A MIDDLE SCHOOL CHALLENGE

This posting revisits a topic that while pertaining to teaching and instruction in general does have a meaningful impact on civics education.  It is a topic previously addressed in this blog:[1]  how people tend to view intelligence.  Within this realm, a basic distinction people make is to determine whether intelligence is an entity by ascribing to entity theory or is it seen as an attainable quality by ascribing to incremental theory?  Carol S. Dweck and her work[2] has given the professional educational community a lot to think about through her research on this question.

          To explain, here is an extended quote that summarizes the two views from the citied, previous posting:

Among students, there seems to be two overarching held theories as to learning and intelligence.  One theory sees intelligence as an entity.  Students who see intelligence in this way consider it as a given amount; one is born with that amount and the more one has, the easier it is to learn new material.  This view can be described as mostly a fixed, concrete, and an essential quality of a person’s makeup.    One has what he/she has in terms of intelligence and that’s it. 

The other theory explains intelligence as incremental.  This incremental theory describes intelligence as malleable, willfully changeable, and dynamic.  In other words, a person can, through effort, become more intelligent. 

… One cannot logically hold these two views of intelligence simultaneously.  Intelligence is either fixed or changeable; it can’t be both.  One can hold one view at one time and later be convinced of the other.  But it seems that this is one of those basic beliefs one holds, either consciously or subconsciously and as such, the belief can affect what learning activities one is likely to pursue. 

It also affects how one judges others.  If a person sees intelligence as unchangeable, he or she is apt to hold those who exhibit low levels of intelligence as being highly limited in any efforts they might expend on improving their positions in life. 

Can one change one’s view of intelligence?  To the degree a person’s view of intelligence is an unconscious belief, an un-reflected assumption, it would probably take either many indirect experiences to convince one of changing his/her bias or view or direct instruction that skillfully aims at changing that view.[3]

          In the cited, previous posting, this writer points out that federation theory would be partial to the incremental theory.  After all, by this summary view, one can readily see that seeing intelligence as a changeable quality it would be a more democratic bias.  It also holds out a more likely probability that a person can be encouraged to lead a more interactive life with his/her fellow, federated citizens. 

With this incremental view, he/she sees knowledge – including knowledge about one’s community – as being able to be understood and worked upon if one only, albeit with fortitude and tenacity, learns what are the active factors are that affect the welfare of that community.  Therefore, incremental theory has a more republican sense about it.

But is there evidence to support how students perform in school given the view of intelligence they bring to school?  Of interest to the concerns of this blog is research Dweck did with students entering and performing in middle school.  In terms of the related issue, middle school provides a singular opportunity to test some of the implications of this two-theory distinction.  And it adds an added advantage when it comes to civics.

Dweck points out that upon leaving elementary school, an environment in which students generally accept what is expected of them as defined by the adult world and enter middle school, students begin to question those mandates.  They also leave the comfort of progressing through the school day with basically the same teacher.  At the new school, they begin going from class to class in which the content of their study becomes significantly more targeted.  Math is definitely math; language arts is definitely language arts, etc.

Of course, this latter change introduces a higher level of sophistication and any views one might have about intelligence and the possibility of attaining it will be influential as to how well one is likely to do.  Dweck points out that entity theory steers the students to seek performances – to demonstrate one’s innate ability – but at the same time avoid what is perceived as overly difficult challenges; they, the challenges, might demonstrate that their given intelligence can’t measure up.

On the other hand, students who view intelligence in an incremental way, are not so interested in performance; they want to confront the challenges and if they do not succeed at first, there are other ways to attain that knowledge.  The trick is in discovery those ways until the learning objectives are met.

The last point to be made about middle school is that it presents students with their first formal exposure to civics content.  To that point, schools might give students general messages about good citizenship and be told stories of how honesty and other good citizenship values are favorable and are expected modes about how people should act.  This is particularly so when it comes to the demands of being participants in their common social environment of the school.

Through questioning techniques, Dweck and her team of researchers asked students of middle schools telling questions that inquired into these students basic biases.  An obvious one:  Choose between “‘I usually think I’m intelligent’ versus ‘I wonder if I’m intelligent.’”[4]  This question seemly targets the factor of self-confidence, an often-cited emotional attribute that many associate with doing well at school and other challenging events.  This question is chosen because it leads to findings one would not intuitively predict.

To quote Dweck:

Students who came to junior high school believing in fixed intelligence were at a disadvantage.

          [Looking at grades] … The students with an entity theory showed a marked decline in their class standing.  [This deficit was not easily overcome.] … What surprised us most was that many students who showed this decline from high to low academic standing were entity theorists who had high confidence in their intelligence … [I]n our research we have seen that within an entity theory, confidence in intelligence does not always prevent helpless responses to difficulty …

          In contrast, the students with an incremental theory were significantly more likely to think that maybe their strategies should be revised[,] or their effort should be stepped up.[5]

          This leads to other counterproductive aspects.  Those with entity theory view tend to be more anxious about school; they hold an all or nothing approach.  They either have it or they don’t so when confronted with the new challenges, an anxious time ensues.  Incremental theory, in effect, affords those students a grace period to fail or not do as well.  They just need to learn the ropes, apply what they learn, try again, and repeat that process until success is achieved.

          It seems to this blogger, that civics – while often an eighth or ninth grade subject – can make the concerted effort to instruct students on this distinction.  It can do this directly as a factor affecting students or as an explanatory factor that helps them understand some politically related deficiencies political actors demonstrate.  Either way, civics can play a crucial role in helping students accommodate to the rigors of middle school.

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[1] See for example Robert Gutierrez, “Intelligence Is Changeable,” Gravitas:  A Voice for Civics, July 8, 2016, accessed October 10, 2019, https://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/2016/07/intelligence-is-changeable.html .

[2] Carol S. Dweck, Self-Theories:  Their Role in Motivation, Personality, and Development (Philadelphia, PA:  Psychology Press, 2000).

[3] Ibid, edited for this posting.

[4]  Ibid., 30.

[5] Ibid., 31.

WITHIN THE ROPES

The last posting of this blog presented an argument:  open societies depend on sufficient numbers of their entities (individuals and groups) to meet needed societal obligations and be willing to accept injunctions in the pursuit of that polity’s health and survival.  This is a federalist argument; an argument applicable to polities that are arranged by a people getting together to formulate them.  The process includes the promises these parties make through instruments of a covenants or compacts.  The US is an example.

          Currently, a supportive, matching mental construct, one that supports a federated populous, is not prominent in America.  Instead, the natural rights construct – probably with little reflection among the population in general – has been dominant since the years after World War II.  This blog has presented various arguments and has described various bits of evidence to back up this claim.  To add another bit of information, the electorate in the last presidential election elected a self-admitted nationalist. 

One can see such a choice as logically flowing from an increasing alignment with a natural rights view.  As such, a dysfunctional number of people in the US today tends to deny it has any obligations beyond those people choose to recognize.  Of course, for many, that’s no obligations at all.

          Such a view actively seeks to prevent governmental policies that are based on obligations – for example, be willing to pay higher taxes to fund such programs as public health care or public schooling – from being enacted and implemented.  The Tea Party, in its public messaging, seems to exemplify such a position. 

But a question arises.  Are federated or federalist arguments, by their nature, progressive or liberal ones or are they, by definition, anti-conservative?  If one ascribes to federation theory, does one necessarily hold a political allegiance to a left of center ideology?  Not necessarily so.  This posting presents how both liberals and conservatives can ascribe to federation theory. 

If anything, this federated theory precludes adherents from the more extreme positions on the political spectrum – socialism and communism as well as nationalism and fascism.  As a populous, its people among themselves, moves to the more extreme positions on the spectrum, that makes the ability to give and take and, eventually, arrive at compromise seriously more difficult if not impossible. 

This factor, among others, makes such allegiance to natural rights – a position that makes liberty a trump value – incompatible with federalist beliefs which depend on citizens interacting in viable communal “squares” and “arenas.”  It is not that being federated depends on everyone agreeing, but to be able to discuss, argue, and debate as to what should be done and pursued.  And that, in turn, counts on citizens holding societal survival or health as a trump or, if not trump, a higher value than liberty.

That is so because very important norms and assumptions are dismissed as unacceptable compromises when liberty is the trump value.  While this shift to natural rights makes the give-and-take of political discussion and compromise more and more impossible, a previously federated populous, as the US, becomes unfederated.

And this can have repercussions in other aspects of social life.  As seems to be happening among Americans, this is characterized by severed friendships and bifurcated family relationships.  Does this sound familiar within America’s current social political landscape?  The media outlets – of both sides of the current political divide – seem to describe today’s politics in those terms.

To illustrate a healthier federalist national arena the following is offered.  One can probably readily see how a liberal or progressive can form an attachment to a federalist sense of obligations and injunctions, yet probably having much less tolerance for injunctions.  For example, a liberal supports national programs such as the Affordable Health Care program – with its accompanying increases in taxes – that was initiated during the Obama administration.  But they are probably more likely to strive to eliminate injunctions against marijuana smoking. 

Each position can be held not necessarily from a personal interest perspective – they may neither need a public health program nor smoke marijuana.  They hold such positions because they believe each – public health and legalization of marijuana – serve the society best.  They see government having limitations in what authority they should have, but that does not preclude that government does have legitimate interests in what can be regulated or otherwise criminalized.  Natural rights proponents disagree.

On the other side of center, what one calls a moderate conservative, those advocates have a heightened suspicion over governmental authority but are willing to hear the arguments and even willing to be convinced that such authority is necessary if certain needs can be demonstrated.  Conservatives generally for example, support public schooling.  They might also question whether prison systems should be administered by private companies.  In other words, the difference between moderate conservatives and moderate liberals is not that wide.

Therefore, moderate conservatives do not, a priori, find as illegitimate injunctions governments might enact – as a matter of fact, they tend to favor drug laws or blue laws, like prohibiting the sale of alcoholic beverages on Sunday.  They are more likely to be sensitive to traditional beliefs or practices such as those associated with religion.  They also favor lower levels of business regulations – especially those affecting small businesses.  And they favor lower taxes; they tend to believe taxation functions to discourage business investment. 

But the important thing is, they agree enough with liberals on basic assumptions making the disagreements discuss-able and subject to compromise.  It’s just that they more readily see the common good ill-served by governmental efforts to solve the various social/economic/political problems of the day and better-served by the efforts of people, on their own, to meet, ameliorate, and/or solve those woes. 

Oh, they are more readily wary of government being able to solve or even help a problem area.  Even if they think government can help, they worry about unforeseen consequences that government action can initiate – a complaint, by the way, that can also be levied against the efforts of the private sector.

So, in summary, one cannot accuse conservatives or liberals of being anti-federalist as defined by federation theory and described and explained by the late political scientist, Daniel J. Elazar – a scholar this blog writer has often cited in this blog.[1]  An assumption this blog holds is that this nation can regain a federalist perspective to be, if not dominant, more influential in defining what is acceptable political thinking and action.

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[1] For example, Daniel J. Elazar, American Federalism: A View from the States, (New York, NY: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1966) and Daniel J. Elazar, Exploring Federalism (Tuscaloosa, AL:  The University of Alabama Press, 1987).