Educational Concepts

Identity borders: questions and disagreements in regards to the individual in the educational process and in society

Harry Schram

Introduction

A tale

A woman was pregnant with twins. After several months, both discovered how they changed. ‘What does it mean?’ asked the one. ‘It means that there will be an end to our situation in this world’, said the other. ‘But I don’t like to go away from here’, said the first , I will stay here all my life.’ ‘We have no choice’, replied the other, but perhaps there is life after this life.’

‘How can we live there?’ asked the first one, ‘we have to cut the umbilical cord! How is life
without a umbilical cord and do we have a proof that others did it before us? None of them
came back to tell us that there is life after this life. There must be an end!’ So the first one became desperate and said, ‘when conception ends in birth, what is then the purpose of being here in the womb? It is senseless. Perhaps there is no mother at all!’

‘But there must be a mother, how else did we get here?’, the other one said. ‘How do we
stay alive?’ ‘Did you see our mother?’, asked the first one, ‘perhaps she is in our imagination! Perhaps we made her up, because that thought makes us feel better!’ And so the last days in the womb were filled with deep temptation and fear. Finally came the moment of birth. When both children had left their small world, they opened their eyes. They cried with pure happiness. What they saw exceeded all their expectations.

Why this tale as an introduction?

Because of three aspects which are important for the educational process:

1. the curiosity: every human being carries with him the question about the next step, for a continuation, in the sense of how it will be after this ‘here and now’, what can one expect, and more of these kinds of questions. Therefore he does not stay still, as curiosity stimulates him to develop himself. A fine example of curiosity is the paradise-story: Once the human being was created he lived in paradise, with one restriction: don’t eat the fruits of the tree in the middle of the garden. When an educator makes such a restriction, he knows in advance that this border will be passed. His (healthy) curiosity brought him to eat of the ‘forbidden’ fruit. That puts him in touch with the duality, a distinguished mark of the life on earth, and that I like to describe as an assumption with another assumption beside or opposite. His curiosity gives him the possibility to choose. Duality as a dichotomy is not seen as contraries, but as supplements. Curiosity means that he has to push on, there is no way back.

2. there is no way back: when the human being has turned down a certain road he cannot go back to a former place, to a former situation. In a biblical sense, he is sent from paradise and cannot come back. The former place is masked. Erich Fromm compares the paradise with the womb, to which you cannot return. So we can say that a human being is ‘doomed’ to go on. In another sense, ‘asking more and more and going on’ means a release from the past, so new ways will be opened. Openness not seen as uncertainty, but as a new challenge, a new start, an appeal to one’s creativity: how to behave in new situations.

3. the name everybody becomes after birth. A name is a person, has to do with the ‘I’ of the person, his identity and is very personal. Man stands with his name for what he is saying and doing: with his name he makes history, for history is history when you can give names, is language: words and happenings. By his name he can be addressed. He also likes to be called by his name, for then he is taken seriously and respected. It happens in the paradise-story, where the ‘first’ man is called by his name: ‘Adam, where are you?’ That means he is asked where do you stand? An anonymous person is an ‘outlaw’. Man is seen as a person, as an individual, thanks to his name. Though those aspects look very radical, they belong to life. One has to be aware of them. Then they will be accepted as actions of liberation.
   

Duality

So I cannot understand the sociologist Durkheim who was ‘continually searching for an unique combination of elements which are not reducible’. There is another way of thinking, in which one element exists thanks to the support of the other element. For example: darkness exists because of the existence of light. In that way darkness is called the absence of light. But then there is no real duality.

The existence of this kind of thinking about duality became clear to me by the work of the French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas. According to him a relationship between the other means and me that both exist as two independent ‘elements’ in that relationship. In his philosophy Levinas starts from the Other who makes an appeal to me, and in his perception I am obliged to respond to his appeal. I don’t have to give him my answer, for then I am ‘totalising’ (Levinas) = absorbing him, which means that the Other is equalised to me, to my being. When I equalise the other to what I am, I give him another name, my name. But the other is not reducible he to me is a stranger.

In the book of Genesis, the first book of Moses, the story of Creation is told as a duality. In that story, which I do not interpret as a historical story, man is created masculine andfeminine. I think not as an antipole, but as a replenishment or completion. (Buber calls the other ‘ein Gegenüber’) Exegetically we can conclude that every humanbeing bears both aspects, ‘elements’ also as a completion.(In the original text there is spoken about the creation of one person: Talmud, Megilla 9a/9b: ‘männlich und weiblich’; the English bible: ‘male and female’; Buber-Rozenzweig: ‘männlich, weiblich’.)

I like to interpret the other creations like darkness and lightness, day and night, sun and moon in the same way, as complements to each other. So they do not only exist in themselves, but for each other, in other words for the Other. Both elements in a relationship need each other, they belong to each other and the one cannot exist without the other.

So I repeat that in duality both parts are two single entities, which don’t have to totalize each other, or to compete with each other. They are and stay independent of each other, on account of duality itself. In that way of thinking it is not possible that darkness is the absence of light. Then light is an object and darkness is a – negative – part of that object. That kind of thinking has negative effects for the creation of men: ‘male and female’. (Gen. 1: 27) Then the one
exists in a negative way on account of the other. (And who is the negative one?) I don’t even like to speak of elements of power, nor of compatible elements. Neither element needs a harmonic solution as an unknown third or a syntheses, for then duality no longer exists.

Education

Education can be described as a process between a pedagogue and a child. (I am talking in a limited, individual way) I mean that both partners in an educational process must have a relationship with each other.

Education can be a relationship between a child and a parent, between a pupil and his
teacher, but also between a younger and an older child. I will explain the word ‘older’ in
which word I do not always mean the relationship with an adult. It also can be an elder
sister or brother who accompanies her/his younger sister/brother. In that case the question
is if children can educate other children?
I think there must be a difference in age between both. I don’t like to speak of peer-education where children of the same age are accompanying each other. But education has to do with awareness and responsibility. When both aspects are not in a relationship, we cannot speak of education. The educator as a child must also be able to do his ‘job’ in a conscious way which means he is responsible for his acts.

Essential in an educational relationship is the possibility of questioning. (education always starts with a question!) The pedagogue accompanies, lends assistance, in searching answers to the questions which are asked. He can only help to find an answer and he cannot give the (his) answer.

In asking questions a child is occupied with enlarging the borders of his knowledge. Every question in this relationship is a challenge the young child gives to the pedagogue. (a pedagogue also can ask a question)

The educator has to accept this challenge, for the child does not ask something to provoke the pedagogue, but from his genetic (healthy) nature or need of expansion. In education a healthy child behaves expansively. It means that a healthy child is always looking ‘further’: it has to explore. (also in the story of Genesis, where men, even in paradise, were exploring, particularly for things they were not permitted to do)

The nature of expansion contains a healthy dose of curiosity. By the nature of expansion, one is always looking for his limits, at situations, in which enlarging of borders can take place. He wants to enlarge or to cross over his borders he comes up against.In education the child is looking for his own borders as for the borders of the pedagogue. I call that a healthy challenge of childhood. If a child no longer expands, no longer enlarges his borders, something in his development is wrong.

A child is asking for a border, a limit. He asks the educator, challenges him to know how far he can go. In simple words: he wonders when will the educator say ‘no’!

Borders give to a child security, clearness, which he needs for his trust in the relationship. (Kohlberg speaks about basic-trust of a child)

Borders are very important for the basis of the trust in the relationship between the child and his educator. The educator must indicate that the borders must remain reliable. I mean that a child questions should be taken. If not, the child will feel he is not accepted. In a trustful relationship the child has space, or freedom to challenge. The challenge is not a negative word, for it is part of the nature of a child’s expansion, which will, of course give problems to the educator, namely: where is the, or my border with regards to this child?

The ‘till here and not further’ as an answer of the educator, indicates two aspects of the educator himself: one of his own borders and one of his responsibilities with regard to this child in this educational situation. His ‘no’ is not an easy ‘no’, but a ‘no’ for the use of the development of this child.

Borders are not to be generalized, for each child indicates his own border in the question he asks. In education some values and norms indicate borders. To a very young child you cannot always explain them, then he has to accept; later on it is possible to give an explanation.
Important to say, the educator must be aware of his part of the responsibility for the behaviour of the child, which means, including the borders which are asked. Responsibility means: to be able to account for the action one took, towards the child or another person, for example a parent.

Values in education?

When we act in an educational sense, we work using values and norms. One of the values I mentioned in a former paper was the word ‘love’. A value is an abstract item; it is a kind
of desire that never will be reached. But a value gives us the direction for our actions, provides norms in regard to special borders we don’t have to cross. The value ‘love’ means a very high level of living, of being: for example, a hundred percent unselfish.

In education ‘love’ is translated to ‘love of the child’, which means that we use norms to take care of a child, for example not to endanger him. In the interest of this child we need love. It is for the love of this child that, in view of his stage of development, cannot control the extent of his own borders in that particular situation. Therefore we say he needs the responsibility of the educator as prevention. Seen from the value ‘love’ special borders should not be crossed, will the child suffer a loss, or will his trust in the educator be damaged?

When children grow older, they have to build up their own values and norms. Sometimes that process will give a lot of problems to the educator.

In this context I would like to explain the word ‘love’. This word as an abstraction can be
interpreted in different ways, when it is used as a norm in a concrete context. So I will do
it on the basis of the text: ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself’. (King James Version)

This sentence can be interpreted in an egoistic way, in a sense you have to love yourself first, before you can love one another. The accent is on myself. Martin Buber makes his interpretation in an other way by translating, ‘love your neighbour, he is like you’. He does not want to make any difference between either party in a relationship; they are both equal to each other, and loving each other is a mutual process. Emmanuel Levinas translates this word, love your neighbour, that loving is you’. He means to say that your whole being is to love, with all your heart, with all your soul, with your entire mind, and with all your strength. There is only love to give to another person. With this interpretation the accent is on the other, in an unselfish way, even when seen as my opponent.

Borders in education

In the creation of man in paradise, he likes to be a god. (‘as gods’ is the literal translation, which means ‘knowing good and evil’) The words ‘as gods’ is the limit to man. Here a border is set and man is not allowed to cross this border. I think we find here the borderlines of mankind. Should he cross this border, he will no longer be ‘man’, as is described above, but then he is God, and that is another dimension. I like to say, then he is someone else, he becomes another name. In my opinion he will become his complement and that is impossible. When someone becomes the others name, duality no longer exists.

But man is able to move borders he thought were not movable. For moving borders does not break off duality. In education a child always takes a chance to move his borders. Expansion is natural to him. I will combine the moving of borders with the notion ‘learning’. Man learns from the experience of the removal of his borders. Learning than can be defined: to be aware of the removal of borders, through which one looks at his surrounding, things, matters and people from a different viewpoint.

He learns a new perspective, through which his view will become broader, but also deeper, and that can lead to insight. New possibilities appear; he discovers space and that is an act of liberation. Theoretically I would like to say that the border in a duality is the opponent’s part. In philosophical terms every thesis has its ant-thesis as its border. I don’t see either notion as opponents, but as complements to each other. For me it is not possible to talk about a synthesis, because both ‘opponents’ do not have to be brought together. In that case duality no longer exists. Neither can we speak of a ‘resolution’ or a ‘compromise’, duality is then broken off.
In my opinion both poles belong to each other, in other words, they can’t exist without each other: they need each other. The border of the thesis is the anti-thesis. (Please note, that you cannot turn or convert this thesis. Thinking on a dualistic matter, means you start from the thesis, and not from the anti-thesis: a thesis always is the starting-point) In education the border is the other (person): for the child it is the adult, for the adult it is the child. The child needs the accompaniment of an educator for his development, who is the border for the child.

It is up to the educator to take the child’s questions seriously. And in taking a child seriously the educator is aware of his responsibility to the child. A child trusts a responsible educator.
You cannot crossover the other, because he is different to me. By ‘crossing over’ we speak of indoctrination or oppression. Indoctrination or oppression has the aim of reducing the other into myself, to make the other the same as I am. Levinas talks of ‘totalization’. Then duality is over.

But ‘wir können nicht für einander eintreten, Ich kann nicht dein, du kannst nicht mein
Leben leben. Ich kann dir deine, Du kannst mir meine Verantwortung nicht abnehmen,
denn Ich und Du sind nicht auswechselbar’. (we cannot assume another’s place, I
cannot live your life, you cannot live mine. You cannot assume my responsibility, for
You and I are not exchangeable)

Buber also speaks of a non-exchangeability of I and You. They are not reducible. When
they speak together you call it a dialogue, in which the one cannot assume the place of one
another, because both have to remain themselves in a duality. There is the border and when there is no border, than we speak of totalization, or of incorporation of the other person. When the educator does not draw his lines somewhere, the child will go on. The educator complies with the demands of the child. The educator is busy eliminating duality. When duality no longer exists, the other does not ‘exist’ any more either. In other words, the one has to be another person, and to be another person means getting another name.

Aims of education?

Karl Barth has an answer: ‘Humanität’ (humanity) means becoming a human being, and being a human being means ‘Beistand verleihen’. (to help, to give assistance) (The writer Auden has in his own way a more relative description: ‘We are all here on earth to help others; what on earth the others are here for, I don’t know’. ) When we are able to help, to give assistance, ‘Beistand zu verleihen’, than Barth says: ‘Ich bin Ich, Du bist Du! Du bist Du und nicht Ich! Es geht in der Humanität nicht um die Beseitigung und Auflösung, sondern um die Bestätigung, und die rechte Betätigung dieser Zweiheit als solcher’. (I am I, you are you! You are you and not I! Humanity does not mean setting aside or reducing someone else, but to consolidate and to pay attention to this duality)

In education ‘Beistand verleihen’ means to help the other in learning to be able to move a
border. ‘Beistand’ includes respect for the other, which means take him seriously in the question he is asking me. At any rate I have to understand what he is asking me. ‘Beistand verleihen’ is another way of being-for-the-other, who speaks to me. By going into his question I cannot do more than to be with him in his questioning, looking for new borders.

‘Beistand verleihen’ does not mean that I give him a new name, but means that he will
keep his own name in the duality in which we exist. Therein lies the aim of education!