Influence and its Outcomes
As educators whose goals is to produce independent and critical thinkers, it’s important to consider where exactly the boundaries of our influence lie, which might be different from the equally important question of where those boundaries should lie. Before we can explore where the influence of teachers might end and where the independent thoughts, beliefs, and actions of students begin, we should remind ourselves that, whether or not we care to admit it, in the classroom, we are always teaching ourselves. For this reason and others, hiring “well” is an administration’s top priority. Teachers are, by default, the biggest influencers in the lives of students while students are in school.
In addition, students are always scrutinizing—intensely so—the adults in their lives, studying them for possible cues for how to be—or not—in the world. Character education would be a hidden aspect of the curriculum if it weren’t already so fundamental a part of the educator’s daily work.
There must then be a line separating teacher influence from student independence, only teachers and adults have difficulty negotiating the placement of that line on account of another factor at work, a factor altogether tempting and difficult to resist—authority itself, and the “terrifying ease” of charismatic power associated with it.
The lure of authority is perhaps one factor that causes teachers to slide the scale so it tips in favor of an increasingly larger influential portion. So, what is the ideal balance between teacher influence and student independence? Assuming that it is reasonable to expect teachers to influence student character, yet have that influence stop short of prejudicing students’ beliefs or ideologies, is too simplistic: How can anyone extract any thread of personal belief from the larger fabric of one’s fundamental character? Personal belief and fundamental character are tied to each other. Or to think of it another way, each exists as the other’s mirror.
As an example, can we raise a student who ends up believing in a radical right-wing agenda—the kind that would have the nation surveil Muslim communities, for instance—while convinced our character lessons and moral teachings about inclusion, tolerance, and acceptance went far enough? From the perspective of the student, could a student believe in such reactionary ideology while still thinking he or she is standing on moral principles, even on the kind of moral principles modeled by progressive-leaning teachers? To push the paradox further, if independence and free thinking are, in fact, part of the very morality we teach as components of character education, then it might very well be the character education, itself, that inspires the student towards reactionary thinking. Ultimately, if we aim to inspire independent thinking as part of our moral teaching, then we must be ready to accept the possibility of a resulting thought pattern that is different from our own. Such is the risk wherever freedom exists, that its outcome is free to be apart.
Promoting freedom of any sort—but particularly of thought—means forfeiting any say over its outcome. If progressive teachers have the stomach for such a thing and can tolerate such irony as a young Republican arising from a character education that prizes independent thinking, then my goodness, couldn’t their teaching be deemed a success?
For teachers, the balance lies at the point where we exert an influence that establishes a humane moral base within the character of all students, from which flows an outcome of personal beliefs that students are allowed to shape for themselves. The best we can do as educators is help students bring the two into alignment—humane character and the compassionate beliefs we hope will arise as a result. Such is the source of our ongoing discussions with young people, typifying the counseling aspect of our constantly shifting teaching role.
