A Deeper Look | Issue # 18 July 11 2022
Hello Everyone,
I am writing to you from sunny Vancouver BC, after having recently moved back from Boston. The last time I spoke to you I was in the midst of an education policy degree at Harvard, but much has happened in that time. The last few months have been devoted to papers, coursework and graduation, and I regret not having devoted the time to keep this going. I now find myself back at home with the daunting yet exciting task of finding permanent employment. I will do my best to keep you posted as this hunt continues.
This week’s note includes:
Reflection
Education and Moral Development
Pictures: A Life in Transition
Reflection:
Part of the difficulty in starting this newsletter up again has been a near constant anxiety about what reflection to include. The reflections have been the most difficult part of this newsletter to write, so today a suggestion courtesy of my Dad:
“Inside the mind of a dog. - Hey Farhan that would be a neat topic, you could write about what happens inside the mind of a dog.”
We were walking down the False Creek seawall and as is the case saw a tremendous variety of dogs of all shapes, pedigrees and sizes, but what attracted our attention the most were their expressions. Some dogs looked serious, some disgruntled, some ambivalent, others dazed and confused, and others quite happy. This led us to discuss the question, do dogs have moods, and are dogs actually happy when they appear to be “smiling?” In other words, what goes on inside the mind of a dog? None of us knew the answer to the question - and so we promptly turned to the next topic - would we ever be able to run down the seawall shirtless? (I hope I am able to, but I suspect his time is fast running out..)
However, upon returning home I felt an urge to ferret - and found out that that there is indeed a Centre of Dog Cognition at Barnard College in New York City, led by Dr. Alexandra Horowitz, who has published a remarkable number of papers on the topics of canine behaviour, cognition, emotion and play, including a fascinating article on the question of a dogs “guilty look”. It turns out this is a far more complicated topic than I imagined as it involves determining what exactly a guilty look is, the intricacies of creating a situation that stimulates “guilt” as well as what guilty cues and elements present themselves. The study found that “The effect of scolding [a dog] was more pronounced when the dogs were obedient, not disobedient. These results indicate that a better description of the so-called guilty look is that it is a response to owner cues, rather than that it shows an appreciation of a misdeed.” It seems as though dog’s moods are shaped by the cues of their owners rather than any intrinsic sense of emotion.
Perhaps more relevant was this excerpt from an article in the journal of Animal Sentience, by Carl Safina who observes:
“When someone says you can’t attribute human emotions to animals, they forget the key leveling detail: humans are animals. Human sensations are animal sensations: inherited sensations, using inherited nervous systems. Simply deciding that other animals can’t have any emotions that humans feel is a cheap way to get a monopoly on all the world’s feelings and motivation. Human emotions of pleasure, pain, sexuality, hunger, frustration, self-preservation, defense, parental protection — we see evidence of all these in other species….. When animals seem joyous in joyful contexts, joy is the simplest interpretation of the evidence. Their brains are similar to ours, they make the same hormones involved in human emotions — and that’s evidence too. In science, the simplest interpretation of evidence is often the best”
Education and Moral Development
One class that stuck out to me during my time at Harvard was a course entitled: Leading a Good Life and Becoming a Good Person taught by Professor Richard Weissbourd.
We live in a world of deep moral deficit, it is a society that places a focus on individual achievement and happiness, it is filled with an inability to see past political and ideological divides, and it is one where a profound lack of empathy and the ability to care for the other are far too common.
A report entitled The Children We Mean to Raise: The Real Messages Adults Are Sending About Values has found that “a large majority of youth across a wide spectrum of races, cultures, and classes appear to value aspects of personal success—achievement and happiness—over concern for others. [The survey] asked youth to rank what was most important to them: achieving at a high level, happiness, or caring for others. Almost 80% of youth picked high achievement or happiness as their top choice, while roughly 20% selected caring for others.”
What follows is an excerpt of class notes in which we were provided an overview of the problems facing moral education today:
Misunderstanding of Empathy: We often conflate empathy or being empathetic with perspective taking or the ability to see an issue from the eyes of the other. The notion of perspective taking, however does not capture the ethical capacity of seeing value in another person. As our professor noted, evil and cruel people have the ability to adopt different perspectives, yet doing so do does not make them empathetic individuals. A second issue is the issue of who we hold empathy for - many of us do have empathy for others, but we don’t often hold empathy for those who are different from us. How do we expand our moral radar, and widen our circle of concern for those who are different for us - especially those who have radically different ideas?
Cultivating Moral Awareness: How do we as educators and educational systems develop the capacity of moral awareness in students? That is the ability to see moral issues where they previously did not exist.
Managing Destructive Emotions: To experience emotion is a fundamental aspect of the human condition, these include positive emotions of happiness, joy, fulfilment, love and contentment but also the destructive emotions of guilt, shame, fear, isolation, envy and jealousy. How do we as educators and institutions help students and children cope with these emotions? This can be a balancing act, on the one hand we cannot expect nor should we isolate or insulate children from these emotions. Guilt for example can act as a cornerstone of moral development, its presence reveals a knowledge and awareness of a violation of an internally held principle. At the same time we do not want to flood or overburden children with these emotions either. The festering and collection of shame for example can be tremendously harmful. We live in a society that is filled with implicit and explicit cues that nurture shame and guilt (popularity, athletics, academic pressure, social media) how do we structure environments that help children develop healthy coping mechanisms to deal with destructive emotions?
Confusing Social and Emotional Skills Development and Moral Development: There is often confusion between social and emotional learning (SEL) and moral development. The development of social and emotional skills should not be mistaken with the development of a moral identity. The skills of self-awareness, management, decision making, relationship skills, and social awareness are important but they should not be mistaken with the anchors that guide who we are and the moral character and identity we wish to develop.
Pictures: A Life in Transition
Thank you for reading