Last weekend, which coincided with the start of Fall Break, I attended a wonderful workshop on school leadership in Chicago.  The sessions were conducted by NAIS (the National Association of Independent Schools), which is the peak organization of private schools in the US and the umbrella organization of one of our two accreditation bodies, ISAS (the Independent Schools Association of the South-west).  The workshops provided a timely opportunity for me to learn first-hand about the workings and ethos of independent schooling in the United States - which interestingly, I found to be almost identical to my previous experiences as Head of three independent schools in Australia and New Zealand.

This was the first time I had visited Chicago, and even though I spent almost all my waking hours attending the  workshop sessions (that began each morning with breakfast together at 7 am), my daily walks to and from the workshop venue, plus a single block of two hours I had after the conference ended before I had to go to the airport, were enough to endear me quickly to the city’s wonderful architecture.  I also learned that Chicago’s reputation as “the windy city” is extremely well founded!

Having spent some time before the workshops exploring the NAIS website, I had high expectations of this workshop, and my experience in Chicago exceeded even those high expectations.  Many of the sessions focussed on the relationship between Heads of Schools and the governing boards, which was understandable given that the target audiences for the workshop were Heads and Board Chairs.  Other sessions included recent trends in independent schooling in the US, the ‘Trustee Dashboard’” that NAIS has developed to facilitate clear reporting to boards of trustees, legal issues, demographic changes, bullying, and managing new forms of information technology.

In some ways, I found the final session to be one of the most captivating.  Entitled “Raising Moral Children” and delivered by Richard Weissbourd from Harvard University, the address began with the provocative assertion that schools focus too much on moral literacy, and not enough on (1) moral identity, motivation and dispositions, (2) managing destructive emotions, (3) moral reasoning, (4) social and emotional skills, and (5) the strength and maturity of the ‘self’. 

Having set this framework, Weissbourd shared the example of the Dutch people who helped hide persecuted Jewish families during World War II.  When those Dutch people were interviewed after the war, they never described their actions as a choice; they saw their actions as an expression of their fundamental identity.  Weissbourd suggested that developing a deep level of moral judgement and character such as this should be a key aim of education.  This would help us avoid the answers he heard from some six year olds when asked what they would say to their teachers if they had forgotten to do their homework.  Among the answers he heard were “do you want the answer you want to hear, or the truth?” and “I know what you want me to say, but no six year old would ever do that”.  And these responses were from the mouths of six year olds!

Weissbourd then shared the results of a survey undertaken recently in the US.  When students were asked to rank the four factors: (a) happiness, (b) goodness, (c) achieving success, and (d) high status career, most students ranked happiness far above the other choices.  Furthermore, they were confident that their parents would agree with their rankings, and when the survey was extended to include the parents, the students’ predictions of their parents’ rankings were indeed confirmed.

Weissbourd believes that this study shows that in stark contrast to most of America’s history and long traditions, people in the US today have elevated happiness (which he defined as equating with high self-esteem) above moral goodness.  He noted further that this emphasis on happiness is unusual in human history, and also in the wider contemporary world.  Perhaps provocatively, he suggested that no other society other than the US sees self esteem as a basis for morality - indeed, most societies and historical periods take the opposite approach, viewing suffering and sacrifice as a deeper, primary basis for morality.  In

supporting this point, he mentioned a large research exercise in which people were asked to identify the events in their lives that had resulted in significant moral, ethical and personality growth.  Almost no-one mentioned happy events; the overwhelming majority noted (often to their own surprise) that significant personal growth usually arose from suffering, anguish and sacrifice.

His central claim, flowing from this research finding, is that morality leads to higher self esteem, not vice versa.

Speaking personally, Weissbourd’s assertion did resonate with me.  As I discussed with my ToK class a couple of weeks ago, none of the great philosophical schools (with the one single exception of utilitarianism) would claim happiness is the most important aim in life.  As the Austrian mathematician and philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein famously (and somewhat bluntly) said when trying to articulate what he saw as the point of life, “I don't know why we are here, but I'm pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves.”  And in a similar vein, the Anglo-American poet WH Auden said “We are all here on earth to help others; what on earth the others are here for, I don’t know”.

Similarly, all the great religious traditions reject happiness per se as the most important aim in life.  Instead, they speak of something far deeper and more profound using words such as wisdom, peace, joy and truth.

I found the discussion on this subject in my ToK class to be fascinating.  True to the stereotypes, my students who had mainly grown up in the US tended to feel strongly that happiness was indeed the most important goal in life, whereas those from other backgrounds were more likely to emphasize success and/or moral goodness.  And THAT, I believe, is one of the great things about being in an international school - students are constantly exposed to others’ perspectives and challenged to think deeply about their own assumptions.  As I often say to my students, “if you want a definition of water, don’t ask a fish.”

Returning to Weissbourd’s presentation, he was at pains to emphasize that children should never be told to “be moral/be good to others, because it will make you happy”.  This is because (a) sometimes being good to others might not bring happiness (even though it usually does), and (b) it devalues the importance of morality as an end in itself by implying that the main reasons to act morally are selfish rather than altruistic.

Weissbourd’s practical advice that flowed from these findings fell into three points:

1. 1. Rather than telling our children that the most important thing is their happiness, tell them the most important thing is their kindness.
   

2. 2. Don’t let children write off others who are annoying.  Instead, help them give others credit for their achievements, and help them tune into other children’s emotional states.  It is important that children understand the importance of their obligations to others, to their school, to the team – in other words, to things that are larger than themselves and their own personal wants.
   

3. 3. Make maturity the goal of child raising, not happiness or self esteem.  Maturity includes the ability to balance and coordinate one’s personal needs with others, to take a third person’s perspective, to be reflective and self-critical,  to receive feedback constructively, to change behavior based on our own and other’s assessments and to manage destructive feelings.
   

On this last point, Weissbourd is adamant that constant positive praise devalues the nature of the praise, gets in the way of enabling children to develop coping mechanisms, and tends to make otherwise deep relationships superficial.  He suggests that teachers and parents should tell children they are wonderful and terrific ONLY when they are genuinely wonderful and terrific.   His “anti-model” in this area was a father who was playing catch his young son, who would say “nice catch” whenever the boy caught the ball and “nice try” every time time he missed; there was no space for anything other than constant (and often artificial)

affirmation in the conversation.  In that context, Weissbourd asserted his strong view that the common line “you should praise a child five times for every critical comment” is nonsense to the point of being destructive as it gives children no room to develop qualities of resilience or to experience the authentic delight that flows from experiencing genuine excellence.

Continuing along his sometimes provocative line of thinking, Weissbourd suggested that over attention to praise tends to be a rich, white phenomenon.  He noted that non-western, non-white cultures usually emphasize commitment to family and community rather than self.  Such societies also tend to have statistically fewer social and emotional problems.  Again quoting extensive research, Weissbourd described how recently arrived immigrant children in the US tend to stand strongly for their morals and principles, but by their third generation living in the US,  these moral standards had become diluted to conform to normal US standards that included the intensified focus on self.

There was certainly a great deal of food for thought in Weissbourd’s presentation.  He has sparked my interest in several lines of enquiry that I am looking forward to pursuing.

Parenthetically, the experience of attending the workshop also sparked my interest in seeing more of Chicago – I can’t believe I didn’t allow myself more than two hours to explore that fabulous city!

Next time, it will be different for sure :-)