Student Unrest in the University: Implications for the Secondary School
Identifieur interne : 004907 ( Istex/Corpus ); précédent : 004906; suivant : 004908Student Unrest in the University: Implications for the Secondary School
Auteurs : William B. BoydSource :
- NASSP bulletin [ 0192-6365 ] ; 1969-05.
English descriptors
- KwdEn :
- Activist, Black students, Brittle institutions, Classmate, Diane divoky, General rule, High school, High schools, Martin meyerson, More adaptive, Participatory democracy, Puritan ethic, Rightist view, Saturday review, Sharp values, Small wonder, Student activist, Student activists, Student movement, Student radicals, Student unrest, Sudden metamorphosis, Symbolic patricide, Value system, Young radicals, Youth culture.
- Teeft :
- Activist, Black students, Brittle institutions, Classmate, Diane divoky, General rule, High school, High schools, Martin meyerson, More adaptive, Participatory democracy, Puritan ethic, Rightist view, Saturday review, Sharp values, Small wonder, Student activist, Student activists, Student movement, Student radicals, Student unrest, Sudden metamorphosis, Symbolic patricide, Value system, Young radicals, Youth culture.
Abstract
"You have opportunities that we muffed-oppor tunities to be more adaptive than we have been -firmer and more self-confident in defending values upon which our fragile culture depends- more flexible and creative in altering brittle in stitutions which seem more apt to shatter than to bend."
Url:
DOI: 10.1177/019263656905333707
Links to Exploration step
ISTEX:922D87783D31E5043B0A55E9A9EB89CC2B1034B8Le document en format XML
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<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Boyd</surname><given-names>William B.</given-names></name><aff>Central Michigan University, Mt. Pleasant, Michigan</aff></contrib></contrib-group>
<pub-date pub-type="ppub"><month>05</month><year>1969</year></pub-date><volume>53</volume><issue>337</issue><fpage>19</fpage><lpage>34</lpage><abstract><p><italic>"You have opportunities that we muffed-oppor tunities to be more adaptive than we have been -firmer and more self-confident in defending values upon which our fragile culture depends- more flexible and creative in altering brittle in stitutions which seem more apt to shatter than to bend."</italic></p></abstract><custom-meta-wrap><custom-meta xlink:type="simple"><meta-name>sagemeta-type</meta-name><meta-value>Journal Article</meta-value></custom-meta><custom-meta xlink:type="simple"><meta-name>search-text</meta-name><meta-value>19 Student Unrest in the University: Implications for the Secondary School SAGE Publications, Inc.1969DOI: 10.1177/019263656905333707 William B.Boyd Central Michigan University, Mt. Pleasant, Michigan "You have opportunities that we muffed-oppor tunities to be more adaptive than we have been -firmer and more self-confident in defending values upon which our fragile culture depends- more flexible and creative in altering brittle in stitutions which seem more apt to shatter than to bend." THERE is real irony in your inviting me to speak to you about the implications of student unrest. You should have warned me, coached me on proper behavior! After all, you had the kids first. The student who locks me in my office must first have been summoned to yours. I wish I knew what you said to him. It is not clear to me whether you soothed him and sent him back to class, or enraged him and sent him on to college and the likes of me. There are many hypotheses that attempt to account for student unrest. Seymour Halleck has provided an annotated index to them,* which I commend to you but won't try to paraphrase. On the whole, I think we understand the source of unrest. But the interesting thing to me is the absence of explanation for the curious timing involved in the lives of individuals, for the relatively sudden emergence of the activist on the university campus. Why a sudden metamorphosis, as if high school were a cocoon * Seymour Halleck, "What's Behind Student Unrest?" Ohio Schools (vol. 46, April 1968), pp. 19ff. 5020 and the university were the warm summer air that sees the startling emergence of the-the what? I'm not sure whether we deal with caterpillars or with butterflies. The uncertainty derives as much from metaphorical trouble as from ignorance of biology. Why did the sweet young cheerleader who led your students in lyric songs become on my campus the abrasive young rebel who leads her troops with strident chants of "Ho Ho Ho, Ho Chi Minh"? "On strike, close it down!" is now a more common cry than the old familiar "We want a touchdown!" How demands have changed! A bright quarterback could once satisfy their demands. Now nothing short of a revolution will suffice. '< , Of course I don't really assume that there was a sudden metamorphosis. I assume that had we been wiser, had your ranks and mine been in better communication, we would not have been caught by surprise. You might have been our DEW line, our early warning system, and we might have been better prepared and more responsive. In all past troubles you have been the shock troops. We have always been able to blame our failures on you. Turn about is hard for us to take. You caught it because Johnny couldn't read. We catch it now because he won't even go to class, but instead stays on the plaza and shouts four-letter words. And these troubles are sifting back to the high schools. The evidence of that is accumulating rapidly. Nearly 500 underground high school papers exist already. Their number continues to grow and a new national press service has developed to serve them. Whether that's a tribute to revolutionary dedication or capitalistic avarice is still not clear. High school chapters of SDS are multiplying like fruit flies, and a national secondary school coordinator has been added to the organization to nurture the fledglings. (Notice that I resisted the temptation to follow the simile to its obvious conclusion.) Tom Hayden, co- founder of SDS, has warned us battle-weary ones that we haven't seen anything yet. Wait, he says, until the 9th graders hit our campuses. This fall he noted: "We've said since the beginning of the new left in 1960 that youth, particularly students, were the key catalyst.... This continues to be the case.... Since radi- calization is spreading down into the high schools now, each succeeding generation of young will throw up more and more activists." Ominously, he added: "This is no accident."1 1 Newsweek, September 30, 1968, p. 67. 5121 Well, they are in your hands now. You have opportunities that we muffed-opportunities to be more adaptive than we have been-firmer and more self-confident in defending values upon which our fragile culture depends-more flexible and creative in altering brittle institutions which seem more apt to shatter than to bend. We have had to yield to coercion partly because we have dealt with bullies, but partly because our universities, like southern lunch counters before them, have yielded only to coercion. The gentler methods appropriate to our calling have been ineffective. When a youth cries "Help," the respondent must be nimble. Instead, our institutions have been sluggish until the cry changed from "Help" to "Up against the wall...." That's where we are now. The Forces of Conservatism I think there is overwhelming evidence that our educational institutions need to be changed. Unfortunately, those of us who are lovers of the old find it hard to believe the evidence. This human problem is delightfully illustrated by the story of the man who, suspicious of his wife's fidelity, hired a private detective. He told the detective: "Doubts, doubts, I am plagued by doubts." The detective did his job, then returned to report. "Well," he said to the man, "I watched your house while you were away. A man came. He and your wife had dinner and champagne by candlelight. Afterwards, they shoved the table aside and danced. Later, they turned out the lights so I couldn't see what happened next." "Doubts, doubts," said the man, "I am plagued by doubts." That is our lament today. We are hard to convince. In fairness, the forces of conservatism have more roots than our unwillingness to read the evidence. Our institutions are not really ours, but society's. They were designed not merely to serve students' needs, but those of the community and the nation. If some youth are crying "help," their elders are crying "hold fast." Within our own walls there are mixed signals, too. The faculty has a few radicals who want revolutionary change, a few embittered failures who want to be redeemed by a larger disaster, and many sentimental liberals whose ambivalence toward the new youth renders them wavering if not impotent allies. 5222 Lessons Youth Has Learned The students represent a similar diversity in objective, motivation, and life style. The lessons they have learned have not all been taught by us. Consider their learning experience to date. The new activists in your ranks were first entering the school house as John F. Kennedy entered the White House. They have been witnesses of the world as has no one before them in the history of the planet. Not the blackboard but the lighted screen has been their teacher. The spectacles on which they have grown up have included armed battles fought so that two peaceful blacks, a man and a woman, could enter the Universities of Mississippi and Alabama. They witnessed white men kicking freedom riders of whatever color-indeed, kicking children trying in vain to make it to the front door of their assigned schools. The greatest courage of their generation was demonstrated by black children daring to go to school. They saw a governor, who later had the audacity to extoll law and order, stand in a school house door in a mad mockery of the reason and openness which we claim for our schools. Then they saw our campuses become transplanted battle grounds for the Viet Nam war, as their older brothers demonstrated with tactics which escalated toward violence even while they damned their elders for the same offense. And while they witnessed all of this, they heard the government call the schools an instrument of national policy. The only significant educational legislation in a century was labelled a national defense act, and funded not to liberate youth but to reinforce the cold war, an enterprise whose only visible fruit in their memory has been the Viet Nam war. Schools, schools! Every day they saw schools in the national news. But consider the image. Small wonder that their attitude toward schools and their behavior within them differs from that of their predecessors. Environment and circumstance have not helped us with our tasks. Small wonder that we are dealing with a youth whose natural idealism is colored by moral confusion, a compound of rage and fear, and a cynicism unbecoming to their age. Only the insensitive could have been so untouched by all of this that they could settle for the frivolity which we associate with teenagers. Nor in the face of that chronicle of troubles is it surprising that the young radicals should make of the schools a kind of stand-in target for their attack. Not only are we the institution closest to them, but we are in fact a reasonable facsimile of the 5323 establishment. You will feel many a kick intended for a more distant target. Research on Student Activists Two years ago, sociologists met here to report their research on student activists. The papers dealt with personality development, family backgrounds, and psychological alienation. During the commentary period, Bettina Aptheker, one of the nation's best- known activists, took them to task for looking inward at personality rather than outward at social pathology for an understanding of the activists. As you and I work with these students to construct for them an effective learning environment-or at the very least to keep them from destroying the effectiveness of the environment for other students-we must remain sensitive to both sets of forces, those internal needs which motivate them, and the external forces which help drive them to rebellion. The latter probably work with particular force on black students who are late-comers to the scene. The attention paid the student movement since 1964 has led to the development of competing mythologies, one left and one right. The left sees a knight in dirty denims, a warrior who uses his placard to expose the corrupt society hidden behind the veil of establishment liberalism. A higher morality is attributed to the activist by his admirers on the left. They feel that he has replaced materialism with altruism and that he tells it like it is, escaping the hypocrisy so common to the rest of mankind. All of the components of the Boy Scout oath may not be found there- I don't remember a reference to cleanliness or reverence-but a high level of virtue is imagined. Even so, leftist admirers of the activists are beginning to have increasingly uncomfortable moments. Marxists suffer disappointment because of the new left's indifference to the sacred doctrines of the old left, and for its refusal to be preoccupied with economics. Communists may take heart, however. As the new left fails to develop an ideology of its own which satisfactorily explains either this world or the next, there is an increasing tendency for Marxist concepts to fill that vacuum. Liberal admirers of the activists are often discomforted to learn that their dogmas, like free speech or majority rule or fair play, frequently receive shabby treatment at the hands of their young heroes. Despite these reservations and the growing reaction to 5424 disruptive tactics, an admiring view of the young radicals survives in much of the academic world. Not so in the harsher world of the rightist. Threatened by opposition to authority, he ignores the important differences between activists and hippies and merges them in his mind to create bogeymen who populate his nightmares. This rightist view of the activist portrays a dirty, bearded beatnik, a kind of Maoist hippie. The activists are imagined as living a busy and exciting life. Attributed to them are conspiracy against the establishment, complicity with red agents, and a continual round of folk singing and free loving. This rightist view is free of the sentiment and romance that colours the view of the left, but suffers its own distortion from projected anxieties and jealousies. Fortunately for our purposes, scholars have been studying the activists long enough to begin the demythologizing process. In fact, with remarkable foresight, at least one sociologist was handing out questionnaires to that first group of students that sat in at Berkeley at the dawn of this era. The results of those studies are now widely known, so I shall skip lightly through a profile of the student activist. The mythology has some basis in fact. For example, there are communists among the student radicals, and a number of them are committed revolutionaries. In a recent Saturday Review, J Diane Divoky quoted a high school radical as saying, "Everything the adult establishment does is not just undesirable, but repugnant to us. The real hero today is the person who can mess up the society and pervert the youth."2 Across the Bay in Berkeley, a college activist spoke more emphatically: "We are out here to wage a war; we are an army and we will win or we will bring it down.... We are not going to use people to stop the machine anymore; we are going to disassemble it part by part by part...."3 This kind of declaration has become commonplace. Important as this revolutionary intent must be to the FBI, emphasis on it contributes little to an understanding of the new youth culture. It would be naive to assume an absence of conspiracy and irresponsible not to guard against it; but a simplistic, conspiratorial explanation of student activism is not adequate. 2 Diane Divoky. "The Way It's Going To Be." Saturday Review, February 15, 1969, p. 101. 3 The Daily Californian, February 6, 1969, p. 3. 5525 Another part of the mythology which research has undermined is that which viewed activism as part of a perennial rebellion against parents, a mere re-expression of a generation gap. The old view is not dead, of course. In a book just released, Lewis Feuer has noted that student movements are "typically led by young men who have had particular problems with their fathers." In fact, in an interview reported by John Leo, Feuer concluded that "all student uprisings are a symbolic patricide in which a young generation tries to humiliate and overthrow the institutions of its parents, regardless of the political issues or conse- quences." He went on to say, "Student movements commonly escalate to terrorism and sometimes assassination. Not because these tactics are politically wise but because they satisfy the needs of generational hatred on the latent, unconscious level. This symbolic patricide runs through every student movement I stud- ied," Feuer concluded.4 Most studies with which I am familiar, however, attribute such extremism to psychologically alienated rather than politically active students. The latter is a far larger group, even if the former represents a menace among them and accounts for much of the nihilism which we see at work in schools today. What Makes Them Rebels In the case of the main body of student activists, it now appears that the rebellion is the product not of revolt against their parents, but rather of a socialization process which occurs within the family. They are made into rebels by the positive action of their families, rather than by opposition to them. A unique, and yet increasingly common, kind of situation seems to develop the attitudes and values of the student activists. To a striking degree, they come from affluent families with secure status. Politically, the parents tend to be liberal. Democrats and socialists are over- represented. In religious beliefs, too, their families are liberal. Fundamentalist Christians are rare. Most significantly, this prevailing liberalism extends to child rearing practices. Affluence and liberalism are accompanied by permissiveness. Negotiation rather than manipulation or the use of authority characterizes decision making within the family. This process of mutual ac- 4 New York Times, February 14, 1969, p. 24. 5626 commodation is impossible to duplicate within institutions. Martin Meyerson has pointed out that schools can rarely respond sensitively to individual needs; they can only apply general regulations as impartially as possible.5 That was once regarded as enough-in fact, even that was regarded as a high order. Today, however, many students experience their first authority and their first frustration when they reach our schools. Nothing in their backgrounds has prepared them to cope with it and resentment or rage is sometimes the result. ' The student activists enjoy a close relationship with their parents and identify strongly with their ideals. Research has shown that these youth empathize most closely with their mothers, who are generally well educated women, trapped in the dull routine of housewifery. Fathers are regarded with ambivalence. They have been busy providing that prosperity. Either the taint of Babbitt is about them or they have that distant, shadowy quality the psychologists see as so significant in some of the emotional troubles of our youth. One of the principal anxieties reported by activist students is that they may have failed their parents. There is today an obvious values gap between these youth and society. There is not, however, even the usual generation gap between them and their parents. The activist rebels against society, but not against his family. 'rhe harassed principal who calls home to such a family expecting sympathy for himself and punishment for Johnny is in for a surprise. They don't cut off the allowance anymore; instead, they supplement it with bail money. When one considers the developing pattern of family life in permissive, affluent America, the prospects for the further spread of the new youth culture seems bright, or ominous, according to one's view. Shifting from the family to the activists themselves, they can be distinguished from their classmates in some important ways. The young radical tends to be more intellectually disposed, more interested in the world of ideas. In tests revealing aesthetic concerns, he scores much higher than his classmates. He also has a greater tolerance for ambiguity and an actual preference for novel situations. Tests further demonstrate that the activist has a higher degree of autonomy and thus requires independence. Consider the implications of that for us schoolmen. 5 Martin Meyerson. "The American College Student: Beyond The Protest." Daedalus, 1966, p. 723. 5727 That profile represents a composite of scholars' views of the activists. Their self image can be sketched in by comparing the adjectives they choose to describe themselves with those chosen by their more typical, non-activist classmates. The latter group, the conforming majority, chose the following words to describe themselves: "Optimistic, practical, responsible, ambitious, reserved, foresightful, considerate, self-controlled, orderly." Rather like you and me! By comparison, the activists, with exactly the same choices available, made these selections: "Critical, curious, idealistic, individualistic, impulsive, moody, perceptive, rebellious, restless." In the abstract, the portrait is an attractive one. I said "in the abstract" because I must admit that the activist is frequently less attractive in the flesh. No reference to hair styles or sanitary standards is intended. Those are but passing trivia ane deserve little attention. Not appearance but behavior concerns me. When deference is abandoned, courtesy is a casualty. The style of the student radical is frequently abrasive. The quality of life within our schools deteriorates as this style spreads. The motivation to work or the capacity to enjoy work declines accordingly. That may turn out to be a greater disaster than the presence of cops in the corridor. Civility was more valuable than we realized for keeping in check our natural ferocity. With it, some elegance could be achieved even in difficult times. Without it, life can be a wearisome experience even in the best of times. The student activist appears to have little regard for civility. There is in his personality an exasperating contradiction which permits him to combine a lofty idealism with a tendency to be inconsiderate of others. The abrasive quality of contemporary school life and much of the irresponsible behaviour which plagues us derives from the presence among the activists of a small group of alienated students. The alienated student differs from his activist classmates in that he is estranged from the values of his family and society and, in a sense, from his own feelings as well. These unhappy students appear to live in a kind of contagious misery. They have been described as casualties of a devastating combination of affluence, permissiveness, and either neglect or family conflict. The combination is destructive. Superficially, their family situations resemble that of the activists, but there is one major difference-instead of a close relationship with parents, the alienated student suffered either neglect or opposition. 5828 Evidence suggests that permissiveness helps create the kind of open and responsive youth we educators have described as our goal. But permissiveness must be accompanied by a great deal of personal attention and adult contact if its influence is to be benign. Where permissiveness is combined with neglect, alienation is a likely consequence. This unfortunate combination is too common in American life. Many of you doubtless read of the survey which was designed to test some hypotheses about the significance of parents knowing where their children were at all times. The plan was to call homes in the evening and to ask parents for that information. The striking thing was the researchers found themselves talking with kids whose parents were out. Many of us would have to admit that permissiveness and neglect are sometimes companions in our schools, too. These alienated students find the college experience irrelevant. They drift from experience to experience, frequently engaging in promiscuous but frustrating sexual experiences, or experimentation with drugs. Halleck has pointed out that when these estranged students become involved with activist groups, they are apt to be the most angry and irrational members. Much of the nihilism presently found in the student radical movement probably derives from estrangement which is psychological and personal rather than ideological and social in its source. An additional angry component has been added to our school life by the infusion of black students in rising numbers over the last three years. While they obviously do not fit the pattern of affluence suggested for white radicals, those at the college level are, in a sense, especially privileged. They recognize that. Perhaps some feel guilt for it, or at least a rising level of anger that their black brothers are deprived of the same opportunity. Unlike the occasional Negro students of earlier college generations, these are determined not to lose touch with their own culture. They are thus torn by conflicting needs. We must be sensitive to the student demands made upon them by militant leaders outside of the schools. These students are bright and aggressive. They feel no gratitude for having received as a privilege now what was earlier withheld as a right. They find our curriculum unresponsive to their needs, and our procedures for change too cumbersome to endure. Having been put off for so long, they can reasonably believe that the delays which stem from our clumsiness are really caused by indifference. Goaded by acute 5929 needs and by an inflammatory rhetoric, they press for the immediate solution of intricate problems. It is our shame that high school principals know hundreds of black students for every one known to us. In the face of that situation, I shall not be so presumptuous as to speak to you of their educational needs. Besides, they have found eloquent voices of their own. . No Sharp Values Gap Between College Activists and Moderates To the point of exhaustion, college administrators and other spokesmen have been reassuring the American public that the student radicals are a small minority. Statistical evidence is cited, usually placing the number at approximately 15 percent. Many educators were led to believe that a marked difference in viewpoint existed between the activists and their moderate classmates, and that if we followed the correct policies the conservative majority would check the behavior of the radicals and restore serenity to our campuses. Only rarely has this worked out in practice. Even in the face of the most extreme provocations by activists, the moderate majority has remained tolerant if not actually supportive of its classmates. In fact they are often radi- calized by the events they witness, so that they become active participants themselves. The truth seems to be that there is no sharp values gap between political radicals and the majority of university students. The radicals appear to represent the leading edge of a new counter-culture which is emerging and which embraces a set of attitudes that places it in conflict with us and the institutions we lead. Adherence to the values of that counter-culture seems to be spreading through the youth of America-indeed, through the youth of much of the world. Even the numbers of students on the leading edge is growing. In 1965, only 6 of 849 colleges estimated radicals as being in excess of 5 percent of the student body. This fall, more than 16 percent of the freshmen revealed that they had participated in protest activities while in high school. The radicalizing effect of each of our campus disorders tends to increase that number. A Fortune poll indicates that 750,000 students now identify with the New Left. A researcher at Berkeley discovered that for every activist on campus there were 21 sympathetic students. That number has doubtless grown. Only at our peril will we continue to believe that the dissenting activist stu- 6030 dents speak for a minority. I believe that they speak for a growing majority and that, while we must establish limits on the behavior which will be tolerated, we should work to accommodate our institutions to their demands if we are serious about wanting our schools to serve the youth of America. I trust you to know that I am not now referring to those tragic situations where campus problems are seized upon by militants who use distress in the schools as a weapon in their war against our society. In my opinion, San Francisco State College and the University of California in Berkeley are both victims of such exploitation. The radicals, not the administrators, have been the intransigent ones on both those campuses. The sentimental view that sees all students as idealists acting out of moral outrage bears up under examination about as well as the view of all administrators as anal retentive autocrats acting out of fear. New Value System The new value system which appears to be emerging has been described by Kenneth Kenniston in his book The Young Radicals. I want to borrow a few salient points from his analysis, selecting those attitudes which have special implications for us. Kenniston points out that the new youth are present-minded. Even when revolutionary, they are not future oriented. How one lives here and now becomes more important than what one lives for. This kind of present-mindedness is in sharp contrast with the goal orientation which we take for granted and have institutionalized in our school systems. This state of mind intensifies the tendency of students to identify with their own generation. They feel unrelated to older adults. That creates grave problems both for teaching and for administration. Nevitt Sanford got at the heart of this in his assertion: "I would put it down as a general rule that students cannot go against the value systems of their peers unless there are rewarding attachments to adults- and with an accompanying intellectual understanding which shows the superiority of the adult systems." His general rule must be a gloomy one in the face of our estrangement from present-minded students. This attitude on their part also tends to make much of our curriculum seem irrelevant to them, since we necessarily use the experience of the past to prepare students for the future. Alienation proceeds apace and can be checked 6131 only as we succeed in demonstrating the relatedness of our programs to their needs. A second characteristic which Kenniston notes is that which he labeled "personalism." All of us cherish personal relationships as we seek intimacy and support. What distinguishes modern youth from us is their extremely low level of tolerance for the impersonal or non-reciprocal relationships which we take for granted in much of our life and which appear to be indispensable for the functioning of a bureaucracy, even those humane bureaucracies we schoolmen construct. This has profound implications for us. Modern institutional life has an abstract quality which leaves students searching for intense and intimate experiences. In a recent article on women of the revolution, Peter Babcox quoted a former student acquaintance of mine as saying, "The Oakland demonstrations were important to me, mostly because of the way people were relating to each other in the streets. I had been at demonstrations before, and I had seen people get of my colleagues has noted that "universities are like stud farms people doing something in a spontaneous yet effective way just because it was meaningful and necessary."6 As you can imagine, the action which she described as meaningful impressed the citizens of Oakland as mindless. No matter. It is still an indictment of our schools that students should look to the streets to find experiences which can involve them in activities they find meaningful. Mere service, even dedicated service, is not enough. One of my colleagues has noted that "Universities are like stud farms -all service and no love." I can only hope that your secondary schools are superior. There is convincing evidence that the depersonalized characteristics of modern institutional life places greater stress upon adolescent students than upon us middle-aged teachers. That may be why we have proved willing to use management techniques that increase efficiency without realizing that we have depersonalized human relationships in the process. Another characteristic noted by Kenniston is the hedonism of the counter-culture. Contemporary students are far more open to impulse and self-gratification than their elders. Sexual expressions of this have received the most public attention, what with the new mottoes like "chaste makes waste" and "chastity is its own punishment." Punishment is not their bag. Quick to 6 Peter Babcox. "Meet the Women of the Revolution, 1969." The New York Times Magazine, February 9, 1969, p. 91. 6232 violate rules, they are also quick to cry for amnesty. Chancellor Mitchell of Denver has noted: "Those kids want to be martyrs, but they want to be thrown to toothless lions." There are other more subtle expressions which concern us, however. Educational methodology and Puritanism have been intimately related in our system. The Puritan heritage has provided an important part of the motive power on which we have depended. Put crudely, it asserted that man was driven by the whip or the carrot. We have relied on a system of rewards and punishments to provide motivation or restraints. Consider our use of grades to do far more than simply give a student an indication of progress. Well, the Puritan ethic is in decline, and those of us who have coupled our institutions to that ethic are in trouble today. The contemporary youth has neither fear of our whip nor lust for our carrots. We must revolutionize our methodology by replacing the Puritan ethic with the pleasure principle as the motivating force in our schools. One of the most significant characteristics of the new youth is their need for participation. Accustomed to genuine involvement in their homes, they expect nothing less in their schools. They do not regard decisions made without their participation as legitimate. They find intolerable the sense of being at the mercy of higher powers. (Or Hayakawas?) John Gardner put this eloquently by noting: "Men can tolerate extraordinary hardship if they think it is an unalterable part of life's travail. But an administered frustration-unsanctioned by religion or custom or deeply rooted values-is more than the spirit can bear. So increasingly men rage at their institutions. All kinds of men rage at all kinds of institutions, here and around the world."7 Therein lies an explanation for much of the anger which students feel toward their schools. And feel it they do. This year's incoming freshmen indicated that more than 16 percent of them had protested against their high school administration during their senior year. That is more than twice the number who protested against racial discrimination, and more than three times the number who protested against the Viet Nam War. Now you know who the real villains of America are! The extent to which these students expect involvement is indicated by the fact that nearly 90 percent of our new freshmen believe that students should have a major 7 Commencement Address, Cornell University, June 1968. 6333 role in specifying the college curriculum. And nearly two-thirds of them believe that faculty promotions should be based in part on student evaluations. The radical who demands such a right can be sure of a measure of sympathy from his silent classmates. Representative Student Participation I believe that our schools can be improved as we develop techniques for involving our students in decision making. They are sophisticated and knowledgeable to a surprising extent, and I would gamble that they would prove responsible as well. But even if that were not so, students would need to be involved for the sake of an effective learning environment. That gain would be worth some deterioration in the quality of our decisions. One of our major problems is the difficulty of achieving representative student participation in a pluralistic community. The political subculture will invariably seize the political means- namely, the student government. That means that the other important subcultures of a school, including the vocational and the intellectual, will be virtually disfranchised. Nor will a turn to participatory democracy solve that problem. Only the political activists have the drive and interest to participate. No serious students could afford the exacting time demands of participatory democracy. We must find ways to involve students in the running of our schools, but not at the expense of their studenthood. Put succinctly, our primary need is to reform government in a way that will involve students meaningfully without making government rather than learning the end-all of the system. An economical principle is required. The task has urgency about it. Diane Divoky, in her recent review of activism in the public schools to which I have already referred, noted: "Once students begin to see the school as a bankrupt, manipulative bureaucracy -and themselves as its most vulnerable victim-the stage is set for the real student movement."8 This is clearly not a time of optimism in the academic community. An A.C.E. survey on the probability and desirability of 35 hypothetical events occurring in the next decade indicates that we think that "some of the most probable events are the least desirable." For example, the survey shows that more than half the administrators and two-thirds of the faculty expect "increased 8 Saturday Review, February 15, 1969, p. 89. 6434 use by students of direct action methods to assert their demands for changes in higher education." While nine out of ten administrators find that prospect undesirable or detrimental, seven out of ten faculty members see it as desirable or essential. Nearly everyone agreed that the authority of administrators will decline. Not surprisingly, eight out of ten administrators regard that development as undesirable, whereas the overwhelming majority of teachers think it to be "desirable or essential."9 That is not good for one's ego, but it should not be surprising. Gardner recently pointed out that "administrator" is now about the only dirty word that no one has arisen to defend. My own conclusion is that we must rely less on authority and more on leadership if we are to be effective in reshaping American education to meet the needs of the new youth. If student radicals believe that coercion is necessary to produce a change, we must have the courage to oppose them in those tactics and the wisdom to offer effective alternatives. Main Problems Attitudinally, the main problems appear to be impatience on the part of students, rigidity on the part of their elders. Tactically, the corresponding sins are coercion by students, defensive- ness by administrators. Collectively, the problem appears to be a lack of agreement about means by which change can be effected in institutions. Their survival against outside forces requires a certain power of resistance to pressure. Their continued usefulness to the students within requires a certain adaptability to changing needs and tastes. Not surprisingly, the optimum viscosity is rarely found and none of us has been particularly successful in devising the best methods of inducing change. That is the problem we share. 9 The Chronicle of Higher Education, October 23, 1968.</meta-value></custom-meta></custom-meta-wrap></article-meta></front><back><notes>
<p><sup>1</sup>
<italic>Newsweek,</italic> September 30, 1968, p. 67.</p>
<p><sup>2</sup> Diane Divoky. "The Way It's Going To Be." <italic>Saturday Review,</italic> February 15, 1969, p. 101.</p>
<p><sup>3</sup>
<italic>The Daily Californian,</italic> February 6, 1969, p. 3.</p>
<p><sup>4</sup>
<italic>New York Times,</italic> February 14, 1969, p. 24.</p>
<p><sup>5</sup> Martin Meyerson. "The American College Student: Beyond The Protest." <italic>Daedalus,</italic> 1966, p. 723.</p>
<p><sup>6</sup> Peter Babcox. "Meet the Women of the Revolution, 1969." <italic>The New York Times Magazine,</italic> February 9, 1969, p. 91.</p>
<p><sup>7</sup> Commencement Address, Cornell University, June 1968.</p>
<p><sup>8</sup>
<italic>Saturday Review,</italic> February 15, 1969, p. 89.</p>
<p><sup>9</sup>
<italic>The Chronicle of Higher Education,</italic> October 23, 1968.</p>
</notes></back></article></istex:document></istex:metadataXml><mods version="3.6"><titleInfo lang="en"><title>Student Unrest in the University: Implications for the Secondary School</title></titleInfo><titleInfo type="alternative" lang="en" contentType="CDATA"><title>Student Unrest in the University: Implications for the Secondary School</title></titleInfo><name type="personal"><namePart type="given">William B.</namePart><namePart type="family">Boyd</namePart><affiliation>Central Michigan University, Mt. Pleasant, Michigan</affiliation></name><typeOfResource>text</typeOfResource><genre type="research-article" displayLabel="research-article" authority="ISTEX" authorityURI="https://content-type.data.istex.fr" valueURI="https://content-type.data.istex.fr/ark:/67375/XTP-1JC4F85T-7">research-article</genre><originInfo><publisher>Sage Publications</publisher><place><placeTerm type="text">Sage CA: Thousand Oaks, CA</placeTerm></place><dateIssued encoding="w3cdtf">1969-05</dateIssued><copyrightDate encoding="w3cdtf">1969</copyrightDate></originInfo><language><languageTerm type="code" authority="iso639-2b">eng</languageTerm><languageTerm type="code" authority="rfc3066">en</languageTerm></language><abstract lang="en">"You have opportunities that we muffed-oppor tunities to be more adaptive than we have been -firmer and more self-confident in defending values upon which our fragile culture depends- more flexible and creative in altering brittle in stitutions which seem more apt to shatter than to bend."</abstract><relatedItem type="host"><titleInfo><title>NASSP bulletin</title></titleInfo><genre type="journal" authority="ISTEX" authorityURI="https://publication-type.data.istex.fr" valueURI="https://publication-type.data.istex.fr/ark:/67375/JMC-0GLKJH51-B">journal</genre><identifier type="ISSN">0192-6365</identifier><identifier type="eISSN">1930-1405</identifier><identifier type="PublisherID">BUL</identifier><identifier type="PublisherID-hwp">spbul</identifier><part><date>1969</date><detail type="volume"><caption>vol.</caption><number>53</number></detail><detail type="issue"><caption>no.</caption><number>337</number></detail><extent unit="pages"><start>19</start><end>34</end></extent></part></relatedItem><identifier type="istex">922D87783D31E5043B0A55E9A9EB89CC2B1034B8</identifier><identifier type="ark">ark:/67375/M70-J6ZB8738-3</identifier><identifier type="DOI">10.1177/019263656905333707</identifier><identifier type="ArticleID">10.1177_019263656905333707</identifier><recordInfo><recordContentSource authority="ISTEX" authorityURI="https://loaded-corpus.data.istex.fr" valueURI="https://loaded-corpus.data.istex.fr/ark:/67375/XBH-0J1N7DQT-B">sage</recordContentSource></recordInfo></mods><json:item><extension>json</extension><original>false</original><mimetype>application/json</mimetype><uri>https://api.istex.fr/document/922D87783D31E5043B0A55E9A9EB89CC2B1034B8/metadata/json</uri></json:item></metadata><serie></serie></istex></record>Pour manipuler ce document sous Unix (Dilib)
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