he Journey to Peaceable Schools

By: Jay D. Tarnow, M.D.

 

“There is nothing new under the Sun . . .”

 

Over thirty years ago, I did a research project in my internship.  I gathered together the five worst students in an elementary school in the worst school in the South Bronx, which was then the worst, most violent neighborhood in the country.  I evaluated these children and their families.  Then, I did a group with them, their parent or parents, the vice principal, and their teachers. Every one of those students graduated, all their grades went up, and they became better behaved.  All I did was to bring together all parts of the system into one room and we learned to communicate with “respect.”

 

In 1982, I was Director of HCGC.  I started to give speeches throughout Houston from schools and PTA’s to the major corporations and foundations to the River Oaks Country Club.  I warned that the U. S. was about to experience an “Epidemic of Violence” in our children and schools.  I noted that the three most common causes of death in teenagers were accidents, homicides, and suicides.  This is still true today.  In addition, the epidemic has moved to a younger and younger age group.  In 1994, children between 12 and 19 years of age were more at risk than adults for victimization by assault, rape, or robbery.  The incidence of elementary school children witnessing a shooting or stabbing ranges from 19% to 30%.  Twenty years ago, I warned about drug and alcohol use reaching into our junior high schools and that substance use would reach into our elementary schools.  Violence and drugs are problematic not just in urban, inner city schools, but throughout all strata of society.  Twenty years ago, I said that the main problem is our society does not value children enough and warned if we did not change our ways, these epidemics would cause catastrophic results.  Now it is 2002 and, unfortunately, my predictions have come true.  We did not heed the warnings of many child advocates.

 

In fact, Maria Montessori said the same things 70 years ago.  Forget about global warming, pollution, cancer cures, the perils of military threats to our security and country.  Our biggest threat is the way we treat children. Children have little power in society.  They don’t vote; they don’t create very much wealth, food, clothing, shelter.  In a materialistic society, they don’t add much value. They don’t advocate well for themselves.  They depend on adults.  They depend on adults who value them, who see their inherent value and their potential, and who understand they are our future.

 

Maria Montessori laid out how to have the Peaceable School.  She expounded the principles before I was born.  Maria Montessori said the following:

 

“No attempt to solve social and moral problems will succeed if it concentrates only on Man-the-Adult and his activities and not on the whole man and that it is the young child who determines man’s future as an adult member of society.”

“How we raise our children and how we educate our children will determine the world’s future.”

 

“Establishing a lasting peace is the work of education; all politics can do is keep us out of war.”

 

“We must develop the spiritual life of man and then organize humanity for peace.”

 

“Human beings are brought up to regard themselves as isolated individuals who must satisfy their immediate needs by competing with other individuals. Man must understand and be taught the interdependence we have on each other and how to work together as a society.”

 

“The child is both a hope and a promise for mankind.”

 

To create a Peaceable World, we must create a Peaceable School.  We must teach our children to think for themselves, to critically analyze, to value and respect others, to work together.  Many parents have no idea how to raise children with these capabilities.  Parents are neglecting their children because they have too much to do.  In the last century the family has disintegrated.   Two-thirds of children will experience a loss of a parent in their childhood.  Most children are latch-key kids and grow up with both parents working or from single-parent families.  Parents are going to teach the child their prejudices, their view of the world, their philosophy of life, their morality.  Therefore, we must create schools which are environments that allow the child to unfold his godliness.  Schools will need to teach parents to be teachers.

 

To create a Peaceable School, I believe the most important principle is that “All men are brothers!”  The most important factors are compassion and love, especially compassion for the stranger.  The stranger is the one that is different, the ill one, the one with a birth defect, a handicap, who acts different or strange.  In the peaceable school, the teachers and students have compassion and respect for all.

 

Prejudice, psychologically speaking, is displacement of anger and projection of our undesirable personality traits onto others.  Prejudice comes from fear.    For instance, we are afraid of being seen as inadequate, so we project it onto someone else — the scapegoat.  How we treat the Stranger—the “different one”—is how we treat the bad part of ourselves.  Children who commit violence are ostracized, demoralized, alienated, isolated, and their problems are ignored, labeled bad.  How do we involve them?  How do we re-engage them?  We can’t let children get away.  We must continue to re-engage.  We need to do whatever it takes.  I don’t believe in expulsion or out school suspension.  Schools must have a total commitment to each child.

 

Children learn from adults.  They learn by interacting with adults and by watching adults.  They rarely learn by listening to adults.  Children learn from the environment.  They learn from how the classroom is set up, the administrative structure of the school, the way teachers treat each student, their fellow teachers, themselves. They learn from observing and participating in the process.   Some educators say—“Children learn morality, compassion, and prejudice from their families.”  They are absolutely right -- That’s the problem which we keep recreating.  Damaged people can’t solve the problem.  We need to train educators who can teach these values.

 

I propose the way is through education.  This country needs to value education and put the resources necessary to make it work.  We need to honor and respect the educators.  We need to show our value of our children by honoring our teachers.  We need to train our teachers to educate the whole child.  We need to create an education system that is the Utopian Society.  It needs to be the best of our society and given the best of tools, building, equipment, training.  We need to hire the best and value them so we keep them teaching.

 

I propose that the foundation for a Peaceable School is creating an environment that is compassionate, loving, and empathetic.   How do children develop these traits and what are the impediments to their development?  The essential foundation is how the adults and the system treat the Stranger—the different one.

 

What is the developmental process of empathy?

Empathy is conceptualized as a social response that has two aspects: (a) a congruent affective response to the emotional state of another, and (b) a cognitive understanding of emotion in another.  Empathy begins with the mother-infant relationship and the the bond that develops.  Infants start with a lack of awareness of the world. Through the mother’s ministrations, the infant becomes aware of another and develops a symbiosis, at two months of age. This is the basis of empathy.  The infant first becomes aware of the other—not self.    The infant explores the not self and becomes aware of its dependency on this being--The first Stranger.  Isn’t it ironic that the first Stranger develops the closest relationship the individual will ever have?  A dependency on the “stranger.”    This should teach us what the Dali Llama calls our interdependence of the world.  The world is linked by a total interdependence.

 

At about five months, the infant becomes more aware of the non-mother environment.  At this stage, the infant can more clearly distinguish mother, father, siblings, strangers.  Stranger anxiety appears and the infant differentiates sameness and differences.  Social referencing emerges at the end of the first year and also involves shared affect between the infant and mother – a precursor to empathy.

 

In the second year of life, the infant explores strangeness and tries to become comfortable with the feeling.  To cope, the toddler creates transitional experiences—memories of the mother and the feeling of being with the mother.  At this stage, the toddler plays with giving and sharing, which is a representation of the toddler’s experience with mother.  During the second year of life, infants display empathic concern, prosocial acts (verbal sympathy, helping, sharing, and protection), and an attempt to comprehend the distress of another.  Self-other differentiation allows infants to respond with concern for the distress of another person rather than responding with inward directed self-distress.

 

In the third year of life, the toddler tries to develop mechanisms to comfort the self, including identification with the other.  The identification with the other calms the toddler as the world is not so strange.  This identification continues in the third and fourth years of life to the point where the preschooler now must create a world of comfort away from mother.  To do this he must be able to get along with the other children.  Cooperative play begins in the fourth and fifth years of life.  The Preschooler has to resolve their desire to be special and unique with being part of the group.  They identify with the adults in their world.  They observe how the adults handle their aggression, how they deal with the stranger, how they empathize.  Good group behavior is learned and consolidated.  Prejudice is learned from the adults in the child’s world.  Thus, the child is a clean slate for the parents to import their beliefs about the world and the Stranger.  The child has had to depend on the Stranger to exist in the world.

 

Empathy develops through early mother-infant interactions with a biological basis.  Maternal modeling of altruistic behavior and empathic caregiving can increase altruistic behaviors displayed by children.  Studies have found that mothers who were affectionate, sensitive, and promoted kindness during infancy had children who displayed more empathic concern.  On the other hand, Prejudice develops through socialization in the environment.

 

The child’s desire to be liked is extremely powerful in this new strange environment of school.  Subgroups develop and the child tries to find its place.   This is a very destructive process in developing Peaceable Schools.  So how the teacher deals with the various subgroups becomes of foremost importance.  Here is an opportunity to correct children’s distorted beliefs and prejudice.

 

Children who experience classrooms with a diversity of children are more prepared for the real world.  Children who are taught in classes with disabled students benefit as much as disabled students.  This obviously must be done with teachers trained to deal with diversity and integrating the class.  I believe that an integrated class of diverse children is a wonderful teaching tool for children to learn compassion and empathy.  This diversity should not just be racially and ethically diverse, but should include the handicapped child.   The benefits of children without disabilities in integrated programs with handicapped children are: 1) they display less prejudice and fewer stereotypes; 2) they are more empathetic of the needs of others; 3) they are more responsive and helpful to others; 4) they have improved self-esteem.

 

We are a nation of diverse populations and groups.  That is America’s strength.  The future of our society depends upon our ability to effectively communicate with one another, to reach mutual understanding, and to realize that in diversity there is strength.  Forty-three percent of the U.S. population are people of color.  By 2056, the average U.S. citizen will trace his or her descent to Africa, Asia, Hispanic countries, the Pacific Islands—almost anywhere but white Europe.  By 2075, individuals of white European descent will be a minority. We need to teach children conflict resolution, cooperation and interdependence, global awareness, and social and ecological responsibility.

 

There have been numerous programs developed to combat prejudice which are based on:

· Cooperation between groups for shared goals—“Cooperative Learning”.

· Frequent, casual contact between equals

· Long-term cooperative working relationships. Help each other survive in school

· The general social enviornment needs to be supportive of integration and good relationships

· Teaching self-analysis of prejudice and methods to correct them. We all have irrational beliefs and are continually developing them.

· Teaching conflict resolution techniques

· Mediation techniques and practice for teachers and students

 

 

Within any learning situation, a teacher can structure positive goal interdependence (i.e., cooperation), negative goal interdependence (i.e., competition), or no goal interdependence (i.e., individualistic efforts).  A cooperative learning situation benefits all students.  Working cooperatively with peers provides:

 

· More direct face to face interaction among students

· An expectation that one’s peers will facilitate one’s learning

· More peer pressure toward achievement and appropriate classroom behavior

· More reciprocal communication and fewer difficulties in communicating with each other

· More actual helping, tutoring, assisting, and general facilitation of each other’s learning

· More open-mindedness to peers and willingness to be influenced by their ideas and information

· More positive feedback to and reinforcement of each other

· Less hostility, both verbal and physical, expressed toward peers

 

 

Cooperation also creates perceptions and feelings of:

 

· Higher trust in other students

· More mutual concern and friendliness for other students, more attentiveness to peers, more feelings of obligation to and responsibility for classmates, and desire to win the respect of other students

· Stronger beliefs that one is liked, supported, and accepted by other students, and that other students care about how much one learns and want to help one learn

· Lower fear of failure and higher psychological safety

· Higher valuing of classmates

· Greater feelings of success (Johnson and Johnson 1980)

 

 

When interaction between handicapped and nonhandicapped students is competitive, students:

 

· Have little face to face interaction

· Expect peers to impede the achievement of their learning goals

· Face peer pressure against achievement and appropriate classroom behavior

· Communicate inaccurate information and frequently misunderstand each other

· Are closed-minded to and unwilling to be influenced by peers

· Give each other negative feedback

· Express verbal and physical hostility toward peers

 

 

In both learning situations there are perceptions and feelings of:

 

· Distrust for other students

· Higher fear of failure and more feelings of failure

· Less mutual concern and feelings of responsibility for peers

· Being rejected and disliked by classmates