From: Paul Okami [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"If social pressures are so powerful, and only rare individuals can
resist it, then people living in the same social group ought to be
virtually
100% identical which they are not. If "we" are the saviors of these
poor
blighted souls, battered about by forces beyond their control and which
they
cannot resist, how the hell did "we" get so powerful as to resist the
"social pressures" against which our students are utterly helpless? How
are
"we" different? Perhaps we read more and watch less TV?"
Marc writes:
For me it's a question of what accounts for most of the variability in
behavior: environment or personality. I'm not a social psychologist and
so cannot speak authoritatively on this, but based on what I have read,
environment accounts for far more of that variability than dispositions.
And a Skinnerian would maintain that much of the variability in
disposition can be explained by history.
How did we wind up different? I don't know about you, but I can tell
you *exactly* why I'm different from my peers: I had the chance to go
away and study to be a religious priest. I was exposed to things that I
never would have been exposed to, and who I am today is almost
completely dependent on those experiences. Not one in a thousand people
gets opportunities like that, but once those opportunities are there,
things happen.
I was lucky, as are a few others. Maybe they have a mentor. Maybe
they're lucky as kids and get sucked into a few good books and learn the
wonders of reading. Who knows?
But my lack of knowledge of the exact causes of what makes someone
different from the bulk of his or her peers is exactly the reason that
I'm not willing to bet on it. I'm playing the odds, and the odds are
that 80 of 100 of our students are going to be fundamentally similar to
the other 79, and are largely a product of culture. Culture is
immensely powerful.
Paul again:
"I am also a determinist. Everything has a cause. But what are the
causes? I am not angry at students. But they are responsible for their
own
development and education. If I am angry, it is at ideas which have the
effect of robbing people of self-determination."
And again, me:
Maybe it's a semantic thing, but "responsibility" and
"self-determination" are not phrases one often hears from a determinist.
What "self" is doing the determining? And if there be such a thing as a
(even relatively) autonomous self, what causes that self to determine
behavior in the particular way the behavior manifests?
That's why I choose (hee!) not to use the word "responsible."
"Accountable," sure! They are accountable. But by imposing
accountability on them, I change the environment, I change the culture
(with a small 'c'), and thus feel I'm much more likely to make a change
in behavior.
And that's what I want to do. I want to shape their behavior.
m
---
---
