness of the corpus of their work and the range of debates generated by the Jubilee Centre in academic, political and educational circles cannot be fully captured within the limited space of this chapter. However, it is important to also reflect on the potential pitfalls of the approach that views children as ‘potentially human’ and expects teachers to act as ‘moral exemplars’ within an overarching understanding of ‘character’ as an atomized self. The view of teacher as a model of virtue who helps children progress toward ‘full humanity’ may be detrimental to the respect and love that arise from shared vulnerability and imperfection (Nussbaum 2010). As noted by Jerome and Kisby (2019: 64), some of the Jubilee Centre teaching resources ‘all too often slip into what we can only describe as a Victorian pulpit style’. This,

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in turn, aligns neo-Aristotelian character education with approaches that are limited by a tendency to teach about character and neglect the social relationships and contexts within which character develops (Bates 2019). Measuring virtue and assessing children’s progress along the Character Development Ladder invites another categorization of children, who are already unhelpfully categorized according to their academic achievement and measures of social and emotional learning such as positive emotion. A moral stratification of individuals may be socially divisive, an issue that we will consider in more detail in Chapter 5. Although the Jubilee Centre publications targeted at practitioners and policymakers show a tendency to promote neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics as both unequivocal and uncontroversial, Jubilee Centre scholars have also engaged in fascinating theoretical debates and controversies. These debates shed light on contemporary appraisals of Aristotle’s legacy and are discussed next.

‘Hard sentimentalists’, ‘mavericks’ and (post)modern sensibilities To convey a flavor of these debates, this section first outlines the disagreement between scholars who are labelled by Kristian Kristjánsson (2018) as ‘soft rationalists’, i.e. neo-Aristotelians, and ‘hard sentimentalists’ represented by social scientists of constructionist and postmodernist persuasions such as Jesse Prinz (2009). The second debate pertains to David Carr’s (2018) evaluation of the ‘maverick’ work of Alastair MacIntyre (1985). These debates may be seen as a battle to preserve Aristotle’s legacy of moral naturalism and the primacy of reason in the (post)modern world, which calls them into question. Looking first at controversies surrounding moral naturalism, the Jubilee Centre scholars have positioned Aristotle’s virtue theory in the paradigm which assumes the existence of moral ‘facts’ that are ‘grounded in our nature’ and exist independently of our minds (Arthur et al. 2017: 40). Therefore, morality cannot be ‘just “a matter of taste”, or a mere set of subjective preferences’ (p. 40). In other words, Aristotle’s naturalism assumes the existence of a ‘single unified world of human experience’ and, within it, the existence of natural moral properties and virtues (Kristjánsson 2015: 24). The Jubilee Centre scholars thus argue that a ‘real’ character exists ‘deep down’ that can be empirically discovered, given the correct data collection instruments. This ‘real’ character consists of a ‘set of objective, identity conferring traits, partly genetic, partly shaped in early childhood … a self that can be distinguished from the mere attributed self-concept’ (Kristjánsson 2015: 124–125). Since the ‘real’ character ‘deep down’ may differ from the character that a person reports herself to be, it takes an expert objective observer to discover the ‘real’ self. From this realist/naturalist standpoint, Kristjánsson (2010: 33–34) critiques a ‘mountain of so-called postmodern literature’ inspired by ‘old-fashioned hedonism’, which is not only morally deficient but also ‘anything but philosophically postmodern’.

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Kristjánsson thus opposes post-structuralism and social constructionism. In response, social constructionists have argued that the realist/naturalist concept of a fixed, autonomous self is not just impervious to the process of identity construction as inherently social but is also at variance with contemporary psychology. For example, Prinz (2009: 152) points to ‘fatal flaws’ in virtue theory and its assumption that virtuous traits are grounded in ‘human nature’, i.e. that they capture how we are or should be, ‘ideally’. According to Prinz, Aristotle’s ‘elegant’ golden-mean framework is not entirely ‘correct’ and some valued character traits reside at the extremes of excess or deficiency rather than in the golden mean. For example, truthfulness is the golden mean between self-aggrandizing boastfulness and self-effacing bashfulness. However, truthfulness could also be understood as an extreme in a dimension that extends between honesty (and truthfulness) and dishonesty. As Prinz explains, character-based virtue ethics has also been critiqued on empirical grounds by social psychologists who find ‘character’ to be a problematic construct because behavior is determined by the external features of the situation not just fixed character traits. Importantly, there is more to ‘morally good’ character traits than a simple assumption that they are natural. What gives virtues their moral status is our sensibilities; we value particular traits and this entails particular emotional dispositions: we can also have sentiments directed towards character traits. We detest greediness and feel shame of cowardliness. It is sentiments that make these traits good, not nature, though nature may exert some influence on our sentiments … The virtues attain high station because of the reactions they arouse in us. (Prinz 2009: 158) Prinz concludes his critique of naturalism in virtue theory by pointing out that there is no question about ‘human nature’, singular, but rather questions about ‘human natures’, plural. Consequently, to ground virtue in ‘human nature’ amounts to ‘dubious biology’ (p. 158). This critique has earned Prinz the label of a ‘hard sentimentalist’ (Kristjánsson 2018: 46). Kristjánsson developed the following categorization of four competing epistemologies of emotions along a continuum from ‘hard’ to ‘soft’ versions of rationalism and sentimentalism:    

hard rationalism soft rationalism soft sentimentalism hard sentimentalism

As Kristjánsson explains, ‘hard rationalists’ such as Plato and Kant posit that moral facts exist independently of emotions and moral (rational) decision-making

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is hindered by emotions. Neo-Aristotelians represent a ‘soft rationalist’ stance by claiming that both reason and emotions are necessary for moral functioning. Once ‘infused’ with reason, emotions become virtuous. ‘Soft sentimentalism’ has been developed by Hume, who believed that moral values are grounded in sentiments (of approbation or disapprobation) and, therefore, understanding virtue and vice is aided by emotions. Lastly, ‘hard sentimentalism’ posits that we ‘project’ moral properties onto the social world, which means that ‘hard sentimentalists’ such as Jesse Prinz are ‘moral anti-realists’ (Kristjánsson 2018: 34–38). In alignment with the Aristotelian golden mean, Kristjánsson has located virtue ethics close to the medial position in the above continuum, whereas the views of Prinz have been located at the extreme of ‘sentimentalist excess’. Locating character education within a (‘soft’) realist epistemology can be interpreted as an attempt to anchor ‘character’ to some objective foundations on which to build knowledge about how we really are. However, as another researcher of a constructionist persuasion, Daniel Lapsley, has observed, ‘there are no foundations’: There is no way to talk about the concepts such as trait, virtue, self, character, except as theoretical constructs, but there is no infallible empirical base to adjudicate contention among fallible theories … Everything we know … is filtered through rich networks of fallible theoretical constructs held together by paradigmatic tradition. (2016: 508) The issue of Aristotle’s legacy against the backdrop of changing paradigmatic traditions has been explored at length by Alastair MacIntyre (1985). As MacIntyre explains, Aristotle’s teleological view of the self (taken up by Christianity and other ‘traditional’ moral schemes) had offered a coherent, three-fold scheme until it was rejected during the Enlightenment. The coherence of this scheme relied on three related parts: first, ‘human-nature-as-ithappens-to-be’ (i.e. the ‘essence’ of human nature in its imperfect, ‘untutored’ state); second, ‘human-nature-as-it-could-be-if-it-realized-its-telos’ and third, moral principles (e.g. a divine law or a virtue ethic) as a means of helping imperfect humans to realize their telos of the life of virtue (1985: 62–63). The Enlightenment’s rejection of the view of humans having an ‘essence’ that defines their true end or telos left behind a moral scheme ‘composed of two remaining elements whose relationship becomes quite unclear’ (p. 65). According to MacIntyre, this led to the conflation of means (moral principles) and ends (telos) and the predominance of instrumental reason. As traditional moral precepts lost their categorical status, morality morphed into the modern culture of instrumentalism, which deploys technicist solutions to moral as well as technical problems and elevates efficiency to the status of a virtue. Arthur et al. (2017) position neo-Aristotelian character education within a teleological approach and promote human flourishing rather than utilitarian,

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economic or other amoral ends as the ultimate educational telos. However, in reading MacIntyre’s work as ‘rather virtue-ethically maverick’, Carr criticizes him for departing from Aristotle’s naturalism in favor of a social constructionist conception of virtues as situated in one of many ‘rival’ cultural traditions (2018: 641). The issue of Aristotelian legacy seems to pivot in this instance around the ‘purity’ of Aristotle’s ideas. Although it is impossible to imagine science, logic or philosophy without his legacy, paradoxically, ‘practically every advance in science, logic, or in philosophy has had to be made in the teeth of the opposition from Aristotle’s disciples’ (Epictetus as cited in Robinson 1995: 59). Therefore, advances in moral education may also rest on a robust critique of Aristotelian virtue ethics or at least a robust critique of the work of Aristotle’s disciples.

Conclusion Aristotelian virtue ethics offers an important alternative to emotions work and reliance on ‘mindless’ techniques for enhancing positive emotional and mental states. Its teleological view of human life reminds us that a life well lived is about the pursuit of virtue and that individual and societal flourishing depends on the extent to which our lives are lived purposefully. In the contemporary utilitarian age, Aristotelian ethicists provide important arguments against instrumentalist relations in which the means matter more than the ends. They argue that morality cannot be reduced to utilitarian expediency and that being moral is not a means to other ends but is of intrinsic value. In terms of such arguments, the official endorsement of the Jubilee Centre’s neo-Aristotelian approach to character education in the recent School Inspection Handbook (Ofsted 2019) is a welcome development. However, the Jubilee Centre’s aspiration to contribute, through the development of critical thinking, to social conditions where all of us can flourish ‘within the framework of a democratic society’ (Arthur et al. 2017: 2) has been diminished by some of its assumptions. Seeing children as ‘potentially human’ (Arthur et al. 2017: 62) is detrimental to the respect and love that animate good education (Nussbaum 2010). This way of seeing children, combined with the view of the teacher as a ‘moral exemplar’ may engender teacher–child relations that lack the very virtues of compassion and humility that the teacher is supposed to instill in her students. Partly due to seeing children as ‘potentially human’, the teaching resources referred to in this chapter often rely on direct teaching, role modeling and imitation. The assumption that the virtuous character is an atomized self generates ‘lessons in character’ that diminish the importance of moral emotions and relationships of interdependence within and through which character develops. The Jubilee Centre’s approach to character education has also been criticized for eschewing the public and the political domains (Suissa 2015; Jerome and Kisby 2019). This could be because its ambition is to be ‘both objective and

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non-political’ (Arthur et al. 2017: 1). However, as argued above, the ambition to be objective is problematic, given the contemporary debates on morality and the nature of science itself. In light of these debates, but without wishing to diminish Aristotle’s legacy, it may be concluded that any serious engagement in ‘educating character’ needs to start from a recognition that virtue ethics is a theory and ‘all theories are born refuted and die refuted’ (Lakatos 1978: 5). Developing critical and reflective thinking is thus predicated on teachers’ knowledge of the debates and controversies around Aristotle’s legacy. Applying critical and reflective thinking to enhance human flourishing within a democratic society is, in turn, predicated on actively engaging in political questions rather than taking a ‘non-political’ stance. The political dimension of debates on character education is discussed in Chapter 5.

References Arthur, J., Kristjánsson, K., Harrison, T., Sanderse, W. and Wright, D. 2017. Teaching Character and Virtue in Schools. London and New York: Routledge. Bates, A. 2019. Character education and the ‘priority of recognition’, Cambridge Journal of Education 49 (6): 695–710. Carr, D. 2016. Academic and theoretical perspectives on character education. In BERA Research Intelligence, pp. 18–19. London: British Educational Research Association (BERA). Carr, D. 2018. Virtue ethics and education. In Snow, N.E. (Ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Virtue, pp. 640–658. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Carr, D., Arthur, J. and Kristjánsson, K. 2017. Varieties of Virtue Ethics. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. DfES (Department for Education and Skills). 2007. Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning. Norwich: HMSO. Freud, A. 1960. Psychoanalysis for Teachers and Parents (Trans. B. Low). Boston: Beacon Press. Goleman, D. 1995. Emotional Intelligence. New York: Bantam Books. Grace, G. 2014. Professions, sacred and profane: reflections upon the changing nature of professionalism. In Young, M. and Muller, J. (Eds.) Knowledge, Expertise and the Professions, pp. 18–30. London and New York: Routledge. Haidt, J. 2003. The moral emotions. In Davidson J.R., Scherer, K.R. and Goldsmith, H.H. (Eds.) Handbook of Affective Sciences. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Harrison, T., Morris, I. and Ryan, J. 2016. Teaching Character in the Primary Classroom. London: Sage. Jerome, L. and Kisby, B. 2019. The Rise of Character Education in Britain: Heroes, Dragons and the Myths of Character. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues. nda. The Character Curriculum. Available at: https://www.jubileecentre.ac.uk/1844/character-education/teacher-resources/ the-character-curriculum. Accessed 18 November 2019. Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues. ndb. Virtue, Vice and Verse. Available at: http s://www.jubileecentre.ac.uk/1725/character-education/teacher-resources/virtue-vi ce-and-verse. Accessed 18 November 2019.

68 Character education: a critique Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues. 2015. Statement on teacher education and character education. Available at: https://www.jubileecentre.ac.uk/userfiles/jubileecentre/pdf/ character-education/Statement_on_Teacher_Education_and_Character_Education. pdf. Accessed 18 November 2019. Kohlberg, O. 1981. The Philosophy of Moral Development: Moral Stages and the Idea of Justice. San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row. Kristjánsson, K. 2010. The Self and Its Emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kristjánsson, K. 2015. Aristotelian Character Education. New York: Routledge. Kristjánsson, K. 2018. Virtuous Emotions. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lakatos, I. 1978. Introduction: falsification and the methodology of scientific research programmes. In Worrall, J. and Currie, G. (Eds.) The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes. Imre Lakatos Philosophical Papers (Vol. 1, p. 107). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lapsley, D. 2016. On the prospects for Aristotelian character education, Journal of Moral Education 45 (4): 502–515. MacIntyre, A. 1985. After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (2nd ed.). London: Bloomsbury. Nussbaum, M.C. 2003. Beyond the social contract: toward global justice. The Tanner Lectures on Human Values. Available at: https://tannerlectures.utah.edu/_documents/a-to-z/n/ nussbaum_2003.pdf. Accessed 10 November 2019. Nussbaum, M.C. 2010. Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities. Princeton, NJ and Oxford: Princeton University Press. Nussbaum, M.C. 2013. Political Emotions: Why Love Matters for Justice. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Ofsted. 2019. School Inspection Handbook. Manchester: HMSO. Available at: https://assets. publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/ 843108/School_inspection_handbook_-_section_5.pdf. Accessed 15 May 2020. Prinz, J.J. 2009. The Emotional Construction of Morals. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Robinson, D.N. 1995. An Intellectual History of Psychology (3rd ed.). Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. Steinbock, A.J. 2014. Moral Emotions: Reclaiming the Evidence of the Heart. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Suissa, J. 2015. Character education and the disappearance of the political, Ethics and Education 10 (1): 105–117. University of Birmingham. 2019. MA in character education. Available at: https:// www.birmingham.ac.uk/postgraduate/courses/distance/edu/character-education.aspx#: ~:text=This%20is%20the%20first%20and,and%20social%20and%20emotional%20educa tion. Accessed 12 July 2020. van Manen, M. 2012. The call of pedagogy as the call of contact, Phenomenology and Practice 6 (2): 8–34.

Chapter 5

The politics of character education: a loss of virtue?

The previous chapter examined the ‘radical turn back’ to Aristotle (Carr 2016: 18) in character education in England and the growing recognition of the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues as the leading research center founded on neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics. During her visit to the Jubilee Centre in 2014, then Education Secretary Nicky Morgan endorsed its approach, stating that the government ‘passionately believe that we owe it to today’s young people to help them marry the highest standards of academic rigour with the character foundation needed to help them flourish’ (Jubilee Centre 2014). Subsequently, references to ‘character’ and ‘virtues’ were included in the School Inspection Handbook (Ofsted 2019) as part of schools’ provision for students’ personal development. The Jubilee Centre now features in the list of organizations that support character development in the Department for Education’s (DfE 2019a) Framework Guidance for character education. Although the Framework Guidance foregrounds the moralistic element, it also frames social disadvantage in psychological terms relating to character ‘skills’ and ‘resilience’. This coincides with similar developments in the USA, where character education after the 2008 financial crash centered on developing grit as an antidote to austerity and poverty (Saltman 2014). This chapter examines the nexus of political and corporate actors and the dominant discourses that have influenced policies for character education and Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) in recent years, both in the UK and internationally. Psychologists, behavioral economists and ‘ed-tech’ companies have coalesced in the dissemination of ‘desirable’ characteristics and behaviors in schools through the use of ‘psychodata’: psychometric data pertaining to students’ non-cognitive skills (Williamson 2019). These ‘desirable’ characteristics are deemed essential for increasing the value of students as ‘human capital’, with investment in this ‘capital’ seen as a necessary precursor for continued economic growth, as well as improving personal income and well-being (OECD 2006: 29). Of importance in the politics of SEL is the assertion of its ‘scientific’ nature and, therefore, ostensibly, the value-free knowledge of psycho-economic experts being utilized to solve educational and socio-economic problems (Heckman and Kautz 2013). However, psycho-economic science masks both the commercial

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interests of these experts and the privatization agenda of the ‘competition state’ (Ball 2009; Cerny 1997) discussed later in this chapter. Similar to SEL, character education has increasingly relied on psychodata-based digital tools and corporate practices to promote approaches that may, paradoxically, contribute to a loss of ‘virtue’ rather than its enhancement. The advocacy of an atomized, hyper-rational character seems out of step with a social world that urgently needs to embrace interdependence, compassion and love.

Character education ‘fit for the 21st century’ Despite some policymakers’ ambition to create character education ‘fit for the 21st century’ (Cameron 2016), their ideas about character and the ensuing Department for Education Framework Guidance for schools (DfE 2019a) display the same weak conceptual foundations identified by Kathryn Ecclestone (2012) in relation to therapeutic education (see Chapter 1). Here, ‘building character’ is based on a simplistic understanding of character formation, as illustrated in the following explanation by the former Education Secretary (2014–2016) Nicky Morgan: For me, character traits are those qualities that enhance us as people: persistence, the ability to work with others, to show humility in the joy of success and resilience in the face of failure … Building characterful children is also a way of increasing mental wellbeing and resilience. (Morgan 2017: 16–17) One approach to ‘building characterful children’ suggested by Morgan is through a school’s vision of the ‘Golden Child’. According to Morgan (2017: 23), the ‘Golden Child’ is a ‘person who tries their best’, who is a ‘great learner’, ‘responsible’, a ‘good decision maker’ who ‘knows right from wrong’, a ‘good friend’, ‘kind’, ‘polite and well mannered’, ‘confident about themselves’, ‘positive in attitude’, ‘honest’, a ‘good communicator’, ‘respectful and understanding of others’, ‘cool’, ‘resilient’, ‘ambitious’, ‘safe’, ‘strong in commitment’ and ‘hard working’. However, character formation is a much more complex process that is already under way (Merleau-Ponty 2010) rather than waiting to be ‘built’. No matter how attractive the vision of a ‘golden’ child may appear, character emerges within and through everyday interpersonal interactions, rather than from an inventory of ‘desirable’ traits. This inventory of traits approach to character education was reprised by Damian Hinds, Education Secretary between 2018 and 2019: But what do we mean by character? Plenty of people have defined it in different and often complicated ways but I would like to suggest four pretty straightforward elements: First you have to believe you can achieve. You have to be able to stick with the task in hand and see a link between

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effort today and payback some time in the future, even if it’s uncertain or rather a long way off. Finally, you need to develop the ability to bounce back from the knocks that life inevitably brings to all of us … character must be grounded in virtues, in strong values … How do we instil virtues? How do we build character? (Hinds 2019) This view of character as an inventory of traits that merit development due to their extrinsic value as future ‘payback’ was subsequently inserted into guidance for schools. According to the DfE’s Framework Guidance, of the many ‘overlapping facets’ that constitute character, the list of the following four aspects can inform schools’ provision:   



the ability to remain motivated by long-term goals, to see a link between effort in the present and pay-off in the longer term, overcoming and persevering through, and learning from, setbacks when encountered [1] the learning and habituation of positive moral attributes, sometimes known as ‘virtues’, and including, for example, courage, honesty, generosity, integrity, humility and a sense of justice, alongside others [2] the acquisition of social confidence and the ability to make points or arguments clearly and constructively, listen attentively to the views of others, behave with courtesy and good manners and speak persuasively to an audience [3] an appreciation of the importance of long-term commitments which frame the successful and fulfilled life, for example to spouse, partner, role or vocation, the local community, to faith or world view. [4](DfE 2019a: 7)

The above list consists of four ‘desirable’ aspects of character that could be categorized as: ‘instrumental reason, perseverance and resilience’ [1], ‘the learning and habituation of virtues’ [2], ‘social confidence’ [3] and an ‘appreciation of long-term commitments’ as a basis for what is narrowly defined as a ‘successful and fulfilled life’ [4]. This approach posits the centrality of the individual within the family, the local community and the workplace but ignores collective notions of ‘mutuality’, ‘society’ and ‘democracy’. In doing so, it appears to reflect a worldview in which the family is the pivotal social structure or the best ‘antipoverty measure ever invented … a welfare, education and counselling system all wrapped up into one’ (Cameron 2016). A closer examination reveals that the four ‘facets’ of character are not ‘overlapping’ but contradictory. For example, from the perspective of neo-Aristotelian character education, the virtue of humility [2] is in tension both with the idea of ‘pay-off in the longer term’ [1] and ‘social confidence’ defined as clear, constructive argumentation, listening to others, good manners and speaking persuasively to an audience [3]. For neo-Aristotelians, humility, like all virtues, is pursued for its intrinsic worth, whereas confident argumentation is premised on intellectual virtues that serve

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the pursuit of ‘knowledge, truth and understanding’ (Arthur et al. 2017: 11) rather than persuasion. A similar conceptual contradiction can be found in the DfE’s (2019a) ‘exemplar’ case studies of character education. The case studies include a mix of behavior modification techniques resonant of SEAL (Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning) discussed in Chapter 2, as well as extrinsic rewards that encourage instrumental reason and counter the development of virtue: The values of ‘Integrity, Diligence, Civility’ … underpin the school’s strong and positive culture, and individual pupils are able to cite and fluently explain the values and what they mean for the life of the school. To further develop understanding of these virtues, the school celebrates individual acts of virtuous behaviour by publicly rewarding the pupil with value beads and explaining why they have earned this. Stickers for each value are awarded, with children asked to describe exactly what they did to earn that particular sticker … Older children can become school ambassadors for a core value; they write an application describing how they demonstrate it and go through a formal selection process involving interviews. Consistency in behaviour management is achieved through regular training, positive relationships, regular reinforcement and direct feedback. The Academy is part of a Trust which introduced a Combined Cadet Force (CCF) … to promote positive beliefs and habitual behaviours for attendance, as well as strengthening the positive attitude to learning Every time a residential takes place, no matter where it goes, the students are filmed and interviewed. These films are shared with the whole Academy on the weekly broadcast. (DfE 2019a: 19–27) The final two examples illustrate an increasing use of outside organizations and technology as part of the schools’ provision of character education discussed later in this chapter. The turn to character post-2010 marked a shift toward a more moralistic, legalistic and disciplinarian ethos, evidenced by the changes to Ofsted school inspection criteria for evaluating schools published in 2009 and ten years later, in 2019. ‘Outstanding’ provision for pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development was defined in 2009 as follows: Pupils think deeply about their own and others’ experiences and try to relate them to a clear set of personal values. They have a keen interest in ethical issues, act in a principled manner and understand the importance of reassessing values in the light of experience. The pupils resolve conflicts intelligently and seek consensus while accepting the right of others to hold different opinions and beliefs. They have a very good insight, based on first-hand experience, into similarities and differences between their own

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and others’ cultures and how these are constantly changing. They are open to new ideas, appreciate cultural diversity and challenge racism. (Ofsted 2009: 29) These criteria were closely aligned to the SEAL curriculum (see Chapter 2) and oriented towards ‘deep’ thinking, consensus seeking, openness to new ideas and experiential learning with others. The 2019 criteria demonstrate a shift towards greater prescription and requirement to comply with notions of ‘fundamental British values’ and legally protected characteristics:     



The curriculum and the school’s effective wider work support pupils to be confident, resilient and independent, and to develop strength of character … Pupils know how to eat healthily, maintain an active lifestyle and keep physically and mentally healthy … The school prepares pupils for life in modern Britain effectively, developing their understanding of the fundamental British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, tolerance and respect … Pupils understand, appreciate and respect difference in the world and its people, celebrating the things we share in common across cultural, religious, ethnic and socio-economic communities … Pupils engage with views, beliefs and opinions that are different from their own in considered ways. They show respect for the different protected characteristics as defined in law and no forms of discrimination are tolerated … Pupils know how to discuss and debate issues and ideas in a considered way. (Ofsted 2019: 62–63)

Education post 2010 is also characterized by a ‘zero tolerance’ approach to ‘breaches of the school’s behaviour policy’ which utilizes ‘permanent’ and ‘fixed-term’ exclusions of pupils from school, as well as ‘internal’ exclusions (Ofsted 2019: 53). Although permanent exclusions are to be used ‘as a last resort’ (p. 53), disciplinarian behavior policies have led to an unprecedented rise in permanent exclusions referred to in the House of Commons Education Committee (2018) as the ‘scandal’ of increasing exclusions and off-rolling of pupils. Off-rolling is a process of removing pupils from the school’s register when they move to other schools, alternative provision or home education. The 2017 figures on student enrolment in state schools indicated that nearly 20,000 pupils left their original secondary schools and were not recorded again on the roll of another school (p. 9). The Education Committee also reported a worrying rise in ‘internal’ exclusions and ‘segregation’, with pupils being put in isolation for ‘large parts of academic years’ for behavioral reasons and sometimes because they were ‘victims of bullying’ (p. 26). We will return to the issue of exclusion in Chapter 9.

74 Character education: a critique

The focus on ‘debating’ noted both in the Ofsted (2019) criteria and the DfE (2019a) Framework Guidance reflects another new theme in policy narratives post 2010, namely that of state education emulating elite ‘public’ education (i.e. private, fee-paying schools). For example, both David Cameron and Damian Hinds extoled public schools as follows: Put simply: children thrive on high expectations: it is how they grow in school and beyond. Now for too long this has been the preserve of the most elite schools. I want to spread this to everyone. (Cameron 2016) One characteristic that is often attributed to those who have gone to public school is that they have a thing called ‘public school confidence’, a kind of ‘have a go’ assertiveness that you have from certain types of school. Well this confidence is clearly not something that should be the prerogative of those whose parents are able to give them an expensive education. All children should have it. (Hinds 2019) The problematic nature of ‘public school confidence’ and the particular methods of character education adopted by private boarding schools are discussed later in this chapter. It is extremely concerning that the turn to character in education policy post 2010 appears to be driven more by superficial notions of a ‘golden’ child than by a deeper understanding of child development. The year 2010 also witnessed the publication of the Cambridge Primary Review (CPR, Alexander et al. 2010). This independent Review was an outcome of six years of research that involved a team of over 100 researchers and thousands of children, teachers and parents. However, the evidence and recommendations presented in the CPR were ignored by policymakers, even though they offered a complex, conceptually coherent, evidencebased blueprint for aims of education ‘fit for the 21st century’. The twelve aims set out in the CPR have been developed within three dimensions: The individual; Self, others and the wider world and Learning, knowing and doing. The first two dimensions include aims that embrace respect for children’s development and care for the child within an overarching view of individuals as interdependent. For example, the four CPR aims within the dimension of Self, others and the wider world include: Encouraging respect and reciprocity; Promoting interdependence and sustainability; Empowering local, national and global citizenship, and Celebrating culture and community (p. 198). The four aims related to the individual include: Well-being. To attend to children’s capabilities, needs, hopes and anxieties here and now … Caring for children’s well-being … attending to their physical and emotional welfare … the proper application of evidence about how children develop and learn

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Engagement. To secure children’s active, willing and enthusiastic engagement in their learning. Empowerment. To excite, promote and sustain children’s agency … Autonomy. To foster children’s autonomy and sense of self through a growing understanding of the world present and past, and through productive relationship with others. (Alexander et al. 2010: 197) By contrast, the DfE’s (2019a) guidance does not refer to ‘engagement’, ‘empowerment’, ‘autonomy’ or ‘caring’ for children and defines the role of schools in supporting well-being in procedural terms as behavior management and well-planned provision: Schools have an important role in the fostering of good mental wellbeing among young people so that they can fulfil their potential at school and are well prepared for adult life. Schools with clear expectations on behaviour and with well-planned provision for character and personal development can help promote good mental wellbeing. (DfE 2019a: 4) The coherence and breadth of educational aims developed in the Cambridge Primary Review can be juxtaposed with the narrow DfE (2019a) Framework Guidance for character education. As argued by a number of commentators, the post 2010 shift towards character education has also been detrimental to the development of students’ sense of social justice and commitment to the public good, identified as the overarching aims of the now discontinued secondary citizenship curriculum (Jerome and Kisby 2019; Weinberg and Flinders 2018). How certain research data and experts’ views find their way into politicians’ speeches and policy texts while others are ignored is often predicated on political rather than educational interests. The next section reveals some of these interests by utilizing the analytical tools of policy sociology.

Character policy assemblage and ‘psychodata’: a policy sociology perspective The post 2010 turn to character education has been characterized both by contradictory and conceptually incoherent policy ‘content’ as well as policy shifts and U-turns. Five different Education Secretaries held office between 2010 and 2020, two of whom were devout character advocates: Nicky Morgan and Damian Hinds. Justine Greening, Morgan’s immediate successor, was focused on social mobility and, consequently, replaced Morgan’s £3.5 million funding for Character Education Awards with a £22 million Essential Life Skills program. Greening’s program was rolled out in the 12 most deprived areas in England, identified as social mobility ‘coldspots’ (DfE 2019b). However, Greening’s successor, Damian

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Hinds, re-introduced character education (DfE 2019a, Ofsted 2019) together with Character Education Awards (Hinds 2019). Policy sociology offers a number of analytical tools for understanding the dynamics of policymaking beyond the ‘content’, policy shifts and U-turns to reveal the fluid ‘arrangements’ of policy actors, advocacy networks, expert knowledge, investments, discourses and technologies assembled to activate particular ‘policy mobilities’ (Ball 2016; Savage 2019). Policy here can be understood as an assemblage composed of these heterogeneous social and non-social formations (Savage 2019: 2) which enable ‘government’, i.e. governing and managing the conduct of individuals, groups and populations. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s work on governmentality, Miller and Rose (2008) identify two dimensions of government: ‘rationalities of government’ and ‘technologies of government’. ‘Rationalities of government’ (‘political rationalities’) are to do with ‘problematizing’ the conduct of individuals or groups: rendering that conduct problematic so that it becomes ‘visible’ and warrants ‘intervention’ (Lewis et al. 2019: 6). The upshot here is that rather than responding to ‘objective’ problems, policy ‘fabricates’ particular social phenomena as problematic and devises solutions, in order to govern the population. ‘Technologies of government’ (‘political technologies’) are the assemblages of techniques, actors, organizations, processes and instruments through which governance ‘gets done’ (p. 7). The political rationality of character education policies ‘problematizes’ character, not with a view to developing a deeper understanding of children and young people but in order to govern and manage them through psychological-behavioral interventions. For example, the four ‘aspects’ of character listed in the DfE’s (2019a) Framework Guidance discussed above (instrumental reason, perseverance and resilience; the learning and habituation of virtues; social confidence; appreciation of long-term commitments … for example to spouse) can be seen as the solution to the problems of social disadvantage and poverty framed by the former Prime Minister David Cameron in psychological-behavioral terms. In his speech on ‘life chances’ Cameron (2016) framed poverty in terms of: ‘dependency’ (1); the ‘vices’ of addiction and poor mental health (2); ‘anti-social behaviour’ (3); ‘deficiency’ in long-term commitment in single-parent families and a ‘failure of parenting’ (4). Character education has subsequently been framed in terms of ‘solutions’ to these four ‘problems’ of social disadvantage and poverty as follows: 1 Poverty framed as a problem of ‘dependency’: This fixation on welfare – the state writing a cheque to push people’s incomes just above the poverty line – this treated the symptoms not the cause of poverty and over time it trapped people in dependency. Frankly it was built around a patronising view that people in poverty needed simply to be pitied and managed instead of actually helped to break free … (Cameron 2016)

Educational solution (DfE 2019a): ‘instrumental reason, perseverance and resilience’

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2 Poverty framed as a problem of the ‘vices’ of addiction and poor mental health: … when we know that so many of those in poverty have specific, treatable problems such as alcoholism, drug addictions, poor mental health we’ve got to offer the right support, including to those in crisis. This is what I would call a life cycle approach – one that takes people from their earliest years, through schooling, adolescence and adult life. (Cameron 2016)

Educational solution (DfE 2019a): ‘the learning and habituation of virtues’ 3 Poverty and destitution framed as ‘anti-social behaviour’: Decades of neglect have spawned ghettos, gangs and anti-social behaviour. (Cameron 2016)

Educational solution (DfE 2019a): ‘social confidence … and the ability to … behave with courtesy and good manners’ 4 Poverty in single-parent families framed as ‘deficiency’ in long-term commitment and a ‘failure of parenting’: Today in Britain, around a million children are growing without the love of a dad … Children in families that break apart are more than twice as likely to experience poverty as those whose families stay together … It’s tragic that some children turn up to school unable to feed themselves or use the toilet. Of course, this is a clear failure of parenting … (Cameron 2016)

Educational solution (DfE 2019a): appreciation of ‘long-term commitments … for example to spouse’ The framing of socio-economic issues and inequalities in psychologicalbehavioral terms reveals a rationality that is based not on conceptual coherence but a ‘style of thinking’ that renders reality as ‘practicable or operable’ and amenable to ‘calculation and programming’ (Miller and Rose 2008: 15). Within his ‘all-out-assault on poverty’, Cameron introduced a program in parenting skills and coaching for ‘Troubled Families’ as part of a planned Life Chances Strategy. However, his government’s approach to tackling poverty coincided with the politics of austerity, driven by the belief that the economy ‘can’t be secure if we spend billions of pounds on picking up the pieces of social failure’ (Cameron 2016). In the aftermath of austerity, one fifth of the UK population, i.e. 14 million people, were recorded in 2017 as living in poverty and 1.5 million of them experienced destitution (UN 2019). However,

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in another policy U-turn in the wake of the 2016 EU referendum, the Life Chances Strategy was dropped (Puffett 2016), leaving the pressing social problems of poverty and social disadvantage to character educators. Political rationalities go hand in hand with political technologies: assemblages of techniques, actors, organizations, processes and instruments through which government ‘gets done’ (Lewis et al. 2019). Character education post 2010 has increasingly relied on an assemblage of digital-behavioral tools and corporate practices. For example, the DfE’s (2019a) Framework Guidance promotes a number of behavioral tools deployed by ‘exemplary’ schools, such as character rewards (‘value beads’, ‘stickers’ and ‘school ambassadors’) and ‘training’ in ‘positive’ relationships and attitudes discussed above. Digital tools for ‘self-help’ have been deployed to deal with mental health issues, for example digital apps with personalized activities, relaxation and mindfulness exercises to reduce stress available in the NHS apps library (see Chapter 3). The DfE (2019a: 12) also recommends the use of external providers who ‘support character education’ and singles out 22 such organizations. The DfE list includes organizations affiliated to the Church of England and sports associations, the National Citizen Service, the PSHE Association, Scouts and Girlguiding, Combined Cadet Forces, the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues, as well as private providers such as Careers & Enterprise Company and The Speakers Trust. This assemblage runs the risk of creating a tick-box approach that diminishes the complexity of everyday interactions through which the character is formed, in the classroom, playground and neighborhood. Importantly, the corporate practices of for-profit providers are often aimed at revenue generation, competition, expansion and ‘customer satisfaction’ which appear to be at odds with educational aims, as set out for example in the Cambridge Primary Review (Alexander et al. 2010). The prevalence of corporate practices in education policy assemblages is particularly advanced in the USA, where character education after the 2008 financial crash centered on grit as an antidote to austerity and poverty, attracting a number of corporate providers (Saltman 2014). The largest and ‘most celebrated’ for-profit charter school management company KIPP promotes teaching grit in its Knowledge Is Power Program through a highly standardized curriculum, scripted lessons and centralized test data tracking. As Saltman (2014) explains, teaching grit includes a behaviorist model of body control ‘SLANT’, an acronym for: Sit straight, Listen, Ask a question, Nod your head, Track [the teacher]. The idea of grit has been popularized by Paul Tough, a journalist and author of How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character, and Angela Duckworth, a psychologist and author of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. In alignment with its everyday meaning, ‘grit’ has been defined as ‘self-discipline wedded to a dedicated pursuit of a goal’ (Tough 2012: 136). However, the ‘grit scale’ developed by Duckworth to measure grit, does not distinguish between ‘intrinsic motivation’ and the ‘capacity to pursue something that has no inherent meaning to the pursuer’ (Saltman 2014: 49). According to Saltman (2014), rather

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than focusing on intrinsic motivation, grit-oriented pedagogies aim to instill compliance and rule following. The technology of grit is thus aligned to the political rationality of neoliberal governance which calls for the ‘production’ of ‘intensely disciplined’ workforce who have been trained, through character education, to obey authority and believe truth to ‘reside with those in power’ (p. 48). In Saltman’s (2016a) analysis, the scale of the private sector takeover of US state schools extends beyond the American charter schools, due to the expanding presence in the ‘edu-market’ of media and tech corporations such as News Corp, Apple and Microsoft, venture philanthropists such as Bill and Melinda Gates, and networks of corporate foundations and right-of-center think tanks such as Hoover Institution. As Saltman (2016a) explains, to scale up their operations and maximize revenue, for-profit companies standardize, homogenize and digitally automate the curriculum and pedagogy. At the same time, they also diversify and monopolize services, seeking to offer the full range of services, from test and textbook production, school management and security contracts to cyber home-schooling. Educational market expansion means replacing teachers’ work with touch-screen tablet technology, apps and e-books which utilize learning analytics to ‘hook’ students by predicting their interests similar to Netflix and other streaming platforms. In doing so, however, the corporate curriculum profoundly changes traditional relationships within the school. Embodied, real-time student–teacher interactions are open-ended, unpredictable and mutually responsive and therefore superior to scripted, pre-programmed, technology-controlled interactions. In the latter, it is the corporation rather than the teachers, that makes decisions about what to teach and how. Corporations capture public money by ostensibly claiming to be ‘neutral’ or a-political. However, corporate curricula are likely to ‘affirm rather than contest elite power’ (Saltman 2016a: 116), given the political rationalities central to any policy assemblage. To participate in a policy assemblage and gain influence over education policy, corporate actors deploy narrative themes that resonate with the political rationalities of politicians and persuade them of the value of their technologies on offer. One way of doing so is by publishing international bestsellers that capture popular imagination, as Goleman (1995), Tough (2012) and Duckworth (2016) have done. SEL and character education researchers affiliated with university research centers may also gain reputation by winning large research grants. For example, Martin Seligman and positive psychology (PP) scholars discussed in Chapter 2 partly established their reputation through research grants. In recent years, the philanthropic organization the John Templeton Foundation (JTF) alone awarded Seligman and his PP colleagues $5.8 million, $3.5 and $5.6 million in 2008, 2013 and 2014 respectively (John Templeton Foundation 2019). Similarly, the Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues received over £16 million in research funding from the JTF (Allen and Bull 2018). Since government accountability for public spending on SEL policies creates a demand for impact measures, ‘psychodata’ have increasingly been deployed to track students’ social and emotional learning (Williamson 2019).

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Psychologists’ preoccupation with measuring emotions stems from the assumption that measurement is vital to devising effective interventions. For example, when investigating compassion, Strauss et al. posit that ‘without an agreed definition and adequate measures, we cannot study compassion, measure compassion or evaluate whether interventions designed to enhance compassion are effective’ (2016: 15). Corporate interventions for SEL and character education deploy the psycho-economic expertise of researchers such as Heckman and Kautz (2013), who have reframed character as a ‘skill’ and an economic resource. This reframing presumes that character is both malleable and measurable, which in turn enables researchers to measure and predict the outcomes of interventions. The ‘big five’ character ‘skills’ most valued by the employment market, Openness to Experience; Conscientiousness; Extraversion; Agreeableness and Emotional Stability (as opposed to Neuroticism) (OCEAN) can be moulded through the technologies of skill formation. The ‘big five’ and similar ‘expansive’ psycho-economic models of student competence and well-being have been welcomed as an opportunity to develop instruments for measuring and changing attributes other than cognitive ability (Duckworth and Yeager 2015: 237). They also opened education to ‘edtech’ providers of technology platforms for the collection, tracking and analysis of SEL data. International organizations such as the World Economic Forum (WEF 2016) and Organisation for Economic Development and Co-operation (OECD 2017) and commercial ‘ed-tech’ companies such as Panorama Education entered the transnational policy arena offering large-scale data infrastructures. For example, the data infrastructure of Panorama Education enables it to reach 10 million students in 17,000 schools, in 49 states of the USA, as well as 15 countries throughout the world (Panorama Education 2020). Saltman (2016b) points out that biometric measurement devices such as fingerprint or iris scans are also used in some US schools to register student attendance and verify the identity of home-schooled students taking online tests. Their potential future uses may include measuring teacher efficacy through a range of students’ facial and body analytics recorded on webcams and wearable biometric devices (Saltman 2016b). Advances in machine learning enable ‘algorithmic psychometrics’ and open behavior and emotions to constant monitoring, quantification and manipulation (Stark 2018). To stay abreast of these developments, the OECD has developed a new PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) study, an international comparison of non-cognitive skills deemed essential for preserving the economic value of ‘human capital’, particularly in light of anticipated changes to employment patterns arising from advances in Artificial Intelligence (OECD 2019). As these diverse actors take on the role of producers of policy-relevant knowledge, they also make personality traits ‘globally commensurable, calculable and comparable’ as a new source of policy interest (Williamson 2019: 16). However, the core interests of the SEL policy assemblage are political and commercial: not to understand character but to develop (and sell) a range of psychodata-based apps and behavior toolkits that render character calculable and governable.

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Suffering, success and surveillance in the ‘competition state’ Education policymaking is also intertwined with the politics of globalization and the movement away from the welfare state to the ‘competition state’. The competition state promotes free markets, enterprise, innovation and competition as central to growth and efficiency in both the private and public sectors. As Cerny (1997: 253) has observed, globalization as a political phenomenon shuns the traditional hierarchical structures of the nation state and drives change from ‘complex congeries of multilevel games played on multilayered institutional playing fields, above and across, as well as within, state boundaries’. Since globalized capitalism needs the state to restructure and enable its profitable operation and expansion across national borders, the competition state takes on the role of a ‘commodifying agent’ that renders education into ‘commodity and contractable forms’, amenable to the operation of the market (Ball 2009: 97). The rise of the competition state has been accompanied by a turn from social policies focused on solidarity and the common good towards divisive, fragmenting and polarizing policies (Cerny 1997). Extended to education, such policies promote individual achievement instead of collective, justice-oriented citizenship, and leave education systems open to multiple privatizations (Ball 2009). These trends also accelerate the spread of the culture of ‘new individualism’. As diverse state, market and corporate actors continue to exhort global economic competition and relentless pursuit of success, the global ‘comes to be lived internally’ (Elliott and Lemert 2006: 75). The curriculum for ‘building characterful children’ (Morgan 2017) can be seen as a mutually-reinforcing assemblage of the political rationality of the competition state and the cultural imperative of ‘new individualism’ of reinventing oneself as the successful ‘perfect’ self. Transferred to character education, the process of reinventing oneself through the ‘selfdiscipline’ of grit and resilient bouncing back from failure is rendered calculable through ‘psychodata’, resulting in a socio-emotional stratification of children. However, sorting and labeling children while their characters are still being formed can be damaging to social confidence, which has paradoxically been cited as one of the aims of character education (DfE 2019a). In American KIPP schools for example, the ‘pedagogy of grit’ is based on sorting and sifting students’ character and ‘scapegoating’ them for ‘conditions not of their making’ (Saltman 2014: 45). In the English context, socio-emotional stratification is embedded in neoliberal politics and reflected in the discourse of ‘strivers’ and ‘skivers’ (Cameron 2012). The discourse of ‘strivers’ and ‘skivers’ assumes that character, resilience and hard work are the key reasons why ‘some children from poor families can climb right to the top while others seem condemned almost from birth to a life of struggle and stress’ (Cameron 2016). What this script appears to gloss over is that poverty is experienced and suffered in multiple ways irrespective of character or grit. Poverty may be experienced as hunger, tiredness, anxiety, shame and guilt, as well as social exclusion and stigma. O’Connell et al.’s

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(2019) research shows that child poverty has been on the rise in the UK since 2008, with 4.1 million children living in poverty by 2016–2017. This means that on average 9 children in each class of 30 may go to school hungry. These children may be experiencing anxiety and guilt from seeing their parents skip meals in order to feed them. They may also feel ashamed when their ‘Free School Meals’ look different (this usually means smaller portions) from the meals eaten by their schoolmates (O’Connell et al. 2019: 9). The year 2019 witnessed the publication of Britain’s first children’s picture book about a family visit to a food bank (Milner 2019). Cutting back the welfare state because people living in poverty need help to ‘break free’ rather than ‘to be pitied’ (Cameron 2016) is a false dichotomy suggestive of a lack of compassion. Global neoliberal policies thus come ‘to be lived internally’ (Elliott and Lemert 2006: 75) through the political rationalities of the compassion-less, love-less politics of the competition state. The global is also ‘lived internally’ within one’s most intimate sphere of thoughts, preferences and emotions through the political technologies of the digital media. The latest advances in digital technologies such as the ed-tech applications discussed above have partly been made possible by the corporate practices of data capture and data ‘harvesting’ by large tech companies. The original Latin meaning of the word ‘data’ (plural of ‘datum’) as ‘something given or granted’ implies consent on the part of the person ‘giving’ the data (van Manen 1990: 53). However, the practice of ‘scraping the digital footprint’ that each of us leaves in the virtual space for our behavioral data is often based on the unauthorized ‘taking’ of data. Shoshana Zuboff’s (2019) analysis of what she refers to as ‘surveillance capitalism’ links data harvesting to companies seeing human experience as free raw material for translation (‘rendition’) into behavioral data. Contemporary digital technologies enable the capture and storage of huge amounts of data on millions of internet users. This data can then be sold on to interested parties who profit not just from knowing our behavior but also shaping it at scale through personalized services and advertisements. The surveillance capacities of facial recognition cameras enable data capture in public spaces, without our consent, as well as in our homes through personal assistants such as Amazon’s Alexa, smart technologies for the home and mobile voice recognition devices installed in children’s toys. Once downloaded to a smartphone, these toys may provide data processing to ‘capture and understand whatever the child says’ (p. 266). As Zuboff has noted, one of such toys, the Cayla doll, was banned in Germany in 2017 as an illegal surveillance device (p. 267). According to Zuboff, the ubiquity of technology in our everyday lives means that it is practically impossible to ‘escape’ the surveillance and power of tech giants. Under this regime, individuals often surrender to data harvesting: out of ignorance and the dictatorship of no alternatives. The ubiquitous apparatus operates through coercion and stealth … We are left with few rights to know, or to decide who knows, or to decide who decides. (2019: 253–254)

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Zuboff’s analysis of data companies such as Cambridge Analytica also shows how quickly individuals working in these organizations lose their moral bearings as institutional practices become normalized and socially accepted, gradually leading to the habituation of moral ‘numbness’ (p. 278). The unprecedented, technologyenabled power of tech-giants ‘to decide who knows’ and ‘to decide who decides’ may corrupt both individuals and organizations. ‘Corporate vices’ that come to infuse the fabric of organizational interactions range from ‘arrogance and greed to tunnel vision and institutionalized deceit’ (Elliott and Lemert 2006: 39). The deceit and indifference of the ‘new individual’ has devastating implications for individual and social well-being, as well as for the sustainability of our planet (see Chapter 9). The highly polarized social stratification of the competition state is also accompanied by intense forms of suffering. Whilst large swathes of its poorer members suffer from the damaging effects of anxiety and the stigma of poverty, the privileged few may be ‘wrecked by success’ (Elliott and Lemert 2006). It is to the latter group that this chapter now turns.

UK boarding schools: a very ‘British’ loss of virtue? As noted above, one of the salient features of education policymaking in England post 2010 has been the acclamation of ‘public school confidence’ (Hinds 2019) as an outcome of ‘exemplary’ character education in elite, fee paying schools. British ‘public’ schools include private day and boarding schools for children aged 11–18, as well as ‘prep’ schools (preparatory day and boarding schools) which educate children from the age of 7–8 or younger. Eton College, a boarding school for 13–18 year-olds, boasts record numbers of students securing places at Oxbridge and has to date educated 20 British Prime Ministers. Many boarding prep schools were attended by the British political and intellectual elite (e.g. George Orwell, John Bowlby and Roald Dahl). As explained by Alex Renton (2017: 129), a journalist and ex-boarder, in Victorian Britain public schools adopted a militaristic ethic and corporal punishment, with the latter banned in the late 1990s. By the early twentieth century, boarding schools became part of the ‘furniture of imperial Britain’ developing the ‘strong’, ‘tough’ character capable of ruling the British Empire (p. 209). The spread of the ‘boarding school character’ can be envisaged from the number of children educated in these schools: Between 12,000 and 17,000 young men and women emerged from the boarding schools each year from the late 1940s until their popularity started to slide in the 1980s. This leaves alive today around one million people who have had the experience of British boarding schools … Even now, more than half of the parents entering their children for boarding school have had the same sort of education themselves. (2017: 361)

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However, in no other society, either traditional or modern, are children separated from their ‘blood relatives for eight or more months of the year for ten years’ from a very young age to be looked after by strangers (Renton 2017: 41). Joy Schaverien (2015), a psychotherapist with over 20 years’ experience of treating ‘boarding school survivors’ points out that, however sympathetic these strangers are, growing up in a boarding school deprives children of love and appropriate physical contact at an age when they are essential to the emotionally and socially healthy development. The expectation to ‘settle in’ and ‘manage’ is often accompanied by feelings of shame. Many children feel abandoned but are ashamed to cry or complain for fear of letting down their parents, who pay the high boarding school fees because they want them to succeed. To adapt and survive, children learn to hide their emotions. Most boarders succeed in developing self-reliance and a veneer of social confidence and, particularly among boys, ‘a kind of bravado to disguise the vulnerable child self’ (Schaverien 2015: 41). Although many go on to lead highly successful lives, they may also seek therapy in later life due to problems with intimacy. For example, it is common for ex-boarders to engage in deeply dependent relationships and then suddenly abandon the loved person, when fear or anger associated with dependency comes to the surface. Given the prevalence of boarding schools, the potential psychological problems and the high-status careers of many ex-boarders, psychotherapist researchers have examined the wider social implications of boarding school education. Nick Duffell (2014), a psychotherapist and ex-boarder himself, describes the socially problematic phenomenon of ‘wounded leaders’, who are mostly male and highly successful in securing top positions in politics and management. ‘Wounded leaders’ may display a ‘Strategic Survival Personality’ consisting of traits such as lack of empathy and emotional immaturity, as well as behaviors that exhibit duplicity, selfishness, bullying and misogyny. Intense anxiety that stems from developing self-reliance too early may also crystallize into a sense of entitlement in later life, as wounded leaders seek to protect their fragile selves by subordinating and denigrating others. As Duffell explains, having disowned ‘softness’ and vulnerability during childhood, ex-boarders come to see all vulnerability as threatening: Consequently, the personality organises itself in a hyper-defensive way … incapable of admitting mistakes or making long-term decisions for the common good; in favour of a preponderance of short-term, survival-based and self-interest dominated solutions. (2014: 5) Duffell emphasizes that Strategic Survival Personality is a dangerous psychological foundation from which to govern a country and tackle complex problems that require consensus seeking, long-term commitment to the public good and compassion for the vulnerable members of society. These may be alien to the ‘wounded leader’ because:

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He has had ten years of learning from the public school authorities that autonomy is strength and dependence is weakness; he has learned with a peer group that has been watching him 24/7 for any signs of vulnerability, not to express his needs and to play … a ‘game of one’. (Duffell 2014: xx) However, emotional neglect is not limited to ‘privileged’ children educated in boarding schools, and many children attending ordinary state schools may have also suffered physical and emotional abandonment. Influences in later life also play an important part in character formation, not least the individualistic culture and the prevailing belief in the atomized self that is continually reinforced through the politics of the competition state. The imperatives to re-invent oneself as the ‘perfect’ self and to win against all odds or against moral principles combine to influence the formation of two other ‘types’ of character: the narcissistic character and the character ‘consumed by quantity’. A narcissistically driven character is psychologically organized around two contradictory themes of superiority and shame (McWilliams 2012). The zeitgeist of consumerism, celebrity worship and technologies that offer ‘transcendence over ordinary boundaries (such as limits on our beauty or power)’ feed fantasies of superiority (p. 205). But the pursuit of perfection and superiority is futile because of our ordinariness, which makes us human rather than weak or shameful. Developing and maintaining realistic self-esteem, especially during adolescence and young adulthood is, therefore, essential to avoiding the cycle of superiority and shame. However, ‘perfectionist’ culture seeks to eradicate human weakness, ordinary human needs and interdependency in favor of total control, thus providing a context for narcissism to thrive. Narcissistic proclivities towards the immoral, remorseless exploitation of others, rule breaking and aggression in response to criticism are, therefore, becoming prevalent in socially destructive ways both in the workplace and public life (Fotaki 2014). Managers who are incapable of empathy, unaware of other people’s needs and uninterested in the consequences of their actions, unless they affect them directly; politicians who disregard the suffering caused by austerity policies, and public service providers who prioritize efficiency over service, all display instrumentalist if not narcissistic tendencies. Whereas for the narcissist, the world is a boundary-free playground, a character ‘consumed by quantity’ inhabits the paradigm of measurement and quantification. At best, this character becomes a medium of ‘pure intellect’: an absolute observer without a point of view and without a body (Merleau-Ponty 2004: 54). At worst, he becomes so emotionally detached from the world which he seeks to measure and control as to be amoral. In this context, there are questions that need to be asked again and again: ‘What do I actually do? What is the final application and use of the products of my work?’ and ultimately, ‘Am I content or ashamed to have contributed to this use?’ (Weizenbaum as cited in Zuboff 2019: 292)

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Public policymaking is intertwined with both private emotions and public sentiments. As Martha Nussbaum (2013) argues, compassion and love are essential both for the psychologically and socially healthy development of individuals and in political institutions. Developing a fair tax system, for example, requires rational, balanced debate and compassion. Similarly, love is not just a matter of private feelings but also matters for justice. Whilst love-less, compassion-less policies create polarized social stratification, love as a moral emotion arising from intense attachments to things and people ‘outside the control of our will’ (2013: 15) is at the core of a ‘decent’ society, composed of interdependent people.

Conclusion This chapter analyzed policies for character education as a policy assemblage. A policy assemblage is ‘a gathering together’ of political rationalities, political technologies, infrastructures and actors that is constantly being ‘assembled’, ‘disassembled’ and ‘reassembled’ in diverse international locations for the purpose of governing populations (Savage 2019). This perspective explains the turns and U-turns in the process of assembling the contradictory ‘facets’ of character in the DfE’s (2019a) Framework Guidance. The Framework Guidance assembles such incompatible ‘facets’ of character as perseverance for a future ‘pay-off’ and an Aristotelian pursuit of virtues for their intrinsic rather than instrumental worth. It also promotes ‘public school confidence, a kind of “have a go” assertiveness’ (Hinds 2019) which often masks a lack of compassion and fear of dependency. The political rationality of the English policy assemblage resembles the ‘grit pedagogy’ disseminated in the USA as an antidote to austerity and poverty (Saltman 2014). The political technologies of character increasingly rely on ‘psychodata’ to make character traits calculable. However, the new ‘psycho-economic’ science represents a ‘shallow version of neoempiricism’ (Braidotti 2013: 4), embedded in the paradigm of quantification and measurement that rarely goes beyond data harvesting. Its main interests are commercial: not so much to understand character but to utilize psychometric data to develop and sell toolkits and apps for behavior modification. The character policy assemblage creates a number of challenges for teachers. Policy U-turns make it difficult for teachers to keep up, leaving them little time to evaluate ‘off-the-shelf’ resources, apps and toolkits for teaching character. Policy diktats for ‘building characterful children’ (Morgan 2017) may compromise teachers’ own values and existing approaches to supporting character development. Punitive behavior policies that sanction student exclusion from school, within a fundamentally love-less approach to character education, may be a source of serious moral dilemmas for teachers. However, since teachers are not digital avatars or ‘cardboard cut-out’ implementers of policy (Ball et al. 2012: 5), they have the capacity to disassemble and reassemble character policies. Whereas the rationalities and technologies of government use a style of thinking that renders

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reality amenable to calculation and programming (Miller and Rose 2008), teaching is a labor of love. The phenomenological perspective developed in Part II of this book offers a radically different understanding of ‘character’ as a foundation for pedagogy as a moral practice.

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90 Character education: a critique Williamson, B. 2019. Psychodata: disassembling the psychological, economic, and statistical infrastructure of ‘social-emotional learning’, Journal of Education Policy. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2019.1672895 Zuboff, S. 2019. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for the Future at the New Frontier of Power. London: Profile Books.

Part II

Phenomenological understandings of moral emotions and character formation

Chapter 6

A phenomenology of moral emotions

Part I of this book has been concerned with the mainstream, reductionist approaches to character education collectively labelled here as emotions work and characterized by direct instruction based on pre-packaged courses, ‘off-theshelf’ teaching manuals, techniques for regulating children’s emotions and selfmonitoring digital apps for students aimed at modifying their behavior. Because emotions work focuses primarily on students as individuals and teachers as ‘therapists-technicians’, it neglects the vital importance of complex interpersonal relationships within and through which character develops. This therapeutic-technicist ‘turn’ in Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) has been driven by a political and corporate nexus based on political rationalities and political technologies that render character as a calculable, programmable instrument of government (see Chapter 5). To manage the conduct of individuals, groups and populations, the new ‘psycho-economic’ science of character and the cultural script of ‘new individualism’ (Elliott and Lemert 2006) have been assembled in the education policy narrative. At the center of this narrative is the ideal of onedimensional self: a positive character who pursues and attains the desirable traits of self-reliance, resilience and productivity. However, missing from this approach is the deeper dimension of who we are as persons. Concealed beneath the surface of scientifically ‘objective’ third-person accounts about me is who I really am, articulated in the first person and revealed in my immediate everyday experience of living in the world which I share with others. Underpinned by phenomenology, a study of consciousness as experienced from the first-person point of view, Part II develops a moral emotions approach to character education as an alternative to emotions work. This alternative approach centers on our experience of emotions that are moral in the sense of revealing ourselves to ourselves and to others as mutually dependent rather than self-reliant and self-grounding (Steinbock 2014). Phenomenology rejects the idea of science as the ‘exercise of a pure and unsituated intellect’ that allows scientists or other privileged ‘knowers’ to ‘gain access to an object free of all human traces, just as God would see it’ (Merleau-Ponty 2004: 45). Rather than seeking knowledge that is objective or subjective, phenomenology explores the intersubjective dimension of knowledge: ‘it describes what is

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observable to all’ (Merleau-Ponty 2010: 7). As a philosophical perspective, phenomenology also helps us to question the meaning of who we are, the meaning of life as lived and the meaning of our shared responsibilities (van Manen 2014). This chapter begins with an outline of the key tenets and methods of phenomenology. This is followed by an explication of the phenomenology of moral emotions developed by Anthony Steinbock. Steinbock (2007, 2014, 2016) explores how emotional experiences emerge and are lived through in our everyday interpersonal relations. A phenomenology of moral emotions discloses their complex structure: their temporal dimension (orientation towards the past or the future); their constitution of possibility (or closure of possibility); their positive or negative valences, and how emotions ‘open or close our being with others’ (Steinbock 2014: 24). The moral emotions of self-givenness (shame, guilt, pride), otherness (trust, loving, humility) and possibility (repentance, hope and despair) arise from interpersonal relationships that unfold when the teacher approaches her students in the integrity of who they are, as opposed to a controlling stance of trying to inculcate in them selected ‘desirable’ character traits. Chapter 6 also highlights the differences between the psychological (Haidt 2003; Tangney et al. 2007; Strauss et al. 2016), virtue-ethical (Kristjánsson 2018) and phenomenological accounts of moral emotions. Although concerned mainly with day-to-day experience, a phenomenology of moral emotions takes various departure points into studying emotions: sociological, linguistic, historical, and cultural. The key point is that the study of emotions is not reducible to the purely cognitive, ‘epistemic acts’ of measurement, prediction, and control (Steinbock 2014). Chapter 6 focuses on the adult experience of moral emotions, while the accounts of childhood and adolescence are discussed in Chapters 7 and 8 respectively. This chapter now proceeds to outline the main tenets and methods of phenomenology.

Phenomenology and the ‘canvas underneath the picture’ Phenomenology is a study of ‘phenomena’ or, to recall the original meaning of the Greek word phainomenon, ‘appearances’. During the eighteenth century, the term ‘phenomena’ was used to denote either sensory data that appear before the mind in the empiricist tradition (e.g. John Locke’s) or ideas that appear before the mind in the rationalist tradition dating back to René Descartes (Smith 2018). In a synthesis of empiricist and rationalist aims, Immanuel Kant’s theory of knowledge distinguished between phenomena as sensory forms, i.e. things-asthey-appear and conceptual forms, i.e. things-as-they-are-represented. Auguste Comte’s positivist theory of science, on the other hand, took phenomena to denote ‘facts’ (faits, ‘what occurs’) as objects of scientific investigation. Phenomenology as we know it today was introduced in the nineteenth century by the German philosopher Edmund Husserl and developed further by his followers, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Paul Ricoeur amongst others. Scholars of

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the Utrecht School (e.g. Martinus Langeveld), phenomenological researchers at the University of Alberta in Canada (e.g. Max van Manen), together with members of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy affiliated with Northwestern University in the USA (e.g. Anthony Steinbock), have all contributed to recent advances in phenomenological study. An extensive exploration of phenomenological traditions and methods can be found in van Manen (2014), whilst Howard et al. (2021) reject contemporary, neoliberal educational discourse and turn ‘back to education itself’ to develop an alternative language of education as a matter of existence, thoughtful sensitivity and embodied practice. To understand the core principles of phenomenology as a study of ‘phenomena’ (appearances) and experience as lived, it is helpful to go back to the source of modern rationality in the Cartesian tradition, which phenomenology seeks to transcend (Harré 1998). In an attempt to free philosophical and scientific enquiry of his time from unquestioned compliance with authority, Descartes found the ultimate proof for his skepticism in the ‘cogito ergo sum’ (‘I think therefore I am’) principle: I resolved to assume that everything that ever entered into my mind was no more true than the illusions of my dreams … whilst I thus wished to think all things false … ‘I think therefore I am’ was so certain and assured that all the most extravagant suppositions brought forward by the sceptics were incapable of shaking it. (Descartes 2005: 6) Descartes’ rationalism assumes a separation between the world and the mind. ‘World’ and ‘mind’ are two different substances, the ‘material’ substance and the ‘thinking’ substance, which exist independently of each other and have essentially different ‘properties’: there are certain acts that we call ‘corporeal’, such as size, shape, motion … and we use the term ‘body’ to refer to the substance in which they inhere … There are other acts which we call ‘acts of thought’ such as understanding, willing, imagining, having sensory perceptions and so on … and we call the substance in which they inhere a ‘thinking thing’ or a ‘mind’. (Descartes 1984: 176) From this presupposition, Descartes developed a hierarchical ontology, with the mind as the ultimate ‘subject’ looking at ‘objects’, an absolute observer without a point of view and without a body (Merleau-Ponty 2004). The key implication of this presupposition for science is that its central task is to discover and represent the world with a high degree of accuracy and certainty. However, as noted by Harré (1998), Descartes’ account had much in common with the

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theologically-oriented worldview that he was skeptical of in the first place. The main difference between the new Cartesian science and the church dogma was the scientific method which, unlike theology, was assumed to generate knowledge as an accurate representation of the ‘corporeal’ and ‘thinking acts’ or actions. These actions were seen as distinct and separate both from one another and from the world in which they were situated. From the phenomenological perspective, however, Descartes’ ontology of separation is as flawed as its dualistic logic that positions the person – the ‘thinking subject’ – outside of the world grasped as a ‘picture’, a representation. By the same logic, the experience of a living subject becomes ‘itself an object’ and the subject’s experience of her body ‘degenerates’ into a representation of the body, as if the world could be brought into existence by virtue of representations (Merleau-Ponty 2002: 108). Merleau-Ponty argues that the world represented as a picture conceals the ‘canvas underneath the picture’, the world as it really is – the ‘homeland of our thoughts’ (p. 28). The world as homeland has little to do with being represented with mathematical accuracy or certainty. It is apprehended (perceived) whilst also being lived beneath the surface of Cartesian representations. For Merleau-Ponty, perception is the primary mode of our being in the world. Perception operates beneath the level of consciousness of the thinking subject as a deep source of knowing the world and knowing ourselves. Much of Merleau-Ponty’s work drew on Gestalt psychology which emphasized that our perception does not separate what we perceive into individual components. On the contrary, we perceive patterns and configurations within the whole: given a figure against a background, our perception of the figure is informed both by the figure itself and by its background (ground). In other words, we perceive the totality of figure-ground. For example, when I look at a tree, my perception relies not just on seeing and identifying the tree as ‘a tree’ – an isolated object, but also on the ‘context’ in which the tree resides, i.e. the background. Similarly, in the optical illusion where we see in one drawing a vase and two faces, our gaze may fix either on the vase or the two faces and may also oscillate between them. When our gaze is drawn to the vase, the image of the two faces recedes and vice versa. The key point here is that the background (ground) may not be part of our awareness even though it plays a vital part in our perception. Gestalt theory thus argues that the whole as a ‘totality’ is not a simple ‘global sum’ of distinct ‘properties’ and ‘stimuli’: the plurality of stimuli differs from their global sum … they have reciprocal actions, functions and ‘transversal’ properties. The notion of a sensation independent from its environment is unsustainable. (Merleau-Ponty 2010: 200) Our perception thus apprehends the unity, the ‘integrity’ of the world and of ourselves not as separate entities but as entangled in a relationship whereby ‘the seer and the visible reciprocate one another and we no longer know which sees and which is seen’ (Merleau-Ponty 1968: 139).

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By contrast, what Merleau-Ponty (2002) referred to as the ‘classical’ empiricist scientific method stemming from the Cartesian subject–object dualism, reduces perception to a ‘progressive noting down of qualities and of their most habitual distribution’ and leads to representing phenomena as dispersed atoms, collections of properties rather than meaningful wholes (p. 28). As a result, empiricist constructions hide from us both the ‘natural’ and the ‘cultural’ worlds that are the background of our lived experience: the nature about which empiricism talks is a collection of stimuli and qualities, and it is ridiculous to pretend that nature thus conceived is, even in intention merely, the primary object of our perception … We shall, therefore, have to rediscover the natural world too, and its mode of existence, which is not to be confused with that of a scientific object. (Merleau-Ponty 2002: 27–28) Since empiricism tends to isolate the figure from the background, it loses sight of the figure-ground as a unified whole: The phenomenon of the background’s continuing under the figure, and being seen under the figure – when in fact it is covered by the figure – a phenomenon which embraces the whole problem of the presence of the object is equally obscured by empiricist philosophy, which treats this covered part of the background as invisible (Merleau-Ponty 2002: 28–29) Phenomena belong to a deep, basic layer of experience, the ‘canvas underneath the picture’ and are perceived as wholes imbued with meaning which is ‘irreducible’ in the sense that the total meaning cannot be divided up into the meanings of the constituent ‘parts’. Importantly, phenomena are already there, ready to be apprehended as meaningful wholes (‘Gestalten’) rather than waiting to be isolated from their background and brought into existence by the thinking subject. Where Descartes built his theory of rationality from the dualisms of mind/ world and mind/body, the phenomenological self is embodied and consequently intertwined with the world through relationships of interdependence. In a handshake for example, I not only feel the other person’s hand but my hand is also felt by the other. My body connects me inextricably to other humans and to the world: because my eyes which see, my hands which touch, can also be seen and touched, because, therefore, in this sense they see and touch the visible, the tangible, from within, because our flesh lines and even envelopes all the visible and tangible things with which nevertheless it is surrounded, the world and I are within one another … there is overlapping or

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encroachment, so that we must say that the things pass into us as well as we into things. (Merleau-Ponty 1968: 123) Phenomenology highlights the problematic aspects of Cartesian rationality and the reductive ‘classical’ empirical methods that capture humans and other phenomena as objects to be measured, tested, manipulated and represented. Cartesian rationality disembodies human consciousness and reduces it further to the abstract reasoning of the thinking subject in a belief that rational choice is both a primary mode of being in the world and the means to its control. We can see such reductive Cartesian thinking in the political rationalities and political technologies of policies for character education discussed in Chapter 5. For example, the political rationality put to use in the English Framework Guidance (DfE 2019) for character education represents character as ‘four overlapping facets’ that can be instilled or ‘built’ in children. However, as explained in Chapter 5, these facets are not ‘overlapping’ but are conceptually incompatible: the instrumentalist view of perseverance as the basis of a projected future ‘payoff’ is incompatible with Aristotelian virtues, which are pursued for their intrinsic worth. Phenomenology also sheds light on how political rationality assembles a collection of properties, an ‘inventory’ of desirable traits into a figure of the ideal character but obscures culture as the ground in the Gestalt of character. The ideal character is disembodied and age-less, for example the traits listed as desirable for the ‘Golden Child’ (Morgan 2017) could equally apply to adults. The ‘properties’ of a ‘golden’ child take no account of children’s experience and the process of character formation that is already under way, shaped by the social context within which children live and learn. A closer look at the social context as the background (ground) brings to attention the lack of compassion and indifference to others that imbue the culture of ‘new individualism’ (Elliott and Lemert 2006), as well as the uncaring, love-less policies of the competition state. It is clear that this ground is akin to the figure of a narcissist or a character ‘consumed by quantity’ rather than a ‘golden’ child. Political rationalities set out to represent in order to enable the management of populations, rather than disclose the meaning of lived experience. In doing so, political rationalities are aided by political technologies. As we have seen in Chapter 5, managing the conduct of populations has been aided by tech companies that utilize surveillance and psychodata to render that conduct calculable and programmable. The new, psychodata-based ‘science’ of character, however, amounts to what the feminist philosopher Rosi Braidotti (2013: 4) would call a ‘shallow version of neo-empiricism’ that rarely goes beyond data mining. A phenomenological account highlights both the superficial nature of psychodata and the triumph of Cartesian rationality. The desire to represent, from the vantage point of a privileged ‘knower’, ‘just as God would see it’ (Merleau-Ponty 2004: 45), is illustrated by tech researchers who seek to develop measures of behaviors that have, until recently, been impossible to measure because they are

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‘too subtle or fleeting to be measured by the human eye and ear’ (Zuboff 2019: 283). The idea of AI and machine learning being able to capture behavior and emotion too subtle for humans to ‘measure’ marks the ultimate triumph of Cartesian rationality, made to inhere in the disembodied, dispassionate algorithmic ‘mind’ of a machine as a ‘medium of pure intellect’ (Merleau-Ponty 2004: 54). However, the phenomenological distinction between representation and perception highlights how knowledge of what it means to be human can only be accessed by embodied humans. It is my body that connects me inextricably to others and to the world at the ‘layer of living experience’ where ‘other people and things are first given to us’ (Merleau-Ponty 2002: 66). The best that disembodied technology can do is represent the ‘world picture’, the Cartesian surface that conceals the canvas underneath. Tech measurement, captured and algorithmically analyzed by machines, is even further removed from the lived experience of humans: it represents the surface of a surface. Furthermore, when political technologies and political rationalities take the position of the thinking subject, they also discount the intentionality of the ‘objects’ that they seek to calculate, manage and govern. Intentionality is at the core of phenomenological methods of coming to know, which are discussed next. Phenomenological methods for developing a deeper understanding of who we are rely on description and making sense of everyday experience as lived. Perception, thought, memory, imagination, emotion, embodied action and social activity that form our everyday experience are underpinned by intentionality or a ‘directness’ towards something. Just us our consciousness is always a consciousness of something, our experience is also always directed towards something in the world. My intentionality directs me not as an ‘outside spectator’ but as an actor engaged in the situation, reflecting on what the situation means to me and to others. As a process of sense-making, phenomenological reflection seeks to return to: that world which precedes knowledge, of which knowledge always speaks, and in relation to which every scientific schematization is an abstract and derivative sign-language, as is geography in relation to the country-side in which we have learnt beforehand what a forest, a prairie or a river is. (2002: x) Therefore, to make sense of my experience I need to remember that people and things are already ‘there before any possible analysis of mine’ (2002: x). Understanding the ‘canvas underneath the picture’, i.e. the layer of experience which precedes knowledge, can be aided by ‘bracketing’, i.e. suspending our taken-forgranted assumptions. ‘Bracketing’ is radically different from Cartesian skepticism: it does not consist in doubting or denying being, but in withholding assertions that we take for granted in the practicalities and routines of everyday living. For example, pride is commonly assumed to be a positive emotion arising from joy about one’s achievement. However, the basic experience of pride, the ‘canvas

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underneath the picture’, reveals pride as closing down the interpersonal connection, for in feeling pride I deny the contributions of others not only to my achievement but also to the very meaning of who I am. As Steinbock explains, in pride, ‘I deserve’ whatever I have gained and I may even assume the contributions of others as my own. In pride I may also refuse help from others, as in: ‘I can do this on my own’ (2014: 34). Through ‘bracketing’, i.e. suspending unquestioned everyday assumptions about pride, we can see pride as morally problematic not because it is ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’ in light of societal norms, but because pride ‘contracts’ our interpersonal experience ‘in favor of self-salience’ (2014: 36–37). ‘Bracketing’ is complemented in phenomenology by ‘eidetic reduction’, i.e. a reflection that seeks to notice and make sense of the situation in the moment, prior to our cognitive appraisal. For example, pride is not just an epistemic, cognitive ‘non-recognition of others’ (Steinbock 2014: 34), stemming from my sense of superiority due to my social status, educational qualifications, being more ‘enlightened’ or ‘spiritual’ or any other criterion of cognitive comparison. As Steinbock points out, my bodily experience itself can be a ‘lure for pride’, because I experience my body as the ‘zero point of orientation’, i.e. as at the center of my world (pp. 39–40). In its commitment to understanding ‘the canvas underneath the picture’, phenomenology takes a critical stance by paying attention to taken-for-granted assumptions, ‘classical’ scientific schematizations, as well as habitual and unreflective modes of thought. Phenomenology thus contributes to the growing body of interdisciplinary research that has challenged the Cartesian legacy in philosophy, social theory, the natural sciences, as well as in the everyday modes of thinking manifested in the political rationalities of government, education, workplace and other contexts in which our lives are lived. The complexity sciences, for example, also call into question the myth of the ‘objective scientist’, the idea of ‘passive nature’ waiting to be represented, as well as the very edifice of prediction and control built on the Cartesian foundations (Bates 2016a; Biesta and Osberg 2010; Smith and Jenks 2006). Of central importance to this book is an understanding of moral emotions that provides the foundation for character education as a moral practice. This chapter now turns to Steinbock’s (2007, 2014, 2016) work to shed light on how moral emotions such as shame, pride, trust, hope and despair reveal ourselves to ourselves and to others as interdependent. A phenomenology of moral emotions apprehends emotions as lived and connects us to our experience of self-givenness, otherness and possibility as the ‘canvas underneath the picture’.

Shame, guilt and pride as moral emotions of self-givenness The moral emotions of shame, guilt and pride disclose our self-givenness. Because my consciousness and intentionality are always oriented towards something, self-givenness is about giving (or withholding) myself as being directed towards others. Social psychologists categorize pride, shame and guilt

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as ‘self-conscious’ moral emotions that disclose one’s psychological state in response to behavior that is internally and externally sanctioned (see Chapter 2). Phenomenology explores these emotions at a deeper layer of experience at which other people are ‘first given to us’ and, equally, we are given to them (Merleau-Ponty 2002: 66). Because I am oriented towards others, I experience shame and guilt when ‘I am revealed to myself as exposed before another’ (Steinbock 2014: 72). The feelings of shame and guilt are thus both self-critical and self-giving. In shame, ‘I am turned back on myself before another where this self-givenness reveals to me who I am (even against my will or my liking)’ (p. 82). In guilt, ‘I am given to myself before another as accused through an experienced transgression and as responsive to another’ (p. 100). The moral nature of shame and guilt thus stems from the opening of the interpersonal connection. In this sense, therefore, both shame and guilt are morally positive, even though they are experienced as negatively valanced, i.e. as uncomfortable or painful. As Steinbock (2014) explains, shame is a painful experience which leaves me exposed before others when the value of myself has been challenged. Whether I am ashamed due to my actions or circumstances where I am shown to be unable to fulfil expectations, shame arises when I experience a loss of the positive value of myself – in the eyes of others. The biblical story of the Fall illustrates the existential inevitability of shame. The shame experienced by Adam and Eve before God can be interpreted as a symbol of the unresolvable tension between who we are as persons, in our ordinariness, and a simultaneous orientation towards something higher, represented here as ‘God’. The philosopher Max Scheler depicted shame as arising from the disharmony between the infinite flow of life and the ‘finite individuality of the person’ (Steinbock 2014: 69). This disharmony is experienced in everyday life as a tension between higher values and the mundane, physical necessities of life. Shame is imbued with personal, social and political significance. I may feel shame because ‘what I have done’ or ‘who I am’ falls short of my own values or societal norms. As a professional, I may feel, or be made to feel, shame because I am shown not to fulfill the expectations of duty, standards of performance or trust bestowed on my occupation. I may also feel shame if I am unable to support my family, financially or emotionally. Shame for being poor arises in societies which value affluence within an overarching belief in self-reliance, hard work, thrift, accumulation of wealth and trickle-down economics. But an affluent society which allows large swathes of its population to suffer from poverty is also shameful. As Steinbock points out, the experience of shame in this context is positive in the moral sense, because shame gives us the clarity to ‘move us in more morally profound orientation’ (2014: 79). The experience of shame may thus mark an awakening of moral consciousness that leads to positive social change. However, what stands in the way of this reorientation is pride (discussed later in this chapter) and shamelessness.

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Whereas feeling shame might be painful and, therefore, undesirable, the positive moral significance of shame stems from how it prompts repentance and reorients the person towards higher values and other-oriented behavior. By contrast, shamelessness signals ‘insolence or assertiveness of self against others or social norms’ that become even more serious when the person ‘persists in wrongdoing against all decency’ (Steinbock 2014: 89). Shameless behavior that defies the norms shared in a decent society is not only a sign of moral weakness. As a violation of social norms, shameless behavior is also morally corrupting, because it denigrates the moral compass essential in a ‘decent’, truly democratic society built on human interdependence (Nussbaum 2013). As explained below, shameless behavior also corrodes public trust and loosens the socio-political fabric. However, shame may also be used to control or manipulate individuals and groups. For example, the ‘discourse of derision’ developed by English policymakers has been used to ‘name and shame’ schools as part of a normative framework for regulating the teaching profession (Ball 1990, Bates 2016b). Normative matrices that are deployed to persuade, manipulate or force individuals into compliance operate not only through shaming but also through ‘normative violence’ (Butler 2004). The feminist writer Judith Butler distinguishes between social norms that ‘permit people to breathe, to desire, to love, and to live’ and norms that, by producing the kinds of gendered bodies and subjects that we are allowed to become, ‘restrict or eviscerate the conditions of life itself’ (2004: 8). Equally destructive is debilitating shame, a kind of shame that arises from physical or emotional abuse, as well as societal norms that set unachievable ideals in the economic, social, political and personal dimensions of experience (Steinbock 2014: 80). The children of abusive parents, the poorer members of society, the unemployed or immigrants may be at the receiving end of low social esteem that may lead to low self-esteem or even self-hatred when it is internalized. In the case of children who have been abused or deeply shamed in childhood, low self-esteem and self-hatred engender a distorted personality, a sense of unworthiness and hatred of others. As explained in Chapter 5, the cycle of superiority and shame characteristic of narcissism revolves around pride and grandiose fantasies of superhuman ability, in the face of intense shame arising from being ‘human’, ordinary and weak (McWilliams 2012). Childhood experiences of debilitating shame may be reinforced by the current zeitgeist of celebrity worship and the political rationalities that seek to reject interdependence in favor of total self-reliance. Similar to shame, guilt may be experienced as intensely painful but is a positive emotion in the moral sense. According to Steinbock, guilt arises when I am revealed to another as ‘accused’ because of a transgression for which I am responsible (2014: 100). Whereas temporally, shame is oriented to the present, guilt connects a past transgression to the possibility of forgiveness and, therefore, to a guilt-free future. In Freudian accounts, shame is framed in terms of a failure to live up to the ideal of the ego, whilst guilt is seen to arise from a

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violation of prohibitions. Whereas shame is self-oriented, guilt is other-oriented (Steinbock 2014: 131). Both shame and guilt, however, enable me to tap into my reparative capacities, predicated on the response of others to my actions. Their moral significance thus rests on the interpersonal dynamic that they open up. This is a radically different understanding of shame and guilt than that offered by social psychology, discussed later in this chapter. Whilst self-givenness is at the core of the experience of shame and guilt, pride is an opposite movement, towards asserting one’s self-reliance and disconnection from others. Even though pride is a positively valenced emotion, its moral significance is negative because it closes down the interpersonal connection. As Steinbock explains, pride is ‘never innocent’ (2014: 35). In Christian teaching, for example, pride is cited as one of the seven deadly sins. Jean-Jacques Rousseau considered pride to be one of the most dangerous albeit ‘intoxicating’ vices (1889: 123), whereas in Jane Austen’s novel Pride and Prejudice, Mr Darcy’s pride made him a ‘horrid’, rude and extremely unpleasant person (1989: 10). In pride, I assert myself as an atomized self and reject the contribution of others to who I am or what I have achieved. Consequently, rather than being a ‘happy confluence of excitement or joy and personal efficacy’ pride is morally problematic: pride ‘blinds’ me to others in the sense that I do not see them, and in the sense that I presuppose them, while nevertheless refusing their contributions. In pride, I take myself as sovereign. (Steinbock 2014: 33) In pride, the assertion of the atomized self is accompanied by my denial of others as contributing to who I am as a person. Instead, I posit myself as selfsufficient and self-grounding (p. 46). Pride may take many forms, collective and individual, that are not only morally negative but also limiting or flawed: from the myth of the ‘self-made man’ caught up in pursuit of self-reinvention as an expression of the culture of ‘new individualism’ (Elliott and Lemert 2006), to the cycle of superiority and shame characteristic of narcissism (McWilliams 2012). National pride, as a collective expression of a nation’s supposed superiority over other nations, is an assertion that is both self-limiting and damaging in a world connected by relationships of interdependence. A self-grounding sense of our worth may entice us to try to make others ‘in our own image’ (Steinbock 2014: 33). For example, a proud parent trying to make his children in his own image asserts his own superiority and denies the meaning that children bring into his life. A school that follows ‘character benchmarks’ to ‘create a sense of pride … in our school’ (DfE 2019: 4) may, paradoxically, perpetuate the unhelpful, taken-for-granted assumption that pride is morally positive and desirable. Character ‘interventions’ that single out students through stickers or other reward ‘systems’ may also encourage pride to the detriment of other-oriented moral emotions. Verbal praise typically taken for granted as unproblematic, such as ‘I am proud of you’

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diminishes the person’s achievement since in pride ‘something only has value because it is I who has it or values it’ (Steinbock 2014: 61–62). Within the moral dimension, therefore, verbal praise such as ‘I am so happy for you’ articulates an orientation that is less self-interested (Haidt 2003), as opposed to self-grounding expressions such as ‘I am proud of you’. As Steinbock (2014) explains, it is also important to distinguish pride from the epistemic non-recognition of others through inflated self-esteem, vanity or excessive self-confidence. Whilst self-esteem and vanity are related to the cognitive activity of self-assessment, pride operates within the moral dimension. Consequently, overcoming pride cannot happen in moments of self-doubt or self-denigration, as a movement away from inflated self-esteem or excessive self-confidence. Feeling disappointed in oneself does not counter pride. On the contrary, it is another expression of pride, because at the heart of trying to resist being proud is a ‘devotion to my-self’ (p. 50). At this point, the reader might question Steinbock’s argument, given the value attached to developing in students a sense of pride in their school (DfE 2019), as well as the consensus in educational research, policy and practice about the importance of children’s self-esteem. The phenomenological perspective converges with the prevalent views on pride and self-esteem as positively valenced, ‘happy’ emotional and mental states. However, pride can be seen as negative in the moral sense because it holds the possibility of closing down interpersonal connections and denying the contribution of others to one’s well-being or achievement. It is also important to distinguish between pride and self-esteem: whereas pride is a moral emotion, self-esteem is a cognitive experience arising from the evaluation of one’s self-worth. As Steinbock (2014) explains, it is inflated self-esteem that shares with pride a predisposition towards the non-recognition of others. Consequently, bolstering students’ self-esteem is a complex task that seeks to avoid inflated self-esteem as well as the damaging effects of pride. Viewed within the moral dimension, self-esteem arises not so much from ‘praise’ and other reward ‘systems’ that affirm the students’ worth cognitively, but from caring, trusting relationships which enable students to feel supported and accepted both in situations of success and failure (see also Chapter 9). Pride is challenged within the moral dimension by the moral emotions of shame and guilt, as well as emotions of otherness. Since pride is self-oriented and self-grounding, otheroriented emotions such as loving and humility overcome pride.

Trust, loving and humility as moral emotions of otherness Trust, loving and humility are emotions of otherness because they are directed toward others. The difference between emotions of otherness and self-grounded emotions can be illustrated by the difference between trust and pride. Whereas pride assumes my freedom as an atomized, self-reliant, self-grounding individual, trust presupposes my freedom as an interdependent person, orienting myself to others and ‘being bound to them’ as implicit in reference to a ‘bond of trust’

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(Steinbock 2014: 195). When considering trust as a moral emotion, we need to distinguish trust from reliability. For example, everyday phrases such as: ‘he is trustworthy’, ‘she cannot be trusted’, or ‘earning trust’ refer to reliability rather than trust. Similarly, the statement ‘I trust you are well’ expresses hope rather than trust. Trust as a moral emotion presupposes freedom, both on the part of myself and the other person. Trust sustains interpersonal relations such as mature love, which does not ‘insist upon new proofs of absolute attachment but takes the other person as he is … in his autonomy’ (Merleau-Ponty 2007: 192). Trust reveals me as vulnerable and, consequently, if I do not wish to be vulnerable, then I will not be able to trust. As Steinbock (2014) explains, as an interpersonal act that reveals me as vulnerable, trusting is distinct from an epistemic act of ‘deciding’ to trust based on a rational calculation of reliability and risk. ‘Epistemic trust’, based on an assessment of reliability and risk enables social relations to continue, but is contractual and self-grounded rather than moral in the phenomenological sense (Steinbock 2014). Both forms of trust are, however, vital to sustaining social relations. Citizens need to trust social institutions, parents must entrust their children to teachers, patients trust the expertise of their doctors, clients consult trustworthy financial advisers and, within the spheres of economic activity and international relations, epistemic trust is vital for co-operation. A betrayal of trust is a ‘violation’ of personal and social bonds established in trust that is greatly damaging because of the vulnerability involved in trusting (Steinbock 2014: 211). In a betrayal of trust, this vulnerability is either exploited or disregarded. The betrayal of trust by institutions is particularly damaging because it leads to a decline in trust and a loosening of the social fabric. Recent years have witnessed many instances of the betrayal of public trust in the wake of shameless actions by individuals and power elites, from the behavior of bankers that led to the economic crash of 2008 to a number of political corruption scandals that, since the 1990s, shook many western democracies (Algan et al. 2017). The resulting decline in public trust in many countries has led to a rise of populism, which plays on a range of emotions, from a sense of betrayal, anger, outrage and disgust to an irrational loyalty to, if not ‘fetish’ of, strong personal leadership (Fieschi and Heywood: 2004: 297). As Fieschi and Heywood explain, the danger of populist sentiments is a situation in which the appeal to ‘personalised trust’ claimed by politicians replaces engagement in traditional democratic processes focused on social policies and the more equitable distribution of resources (2004: 300). The restoration of social bonds is predicated on trust, as well as the moral emotions of self-givenness (shame and guilt) and otherness (loving and humility). In loving, as in trust, I am oriented towards the other person not in order to receive her love but because I am connecting to her in ‘the uniqueness of who she is’ (Steinbock 2014: 228). Although loving is oriented towards a person or object as a bearer of value, it does not attempt to ‘improve’ the other person or make her in my image. A phenomenological account of loving rejects two

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contradictory assumptions, first, that love is sentimental and ‘blind’ because it makes us unable to see the faults of the beloved person and second, that love is a state of mind based on a positive evaluation of the beloved person. According to Steinbock, these assumptions presuppose that loving is either ‘non-rational’ or it involves a value judgement of the beloved. These assumptions contradict the experience of loving as: a creative, initiated, improvisational act, a dynamic orientation of movement peculiar to the level of spirit, revelatory of the human being as person. (2014: 224) Loving is an original act rather than a ‘causal reaction’ (p. 224) triggered in response to being loved. For example, I can love someone even though he may not seek or reciprocate my love. What is also crucial to understanding the experience of loving is its lack of temporal boundaries. Like trust, loving does not need the past and, whilst experienced in the present, it continues into the future. In the living present, loving is invoked as letting the other person be as she is. Through its orientation to otherness, loving can overcome pride, similarly to humility. In humility, I receive others as ‘co-constitutive of myself, as well as co-contributing to the meaning of the world’ (Steinbock 2014: 259). According to Steinbock, humility is therefore realized as concern for others and for the world. Unlike pride, humility is lived as the uniqueness of myself which is given as relational and interpersonal rather than self-grounding. In its openness and orientation to otherness, humility is similar to love. The difference is that in loving the focus is on the other person whereas in humility it is me who is revealed to myself as open to ‘contributions from others’ (p. 239). Humility is not a matter of self-concern and is not attached to the expected results. Since I expect no ‘payoff’ for being humble, in humility everything is received as a gift. Unlike with pride, the humble person accepts the contribution of others to her achievement, for example an athlete who credits her success to her team or a teacher who recognizes the contribution of her students to the development of her teaching skills. It is a common misunderstanding that a humble person is simply passive, submissive or lacking in confidence or assertiveness. On the contrary, humility is a sign of inner strength and integrity that arises from an affirmation of myself in my openness to others (Steinbock 2014). Humility, therefore, should not be mistaken for being humbled, humbling myself or modesty. Both being humbled and humbling myself assume a comparison with others, whereas in humility there are no hierarchies. Humbling myself, being humbled and being modest relate to my ego and are expressions of my will and all, therefore, may be put to manipulative uses to dominate and control. For example, I might humble myself by belittling myself or modestly hold back from asserting myself to gain control of the situation. By contrast, humility is lived without an

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attachment to results or a sense of entitlement. At its core, therefore, humility opens the person both to the otherness of others and to our shared humanity that is revealed through relationships of interdependence.

Repentance, hope and despair as moral emotions of possibility Repentance, hope and despair share the same future orientation and a similar structure whereby a possible future can be realized by my ‘being in relation to an other-than-myself’ (Steinbock 2014: 160). Repentance frees me from the fixed meanings of myself acquired in the past and continuing into the present, as disclosed in the experience of shame or guilt. Repentance also challenges pride and reconnects me to who I am as bound to others. Repentance thus returns me to myself as not self-grounded and dependent on others. Both in hope and despair what I am hoping for is beyond my control and determination. However, despair is the experience of ‘the ground of hope as impossible’, i.e. given to me as impossible (Steinbock 2007: 447). As Steinbock (2007) explains, hope is distinct from, and irreducible to, wishing, longing, probability, expectation and optimism. Wishing and longing are rooted in the ‘I’ as self-grounding. Probability and expectation arise from the epistemic action of assessing the likelihood of a particular future outcome or being motivated by past outcomes. Optimism is a rationalizing activity which posits the future in some positive way, such as ‘too bad’ but this may still work out ‘for the best’ (p. 439). ‘Positive thinking’, as in ‘I can do better next time’, is also distinct from hope as it relies on conditioning or convincing myself that events will unfold in a particular way. By contrast, hope cannot be reduced to the mastery of ‘positive thinking’ or learned optimism (Seligman 1995). The experience of hope reveals me as dependent and not in control, thus opening myself to others and to the reality of interdependent existence. The experience of hope is challenged by desperation, pessimism, hopelessness and, ultimately, despair (Steinbock 2007). Desperation is an experience of someone who has given up hope but is still ‘hoping against hope’. The finality of a terminal illness or a family break-up may make me ‘try anything’ in desperation (p. 438), in order to recast the situation in the spirit of hope. Pessimism also challenges hope, but is opposed to optimism rather than hope. Hopelessness arises in the face of the impossibility of a particular situation, with the ground of hope specific to the situation being suspended. Despair is distinct from these experiences because it consists in the loss of a ground of hope altogether, not just in a specific situation. Despair is a double bind: I am open to the ground of hope at the same time that the ground of hope is lost. The experience of not being in control, combined with any hope experience as beyond me ‘grips me at the level of my spiritual being’ (p. 448). Whilst in the doom and gloom of pessimism, ‘I still go on’ (p. 449), in despair the very ground of my existence has disappeared from underneath my feet. Despair may lead to suicide, in the physical and spiritual sense. Since in despair I am revealed as not in control and not self-grounding,

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someone or something that calls me to reconnect to a shared co-existence may save me from the void of despair. Steinbock (2014) explains that both hope and despair may be met with denial, a refusal to accept the reality that confronts me, in order to posit a ‘different reality’ (p. 174). Through my denial of reality, hope and despair cease to matter, because the ‘alternative’ reality is of my own making. But denial brings its own dangers, as the history of wars and the current suffering caused by poverty, increasing inequality and environmental damage can attest. A denial of interdependence may create a short-lived illusion of control but, in the long term, lead to a loss of reasons to be optimistic, or worse, make the ground of hope impossible. The ground of hope is sustained for as long as we are ‘grounded’ in reality, connected to the ground under our feet and to what it is to be ‘human’ – to be of the ‘earth’ – as the original Latin meaning of humus (‘earth’, ‘soil’) reminds us. In the age of catastrophic environmental degradation, which continues to be denied by many, remembering that the ‘world is not an object’ but the ‘ground’ which we inhabit with others (Merleau-Ponty 2002: 499) is essential for hope and the possibility of the future.

Moral emotions in social psychology, virtue ethics and phenomenology We do not have to agree with every detail of Steinbock’s (2007, 2014, 2016) descriptions of moral emotions to appreciate both his rich insights into how we become moral persons and how the proud denial of interdependence leads to self-closure and rejection of otherness. The phenomenology of moral emotions seeks to disclose the complexity of our experience as lived in the first person, rather than as explained through epistemic, cognitive activities of categorization, measurement and prediction. Moral emotions are not reducible to rational, intellectual knowing. For example, my experience of guilt is not the same as my knowledge of guilt. I may grasp guilt intellectually, be able to define and explain it, measure and assess guilt in others and yet, it is only my own experience of guilt and seeking reparation and forgiveness that allows me to ‘know’ guilt phenomenologically. Phenomenological description does not seek to explain moral emotions as private psychological states of the individual as an atomized self or a self-contained unit of analysis. Instead, it discloses moral emotions as interpersonal and imbued with political, social and economic significance (Steinbock 2016). Moral emotions have been studied within other disciplines. For example, trust has been investigated as a sociological, as well as individual, phenomenon, while guilt has been of central concern to psychoanalysts and learned optimism to positive psychologists. Certain emotions, for example anger, have been categorized as ‘positive’ by social psychologists (Haidt 2003) and as ‘destructive’ by Goleman (2003) and others (see Chapter 2). This section presents some key differences between the phenomenology of moral emotions (Steinbock 2014)

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and the accounts of moral emotions developed within social psychology (Haidt 2003; Tangney et al. 2007; Strauss et al. 2016) and virtue ethics (Kristjánsson 2018). These differences pertain to the first-person accounts of moral emotions in phenomenology as opposed to third-person accounts in social psychology and virtue ethics, the emphasis on measurement, prediction and control in social psychology, as well as contrasting accounts of particular emotions such as pride, shame and compassion. The fundamental difference between these disciplines is in the phenomenological understanding of moral emotions as opening up or closing down the interpersonal nexus. This understanding is underpinned by the view of the individual as interdependent and social through and through. For social psychologists, the meaning of moral emotions is found in the link between moral emotions and behavior. Therefore, much of their research investigates the advantages and disadvantages of emotions such as shame and guilt, both for the individual and society, the ‘styles of coping with’ negatively valanced emotions, as well as the ‘psychobiological’ aspects of various emotions (Tangney et al. 2017: 345). There is no consensus amongst social psychologists on the precise classification of moral emotions, but what their research shares is a tendency to view the individual as an atomized self. For example, the binaries underpinning Tangney et al.’s (2007) classification separate the self from others by dividing up emotions into ‘self-conscious’ and ‘other-focused’ emotions, such as pride, shame, guilt (self-conscious emotions) and empathy, contempt and disgust (other-focused emotions). Similarly, Haidt (2003) distinguishes between ‘more self-interested’ and ‘less self-interested’ moral emotions (see also Chapter 2). Phenomenology does not divide emotions in this way because, with the exception of pride, the emotions of self-givenness, otherness and possibility emerge and are shaped within relationships of interdependence. According to Tangney et al.’s (2007) classification, shame is a negatively valanced ‘self-conscious’ emotion which is experienced both as painful and socially undesirable, due to its negative ‘action tendencies’. These include: defensiveness, interpersonal separation and distance, an inherently egocentric preoccupation with the ‘bad self’ (as opposed to bad behavior) that ‘derails the emphatic process’, as well as a ‘shame-rage spiral’ (2007: 351). As Tangney at al. point out: shame and anger go hand in hand. Desperate to escape painful feelings of shame, shamed individuals are apt to turn the tables defensively, externalizing blame and anger outward onto a convenient scapegoat … shame is consistently associated with maladaptive processes and outcomes at multiple levels. (2007: 352–353) Tangney et al. compare shame to guilt and, given the latter’s positive action tendencies, conclude that guilt belongs to ‘the “modern,” adaptive moral emotions’ whereas shame is ‘its evil twin’ (p. 361). Bearing in mind individual and societal well-being, guilt is, therefore, ‘the moral emotion of choice’ (p. 355).

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This account of shame is radically different from Steinbock’s phenomenological description. First, Tangney et al. write in the third person, from a perspective of an ‘objective’ scientist-spectator who represents patterns of causality, as well as the (dis)advantages and damaging effects of diverse moral emotions. What is thus removed from their account of shame is both the first-person experience and the complex interpersonal and social contexts that would shed light on the figure (a person experiencing shame) and the ground (the relationships and contexts within which shame is experienced). Second, their review of empirical research leads Tangney et al. to argue that guilt represents an ‘emotion of choice’, as if emotions relied solely on choice, i.e. my rational decision to allow myself to feel certain emotions and suppress others. This ‘emotions management’ approach may help us to deal with negatively valenced emotions, at least in the short term. However, using techniques for ‘coping with’ undesirable emotions such as shame is not the same as understanding what my experience of shame tells me about myself as a person living in the world with others. As Steinbock points out, being open to shame may evoke a reorientation and positive change, both within the individual and social dimensions. By contrast, suppressing shame as the ‘evil twin’ of guilt (Tangney et al. 2007: 361) may lead to shameless behavior which, as we have seen above, corrodes social relations. Where Steinbock’s and Tangney et al.’s accounts converge is in relation to the psychologically damaging effects of debilitating shame that arises from emotional or physical abuse, as well as cultural stereotypes that prescribe unachievable ideals of economic, social, political or bodily nature. Last, the moral nature of shame is lost in the simplistic evaluation of shame as the ‘evil twin’ of guilt. With the exception of debilitating shame, shame is not possible without genuine self-love and positive self-evaluation that have been ‘disappointed’ when called into question by others. Tangney et al. thus overlook both the inevitability of shame pointed out by philosophers such as Max Scheler and its transformative potential, through the dynamic of repentance. Importantly, as a phenomenological moral emotion, shame discloses ourselves to ourselves as not self-grounding, thus opening up the interpersonal nexus. Phenomenology reveals the deeply moral nature of emotions as experiences that belong to the ‘domain of feelings’ but which also take place at the ‘level of the spirit’ (Steinbock 2014: 12). The word ‘spirit’ translates in German as ‘Geist’ and reflects the traditional distinction between ‘natural’ sciences (‘Wissenschaften’) and ‘human’ sciences (‘Geistwissenschaften’). As a ‘Geistwissenschaft’, a phenomenology of moral emotions is concerned with what emotions disclose about us as human persons, rather than with which valid, measurable categories they could be reduced to. The emphasis of scientific study in the ‘Wissenschaft’ tradition, by contrast, is on measurable ‘evidence’ of psychobiological aspects of emotions, for example love, to the detriment of the underlying lived reality of emotions:

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Social psychological attempts to measure love, or, through brain scans, to detect a surge of dopamine, associating ‘love’ with the hormones oxytocin and vasopressin, completely miss the movement of love as act originating from the person. (Steinbock 2014: 224) A reliance on measurement, prediction and control constitutes a major difference in the methodologies deployed by social psychology and phenomenology. Scales for measuring shame (Tangney et al. 2007: 355) or self- and observer-rated measures of compassion (Strauss et al. 2016: 19) seek to render emotional experiences measurable, calculable and amenable to modification and ‘intervention’. For example, Strauss et al. point out that: Without an agreed definition and adequate measures, we cannot study compassion, measure compassion or evaluate whether interventions designed to enhance compassion are effective. (2016: 15) From this premise, Strauss et al. have generated a definition of compassion which, by operationalizing compassion into measurable ‘cognitive, affective and behavioral’ components, ignores the compassionate person-in-relation, embodied and embedded in her context. Strauss et al.’s (2016: 19) definition includes the following ‘elements’ pertaining to ‘self-compassion’ and ‘other-compassion’:     

recognition of suffering and its universality in human experience feeling empathy for the person who is suffering ability to tolerate feelings of discomfort that arise in response to witnessing the suffering of another person ability to remain open to the person who is suffering motivation to act or taking action to alleviate suffering

This definition singles out one emotion from the totality of a person’s emotional experience and abstracts it from the context in which compassion may or may not arise. The ‘empathic’ subject measured for compassion is an atomized self, who recognizes suffering and is capable of ‘tolerating’ uncomfortable feelings arising from witnessing the suffering of the other (as an ‘outside spectator’) and who understands the ‘universality’ of human suffering (in an anthropocentric view of suffering). This definition excludes other emotions that may arise in this situation, such as anger, pity or fear, as well as the political narratives that promote a non-instrumentalist view of another person as of intrinsic worth. Dominant social norms may interfere with the development of compassionate concern if suffering is judged as ‘deserved’, as in the discourse of ‘skivers and strivers’ discussed in Chapter 5. This discourse frames poverty in psychological-behavioral terms as problems of dependency, weakness, anti-social

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behavior and other deficiencies of ‘character’. Strauss et al.’s definition thus presents what Merleau-Ponty (2002: x) would reject as an abstract ‘scientific schematization’ developed to represent what we experience not as a mentalemotional set of conditions but as an embodied social experience. Because we each have a body, we all share the vulnerability that opens us to feeling compassion for both human and non-human embodied others. My body, just like the body of another, is ‘not a permanent object of thought, but a flesh that suffers when it is wounded’ (Merleau-Ponty 1968: 137). My body connects me to others not as an ‘outside spectator’ but as a person amongst other persons. Phenomenological accounts of moral emotions are also radically different from the representations of ‘virtuous’ emotions within neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics (Kristjánsson 2018). Whilst social psychologists’ representations rely on empiricism, ‘virtuous’ emotions reveal a tendency toward ‘intellectualism’ (Merleau-Ponty 2002), an orientation that privileges a priori categorizations and idealizations over experience as lived. As discussed in Chapter 4, neoAristotelian scholars conceptualize ‘virtuous’ emotions within the overarching Aristotelian schema of the golden mean, the balance between deficiency and excess. It follows that ‘virtuous’ emotions cannot be ‘too intense’ or ‘too slack’ and, importantly, need to be felt at ‘the right times, about the right things, toward the right people, for the right end and in the right way’ (Kristjánsson 2018: 20). Not feeling the ‘proper’ emotion at the right time is evidence of ‘moral failings’ (p. 2). By contrast, the phenomenological account of moral emotions does not place such exact prescriptions on moral emotions but focuses instead on how they emerge in our everyday encounters with others and how they disclose us not as atomized selves engaged in the individualistic pursuit of ‘proper’ emotions, but as interdependent. To take an example, Steinbock’s (2014) account of humility rests on how, in my experience of humility, I am revealed to myself as related to others and accepting their contributions. Unlike pride, humility is lived as the uniqueness of myself as relational and interpersonal, rather than self-grounding, and is therefore realized through my concern for others. By contrast, within the Aristotelian account, humility gets caught up in a pursuit of virtue conceived of as learning to ‘steer clear of the more contrary extreme … by dragging ourselves off in the opposite direction “as they do in straightening bent wood”’ (Aristotle as cited in Kristjánsson 2018: 155). In the balancing act of ‘dragging ourselves’ in opposite directions, between the extremes of pride and humility, we end up in the golden mean of ‘accurate moral self-esteem’ (p. 155). Both humility and pride are thus represented as epistemic actions related to self-esteem. As such, they lose their moral significance as emotions of otherness (in the case of humility) and refusing to accept one’s self-givenness (in the case of pride). In contrast to virtue ethics, the task of phenomenology is not to presuppose the meaning of a ‘person’, for example by concentrating on what it means to be a humble person, but rather to try to

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describe humility as a moral emotion of otherness that ‘points to and helps to elucidate the meaning of person’ (Steinbock 2014: 232). The rationalization of emotion as ‘virtue’ is an example of what MerleauPonty (2002) referred to as the ‘intellectualization’ of lived experience which represents us to ourselves as controlling and value-positing so that nothing that exists can appear to us as it exists in itself. Within the intellectualizing mode of being in the world, we plan, design, calculate and manage all phenomena, including our own emotions. However, if we suspend our anthropocentric intellectualizing tendencies, we may gain a radically different understanding of emotions, which includes a possibility that other sentient beings, for example elephants or chimpanzees, might also be ‘persons’ in the sense of engaging in actions motivated by emotions: If we encounter a grieving elephant, an ashamed dolphin, a loving chimpanzee, a trusting wolf – and not simply ‘higher intelligence’ – then we might just be confronting ‘person’ here. (Steinbock 2014: 16) The phenomenology of moral emotions seeks to convey the unity of being a person without first developing a theoretical account of the person. Unlike accounts of moral emotions developed within social psychology and virtue ethics, phenomenological descriptions avoid prescription, for example when, how and what I should hope for, or why I ‘should’ trust. Instead, these descriptions reveal how hope and trust open up an interpersonal dimension of being with others, and, conversely, how the betrayal of trust, shameless behavior and love-less social policies assault interpersonal and social relations.

Conclusion Drawing on Anthony Steinbock’s phenomenology of moral emotions, this chapter discussed the complex structure of emotions of self-givenness, otherness and possibility, pertaining to their positive or negative valences, their temporal dimension, their constitution of possibility, and, importantly, how moral emotions open up or close down the interpersonal connection. As Steinbock (2014: 274) emphasizes, moral emotions are as important to our understanding of who we are and what it means to be a ‘person’ as reason and judgement. Given the enduring grip of Cartesian rationality on many spheres of contemporary life, from psychodata-based science of character, education policies aimed at emotions management and algorithmic analytics that render the finest nuance of our emotional expressions as calculable and programmable, paying attention to moral emotions is more important than ever. Concealed beneath the surface of Cartesian representations is who I really am, revealed in my immediate everyday experience of living in the world with others. Moral emotions are a reminder that a life lived as an interdependent self is not only richer in meaningful

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interpersonal connections but also imbues what I do with a deep moral significance. The phenomenological perspective also sheds light on the damage to individuals and to society that arises from the betrayal of public trust, indifference to the suffering of others, denial of shared responsibilities, lack of humility and shameless pursuit of individualistic goals by power elites. As Steinbock (2016: 608) points out, to be able to claim that we have made ‘progress’ in being the ‘human person’, we need to ‘live up to and generate “norms” as revealed e.g. in the depth of loving, trusting and humility, or in the discrepancies disclosed through shame, guilt, and in liberating possibilities emergent in repentance and hope’. The possibilities for such progress open through the renewal of the interpersonal connection in the experience of these moral emotions. However, if moral emotions are to play a role in enabling this progress, then they cannot be limited to character education and need to be incorporated within wider social and political discourses and practices. The phenomenology of moral emotions discussed in this chapter also highlights the problematic nature of certain taken-for-granted assumptions about character education, for example that character can be developed through the vision of a ‘golden’ child or through teaching about virtues. Good character emerges from interpersonal relationships which allow children and young people to experience and affirm their integrity and, by doing so, become aware and respectful of the integrity of others. Integrity, in the phenomenological sense, means the unity of the ‘Gestalt’, the figure-ground of character: the child in the totality of her being and the totality of her situated experience. Relationships of integrity rely on teachers refraining from instructing students on when they ‘should’ hope and trust, or how they should ‘manage’ despair. Respecting the integrity of others requires adults to stay in dialogue with children as persons, rather than treating them as ‘objects’ of character interventions. This chapter has focused on moral emotions as experienced by adults, because understanding one’s own experience is a foundation for understanding the emotional experiences of others. The two chapters that follow explore the phenomenological accounts of childhood (Chapter 7) and adolescence (Chapter 8), as well as their implications for pedagogy that respects the integrity of children and young people.

References Algan, Y., Guriev, S., E. Papaioannou and E. Passari. 2017. The European trust crisis and the rise of populism, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity. Available at: https:// www.brookings.edu/bpea-articles/the-european-trust-crisis-and-the-rise-of-populism/. Accessed 13 July 2020. Austen, J. 1989. Pride and Prejudice. New York: Signet Classics. Ball, S.J. (1990). Politics and Policy Making in Education: Explorations in Policy Sociology. London: Routledge. Bates, A. 2016a. Transforming Education: Meanings, Myths and Complexity. Abingdon: Routledge.

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Bates, A. 2016b. Reculturing schools in England: how ‘cult’ values in education policy discourse influence the construction of practitioner identities and work orientations, Critical Studies in Education 57 (2): 191–208. Biesta, G. and Osberg, D. 2010. Complexity Theory and the Politics of Education. Rotterdam: Sense. Braidotti, R. 2013. The Posthuman. Cambridge: Polity Press. Butler, J. 2004. Undoing Gender. New York: Routledge. Descartes, R. 1984. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes (Vol II, Trans. J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff and D. Murdoch). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Originally published in 1647). Descartes, R. 2005. Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy (Trans. E.S. Haldane). Stilwell: Digireads.com Publishing. (Originally published in 1641). DfE (Department for Education). 2019. Character Education: Framework Guidance. London: HMSO. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/chara cter-education-framework. Accessed 20 December 2019. Elliott, A. and Lemert, C. 2006. The New Individualism: The Emotional Costs of Globalization. London and New York: Routledge. Fieschi, C. and Heywood, P. 2004. Trust, cynicism and populist anti-politics, Journal of Political Ideologies 9 (3): 289–309. Goleman, D. 2003. Destructive Emotions and how We Can Overcome Them: A Dialogue with the Dalai Lama. London: Bloomsbury. Haidt, J. 2003. The moral emotions. In Davidson, J.R., Scherer, K.R. and Goldsmith, H. H. (Eds.) Handbook of Affective Sciences, pp. 852–870. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Harré, R. 1998. The Singular Self: An Introduction to the Psychology of Personhood. London: Sage. Howard, P., Saevi, T., Foran, A. and Biesta, G. (Eds.) 2021. Phenomenology and Educational Theory in Conversation: Back to Education Itself. Abingdon: Routledge. Kristjánsson, K. 2018. Virtuous Emotions. Oxford: Oxford University Press. McWilliams, N. 2012. On tone, play, and healing: commentary on Riordan’s case studies, Pragmatic Case Studies in Psychotherapy 8 (3): 204–215. Merleau-Ponty, M. 1968. The Visible and the Invisible (Trans. A. Lingis). Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. (Originally published in 1964). Merleau-Ponty, M. 2002. Phenomenology of Perception (Trans. C. Smith). Abingdon: Routledge. (Originally published in 1945). Merleau-Ponty, M. 2004. The World of Perception (Trans. O. Davis). Abingdon: Routledge. (Originally published in 1948). Merleau-Ponty. M. 2007. The Merleau-Ponty Reader (Ed. T. Toadvine and L. Lawlor). Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Merleau-Ponty, M. 2010. Child Psychology and Pedagogy: The Sorbonne Lectures 1949–1952. (trans. T. Welsh). Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Morgan, N. 2017. Taught not Caught: Educating for 21st Century Character. Melton: John Catt Educational. Nussbaum, M.C. 2013. Political Emotions: Why Love Matters for Justice. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Rousseau, J.J. 1889. Emile; or, Concerning Education: Extracts (Trans. E. Worthington). Boston: D.C. Heath. Seligman, M.E.P. 1995. The Optimistic Child: A Proven Program to Safeguard Children Against Depression and Build Lifelong Resilience. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin.

116 Phenomenology and character formation Smith, D.W. 2018. Phenomenology. In Zalta, E.N. (Ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Available at: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2018/entries/phenom enology/. Accessed 13 July 2020. Smith, J. and Jenks, C. 2006. Qualitative Complexity: Ecology, Cognitive Processes and the Re-Emergence of Structures in Post-Humanist Social Theory. Abingdon: Routledge. Steinbock, A.J. 2007. The phenomenology of despair, International Journal of Philosophical Studies 15 (3): 435–451. Steinbock, A.J. 2014. Moral Emotions: Reclaiming the Evidence of the Heart. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Steinbock, A.J. 2016. The role of the moral emotions in our social and political practices, International Journal of Philosophical Studies 24 (5): 600–614. Strauss, C., Taylor, B.L, Gu, J., Kuyken, W., Baer, R., Jones, F. and Cavanagh, K. 2016. What is compassion and how can we measure it? A review of definitions and measures, Clinical Psychology Review 47: 15–27. Tangney, J.P., Stuewig, J. and Mashek, D.J. 2007. Moral emotions and moral behavior, Annual Psychological Review 58: 345–372. van Manen, M. 2014. Phenomenology of Practice: Meaning-Giving Methods in Phenomenological Research and Writing. London and New York: Routledge. Zuboff, S. 2019. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for the Future at the New Frontier of Power. London: Profile Books.

Chapter 7

Merleau-Ponty’s lectures on Child Psychology and Pedagogy

This chapter extends the discussion of what it means to be a ‘person’ by exploring conceptualizations of childhood and their significance for character education. It revisits the main phenomenological tenets presented in Chapter 6 to discuss the unity of lived experience, the dynamics of the child’s relations with others and their implications for pedagogy as a moral practice. In a series of eight lectures on Child Psychology and Pedagogy (CPP, henceforth referred to as ‘Lectures’), Maurice Merleau-Ponty (2010) developed a unique perspective on childhood. The Lectures were written soon after the publication in 1945 of his seminal work Phenomenology of Perception (PP), between 1949 and 1952, when Merleau-Ponty held the prestigious role of chair of psychology and pedagogy at the Sorbonne. The Lectures were not fully translated into English until 2010, by the American philosopher Talia Welsh, author of the first book-length review of Merleau-Ponty’s child psychology (Welsh 2013: xiv). The rich material presented in the Lectures also offers unique insights into the dynamics of childhood that are yet to be fully explored in contemporary character education. Based on extensive research in the fields of psychology, psychoanalysis, physiology, anthropology, sociology and cultural studies, Merleau-Ponty sought to demonstrate the ways in which the child is actively engaged with others from birth. He argued that childhood is not a time during which children simply lack the capacities and analytical categories of adults, as maintained by prevailing cognitivist views represented at the time mainly by Jean Piaget. Merleau-Ponty’s sustained effort to suspend taken-for-granted assumptions about children and understand them in their own terms led him to a critique of both cognitive and behaviorist psychology, as well as the then new discipline of neuroscience. Instead, Merleau-Ponty found inspiration in psychoanalytic thought which lay close to his interests in the lived experience and cultural situatedness of child–parent relationships. Although Merleau-Ponty did not focus specifically on moral emotions, his view of pedagogy as both a science-based activity and a moral practice has important implications for character education. Similar to the psychoanalyst, the teacher effects change in her students: ‘the teacher modifies the subject’ (CPP: 69). Therefore, to support character development, the teacher needs to

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carefully balance actively directing the child with respecting the child’s experience of the situation she finds herself in. Since a moral course of action can only emerge within a concrete situation, teaching as a moral practice rests on learning about the child and understanding each teaching intervention through the child’s response. The Lectures provide a detailed explanation of the importance of childhood in the formation of a person. They also shed light on how the lived experience of the child supports the phenomenological theses of embodiment and interdependence, as well as the phenomenological method, which always begins with the everyday experience of a living person, actively engaged in a situation. This chapter begins with a discussion of methods for researching the lived experience of the child followed by a critique of methods that Merleau-Ponty considered less appropriate. The methodological discussions developed in the Lectures lead to a deeper critique of emotions work and its reliance on predominantly behaviorist techniques for habit formation or neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics. This chapter then foregrounds the main themes in Merleau-Ponty’s Lectures and their implications for pedagogy as a moral practice.

Researching the lived experience of the child As explained in Chapter 6, phenomenological methods foreground first-person accounts of lived experience as a departure from the belief in the privileged scientific knowledge generated by the ‘outside spectator’. The ‘inequality’ between the spectator-observer and the observed means that knowledge generated by the ‘objective’ observer may be ‘more a portrait of the observer than the observed’ (CPP: 373). It is extremely difficult to access first-person accounts in the case of very young children and our presence is likely to affect their response (CPP: 374). Despite the difficulty of accessing the child’s world, Merleau-Ponty tried not to ‘read the child through the adult’, guided by an understanding that any study of children needs to start with the child as a person actively making sense of the world around her (Welsh 2010: xi). In selecting the material for the Lectures, MerleauPonty was also guided by three further considerations. First, in alignment with the phenomenological revision of the objective/subjective dichotomy, he drew inspiration from work that foregrounded the study of lived experience and owned its own subjectivity, in an understanding that we always apprehend the world ‘from a human situation’ (CPP: 345). Second, he valued the nuanced understandings of ‘the individual and the singular’ generated by depth studies of individual cases (CPP: 341). Third, he was interested in research that examined embodied experience in order to integrate physiological accounts with explanations of behavior and action. Therefore, much of the research that Merleau-Ponty drew on relied on depth observation of children, both clinical and anthropological. He also reached for studies of children’s drawings, as they offered access to children’s perception and, indirectly, to children’s worlds. Overall, therefore, the Lectures

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develop an interdisciplinary, qualitatively rich account of childhood that blends phenomenological thought, psychoanalysis and Gestalt psychology in addition to cultural anthropology and clinical studies. As we have seen in Chapter 6, the affinity between phenomenology and Gestalt psychology lies in their shared interest in the ways in which we perceive and apprehend the world and its objects in their unity rather than through a synthesis of their distinct ‘properties’. To explain how we apprehend objects in their unity, Merleau-Ponty (2004) directs our attention to the humble product of the common bee: honey. Honey is not apprehended as a sum of properties such as: a golden-colored liquid; relatively thick consistency; sugary taste and a ‘sticky’ feel. Whilst a ‘classical’ (Cartesian) scientist would define honey as a sum of such properties, for Merleau-Ponty, such analysis is ‘far from satisfactory’ because it does not clarify how each property or quality is ‘bound to the others’ and, importantly, because honey is a ‘unified entity of which all these various qualities are merely different manifestations’ (2004: 59). Importantly, the reaction that honey may provoke in our bodies also reveals the ‘quality of being honeyed’: the way honey slips though my fingers when I try to catch it reveals me as ‘embroiled in a sticky external object’ (p. 60). The ‘possessor’ thus becomes ‘the possessed’, and being honeyed: can only be understood in the light of the dialogue between me as an embodied subject and the external object which bears this quality … Viewed in this way, every quality is related to qualities associated with other senses. (2004: 61) Gestalt psychologists have sought to convey the unity of objects as figureground, whereby our perception of an object as a figure is always informed by the background (ground). Whilst the background is not typically part of our explicit awareness, it is nevertheless at play in our perception. The Gestalt of honey (and being honeyed) as a unified whole is not to do with the simple synthesis, or combining together, of our sensations ‘as they are given to us by our psycho-physiological nature’ but with the ‘irreducible configuration’ of the qualities of these sensations (PP: 69). The view of infants and children presented within Gestalt psychology highlighted that, although children do not identify and represent objects with the same level of sophistication as that displayed by adults, this does not mean that their perception is less organized than the perception of adults. On the contrary, Gestalt psychologists claimed that children’s perceptual organization has its ‘own logic’ (CPP: 149) and is coherently structured from the outset. The value of psychoanalytic thought rests on its account of child development as a dynamic process rather than the sequential, linear achievement of various developmental stages. Merleau-Ponty drew on Sigmund Freud, Anna Freud, Melanie Klein and Jacques Lacan amongst others. Sigmund Freud in particular

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was, according to Merleau-Ponty, one of the first researchers to ‘take the child seriously’ and, by elucidating the role of biological functions in the development of personality, supported the phenomenological focus on the embodied existence of the child (CPP: 280). Merleau-Ponty adopted a ‘broad’ interpretation of psychoanalytic theory and argued that childhood traumas are re-lived by the adult, not as repressed and buried in the unconscious, but as part of the adult’s attitudes and behavioral patterns (CCP: 73). For example, as noted in Chapter 5, the trauma of emotional neglect experienced by some children sent, at a very young age, to a boarding school may be re-lived in adulthood through problems with intimacy and concomitant fear or anger associated with dependency (Schaverien 2015). However, accepting and assimilating past traumas is challenging due to their ambivalent nature. Since the present is dynamic and therefore not solely a product of the past, it is difficult to identify childhood traumas that are re-lived in the present. This ambivalence is akin to the background in the figure-ground Gestalt of the psyche. Once we turn our attention towards the background, it becomes a figure with its own ground which we tend to ‘forget’ (CPP: 380). A similar ambivalence underpins the movement from infancy to childhood, and later, from adolescence to adulthood, whereby reaching psychological maturity is predicated on accepting and integrating one’s physical development. However, ambivalence about one’s changing body may be received by the child with hesitation or even the desire to return to an earlier developmental stage. For example, as Merleau-Ponty explains, puberty is characterized by ambiguity arising from a simultaneous anticipation of growth and regression to infancy, combined with a ‘desire for and a fear of adult life’, as well as intense ‘need for protection and simultaneously the will to do without it’ (CPP: 41). The dynamics of maturation are accomplished not through ‘destiny’ or ‘unconditioned freedom’ but by integrating, i.e. accepting, the new physical and psychological functions (CPP: 407). To explain the process of integration (see also Chapter 8), Merleau-Ponty used the Hegelian idea of ‘surpassing while preserving’, whereby the individual ‘only moves beyond his first states if he agrees to retain them’ (CPP: 407). In order to fully understand the ‘totality of the child’s becoming’, Merleau-Ponty also investigated how these dynamics were mediated by a particular culture and language, received ‘from without’ and guiding the child to ‘self-knowledge’ as the child engages in everyday experience (2004: 87). Before explaining further how the above research commitments led Merleau-Ponty to develop an account of childhood, let us first consider methodological approaches that he found problematic.

‘Classical’ science, ‘foreign problematics’ and ‘methodological precautions’ The methodological discussions in the Lectures reveal Merleau-Ponty’s engagement with a range of theoretical and empirical work that both supported and challenged his understanding of childhood. As explained in Chapter 6, phenomenology challenges the Cartesian ontology of separation

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and its dualisms of subject/object and mind/world by revealing our embeddedness in the world. For Merleau-Ponty, the ‘reawakening’ of the world of perception marked a transition from the ‘classical’ to ‘modern’ science premised on ‘once more learning to see the world around us’ (2004: 69). The developments in the phenomenology of perception were paralleled by the birth of complexity thinking, marked by advances in quantum physics, thermodynamics, evolutionary biology, ecology and complex adaptive systems theory (Alhadeff-Jones 2017; Bates 2016; Biesta and Osberg 2010). One of the key features of twentieth-century science and philosophy was a move away from the dualistic distinctions between: mind/body; virtue/vice; masculine/feminine, reason/emotions, normal/pathological (Barad 2007). In light of these developments, it was clear that scientific approaches to the study of children would need to be evaluated by the extent to which they embraced the new thinking and began to transcend the ‘atomistic’ ontology of separation (see also Chapter 10). This led Merleau-Ponty to a highly critical evaluation of the prevailing cognitivist and behaviorist views of child development represented at the time mainly by Jean Piaget and John Watson respectively. Three further approaches were also critiqued in the Lectures: neuroscience, methods that ‘only employ statistics’ (CPP: 386) and approaches that utilize ‘Aristotelian-type’ classifications (CPP: 387). This section will briefly discuss each of them in turn and consider how they can be brought to bear on a deeper critique of emotions work. According to Merleau-Ponty, the error of foreign problematics pertained to Piagetian studies of children’s perception based on asking children questions that children would not pose themselves, thus ‘importing a foreign problematic’ into children’s behavior (CPP: 383). For example, in his studies of the development of the concept of ‘thought’ in children, Piaget recommended the following questioning technique: The child is asked: ‘Do you know what it means to think of something? When you are here and you think of your house, or when you think of the holidays or your mother, you are thinking of something.’ And then when the child has understood: ‘Well then, what is it you think with?’ (Piaget 1929: 37) Depending on how children answered the question: ‘what is it you think with?’, Piaget distinguished three developmental stages in the child’s concept of ‘thought’. According to Piaget, during the first stage (up to 6–7 years of age) children are convinced that they think with the mouth and ‘confuse’ thinking with using the mouth or the voice (1929: 38–39). The second stage (at about 8 years), is marked by the emergence of adult concepts, though ‘confusion’ around these concepts remains, as exemplified by the belief that people think with the head or the brain but thought is a voice inside the head or in the neck. During the third stage (around the ages of 11–12), thought ceases to be

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‘materialized’ – for example as air that comes out of the head – and the child acquires the adult, abstract concept of ‘thought’. However, as Merleau-Ponty pointed out, when the child’s response to the question ‘what is it you think with?’ is ‘with the voice’, then this does not indicate the child’s ‘confusion’ or ignorance. The upshot is that Piaget ‘failed’ to ask the child what she means when she says that ‘thought comes from the mouth or the voice’ (CPP: 143). Because the child is yet to develop abstract understandings of concepts such ‘thought’ or ‘body’, she: uses the body as a system of means in order to enter into contact with the external world. The same goes for the voice … Piaget does not depend at all upon real experience, but solely on his rationalization by way of adult concepts. (CPP: 143) Piaget’s understanding of children was clouded by his attempts to make sense of children’s thinking through the analytical categories of adults. His preoccupation with the extent to which children have achieved the capacities of adults made him arrive at a negative view of children’s capabilities. This can be seen in Piaget’s explanations of developmental stages which are framed in negative terms such as ‘failure’ to understand problems and inability to solve problems ‘systematically’: In the first stage … the children made no distinctions between the word and the thing [the object], and failed to understand the problem. In the second stage … the children understood the problem, but were unable to solve it systematically. During the third stage … the correct solution is given. (1929: 56) By concentrating on what a child gained in the process of development, Piaget also missed what was lost in the process. For example, his famous thesis of egocentrism posits that young children are incapable of taking on a critical perspective, due to being unaware of their own ‘subjectivity’ and the ‘confusion between the data of the external world and those of the internal’ (Piaget 1929: 167). As a result, Piaget claimed, children are egocentric: they see themselves as the center of the world and believe that everything revolves around them. By contrast, Merleau-Ponty argued that studies of children’s perception should be more about their lived experience rather than the ‘ideas’ which children use to make sense of their experience (CPP: 141). MerleauPonty’s ‘methodological precautions’ (p. 377) stem from the limitations of the ‘interrogative method’ (p. 141) which Piaget deployed to studying children and the adult categories, concepts and ideas which he used to interpret children’s experience.

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Merleau-Ponty’s words of caution also call into question the Piagetian method later deployed by Kohlberg (1981) to identify stages in the development of children’s moral reasoning, as well as its more recent application by neo-Aristotelian scholars (Arthur et al. 2017). As we have seen in Chapter 4, Arthur et al.’s (2017) ‘Character Development Ladder’ for assessing the development of virtue in children is underpinned by a preoccupation with measuring virtue in ‘young moral learners’ (p. 109). To develop moral stages consistent with virtue ethics, Arthur et al. (2017: 62) utilize Aristotelian categories such as: akrates (the weakwilled), enkrates (the self-controlled) and phronimos (the practically wise). Although the specific questions to ask children in order to ‘measure’ their developmental stage (and identify the corresponding ‘step’ on the ladder) are not elucidated, the ‘Character Development Ladder’ reflects the Piagetian-Kohlbergian negative view of young children as egocentric and ‘morally indifferent’, as well as ‘potentially human’ and ‘in progress toward full humanity’ (p. 62). However, as explained below, the phenomenon of children’s syncretic sociability and Kurt Lewin’s (1931) critique of Aristotelian categories reveal the limitations of such methodological approaches. Merleau-Ponty was also highly critical of behaviorist psychology and stimulus–response as the basis for reductive causal explanations of behavior. John Watson’s influence on behaviorism was particularly problematic when compared with the phenomenological and Gestalt analyses of behavior and intentionality. Watson dismissed ‘consciousness’ as a collection of terms related to: ‘sensation, perception, affection, emotion, volition’ that represent ‘those time-honored relics of philosophical speculation [that] need trouble the student of behavior as little as they trouble the student of physics’ (1914: 8–9). He sought to ‘throw off the yoke of consciousness’ (1914: 4) and advance instead an approach based on simple causality. He argued that it is possible to develop psychology: and never use the terms consciousness, mental states, mind, content, will, imagery, and the like. It can be done naturally and conveniently … in terms of stimulus and response … habit formation, habit integration, and the like … A psychology of interest to all scientific men would take as its starting point … the observable fact that organisms, man and animal alike, do adjust themselves to their environment. (Watson 1914: 9–10) Behaviorist psychology opposed the contemporaneous developments within Freudian psychoanalysis, Gestalt psychology and the burgeoning interdisciplinary study of human behavior within anthropology and sociology. The reductive causality whereby ‘given the responses the stimuli can be predicted’ and ‘given the stimuli the responses can be predicted’ (Watson 1914: 10) ignored the totality of behavior emerging at the intersection of a series of conditions that need to be apprehended as a ‘Gestalt’.

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Merleau-Ponty’s critique pointed to a number of problems with Watson’s behaviorism and its elimination of intentionality, perception and consciousness. First, Watson’s reductive causality, established by ‘the third person’ and concerned with external relations, was problematic because the individual is motivated rather than caused to act and the meaning of ‘motivation’ is indeterminate (CPP: 351). Second, since the intentions motivating actions are of no interest to a behaviorist, he is unable to differentiate between the internal meanings of certain forms of behavior. For example, in the case of an experiment involving three rats in a maze that subsequently exit the maze, the rats’ responses are identical (they all exit the maze), but these responses could be predicated on a range of motivations, such as a state of being excited, search for nourishment or exploration. According to Merleau-Ponty, behaviorism cannot generate this kind of differentiation due to placing animals in experimental situations where such differences are not visible. Even more problematically, experimenters placed animals in highly-controlled situations where: there was no true solution. Moreover, the animal’s simple success or failure is not a fundamental issue: ‘There are good failures and bad successes.’ (CPP: 345) This point sheds light on problems arising from the methodology deployed by Martin Seligman (1972) in experiments that provided a foundation for his theory of learned helplessness and subsequently led to techniques for developing learned optimism (see Chapter 2). The dogs used as his subjects were placed in a highly-controlled experimental situation where there was ‘no true solution’ but rather a stark binary ‘choice’ between: (a) trying to escape painful electric shocks, with escape prevented by a harness or (b) not trying to escape because of the harness. According to Seligman (1995: 6), his techniques for developing learned optimism, such as ‘happiness exercises’, provide an antidote to the ‘epidemic of pessimism’. For example, the regular exercise of writing down three good things that happened each day and reflecting on: ‘Why did this good thing happen?’, ‘What does this mean to you?’ and ‘How can you increase the likelihood of having more of this good thing in the future?’ (Seligman et al. 2009: 301) is recommended for adults and children as a recipe for learning optimism. This approach to optimism can be traced back to Watson’s claim that given the stimulus (‘happiness exercises’), the response (learned optimism) can be predicted. However, this approach reduces the phenomenon of optimism to the figure (the individual learning to envisage the future in some positive way) and ignores the ground (the wider social context that may or may not support a positive outlook on the future). Importantly, as explained in Chapter 6, optimism stems from the rational activity of positing the future in a positive way (Steinbock 2014). It is, therefore, different from the moral emotion of hope, which cannot be reduced to the repetition of ‘happiness exercises’. The experience of hope opens me to others and to the reality of our

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interdependent existence and thus offers a different approach to overcoming pessimism, by connecting me to others. The third element of Merleau-Ponty’s critique of behaviorism pertains to Watson’s ‘false conception’ of scientific objectivity which obscures the inescapable fact that the world is always apprehended from within a human situation (CPP: 345). Overall, therefore, a methodological precaution arising from Watsonian reduction is that behaviorist accounts should not be confused with subjective lived experience, as portrayed for example in the first-person accounts of moral emotions discussed in Chapter 6. Emotions are not ‘provoked by stimuli but by situations’ in all their complexity and ‘totality’ (CPP: 446). The ‘totality’ of emotions is as much to do with external conditions as with consciousness, mediated by culture and language. The complexity of lived emotions means that, contrary to behaviorist techniques and interventions, the self does not develop solely in response to external stimuli but emerges from a dynamic interplay of ‘inner experiences’ and ‘external givens’ (CPP: 391). Gestalt theory also made Merleau-Ponty question contemporaneous developments within neuroscience and their reductionist view of behavior in terms of physiological processes: it is the body’s functional totality which is capable of smiling, and not the facial nerve. Full expression only appears with the total behavior of an organism. (CPP: 446) Merleau-Ponty saw in neuroscience elements of ‘classical’ science due to its reductive, mechanistic approach to the body and focus on the individual as figure studied in isolation from the ground of culture. Explaining behavior in terms of neurochemical processes in the brain means that neuroscience is unable to account for the ground, the socio-cultural processes and particular situations in which behavioral patterns arise. Merleau-Ponty also urged caution against methods that ‘only apply statistics’ and accord representative value to statistical results (CPP: 386). These representative values are then deployed to test and compare children in order to make future predictions, even though the factors measured through these tests are often peripheral to the child’s overall personality. Statistical methods offer ‘abstract’ generalizations and, therefore, fail to account for lived experience that is always concrete and particular. In order to capture the uniqueness and the totality of the child’s becoming, it is necessary to understand the ‘dynamic environment’ rather than capture the child’s performance in particular tasks through numerical analyses (CPP: 388). As detailed in the following section, to understand this totality, Merleau-Ponty worked with psychoanalytic thought and arrived at a complex account of character formation that does not rely on statistical averages but rather displays complex conflicts and contradictions.

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In his critique of methods that only employ statistics, Merleau-Ponty drew on Kurt Lewin’s (1931) analysis of ‘classical’ psychology as a science of the ‘Aristotelian type’. Lewin, a Gestalt and social psychologist, sought to develop a dynamic approach to psychology that transcended what he referred to as the ‘quasi-statistical character’ of ‘classical’ psychology. He also set out to deconstruct the dichotomies and abstractly defined classes pertaining to some ‘essential nature’ of objects and people underpinning Aristotelian thinking. Lewin argued that the Aristotelian concept of lawfulness was predicated on eliminating chance and establishing the regularity of events which occurred ‘very often’ and ‘in the same way’ (1931: 146). Aristotle’s concept of lawfulness thus had a quasi-statistical character and was a ‘perfect antithesis of the infrequent or of the particular event’ (p. 146). Because of its focus on events that possessed persistence and stability, Aristotelian-type science lost contact with particularity and paradox. The loss of contact with particularity in psychology as a science of the ‘Aristotelian type’ was, according to Lewin, exacerbated by Aristotelian classifications. For Aristotle, membership in a class was of vital importance because the class defined the ‘essential nature’ of the object, and therefore determined its properties and behavior in ‘both positive and negative respects’ (Lewin 1931: 144). Aristotelian classification often took the form of paired opposites, such as cold and warm, and had a rigid ‘absolute’ character (p. 144). Neo-Aristotelian virtues and vices discussed in Chapter 4 illustrate this rigid classification. As Lewin pointed out, the separation of memory, intelligence and impulse in ‘classical’ psychology retains the ‘characteristic stamp’ of Aristotelian classifications (1931: 144). Similarly, the analysis of feelings in ‘classical’ psychology has retained Aristotelian dichotomies such as ‘pleasant’ and ‘unpleasant’ feelings. However, the Aristotelian ‘habit’ of considering such abstractly defined classes as the essential nature of a particular person and then using the class as an ‘explanation’ of the person’s behavior is problematic. It introduces a circular logic which amounts to explanations that in effect fail to explain behavior. As Lewin argued, typical characteristics shared by children of a particular age come to be regarded as ‘essential’ for that age, for example: The fact that three-year-old children are quite often negative is considered evidence that negativism is inherent in the nature of three-year-olds, and the concept of a negativist age or state is then regarded as an explanation (though perhaps not a complete one) for the appearance of negativism in a given particular case! (Lewin 1931: 153) The particularities of the situation, the diverse motivations and complex dynamics of interactions which provide the backdrop to ‘toddler tantrums’ have been erased from the above explanation. Examples of such circular explanations abound, including the Piagetian view of young children as egocentric and therefore reluctant to share their toys, and Arthur et al.’s (2017: 62)

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view of children as ‘potentially human’ and therefore progressing ‘toward full humanity’. Lewin compared Aristotelian thinking with Galilean thinking, which replaced dichotomous classifications with continuous gradations and, instead of rejecting paradox and irregularity, set out to understand the complex, unpredictable and seemingly chaotic world. Lewin’s work partly informed Merleau-Ponty’s account of the dynamics of childhood discussed below. The recent revival of Aristotelian modes of thought in character education discussed in Chapter 4 may be contributing to the persistence of dichotomies such as: mind/body; virtue/vice; masculine/feminine, reason/emotions, normal/pathological, even though Lewin’s arguments have since been rehearsed both within science and philosophy (Barad 2007). We will revisit some of these dichotomies in Chapter 10. The methodological discussions developed in Merleau-Ponty’s Lectures provide the basis for a deeper critique of emotions work and its reliance on predominantly behaviorist techniques for habit formation. His analysis points to the superficial nature of behaviorist knowledge and its reduction of the complexities of our living with others to the simple total of stimulus–response-based, mechanistic interactions among atomized individuals. The methodological precautions discussed above also highlight the problematic nature of lists of ‘desirable’ character ‘skills’, sets of ‘essential virtues’ and psychometric tests which are central to many contemporary programs for character education discussed in Part I. This chapter now moves on to the core characteristics of childhood presented in the Lectures and their implications for pedagogy as a moral practice.

The lived body and the emergence of ‘self’ The Lectures foreground both the central phenomenological theses of intersubjectivity and embodiment and the unique meaning of childhood and its importance in later life. According to Talia Welsh (2013: xxii), the Lectures present the child as a ‘natural phenomenologist’ who is ‘intimately engaged’ with the world and others since birth. This section explores the aspects of childhood and child development related to: syncretic sociability; language development; children’s drawings and perception; learning and play; and the ambivalence of the child’s relations with others. Syncretic sociability Contrary to Piaget’s thesis of egocentrism and other psychological accounts that show infancy as a state of emotional and sensory confusion, Merleau-Ponty posits that our earliest life also has a strong social dimension. The social view challenges the idea that the infant is enclosed in her own interior world. It also challenges the prevalent belief that the ‘self’ emerges from subjective self-awareness; on the contrary, the infant’s awareness of others precedes self-awareness. The stage of infancy, from birth to approximately four months, is referred to as syncretic

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sociability and characterized by a lack of distinction between self and other and self and the world (CPP: 253). In this original, primal experience the infant does not experience the world as a separate, ‘spatially localized body’ but rather as openness and absence of barriers (Welsh 2013: xix). From birth, the infant is responsive and engaged in a coexistence marked by a strong attachment to others. In a manifestation of syncretic coexistence, a room full of babies will simultaneously respond to the cries of others in a ‘contagion of cries’ during the first three months of life (CPP: 249). From three months after birth, infants display an increasing indifference to the cries of other babies, which stems from an emerging self-other distinction: the ability to recognize others as distinct from themselves. The transition from the infant’s experience of her ‘lived body’ as undifferentiated from the world to the body as visible and perceived by others takes place at the mirror stage (CPP: 425). The mirror stage triggers the awareness of self and others as distinct. The mirror stage denotes the time between four to twelve months from birth, when children begin to recognize their own image in a mirror. The child’s image is usually mediated by the parents when they introduce the child to her image and their own images in the mirror. The first step in the mirror stage is related to the child’s identification of her parents in the mirror as opposed to self-awareness. As Merleau-Ponty explains, the infant sees the image of his father in the mirror and smiles at the image but, when father starts speaking, the infant turns to look at his father in surprise. This is because the infant was not, up this point, aware of the difference between the ‘image and the model’ (CPP: 250). Although the mirror stage signals the emergence of the ‘self’, both Merleau-Ponty and Lacan emphasized that the formation of a sense of self stems from the infant’s awareness that she can be a ‘spectator’: she can see herself in the mirror because she is also seen by others (CPP: 254). The awareness of others is thus prior to self-awareness and the mirror stage is a social event rather than an internally-motivated movement toward self-identification. The first months of life from birth are characterized not by what some developmental psychologists might label as ‘chaos’, but by a different existential structure. Merleau-Ponty refers to this phase as ‘polymorphous’ (CPP: 8). Babbling is an example of rudimentary, polymorphous language use. Babbling infants produce sounds that are not included in the language spoken around them and babbling can also be observed in hearing-impaired infants. Babbling is spontaneous in the sense that it is not produced in response to the environment. Between the ages of six to twelve months babbling begins to show imitation, though without grasping the meaning of what is being imitated. The relationship between rudimentary babbling and language acquisition is also reflected in the relationship between scribbling and drawing. Contrary to Piaget’s thesis, children fail to acknowledge the viewpoints of others not because they are egocentric and self-centered but because they are not yet aware of their own viewpoints. Similarly, the emotions they display towards others are not self-centered reactions but rather reflect children’s

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ignorance of the minds of others. As Merleau-Ponty argued, children are not aware of points of view, other people are for children like ‘empty heads turned towards one single, self-evident world where everything takes place’ (CPP: 355). Adults are usually concerned about what they take to be self-centered, childish behavior and set out to teach the child that ‘The world does not revolve around you’ (Welsh 2013: 54). For the child, however, the issue is not that the world does not revolve around her. She is expressing frustration at others for not seeing things ‘how they are’: The child does not grasp that she has opinions, thoughts, and ideas and that, as such, they are her opinions, thoughts and ideas. Egocentrism, in this sense, is the absence of the knowledge that humans have interior states that vary from person to person. (Welsh 2013: 54) The frustration and anger of ‘toddler tantrums’ are thus an indication of a transition from the early syncretic sociability to a stage where the child has not yet achieved an ‘appreciation of the otherness of the other; nor of the mineness of the self’ (2013: 54). The significance of syncretic sociability in the totality of human life is that it may open our interpersonal relationships in later life from our lived experience rather than solely from cognitive understanding. As Welsh explains, the intersubjective bond with others that we all had as children: allows for our later, mature relations to develop. It is this primal connection to others that allows us to not be overwhelmed by our mature alienation from each other. (2013: 48) Language development The analysis of children’s language development presented in the Lectures foregrounds the social function of language and its relation to consciousness. In exploring the relation between language and consciousness, Merleau-Ponty opposed the view of language as a ‘container of thought’ (CPP: 41). He traced this view to the Cartesian mind/world dualism and its underpinning assumption that thought is an ‘internal’ entity that exists ‘independently of the world and of words’ (PP: 213). By contrast, Merleau-Ponty argued that our consciousness is always mediated by language that we have learned from others. The use of language, for example in speech, ‘does not translate ready-made thought, but accomplishes it’ (PP: 453). Language, therefore, does not simply represent an ‘objective’ external reality, but is also a means of expressing ourselves through contact with others. Merleau-Ponty posited the triple role of language consisting of: a ‘representative’ function (pertaining to communication of factual information); ‘expressive’ function (pertaining to self-expression, i.e. expression of internal reality) and a function

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of ‘appealing to others’ (a social function) (CPP: 19). The development of language in children involves all three functions and stems from the social function of language, whereby the child is from birth immersed in a ‘universe of discourse’ shared by the family and community (PP: 466). Merleau-Ponty explained the social function of language as a vital function that enables the child to engage in reciprocal relations with others (CPP: 37). Children’s syncretic relations with others are revealed in their acquisition of personal pronouns. The use of the pronoun ‘I’ appears relatively late in a child’s language, reflecting the length of time taken for the child to distinguish between herself and her surroundings. The acquisition of the ‘I’ is complete approximately at the end of the second year of life, when the child has understood the reciprocity of the ‘I’ and ‘you’, i.e. the relationship whereby ‘everyone in his turn can say “I” and can be considered as “you”’ (CPP: 258–289). Whereas the Piagetian cognitivists portray language development as an intellectual process that relies on the imitation and, eventually, acquisition of the ‘ideal’ adult language, Merleau-Ponty emphasized the importance of meaning and unique sense-making in the development of children’s language. To illustrate how language takes on a meaning for the child in a specific situation, Merleau-Ponty recounted a story of a small boy who put on his grandmother’s spectacles and picked up her book expecting that he would be able to find in the book the stories that she had read to him. However, to his disappointment, where he expected a story, he could see ‘nothing but black and white’. As Merleau-Ponty explained: For the child the ‘story’ and the thing expressed are not ‘ideas’ or ‘meanings’, nor are speaking or reading ‘intellectual operations’. The story is a world which there must be some way of magically calling up by putting on spectacles and leaning over a book. (PP: 467) For children, language takes on meanings that go beyond the representational function to express both the ‘magic’ of the social connection (such as between the boy and his grandmother) and the child’s imaginative thinking that often diminishes as her reasoning develops. As Merleau-Ponty emphasized, contrary to cognitivist psychology, the transition from childhood to adulthood is not a process of ‘moving from ignorance to knowledge’ but rather from a ‘polymorphous phase that contained all possibilities’ to a ‘purified, more defined language, but a much poorer one’ (CPP: 37). Children’s drawings and perception Evaluations of children’s drawings in ‘classical’ psychology resonate with the Piagetian and neo-Aristotelian views on children’s cognitive, linguistic and moral development. Just as cognitivist accounts of language development

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portray children as progressing toward the acquisition of the ‘ideal’ adult language, children’s drawings are also evaluated as unsophisticated representations of their ‘immature’ perception. According to Merleau-Ponty, cognitivist psychologists claim that we perceive an object as a collection of discrete properties which present themselves to our various senses and are combined together in the process of ‘intellectual synthesis’ on our part (2004: 59). If we study children’s drawings as ‘a function of adult drawing’, then we are likely to evaluate them as ‘imperfect’ versions of adult drawings, the latter being the ‘true’ representations of the sketched objects (CPP: 132). In this sense, children’s drawings indeed show a lack of cognitive skills that develop in later life, such as an understanding of perspective or the knowledge of ‘how things work’. For example, as Merleau-Ponty explains, when a child draws a bicycle, she will typically produce a coherent sketch but accentuate some details, such as the pedals. Whereas the adult is guided in his depiction of a bicycle by mechanical relationships, for example the connection between the rear wheel and pedals, these mechanical relationships ‘escape the child almost entirely’ (CPP: 149). However, phenomenological understandings of perception highlight how children’s drawings reveal that children perceive wholes (‘totalities’) more readily than adults and only when a certain whole is too complex, the child will ‘fall back on fragmentary aspects’ (CPP: 150). As explained in Chapter 6, the phenomenology of perception views perception as a primary mode of being in the world, at the level of apprehending the world in its unity, beneath the level of intellectual operations that recombine discrete sensations, objects and categories as representations of the perceived world. The analysis of children’s drawings reveals their perception as polymorphous in the sense of a lack of differentiation between the children’s sense of time, movement, hearing, taste and touch, as well as between what they see and what they feel. For example, children depict movement by drawing lines around the moving object and sound by drawing lines or speech bubbles coming out from the mouth of a person who is depicted as speaking. Importantly, children do not separate their emotional relationships with others from their depictions of them. The seemingly ‘inaccurate’, distorted size of persons in drawings is often an expression of the intensity of the child’s emotional connection. These nonvisual aspects depicted in children’s drawings are suggestive of the totality of objects as perceived and apprehended by children (Merleau-Ponty 2002). For Merleau-Ponty, children’s drawings are, therefore, akin to modern art which breaks away from the conventional, representative function in order to imbue artworks with an expressive function and to emphasize the nature of perception. For example, the lack of perspective in the two-dimensional drawings of children illustrates that the child’s eyes move around the scene in front of her rather than looking at objects from one fixed, detached vantage point. The multi-sensory expressions in children’s drawings resonate with Cézanne’s point that ‘you should be able to paint the smell of trees’ (Merleau-Ponty 2004: 62). Whilst children’s

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drawings reflect their perceptual-motor ‘insufficiency’, they also point to their freedom from cultural conventions. Cultural conventions such as perspectival drawing have been challenged in modern art, shedding new light on the meaning of children’s drawings and highlighting that children display spontaneity which is ‘rendered impossible in the adult due to the influence of, and obedience to, cultural schemas’ (CPP: 132). Childhood drawings thus open a window onto children’s world, revealing a unique sense-making and expression that should not be understood as simply inferior or ‘immature’ versions of adult capabilities. Because drawings express children’s ‘affectivity’ rather than cognitive understanding or cultural influences (CPP: 171), the activity of drawing may offer children a more appropriate channel for expressing a full range of emotions than behavioral techniques and ‘happiness exercises’ (Seligman et al. 2009). As discussed further in Chapter 8, the spontaneity of action revealed in children’s drawings as a unique characteristic of children which precedes ‘obedience’ to cultural schemas (CPP: 132), is also crucial for psychologically and socially healthy character formation beyond childhood. Importantly, as Welsh (2013) points out, childhood drawings provide an insight into the nature of perception in childhood, both as the basis of adult perception and a reminder that understanding who we are as persons would be incomplete without an understanding of the child’s experience. Learning, emotion and imagination As explained above, children’s drawings are an illustration of how children encounter things in their environment not just as objects of understanding but also as emotional and imaginary stimuli. A similar interplay between the cognitive and the affective can be observed in children’s learning. Where Piaget and other cognitivists saw the early developmental stage of ‘concrete’ operations as inferior to the stage of abstract reasoning, Merleau-Ponty saw children as ‘dealing with things’ rather than ‘dealing with thoughts’, exploring and experiencing rather than analyzing the world (CPP: 410). Children are thus ‘natural phenomenologists’, who remain ‘connected to experience and do not require a resolution in a theory’ (Welsh 2013: 110). For Piaget, by contrast, taking objects out of context was a more ‘mature’ mode of understanding, although this also meant a disconnection from lived experience. The enduring legacy of Cartesian skepticism means that one of the key differences between the child and the adult lies in the fact that, for the child, the world and events are perceived as having ‘an obvious meaning’ so that ‘no room for doubt exists’ (CPP: 186). For the skeptical adult, by contrast, proof and logic supersede perception. As Merleau-Ponty explains, unlike the adult, the child does not need proof that the object which she can see in front of her is a chair:

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the chair is simply there, that is all. Perception does not await proof in order to grasp an object; it is prior to careful observation. In this sense, perception, like the imagination precedes all premises. (CPP: 181) Imagination concerns itself with the perceived object rather than the image of the object; to imagine is therefore not the same as to ‘contemplate an image’ (CPP: 177). Children’s connection to imagination is not to do with their understanding or knowledge, it is a ‘relation of existence’ (CPP: 178). For example, similar to perceiving honey (and being honeyed) mentioned above, the story of Pocahontas talking to ‘Grandmother Willow’ is not just a ‘made-up’ narrative that a skeptical adult would treat as fantasy. In the child’s world, the story recounts life as it is, confirming the ‘fact’ of perception that the ‘seen’ is also the ‘seer’: the child sees the tree and the tree looks back. The real and the imaginary are not ‘antinomies, as different as day and night’ and, unlike the adult, the child lives in the ‘hybrid zone’ in between the ‘real’, lived world and the fantasy world of imagination (CPP: 181–2). Whereas adults distance themselves from lived experience by taking on scientific, philosophical or ideological worldviews, children integrate the lived, ‘real’ experience with their imagination. The affective aspect of the child’s experience is established from birth, with the body of the other and its movement imbued from the outset with a deep emotional significance. Similar to the moral emotions explored in Chapter 6, for Merleau-Ponty, feelings are ways of directing oneself toward people and objects, modes of apprehending them. Emotion, like imagination, is thus ‘a manner of being’ in the world at the level of perception, below the surface of cognitive significations (CPP: 180). The special role of perception, emotion and imagination highlights the importance of children learning through play and children’s play as learning. Contrary to common assumptions that ‘free’, unstructured play has no significance or that in play children simply engage in a mimicry of adult behavior, children’s play has its own meaning and coherence. Although children often refer to taking on adult roles, as in ‘playing grown-up’ or ‘playing house’, this does not mean that they simply mimic adult behavior. Instead, play is a way of engaging in roles of which the child has been the spectator, as well as decentering, ‘living for a moment in the other and not only living for his own benefit’ (CPP: 25). In imaginative play, children are not trying ‘to organize but allow’ (Welsh 2018: 150). The child is, therefore, not like a playwright who visits the theatre to watch his creation, instead, the child seems to be ‘having an experience rather than directing an experience’ (2018: 150). ‘Free’ imaginative play is, therefore, important not just as a way of decentering but also as an existential experience of life lived as an actor rather than a spectator.

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Ambivalence in the child’s relations with others As discussed above, much work on child development has been generated through the ‘Aristotelian type’ science that offers sequentially ordered, linear accounts which foreground reason and logic. According to Merleau-Ponty, a vital omission in these accounts is that of ambivalence and contradictions: At about twelve years old, says Piaget, the child achieves the cogito and reaches the truths of rationalism. At this stage, it is held, he discovers himself both as a point of view on the world and also as called upon to transcend that point of view, and to construct an objectivity at the level of judgement. Piaget brings the child to a mature outlook as if the thoughts of the adult were self-sufficient and disposed of all contradictions. (PP: 413–414) Contradictions and ambivalence are an important theme in both the Lectures and Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology more generally. For Merleau-Ponty, unlike for cognitive psychologists, learning and development extend beyond mere progress in intellectual understanding; the child also learns to see himself in a social role and this involves a reorganization of the child’s relations with others. Child–parent relationships are more than relationships with two parents, they are relations in which the parents are the mediators of the child’s connections with the world. The very existence of children and parents poses the following ‘universal’ problem: children begin life being feeble and small, all the while participating intimately in adult life … A double identification exists between children and parents: children see their future in their parents at the same time that their parents see their own childhood in their children … parents appear to children as mirrors of what they must become (and vice versa). (CPP: 393) The arrival of the child provokes a change in the relations between the parents that goes beyond ‘a simple addition without any modification’ (CPP: 393). Tension is experienced by both the parents and the child. For the child, the ambivalent attitude arises from the simultaneous feelings of ‘omnipotence and impotence’, which means that the child ‘can do nothing’ and yet ‘wants everything’ (CPP: 286). The first relations with his parents are thus characterized by ambivalent feelings of love and hostility. In his complete dependence on his parents, the child wishes to own his parents at the same time as feeling excluded from the group formed by his parents. Sibling rivalry replicates a similar hostility and is usually aimed at smaller siblings. The initial mode of parental relations may influence later development of the child’s relations with others. The child’s developmental conflicts are greatly affected by parental

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upbringing styles and these, in turn, are culturally situated. Parental influence thus rests both on the ‘personal imprint’ that they communicate to their child and on the culture in which they live (CPP: 302). In order to fully understand the totality of the child’s becoming, it is, therefore, necessary to consider both the ‘dynamic environment’ and the unique, complex character of the child (CPP: 388). Both psychoanalytic thought and Hegelian dialectics highlight the ambivalent, contradictory nature of character formation that arises from ‘attitudes of hate that are at the same time love, desires that express themselves as agony’ (CPP: xi) in the process of the child’s past being re-lived in the present. Whereas traces of childhood experiences remain in the adult, according to Merleau-Ponty, the first years of a child’s life do not completely predetermine her future and ‘all possibilities remain’ (CPP: 278). Character traits are both general and ambivalent but never fully determined by the past. Specifically, traces of the past contribute to the general difficulties in the adult character, but how these difficulties are solved is not fixed and depends on the extent to which the past has or has not been integrated. These issues will be revisited in Chapter 8 in relation to character formation in adolescence.

Pedagogy as a moral practice Although Merleau-Ponty did not focus specifically on moral emotions, the pedagogical implications of his Lectures go beyond the unique understandings of childhood outlined above. His lecture on the Adult’s View of the Child was specifically on pedagogy, viewed as both a science-based activity and a moral practice. As a science-based activity, pedagogy shuns the methodological approaches of the Cartesian and Aristotelian ‘type’ discussed earlier and consists: not in treating the child’s behavior from above and thus converting it into a system of concepts impenetrable to us, but in scrutinizing the living relations of the child and the adult in a way which brings to light what allows them to communicate with one another. (CPP: 194) Pedagogy as a science-based activity entails being critical and skeptical, not in the Cartesian sense of doubting everything from a privileged vantage point of the ‘outside spectator’, but in the phenomenological sense of getting underneath the surface of cognitive significations, to the level of perception. At the level of perception, the cognitively, linguistically and emotionally ‘superior’ mature adult recalls the awe and wonder that had been part of her own experience as a child: the syncretic sociability, the magic of grandmother’s spectacles, the all-consuming desire to be the center of the world and the terror of total dependence on others that can only be dispelled by love. Pedagogy as a moral practice pays attention to the possibility that, similar to the psychoanalyst, the teacher has the power to change students, she is able to

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‘modify’ their character (CPP: 69). The problem is that morality cannot be established a priori as an abstract outcome: ‘Insofar as there are only abstract ends, there is no real morality’ (CPP: 68). Because a moral course of action can only emerge within a concrete situation, teaching as a moral practice rests on knowing the child, understanding each teaching intervention through the child’s response and carefully distinguishing between what comes from the teacher herself and ‘what properly belongs to the child’ (CPP: 69). As discussed earlier, what comes from adults is radically different from what belongs to the child. The polymorphous openness of childhood is in tension with the precisely delineated scientific, philosophical or ideological commitments that structure (and close down) the worldview of the adult. I would argue that pedagogy as a moral practice cannot be distilled into ‘off-theshelf’ toolkits, generic techniques or interventions where clearly defined ‘steps’ are followed in order to reach some measurable predetermined outcomes, as is the case with contemporary approaches to character education (see Chapters 2–5). Although such toolkits have been designed to assist teachers in their task of supporting character development, they may do more damage than good when they eliminate the need for understanding the child or when they are developed from the Piagetian-Watsonian assumptions that Merleau-Ponty evaluated as methodologically inappropriate. However rational and logical such toolkits, techniques and interventions may appear to adults, children’s experience is structured in radically different ways. Where the adult adheres to a logically coherent set of viewpoints and values, the child responds through affect and imagination that often defy logic and rationalization. This means that pedagogy as a moral practice needs to be underpinned by the teacher’s understanding of herself as a person, her understanding of others and, importantly, knowledge of child development accompanied by genuine care for each child. The meaning of ethical action cannot be codified in a set of rules with outcomes predetermined in advance of the action but rather emerges through the interplay of action– response, from moment to moment, in unpredictable ways, against the background of the totality of teacher–student interactions. So how does the teacher act once she has recognized the ambivalence of the child’s relationships with others and acknowledged that her actions may have enormous consequences for the children in her care? The phenomenologist philosopher and educator Max van Manen points out that: Pedagogy is not just an objective social science construct. It is a phenomenon that issues a complex imperative in the manner that we see, feel, sense, reflect, and respond to the call of the child before us. (2012: 10) The principles of pedagogy as a moral practice emerging from our discussions so far entail the teacher’s self-understanding, anchored in lived experience and remaining open to the call of the child for whom she is responsible.

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Conclusion This chapter discussed Merleau-Ponty’s views on childhood and child development expounded in his lectures on Child Psychology and Pedagogy. The predominant views of the cognitive and behaviorist ‘classical’ psychology, represented in Merleau-Ponty’s time mainly by Piaget and Watson, were juxtaposed in the Lectures with research that balanced philosophy, experimental psychology, anthropology and clinical work to interpret the child’s experience as socially interactive, coherent and unique. In order to capture the totality of the child’s becoming, Merleau-Ponty worked with psychoanalytic thought, Hegelian dialectic and cultural studies that highlighted the ambivalent, conflictual nature of character formation arising from attitudes of love and hostility, the desire for ‘omnipotence’ (CPP: 286) that expresses itself as the agony of powerlessness that can be healed through loving, accepting relationships. Not only do the Lectures provide a detailed explanation of the importance of childhood in the formation of identity, but they also shed light on the philosophical significance of childhood and how it supports the phenomenological theses of embodiment and interdependence, as well as the method that begins with the everyday experience of a living person, actively engaged in a situation (see Chapter 6). The inescapable conclusion arising from the Lectures for pedagogy is that, in order to fully appreciate the significance of childhood, we need to challenge the prevalent view of children as ‘miniature adults’ and of character development as predicated on the mimicry of adult behavior. Child development has its own inherent organization and meaning, not as movement from ‘ignorance to knowledge’ but from an open-ended, polymorphous phase that contains many possibilities to a more defined phase of adulthood. Supporting character development relies, therefore, on a careful balance between actively directing the child and respecting the child’s experience of the situation she finds herself in. Appreciating the significance of childhood is the foundation of pedagogy as a moral practice. Since a moral course of action can only emerge within a concrete situation, teaching as a moral practice rests on being responsive to the child, and on the evaluation of each teaching intervention through the child’s response. The following chapter continues the theme of child development by foregrounding the dynamics of adolescence.

References Alhadeff-Jones, M. 2017. Time and the Rhythms of Emancipatory Education: Rethinking the Temporal Complexity of Self and Society. London: Routledge. Arthur, J., Kristjánsson, K., Harrison, T., Sanderse, W. and Wright, D. 2017. Teaching Character and Virtue in Schools. London and New York: Routledge. Barad, K. 2007. Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

138 Phenomenology and character formation Bates, A. 2016. Transforming Education: Meanings, Myths and Complexity. Abingdon: Routledge. Biesta, G. and Osberg, D. 2010. Complexity Theory and the Politics of Education. Rotterdam: Sense. Kohlberg, O. 1981. The Philosophy of Moral Development: Moral Stages and the Idea of Justice. San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row. Lewin, K. 1931. The conflict between Aristotelian and Galilean modes of thought in contemporary psychology, Journal of General Psychology 5: 141–177. Merleau-Ponty, M. 2002. Phenomenology of Perception (Trans. C. Smith). Abingdon: Routledge. (Originally published in 1945). Merleau-Ponty, M. 2004. The World of Perception (Trans. O. Davis). Abingdon: Routledge. (Originally published in 1948). Merleau-Ponty, M. 2010. Child Psychology and Pedagogy: The Sorbonne Lectures 1949–1952 (Trans. T. Welsh). Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Piaget, J. 1929. The Child’s Conception of the World (Trans. J. Tomlinson and A. Tomlinson). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Schaverien, J. 2015. Boarding School Syndrome: The Psychological Trauma of the ‘Privileged’ Child. Hove: Routledge. Seligman, M.E.P. 1972. Learned helplessness , Annual Review of Medicine 23: 407–412. Seligman, M.E.P. 1995. The Optimistic Child: A Proven Program to Safeguard Children Against Depression and Build Lifelong Resilience. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin. Seligman, M.E.P., Gillham, J., Revich, K. and Kinkins, M. 2009. Positive education: positive psychology and classroom interventions, Oxford Review of Education 35 (3): 293–311. Steinbock, A.J. 2014. Moral Emotions: Reclaiming the Evidence of the Heart. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. van Manen, M. 2012. The call of pedagogy as the call of contact, Phenomenology and Practice 6 (2): 8–34. Watson, J.B. 1914. Behavior: An Introduction to Comparative Psychology. New York: Henry Holt. Welsh, T. 2010. Translator’s introduction. In Merleau-Ponty, M., Child Psychology and Pedagogy: The Sorbonne Lectures 1949–1952, pp. ix–xix. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Welsh, T. 2013. The Child as Natural Phenomenologist: Primal and Primary Experience in Merleau-Ponty’s Psychology. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Welsh, T. 2018. Time, habit, and imagination in childhood play. In H.-G. Moeller and A.K. Whitehead (Eds.) Imagination: Cross-Cultural Philosophical Analyses, pp. 141–152. London: Bloomsbury.

Chapter 8

Reclaiming ‘spaces which the heart feels’

Chapter 8 is designed as a short ‘sequel’ to Merleau-Ponty’s Lectures on Child Psychology and Pedagogy (CPP), focusing on the adolescent’s transition towards adulthood. Although adolescence does not receive a detailed treatment in the Lectures, Merleau-Ponty’s (2010) theses of intersubjectivity and ambivalence, together with his concern for the ‘real’, embodied person, provide a framework for the analysis of adolescence presented below. In Chapter 7, we viewed the child as actively engaged with the world since birth, within an account of child development that goes beyond progress in cognitive understanding. The child learns to see herself in a social role and this involves a reorganization of her relations with others that continues into adolescence (Merleau-Ponty 2010). In adolescence, the maturational changes of puberty are accompanied by a restructuring of personality referred to in psychoanalytic theory as individuation (Blos 1967; Waddell 2018). Central to this restructuring is the breaking of primary ties between the child and her parents. Although primary ties give the young child a sense of security, they are also experienced as a set of prohibitions that create feelings of powerlessness and hostility towards her parents (Fromm 2001). The breaking of primary ties in adolescence enhances the awareness of one’s individuality and feelings of expansiveness that arise from growing physical, emotional and mental strength. But the process of individuation is also characterized by aloneness, a separation from others, experienced as threatening and accompanied by intense anxiety. The dialectics of individuation simultaneously pull the adolescent toward isolation, accompanied by anxiety, and toward the possibility of a new connection to the world, from his inner strength and solidarity with others (Fromm 2001). These intense emotions call into question emotions work that ‘dispenses’ techniques for regulating emotions and removes the need to understand their underlying dynamics. The metaphor of ‘spaces which the heart feels’ was used by Merleau-Ponty to refer to the world of emotion, imagination and spontaneity in which ‘we too are located’ and with which we are ‘organically connected’ (2004: 65). This connection is severed in the detachment of pure intellect as the privileged modus operandi in modernity. Pure intellect fragments the world into ‘simultaneous objects’ apprehended by an ‘absolute observer … without point of view, without

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body and without spatial position’ (p. 65). As discussed in Chapter 7, this perspective was adopted by Piaget and his followers to claim that, at the approximate age of 12, the child becomes capable of accessing the ‘truths of rationalism’ and develops a mature adult outlook that has ‘disposed of all contradictions’ (Merleau-Ponty 2002: 413–414). The emotional ‘turmoil’ of adolescence challenges such idealistic claims. As Anna Freud pointed out, the lived reality of adolescence includes: the height of elation or depth of despair, the quickly rising enthusiasm, the utter hopelessness, the burning – or at times sterile – intellectual and philosophical preoccupations, the yearning for freedom, the sense of loneliness, the feeling of oppression by the parents, the impotent rages or active hates directed against the adult world, the erotic crushes – whether homosexually or heterosexually directed – the suicidal fantasies, etc. (1969: 143) Merleau-Ponty’s call to reclaim ‘spaces which the heart feels’ resonates with the work of Erich Fromm, a philosopher, psychotherapist and critical theorist who also argued that our intellectual capacities far outstrip the development of our emotions, with serious consequences for the individual and society. This chapter draws on Fromm (2001, 1949) to explore aspects of character formation in adolescence about which Merleau-Ponty’s Lectures were silent. Psychoanalytic work by Deborah Britzman, Melanie Klein, Helene Deutsch and others also offers rich accounts of the lived experience of the adolescent. Recurring in these accounts is the theme of ambivalence that is vital to a deeper understanding of experience as lived, both during and beyond childhood and adolescence. To support adolescence, education needs to embrace the ‘haunted’, ‘bothered’ aspects of experience (Britzman 1998). This chapter begins by expounding on the process of individuation and the maturational changes of puberty and their implications for Relationships and Sex Education (DfE 2019a). This is followed by a discussion of Fromm’s (1949) theory of social character, which highlights the importance of situating character education within the broader, socio-economic and political contexts. Next, the section on the anonymous authority of ‘essential virtues’ explains why character education based on the static approaches of ‘Aristotelian-type’ science (Lewin 1931) cannot adequately support the dynamic movement from childhood to adulthood. The chapter concludes with a discussion of pedagogical issues pertaining to the teaching of adolescents.

Transition from childhood to adolescence and the dialectics of individuation Adolescence is defined as a transitional period which starts with the onset of puberty around the age of 10 and typically lasts until the late teens or early

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twenties. In modern industrial societies, some characteristics of adolescence such as unsettledness, instability, self-centered exploration and experimentation may continue into ‘early adulthood’ between the ages of 18–25 (Arnett 2004). Contemporary conceptualizations of adolescence and puberty have been profoundly influenced by a number of psychoanalytic writers such as Sigmund and Anna Freud, Helene Deutsch, Erik Erikson, Peter Blos, Erich Fromm and others (McCarthy 1995). Although their interpretations vary, these scholars agree that adolescence is a ‘battleground’ (Freud 1958) arising from the adolescent’s conflicted search for both connection and separation from the family, underpinned by the desire to preserve the security of childhood attachments and at the same time become autonomous. Two further aspects of adolescence with particular relevance to character education are, first, the steady consolidation of the adolescent’s characterological tendencies in a particular direction (McCarthy 1995; Waddell 2018). Second, the emotional ‘turmoil’ of adolescence may wreak havoc both in the lives of adolescents and those who live and work with them (A. Freud 1935). Within the phenomenological perspective underpinning Part II of this book, the developmental ‘disturbances’ of adolescence (A. Freud 1935) may be understood as one of the many existential conflicts that play out in our experience. As discussed in Chapter 7, children begin life ‘feeble and small’, but soon learn to see themselves in a social role and this involves a continuous reorganization of their relations with others (CPP: 393). From the earliest years, these relations develop through contradictory dynamics. For example, the early child–parent bonds, or primary ties, are so vital to the child’s sense of security that the possibility of being left alone is ‘the most serious threat to the child’s whole existence’ (Fromm 2001: 16). At the same time, however, the primary ties are also experienced as prohibitions that entail a lack of individuality and create in the child feelings of powerlessness and hostility towards her parents. Therefore, the child’s first rebellion against such ties occurs early, when a toddler asserts her individuality by defying parents and having angry tantrums. The breaking of primary ties in adolescence constitutes the second separation, marking a further phase of individuation (Blos 1967). This further phase of individuation is a process in which adolescents develop a sense of self as distinct from parents. The breaking of primary ties disrupts the adolescent’s internal world, unsettling his relations with parents, siblings, peers and other adults. No matter how strong the desire to be autonomous, the process of individuation often reawakens the adolescent’s early childhood needs and, together with the desire to be ‘free’, generates years of ‘protracted transitional angst’ and ‘psychic disruptions’ (Waddell 2018: xvii). Amidst these disruptions, the adolescent experiments with self and reality in a restless effort to be active, to experience things ‘for kicks’ and escape feelings of ‘loneliness, dullness, and boredom’ (Blos 1967: 176). Childhood dependencies on the family are replaced with a strong identification with the peer group. The adolescent looks for compensatory relief from the fear of being alone in the peer or friendship group, the gang or any other group that can be a ‘substitute’

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for his family. Friends, peers or gang members offer him stimulation, loyalty, empathy and a sense of belonging. Moreover: The group permits identifications and role tryouts without any permanent commitments, as well as interactional experimentation as severance actions from childhood dependencies … the group shares and thus alleviates individual guilt feelings that accompany the emancipation from childhood dependencies, prohibitions and loyalties. (Blos 1967: 177) The breaking of primary ties raises recurring questions about parental authority. At the same time, the feeling of guilt experienced by both children and adolescents depends on the manner in which this authority is exercised. According to Fromm (1949: 153) authoritarian parenting stems from the belief that children are ‘brought into the world to satisfy the parents’, or from a covert desire for their children to ‘compensate them for the disappointments of their own lives’. Dominating parents overtly expect their children to be like them in character and temperament. For example, a choleric father may not be enthusiastic about the temperament of his phlegmatic son. A mother preoccupied with academic achievement may be disappointed by her teenage son who struggles with academic work. A child who feels obliged to be like his parents but fails to live up to their expectations, may try to free himself from a sense of obligation and, in the process, experience a ‘burden of guilt’. As Fromm explains, the child is ‘weighed down’ by guilt that arises both from parental disappointment and from the societal expectation of children to love their parents (p. 154). Rebellion is the child’s natural reaction to the pressure of parental and social authority: Inasmuch as social and parental authority tend to break his will, spontaneity, and independence, the child, not being born to be broken, fights against the authority represented by his parents; he fights for his freedom not only from pressure, but also for his freedom to be himself, a full-fledged human being, not an automaton. (1949: 157) Although some children win their ‘battle’ for freedom, few can achieve complete success. There are also children whose will is broken into submission. This may lead to the development of a ‘false self’ in which the sense of ‘who I am’ is ‘dulled and replaced by the experience of self as the sum total of others’ expectations’ (p. 158). According to Fromm, the ‘scars’ of the child’s ‘defeat in the fight against irrational authority’ that prohibits but fails to justify commands such as ‘Don’t do that!’ can be found ‘at the bottom of every neurosis’ (p. 157). A similar ‘weakening’ of the self may happen at school, where overt parental authority is replaced by the anonymous authority of rules that oblige and persuade

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adolescents ‘in the name of science, common sense, and cooperation’ (Fromm 1949: 156). For example, behavior management programs that drill children to follow ‘Golden Rules’ such as those discussed in Chapter 2 encourage compliance but may be meaningless when parroted rather than understood. Without genuine discussion, many rules may be experienced as oppressive. Although challenging anonymous authority disrupts classroom rules and routines, it may enable students to develop a sense of independence. Adolescent negativism and oppositionalism, annoying as they may be to adults, are manifestations of an important developmental stage in the movement toward adulthood. Although the peer group offers a new interactional context for relations that free adolescents from the prohibitions and dependencies of the family and the school, it also replaces parental authority with its own authority, for good or ill. Ironically, as much as the adolescent rebels against parental or other adult authority, he tends to idealize the group and its authority, often on the basis of ‘blind faith’. As Britzman (2015: 79) explains, the ‘adolescent syndrome of ideality’ reveals him as an ‘incredible believer’ who substitutes the loss of the security of his childhood attachments with fantasies and dreams of super-power and perfection. In the fantasy world, the self is joined by idealized figures to win battles against evil, hateful objects. These battles are often a reflection of the conflictual real-life dynamics between the self and adults. The more passionate the pursuit of the dream, the more tragic the awakening to ordinary reality. Overcoming the ‘syndrome of ideality’ involves learning to remain in touch with reality, however uncomfortable or painful it may be. Such learning is predicated on coming to understand that mental maturation is not so much about ‘managing’ or eliminating contradictions but ‘an increase of capacity to bear reality and a decrease in the obstructive force of illusions’ (Bion 1963: 51). However painful it is to stay in touch with reality, individuation involves the discomfort of accepting (integrating) the less manageable aspects of one’s personality. However, as discussed later in this chapter, current forms of character education allow little, if any, space for these less manageable aspects. By promoting an unrealistic, unachievable ‘ideal’ character, they may in effect reaffirm the ‘adolescent syndrome of ideality’. The process of breaking primary ties and the resulting conflicts over authority are accompanied by a ‘turmoil’ of intensely negative feelings, including hate. As discussed in Chapter 2, the advocates of emotional intelligence consider hate to be one of the most undesirable ‘destructive’ emotions (Goleman 2003). However, according to Fromm’s more complex analysis, it is important to distinguish between two kinds of hate: ‘rational’ and ‘irrational’ hate (Fromm 1949: 214). Rational hate is ‘reactive’ in the sense that it may arise in response to vital threats to one’s own or another person’s life, freedom or ideas. This kind of hate has an important biological function as an affective source of actions that aim to protect life. The removal of the threat removes the feeling of hate. Rational, reactive hate is thus the ‘concomitant of the striving for life’ (p. 215). Therefore, similar to anger, reactive hate may be characterized by a high pro-social orientation

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(Haidt 2003). By contrast, the quality of ‘irrational’, ‘character-conditioned’ hate is different, because it stems from a ‘continuous readiness to hate, lingering within the person who is hostile rather than reacting with hate to a stimulus from without’ (Fromm 1949: 215). Since it is rooted in the person’s character, the object of this type of hate is less important than the feeling of hostility itself. Irrational hate may be directed against others as well as oneself and lead to destructive or self-destructive behavior. This more nuanced analysis of hate highlights the importance of understanding the potential roots of adolescent expressions of hate. ‘I hate you’ messages may be a reaction to a perceived vital threat, or a manifestation of ‘awkward’ teenage behavior, rather than an expression of deeper, character-conditioned hate. The sheer ‘turmoil’ of emotions, problems with authority and transgressions of adolescence mean that living and working with adolescents may be highly challenging for adults. Driven by contradictory emotions, conflicting thoughts and ‘blind faith’ in fantasies that have little relation to reality (Britzman 2015: 79), adolescents’ behavior patterns are ambivalent and often inexplicable both to themselves and to others. The maturational changes of puberty may be even more difficult for the adolescent to understand and integrate.

The ‘hormonal’ teenager, puberty, Relationships and Sex Education Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological interest in embodied lived experience highlights the importance of accounts that integrate the physiological, behavioral, mental and emotional dimensions of development in adolescence. Consequently, what is at times approached simplistically or even dismissed as the ‘hormonal’ behavior of adolescents needs to be understood as multi-layered and complex. Sigmund Freud was one of the first theorists to acknowledge the importance of sexuality in character formation. In Three essays on the Theory of Sexuality written in 1905, he explained development in adolescence in terms of the tripartite formation of the final personality including: the crystallization of sexual identity; finding a sexual object (i.e. the object of one’s sexual desire) and bringing together the sensual (sensual/sexual desires) and the tender (what is loved rather than desired) (Waddell 2018). Later psychoanalysts revised and extended Freud’s theory to present a broader account of adolescence, in the spirit of Merleau-Ponty’s Lectures. Melanie Klein (1998) devoted much of her research to the ‘inhibitions and difficulties’ experienced at puberty by boys. Her account reveals the heavy ‘psychological burden’ that a pubescent boy has to work through when the bodily changes arising from sexual maturation entail that he is ‘[b]ombarded by his sexuality’ and finds himself ‘at the mercy of wishes and desires’ which may not be satisfied (1998: 54). The rush of instincts, sexual desires and fantasies is partly suppressed by the boy’s ego and partly by cultural prohibitions. The change in behavioral patterns is typically a manifestation of pubescent boys’ physiological changes, fragile self-esteem or outright

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emotional ‘turmoil’. The new behavioral patterns may include rebellion against home and school, a shift from being trusting and exuberant to being secretive and defiant, as well as the loss of curiosity and receptiveness. As Klein explained: Puberty throws up a host of conflicts of varying intensities, many of which existed before in milder guise but were lost to view; now, the most extreme manifestations may appear, such as suicide or some criminal acts. If, as often happens, parents and teachers are unequal to the heavy calls made on them at this period, additional damage will naturally result. (1998: 54) Bridging the divide between the ‘tormented child’ and ‘uncomprehending adults’ calls for compassion and understanding on the part of adults. The changes of puberty coincide with increasing demands for success in examinations and the use of ‘motivational’ techniques that tend to either dismiss the boy’s embodied experience or use one-size-fits-all authoritarian approaches of the type: ‘I know better what’s good for you’. And yet, the many conflicts of puberty will determine the character of the boy’s sexual life. As Klein points out, it is therefore essential for adults to bear in mind that the boy’s objectionable behavior may be a manifestation of his growing detachment from parents that is ‘necessary if he is to develop into a vigorous, active and independent man’ (1998: 56). Therefore, to support the boy in his struggles, parents and teachers need to approach him from an understanding of the reasons for his problems. Such understanding may make it easier to tolerate his defiant, objectionable and unpleasant behavior and apparent lack of love or respect. Teachers in particular may become objects of hate and aggression or, alternatively, of teenagers’ ‘crushes’ and excessive admiration. This is because, at the time when children exhibit a strong tendency to break the parental ties, they are driven to find people to look up to and idealize. The objects of idealization also include famous real or imaginary characters set apart from ‘others’, who are by contrast vilified. As Klein explained, this idealization-vilification brings relief because: the ‘good’ person is spared and because there is satisfaction of hating someone who is thought to be worthy of it … the division between the loving and hating attitude fosters the feeling that one can keep love unspoilt. The feeling of security that comes from being able to love is, in the unconscious mind, closely linked up with keeping loved people safe and undamaged. (1998: 329–330) Merleau-Ponty focused in his Lectures on girls’ experience and in particular on the connection between the psychic and physiological dimensions of puberty. Drawing on the argument by his feminist contemporary and friend Simone de

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Beauvoir, he observed that: ‘The body is neither first nor second’ and puberty therefore requires an integration of the ‘puberty of the body’ and ‘psychological puberty’ (CPP: 400). The onset of menstruation can set in motion a ‘series of troubles or disturbances’ in the girl (p. 405). As Helene Deutsch explained, the first period sets off psychic reactions ‘so numerous and varied’ and is experienced bodily as so powerful that even girls who have been mentally ‘prepared’ for puberty either by their mothers or at school may experience ‘horror at being surprised’ (1944: 154). For some girls, especially those who have older sisters, menstruation may be a taken-for-granted sign of long-expected progress. Other girls may react with excitement, anxiety, defence against the physiological event, shame and loss of self-confidence. Many feel restricted in activities such as gymnastics or swimming. The inability to accept her ‘new’ body may be compensated with a narcissistic focus on herself, desire to be noticed and admired, as well as aggressive impulses. These behaviors are often accompanied by a feeling of being misunderstood. Once menstruation has begun: Everything still remains to be done: the integration of the elements into a whole. But this integration is not always, or even often, completed (e.g., the abhorrence of menstruation in certain adult women). The girl who imagines that menstruation changes everything is very much deceived. Maturation will still have to establish a bond between the imagined and the perceived, a bond between the fantasies about menstruation and the real facts. (CPP: 405) Importantly, understanding or knowledge of the changes of puberty is necessary but not sufficient for integration to be accomplished, since the ‘simple fact of knowing’ does not change any of the emotions that the child can experience at this time. As Merleau-Ponty pointed out, understanding menstruation does not automatically entail its acceptance: It is not a question of an abstract decision; understanding is not enough to cross a stage of development … Development is only accomplished when the new functions have been taken up and integrated into the subject’s spontaneity. This integration stabilizes the transformations taking place in the body. (CPP: 406) In light of the above, spaces for free discussion of issues around puberty, sexuality and the emotional ‘turmoil’ of adolescence may need to be more open than those created through the delivery of ‘content’ in Relationships and Sex Education (DfE 2019a). In the English education system, guidance for Relationships Education (RE) for primary schools and Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) for secondary schools is framed around ‘content’. For example, in relation to primary education, the aim is to:

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put in place the building blocks needed for positive and safe relationships of all kinds, starting with family and friends, and moving out to other kinds of relationships, including online … Content on puberty is covered as part of Health Education and the national curriculum for science. Schools have the flexibility, however, to tailor their content about puberty to fit in with their content on Relationships Education. (DfE 2019a: 11) The idea of ‘building blocks’ for ‘positive and safe relationships’ can be taken up by some schools as another opportunity for the deployment of positive psychology techniques (Seligman et al. 2009). As discussed in Chapter 2, positive psychology suppresses negative emotions and thoughts and ignores the vital role of the socio-cultural and political context in which ‘positive and safe relationships’ are framed in particular ways. The emphasis on the ‘positive’ dimension is reiterated in the Framework Guidance (DfE 2019b: 4) for character education, which states that RSE is ‘most effective’ when schools also ‘promote good behaviour and positive character traits’. The suggestion that the ‘content of puberty’ can be ‘covered’ separately, through Health Education and the science curriculum, separates out the physiological and psychological dimensions, even though they are intertwined. For secondary schools, the emphasis in Relationships and Sex Education has been framed in a more open-ended way: In RSE, the emphasis moves from the experience of the child in the context of their family to the young person as a potential partner and parent, and the characteristics of healthy, and unhealthy, intimate relationships. RSE will also cover the concepts of, and laws relating to, sex and relationships as well as the effects of relationships on their mental wellbeing … schools should ensure RSE educates pupils whatever their developing sexuality or identity, bearing in mind the age, development and religious backgrounds of their pupils. (DfE 2019a: 13) RSE content includes topics such as: ‘safer sex and sexual health’ that should be delivered in ‘a non-judgemental, factual way’ with ‘scope for young people to ask questions in a safe environment’. The DfE guidance also lists concepts and laws relating to ‘sexual consent, sexual exploitation, abuse, grooming, coercion, and harassment’, with guidance on being safe to include ‘content on female genital mutilation (FGM), forced marriage, and rape’ (pp. 13–14). These topics are of pressing importance given the societal problems faced by today’s children and adolescents. The notable silences in the guidance include cultural influences on the knowledge ‘content’ of puberty, ‘healthy’ or ‘unhealthy’ relationships and gender roles in today’s society. Due to parental and wider influences, young people may bring into the RSE classroom traces of taboos that persist in cultural or religious

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narratives, even if we agree that such traces have been erased from most contemporary scientific, ‘factual’ accounts of puberty. Even the sympathetic accounts of Merleau-Ponty and Klein carry traces of the feminine/masculine dichotomy, for example the reference to ‘feminine passivity’ which ‘appears to have its roots in puberty’ (Merleau-Ponty 2010: 405) and the image of the ‘vigorous, active and independent man’ (Klein 1998: 56). In her depth study of women’s psychology, Helene Deutsch (1944) discussed the anthropological work of Mary Chadwick who examined, in a range of contexts, the cultural taboos and superstitions around menstruation that persisted into modern times both in folklore and educated social circles. According to Chadwick, the ‘evil powers’ associated with menstruation were iterated over centuries in diverse societies. An example of the folly of superstitious beliefs is the following passage from Pliny the Elder’s Natural History, purported to represent the ‘best’ of ancient knowledge: The menstruating women blighted crops, blasted gardens, killed seedlings, bought down fruit from trees, killed bees, caused mares to miscarry. If they touched wine, it turned to vinegar; milk became sour, etc. (Chadwick as cited in Deutsch 1944: 153) Chadwick’s account might sound extreme to the twenty-first century reader, a relic of the past that has been erased from modern life. However, the fact that Relationships and Sex Education has to raise young people’s awareness of rape, FGM and sexual exploitation points to the continuation of cruel forms of antifeminist thinking and violence. Whereas writers such as Merleau-Ponty, Deutsch and Klein have contributed to deepening our understandings of our embodied, gendered experiences, contemporary scholarship emphasizes the continued cultural reluctance to openly discuss the gender divide, for example with menstruation taken to represent the ‘concealed nature of female sexuality, in contrast to which the phallus continually signifies itself’ (Kerkham 2003: 279). Menstruation still tends to be perceived by some adults as a loss or absence (of babies) and a ‘symbol of waste and a break in productivity’ (2003: 279). An open discussion of the cultural and historical aspects of puberty would enhance the somewhat limited ‘content’ of Relationship and Sex Education. Sources of gender inequality and the vital threats to girls and young women, as well as to boys and young men, need to be seen not just through the lens of sexual ‘health and safety’ but in the context of wider social inequalities. It is to the broader socio-economic context that shapes the social character (Fromm 2001, 1949) that we now turn.

The social character: a twenty-first century brain and a ‘stone-age’ heart? As a post-Freudian psychoanalyst and social theorist, Fromm was interested in the socio-economic and cultural influences on the structure of character. By

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stating that modern person’s brain ‘lives in the twentieth century’ but ‘the heart of most [wo]men lives still in the Stone Age’, Fromm pointed to what he saw as the central psychological and social problem of modernity (2013: 21). Much of his work was, therefore, devoted to addressing the discrepancy between ‘intellectual-technical overmaturity and emotional backwardness’ (p. 22) in the social character. The answers to this discrepancy were found in a relational view of humans and the process-focused analysis of the ways in which societal structures shape our essential needs, motivations and character traits. He also revised Freud’s theory, arguing that the key problem of psychology was not so much the satisfaction or frustration of instinctual needs but the ways in which the individual is related to others and the world. Whilst Freud’s theory of character assumed that character traits are rooted in various types of libido, Fromm redefined character as the ‘form in which human energy is channeled’ (Fromm and Funk 2019: 7). Whereas animal behavior is mostly determined by instinct, human action in accordance with our character traits enables us to act habitually to ensure consistent, effective action and thus to efficiently channel the energy with which our traits are charged. Human energy is channeled through the processes of assimilation and socialization. Assimilation refers to a ‘mode of acquiring things’ and socialization to our ‘relatedness to others’ (p. 7). The concepts of assimilation and socialization correspond to two aspects of character orientation that arise from our fundamental needs of physical and mental survival respectively. We assimilate things to survive as biological organisms and we relate to others because, as ‘social animals’, we have to live in groups. Complete isolation would be both ‘unbearable’ and ‘incompatible’ with our sanity (Fromm 1949: 58). This two-fold, sociobiological function of character determines both the individual and social character. Fromm defined the ‘social character’ as the ‘nucleus’ or ‘matrix’ of character traits shared by most members of a group which develops as a result of: the basic experiences and mode of life common to that group. The function of the social character, from a sociobiological standpoint, is to mold human energy in such specific ways that it can be used as a ‘raw material’ for the purposes of the particular structure of a given society. (Fromm and Funk 2019: 8) The function of social character is thus to enable the individual to act consistently and in alignment with the purposes of society. The child’s character is shaped by his parents whereas the parents and their parenting approach are influenced by culture and the socio-economic environment. The family is thus the ‘psychic agency’ of society and by ‘adjusting himself to his family the child acquires the character which also makes him adjusted to the tasks he has to perform in social life’ (Fromm 1949: 60). In other words, the ‘matrix’ of character traits acquired by the child is shared with most members of the same social class or culture. The conflictual, ambivalent processes of character formation in adolescence discussed

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above are also affected by the social character. This account of character explains that the ‘mature person’ who emerges in adolescence differs both from other members of the same family and the same culture. The individual’s uniqueness is partly shaped by the different personalities of the parents, the psychological and material differences in the social environment in which he grows up, as well as constitutional differences. Therefore, the environment is ‘never the same’ for two different individuals and the interplay of a range of differences ‘makes them experience the same environment in a more or less different way’ (p. 61). Importantly, there is a fundamental difference between patterns of behavior and ways of thinking that are rooted in the person’s character, as opposed to the actions and thoughts that arise under the influence of changes in cultural patterns: habits of action and thought which develop as the result of an individual’s conforming with the cultural pattern and which are not rooted in the character of a person are easily changed under the influence of new social patterns. If, on the other hand, a person’s behavior is rooted in his character, it is charged with energy and changeable only if a fundamental change in a person’s character takes place. (1949: 61) The conflicts and ambiguities of adolescence are experienced at the level of social character formation as the tension between internal individual needs and external societal demands. As we have seen, the essential need of the adolescent is to be connected to others, not by primary ties but as a free, autonomous, independent self. However, if the external socio-economic conditions on which the process of individuation depends fail to offer him the basis for the realization of his individuality and he has lost the primary ties that gave him security, then this ‘lag’ makes freedom unbearable. This situation can be experienced as a life which lacks meaning or direction, and the relief from the uncertainty of this kind of life can be found in what Fromm (2001: 30) referred to as ‘escape from freedom’. An ‘escape from freedom’ into submission to the authority of others offers relief from uncertainty, but it also deprives the individual of freedom to think and act on the basis of his own values and decisions. For many adolescents, submission to alternative authority, as in the case of the ‘adolescent syndrome of ideality’ (Britzman 2015: 83), offers relief from the terror of separation and aloneness. However, shutting off painful emotions may put the process of emotional maturation out of sync with the adolescent’s cognitive development, sowing the seeds for an adulthood characterized by the twenty-first century brain and a ‘stone-age’ heart. Fromm’s (1949) account of the consolidation of social character explains the inherent ‘mechanisms’ that make adolescence a ‘dangerous’ time in the life of the individual. It may also partly explain the ‘mental health crisis’ reported to affect large numbers of students in the UK and many other countries (DoH/DfE 2017; Harwood and Allan 2014). The ‘therapeutic education’

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discussed in Chapter 3 prioritizes diagnosis, measurement, behaviorist interventions and, increasingly, drug treatment or digital self-help tools that can at best relieve the symptoms of adolescent ‘angst’. However, a deeper understanding of adolescence is necessary to be able to distinguish ‘normal’ adolescent ‘angst’ from ‘pathological’ disorders and, importantly, to focus on developing a genuinely supportive school ethos. But Fromm’s analysis of the modern social character includes further implications, to which we now turn. The theory of social character also explains broader societal phenomena arising from socio-economic and cultural change over several generations, not just within the lifespan of the individual. As noted above, the social character is oriented toward internalizing external socio-economic necessities in order to channel the individual’s energy for the benefit of the system. Their social character entails that individuals find behavior consistent with these necessities to be satisfying both psychologically and in terms of material success. As long as society satisfies individuals’ needs, psychological forces contribute to consolidating the social structure. This situation, however, is never stable and soon ‘a lag arises’, whereby new socio-economic conditions make the traditional character structure ‘no longer useful’: People tend to act according to their character structure, but either these actions are actual handicaps in their economic pursuits or there is not enough opportunity for them to find positions that allow them to act according to their ‘nature’. (Fromm 2001: 244) It is this ‘lag’ that gives rise to the desire to escape from the uncertainty of freedom into submission to authority. Such ‘escape’ promises the individual a relief from uncertainty and anxiety, but at a cost to thinking and acting from his own authority. In his analysis of the cruelty in the social character that emerged in Germany prior to and during the Second World War, Fromm (1949) posited that large swathes of the population gave their willing support to the authority of the Nazi party in order to ‘escape from freedom’. The mass ‘escape’ from freedom to think, question or disobey rather than comply and participate in war atrocities, was partly a response to changing economic conditions in Germany after the First World War. Post-war inflation and the growing power of monopolies were particularly threatening to the lower middle class, who found the Nazi ideology and imperialist policies of expansion appealing both on ideological and economic grounds. The Nazi party offered relief from this uncertainty. However, Nazi party ideology also intensified character traits such as competitiveness, ruthlessness, a sense of duty and authoritarian tendencies, and these traits, in turn, supported the expansion of Germany’s imperialism and war effort. The social character is thus the outcome of a dynamic adaptation to socio-economic and political conditions.

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Fromm also focused on the interplay of psychological and socio-economic forces in the modern capitalist state based on his analysis of post-war America. The desirable social character that supports modern capitalism is a ‘matrix’ of traits exhibited by people who: co-operate smoothly and in large numbers; who want to consume more and more; and whose tastes are standardized and can be easily influenced and anticipated … who feel free and independent, not subject to any authority or principle or conscience – yet willing to be commanded, to do what is expected of them, to fit into the social machine without friction; who can be guided without force, led without leadership, prompted without aim – except the one to make good, to be on the move, to function, to go ahead. (1956: 85) Submission to authority may bring a temporary relief from uncertainty, before another ‘lag’ arises. However, submission to the anonymous authority of the market also means that the individual begins to experience himself as ‘an investment’ that can be capitalized on if he engages in ruthless competition with others. Over time, a society emerges where ‘marketable’ character traits make everyone ‘as close as possible to the rest’ and, at the same time, ‘utterly alone’ and ‘pervaded by the deep sense of insecurity, anxiety and guilt’ which Fromm associated with living as separate, atomized selves (p. 86). Marketized society offers a range of ‘palliatives’ to help individuals forget the aloneness of their separate selves. These ‘palliatives’ include: ‘bureaucratized, mechanical work’, which, in Fromm’s account, dulls the awareness of the fundamental human longing for ‘transcendence and unity’; the entertainment industry that engenders the ‘passive consumption of sounds and sights’, as well as shopping malls that offer endless bargains and the satisfaction of ‘buying new things, and soon exchanging them for others’ (1956: 86). Importantly, both the deep sense of insecurity and the ‘palliatives’ deployed to relieve it are harnessed in a marketized society for the prevailing economic ends. Fromm’s analysis of post-war American capitalism has been prescient in explaining the forces at play in the contemporary neoliberal state that create the conditions for ‘escape from freedom’ and offer opportunities to submit to the anonymous authority of the market. Increasingly precarious life in the ‘competition state’ (Cerny 1997) combines with the ideal of the atomized, resilient self to intensify the drive to compete (see Chapter 5). The new entertainment industry of social media substitutes the need for deep connection to a few close friends with the ‘pseudo pleasure’ of being ‘liked’ and ‘followed’ by hundreds of online ‘friends’ on social media (Lanier 2018). In this context, the approaches contained in contemporary character education set out to simultaneously appeal to common-sense understandings of ‘how society works’ and to promulgate the ‘matrix’ of character traits such as self-reliance,

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optimism, grit and defence against dependency. However, due to the ‘lag’ between the desire for freedom and the failure of the neoliberal society to provide security to large swathes of its population, the neoliberal ‘matrix’ of character traits can only exacerbate the ‘unbearable burden’ of isolation and aloneness. All that the neoliberal script offers in terms of apparent ‘solutions’ is to encourage individuals to deny their dependency, need and vulnerability and defend themselves against such states through self-management and ‘manic activity’ (Layton 2008: 69). Since the neoliberal script is built on a ‘denial of vulnerability that it both stokes and deems shameful’ (p. 69), it generates widespread psychic suffering through the stigma of dependency and vulnerability. The tendency to stigmatize poverty and destitution as problems of dependency, weakness or anti-social behavior and to frame addiction and poor mental health as ‘vices’ was highlighted in the analysis of education policies in England in Chapter 5 (DfE 2019b). Tragically, the psychic wounds arising from socioeconomic disadvantage in the neoliberal state become themselves the forces that contribute to consolidating the atomized neoliberal life. For example, Jennifer Silva’s (2013: 84) study revealed that, although her young American working-class research participants needed robust social welfare and the benefits of solidarity with others, who are similarly disadvantaged, they rejected solidarity and displayed a ‘self-hardening’ of character. Years of hardship, humiliation and betrayal by social institutions supposed to serve them, taught them to be tough, to ‘numb the ache of betrayal and the hunger for connection by seizing upon cultural scripts of self-reliance, individualism, and personal responsibility’ (p. 109). Since the ‘hardened’ social character turns against himself rather than against the system, the anonymous authority or the power elite to whom he submitted his freedom, neoliberalism poses a serious threat to individuals, society and democracy. To explain how ‘escape from freedom’ can be damaging to democracy, Fromm (2001) drew on John Dewey’s reflection on lessons to be learned from the Second World War. According to Dewey, a serious threat to democracy does not arise from the actions of ‘foreign totalitarian states’ but is connected to: the existence within our own personal attitudes and within our own institutions of conditions similar to those which have given a victory to external authority, discipline, uniformity and dependence upon The Leader in foreign countries. The battlefield is also accordingly here – within ourselves and our institutions. (Dewey 1988: 98) Similar threats to democracy can be detected in the current rise of populism. Fromm’s social character highlights the importance of citizenship and history as school subjects that can enable young people to understand their life within frameworks that go beyond their immediate environment and individual

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lifespan. As discussed in Part I, mainstream approaches to character education either completely erase the political or present a narrow version, precluding debates on social obligations that go beyond the students’ immediate context (Suissa 2015). And yet, by opening these debates to questions about what kind of society we want (Suissa 2015: 110), citizenship education would not only contribute to developing more socially and politically engaged young people but also create stronger bonds of solidarity and, as a ‘side effect’, lessen anxiety.

The anonymous authority of ‘essential virtues’ and the static science of character Many programs for character education discussed in Part I are designed around ‘lists’ of ‘desirable’ traits. These traits are assembled together as the ‘content’ of character education under labels such as the ‘Golden Child’ (Morgan 2017); ‘the big five’ (Heckman and Kautz 2013) or the ‘Ten Essential Virtues’ (Lickona 2003, 2004). Schools are then encouraged to instill in students specific traits from the list or to ‘choose’ specific virtues or ‘desirable’ traits themselves. An example of the process of selecting the school’s ‘target virtues’, offered by one of the leading American character educators Thomas Lickona, illustrates how the process bypasses the lived experience of children and young people and the developmental processes that are already under way. Lickona recommends that teachers start with questions about the qualities that the school wishes its ‘graduates to possess’ and the ‘moral and intellectual strengths’ to best support them in leading ‘purposeful, productive, and fulfilling lives and to build a better world’ (2004: 225). Teachers working in small groups can first brainstorm such qualities and then compare lists generated by the different groups. They are also encouraged to compare their brainstorm results with a ‘pre-existing conceptual scheme defining good character’, for example the ‘Ten Essential Virtues’, guided by questions such as: ‘Which virtues are the best match for our school’s culture and the developmental level of our students?’ (2003: 1). According to Lickona, the brainstorming by different groups of teachers ‘nearly always’ leads to the groups listing many of the same qualities, hence his argument for certain ‘universal’ virtues. Importantly, whichever target virtues teachers eventually ‘settle on’, the list should be ‘comprehensive’ by incorporating important virtues that are ‘owned’ by the staff (2004: 227). Since the ‘content’ of a range of character interventions has been discussed in Part I, we now turn to the ‘process’. Lickona’s process starts with the school staff brainstorming the ‘moral and intellectual strengths’ that they want students to ‘possess’. It then moves on to matching the qualities brainstormed by teachers with a ‘pre-existing conceptual scheme’, presumably to further ‘sift through’ and reduce the list of target virtues. The staff are expected to ‘own’ the final list of virtues. The significant omission in the ‘content’ of the brainstorm is the emotional dimension to add to the ‘moral and intellectual strengths’. The process of identifying target virtues that will enable students to ‘build’ a ‘better world’ is a paper exercise with

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little connection to reality. Crucially, the process reverses the phenomenologicalpsychoanalytic approach that starts with the situated, embodied person. In effect, this process does not develop a deeper understanding of students but is limited to producing a list of virtues to take on the role of anonymous authority (Fromm 1949), i.e. to be called upon to persuade and oblige students to comply, in the name of an abstract ‘better world’. Although neo-Aristotelian scholars (Arthur et al. 2017) have distanced themselves from the content of virtue education such as Lickona’s, both approaches reflect the static, ‘Aristotelian-type’ science (Lewin 1931) that cannot adequately account for the dynamic, conflictual, often paradoxical, movement from childhood to adulthood discussed in the present and previous chapters. ‘Aristotelian-type’ science is based on a logic that seeks to eliminate the paradox as a sign of faulty thinking. We can see this logic in the intellectual balancing that seeks the golden mean between the extremes of deficiency and excess in neo-Aristotelian character education (Chapter 4). ‘Aristotelian-type’ science prioritizes the sophisticated twenty-first century brain over the heart. For example, making morally right choices is as rational and simple as choosing ‘between alternatives when the demands of two or more virtues collide’ (Arthur et al. 2017: 1). When juxtaposed with Fromm’s analysis of individuation and the formation of social character, ‘Aristotelian-type’ science clearly privileges a focus on the individual over the collective and the political. Its tendency toward abstraction erases the irresolvable tension between the process of individuation, which unfolds through the individual claiming freedom to pursue ‘who he really is’, and contemporary socio-cultural conditions that promote consumerism and standardization in thought and behavior (Fromm 1956). The pain of moral aloneness experienced under these conditions is a reminder of our (inter)dependency on others who, like ourselves, are unique and unpredictable rather than standardized and controllable. By contrast, Fromm worked from the premise that the relationship between the individual and society is dynamic, whereby both the ‘most beautiful’ and the ‘most ugly’ tendencies, inclinations and character traits are the result of social processes (2001: 9). This means that ‘society has not only a suppressing function – although it has that too – but it has also a creative function’ (p. 9). Fromm saw character emerge from the central paradox of human existence: we simultaneously seek closeness and independence, we strive for the security of our ‘oneness’ with others and at the same time seek to protect our uniqueness and particularity (1949: 47). Fromm was, therefore, an avid critic of ‘Aristotelian-type’ science that not only eliminates paradoxes but also perpetuates false dichotomies such as nature/culture and nature/society. In refining Freud’s ‘characterology’ (p. 32), which he considered to be the ‘most consistent and penetrating theory of character’ (p. 54), Fromm dismissed both the Aristotelian virtues and the traditional moralistic perspectives on character before Freud. Fromm (1949) emphasized that character is formed by a person’s experiences rather than by rationally ‘choosing’ specific desirable traits. Contrary to the

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assumption underlying the ‘list of virtues’ approaches, virtues cannot be isolated from the context of the whole character (i.e. the person in relation) and it is, therefore, ‘insufficient and misleading’ to consider particular virtues and vices as ‘separate traits’ (p. 33). For example, humility may turn out to be ‘nothing valuable’ when it is motivated by fear or when it compensates for suppressed arrogance (p. 33). Similarly, arrogance may be an expression of deep insecurity. Consequently, ethics and morality should deal with character as a whole rather than ‘lists’ of isolated traits and virtues. Similar to Freud, Fromm emphasized the importance of unconscious motivations, seeing character as a ‘system of strivings which underlie, but are not identical with, behavior’ (1949: 54). To shed light on the complexity underlying behavior, Fromm drew a distinction between behavior traits and character traits. Behavior traits pertain to actions that are observable by others. Although simple and unequivocal to a less careful observer, these behavior traits (and actions) may be a manifestation of a range of diverse character traits. A closer inspection of the conscious (and unconscious) motivation of a particular behavior trait may reveal a host of strivings that have little to do with the trait. For example, the behavior trait of ‘being courageous’ could be initially understood as behavior and action aimed at achieving a particular goal ‘without being deterred by risks to one’s comfort, freedom or life’ (p. 55). However, a closer inspection of the motivation behind ‘being courageous’ reveals a range of diverse character traits that have little to do with courage. Courageous action may be motivated by the desire to be admired on the part of an ambitious character. Alternatively, it may be motivated by the suicidal urge to seek danger and self-destruction in the face of despair, experienced by someone who does not value his life. The conscious (or unconscious) motivation of courageous behavior may also stem from the inability to sense danger in a threatening situation by a person who lacks imagination. Last, it may also be underpinned by ‘genuine devotion to the idea or aim for which a person acts’ as a motivation that is ‘conventionally assumed to be the basis of courage’ (p. 55). This understanding of courage is in stark contrast to the neo-Aristotelian abstract definition of courage as a golden mean that lies between the extremes of cowardice (as the extreme of deficiency) and rashness (extreme of excess). It encompasses the recognition that the way in which we act is not simply a result of rational, measured response but a complex interplay, within a specific situation, of thoughts, emotions and conscious, as well as unconscious, motivations.

‘Spaces which the heart feels’ in the classroom As discussed above, the ‘list of virtues’ approach risks ignoring the developmental journey of the student and forgetting that he is not reducible to a generalized, abstract collection of isolated traits. The adolescent student is an embodied, situated person experiencing the emotional ‘turmoil’ of individuation and the often-unsettling maturational changes of puberty. As Deborah Britzman (1998)

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explains, much of contemporary education refuses to acknowledge these ‘haunted’, ‘bothered’ experiences of self and thus denies its own difficulties. By bringing into the classroom his ‘conflicts with dependency, helplessness, authority, knowledge, love and hate’, the adolescent threatens our pedagogy (Britzman 2015: 3). He challenges the anonymous authority of the school and submits instead to the authority of the peer group, who often lead him astray. He seems to set out to recklessly break the web of rationality and certainty carefully woven by the teacher. At the same time, however, he is struggling with the fundamental contradiction of ‘industrial-type’ approaches to education which ‘settle for the generalizability of instruction, transmission, and progress, while the character’s vulnerability remains particular and subject to accidents and what is not known’ (Britzman 2015: 14). Seeking to transcend ‘industrial’ approaches to education, Fromm emphasized that the key concern of the educational process is not the tangible, practical results of the teacher’s efforts, but the student’s ‘attitude and orientation toward the world and oneself in the process of living’ (1949: 87). The teacher can claim ‘success’ in educating character insofar as she creates in the classroom a space where authority can be debated and uncertainty is recognized as part of human existence. This is not uncertainty in the sense of the precarious socio-economic conditions in the neoliberal state discussed above, but the existential uncertainty that the adolescent faces once his primary ties with his family have been severed in the process of individuation. From the space of this existential uncertainty, he can unite again with others, through the bonds of solidarity and love. Adolescence is a time when the individual is learning to be himself, developing the ‘faculties which are peculiarly his’: reason, love, and productive work (1949: 45). Fromm’s concept of love resonates with love as a moral emotion of otherness (Steinbock 2014). As we have seen in Chapter 6, in loving I am oriented toward the other person because I am experiencing his uniqueness as a bearer of value. In loving I refrain from trying to ‘improve’ and make the other in my image or expect him to love me back. As an emotion arising from care, responsibility, respect and knowledge of the other, love is the capacity of the mature character who is capable both of loving and productive work. The concept of productive work developed by Fromm (1949) is radically different from what has come to be understood as ‘productivity’, i.e. efficiency in maximizing outputs. Just as in the case of courage discussed above, to understand what productive work is (and is not) we need to consider the underlying motivation. Activity motivated by anxiety, such as ‘manic activity’ in defence against feelings of vulnerability (Layton 2008), does not constitute productive work. Activity based on submission to, or dependence on authority, is also not productive (Fromm 1949: 86). This is because, to engage in activity in the name of some authority, whether feared, loved or admired, means being motivated by a power outside oneself. For Fromm, productive work is to do with the ability to use our own ‘powers’ of reason

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and imagination to realize our potential independently of someone who may have authority or control over us. To reclaim the classroom as space for productive work, a ‘space which the heart feels’, the teacher needs to understand her adolescent students not from her position of authority but by being open-minded and connected. As Britzman pointed out, this is both the essential and the most difficult aspect of pedagogy: If the teacher is the keeper of the student’s heart and mind, the teacher’s open-mindedness made from a willingness to be affected by the lives of others is our best pedagogical resource, and the most difficult to sustain. (2010: 325–326) Importantly, the concepts of productive work, freedom and independence as developed by Fromm need to be distinguished from similar terms used in the neoliberal script, i.e. competitive productivity, independence and freedom of choice arising from submission to the anonymous authority of the market. Both Fromm and Merleau-Ponty referred to individuation as a process which leads to the emergence of our individuality in the sense of being free to reunite with others as unique individuals, as opposed to individualism in the sense of living as atomized, disconnected selves.

Conclusion This chapter has drawn on psychoanalytic theory to investigate aspects of character formation in adolescence which were mostly left unexplored in Merleau-Ponty’s (2010) Lectures. The emotional ‘turmoil’ of adolescence arises from the process of individuation which severs the primary ties. The unresolvable tension of individuation arises from the paradoxical nature of these childhood ties, as well as the bonds with others established in later life. Whatever the life stage, as humans we strive for the security of ‘oneness with others’ and, at the same time, try to protect our uniqueness and particularity. In adolescence, surpassing this tension relies either on submitting back to authority, or reconnecting to others from the newly-found individuality. The dialectics of individuation thus simultaneously pull the adolescent toward isolation, accompanied by anxiety, and toward the possibility of a new connection to the world, from her inner strength and solidarity with others (Fromm 2001). Intense emotions experienced in the process are a reminder of the inherently social nature of humans and the ties to others that need to be severed during individuation, only to be re-established if the integration of new functions is to be fully accomplished. Merleau-Ponty (2010: 407) illustrated the dialectics of integration by referring to Hegel’s idea of ‘surpassing while preserving’, as a process that involves both the ‘head and the heart’. These dialectics play out in the classroom in a range of unpredictable ways that, when seen through the lens of ‘industrial-type’ education, jeopardize the teacher’s lesson plans, undermine the techniques or interventions that seemed to work before and ‘waste’ everyone’s time.

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As Fromm noted, many readers reach for books on psychology because they expect to find ‘prescriptions’ for ‘happiness’ or ‘peace of mind’ (1949: x). He warned these readers that his writing ‘does not contain any such advice’ because it sets out to ‘make the reader question himself rather than pacify him’ (p. x). A similar expectation may be shared by a reader of a book on character education, for example that ‘character’ can be distilled into a ‘list of virtues’ and taught with the aid of ‘off-the-shelf’ resources. Bearing in mind the complexity that teachers need to understand and work with, the next chapter offers resources that may support character education, not as ‘prescriptions’ to dispense but as starting points in exploring questions about learning and living with others as interdependent selves.

References Arthur, J., Kristjánsson, K., Harrison, T., Sanderse, W. and Wright, D. 2017. Teaching Character and Virtue in Schools. London and New York: Routledge. Arnett, J.J. 2004. Emerging Adulthood: The Winding Road from the Late Teens through the Twenties. New York: Oxford University Press. Bion, W. 1963. Elements of Psychoanalysis. London: Heinemann. Blos, P. 1967. The second individuation process of adolescence, The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child 27: 162–186. Britzman, D.P. 1998. Lost Subjects, Contested Objects: Toward a Psychoanalytic Inquiry into Learning. Albany: State University of New York Press. Britzman, D.P. 2010. Teachers and Eros, Sex Education 10 (3): 325–330. Britzman, D.P. 2015. A Psychoanalyst in the Classroom: On the Human Condition of Education. Albany: State University of New York Press. Cerny, P.G. 1997. Paradoxes of the competition state: the dynamics of political globalization, Government and Opposition 32 (2): 251–274. Deutsch, H. 1944. The Psychology of Women: A Psychoanalytic Interpretation (Vol. 1). New York: Grune & Stratton. Dewey, J. 1988. The Later Works, 1925–1953 (Vol 13: 1938–1939) (Ed. J.A. Boydston). Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. DfE (Department for Education). 2019a. Relationships Education, Relationships and Sex Education, and Health Education in England: Government Consultation Response. London: HMSO. DfE (Department for Education). 2019b. Character Education: Framework Guidance. London: HMSO. DoH/DfE (Department of Health, Department for Education). 2017. Transforming Children and Young People’s Mental Health Provision: A Green Paper. London: HMSO. Freud, A. 1935. Psychoanalysis for Teachers and Parents. Boston: Emerson Books. Freud, A. 1969. Adolescence. In The Writings of Anna Freud: Research at the Hampstead Child-Therapy Clinic, and Other Papers 1956–1965 (Vol. 5), pp. 136–166. New York: International Universities Press. Freud, S. 1905. Three essays on the theory of sexuality. In The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 14, Ed. J. Strachey), pp. 109–140. London: The Hogarth Press.

160 Phenomenology and character formation Freud, S. 1958. Adolescence, Psychoanalytic Study of the Child 13 (1): 255–278. Fromm, E. 1949. Man for Himself: An Enquiry into the Psychology of Ethics. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Fromm, E. 1956. The Art of Loving. New York: Harper & Row. Fromm, E. 2001. The Fear of Freedom. London and New York: Routledge. (Originally published in 1942). Fromm, E. 2013. Foreword II. In Escape from Freedom (pp. 17–24). New York: Open Road Media. Fromm, E. and Funk, R. 2019. The Revision of Psychoanalysis. London and New York: Routledge. Goleman, D. 2003. Destructive Emotions and how We Can Overcome Them: A Dialogue with the Dalai Lama. London: Bloomsbury. Haidt, J. 2003. The moral emotions. In Davidson, J.R., Scherer, K.R. and Goldsmith, H. H. (Eds.) Handbook of Affective Sciences, pp. 852–870. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Harwood, V. and Allan, J. 2014. Psychopathology at School: Theorizing Mental Disorders in Education. Abingdon: Routledge. Heckman, J.J. and Kautz, T. 2013. Fostering and Measuring Skills: Interventions That Improve Character and Cognition. Cambridge: National Bureau of Economic Research. Kerkham, P. 2003. Menstruation: the gap in the text? Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy 17 (4): 279–299. Klein, M. 1998. Love, Guilt and Reparation and Other Works 1921–1945. London: Vintage. Lanier, J. 2018. Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now. London: The Bodley Head. Layton, L. 2008. What divides the subject? Psychoanalytic reflections on subjectivity, subjection and resistance, Subjectivity 22: 60–72. Lewin, K. 1931. The conflict between Aristotelian and Galilean modes of thought in contemporary psychology, Journal of General Psychology 5: 141–177. Lickona, T. 2003. The content of our character: ten essential virtues, The Fourth and Fifth Rs 10 (1): 1–3. Lickona, T. 2004. Character Matters: How to Help Our Children Develop Good Judgment, Integrity, and Other Essential Virtues. New York: Simon & Schuster. McCarthy, J.B. 1995. Adolescent character formation and psychoanalytic theory, American Journal of Psychoanalysis 55 (3): 245–267. Merleau-Ponty, M. 2002. Phenomenology of Perception (Trans. C. Smith). Abingdon: Routledge. (Originally published in 1945). Merleau-Ponty, M. 2004. The World of Perception (Trans. O. Davis). Abingdon: Routledge. (Originally published in 1948). Merleau-Ponty, M. 2010. Child Psychology and Pedagogy: The Sorbonne Lectures 1949–1952. (trans. T. Welsh). Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Morgan, N. 2017. Taught not Caught: Educating for 21st Century Character. Melton: John Catt Educational. Seligman, M.E.P., Gillham, J., Revich, K. and Kinkins, M. 2009. Positive education: positive psychology and classroom interventions, Oxford Review of Education 35 (3): 293–311. Silva, J. 2013. Coming Up Short: Working-Class Adulthood in an Age of Uncertainty. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Reclaiming ‘spaces which the heart feels’ 161 Steinbock, A.J. 2014. Moral Emotions: Reclaiming the Evidence of the Heart. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Suissa, J. 2015. Character education and the disappearance of the political, Ethics and Education 10 (1): 105–117. Waddell, M. 2018. On Adolescence: Inside Stories. Abingdon: Routledge.

Chapter 9

Character education and a ‘thousand contingencies’

Is good character ‘taught’ or ‘caught’? The contemporary approaches to character education examined in Part I assume that character should not be left to chance and, therefore, should be taught explicitly. This has led to the development of ‘off-the-shelf’ lesson plans, self-help resources and curricular interventions designed to teach, measure and evaluate pre-specified outcomes pertaining to individual character or virtue. However, as argued in Chapters 7 and 8, character formation is a complex, multi-layered process. The developmental path from childhood and adolescence to adulthood is marked by an inner conflict between the need for security found in the child’s bonds with others and the desire to break free of these bonds and challenge the authority of others. This inner conflict prompted Sigmund Freud’s observation that teaching is one of the ‘impossible’ professions in which ‘one can be sure only of unsatisfying results’ (1937: 400). If Freud is correct, then, by the same logic, we also need to acknowledge the uncertainty of ‘satisfying’ outcomes. This, in turn, raises questions that go beyond the simple consideration of whether character is taught or caught. Can teaching about character, isolated from the social contexts in which character develops, bring about the desired outcomes? How can pedagogy respond to a call for learning and living ‘on a damaged planet’ (Nxumalo 2018)? Is there anything that pedagogy can ‘touch’ if children are already ‘people with their own minds and desires’ and teachers are ‘children-no-longer’ (Britzman 2015: 143)? If the teacher’s job is to modify and shape character, then how can teaching be ethical, i.e. ‘nonviolent’ (Todd 2003: 3)? How can we tell the difference between moral education and indoctrination (Hand 2018)? What if the expectation of a ‘perfect match’ between input and outcome constitutes a ‘fundamental misunderstanding of what education is about and a fundamental misunderstanding of what makes education work’ (Biesta 2013: 3)? This chapter considers these questions and presents, in a workshop format, examples of how a pedagogy of interdependence might offer an alternative to the approaches to character education currently in vogue. The workshops are aimed at both qualified and student teachers and

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designed to take place in the context of an integrated block of study such as a Continuing Professional Development program or university module. The title of this chapter refers to Paul Ricoeur’s phenomenological analysis of the narrative as an account of unfolding events that always involves a ‘thousand contingencies’ (1980: 174). Understanding any story, be it a narrative of our lives or of a fictional character, involves looking back from the present moment to the events leading up to it and seeing the present as contingent on events that were not easily predicted in advance. To understand where I am now is to see the present as a conclusion to a story: acceptable rather than predictable. The ‘thousand contingencies’ of children’s lives raise questions about the acceptability of content and methods in character education. Since the teacher effects change in her students, she may also change the narrative of their life, for good or ill. The core issue, therefore, is not whether this change is predictable but whether it is acceptable. Whilst character education dispensed in the form of lessons about ‘virtues and vices’ or other content may modify students’ behavior or even their thinking, both the method and the ensuing change may be unacceptable. For example, pursuit of the ‘ideal’ self may give rise to feelings of inadequacy or failure in children who do not measure up or are made to feel that they do not measure up. The advocacy of resilience and optimism ‘against all odds’ may engender an inflated self-perception by students of their capabilities or indifference to the condition of others. Good character can be ‘taught’ and ‘caught’ when education becomes a moral practice, attentive not just to the content but also to the child and the interpersonal relationships within which her character develops. The interpersonal connection does not begin with reciting pre-prepared scripts borrowed for example from positive psychology. In fact, some scripts, such as: ‘You can be really proud of yourself’, may close down the interpersonal dimension of learning and living with others (Chapter 6). Opening up the interpersonal nexus is made possible through the experience of moral emotions of selfgivenness (e.g. shame, guilt), possibility (hope, despair) and otherness (trust and loving) (Steinbock 2014). Character is also ‘caught’ or shaped by broader socio-economic and cultural influences (Chapter 8). Ironically, a society that asserts the primacy of the self-reliant, atomized self may undo any lessons in altruistic virtue taught in school. The seven professional development workshops outlined in this chapter address themes explored in the earlier chapters which lie at the heart of character formation in childhood and adolescence in contemporary society: the family; moral aloneness in the age of social media; optimism; sharing; authority; exclusion; and indoctrination. The overarching aim of the workshop outlines presented below is to illustrate the principles of a pedagogy of interdependence. The workshops seek to support character education, not as ‘prescriptions’ to dispense or lesson plans to deliver, but as opportunities that enable practitioners to explore new ways of thinking about character

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education. The method is, therefore, exploratory and the content aims to enhance students’ understanding of what it means to learn and live with others as interdependent selves.

Workshop 1: The family Rationale The theme explored in this workshop is the family and in particular the influence of family on children’s emotional development. As discussed in Chapters 7 and 8, the primary ties between the child and her parents or carers are essential for her well-being. From birth, the child learns to see herself in a social role and relationships with her parents are characterized by the contradictory feelings of love and hostility. These conflicting emotions arise from the child’s neediness and vulnerability, a feeling that she ‘can do nothing’ but ‘wants everything’ (Merleau-Ponty 2010: 286). But the child’s character is not shaped solely by the interpersonal relationships within the family as a selfcontained, atomized ‘unit’. The parents are the mediators of the child’s connections with the ‘outside’ world and their upbringing styles bear an imprint of wider culture. As Fromm pointed out, the family is the ‘psychic agency’ of society: by adjusting herself to her family, the child also acquires a ‘matrix’ of socially desirable traits or the social character (1949: 60). The family is thus more than a source of the primary ties and a ‘secure base’ in which the child’s emotional conflicts play out. Through the family, the child enters society and, in turn, society’s culture ‘enters’ the child. Consequently, resources used in the classroom need to be examined for their explicit and implicit cultural messages. For example, the film Inside Out, selected as a stimulus for discussions on the theme of family, depicts the conflicts experienced by the main child character, with her family depicted as a ‘family island’. From the cultural sociology perspective (see Chapter 3), the metaphor of the ‘family island’ illustrates the dominant neoliberal script of the family as a self-contained, atomized ‘unit’. This can be juxtaposed with the Gyptian families depicted in Northern Lights (Pullman 1995), who are connected with their community through relations of interdependence. These relations transcend blood ties and Gyptian children are loved and cared for by all members of the community. This workshop focuses first on ways of supporting children’s emotional development rooted in an understanding of the whole spectrum of emotions. All emotions, both ‘positive’ and ‘negative’, are important because they arise from our intense attachments to people and events that we are unable to control (Nussbaum 2001). Second, the workshop introduces the phenomenon of human interdependence illustrated by the imaginary Gyptian community (Pullman 1995).

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Aims   

To explore the deep meaning and significance of emotions as ‘signals’ of attachment to people on whom children depend but are unable to control To explore relations of interdependence and their significance to the individual, community and society To consider how these meanings might be conveyed through curriculum content and classroom activities

Questions to discuss in the workshop   

Using the stimulus of Inside Out, what messages about emotions could be used in the classroom to support children’s understanding of the whole spectrum of emotions, both ‘positive’ and ‘negative’? What classroom activities based on Inside Out could support these messages? What classroom activities could enhance children’s understanding of interdependence as depicted in Northern Lights?

Resources to be studied by participants in preparation for the workshop  

Inside Out, computer-animated film by Pixar Animation Studios, 2015 Chapter 7, Northern Lights by Philip Pullman (1995, pp. 111–130)

Inside Out is the story of an 11-year-old girl called Riley, whose world turns upside down when her parents move to San Francisco and she has to leave behind her happy childhood home and hockey friends in Minnesota. Her emotional upheaval is acted out by five animated characters: Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust and Anger. These characters give us an insight into what goes on inside Riley’s mind as they compete for control over her emotions by operating a console of levers. Joy sets out to become the dominant, ‘super’ emotion in Riley’s life. As Riley struggles at her new school and at home, each fight with her parents or friction at school leads to the collapse of one of her ‘personality islands’: the friendship, family and hockey ‘islands’, represented in the film as floating islands that crumble one by one. The damage is repaired partly through Riley’s acceptance of what Sadness tells her. One of the key messages in Riley’s story, that sorrow is as ‘real’ and valuable as happiness, offers an important alternative to the messages about the undesirable ‘negative’ emotions that characterize much of emotions work. The film also conveys a message pertaining to the dominant script of the family as an atomized unit, through the metaphor and image of the ‘family island’. To counterbalance this message, it is important to consider diverse families. Philip Pullman’s Northern Lights (1995) situates the main character, Lyra, within the Gyptian community, bonded by ties of interdependence and committed to security and justice for all.

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Notes to workshop facilitator The key message of Inside Out pertaining to the importance of the full range of emotions may help children to develop a deeper understanding of their own emotions. Based on a discussion of Riley’s emotional ‘roller-coaster’, a number of messages could be formulated to support this deeper understanding, for example:     

Emotions are important because they show me that I am connected to others: I care about them and I depend on their care Emotions change: my feelings come and go and I will not feel like this (e.g. unhappy or sad) forever There is more to who I am than my feelings, even if I experience some unpleasant feelings more often than happy feelings Emotions can tell me why I am feeling like this I can try to change how I feel if I want to

Specific resources to assist children in understanding anger include an approach to ‘listening to’ and ‘making friends’ with the child’s anger offered by the picture book Anh’s Anger (Silver and Krömer 2009; Davies 2014: 52–53). Any content on the theme of family needs to account for the diverse families that make up modern society. Few real-life families measure up to the ‘perfect’, affluent family depicted in Inside Out. By contrast, books such as The Suitcase Kid (Wilson 1993) and My Name Is Why: A Memoir (Sissay 2019, suitable for upper years of secondary school) show families in which childhood and adolescence are troubled by divorce, adoption and racism. As explained above, both the content and the method need to be acceptable if good character is to be ‘taught’ and ‘caught’. Good character can be ‘caught’ when the teacher is attentive to the child and the interpersonal relationships in the classroom. Given children’s need for interpersonal connection, refraining from judgement and guiding children through their anger and other ‘negative’ emotions, e.g. as elaborated by Davies (2014), may support them when they bring the emotional ‘roller coaster’ of family troubles into the classroom.

Workshop 2: Moral aloneness in the age of social media Rationale Moral aloneness, a widespread social phenomenon in modernity, has in recent years been exacerbated by the rise of social media. As explained in Chapter 8, because of human interdependence, we have a deep need to be connected to others and to the world (Fromm 2001). By contrast, isolation and physical aloneness are experienced as acute threats to our existence. Fromm (2001) describes moral aloneness as the absence of relatedness to others. Moral aloneness is different from a lack of physical contact. For example, the individual may be

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physically isolated from others and yet connected to values or ideas that give him a sense of ‘belonging’. On the other hand, he may be surrounded by others but still be overcome by a feeling of complete isolation, as a threat to his emotional and mental well-being. The experience of aloneness is particularly intense during the process of individuation in adolescence. The breaking of primary ties in adolescence is accompanied by growing physical, emotional and mental strength, as well as awareness of one’s individuality. But individuation is also characterized by a separation from others which is threatening and anxiety-provoking. Typical defences against moral aloneness in adolescence include submission to the authority of the peer group (explored further in Workshop 4) and the ‘adolescent syndrome of ideality’ (Britzman 2015: 79). The adolescent substitutes the loss of the security of his childhood attachments with fantasies and dreams of super-power and perfection. In the fantasy world, he is joined by idealized figures to win battles against evil people which are often a reflection of his real-life dynamics. Social media tap into both the existential dread of aloneness and the adolescent ‘syndrome of ideality’. However, the relief they offer is short-lived and problematic, due to online safety threats and the ubiquity of social media in the lives of young people. Social media are designed to keep users engaged through ‘addictive signifiers’ (Elliott and Lemert 2006: 27) in the form of ‘like’ buttons, ‘retweets’, ‘shares’ and other popularity metrics, which offer psychological rewards that can be as ‘hollow’ as they are ‘seductive’ (Lewis 2017; Lanier 2018). By substituting the need for deep connection to a few close friends with the ‘pseudo pleasure’ of being ‘liked’ by hundreds of online friends, social media enhance the culture of ‘new individualism’ (Elliott and Lemert 2006). As a result, time spent by the ‘iPhone generation’ on social media has been found to correlate with increased loneliness and symptoms of depression, as well as significant decrease in time spent with friends in person (Twenge 2018). These negative consequences for the individual add to broader threats arising from ‘fake news’. Aims   

To use a reproduction of Paul Klee’s watercolor ‘Twittering Machine’ (1922) as a stimulus for discussing the problems that arise from excessive, uncritical use of digital media To discuss ways of protecting children and adolescents from the loneliness and anxieties of the digital age To consider the content and methods for helping students to develop a more balanced and more critical use of social media

Questions to discuss in the workshop  

What psychological problems arise from the excessive use of digital media? What can teachers and parents do to protect students from these problems?

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Which content and methods could be used in the classroom to develop critical digital literacies?

Resources to be studied by participants in preparation for the workshop  

A reproduction of Paul Klee’s (1922) watercolor ‘Twittering Machine’ Chapter 11 (Conclusion, pp. 289–315) from iGen: Why Today’s SuperConnected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less happy – and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood, by Jean Twenge (2018)

Paul Klee’s surrealist watercolor features a row of stick-figure birds sitting on an axle that is turned by a crank. The axle hovers over a reddish pit and, as the birds clutch onto it, their imaginary squawking has been interpreted by some commentators as ‘bait’ to lure victims to the pit. In a book similarly titled The Twittering Machine, Richard Seymour (2019) uses Klee’s watercolor as a stimulus for discussing the pitfalls of Twitter and other social media, in particular what we get from the ‘twittering machine’ and what happens when we are lured into its ‘pit’. Jean Twenge’s (2018) book is a study of ‘iGen’ (the generation born after 1995), the first generation who reached adolescence after the widespread adoption of smartphones. Drawing on empirical data, Twenge analyses the lifestyles, values and habits of young Americans who experienced the adverse psychological effects of the paradox of technologically-enabled isolation and disconnection. The concluding chapter of Twenge’s (2018) book offers a range of approaches to guiding them out of this disconnection. Notes to workshop facilitator The dialectics of individuation simultaneously pull the adolescent toward isolation accompanied by anxiety and toward the possibility of a new connection to the world, from his inner strength and solidarity with others. For example, The Good Childhood Report 2020 cites ‘good’ friendships as enhancing the levels of happiness and life satisfaction of students aged 10–15, in contrast to the fear of failure experienced at school as a result of pressure to succeed (The Children’s Society 2020). ‘Good’ friendships were defined by students in terms of reciprocity, intimacy (closeness), trust and solidarity (p. 76). The dialectics of individuation make adolescence a ‘dangerous’ time, and a safe, balanced use of digital media needs to be given due priority. Social media can play a more positive role in the lives of adolescent students but this is predicated on developing critical digital literacies (Carrington 2018). The uses, abuses, attractions and pitfalls of social media lend themselves to debate and research by the students themselves. An effective resource for developing students’ critical digital literacy has been used in Finland (FactBar 2018) and can be found below in the References to this chapter.

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Workshop 3: Optimism Rationale This workshop focuses on the tendency to see optimism as a ‘super’ character trait both in positive psychology, as an antidote to the apparent ‘epidemic of pessimism’ (Seligman 1991), and in mainstream approaches to character education. The ‘ideal’ character is often defined in education policy and practice as a positive or optimistic, resilient, productive, high-achieving, self-reliant individual. However, as explained in Chapter 6, optimism needs to be contrasted with the moral emotion of hope. It is hope, not optimism, that opens the interpersonal connection. Hope cannot be reduced to the mastery of positive thinking or learned optimism (Seligman 1991). The experience of hope reveals me as dependent and not in control, thus opening myself to the reality of human interdependence. By contrast, optimism is a rationalizing activity of a self-grounding individual who posits the future in some positive way, such as ‘this is bad but may be for the best’ (Steinbock 2007: 439). Positive thinking, as in ‘I can do better next time’, is also distinct from hope as it relies on conditioning or convincing myself that things will unfold in a particular way. Whilst pessimism is the opposite of optimism, hope (and its opposite, despair) may be met with denial, a refusal to accept the reality that confronts me, in order to posit a ‘different reality’ (Steinbock 2014: 174). Through my denial of reality, both hope and despair cease to matter, because the ‘alternative’ reality is of my own making. But denial brings its own dangers, both to individuals and society. As discussed in Chapter 2, the routine use of techniques for blocking negative thoughts and distressing possibilities may take the pursuit of optimism into the territory of ‘deliberate self-deception’ (Ehrenreich 2009: 5). Unduly optimistic attitudes that block or diminish the urgency of pressing social issues have large-scale implications, such as environmental damage that threatens the sustainability of life on Earth. A denial of the mutual dependence of human and non-human species and ecosystems that sustain life may create an illusion of progress or control but, in the longer term, make the ground for hope impossible. In the context of catastrophic environmental degradation, fervently denied by ‘optimists’, pedagogy needs to work with the notion of interdependence that extends beyond interpersonal relations to embrace the dependence of all living species on our planet. In agreement with MerleauPonty (2002: 499), understanding that the world is not ‘an object’ of our manipulation but ‘the ground’ which we inhabit and share with others is essential for hope. This workshop explores the distinction between optimism and hope and how this distinction can stimulate classroom discussions aimed at enabling students to develop their position on pressing environmental issues. The aim of this workshop is inspired by Fikile Nxumalo’s (2018) question pertaining to learning and living on a ‘damaged planet’.

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Aim 

To explore how pedagogy can respond to a call for learning and living on a ‘damaged planet’ (Nxumalo 2018)

Questions to discuss in the workshop   

What kinds of responses to environmental degradation are acceptable? What might ‘informed’ and ‘emotionally mature’ mean in taking a stance on current environmental issues? Which stimuli, content and activities could support students in developing their own ‘informed’, ‘emotionally mature’ position on environmental issues?

Resources to be studied by participants in preparation for the workshop The ‘pessimism’ of climate activists such as Greta Thunberg is met either with support or criticism. For example, critics refer to Thunberg’s ‘pessimism’ as illjudged, ‘demoralizing’ or ‘foolish’. There have been numerous critical media commentaries on Thunberg. Two or three of such commentaries can be used to examine how optimism is positioned as the acceptable response to climate change and how pessimism, hope and despair are either silenced or considered as inappropriate. For example, Thunberg’s speeches at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, Katowice 2018 and World Economic Forum, Davos 2019 (The Environment Show 2020) were met with the following criticism: 



Luxury leader LVMH… laments Thunberg’s pessimism, reported by Reuters (White 2019). The CEO of a luxury fashion house LVMH was reported to emphasize that his global luxury goods conglomerate was further cutting emissions and referred to Greta Thunberg’s lack of optimism about climate issues as ‘demoralizing’ for young people. Davos: Trump decries climate ‘prophets of doom’ with Thunberg in audience, reported by the BBC (2019). President Trump called for rejecting ‘the perennial prophets of doom’ as the ‘heirs of yesterday’s foolish fortune tellers’.

Notes to workshop facilitator A compelling analysis of ‘greenwashing’, a practice developed by private sector companies in the wake of carbon neutral government policies, is offered by Frances Bowen (2014). After Greenwashing (Bowen 2014) presents case studies of companies whose positive environmental image failed to deliver improved environmental impacts. These case studies could provide topics for debate by older students. Complex, rich debate can also stem from the exploration of the

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multiple meanings of the signature used by Extinction Rebellion (XR) in its official communications: ‘With love and rage’. This signature is an expression of the XR activists’ love for ‘nature’ as well as intense anger in response to the ongoing environmental destruction (Knops 2020: 2). As Louise Knops argues, it is also an articulation of an understanding that emotions and in particular the ‘affective bifurcation’ of love and rage can mobilize people more effectively than governmental policies or academic debates. In the context of early years education, pedagogical responses to learning and living ‘on a damaged planet’ are discussed by Fikile Nxumalo (2018). The phenomenon of ‘cruel optimism’ analyzed by Lauren Berlant (2011) could be used as a stimulus for exploring other pressing social issues in the competition state (Ball 2009), such as the loss of job security and upward mobility (see also Chapter 5). ‘Cruel optimism’ is an attachment to the traditional fantasies of ‘the good life’ such as equality, job security and upward mobility that erases the reality of the increasingly precarious lives experienced by large swathes of population in the ‘post-affluent’ society, post-credit crunch of 2008 (Berlant 2011: 3). There is a double-bind in cruel optimism: it seeks to appeal to our attachment to illusions that sustain our lives, but at the same time provide a barrier to our flourishing. Pursuing the virtues of resilience and unrelenting optimism may amount to ‘cruel optimism’.

Workshop 4: Sharing Rationale This workshop explores the theme of sharing and in particular the complexity of an apparently simple event recurring time and again in early childhood settings: a child refuses to share his toy with another child. Without teacher intervention, the situation can escalate into a conflict between the two children. With teacher intervention, both children are likely to soon forget the conflict and carry on playing together, to mutual enjoyment. However, the pedagogical value of this event does not just depend on positive outcomes such as a successful restoration of harmonious playtime. The pedagogical value is contingent on the method of teacher intervention and the motivation behind the child’s decision to comply with or defy the teacher. The teacher’s intervention may convey a range of messages and evoke in the child diverse feelings and motivations for sharing toys. An appeal to the child’s reason may involve transactional messages such as: ‘If you share your toy with Jimmy, then he will share his toys with you too’. Alternatively, a more open-ended question can be asked: ‘Why do we share toys in our classroom?’ Messages such as: ‘Look how upset Jimmy is because you don’t want to share your toy’ and ‘All wellbehaved children share toys (but you are refusing to do so)’ may evoke guilt and shame respectively. As explained in Chapter 6, shame and guilt have a positive moral significance for adults, because they prompt repentance and

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reorient the individual towards higher values and other-oriented behavior (Steinbock 2014). For example, I may feel shame because ‘what I have done’ or ‘who I am’ falls short of my own values or does not measure up to societal expectations. However, shaming children or making them feel guilty may not be helpful, especially if the upbringing style of their parents excessively relies on evoking guilt and shame. An alternative moral emotion that this situation may give rise to is trust. My trust in the child presupposes her freedom to choose to share the toy, not because I told her to do so or to make me proud, but because we are learning that the resources in our classroom are for all to share. I can express my trust in the child by saying: ‘I know I can trust you. Have a think about sharing the toy with Jimmy and let me know what you would like to do.’ In light of the above, the material for discussion in this workshop pertains to teacher interventions and their underlying messages. Aims   

To explore a range of motivations for sharing or refusing to share toys To explore the ways in which the teacher may intervene in the event of a child refusing to share toys or other classroom resources To consider what makes interventions acceptable or unacceptable

Questions to discuss in the workshop    

What motivations underpin children’s refusal to share toys? How can teachers respond when a child refuses to share toys? What kinds of teacher messages about sharing toys would be of most value pedagogically? How can the theme of sharing be explored with children in the classroom?

Resources to be studied by participants in preparation for the workshop   

Should I Share My Toys? by Michael Gordon (2017) A passage on sharing toys from Teaching Character and Virtues in School by James Arthur et al. (2017: 10), cited below A passage on sharing from ‘Searching for Character and the Role of Schools’ by Jane Goodman (2018: 6), cited below

The above resources illustrate the degrees of complexity with which the theme of sharing toys may be approached by teachers. Michael Gordon’s (2017) picture book Should I Share My Toys? is one of numerous stories about sharing, with a simple moral that sharing toys is a prerequisite for happy play and good behavior. The main characters are Finn, a little boy who is always willing to share his toys and Chad, his pet panda teddy bear who does not like sharing. After many attempts, Finn succeeds in teaching Chad to share

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and happy play resumes. To pre-empt potential problems, the teacher may decide to read and discuss the book with children and recall the moral of the story when an incident of non-sharing occurs in the future. A neo-Aristotelian perspective on the theme of sharing presented in Teaching Character and Virtue in Schools sheds light on how a direct teacher intervention can be seen as part of the broader character agenda for developing virtues that would ‘lead pupils to good habits and to flourish as responsible citizens’ (Arthur et al. 2017: 10). In Arthur et al.’s example, a refusal to share toys ‘results in tears’ because the other children feel ‘excluded and aggrieved’: The nursery teacher instinctively intervenes, encouraging and persuading the child to share the toy. In so doing, the child begins to learn how to socialise in a fair way – in fact, he begins to learn what justice is. (2017: 10) Jane Goodman’s (2018) interpretation of the same event highlights the complexity of reasons for sharing toys, as well as issues with authority that may arise from the teacher–child interaction. The question ‘Why should I share my toy with x?’ can be answered as: ‘So x will share hers with you,’ or ‘to make her happy’ (2018: 6). As Goodman points out, sharing toys can also be justified on the grounds of equal entitlement. The motivations underlying the child’s decision to share his toy after teacher intervention are equally complex: none of the cooperative, obliging, submissive behaviors … would count as virtuous if they are motivated from utilitarian inclinations to get along through obedience to authority; or worse, to ingratiate because of what others can do for you, rather than out of moral obligation. (Goodman 2018: 6) The incident of the child refusing to share her toys can thus involve many ‘contingencies’ (Ricoeur 1980). Shifting focus from the expected behavioral outcome to the ways in which the teacher can intervene allows us to consider what is acceptable rather than what is predictable. Notes to workshop facilitator To explore acceptable methods of persuasion, the participants may consider whether it is always acceptable to persuade the child to share her toy in the first place. For example, what if this is the child’s favorite toy to which she is attached and the other child does not really care about it? Is it acceptable to use the picture book by Gordon (2017) which, by creating the character of a panda teddy bear who does not like sharing toys, reverses (presumably by chance rather than conscious intention) the reality of human resistance to sharing living space with non-human inhabitants of our planet?

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The questions about acceptable methods highlight the ethical position of the teacher in situations of conflict, and the fine balance between non-interference in ‘permitting the child her idiom and frustration’, and interference ‘through demanding a delay in satisfaction’ (Britzman 2015: 142). According to Britzman, what makes interference acceptable is connecting to the child as she is and resisting the ‘urge to correct misbehavior and turn the child into someone just like the teacher’ (p. 142). Taking a moralistic stance by ‘encouraging and persuading’ the child to share her toy so that she can learn ‘how to socialise in a fair way’ (Arthur et al. 2017: 10) may be an intrusion into the child’s world which, as adults, we only partially understand. The ethical tone of the teacher’s intervention is also contingent on the history of her relationships with the children, as well as on how this event will affect her attitude toward the child in the future. The theme of sharing toys ventures into the world of children’s play. As explained in Chapter 7, contrary to the common assumption that ‘free’ (unstructured) play simply involves a mimicry of adult behavior, children’s play has its own meaning (Welsh 2013). Although children often take on adult roles in play and may readily respond to being persuaded to share toys, because ‘this is what all good people do’, this does not mean that they simply mimic adult behavior. Play is a way of actively decentering, i.e. of ‘living for a moment in the other’ (Merleau-Ponty 2010: 25). Therefore, a reasoned explanation which encourages ‘decentering’, i.e. understanding the other child, which allows her a choice and refrains from judgement or punishment if she decides not to share the toy, opens a situation that is acceptable rather than predictable. This situation allows the child to make her own decision to act rather than to be someone ‘just like the teacher’. The teacher’s trust in the child’s ability to ‘decenter’ enables the child to experience the interpersonal possibilities arising from being trusted.

Workshop 5: Authority Rationale The severing of primary ties in adolescence raises questions of parental authority and the concomitant feeling of guilt which depends on the manner in which this authority is exercised (Chapter 8). According to Fromm (1949: 154), a child raised by authoritarian parents may become ‘weighed down’ by guilt and at the same time react to the pressure of authority by rebelling against the parents. At school, overt parental authority is replaced by the anonymous authority of rules that oblige and persuade adolescents ‘in the name of science, common sense, and cooperation’ (p. 156). Without open discussion, the anonymous authority of rules can be experienced as meaningless or even oppressive. Ironically, whereas the adolescent rebels against adult authority, he tends to idealize the group and its authority, including gang culture.

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Conflict over authority is accompanied by a ‘turmoil’ of intense feelings, including hate. As explained in Chapter 8, it is important to distinguish between ‘rational’, reactive hate and ‘irrational’, character-conditioned hate (Fromm 1949). Reactive hate may arise in response to vital threats to one’s own or another person’s freedom, life or ideas and, as such, has an important function as a source of actions that aim to protect life. The removal of the threat removes the feeling of hate. Similar to anger, reactive hate may display a relatively high degree of prosocial orientation (Haidt 2003). By contrast, ‘irrational’, character-conditioned hate does not stem from reacting to external stimuli but from ‘continuous readiness to hate’ (Fromm 1949: 215). It may be directed against others as well as oneself and lead to destructive or self-destructive behavior. The difference between these two types of hate highlights how important it is to understand the sources of adolescent expressions of hate. ‘I hate you’ messages may be a reaction to a perceived vital threat or a manifestation of ‘awkward’ oppositional teenage behavior, rather than an articulation of character-conditioned hate. Driven by contradictory emotions, conflicting thoughts and ‘blind faith’ in fantasies that have little relation to reality (Britzman 2015: 79), adolescents’ behavior is often inexplicable to themselves and others. The emotional ‘turmoil’ and transgressions of adolescence mean that teachers may be reluctant to trust adolescents. This workshop aims to stimulate an exploration of conflicts over authority by students attending secondary school. The focus of the workshop is both on content, i.e. discussion of conflicts over authority, and method, i.e. the ways in which the teacher might respond when such conflicts arise. The latter is related to Deborah Britzman’s question about connecting to adolescent students, given that adolescents are already ‘people with their own minds and desires’ and teachers are ‘children-no-longer’ (2015: 143). Aims  

To explore conflicts over authority and teachers’ responses to such conflicts To consider Britzman’s question about the ways in which the teacher can connect to students, bearing in mind that young students are already ‘people with their own minds and desires’ and teachers are ‘children-no-longer’ (2015: 143)

Questions to discuss in the workshop    

What insights into interdependence, trust and authority are explored in Lord of the Flies? How could issues of authority and conflict over authority be presented for classroom discussion? What messages could be used by teachers to express a deeper understanding of the emotional ‘turmoil’ of adolescence? How can teachers respond when students challenge their authority?

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Resources to be studied by participants in preparation for the workshop 

Lord of the Flies, by William Golding (1954), also available to study as a 90-minute feature film of the same title directed by Peter Brook (1963)

Lord of the Flies is a story of a ‘thousand contingencies’ that unfold after a plane crash leaves 30 schoolboys stranded on a remote island and, with no adult survivors, forced to fend for themselves. Initially, the boys draw both on their collective knowledge and adhere to the anonymous authority of common sense, rules for collaboration and looking after the more vulnerable boys. However, the symbols of authority (and ‘civilization’): the conch passed around to allow all boys to take turns to speak and Piggy’s glasses, used for lighting a fire, are gradually abandoned and the relations of interdependence and trust fall apart as the boys first split into two groups and then into smaller gangs of atomized individuals. The story also depicts the emergence of ‘irrational’ hate, not in response to external threats, but as a character trait relished by the boys under the leadership of Jack, who hunt and kill Piggy and spread the rule of terror over the entire island. The story ends with the message that only the authority of adults representing the rules of rationality and morality can rescue the boys from a descent into chaos. Notes to workshop facilitator The themes for which William Golding’s story can also be a stimulus include gender (what would happen on an island that became shelter for a group of girls?), as well as boarding school behavior (the boys purportedly attended the same boarding school before evacuation and the plane crash). The novel and film also offer insights into nature/nurture, struggle for power and authority, indoctrination (by Jack and his group of hunters, see also Workshop 7), as well as inclusion and exclusion. Britzman’s question about whether there is anything that pedagogy can ‘touch’ if the children are already ‘people with their own minds and desires’ and teachers are ‘children-no-longer’ (2015: 143) gets to the very core of authority. At a stage when conflicts over authority become both inevitable and intense, the teacher needs to recognize her students’ growing maturity and responsibility instead of trying to extend their childhood dependency through uncritical submission to authority. Knowing when to trust the teenager and when to assert authority is a key challenge of character education in adolescence.

Workshop 6: Exclusion Rationale As noted above (Workshop 2), isolation and aloneness posit an existential threat to our well-being because, as interdependent selves, we need to be connected to others. In this context, Fromm (2001) described moral aloneness as an absence

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of relatedness to others. The individual may be physically isolated from others and yet connected to values that give him a sense of ‘belonging’. On the other hand, he may be amongst others and yet be overcome by a feeling of isolation that constitutes a profound threat to his emotional and mental well-being. Although the process of individuation makes the experience of aloneness extremely threatening, oppositional behavior may further alienate the adolescent from others, exposing him to the continued threat of isolation as well as sanctions. Exclusion within and from the school community intensifies these problems. The highly disciplinarian ‘zero tolerance’ responses to the transgressions of adolescence in English schools have led to the practices of ‘permanent’ or ‘fixed-term’ exclusion (Ofsted 2019) as well as ‘off-rolling’ of students. Offrolling, a practice of removing pupils from the school’s register when they move to other schools, alternative provision or home education, accounts for thousands of ‘forgotten children’ who ‘disappeared’ from mainstream education (see Chapter 5). This has been accompanied by a worrying rise in internal exclusions and ‘segregation’, with pupils being put in isolation for ‘large parts of academic years’ for behavioral reasons (House of Commons 2018: 26). In some schools, ‘isolation’ means that a child spends most or all of his school day in a small isolation cubicle, with a limited number of toilet breaks and no contact with others (Lightfoot 2019). These are extreme practices that not only exclude but also ‘atomize’ children, both physically and psychologically. Isolation and exclusion may destroy the child’s sense of belonging, with severe consequences for his well-being and mental health, as well as overall cognitive and emotional development. Such exclusions should, therefore, have no place in education that aims to prepare children and young people for living with others rather than apart from others. According to Gill (2017), in the long-term, students who have been excluded from school struggle to gain qualifications needed for work and face unemployment, poverty, ill-health or crime, with the estimated additional cost to society in lifetime benefits, healthcare and criminal justice of approximately £370,000 per each excluded student. In this context, the following question about pedagogy and ethics posited by Sharon Todd (2003: 3) comes to the fore: If the teacher’s job is to modify and shape character, then how can teaching be ethical, or ‘nonviolent’? Aims  

To consider when modifying and shaping character becomes an act of ‘violence’ (Todd 2003) To identify approaches that refrain from isolation and exclusion of students

Questions to discuss in the workshop 

Given the conflicts and contradictions of adolescence, what kind of teaching and student–teacher relationships can be ethical (‘nonviolent’)?

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How can teachers work with rather than against difference and the ‘otherness’ of their adolescent students?

Resources to be studied by participants in preparation for the workshop  

Forgotten Children, House of Commons Education Committee report (2018) ‘We Batter Them with Kindness’, a Guardian article by Halliday (2018)

As noted above, the House of Commons Education Committee (2018) reported on a range of damaging practices of isolating, segregating and excluding students. ‘We Batter Them with Kindness’ is a Guardian article about schools that replaced ‘super-strict’ values with an ‘unconditional positive regard’ approach to shaping and modifying behavior and character derived from the work of Carl Rogers. Notes to workshop facilitator Examples of whole-school approaches such as Rogers’ ‘unconditional positive regard’ (Halliday 2018) offer an important alternative to the ‘zero tolerance’ approach. However, as discussed in Chapter 2, the potential danger of unconditional ‘positivity’ is that it may turn into techniques that do not allow ‘negativity’. A pedagogy of interdependence seeks to embrace both the positive and negative aspects of experience, to work with rather than against difference or ‘otherness’. Importantly, it takes togetherness rather than separation as its premise. An exploration of pedagogy as ‘nonviolence’ can be found in Sharon Todd’s (2003) book Learning from the Other: Levinas, Psychoanalysis, and the Ethical Possibilities in Education. To define ethics as ‘nonviolence’, Todd draws on the work of the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas and his theory of the ethics of alterity (‘otherness’). Ethical pedagogical practice as ‘nonviolence’ is rooted in an ‘attentiveness to and the preservation of this alterity of the Other’ (2003: 3). An ethical teacher accepts that student–teacher relationships and interactions involve ‘complex layers of affect and conflict that specifically emerge out of an encounter with otherness’ (2003: 4). This understanding of ethics is a foundation for developing nonviolent relationships with students. Exclusion continues to be widespread in a contemporary ‘racially structured’ polity where, in the words of the philosopher Charles Wade Mills, ‘the only people who can find it psychologically possible to deny the centrality of race are those who are racially privileged’ (1997: 76). Mills uses the Gestalt figure–ground distinction (see Chapter 6) to explain that, for people who are racially privileged, race is invisible because: ‘the world is structured around them, whiteness as the ground against which the figures of other races – those who, unlike us, are raced – appear’. Addressing these issues in the UK context, the book Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire by Akala (2018), a hip-hop artist, activist and

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writer, draws on his personal experience of growing up in England in the 1980s, as a son of a father ‘racialised as black’ and mother ‘racialised as white’. Akala examines how race and class intersect in contemporary Britain to shape the lives of young black people around the structural injustices and exclusions of ‘whiteocracy’ (Mills 1997: 131). As research by Gill (2017) suggests, in the school context, this is reflected in disproportionate exclusions of Black Caribbean pupils and mixed ethnicity Black Caribbean and white students. These exclusions have been associated with behavior management systems that may inadvertently discriminate against these students, based on racial stereotypes or unconscious bias.

Workshop 7: Indoctrination Rationale There is a growing consensus that the value of character education rests on the moral compass that it offers to guide children and young people through the ethical and moral problems of contemporary life (Arthur et al. 2017). Character education, therefore, needs to go beyond the performance-oriented character traits such as a strong work ethic, resilience and productivity, to develop in children an understanding of, and respect for, the authority of moral standards. However, to achieve this goal, character education ventures into the problematic arena of what Michael Hand (2018) refers to as ‘reasonable disagreement’ about morality in contemporary liberal democratic society. The political culture of any such society is ‘always marked by a diversity of opposing and irreconcilable religious, philosophical and moral doctrines’ and, since it is to be expected that these doctrines are ‘perfectly reasonable’ (Rawls 2005: 3–4), a reasonable disagreement about morality cannot be avoided. The existence of reasonable disagreement creates a conundrum for moral educators. This is because teaching certain moral propositions ‘as true, or standards as justified, when there is a reasonable disagreement about them, is indoctrinatory’ (Hand 2018: 5). According to Hand, to indoctrinate someone means to ‘impart beliefs to her in such a way that she comes to hold them non-rationally, on some other basis than the force of relevant evidence and argument’ (2018: 6). Therefore, imparting the authority of moral standards through an appeal to emotions, for example by shaming students, or using some other means of persuasion or coercion, may amount to indoctrination. Indoctrination harms the individual, since the beliefs that she comes to hold non-rationally are extremely difficult to shift. As Hand argues, such beliefs are ‘thought-stoppers’ because they eliminate the need for thinking (2018: 10). The issue of indoctrination is not limited to the authority of moral standards and may also surface when teaching controversial topics. Many topics pertaining to environmental damage (explored in Workshop 3), social justice, democracy and societal values rest on opposing and irreconcilable political

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doctrines that create reasonable disagreement. The discussions of the ontology of separation (Chapters 6 and 10) and Merleau-Ponty’s critique of Piagetian and behaviorist accounts of child development (Chapter 7) illustrate that even rationalist and scientific paradigms are subject to reasonable disagreement. The risk of indoctrination thus extends to the study of controversial topics: whenever there is a reasonable disagreement, the conclusions that a student draws may be a result of non-rationally held beliefs, whether or not this was the teacher’s intention. As discussed earlier (Workshop 5 and Chapter 8), the anonymous authority of scientific knowledge, as well as public opinion, common-sense or cultural beliefs may also contribute to indoctrination. This, however, does not mean that the teaching of morals or controversial topics is to be avoided. This workshop seeks to open up the discussion of methods of teaching moral and controversial topics. Aims  

To explore the difference between moral education and indoctrination To consider methods of teaching controversial social topics that avoid indoctrination

Questions to discuss in the workshop    

How can we tell the difference between moral education and indoctrination? What kinds of ‘thought-stoppers’ (Hand 2018: 10) could close down discussion of moral issues in the classroom? What stance could the teacher take in teaching controversial topics in order to avoid indoctrination? How can ‘pushing for agreement’ (Stenhouse 1969) affect discussion and dialogue?

Resources to be studied by participants in preparation for the workshop  

Chapter 1, A Theory of Moral Education by Michael Hand (2018, pp. 6–14) ‘Open-Minded Teaching’ by Lawrence Stenhouse (1969)

Michael Hand explores the conundrum faced by moral educators arising from the existence of reasonable disagreement about morals in a liberal democratic society. According to Hand, what makes moral education both challenging and potentially controversial is that, in relation to issues of morality (and religion) it is impossible to reconcile the following three claims: 1 2

Moral education aims to bring it about that children subscribe to moral standards and believe them to be justified. There is reasonable disagreement about the context and justification of morality.

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3

Teaching propositions as true, or standards as justified, when there is reasonable disagreement about them, is indoctrinatory. (Hand 2018: 5)

Hand’s book develops an analysis of the above conundrum. The issue of teaching controversial topics is also explored in the article by Lawrence Stenhouse on ‘open-minded’ teaching, written as part of the Humanities Curriculum Project (HCP). The HCP was developed by a team of researchers led by Stenhouse in response to the raising of the school leaving age from 15 to 16 in 1971. The HCP was designed for students aged 14–16 who, from 1972, would stay on in school for an additional year. To address the needs of these children, who would have otherwise left school, the HCP team decided to focus on controversial issues. Stenhouse’s definition of a ‘controversial issue’ is important: it is an issue that divides society and, within a democratic society, requires dialogue based on informed views rather than consensus. Stenhouse presents examples of questions that open up classroom debate and discusses the principles of ‘open-minded’ teaching. He also emphasizes that, in ‘open-minded’ teaching, there are no ‘pre-fabricated’ solutions. Notes to workshop facilitator Both the Humanities Curriculum Project (Stenhouse 1969) and Michael Hand’s (2018) book offer a range of topics to discuss in the classroom. The HCP topics included: war, education, the family, relations between the sexes, poverty, living in cities, people and work, law and order and race relations. As can be seen just from the list of topics, many of the controversial issues presented in the HCP are highly relevant in today’s society. Hand (2018) developed a theory of moral education and included compelling discussions of such controversial topics as ‘giving offence’, ‘going private’ (choosing to educate children in private, fee-paying schools rather than in state schools) and ‘being gay’.

Conclusion This chapter presented seven professional development workshops to illustrate an approach to content and methods that encourages an open-minded exploration of the themes of vital importance in the lived experience of a child and adolescent. The themes include: the family; moral aloneness in the age of social media; optimism; authority; sharing; exclusion; and indoctrination. Any pedagogical activity is deemed to possess the core elements of ‘format’ (e.g. rationale, aims, preparation, activities, follow-up tasks), ‘content’ (the subject matter studied or discussed) and ‘method’. In the pedagogy of interdependence emerging from the discussions in Part II, the ‘format’ relies on open-ended discussion and dialogue. The content embraces diverse perspectives, challenging questions, controversial issues and

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reasonable disagreement (Hand 2018), all of which defy consensus and ‘pre-fabricated’ solutions (Stenhouse 1969). The method is exploratory, aimed at taking lived experience seriously as a foundation for developing new ways of thinking about character education. Inspired by the insight that our lives unfold through a ‘thousand contingencies’ (Ricoeur 1980), the new ways of thinking about character education as a pedagogy of interdependence shift the emphasis from what is predictable to what is acceptable and, equally, what is unacceptable. This chapter has been developed from the premise that there is little merit in ‘pre-fabricated’ solutions or pre-specified outcomes in the teacher’s effort to shape and modify character. On the contrary, the contradictions and the emotional ‘turmoil’ that arise in the process of character formation make teaching one of the ‘impossible professions’ (Freud 1937: 400). Consequently, the workshops refrain from discussing assessment and measurement of pre-determined outcomes. This stance is based on the critique of the dominant, measurement-based approaches to character education discussed in Part I and on the phenomenological account of character formation in childhood and adolescence presented in Part II. From a critical stance, Gert Biesta (2013: 3) asks the following question: what if the expectation of a ‘perfect match’ between input and outcome constitutes a ‘fundamental misunderstanding of what education is about and a fundamental misunderstanding of what makes education work’? If we agree that the ‘perfect match’ between input and outcome does miss the point, then character education can be understood as ‘slow, difficult, frustrating and weak’ (2013: 4) but also as supporting students in their movement towards adulthood in nonviolent, ethical ways. Instead of prediction, measurement and a ‘match’ between input and outcome, a pedagogy of interdependence offers principles for working with the living, situated, embodied child as she is, not as we think she is or wish her to be. It highlights the moral dimension of the educational endeavor that stems from our human interdependence. By opening ‘spaces which the heart feels’, a pedagogy of interdependence helps teachers to grow as individuals themselves. It rarely offers more than this and usually delivers less. This is because reclaiming ‘spaces which the heart feels’ happens in fleeting moments of caring and love that the teacher may feel and the trust that the child may develop in response. It also happens in moments of disappointment, when the child has refused to obey the teacher or betrayed the teacher’s trust. It happens in moments of guilt and forgiveness that may or may not happen. The following chapter assembles the principles of a pedagogy of interdependence and connects them to the key discussions presented in Part I and Part II.

References Akala. 2018. Natives: Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire. London: Hodder and Stoughton. Arthur, J., Kristjánsson, K., Harrison, T., Sanderse, W. and Wright, D. 2017. Teaching Character and Virtue in Schools. London and New York: Routledge.

A ‘thousand contingencies’ 183 Ball, S.J. 2009. Privatising education, privatising education policy, privatising educational research: network governance and the ‘competition state’, Journal of Education Policy 24 (1): 83–99. BBC. 2019. Davos: Trump decries climate ‘prophets of doom’ with Thunberg in audience. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-51189430. Accessed 16 August 2020. Berlant, L. 2011. Cruel Optimism. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press. Biesta, G.J.J. 2013. The Beautiful Risk of Education. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers. Bowen, F. 2014. After Greenwashing: Symbolic Corporate Environmentalism and Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Britzman, D.P. 2015. A Psychoanalyst in the Classroom: On the Human Condition of Education. Albany: State University of New York Press. Carrington, V. 2018. The changing landscape of literacies: big data and algorithms, Digital Culture and Education 10 (1): 67–76. Davies, B. 2014. Listening to Children: Being and Becoming. Abingdon: Routledge. Ehrenreich, B. 2009. Bright-sided: How Positive Thinking Is Undermining America. New York: Picador. Elliott, A. and Lemert, C. 2006. The New Individualism: The Emotional Costs of Globalization. London and New York: Routledge. FactBar. 2018. Fact-checking for educators and future voters. Available at: https://faktabaa ri.fi/assets/FactBar_EDU_Fact-checking_for_educators_and_future_voters_13112018. pdf. Accessed 15 April 2020. Freud, S. 1937. Analysis terminable and interminable, International Journal of PsychoAnalysis 18: 373–405. Fromm, E. 1949. Man for Himself: An Enquiry into the Psychology of Ethics. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Fromm, E. 2001. The Fear of Freedom. London and New York: Routledge. (Originally published in 1942). Gill, K. 2017. Making the Difference: Breaking the Link between School Exclusion and Social Exclusion. London: IPPR (Institute for Public Policy Research). Available at: https:// www.ippr.org/publications/making-the-difference. Accessed 16 August 2020. Golding, W. 1954. Lord of the Flies. London: Faber and Faber. Goodman, J.F. 2018. Searching for character and the role of schools, Ethics and Education 14 (1): 15–35. Gordon, M. 2017. Should I Share My Toys? Independently published. ISBN-10: 1520268122. Haidt, J. 2003. The moral emotions. In Davidson, J.R., Scherer, K.R. and Goldsmith, H. H. (Eds.) Handbook of Affective Sciences, pp. 852–870. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Halliday, J. 2018. ‘We batter them with kindness’: schools that reject super-strict values, The Guardian, 27 February. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/ feb/27/schools-discipline-unconditional-positive-regard. Accessed 16 August 2020. Hand, M. 2018. A Theory of Moral Education. London and New York: Routledge. House of Commons. 2018. Forgotten Children: Alternative Provision and the Scandal of Ever Increasing Exclusions. London: House of Commons. Knops, L. 2020. On the love and rage of Extinction Rebellion, Green European Journal. Available at: https://www.greeneuropeanjournal.eu/on-the-love-and-rage-of-extincti on-rebellion/. Accessed 16 August 2020.

184 Phenomenology and character formation Lanier, J. 2018. Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now. London: The Bodley Head. Lewis, P. 2017. ‘Our minds can be hijacked’: the tech insiders who fear a smartphone dystopia, The Guardian, 6 October. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/tech nology/2017/oct/05/smartphone-addiction-silicon-valley-dystopia. Accessed 18 October 2019. Lightfoot, L. 2019. When school is an isolation cubicle with three toilet breaks a day, The Guardian, 14 January. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/educa tion/2020/jan/14/school-isolation-cubicle-three-toilet-breaks-a-day. Accessed 10 October 2019. Merleau-Ponty, M. 2002. Phenomenology of Perception (Trans. C. Smith). Abingdon: Routledge. (Originally published in 1945). Merleau-Ponty, M. 2010. Child Psychology and Pedagogy: The Sorbonne Lectures 1949–1952. (trans. T. Welsh). Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Mills, C.W. 1997. The Racial Contract. Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press. Nussbaum, M.C. 2001. Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nxumalo, F. 2018. Stories for living on a damaged planet: environmental education in a preschool classroom, Journal of Early Childhood Research 16 (2): 148–159. Ofsted. 2019. School Inspection Handbook. London: HMSO. Pullman, P. 1995. Northern Lights. London: Scholastic. Rawls, J. 2005. Political Liberation. New York: Columbia University Press. Ricoeur, P. 1980. On narrative, Critical Inquiry 7 (1): 169–190. Seligman, M.E.P. 1991. Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life. New York: Pocket Books. Seymour, R. 2019. The Twittering Machine. London: Indigo Press. Silver, G. and Krömer, C. 2009. Anh’s Anger. Berkeley, CA: Plum Blossom Books. Sissay, L. 2019. My Name Is Why: A Memoir. Edinburgh: Canongate. Steinbock, A.J. 2007. The phenomenology of despair, International Journal of Philosophical Studies 15 (3): 435–451. Steinbock, A.J. 2014. Moral Emotions: Reclaiming the Evidence of the Heart. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Stenhouse, L. 1968. Open-minded teaching, New Society, 24 July. Stenhouse, L. 1969. Open-minded teaching. Available at: https://www.uea.ac.uk/ documents/4059364/4994243/Stenhouse-1969-Open-Minded+Teaching.pdf/ e84cd82c-2d4e-4173-9edd-68f0e02e4e4b. Accessed 24 November 2019. The Children’s Society. 2020. The Good Childhood Report 2020. Available at: https://www. childrenssociety.org.uk/what-we-do/resources-and-publications/good-childhood-repo rt-2020. Accessed 29 August 2020. The Environment Show. 2020. Greta Thunberg – The Future Speaks. Available at: https://www.environmentshow.com/greta-thunbergs-speeches/. Accessed 16 August 2020. Todd, S. 2003. Learning from the Other: Levinas, Psychoanalysis, and Ethical Possibilities in Education. Albany: State University of New York Press. Twenge, J.M. 2018. iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy – and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood – and What That Means for the Rest of Us. New York: Atria Books.

A ‘thousand contingencies’ 185 Welsh, T. 2013. The Child as Natural Phenomenologist: Primal and Primary Experience in Merleau-Ponty’s Psychology. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. White, S. 2019. Luxury leader LVMH, in green mode, laments Thunberg’s pessimism, Reuters, 25 September). Available at: https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-luxury-envir onment/luxury-leader-lvmh-in-green-mode-laments-thunbergs-pessimism-idUKKB N1WA2AY. Accessed 16 August 2020. Wilson, J. 1993. The Suitcase Kid. London: Corgi Yearling.

Chapter 10

A pedagogy of interdependence

Nothing determines me from outside, not because nothing acts upon me, but, on the contrary, because I am from the start outside myself and open to the world. (Merleau-Ponty 2002: 530)

This book has sought to develop a philosophically-grounded, interdisciplinary critique of the policy and practice of emotions work, defined as teaching about character through direct instruction in generic ‘character skills’, ‘essential virtues’ or ‘desirable’ traits. As discussed in Part I, Seligman’s (2002) positive psychology, Goleman’s (1995) emotional intelligence and Aristotelian virtue ethics (Arthur et al. 2017) underpin much of emotions work as evidenced by the plethora of curricular interventions, ‘off-the-shelf’ manuals and digital self-help apps for inducing desirable mental states and regulating negative emotions. In a narrow, one-dimensional approach that pivots on the notion of an ‘ideal’ character, emotions work frequently reduces social and emotional learning to inculcating students with ‘super’ traits such as self-reliance and grit (Smeyers et al. 2007) and ‘super’ emotions such as happiness or optimism (see Chapter 2). Emotions work aimed at producing the atomized, self-reliant individual neglects the interpersonal relations and societal conditions that profoundly affect both character formation and the emotional well-being of students. As discussed in Chapters 2–5, emotions work tends to reduce the inherently complex, ambivalent and conflictual process of character formation to a mimicry of desirable adult behavior. Whilst childhood and adolescence are assumed to be ‘imperfect’ or ‘immature’ phases, adulthood is believed to be the stage at which a ‘fully’ human state is realized (Arthur et al. 2017: 62). Under the conditions of the increasing commodification of social relations, environmental degradation and precarious work in contemporary, technologically-mediated societies, the ‘ideal’ self becomes defined as a standardized, self-reliant, governable individual (Chapter 5). However, this ideal may undermine both individual and societal well-being due to introspective individualism, detachment and indifference to others that it engenders. Character education, as it is currently conceived, is rooted in the Cartesian ontology of separation. As explained in Chapter 6, Descartes’ rationalism rests on

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the assumption that the human mind and world are separate ‘substances’ that exist independently of each other and have essentially different ‘properties’. An elaborate edifice of hierarchical ontology has been built on this assumption, with the thinking subject posited as an absolute observer without a point of view and without a body (Merleau-Ponty 2004). Cartesian ontology alienates us both from the world and from others. In contemporary mainstream character education, the ontology of separation takes self-reliance to its logical extreme with self-help techniques and digital apps as the ultimate tools for achieving happiness and well-being. However, as explained in Chapter 8, human interdependence means that we have a deep need for connection to others and to the world beyond ourselves. The absence of relatedness to others, referred to by Fromm (1956, 2001) as moral aloneness, is experienced as a threat to our existence and a source of deep anxiety. In developing an alternative approach, this book has turned to a phenomenological account of moral emotions (Steinbock 2014), which frames character education as a more complex moral and practical endeavor premised on human interdependence. The case for a moral emotions approach to character education, presented in Part II, places interdependence and the individual’s need to understand the full range of emotions, negative as well as positive, at its core. Based on the work of Merleau-Ponty (2002, 2004, 2010), Welsh (2013), Fromm (1956, 2001) and Britzman (1998, 2015), Chapters 7 and 8 explored the dynamics of childhood and adolescence as a unique theoretical foundation for the practical task of supporting character formation with respect, sensitivity and care. Chapter 9 illustrated how, in practical terms, these ideas might be translated into educational practice that does not limit itself to the delivery of pre-prepared lessons about character but relies instead on a deep understanding of the existential themes at the heart of character formation. Seven professional development workshops on moral emotions and human interdependence presented in Chapter 9 were devoted to the themes of: the family; moral aloneness in the age of social media; optimism; sharing; authority; exclusion; and indoctrination. Since these themes are lived by children and adolescents within the context of the increasing uncertainty of modern life, there is a pressing need for pedagogy that draws on different philosophical foundations than those underpinning emotions work. There is also a need to see ‘good’ character as an embodied person who is open to learning and living in more ethical ways. In alignment with Merleau-Ponty’s (2010) Lectures on Child Psychology and Pedagogy, a pedagogy of interdependence is both a knowledge-based activity and a moral practice, in which caring for the child and acting in her best interest is the teacher’s main concern. In order to highlight the educational implications of the contrasting epistemological positions arising from Descartes’ (1984) ontology of separation and Merleau-Ponty’s (2002) ontology of existence, this chapter revisits the key assumptions, propositions and methods of emotions work and juxtaposes them with the principles of a pedagogy of interdependence. Whereas emotions work promotes introspective individualism, undermining the moral

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basis of character education, a pedagogy of interdependence enables students to understand their emotions in ethical ways that connect them to the lives of others. This chapter also summarizes the dynamics of childhood and adolescence read through the phenomenological lens. The fundamental difference between Cartesian and phenomenological thinking is encapsulated in Merleau-Ponty’s insight cited in the epigraph to this chapter: ‘Nothing determines me from the outside, not because nothing acts upon me, but, on the contrary, because I am from the start outside myself and open to the world’ (2002: 530). Where Cartesian rationality separates ‘inside’ from ‘outside’ and centers on the self-grounding mind located ‘inside myself’, the phenomenological ontology of existence posits that I live my life from the start ‘outside myself’, connected to others. This is evidenced by the syncretic sociability of infancy, which is characterized by a lack of distinction between self and other and self and the world (see Chapter 7). Developing an appreciation of the ‘otherness of the other’ and the ‘mineness’ of myself (Welsh 2013: 54) is an important stage in the formation of identity beyond the phase of syncretic sociability. However, learning to live so that I am able to step ‘outside myself’ is a core characteristic of a psychologically and socially mature person (Merleau-Ponty 2002: 530). The sections below discuss the implications of these two contrasting paradigms for character education.

Emotions work and the ontology of separation Cartesian rationality posits the existence of two separate ‘substances’: the human mind, i.e. the ‘thinking’ substance, and the world, i.e. the ‘material’ substance. These substances exist independently of each other and have essentially different ‘properties’. Even the thinking subject is posited to operate as two ‘substances’. On the one hand, the body is characterized by size, shape, motion and other properties and engaged in ‘corporeal’ acts (Descartes 1984: 176). On the other hand, the ‘thinking thing’ or a ‘mind’ engages in ‘acts of thought’ such as understanding, willing, imagining and having sensory perceptions. In this view, the individual is an atomized self, a thinking subject disconnected from the world, the objects in the world and other thinking subjects. He is also separate from his body and his characteristics are cast as a series of dichotomies such as: mind/body; emotions/reason; nature/culture; inside/outside and me/not me. According to Merleau-Ponty (2002), this atomistic view provided the cornerstone of Cartesian rationality and ‘classical’ science and can be traced back to Greek philosophers such as Democritus. As we have seen in Chapter 7, a tendency towards reductionism also arises from Aristotelian classifications. For Aristotle, membership of a class was of vital importance because it defined the ‘essential nature’ of the object. Aristotle’s classifications often took the form of paired opposites and had a ‘rigid’, ‘absolute’ character’ (Lewin 1931: 144). The neo-Aristotelian virtues and vices discussed in Chapter 4 are an example of such rigid classifications. ‘Classical’ science of the Cartesian and Aristotelian ‘type’ (Lewin 1931) casts

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wholes or ‘units’ in terms of identifiable sub-units and these are, in turn, subdivided into smaller, separate ‘atoms’ displaying unchanging, fixed properties. The assumption here is that these fundamental atoms can be taken apart and built up again and that nothing of essence is lost when the whole is ‘analyzed’ and ‘synthesized’, broken up and then reassembled. Examples of this assumption can be found in ‘classical’ psychology, for example in the explanation of how we perceive an object as a collection of discrete properties, which present themselves to our various senses and which are united by an ‘act of intellectual synthesis’ on our part (Merleau-Ponty 2004: 59). Similarly, the atomistic view of the individual as self-reliant and self-grounding is reflected in the view of society as a collection of disconnected family ‘units’, with atomistic individuals comprising an atomized society (Chapter 9). This reductive rationality is the basis for three core propositions about ‘character’ that feature in mainstream policies for character education and Social and Emotional Learning (SEL), as well as the dominant cultural scripts (Illouz 2008, see Chapter 3). First, ‘good’ character is assumed to be a collection of certain ‘desirable’ traits and malleable character ‘skills’ that can be inculcated one by one, through discrete lessons based on direct instruction and assessment exercises to measure their ‘take up’ by students. Once imbibed, these discrete traits are assumed to be displayed as similar behavior across a range of different situations. Examples of this approach include the idea of developing a ‘golden’ child and teaching ‘ten essential virtues’ discussed in Chapters 5 and 8 respectively. The matrix of ‘desirable’ traits promoted through educational and cultural scripts to support the dominant social order has been termed social character (Fromm 2001, see Chapter 8). In contemporary neoliberal societies, students are typically expected to acquire character traits and ‘skills’ that can support economic productivity and individual responsibility. For example, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has identified the following traits, skills and behaviors as essential for contemporary societies: ‘getting along with people’; teamwork skills; being ‘always busy’ and able to work ‘long hours’ and striving to reach high levels of ‘mastery’ in a specific activity (OECD 2015: 8–9). Once such traits and skills have been pre-selected, the pedagogical method is reduced to their efficient inculcation. In the atomistic paradigm, pedagogy is targeted at students as individuals, with little or no concern for the interpersonal relationships within which character develops, and content that rarely extends beyond the students’ immediate environment (Chapter 4). This is an impoverished, instrumentalist pedagogy that focuses on the ends (the outcomes) rather than the means (the methods). Efficiency in delivering pre-specified outcomes is assumed to be the ultimate yardstick of its success. The negative consequences of this approach may include students becoming self-absorbed and inward-looking (Smeyers et al. 2007), indifferent to the condition of others and disengaged from broader social, political and environmental concerns. Writing about contemporary pedagogy in general (rather than specifically in relation to SEL or character education), Max

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van Manen explains that education has increasingly been ‘falling within the sphere of instrumentalism, technologism, economism, corporatism, and managerialism’ (2012: 22). However, concerns with the ‘efficiencies’ and ‘instrumentalities’ of teaching methods fail to address the students’ need to belong and to benefit from student–teacher relations that are ‘close and personal’. Second, child development is seen as a transition from the psychological immaturity of childhood and adolescence to the maturity of adulthood, acquired mainly through the mimicry of adult behavior and the increasing capacity for abstract reasoning as the child progresses through predicted developmental stages. Theories of child development that stem from the work of Piaget (1929) and his followers tend to explain childhood through the analytical categories of adults. However, the Piagetian preoccupation with the extent to which children have achieved the capacities of adults at various developmental stages encouraged Piaget to arrive at a negative, and flawed, understanding of childhood. As emphasized by Merleau-Ponty (2010: 143), Piaget failed to understand children because he did not concern himself with the child’s experience but with ‘his rationalization’ of this experience in terms of ‘adult concepts’. The Piagetian tendency to see children as ‘immature’ and in progress toward adult maturity resonates with the neo-Aristotelian view of children as ‘potentially human’ and in ‘progress toward full humanity’ (Arthur et al. 2017: 62). These perspectives on childhood lead to an expectation of children and adolescents to behave like adults and the use of punitive approaches, such as ‘zero tolerance’ behavior policies (Chapter 5), when they fail to do so. However, as discussed below, Aristotelian classifications and Cartesian dichotomies have been surpassed by phenomenological descriptions that embrace ambivalence, uncertainty, situations and contexts to offer a more nuanced understanding of the dynamics of childhood and adolescence. Third, the role of emotions is secondary to that of reason and based on an assumption that the rational individual can choose particular character traits or emotions and ‘work on himself’, for example by inducing in himself particular emotional states. Emotions are classified in emotions work as positive (and desirable) and negative (undesirable). Since negatively valenced emotions such as anger, fear or hate are deemed to be undesirable or even ‘destructive’ (Goleman 2003), they are taught to be suppressed. By contrast, positively valenced emotions such as compassion, happiness and optimism are deemed to be both desirable and ‘teachable’ through the use of generic techniques (Seligman et al. 2009; Goleman 1995). The danger here is that positive emotions can be elevated to moral virtues, with being happy or optimistic assumed to be prerequisite to moral behavior. The classifications of moral emotions developed by social psychologists such as Haidt (2003) and Tangney et al. (2007) are more nuanced. Anger, for example, is considered to be a moral emotion when it arises from ‘less self-interested’ concern characterized by a high degree of ‘pro-social action tendency’ (Haidt 2003, see Chapter 2). ‘Moral anger’ can thus trigger behaviors such as condemning the unjust or morally wrong

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actions of others. This anger-driven, other-condemning behavior points in turn to the role of moral emotions in adhering to moral standards and motivating individuals to do ‘good’ and avoid doing ‘bad’ (Tangney et al. 2007). However, from the phenomenological perspective, my experience of another’s anger is not simply something that I observe to arise in his mind. Instead, anger is ‘really here, in this room. It is in the space between him and me that it unfolds’ (Merleau-Ponty 2004: 83). It is impossible to separate anger from the embodied person before me, from the situation and from myself. As explained in Chapter 6, the fundamental difference between ‘classical’ psychological and phenomenological understandings of moral emotions also pertains to how emotions may open up or close down the interpersonal nexus (Steinbock 2014). Consequently, whereas Cartesian rationality privileges reason over emotion, phenomenological understandings of the role of emotions highlight the importance of emotions as ‘signals’ of our intense attachment to people on whom we are mutually dependent but whom we cannot control (Nussbaum 2001; Illouz 2008). The dualistic positive/negative approach to emotions fits both with Aristotelian virtue ethics and the Cartesian scheme within which, as Merleau-Ponty argued, the ultimate ideal is a ‘fully-formed [wo]man whose vocation is to be “lord and master” of nature’ (2004: 71). The negative consequences of emotions work based on this ideal may include an inflated self-perception of one’s capabilities and importance or, alternatively, a sense of inadequacy or failure if the individual fails to achieve this ‘ideal’. It is important to emphasize at this point that the critique of emotions work developed in this chapter, and throughout this book, does not imply that the knowledge, methods, tools and techniques originating in Cartesian rationality are deemed to be of no value. As Merleau-Ponty would say, the ‘only thing under attack is the dogmatism of a science that thinks itself capable of absolute and complete knowledge’ (2004: 45). Similarly, the dogmatism of policymakers and researchers who claim absolute knowledge needs to be scrutinized and, if necessary, challenged and rejected. In everyday educational practice, this means that great caution should be exercised in the use of techniques, manuals for direct instruction and instruments for measuring students’ personal qualities that are unaccompanied by a deeper understanding of the interactions and contexts within which character develops. Without continued critical appraisal on the part of the teacher, character education may turn towards idealization and the cult of the ‘perfect’ self (Nussbaum 2001; Cigman 2012), or towards a transmission of beliefs and opinions that may amount to indoctrination (Hand 2018). Chapter 9 presented a number of questions that can be used by teachers to evaluate ‘off-the-shelf’ SEL resources, toolkits and apps for character education for potentially problematic assumptions and reductive approaches that may do more harm than good. Importantly, the philosophically-grounded critique of the policy and practice of emotions work developed in this book points to a pressing need to restructure the ‘whole of our thinking … before the logical reductio ad absurdum of our old

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positions destroys us’ (Bateson 1972: 462). The author of an ‘ecology of mind’, Gregory Bateson refers here to a logical reduction that finds the fundamental factors for the survival of an organism within the organism taken out of its environment, ignoring the fact that an ‘organism-in-its-environment’ is an inseparable ‘unit of survival’. The destruction of the environment, therefore, means the destruction of the organism. As discussed in Chapter 6, ‘classical’ science seeks control over the world represented with mathematical precision and certainty. However, the Cartesian world, represented as a picture, conceals the ‘canvas underneath the picture’, the world as it really is (Merleau-Ponty 2002: 28). The ‘canvas underneath the picture’ pertains to the existential world lived beneath the surface of Cartesian representations. This world is experienced not from a position of the ‘lord and master of nature’ but in our everyday ordinariness. It is a world of multiple inter’s: the ‘inter-human world’ in which we interact as interdependent selves, where our intentionalities and interactions are ‘interrelated’, ‘interwoven’ and ‘intervolved’ with those of others. Recent developments within both natural and social sciences under the overarching terms of ‘complexity theory’ (Smith and Jenks 2006; Biesta and Osberg 2010; Bates 2016) and posthumanist and feminist social theories (Haraway 1988; Barad 2007) reveal strong resonances with Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological descriptions. This growing body of research cannot be ignored, even if it is more troubling than the certainty offered by the ‘classical’ science of the Cartesian-Aristotelian type.

A pedagogy of interdependence and the ontology of existence Phenomenology rejects the ontology of separation in three dimensions. First, where Descartes posits two separate ‘substances’, a mind and a body, phenomenology apprehends a mind with a body, a ‘being who can only get to the truth of things because its body is, as it were, embedded in those things’ (Merleau-Ponty 2004: 56). Second, whereas Descartes’ thinking subject apprehends mind, body and world ‘objectively’ and eradicates all ideas pertaining to ambiguity, paradox and contradiction, the phenomenological ontology of existence reveals humans as embodied beings ‘thrown into the world’, into an intersubjective experience that is complex and ambivalent (Merleau-Ponty 2004: 56). Third, the main preoccupation of Cartesian rationality is a search for causality, with a view to predicting and controlling all nature. The reductive analytic method that enables the discovery of causality casts wholes as sub-units which are further subdivided into separate ‘atoms’ with fixed properties. By contrast, the key concern of phenomenology is with the unity and totality of our ‘throwness’ into the concrete, specific and particular situations in which we find ourselves. My embodied being, the situation and my commitment to the situation is a whole, a totality (Gestalt) that is inseparable inasmuch as it cannot be sub-divided into atomistic properties and then reassembled without

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losing the essence of its wholeness. Merleau-Ponty emphasized that the ‘essence’ of human subjectivity is inseparable from the body and the world (2002: 475). The ontology of existence thus posits that I am not a collection of traits, ‘essential virtues’ and other characteristics, nor a detached thinking subject who brings them together into the unity of the ‘I’. Instead, I am: one single ‘living cohesion’, one single temporality which is engaged, from birth, in making itself progressively explicit, and in confirming that cohesion in each successive present. (Merleau-Ponty 2002: 474) According to Merleau-Ponty, when I assert: ‘I think therefore I am’, then it is on the understanding that ‘I belong to myself’ while at the same time also ‘belonging to the world’. On the phenomenological view, ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ are interrelated, interwoven and inseparable. The world is, therefore, ‘wholly inside and I am wholly outside myself’ and there is a mutuality of understanding: ‘in one way I understand the world, and in another it understands me’ (p. 474). The pedagogical implications of the ontology of existence rest on three key propositions that challenge the atomism, technicism and instrumentalism of emotions work. First, ‘good’ character denotes an interdependent self, a person who is open to learning and living in more ethical ways. As an embodied, situated person, the student cannot be fitted into a one-dimensional ‘ideal’ such as a ‘golden’ child who imbibes a checklist of ‘essential virtues’. The ‘wholism’ of phenomenological ontology means that the child is not a collection of traits and behaviors which can be ‘analyzed’ through the Cartesian reduction without losing the unity of the whole. In order to support the development of ‘good’ character, a pedagogy of interdependence turns away from a preoccupation with certainty, prediction and control to focus instead on understanding the situation in its ambivalence and uncertainty. In this paradigm, the teacher connects to the student as a multi-dimensional person: embodied, singular, situated within the family and its dramas as a manifestation of broader social relations. The teacher’s orientation towards an interpersonal connection is manifested through her care, responsibility, respect and love (van Manen 2012). Only through caring, responsible, respectful and loving teacher–child relations can children experience themselves as: ‘cared for, worried about, deserving of respect, regarded as worthy, unique, feeling loved, recognized’, and this, in turn, makes children ‘interested, caring, and motivated to learn about the world in which they live, and that lives in them’ (van Manen 2012: 31). Therefore, a pedagogy of interdependence pertains equally to the ‘content’, the subject matter to be taught, and the relationships within and through which character develops. The content has to extend to accounts of learning and living in the world with others, including ‘non-human’ others. The inclusive orientation of a pedagogy of interdependence rests on working with rather than against difference and taking togetherness rather than separation as its premise.

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Second, the phenomenological view of emotions is also rooted in human interdependence. This means that all emotions, negative as well as positive, need to be recognized as signs of our vulnerability to people on whom we mutually depend but whom we cannot control. Moral emotions do not arise from some essential ‘properties’ or from feeling the ‘right’ emotions ‘at the right times, about the right things, towards the right people, for the right end and in the right way’ (Aristotle as cited in Kristjánsson 2018: 20). The moral tenor of emotions stems from whether they open up or close down the interpersonal nexus (Steinbock 2014). Consequently, a pedagogy of interdependence eschews both the emotional detachment of Cartesian rationality and techniques for inducing ‘correct’ emotional states. Instead, it is premised on supporting children and young people in developing an understanding of the deeper meanings of emotions, for example, by ‘listening to’ and by ‘making friends’ with their anger (Chapter 9). Although Merleau-Ponty did not focus specifically on moral emotions, his belief that pedagogy is not just a science-based activity but also a moral practice relied on the connection to the child, in specific everyday situations. This connection is never a matter of pure, intellectual knowledge, for example of child development theory. It is an existential connection that encompasses the teacher’s perception of the child as she is and the teacher’s emotional involvement with the child. In guiding children through the experience of relating, the teacher needs to remember that being-in-relation happens in a moment, often unplanned and unpredictable, that opens a ‘thousand contingencies’ (Ricoeur 1980: 174). This contingency means that we cannot act on ‘preestablished values’ or predetermined moral precepts before we know the child’s ‘real’ situation: ‘A moral imperative only emerges in contact with a situation’ (Merleau-Ponty 2010: 68). From a phenomenological standpoint, therefore, there is no toolkit, recipe or ‘off-the-shelf’ manual that guarantees the expected outcomes or provides a moral compass to unequivocally guide the teacher and his students along the path of moral illumination. Third, child development is assumed to have its own, unique organization and meaning. The developmental dynamics do not simply consist of progressing towards an ideal, adult self through the mimicry of adult behavior. Children start life in the phase of syncretic sociability and their developmental movement toward psychological maturity beyond this phase rests on re-learning to step ‘outside myself’ and be ‘open to the world’ (Merleau-Ponty 2002: 530). However, as van Manen and Adams (2014: 607) emphasize, the ambivalence of child development means that the pedagogical ‘lifeworld’ is structured as ‘the endless contradiction, conflicts, polarities, tensions, oppositions’. Supporting child development relies on working through these conflicts rather than authoritarian homilies or ‘zero tolerance’ policies for behavior management. Whereas the teacher–child relationship is necessarily a relation of authority, the teacher’s authority needs to be built on mutual trust. Whether he wants it or not, the teacher always embodies and ‘powerfully exemplifies one way of life or another for the child’ (Mollenhauer 2013: 8). When it comes to teacher authority, there can be a fine line between

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caring and violence and between encouraging students to think for themselves and expecting them to submit to authority.

The dynamics of childhood and adolescence: ‘from the start outside myself and open to the world’ The account of childhood presented in Merleau-Ponty’s (2010) Lectures examines the central phenomenological theses of intersubjectivity and embodiment, as well as the unique meaning of childhood and its importance in later life (Chapter 7). Despite the prevalent view of infancy as a time when a child is immersed in her own inner world, the infant is engaged in the social world around her from birth. In the first few months of life, children experience syncretic sociability, a phase characterized by a lack of differentiation between self, other and the world (Merleau-Ponty 2010). Syncretic sociability entails that the child is ‘from the start outside [her]self and open to the world’. With the onset of the mirror stage between four and twelve months from birth, the child begins to develop an awareness of herself as distinct from others. Although this awareness is essential in the formation of the child’s identity, the mirror stage is a social event rather than an internally-motivated movement toward gaining self-awareness. Awareness of others is prior to self-awareness, as evidenced by the ability of infants who are a few months old to differentiate between ‘goodwill, anger and fear’ on the faces of others, before they learn to read the ‘physical signs’ of these emotions by examining their own facial expressions (Merleau-Ponty 2004: 86). Learning about herself and others is an inherently social process, whereby the child learns to know herself through others and to know others through herself. Merleau-Ponty therefore did not see childhood as the ‘installation’ of certain traits, understandings and behavioral patterns in the individual, but an ‘initiation’ into the social-cultural environment (2010: 100). Furthermore, despite the prevalent view of childhood as a state of psychological and social immaturity, childhood has its own complex organization and meaning. Whereas the perception of the intersubjective world may be challenging for adults, it is natural for children. From birth, the child lives in a world which he believes is accessible to ‘all around him’: He has no awareness of himself or of others as private subjectivities, nor does he suspect that all of us, himself included, are limited to one certain point of view of the world. (Merleau-Ponty 2002: 413) Therefore, children’s behaviors that have been classified as egocentric in Piagetian theories need to be understood instead as manifesting that children are, from the start, ‘outside’ themselves and ‘open to the world’. Other people are, for a child, ‘turned towards one single, self-evident world where everything takes place’ (2002: 413).

196 Phenomenology and character formation

Whereas the phenomenological account of childhood emphasizes that we do not start our life immersed in our own self-consciousness but rather in a state of interconnectedness, the process of individuation which takes place in adolescence is characterized by the breaking of the connections between the child and her parents (Blos 1967; Waddell 2018, see Chapter 8). The family ties give the young child a sense of security, but are also experienced as prohibitions, resulting in feelings of powerlessness and hostility towards her parents (Fromm 2001). The breaking of primary ties in adolescence opens the way to an awareness of one’s individuality, growing physical, emotional and mental strength, as well as feelings of expansiveness. But the process of individuation is also experienced as aloneness, a separation from others and a source of intense anxiety. The search for connection leads the adolescent towards the peer group as a new interactional context. Ironically, as much as the adolescent rebels against parental or other adult authority, she tends to idealize the group, often through ‘blind faith’ in its authority (Britzman 2015: 79). Adolescence is also experienced as an intensely emotional time of tension and conflicts. Adolescent negativism and oppositionalism are manifestations of a young person asserting that ‘nothing determines [her] from the outside’ and whatever ‘acts upon’ her is an unwelcome outside interference. Adolescence is, therefore, an important phase when the young person needs to learn to step ‘outside herself’ and be ‘open to the world’ (Merleau-Ponty 2002: 530). The dialectics of individuation pull the adolescent in two opposite directions, toward isolation accompanied by anxiety and toward the possibility of a new connection and being open to the world, from her inner strength and solidarity with others. The main problem with Cartesian-type education and its dogma of atomized selves is that it educates young people out of this connection.

Conclusion Against the backdrop of an increasing commodification of social relations, environmental degradation and precarious work conditions in contemporary society, educating ‘good’ character – a person open to learning to live in more ethical ways – needs to be predicated on a pedagogy that is itself a moral practice (Merleau-Ponty 2010). The possibility of pedagogy becoming a moral practice stems from the desire to understand oneself and others as interrelated, interconnected in a mutual dependence on the world in which we live. A pedagogy of interdependence is concerned equally with the subject matter to be taught and interpersonal relations that support the movement from childhood and adolescence with sensitivity, thoughtfulness and care. Since this movement is already in motion, supporting character formation requires the teacher to be aware of how intrusive his authority may be. Against the prevailing ontology of separation, a phenomenology of moral emotions pays attention to life as lived with others. A view of ‘character’ as interdependent, embodied and emergent from interpersonal relations highlights

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how the analytical reduction of ‘character’ to fixed, measurable traits not only neglects the social contexts within which character develops, but also introduces subject-object relations which undermine the moral basis of character education. By placing self-reliance and self-sufficiency at the core of an ‘ideal’ self, we erase our existential vulnerability and our connection to the environment that is essential for our emotional and mental well-being, as well as our survival. As a result, from the earliest age, our children are subjected to homilies about ‘tough little soldiers’ and other cultural narratives that elevate the proverbial ‘stiff upper lip’ to a moral virtue. A similar denial of vulnerability is projected in the political realm, amongst incantations about the survival of the fittest or, in the current discourse, the survival of the most resilient. Through lessons in ‘happiness’ and ‘grit’, young people are exposed to technologies of government that render them into objects and encourage them to objectify themselves. The contemporary neoliberal state is ‘built on a denial of vulnerability’ (Layton 2008: 69) and neoliberal character education encourages students to use their character as an instrument for achieving narrowly defined ‘success’. However, the quick-fix techniques and toolkits developed within the dominant cultural and political scripts of self-help cannot alleviate the existential vulnerability and anxiety that arises from our separation from others. All that the narratives of the self-sufficient, atomized individual can do is promote a ‘productive’ use of psychic suffering that arises from the aloneness of separation (Fromm 1956). To counter these instrumentalist tendencies, we need to start with a different understanding of what it means to be human from the one that has prevailed since Descartes. The human being is not a thinking subject, a composite of certain fixed properties that can be productively deployed but a complex, embodied, living, thinking and feeling person. This phenomenological understanding of a ‘person’ calls for a profound change to the role of the teacher in character education. From the phenomenological perspective, the teacher is not a morally superior ‘paragon of virtue’ who initiates her students into a life of virtue. From this perspective, the teacher’s role is to sustain the interpersonal connections in the classroom. This entails that the teacher is present in the classroom as a ‘person’, who can connect to children to the extent to which she is also able to connect to her own childhood. Although, as an adult, the teacher is no longer the child that she once was, childhood matters to her both in the pedagogical and deeply personal sense. As Merleau-Ponty points out, the world has changed because of ‘the event of my birth’ which, although already in the past: has not fallen into nothingness in the way that an event of the objective world does, for it committed a whole future, not as a cause determines its effect, but as a situation, once created, inevitably leads on to some outcome … the world received a fresh layer of meaning. (2002: 473)

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For the event of my birth to be meaningful, it has to matter to me and to others not as the product of detached sense-making by spectators ‘objectively’ weighing up its importance and turning it into statistics. Rather, it has to be imbued with an emotional significance that arises from mutual dependencies, attachments, synergies and conflicts that mean that my birth (and, equally, my childhood, my later life and my death) cannot pass ‘into nothingness’. The birth of a child changes everything in the family home to the point that even familiar everyday objects are imbued with a new meaning as they ‘await some as yet indeterminate treatment at his [the child’s] hands; another and different person is there, a new personal history, short or long, has just been initiated’ (Merleau-Ponty 2002: 473). Similarly, the arrival of children at the start of the school day brings to a halt the silence of an empty classroom as the tables, chairs, pencils and clock on the wall have awaited and are ready to support the unfolding of each student’s ‘personal history’. The time of the lesson is not a discrete unit dedicated to the delivery of a pre-prepared plan, but a fleeting moment in the life of the child whose developmental movement towards adolescence and adulthood has been under way before the lesson began. The teacher may or may not connect to this process already under way, unfolding from the temporality of the child’s development. Working with this existential temporality is not about trying to capture the fleeting moment in order to fit the child into the dominant classifications. Working with time is about remembering that the child is one single ‘living cohesion’, engaged from birth in expressing and confirming that cohesion ‘in each successive present’ (Merleau-Ponty 2002: 474). Character education begins in the moment of remembering that the conflicts, tensions and contradictions that challenge the teacher and threaten the delivery of the pre-scripted lesson are meaningful manifestations of the child’s effort to express and enact herself as a ‘living cohesion’. Above all, a pedagogy of interdependence rests on an understanding of character formation as situated, complex and dynamic, supported by relationships that enable students to connect to themselves, to others and to lived experience, in a sustainable environment.

References Arthur, J., Kristjánsson, K., Harrison, T., Sanderse, W. and Wright, D. 2017. Teaching Character and Virtue in Schools. London and New York: Routledge. Barad, K. 2007. Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Bates, A. 2016. Transforming Education: Meanings, Myths and Complexity. Abingdon: Routledge. Bateson, G. 1972. Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Biesta, G. and Osberg, D. 2010. Complexity Theory and the Politics of Education. Rotterdam: Sense.

A pedagogy of interdependence 199 Blos, P. 1967. The second individuation process of adolescence, The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child 27: 162–186. Britzman, D.P. 1998. Lost Subjects, Contested Objects: Toward a Psychoanalytic Inquiry into Learning. Albany: State University of New York Press. Britzman, D.P. 2015. A Psychoanalyst in the Classroom: On the Human Condition of Education. Albany: State University of New York Press. Cigman, R. 2012. We need to talk about well-being, Research Papers in Education 27 (4): 449–462. Descartes, R. 1984. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes (Vol II, Trans. J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff and D. Murdoch). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Originally published in 1647). Fromm, E. 1956. The Art of Loving. New York: Harper & Row. Fromm, E. 2001. The Fear of Freedom. London and New York: Routledge. (Originally published in 1942). Goleman, D. 1995. Emotional Intelligence. New York: Bantam Books. Goleman, D. 2003. Destructive Emotions and how We Can Overcome Them: A Dialogue with the Dalai Lama. London: Bloomsbury. Haidt, J. 2003. The moral emotions. In Davidson, J.R., Scherer, K.R. and Goldsmith, H. H. (Eds.) Handbook of Affective Sciences, pp. 852–870. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hand, M. 2018. A Theory of Moral Education. London and New York: Routledge. Haraway, D. 1988. Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective, Feminist Studies 14 (3): 575–599. Illouz, E. 2008. Saving the Modern Soul: Therapy, Emotions, and the Culture of Self-Help. Berkeley: University of California Press. Kristjánsson, K. 2018. Virtuous Emotions. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Layton, L. 2008. What divides the subject? Psychoanalytic reflections on subjectivity, subjection and resistance, Subjectivity 22: 60–72. Lewin, K. 1931. The conflict between Aristotelian and Galilean modes of thought in contemporary psychology, Journal of General Psychology 5: 141–177. Merleau-Ponty, M. 2002. Phenomenology of Perception (Trans. C. Smith). Abingdon: Routledge. (Originally published in 1945). Merleau-Ponty, M. 2004. The World of Perception (Trans. O. Davis). Abingdon: Routledge. (Originally published in 1948). Merleau-Ponty, M. 2010. Child Psychology and Pedagogy: The Sorbonne Lectures 1949–1952. (trans. T. Welsh). Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Mollenhauer, K. 2013. Forgotten Connections: Our Culture and Upbringing (Trans. N. Friesen). London and New York: Routledge. Nussbaum, M.C. 2001. Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. OECD. 2015. Social and Emotional Skills: Well-being, Connectedness and Success. Paris: OECD. Piaget, J. 1929. The Child’s Conception of the World. (Trans. J. Tomlinson and A. Tomlinson). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Ricoeur, P. 1980. On narrative, Critical Inquiry 7 (1): 169–190. Seligman, M.E.P. 2002. Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment. New York: Free Press.

200 Phenomenology and character formation Seligman, M.E.P., Gillham, J., Revich, K. and Kinkins, M. 2009. Positive education: positive psychology and classroom interventions, Oxford Review of Education 35 (3): 293–311. Smeyers, P., Smith, R. and Standish, P. 2007. The Therapy of Education: Philosophy, Happiness and Personal Growth. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Smith, J. and Jenks, C. 2006. Qualitative Complexity: Ecology, Cognitive Processes and the Re-Emergence of Structures in Post-Humanist Social Theory. London and New York: Routledge. Steinbock, A.J. 2014. Moral Emotions: Reclaiming the Evidence of the Heart. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Tangney, J.P., Stuewig, J. and Mashek, D.J. 2007. Moral emotions and moral behavior, Annual Psychological Review 58: 345–372. van Manen, M. 2012. The call of pedagogy and the call of contact, Phenomenology and Practice 6 (2): 8–34. van Manen, M. and Adams, C. 2014. Phenomenological pedagogy. In Phillips, D.C. (Ed.) Encyclopedia of Educational Theory and Philosophy, pp. 606–610. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Waddell, M. 2018. On Adolescence: Inside Stories. Abingdon: Routledge. Welsh, T. 2013. The Child as Natural Phenomenologist: Primal and Primary Experience in Merleau-Ponty’s Psychology. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.

Index

adolescence: 13, 139–41, 149–151, 166–8, 187–8, 190, 195–6; adolescent ‘angst’ 44, 141, 151; adolescent students 43–4, 156–8, 177–8; and authority 143, 149, 174–6; and character formation 149–50; and puberty 120, 140–1, 144–8; see also individuation Alexander, R. 74–5, 78, see also Cambridge Primary Review anger 11, 18–20, 21, 22, 27–8, 49, 55, 84, 105, 108–9, 120, 129, 165–6, 171, 175, 190–1 anxiety 36, 43, 45, 47, 81–2, 151–2, 157, 167–8, 187, 197; intense 84, 139, 196 Aristotle 56, 59, 61, 194; ‘Aristoteliantype’ classifications 121, 126–7, 155–6, 188–9, 190; Aristotelian virtue ethics 12, 13, 53–4, 66, 112, 191; Aristotle’s legacy 63–7 Arthur, J. et al. 10, 12, 54–59, 123, 126–7, 155, 172–4, 186, 190; see also character education atomistic paradigm 188–9 atomized: individual 7, 21, 59–60, 164–5, 176, 186, 197; self 12–13, 103, 104, 108–9, 111, 152–3, 158, 163; see also atomistic paradigm

Carr, D. 62, 63, 66 Cerny, P.G. 70, 81, 152 character: Character Development Ladder 60–1, 63, 123; ‘consumed by quantity’ 12, 85, 98; definitions of 10–11, 154–5; development 7–8, 33, 117–8; formation 98, 132, 135, 137, 144–6, 158, 186, 187; ‘good’ character 14, 64, 187, 189, 193, 196; ‘ideal’ 143, 169, 186; narcissistic 85, 98; one-dimensional 32–3; character ‘skills’ 5, 8, 12, 22, 69, 80, 127, 189; traits 3, 46, 64, 70, 149, 152–3, 156; see also Fromm on social character character education: 4–5, 6–8, 12–14, 114, 135–6, 140, 186–8, 189, 190; in England 69–73, 74–6, 78, 81–2, 83, 86–7, 98, 147; in the USA 78–80, 154–5; neo-Aristotelian 10, 54, 56–8, 62–3, 65–7, 155–6; see alsopedagogy of interdependence Cigman, R. 8, 191 Coles, M. 19, 30–31 compassion 5, 18–20, 21, 55, 61, 66, 70, 80, 82, 86, 111–12; as a ‘super’ emotion 11, 30–2 ‘competition state’ 70, 81–3, 85, 152, 171 cultural sociology 6, 8, 10, 12, 37, 47, 49, 50, 164

Ball, S.J. 47, 70, 76, 81, 102, 171; and Maguire, M. and Braun, A. 86 Biesta, G. 162, 182 Braun, A. and Maguire, M. 24, 47 Britzman, D. 140, 143, 144, 150, 156–8, 162, 167, 174, 175–6

Department for Education (DfE) 69, 70–8, 98, 103, 140, 146–7 Department for Education and Skills (DfES) 11, 19, 28–30, 33, 56 Department of Health and Department for Education (DOH/DFE) 5, 36–7, 43, 45–6, 49–50, 150 Descartes, R. 12, 94–7, 187, 192, 197; and Cartesian rationality 98–9, 113,

Cambridge Primary Review (CPR) 74–5 Cameron, D. 70–1, 74, 76–7, 81–82

202 Index 188, 191, 192–4; and Cartesian representations 96, 113, 192; see also ontology of separation despair 13, 94, 107–8, 140, 156, 169–70 Deutsch, H. 146, 148 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) 41–4, 48, 53 digital technologies: 12, 82; and apps 5, 6, 12, 86, 187; NHS apps 46–7, 78 Duckworth, A.I. 10, 11, 78, 79; and Yeager, D.S. 4, 80 Duffell, N. 84–5 Ecclestone, K. 8, 47, 70; and Brunilla, K. 45; and Hayes, D. 36, 40 Ehrenreich, B. 22, 33, 42, 169 Elias, M.J. et al. 4, 18, 22, 30 Elliott, A. and Lemert, C. 12, 48, 81, 82, 83; see also ‘new individualism’ emotions: definitions and classifications of 8–10, 12, 18, 49, 50, 125, 164–6; negative 6, 18–19, 27, 28, 32, 147; positive 18, 22, 190; pro-social 11, 43; ‘super’ emotions 11, 18, 30–2, 53, 165, 186; virtuous 55, 56–7, 59, 60, 112; emotions work 5–6, 12, 14, 33, 93, 121, 139, 186–7, 188, 190–1, 193; see also moral emotions empathy 21, 22, 31, 43, 45, 84, 85, 111, 142 Freud, A. 60, 119, 140, 141 Freud, S. 38, 48, 119–20, 144, 149, 155–6, 162, 182 Fromm, E. 11, 13, 156, on anonymous authority 155, 174–5; on hate 143–4; on individuation 139, 141–3, 157–9; on moral aloneness 155, 164, 166–7, 176–7, 187; on social character 148–52, 153, 164, 189 Furedi, F. 6, 13, 21, 39–40, 42, 45, 46, 49–50 Gestalt theory 96–7, 98, 114, 119, 120, 123, 125, 126, 178, 192 Goleman, D. 3, 25, 36, 55–6, 79, 190; on ‘destructive’ emotions 27, 108, 143, 190; on emotional intelligence (EI) 4, 11, 18, 25–6, 28, 30, 186 grit 3, 4, 10, 69, 78, 81; ‘grit pedagogy’ 86, 197

guilt 18, 21, 22, 31, 81–2, 100–1, 102–3, 108–10, 142, 171–2, 174 Haidt, J. 9, 18–21, 25, 30, 32, 108–9, 144, 175, 190 Hand, M. 8, 162, 179–81, 191 Harrison, T., Morris, I. and Ryan, J. 54, 56, 57 happiness 5, 8, 19–20, 21, 25, 38, 159, 168, 187, 190, 197; as a ‘super’ emotion 11, 18, 53, 186; ‘happiness exercises’ 22, 24, 124–5, 132; ‘happiness industry’ 4, 11, 38 hate 135, 140, 143–4, 175–6 hope 13, 94, 107–8, 113, 124–5, 169–70 Horwitz, A. and Wakefield, J. 41–5 human interdependence 3, 6, 7, 32, 33, 62, 102, 164, 166, 169, 182, 187, 194 humility 55, 61, 71, 104, 106–7, 112–13, 114 Illouz, E. 6, 10, 12, 33, 36–9, 40–1, 48, 49, 189, 191 individuation 13, 139, 140–3, 150, 155, 156–8, 167–8, 177, 196 interpersonal nexus 6, 10, 13, 109, 110, 163, 191, 194 James, W. 9–10, 20, 22 Jerome, L. and Kisby, B. 58, 62, 66, 75 Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues 4, 53–8, 61–3, 66, 69, 79 Klein, M. 119, 140, 144–5, 148 Kristjánsson, K. 55, 56–7, 59, 61, 63–5, 112, 194 Layard, R. 5, 8 Layton, L. 153, 157, 197 Lewin, K. 126–7, 140, 155, 188–9 Lewis, S., Savage, G.C. and Holloway, J. 76, 78 Lickona, T. 5, 154–5 love 57, 61, 66, 86, 105–6, 110–11, 137, 145, 157, 164, 171, 193 MacIntyre, A. 54, 63, 65–6 Mayer, J.D., Salovey, P. and Caruso, D. R. 26–7, 29, 31; see also Goleman Mayo, E. 39 McWilliams, N. 44, 46, 85, 102, 103

Index 203 mental health: 5, 40–1, 44–5, 46–7, 76–7, 153; ‘mental health crisis’ 36–7, 42, 49–50; and pathology 40, 42, 45; policy 36, 46 Merleau-Ponty, M. 6, 7, 13, 70, 105, 180, 186, 188; on child development 120, 127–9, 146, 158, 188, 196; on childhood 117–18, 132–3, 137, 164, 174, 190, 195; on children’s drawings 130–2; on children’s perception 122, 131, 133, 195; on children’s relations with others 134–5; on embodied experience 112, 144–6, 195; on human existence 108, 169, 192–3, 197–8; on language development 129–30; on methods 120–7; on pedagogy 135–6, 187, 194; on perception 96–7, 99, 118–19, 121; on phenomenology 101, 120–1; on ‘pure intellect’ 85, 93–4, 139–40; on science 97, 99, 188, 191–2; see also ontology of existence Miller, P. and Rose, N. 76, 77, 87 mindfulness 14, 31, 46–7, 78 moral emotions: 6–7, 18–22, 93–4, 108–14, 191, 194, 196; of otherness 104, 105, 112–13; of possibility 107, 113; of self-givenness 100–1, 105, 112

policy: assemblage 75–6, 78–9, 80, 86; policymakers 5, 21, 28–9, 70, 74, 102, 191; policy sociology 11, 75–6; ‘zero tolerance’ behaviour policies 73, 177–8, 190, 194; see also mental health pride 6–7, 21, 22, 99–100, 103–6, 109, 112 Prinz, J. 63–5 psychology: 3, 5, 64; behaviorist 117, 123; ‘classical’ 126, 130, 189, 191; clinical 37, 38; developmental 20, 21; positive (PP) 4, 9, 22–3, 24, 45, 79, 147; social 18–20, 32, 108–9, 111; see also Gestalt theory repentance 94, 102, 107, 110, 114, 171–2 resilience 5–6, 22, 24, 33, 45, 55, 70, 76, 81, 163; Penn Resilience Program 4, 24; UK Resilience Programme 4, 24

Office for Standards in education (Ofsted) 24, 36, 45, 46, 53, 69, 72–4 ontology of existence 187–8, 192–3 ontology of separation 12, 14, 59, 96, 120–1, 186–8, 192, 196 optimism: 6, 107, 169–71; cruel 25, 171; learned optimism 22–3, 24, 25, 108, 124 Organisation for Economic Development and Co-operation (OECD) 5, 8, 69, 80, 189

Salovey, P. and Mayer, J.D. 26; see also Goleman Saltman, K. 69, 78–9, 80, 81, 86 Schaverien, J. 84, 120 self-reliance 3, 38, 84, 93, 103, 152–3, 186–7, 197 Seligman, M.E.P. 4, 18–19, 22–5, 33, 45, 79, 124, 169, 190; see also positive psychology (PP) shame 18, 21, 22, 31–2, 49, 81–2, 84, 85, 100–3, 105, 109–11, 153, 171–2 Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (SEAL) 28–30, 47, 56, 72, 73 Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) 3–5, 11, 18, 32, 69, 189 Steinbock, A.J. 6, 10, 61, 93–4, 108, 112–14, 163, 169, 191; on repentance, hope and despair 107–8; on shame, guilt and pride 100–4; on trust, loving and humility 104–7 Strauss, C. et al. 80, 111–12 Suissa, J. 58–9, 154 syncretic sociability 123, 127–9, 130, 188, 194–5

pedagogy: as a moral practice 118, 135–7; of interdependence 162–4, 182, 187–8, 193–4, 198 phenomenology 6–7, 10, 12–13, 93–5, 98–101, 120, 192 Piaget, J. 21, 121–3, 126, 128–9, 132, 134, 140, 190

Tangney, J.P., Stuewig, J. and Mashek, D.J. 18–21, 109–11, 190–1 techniques: 8, 12, 23–4, 28–9; 32–3, 191; and toolkits 197; behaviorist 13, 118, 125, 127; for managing emotions 19, 25; generic 14, 18, 33, 136, 190; therapeutic 46–7; ‘triumph of’ 19

National Health Service (NHS) 5, 46–7, 78 ‘new individualism’ 10, 93, 98, 103, 167 Nussbaum, M. 8, 27, 31–3, 61–2, 66, 86, 102, 191 Nxumalo, F. 162, 169–71

204 Index telos 53–4, 65–6 therapy: 27, 38, 44–5; Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) 23; culture 12, 36–7, 40, 46, 49; therapeutic education 38, 45, 47–8, 49–50; therapeutic interventions 12, 40 Todd, S. 162, 177–8 trust 14, 39, 58, 101–2, 104–6, 108, 113–14, 168, 172, 174–6, 182 van Manen, M. 7, 33, 48, 54, 62, 82, 95, 136, 189–90, 193; and Adams, C. 194 virtue see Aristotle

Watson, J. 13, 123–4, 125, 136 well-being: 3, 5–6, 8, 25, 69, 74–5, 164, 167, 176–7; emotional 8, 14, 18–9, 40, 53; mental 11, 46, 167, 177, 197; societal 6, 19, 109, 186; see also mental health Welsh, T. 6, 117, 118, 127–8, 129, 132, 133, 174, 188 Williamson, W. 69, 79, 80 World Health Organisation (WHO) 5, 36 Zuboff, S. 82–3, 85, 98–9