Here is a long quote from the book EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE by Daniel
Goleman. I like it very much. It's in a section called Character,
Morality, and the Arts of Democracy (p. 285 - 286)
"There is an old-fashioned word for the body of skills that
emotional intelligence represents: CHARACTER. Character, writes Amitai
Etzioni, the George Washington University social theorist, is "the
psychological muscle that moral conduct requires." And philosopher John
Dewey saw that a moral education is most potent when lessons are taught to
children in the course of REAL events, not just as abstract lessons - the
mode of emotional literacy.
If character development is a foundation of democratic societies,
consider some of the ways emotional intelligence buttresses this
foundation. The bedrock of character is self-discipline; the virtuous
life, as philosophers since Aristotle have observed, is based on
self-control. A related keystone of character is being able to motivate
and guide oneself, whether in doing homework, finishing a job, or getting
up in the morning. And, as we have seen, the ability to defer
gratification and to control and channel one's urges to act is a basic
emotional skill, one that in a former day was called WILL. "We need to be
in control of ourselves - our appetites, our passions - to do right by
others", notes Thomas Lickona, writing about character education. "It
takes will to keep emotion under the control of reason."
Being able to put aside one's self-centered focus and impulses has
social benefits: it opens the way to empathy, to real listening, to taking
another person's perspective. EMPATHY, AS WE HAVE SEEN, LEADS TO CARING,
ALTRUISM, AND COMPASSION. Seeing things from another's perspective breaks
down biased stereotypes, and so breeds tolerance and acceptance of
differences. These capacities are ever more called on in our increasingly
pluralistic society, allowing people to live together in mutual RESPECT and
creating the possibility of productive public discourse. These are basic
arts of democracy.
Schools, notes Etzioni, have a central role in cultivating
character by inculcating self-discipline and empathy, which in turn enable
true commitment to civic and moral values. In doing so, it is not enough
to lecture children about values: they need to practice them, which happens
as children build the essential emotional and social skills. In this
sense, emotional literacy goes hand in hand with education for character,
for moral development, and for citizenship."
Refs:
1. Character-building and moral conduct: Amitai Etzioni, THE SPIRIT OF
COMMUNITY (New York: Crown, 1993)
2. Moral lessons: Steven C. Rockefeller, JOHN DEWEY: RELIGIOUS FAITH AND
DEMOCRATIC HUMANISM (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991)
3. Doing right by others: Thomas Lickona, EDUCATING FOR CHARACTER (New
York: Bantam, 1991)
4. The arts of democracy: Frances Moore Lappe and Paul Martin DuBois, THE
QUICKENING OF AMERICA (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1994)
My response: it's easy to inculcate self-discipline in our physics
classes - we do it naturally - but how about empathy? That doesn't seem to
come naturally. I have some ideas and examples, which I got from thinking
about this book - and I'll post them another day.
Cheers,
Jane
Jane Jackson, Prof. of Physics, Scottsdale Comm.College (on leave)
Box 871504, Dept. of Physics, Arizona State Univ., Tempe, AZ 85287-1504.
phone:(602) 965-8438 fax: 965-7331 e-mail: jane.jackson@asu.edu
Modeling Workshop Project: http://modeling.la.asu.edu/modeling.html