This presentation below has been prepared for the program of a joint meeting between the Walden Cyberspace and Tokyo Japan chapters of Phi Delta Kappa, February 21-29, 2004. Welcome chapter members and guests! Please, join the dialogue on this topic by posting your thoughts or questions for Peg in the comment board at the bottom of the page.
Our Vice President for Programs, Marion Carpenter, introduces our presenter:
"Peg Lowmiller comes with 33 years of teaching experience, having taught first, fourth, and fifth grade. She hates to see what is happening to the children of this country with the increased violence and bullying. Therefore, she joined the Silvan S. Tompkins Institute (SSTI), a group working on finding the causes of bullying so they can help to stop the violence, and she has been an SSTI member since 1995. She works closely with the Training Director of the Institute coordinating study groups in the US and around the world. She saw that to combat bullying & violence, the training had to start in early childhood. Pre-school, Kindergarten, and first grade is most ideal, she believes, with middle and upper elementary being the grades to reinforce the concepts and do a daily circle of discussion to put the concepts into use."
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Thank you for inviting me to be your guest for this week. This will be an exciting week of new information, which hopefully will produce lots of thought-provoking dialogue and useful format to deal with relational problems in the classroom and community. I am proud to be a follow-up speaker after Marg Thorsborne's discussion of Restorative Justice last year. Her work in RJ has greatly improved the lives of so many touched by school violence and bullying. Firstly, I would like to briefly introduce myself. My name is Peg Lowmiller. As a member of the Silvan S. Tomkins Institute, based in Philadelphia, PA, I became convinced that the Affect Psychology that we use and support could have a very positive impact on classroom situations that I dealt with daily. Having taught for 33 years, there have been many changes in schools, parents, children, and most of all what emotional baggage the children bring to school with them each morning. We all know that a child who is emotionally upset is not a child who can learn to his/her best advantage. The Affect Psychology I was learning seemed to be exactly what I needed to use in the classroom, so a program slowly developed. The Tomkins Institute has presented this information in DVD format, which includes a manual and study guide. It is called, "Managing Shame, Preventing Violence: A Call to Our Clergy." This is the original DVD which was focused on community and an outreach program for clergy. It is every bit adaptable for educators in all settings from preschool to private and public school systems. Information that I will present to you is from the manual of this DVD, and from Don Nathanson's book, Shame and Pride. The book is available from Borders, and Barnes and Noble bookstores. The DVD is available through http://www.Tomkins.org, the web site of the Tomkins Institute. Lots of other information is also available through this website for a more thorough understanding of Affect Psychology. I encourage you to visit. Our discussion is focused on school violence and bullying. But I would like to shift your attention from the actions to the emotions causing and caused by these actions. It is the emotions experienced by the individuals, and their habitual ways of responding to these emotions. In our present culture this increasingly means with violence. To some students and parents violence is much more acceptable as a solution than ever before. We know of two types of violent reactions to humiliation: immediate and deferred. Emotions are a combination of learning and experience, superimposed over basic biology. Human emotion is a reaction pattern which Tomkins called the nine basic affects. They function as a group of mechanisms through which any triggering stimulus becomes the subject of our attention.
Whenever something in our life is urgent and important, an affect made it so. Nothing becomes conscious, nothing can enter memory unless or until it has triggered one of these nine affects. We can visualize them as a bank of spotlights, each of a different color, each turned on and off by its own special mechanism, each encouraging us to pay attention to its triggering source with the kind of motivation biologically programmed for that affect's spotlight. We separate the nine affects into three categories. There are two positive "feel good" affects; interest-excitement, and enjoyment-joy. One is a neutral affect because it feels neither good nor bad, it merely resets the system; surprise-startle. And six negative affects that feel six different kinds of awful; anger-rage, fear-terror, shame-humiliation, distress-anguish, dissmell, and disgust. Most of these affects are hyphenated—this is to indicate the range of feelings that they produce. The infant produces the complete range of innate affects at birth in their pure forms. Adults have been socialized to mute their affects, because affect is uncontrollably contagious.
For the purposes of our discussion we will focus on several affects which seem to comprise the emotions which help escalate to violence. Anger-rage is sometimes a full-throated roar, but more often in adults is suppressed to what we call backed-up anger. Dissmell starts out in the infant as protection from bad food on the basis of odor. Eventually it comes to have less to do with the hunger drive and everything to do with the rejection of people or ideas before we get to know them. Dissmell involves rejection before sampling and is the biological mechanism that amplifies and powers prejudice. The third is Disgust. It starts out in the infant as a rejection of something that tastes foul - another innate protection from bad food. In the adult, it operates as a metaphor for bad food and comes to signify rejection of some person or idea we'd expect would be far more tasty but now must be expelled.
The positive affects of Interest-Excitement and Enjoyment-Joy feel so good and so thoroughly take over the mind of the individual, that we've evolved with a mechanism that registers and brings to immediate attention anything that interferes, even for a moment, with these good feelings. It is the last to evolve of these innate physiological affect mechanisms than brings any such interference or impediment to our attention. This mechanism is the biological basis for the whole range of feelings and experiences we call shame. We've all seen shame; the blush, with the eyes pulled away from whatever may have seemed so interesting just a moment before, and the entire body slumps as muscle tone is sharply decreased. The affect makes it impossible to maintain attention on whatever had been going on a moment ago, even though the stimulus for that interest or contentment continues. The evolved function of this affect spotlight is to call our attention to whatever had interfered with the good feeling in progress. Shame is usually triggered by sudden awareness of something about the self that we didn't really want to know. There are only eight categories, eight kinds of experiences in which any of us will feel shame.
To make things worse, as the child grows the experience of shame comes to include the sense of self-dissmell and self-disgust. The experience of shame really feels awful and each of us learns lots of ways to escape it. OK, so what does all this have to do with school violence? Well, if shame steps in and we are interrupted in the midst of interest or enjoyment, then we focus on one of the eight shame experiences, and we will react in some way. How we react to the impediment of the shame experience is the root of school violence. In science we were taught: stimulus - reaction. Tomkins added affect, so the sequence becomes; stimulus - affect- reaction. Something or someone interrupts our interest, we have the affect of shame, and we react. This is the sequence at its most simplified. The most mature way of responding to a moment of shame starts with an inner search after which we realize it is OK to love ourselves. From this search, we remember the loving support of those who have truly cared about us. It is from this solid sense of a good and lovable self that we respond to and accept whatever has been exposed about ourselves, no matter how awful it may have seemed a moment earlier. At best, shame leads us to an acceptance and deeper truths. Sadly, this is rarely so. For most of us, when we don't really believe we are loved, or we lack the capacity to love ourselves, we can't learn anything from shame. When we don't know how to focus where the spotlight of shame tries to aim our attention, there are only four sets of ways people behave, four universal systems of defense against the information shame wants us to consider. These four reactive methods comprise the Compass of Shame. We will next look at the details of the Compass of Shame and how this can be taught to give children a way to express and expose their own and another's shame in an empathic and compassionate way. |
Archived Discussion
| Name | Comment |
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| Dr. Andre Elliott | The headline in the 2-20-04 edition of the Japan Times (English)read "Bush troubled by gay couples tying the knot in SanFrancisco." When I contemplate the topic for this week and views on gay marriages in America, the children caught in the political whirlwind should be our highest priority. Thanks for being our facilitator this week. It is wise that we focus on "emotions" are a combination of learning and experience, superimposed over basic biology. I look forward to expanding my knowledge base and increasing my repertoire to be more effective in preventing and managing violence in our schools. |
| Peg | Thank you Dr. Elliott, for your warm welcome. I hope that the information can be as helpful in your situations has it has been in my classroom and other PA schools. |
| Peg | Thank you Dr. Elliott, for your warm welcome. I hope that the information can be as helpful in your situations as it has been in my classroom and other PA schools. |
| Peg | By the way, my first post is a perfect example of one of the eight shame experiences. #1 (ability and skill) to be specific. Am I now so shamed that I am afraid to repost for fear of being seen as stupid, incompetent, etc.? Or can I use this tiny pinch of shame to edit my posts more carefully before sending, therefore reducing my shame level, and in the process make myself actually feel better about what I am able to do? |
| Theran Mugleston | Where does family instruction fit into the picture? Where does religious influences fit into the picture? Or do they? I have always thought that instruction from family and religious leaders play a big part in "controlling" anger and violence. |
| Marilyn K. Simon, Ph.D. | Thanks Peg. I am delighted to welcome you to Walden's PDK. The topic under discussion is one of major concern to our Educational Commmunity. I have read conflicting studies as to the degree of bullying in the school (from 15% to 75%) and I am hoping that you can help clarify these data. Walden is a cyber community and bullying has entered "our domain." Bullies who once cornered their victims on the playground are now tormenting them online. E-mail messages and Web sites have increasingly become vehicles to threaten, tease, and humiliate other students. Could you please comment on this issue and let us know if STI is addressing the issue of Cyber bullying. |
| Peg | First to respond to Theran. Family Instruction fits into the picture because we know that the child's environment plays a major role in how the child feels about him or herself long before they enter an educational setting. A child that is raised in a shaming or non-positive affective environment will have had to cope with most all of the eight shaming experiences. Without parental help to modulate the shaming experience the child does not know how to handle the shame that can be overwhelming. The child tends to be as mentally healthy as the family in general. Here we get into the deep problem of normative versus a more humanistic view of how to raise children. Either view can be taken to extreme, and for learning how to best modulate affect in all situations a middle-of-the-road teaching is most effective. Tomkins and Nathanson also believe that the religious community has a bearing on the socialization of the child. This is why the original DVD was focused on the clergy. |
| Peg | Thank you, Marilyn, for the welcome. In response to you question about the degree of bullying in the schools, I think that you will find that the percentage of bullying rises greatly in urban schools. I have no hard data to support this feeling. Bullying can be quietly incidious and very difficult to even survey. However from just a local aspect, we have both very urban and very rural schools in our district. There is bullying in all schools, but the incidence of serious offenders seems to rise sharply in our more urban schools. Your second question about cyber bullying has given me pause. Actually I must admit that this domain of bullying has not risen to view in our community to my knowledge. There are safeguards in place in mail programs to prevent e-mail from offenders. I'm sure that would solve part of the problem. Web sites which offend should be ignored. But I do appreciate the question because that is obviously another venue which the SSTI should look into. |
| Barbara Gregory | The concept of shame being related to bullying is truly an idea to ponder. In my small, rural school, the "little bullies" are those who do not seem to feel or acknowledge shame. In many ways, these children seem to be devoid of any feeling at all. Last week, at the end of the day I witnessed a 6-year-old child pinning another child behind a door. As I approached, I could see the fear on the one child's face, but the grin and look of satisfaction on the bully's face chilled my blood. As with criminal trial's that end with a need for a statement of remorse from the defendant, I wanted to see "shame" and an apologetic stance from the bully. But what I saw was the bullied child feeling empathy for the bully, and the blush and slumped stance of someone who was shamed! I'm looking forward to part two and further participation. |
| Peg | Your observations of the shamed, and seemingly unshamed child are extremely accurate. As we look at Part 2 you will see the answers in the Compass of Shame. As you said. "the "little bullies" are those who do not seem to feel or acknowledge shame." Those are the children that are hiding from shame in the Attack Other compass pole. |
| Marion | I spent 8 years out on an Indian reservation so remote & difficult in which to work my husband received a hazardous duty medal for being there. Though rural, alcohol & drugs were pervasive. The most successful drug dealer in town was in kindergarten, & at that time 1/3 of the children being born had Fetal Alcohol Syndrome or Fetal Alcohol Affect. Do any of these problems change the way you would present your program to the children? Would you consider maybe trying to reach some of the parents 1st? |
| Marilyn | I thought this might be of interest: Today’s young Internet users have created an interactive world away from adult knowledge and supervision. MNet research shows that 50 per cent of kids say they are alone online most of the time, and only 16 per cent say they talk to their parents a lot about what they do online. Because bullies tend to harass their victims away from the watchful eyes of adults, the Internet is the perfect tool for reaching others anonymously – anytime, anyplace. This means for many children, home is no longer a refuge from the cruel peer pressures of school The anonymity of online communications means kids feel freer to do things online they would never do in the real world. Even if they can be identified online, young people can accuse someone else of using their screen name. They don’t have to own their actions, and if a person can’t be identified with an action, fear of punishment is diminished. Nancy Willard of the Responsible Netizen Institute explains that technology can also affect a young person’s ethical behaviour because it doesn’t provide tangible feedback about the consequences of actions on others. This lack of feedback minimizes feelings of empathy or remorse. Young people say things online that they would never say face-to-face because they feel removed from the action and the person at the receiving end. There are several ways that young people bully others online. They send e-mails or instant messages containing insults or threats directly to a person. They may also spread hateful comments about a person through e-mail, instant messaging or postings on Web sites and online diaries. Young people steal passwords and send out threatening e-mails or instant messages using an assumed identity. Technically savvy kids may build whole Web sites, often with password protection, to target specific students or teachers. An increasing number of kids are being bullied by text messages through their cell phones. These phones are challenging the ability of adults to monitor and guide children because, unlike a computer placed in a public area of a home, school or library, mobiles are personal, private, connected – and always accessible. Kids tend to keep their phones on at all times, meaning bullies can harass victims at school or even in their own rooms. http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/resources/special_initiatives/wa_resources/wa_shared/backgrounders/challenge_cyber_bullying.cfm |
| Marion | I'm glad you brought this up! This very thing happened im my small town on the school's chatroom! In this case, the perpetrators were caught & punished. One senior girl, the instigator of the hate mail towards one student, transferred to another school to escape punishment & rejection from others for her deeds. Though she was a star player at the old school, she can no longer play basketball at the new school because she lives out of district & drives in daily. From your mail, I see that catching the perpetrators is not usual. Today's students live in a new, difficult time, & anything we can do to clear a path for them is a bonus. Now if we could just reach the world..... |
| Barbara Gregory | The idea that children have no safe place from bullies only reaffirms my belief that we must teach children to respond to the bully. My husband, also a teacher, said that he verbally humiliates the bully when he witnesses a situation. From my perspective, that makes HIM a bully and it seems professionally unethical to me, too (alas - we often differ on these points). Yet, if nothing is said or done, victims feel the shame of being unable to protect themselves or making themselves vulnerable, and the bully continues to be shameless and emotionless, and gets away with it. Being an educator, I believe we must educate youngsters in the ways of assertiveness and help them to recognize ways to protect their privacy and stay safe. We have much to do. |
| Dr. Andre Elliott | Marion expressed curiosity about the state of bullying in Japan. By most measures, bullying is considered a major issue in Japan among elementary and high school students. I see two sides of the problem. First, parents and teachers generally allow children to be among themselves without adult supervision.Also it is common for Japanese children to be mostly alone when playing on the school's playground during recess or break time. In the community, this reality is evident as parents permit 5 year old children to play unsupervised in a nearby park. Perhaps this speaks volumes about the perception of safety in Japan.There are likely more opportunities for bullying in Japan. Sadly,it is also somewhat ignored when it happens. Unlike my experiences in an American school in which a proactive stance is highly regarded; In Japan the bullying issue seems laissez-faire. I agree with the earlier writer who suggested we must teach children ways to be assertive and ways to protect themselves. I thank all of you for sharing your ideas in this forum. |
| Peg | Several of you speak of teaching children to be assertive and teaching ways to protect themselves.This is the second outgrowth step in the SSTI program. First we teach the youngest children the affective vocabulary, the how it feels, and why it feels that way to have an affect. After even the preschoolers know about the compass of shame they can begin to be assertive within themselves to stay in the healthy center of the compass. They can also be assertive to tell others to back off, that is an outgrown of a healthy centering. Each and every one of the eight shame experiences is a trigger for a feel-bad situation. The important thing to teach youngsters is to learn from the bite of shame, not hide from it. A complete parenting love can make this learning so much easier. It is hard to learn from shame if one is not unconditionally loved and does not love themselves. A child then finds it much easier to respond to the bully's taunts with a laugh or similar non-triggering retort. Remember that the bully is bullying because of his/her own shame, a feeling of ineffectiveness in one of the eight shame experiences. Thinking your way through a bully attack is much easier when you know how to try to figure out why the bully needs to improve himself in the eyes of his peers by picking on "you." Marion spoke of the terrible situation on the Indian Reservation and asked if I would try to teach parents first? I would try all avenues at once; through clergy intervention, through parent classes, through school affect lessons, through coaches, and involving other important leaders in the community. Yes, Barbara, I agree that we have much to do. |
| Barbar | |
| Barbara A. Hopkins-Cox | Big oops on my first post. I apologize for that. As I read the basis of Affect Psychology, I kept thinking about inner city children growing up in hostile environments who seek youth gang membership, and children who have biological problems. Let me explain. From a biological perspective, the decision or desire to become youth gang member can be partly equated to immature brain growth (Chance, 1999), forms of mental retardation (Bartol, 2002; Kandel, Schwartz, & Jessell, 2000), chemical imbalances (Bartol, 2002; Kandel, Schwartz, & Jessell, 2000), and personality type (Bartol, 2002; Santrock, 2001). Acts of violence and gang membership go hand-in-hand. Research has shown that persons involved in gangs have a higher propensity for aggressive type behaviours (Bartol, 2002; Myers, 2002). The National Institute of Mental Health reports "increased aggression is commonly associated with many neurological and psychiatric disorders (Wersinger et al, 2002)," such as immature cortical functioning (Bartol, 2002). According to Hare's maturation retardation hypothesis (Bartol, 2002), aggression displayed in psychopaths is in part due to the immature brain-wave patterns, the same patterns which are found in youth gang members (Santrock, 2001). Harmon-Jones and Sigelman (2001) found through their experimental research that right-prefrontal brain activity is related to negative, aggressive-type behaviours and emotions. Kandel, Schwartz, and Jessell (2000) posit aggressive-type behaviours are further enhanced by low concentrations of the neurotransmitter serotonin. Serotonin activity has been implicated as an important biological factor in determining the threshold for violence (Bartol, 2002; Ferris et al, 1999; Kandel, Schwartz, & Jessell, 2000; Myers, 2001; Santrock, 2001; Spoont, 1992). However, serotonin activity alone cannot fully explain the propensity for aggressive-type behaviours. Genetic aggressive behaviours may also stem from elevated levels of testosterone hormones in males, androgen hormones in females, and Attention Deficit disorders. Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH), also called adrenogenital syndrome (Speiser, n.d.), is an inherited autosomal recessive (Endocrinology and Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia, 2000) genetic defect of the adrenal glands (Congenital Adrenal Hyperplaspia.org: Education and Support Network, n.d.; Speiser, n.d.). A 1992 study conducted by Sheri Berenbaum of the University of Health Sciences and Melissa Hines of the University of California at Los Angeles (Solso & MacLin, 2002), showed how androgen hormones influenced and played a major role in the development of aggressive-type behaviour in children afflicted with congenital adrenal hyperplasia. In their study, females with CAH girls showed a greater propensity for aggression and preference for boy’s toys than their unaffected female relatives. Testosterone is believed to be a catalyst for aggressive behaviours in both males and females and is released in greater levels during adolescence (Bartol, 2002), which may contribute to youth gang peer association. Studies have found an association between testosterone levels and youth gang members (Myers, 2001). Bartol (2002) states, "the great majority of delinquents are those individuals who begin offending during their adolescent years..." Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) can be classified in both the biological and social/learning perspective. As stated in the text (Bartol, 2002), "...some scientists contend ADHD children are born with a biological predisposition toward hyperactivity; others maintain that some children are exposed to environmental factors that damage the nervous system." ADHD is characterized by excessive restlessness, impulsive behaviours, and a low-frustration tolerance (Kandel, Schwartz, & Jessell, 2000). Joseph (1997) states ADHD is the direct result of damage to the amygdala. The amygdala is believed to be responsible for generating and maintaining "mood" (Kandel, Schwartz, & Jessell, 2000; Joseph, 1997; Santrock, 2001). The psychodynamic perspective focuses on the combination of biology and cognition in developing personalities (Phares & Chaplin, 1997). Eysenck theorized that three types of behaviour traits offer the greatest potential for understanding and predicting behavioural responses: introversion-extroversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism (Bartol, 2002; Phares & Chaplin, 1997). A vast majority of youth gang members show personality traits of extroversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism. Interestingly enough, amygdala is associated with hormones levels, chemical imbalances, hyperactivity, and personality type (Bartol, 2002; Joseph, 1997; Kandel, Schwartz, & Jessell, 2000; Myers, 2001; Santrock, 2001). Damage to this one area is associated with psychopathology, criminal behaviours, and acts of violence - all which may be precursors to youth gang membership. David Myers (2002) notes that gaining another's esteem is powerfully rewarding. In the Self-Serving Interpretations of Flattery: Why Ingratiation Works study conducted by Roos Vonk (2002), he states, “When people are the target of ingratiation, their self-esteem is served by accepting the flattery uncritically; on the other hand, when they are observers, their ego is not at stake and they may examine the ingratiator's behavior more critically… people are motivated to like persons they interact with or expect to interact with later..people may be motivated to accept flattery because it bolsters their self-esteem, even at the risk of losing tangible outcomes...” In another study conducted by Cynthia L. Pickett, Bryan L. Bonner, and Jill M. Coleman (2002, April), they found that self-stereotyping creates both “greater intragroup assimilation and greater intergroup differentiation,” and found that identity salience affects levels of self-stereotyping. In other words, the larger the group the more a person defines their identity by the group standards. According to John P. Hewitt (2000), “because of the human needs for assimilation and differentiation, threats to intragroup standing and intergroup distinctiveness should be experienced as aversive, and individuals should be motivated to engage in strategies to restore in-group inclusion and intergroup distinctiveness.” All of these researchers identified a central idea of youth gang membership - acceptance by their peers and the increased levels of self-esteem and self-efficacy. Children are taught by the their parents that in order to get along, it is sometimes necessary to go along. Unfortunately, this advice can sometimes lead to negative outcomes. The need to belong is an innate human feeling. Unfortunately, that need is not always met within the home. We learn from our environment and become shaped by it and vice versa. Adolescents from disadvantaged backgrounds, lacking self-esteem and self-efficacy, or just want to belong, view peers obtaining all their desired goals. For example, a young boy who is consistently ridiculed in school wants to be the one who does the ridiculing, because they ridiculer has power and respect. The relationship between vicarious learning and operant conditioning is the ability for humans and lower animals to be self-aware and aware of their environment (surroundings). This awareness affords the opportunity for subjects to chose which of their learned behaviours they wish to modify, change, reinforce, punish, or become extinct. In other words, subjects shape their own behaviours to fit situational and dispositional events. This is how gangs recruit members. Gang members offer potential gang members power and respect. Operant conditioning theory states this "power and respect" is a powerful positive/negative reinforcement directly associated with low self-esteem and self-efficacy; positive in that it gives increased self-esteem and negative in that it takes away the feelings of isolation and disrespect (Chance, 1999). Imagine that you are a small child from a disadvantaged economic background, single-parent home, and living in a violence-prone neighborhood. The only parent has to work two or possibly three jobs just to put food on the table. Parental involvement and supervision is at a minimal. New and fashionable clothing is out of the question; consignment shop clothing is all you've ever worn. A gang member asks if you would like to join. For your loyalty, they will provide you food, clothing, money, guidance, a family, power, and respect. Looking at the cost-benefit analysis the choice may be easy to join the gang. However, gangs also work with the foot-in-the-door phenomenon. They will ask for small things in the beginning, such as wearing their colors, and gradually increase demands. Despite the increase in demands, you observe others enjoying gang membership and being rewarded with respect, new clothes, jewelry, and camaraderie, and continue to remain a gang members in expectation of future psychological and monetary enjoyment. The young prospect now has a family who shares similar thoughts, feelings, and lifestyle, so they are no longer the lonely kid with nothing to his/her name. It's no wonder, when viewing the various perspectives, why gang membership is a reward to youth. |
| Peg | We are honored that Dr. Hopkins-Cox has taken the trouble to place over 1300 words of response to my brief, homey post about the benefits our group has seen when children are merely taught to name their emotions in general and about shame in particular. Her post provides a perfect example of an approach that favors the kind of information that can be provided by the great machines of our new science (neurochemistry, MRI, endocrinology, genetics, brain waves, sexual function, etc.) and how deeply it contrasts with the simple strategies proposed by and used by people trained through the Tomkins Institute. Placed against this formidable array of information, it sounds a bit silly to suggest that kids who learn to name their emotions and to develop the skills necessary to handle the shame family of emotions tend to make a far more peaceful society than those who live ignorant of this rather simple language. I don't think there is anything anyone can do about hereditary disorders that involve serotonin, sex hormones, dysfunction of the cerebral cortex, and all the other problems she cites. Gangs have been around for centuries --- people tend to gather in groups that make them feel safe. I don't know much about the science she reports, but I sure know that placed together in a great mass, it suggests that the problems of society are far too awful for anyone to fix. What I do know and understand is that wherever our group has taught children how to identify the emotions that course through them and that course through others, they've developed quite rapidly the kind of skills required to reduce the likelihood that they will make war on each other. Where we've taught children and their parents how to understand the nature of a healthy community, and how to recognize the way shame can run through a group and turn relatively calm people into a mob, whole communities change their way of living. Probably many of those who improve from our teaching have the kind of problems with hormones and serotonin and brain waves Dr. Hopkins-Cox writes about. Maybe we've been lucky and only the healthy people have been influenced by our work. But maybe all the science that has convinced people there is nothing we can do to improve our world, maybe all the research reports that tell us to give up on our children, maybe all the experts who say that we are doomed --- maybe all of this is tame stuff next to the sheer power of teaching kids about their emotions. We're really a simple lot, our group from the Tomkins Institute. Do me (and maybe yourself) a favor. Check out our website www.tomkins.org and read some of the material about the video we produced a year ago and which has earned so much praise. Look at the little piece we wrote for teachers who use our video in their schools ( http://www.tomkins.org/tre/educators.aspx ) and see whether it makes sense to you. Maybe you'll begin to wonder whether a lot of the science of violence is looking in the wrong place. Maybe the answer isn’t in expensive studies that use big machines. Maybe we can do a lot more than anyone ever thought if we simply recognize that no one ever explodes in unintended violence unless he or she has felt humiliated. Maybe we teachers can teach a lot more if we're given a chance. Maybe an hour-long video can do more than a chorus of experts wringing their hands helplessly while telling us that our kids have damaged brains, disorderly hormones, aberrant neurotransmitters, and will live forever at the mercy of street gangs. |
| Barbara A. Hopkins-Cox | Peg, I sense some hostitlity. Also, thank you for the upgrade, but I am a graduate student. In response to your post, I am not trying to downgrade the strides made by you and your peers. However, there is a lot more to reducing violence in school. Before encountering a child, we need to first know that they do not express any neurological abnormalities, or the child does not feel they are between a rock and a hard place. Your reaction to my response is the exact sentiment we are trying to "fix" in our schools. We want children to be able to view differences with objectivity and fairness. No one I cited in my post stated "we are doomed society." I was just merely bringing another viewpoint as to the nature and origin of some violent behaviours expressed in our children. We not only need to teach our children how to express their emotions, but also why some emotions seem more volatile then others. We need to teach them why they become angry when they really feel they have no need to be angry or hurt or ashamed. Some of their issues may stem from biological entities. There is no single cure. Looking at different perspectives is necessary to produce a viable theoretical framework. |
| Peg | Perhaps there is some hostility in my response because I have spent 33 years in the trenches of elementary school. It's unrealistic to expect that each and every child who exhibits any type of behavior or other abnormality be tested for neurological problems. That is not the way education works. It's a shame, but it is real life. In this day and age it is almost impossible to get a child tested for anything psychological, even a learning disability. I spent eight months with a child who howled like a dog every day, all day long, from under his desk. I was not allowed to intervene, because he was "obviously distrubed and needed sympathy." He made our year a hell you cannot imagine. He is now placed in middle school alternative education. I've spent months waiting for children with blatantly obvious learning disabilities to come before the Instructional Support Team, only to be told that there was a full roster ahead of them. Testing would not be possible for another year, or parents who were too shamed to admit their child had a problem and refused testing when I finally got permission. Yes, some of their issues may stem from biological problems. But teachers need a hands-on now approach to help everyone, and of course we will not reach everyone. At least we can make a difference. I disagree that my reaction to your post is the sentiment we are trying to fix in the schools. Circle is the definiton of objectivity and fairness, we can name how we feel, we can express it, and we can understand how our feelings affect ourselves and others. If a child cannot truly express his feelings, then he is between a rock and a hard place. Our efforts are to reduce this pain and shame, not to make it worse. |
| Barbara A. Hopkins-Cox | True, teachers do need a hands approach. I was never saying Affect Psychology was not viable. The fact of the matter is, I think it is a very nice approach. Children need to know what they are feeling and why those feelings surface. They also need to learn how to react and respond to situations which triggers negative feelings to come forth. We need to teach children to think before they react. Attacking differences of opinion, or evidence which is contradictory to beliefs is not the way to respond. Rather, listening to, reading about, and reflecting upon differences helps us grow emotionally and adds to our learning. However, instructors, psychologists, and school administrators need to also take into account cultural differences and economic backgrounds. A child going to an inner city school may need to display "bullying" characteristics to stay alive; the badder the person the more people leave them alone. From a cultural standpoint, a person may have been brought up to always question, which could be viewed as combative. This is where I have skepticism about Affect Psychology. I believe if fails to take into account cultural, religious, and socioeconomic status. Aside from that, as I stated before, the approach seems viable. |
| Gay Wiseman | Let's move the discussion to focus on the material in Parts 2 and 3 now--links at the top of the page. |
| Theran | Thanks for the frank and open discussion. Gives us much to think and ponder on. |
| Anton Keen 17 | Excellent, this really helped me with my psychology homework. Thank you |