the role of attitudes in schooling

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The Role of Attitudes in SchoolingBarbara Chambers ArnstinePublished online: 30 Jan 2008.

To cite this article: Barbara Chambers Arnstine (1967) The Role of Attitudes in Schooling, TheEducational Forum, 31:2, 225-232, DOI: 10.1080/00131726709338048

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T h e Role of Attitudes in Schooling BARBARA CHAMBERS ARNSTINE

HERE is a trend in educational phi- T losophizing today that focuses its attention on the form of educational thought rather than on its content. Under the banner of “scientific preci- sion,” its followers demand that those who set educational goals and those who propose methods to achieve them present their ideas in clear, scientific language. Their charges and complaints are not unjustified when one looks at the pompous verbiage frequently found in educational literature, but in their en- thusiasm for clarification they seem to have discarded the very issues themselves, along with reprehensible ways of talking about them.

Those who propose to clean up our educational language do not propose to tell us what to do in the schools. W e may make whatever devilment we wish in schooling if only we describe it in precise behavioral terms. However, the language we use can often be a function of the problems we confront. The problems of schooling often remain un- touched when educators resort to behavioral catalogues. It is a difficult task to refine all the general goals of education into their precise behavioral compo-

BARBARA ARNSTINE is Educational Director of the Center for Action on Poverty at the Univcr- sizy of Wisconsin. She holds the Ph.D. in philoso- p h y of cahcation from the University of Wircon rin.

nents. But what do we have even when the effort is made? We have items such as “Selects for his room, or the one that serves as such, or for personal adorn- ment, articles which meet artistic stan- dards,” listed as an example of aesthetic taste.’ On the face of it, this seems a di- sastrous reduction, since teaching only this behavior will not produce aesthetic taste, nor will observing this behavior guarantee that aesthetic taste is present in the student.

A criticism of this type of behavioral approach does not solve the problem, however. We are still left with the ne- cessity of formulating educational goals and methods. But if we can avoid the garden path taken by those who revere scientific clarity, it may be possible to use the more familiar metaphors of educational discourse in a clearer and more productive way. T h e use of such metaphors raises the cry of “poetry” from the proponents of behaviorism, but it may well be worth defending poetry in education, if by using it we can for- mulate our educational goals in such a way that we can effectively guide educational practice.

It is my intention to stand with the poets in presenting a case for the role of attitudes in school goals and practices. I would like to show how generalizations

‘Will F m h & Associates, Behudoral Goals of Gmmal Education in High School (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1957), p. 111.

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226 THE ROLE OF ATTITUDES IN SCHOOLING [January

about attitudes (which are often dis- missed as “poetry”) can be significant in the formulation of educational goals and in the success of educational method. While attitudes may have their roots in behavior, they are not simply behavioral responses, and they cannot be considered as such in deciding what to do in the schools and how to go about doing it.

Anyone who teaches in the public schools finds himself at some time or another describing the behavior of the students he teaches. Sometimes this behavior is described on a report card, sometimes on a personal file in the prin- cipal’s office, sometimes in a professional discussion of teaching-success or failure. Despite all admonitions to be scientific, even the best of teachers do not talk about their students in purely behavioral terms. Their students are “cooper- ative,” “interested,” “sullen,” “bored.” They are not “exhibiting smiling behavior.” Yet while their language is not scientifically behavioral, these teachers are not talking nonsense either.

What they are doing, what we all do when we describe others, is assessing tendencies to behave. We mzke judgments about patterns of behavior. For instance, the teacher would probably explain what she meant by “interested” or “bored” by saying that the student was doing such-and-such. But an example of interest is not a generalization about interest. It is but one instance of which there are hundreds. We might go around cataloguing all the instances of interest to be sure we had it all recorded behaviorally somewhere, but such a

venture could be troublesome on two accounts. One is, of course, that we might miss a behavior or two. The other is that somebody might come up with a new behavior tomorrow that we hadn’t thought of at all, although seeing it we might want to call it a case of “interested” behavior.

The teacher assures us that her judgments are adequate because she knows whether her students are interested or not, and she wouldn’t trouble herself with our list anyway, However, we are not so sure that she does know. If we present our doubts in an inoffensive manner, it seems quite possible that she will say, “Come and see for yourself.” Thus, while she is not scientific in an objective, it’s-on-the-list sense, she sure- ly is clear and objective in another sense, for she invites us to witness a demonstration of what she judges to be interested behavior.

Thus far we have been talking about judgments that teachers use to describe what they think are related patterns of behavior on the part of their students. W e all make similar decisions in our evaluation of others, and this process may be called the ascription of attitudes, When we ascribe attitudes, we are usually prepared to explain present behaviors by past behaviors that we have noted and future behaviors that we expect.

For instance, suppose Jones publishes a letter in the campus newspaper con- demning the University’s interference in the organization of fraternities. In his letter, Jones argues for social f ree dom for the students, but I explain this

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19671 BARBARA CHAMBERS ARNSTINE 227

to you by saying, “Jones is really prejudiced against Negroes.” There may have been indications of his prejudice in the letter, but if there were not, you might assume that I have prior knowledge of Jones’ behavior in other situations, and that the attitude I ascribe is a result of my assessment of his relevant past behavior.

Does my ascription stand simply because I said so? After all, if I need no further corroboration, then the complaints against “poetry,, in education may have some substance. But you may check my explanation against Jones’ future behavior. If he deliberately lives in a rundown area so that his children may go to an integrated school, and is found actively campaigning to open the membership of his church and country club to minority groups, then you are quite right in labeling my assessment as incorrect. The ascription of attitudes need not be merely a subjective meta- phor, if its behavioral examples are taken into account in a continuing evaluation.

What one does assume when he as- cribes attitudes to others is not the cor- rectness of all his personal judgments, but rather that people have underlying dispositions that are reflected in habitual ways of acting. The dispositions we infer make sense out of present behaviors by finding in past behaviors relevant patterns; and our inferences are in turn refined in light of subsequent behaviors that either conform to or dis- turb our expectancies.

Since the ascription of attitudes in- volves inferences about the ways that

people have been behaving and hypoth- eses about the ways that people are going to behave, their relevance to the school’s concerns with students’ behavior should be obvious. What may not be so obvious, however, is that the results of schooling can be described in attitudinal terms, and that our ascribing attitudes to students has a great deal to do with how we are going to try to achieve those more inclusive patterns of behavior that are indicated by our statements of educational goals.

We are encouraged to express our- selves scientifically and clearly when we talk about educational goals, and we do comply with the request sometimes, coming up with such examples as “rec- ognizing the second movement of Beethoven% Fifth Symphony,” or “knowing the molecular structure of carbon dioxide.” We talk about these behaviors in order not to talk “poetry” when we refer to such attitudinal goals as “aesthetic taste” or “intelligent behavior.’, But we do not think these par- ticular examples actually constitute the attitudes of aesthetic taste or intelligent behavior-since we have ample evidence to show that a great many people who dutifully perform such behaviors in school grow up to live tastelessly and unintelligently.

When descriptions of educational goals are referred to the student who embodies them, they are, after all, a s criptions of attitudes. We hope to see schooling produce in students certain tendencies to behave, tendencies such as aesthetic appreciation, intelligent behavior, and good atizenship. And we do

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know what we mean by these tendencies, because we very emphatically dis- approve of behavior contrary to them.

At this point a behaviorist might ask, “Well, then, why not state it simply instead of in poetry, if you know what you mean?” But to return to the anal- ogy of drawing up lists, we cannot ex- haustively define all the instances of intelligent behavior or aesthetic appreciation, because these attitudes are open to new and different expressions in situations we have not experienced.

This, then, is the “poetry” by which we can direct educational practice. We must set up goals that are clear enough to be achieved, yet not so limited as to ignore the changing circumstances in which students will someday express them. I t is here that our assumption about attitudes makes it sensible to con- ceive of changino the student for an un- known future. Situations will va ry , but stable attitudes will be evidenced through a variety of responses. Thus, it makes sense to talk about intelligent behavior or aesthetic taste, not merely as behaviors x, y, and z, but as a de- veloping attitude that will continue to function in new and differing situations. When we propose to educate, we propose to change the learner-not to teach him responses a and b-in such a way that in different situations the quality of his behavior can be described as “intelligent” or “tasteful.”

The second consideration of this paper is the method of teaching by which we can achieve what now can be called our attitudinal goals. Many methods of teaching do not involve our

?

taking account of the students’ attitudes in order to construct the educational environment. In other words, we may try to change the students’ behavior by ignoring it. We find what appear to be two reasons for ignoring the student’s attitudes: ( I ) We have a subject matter that, if learned, will create new attitudes and (2) W e cannot do anything about changing those present attitudes if they are not appropriate to the subject matter that we teach.

But these reasons present to us more difficulties than they resolve. The no- tion that the learning of a subject matter will create new attitudes is uncon- vincing, for we have been trying it for a long time, and it doesn’t work. Of course, it might be argued that our fail- ures are the result of poor organization of the subject matter or a poor presenta- tion of it. Yet there does not seem to be any necessary connection between the acquisition of knowledge and the attitudes that we describe as the goals of education. Common experience indicates that undesirable attitudes such as nar- row-mindedness and insensitivity are not the peculiar possession of those who lack knowledge.

I t does seem evident that some attitudes will develop in the process of knowledge-getting, but how can we be sure that they are the ones we want? The prevalence of boredom and lack of interest, of cheating and quitting school, seems to indicate that certain undesirable attitudes may become a part of a school situation where the learning of information is exclusively stressed. Even if the students do digest the mate-

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BARBARA CHAMBERS ARNSTINE 229

rial, and then become knowledgeable by our criteria of acquiring data, or con- cepts, or theories, we still have to ask if it makes sense to invest such knowledge with the power to create attitudes that will direct all dimensions of life. This may be too much to expect from information. If a person acts intelligently, i.e., behaves with an intelligent attitude, it is not merely the knowledge he brings to that situation that determines his attitude. Rather, it is his disposition to as- sess situations and to use knowledge that produces intelligent behavior. This kind of an attitude is possible only when we give our attention to the situations in which this attitude usually functions-a consideration that is often overlooked when we are concerned only with giving and getting knowledge. If one has an attitude toward something, in a situation that is relevant, this attitude will operate. If knowledge is gained in other totally unconnected situations, we can have little hope that it will ever function either in harmony or in conflict with that attitude.

The second reason for ignoring attitudes in teaching is that we cannot change them if they are not appropriate to the subject matter. But this also pre- sents us with major difficulties. Just as the possession of knowledge cannot guarantee the attitudes we consider so- cially and morally desirable, neither can it provide us with the tools we need to deal with undesirable attitudes. The result is that a great number of children whose attitudes are inappropriate to the acquisition of information are left out of the reach of formal education. This is

unfortunate because the enforced confinement that is a characteristic of the public school points to the school as the only major formal agency that has the social power to change attitudes. Recognition of the school’s institutional power, however, is not a convincing ar- gument that attitudes can or should be changed by the school, whatever the goals may be. Yet education is unques- tionably a process of changing the learner, and it is impossible for the school to ignore what needs to be changed. Declaring that children should be motivated, should be interested, and should have the right attitude before they can learn anything, does not re- lieve us of the educational problems presented when they don’t have such motivation, interests, and attitudes.

When we say that we hope to present knowledge only to students who already have certain attitudes, then we are setting up criteria that are hardly appropriate for a public school that accepts all kinds of children. I t is no more appropriate to insist that a child must come equipped with certain attitudes than it is to insist that he come equipped with a certain amount of money or a certain skin color. If the acquisition of knowledge has as a prerequisite the formation of the right attitudes, then the primary goal of much public education has to be the formation of those attitudes.

If we must deal directly with the attitudes the students have in order to achieve our teaching goals, how can we construct the educational environment so that those attitudes are affected by

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the knowledge and methods of inquiry that the school teaches? Take as an example the educational goal of intelligent behavior. One of the things we mean when we talk about intelligent behavior is inquiry into relevant evidence and a disciplined process of making judgments in light of that evidence. Now consider a student who is prejudiced against Negroes, and suppose that one of our educational goals is that aspect of intelligent behavior which con- stitutes a disposition to gather and use evidence. If we proceed toward this goal by ignoring the student’s attitude, we might introduce all kinds of empiri- cal evidence to show that Negroes are not inferior. But this would ignore the basic difference between ignorance and prejudice. An ignorant person conducts his affairs in a limited or inadequate fashion because of a lack of knowledge or experience. But to say he is ignorant does not imply that he values his con- duct. On the other hand, prejudice is a complex attitude which connotes a de- sire to maintain the state of affairs in which it remains appropriate to behave in accordance with a certain point of view. That is, prejudice connotes an attitude; ignorance does not.

Prejudice may have its roots in ignorance, that is, a lack of experience or knowledge, but the behaviors which we describe as prejudiced reflect a value structure of beliefs and rationalizations that the individual wishes to maintain. I t may, for example, take a great deal of knowledge and sophistication in rational debate for a person to maintain his prejudice. As Gordon Allport points

out, people quite easily adjust the rationalizations for their beliefs to fit new information without questioning the basic value structure of their views at all. When, in fact, we ascribe any attitude to people, we assume that their behavior will continue in a variety of future situations just because those attitudes are such an intimate part of them, Attitudes reff ect the way in which a person looks at the world, and, in complex attitudes that incorporate values, they are so important to him that he would consider deliberate efforts at change as threatening. The inertia which allows us to remain ignorant is different from the active attempts we initiate in order to maintain our attitudes. Consequently, treating prejudice as if it were ignorance, by simply supplying information, is an inappropriate method of teaching.

But to teach a student to consider the evidence is not a behavior which we want him to use in only a limited number of situations. If the student learns to weigh evidence in his science course but remains prejudiced toward Negroes, then we have not succeeded in our goal of getting him to adopt an attitude that is reflected in consistent intelligent behavior. The general pattern of intelligent behavior that is sought must be expressed in those situations where pre- viously the student was not considering evidence. How can we deal with racial prejudice so that the student can weigh evidence in this area? We can begin to attack the problem by considering those interests the student has which do not involve his maintaining an attitude of prejudice.

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19671 BARBARA CHAMBERS ARNSTINE 231

Suppose we find that the student is interested in reading fiction. On exam- ination, we find that his reading tastes are mature and well-grounded, that he reads independently of assignments, and that when questioned about a book he has read, he can give a careful and detailed explanation of his pleasure or displeasure in reading it. From such behaviors, it is possible to infer the exis- tence of certain attitudes on the part of the student in connection with this interest. One such attitude might be called, for want of a better term, the attitude of “abandonment.” I n a more sophisticated literary setting, it is similar to the “willing suspension of disbelief,” but in the young adolescent, it is gener- ally a more naive and, consequently, stronger involvement with the work. The avid reader ‘(abandons,’ himself, as it were, to the experience the author has set out for him. In the course of his reading, he learns to become Superman, then, hopefully, D’Artagnan or Robin- son Crusoe. H e talks about the charac- ters in a novel as if they were real; his description of the events implies that they actually happened. This abandonment characterizes his approach to a book and his expectancies when he be- gins one. H e is ready and willing to live the story and to become the hero.

Such an attitude makes it possible to provide experiences for the avid and young reader that he might find threatening in other circumstances. It is possible to give such a reader books which have Negro heroes with which he will have to identify, and which will provide him with experiences with Negroes that

he avoids in the social structure of his daily life.

A similar approach might be taken with a student who has an interest in basketball. If his interest has been de- veloped into a team attitude, the intro- duction of a Negro member on the team may provide him with a new kind of experience that he would not have per- mitted in other areas.

At the University of Tennessee in 1963, it was found that the integration of various intramural sports led to the relaxation of tensions and the opening of relationships more than any other experience on the campus. Although some classes had been integrated for some time, many white students who participated in tennis and track admitted that they had never held an informal conversation with a Negro on campus until they engaged in a game together. They also admitted that the contact with Negroes in team sports made them uncomfortable with their previous pos- tures of prejudice.

The enjoyment of a sport involving other players can lead to the sorts of co- operative attitudes that we ordinarily characterize as “good sportsmanship.” The rules of the game become more than specified behavioral acts or necessary information; they extend to en- compass behaviors that indicate respect and sharing towards other players. When shared efforts reflect these attitudes toward others, they are rewarded by an increase in pleasure in the game itself. The adoption of such attitudes creates the possibility for experiences that are otherwise impossible. Even if B

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232 THE ROLE OF ATTITUDES IN SCHOOLING

Negro player joins the team, good sportsmanship will continue if these attitudes have become, through cultiva- tion, a part of the game itself. The white student on the team might find himself having experiences that he would not have considered possible in other areas of his life.

Thus, it seems possible to promote learning by making use of attitudes, rather than denying that the term has any referent in the formulation of goals, or that the students’ attitudes can be a constructive part of the educational environment. In the examples men- tioned, making use of attitudes toward literature and sports may bring experiences into the student’s life that challenge his prejudices. But to have experiences that conflict with and challenge one’s attitudes, is only the beginning of the educative process. For its value in the long run depends upon the student’s using those experiences as grounds for inquiry into his belief, and as the evidence that supports or denies it. It is not much trouble to maintain that all Ne- groes are evil and ignorant when one has never had an experience with a Negro, except in those restricted and subservient situations where the Negro must at least pretend ignorance (e.g. the “girl” who comes to clean or the “boy” who does the yard). But it is more difficult to maintain prejudice when one’s own experience, either vicar- iously, as in reading a novel, or at first hand, as in playing a game, has led to his knowing and respecting a Negro. Such experiences can come into conflict

with presently held attitudes w that a rational inquiry into one’s own attitudes is then felt to be worth instituting. The grounds for such inquiry are found in the experiences themselves, and the teacher can deliberately use these grounds as a wedge into the morass of social customs and myths that support the student’s prejudices.

Making use of the student’s attitudes does not disrupt or destroy the goals that we might propose for schooling. Rather it brings those goals into a focus on the student that may result in mean- ingful teaching. I t does not direct our concerns away from the student, leaving him with the task of creating his own environment for learning, while we merely fill in the information that he is to learn. It directs our efforts to the behavior of the student, a concern we all recognize whenever we see students and teachers fumbling with vapid generali- ties instead of a clear understanding of what schooling is about. However, the consideration of attitudes, while clearly behavioral does not lead us into the sterility of isolated instances that describe humans as devoid of purpose or organization, and thereby makes any change in behavior a meaningless m u s cular event. Schools are concerned with changing behavior. Patterns of behavior, as described by the use of attitudinal terms, give goals to the schools that are clear but unrestrictive. The recognition of the present attitudes of the student and the utilization of those attitudes in teaching give us a method by which we may achieve those goals.

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the role of attitudes in schooling

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