Hi Tipsters,
I was asking about vivid teaching moments last week (thanks to those
who sent them in--I didn't ask permission to post them to the group, so
don't know what to do at this point), and I thought I'd pass on a vivid
teaching/learning moment that I don't really know what to do with now that
I've got it...
I was trying to explain paranoid schizophrenia to my intro class
last semester, and was casting about for a different way to look at it. As
I sometimes do, I tried to consider what the *opposite* of paranoid sz would
look like, as a way of clarifying the concept both to myself and to the
class. What popped into my head was the idea of belief in a benevolent
force that arranged your life to be positive, took care of you, and loved
you no matter what. Yikes, I thought, that sounds like a belief in God to
me! In line with the research that indicates that we often distort the
world in positive ways in order to feel better about ourselves (Taylor &
Fiske), can we see a belief in good as an example of benevolent
schizophrenia, that is, a positive mental illness?
I offered the idea to the class; I couldn't tell what they thought,
but I'm still thinking about this months later...
Joe Hatcher
Ripon College
Ripon, WI 54971
USA
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
