Early Education

October 2015 Newsletter

“In educational theory, there is a perennial polarity between a left-wing progressive theory, which stresses the wishes of the child, and a more conservative authority-oriented emphasis on moral or achievement norms to be achieved by education.”

– Silvan S. Tomkins (Demos, 1995, p. 121)

Early Education – Part II
Over the past several months, we have been exploring the embryology of three facets of human development: Feelings (Affects), Language, and Cognition.

Using information gathered from studying the origins of feelings, language, and cognition, we have set out to examine Verbalization of Feelings, Physical Punishment – And Violence, Education, and Religion. The September 2015 Newsletter contained “Education – Part I.”

This month we conclude our discussion of education with “Education – Part II.” The emphasis is how to enhance education by mobilizing the positive affects, especially Interest-Excitement. The documentary film, “Race to Nowhere” (2009), nicely raises many of these issues.

Early Education

Much has been written about early educational efforts and programs such as Head Start. There is little doubt that, when administered properly, such programs enhance the development of the stimulus-seeking brains of children. René Spitz (1945, 1965) demonstrated long ago that institutionalized infants, who were otherwise well-fed and cared for, would deteriorate and in some cases die if they did not get reasonable emotional and cognitive stimulation. Researchers and clinicians such as Selma Fraiberg, John Bowlby, Marlene Goodfriend, and many others have shown the importance of early emotional and cognitive stimulation. The Handbook of Infant Mental Health (Zeanah, 2000) is filled with descriptions of programs based on understanding the need of infants and children for emotional and cognitive stimulation. A remarkable number of early intervention treatment programs exist on individual as well as public health levels to help deal with infants and child whose development has gone off track.

However—in some ways this all misses the point. The real “Early Education” begins at home. It all begins with the infant and parents or other caregivers… Preventing problems rather than intervening later.

What do we mean by real early education? You probably know by now. Early education means understanding how feelings work. Early education means enhancing the interest affect… allowing curiosity its full range.

It is an infant’s and child’s—and adult’s—curiosity which drives learning. Remember the first shuttle disaster? During the inquiry, a top physicist was playing with the rubber-like material involved in the O-ring. He put it into his ice-water! What he realized, and talked about at the inquiry, was his view that extreme cold probably changed the capacities of the O-ring, contributing to the disaster.

Curiosity – or the interest affect – is key to learning. Much of our previous discussion has been devoted to describing how curiosity can be enhanced—and how it can be constricted. Support and validation of a child’s curiosity allow for even more exploring and learning. The interest affect, along with enjoyment and surprise, comprise what we think of as play. Play is crucial in learning. Winnicott called play the key to creativity.

How is curiosity—or interest, play, creativity—squelched? By the use of the negative responses to a child’s interest—anger, fear, and shame, especially. These responses lead to a restriction, a shutting down of the exploratory and learning capacities.

I once saw two or three children playing together. The father of one began—quite unnecessarily, I thought, inasmuch as nothing was being damaged—to tell his son, “Don’t touch that, don’t go there, stop doing that, if you keep that up I’ll have to get out my belt.” I don’t know what anxieties prompted the father to respond that way. But the little boy’s reaction was dramatic. He gradually slowed down, stopped interacting, stopped playing, and became mute. This is a somewhat extreme example of this process of constriction of interest and curiosity. However, one can see subtle examples of constriction rather than enhancement of curiosity all the time. For instance, what about when a child says “What’s that?”, pointing to her father’s genitals. “What’s it for?” she might ask. Or, how about when the child says “How much money do you make?” And so on — you get the picture.

We often overlook the fact that real early education involves the developing character structure of the child. We need to recognize that understanding and responding appropriately to these early feelings — especially, interest or curiosity — is the most important foundation for learning we can give our children.

Later Schooling
Do infant and child development and the psychology of affect also have something to say about later schooling? I would strongly suggest they do, in at least two ways.

First, we tend to think of education as imparting information to our children. While there is little argument that certain basics are essential, we might consider turning this “imparting/imposing education” on its head – we need to think more in terms of learning from our children. We discussed the ideas of grasping what our children like and dislike with respect to themselves and their feelings. Similarly, we want to hear about and see what they know, what their world is like, how they view things. This in turn generates a spirit of self-inquiry. This also allows for identification with the teacher’s desire to learn — a child will become a learner more readily if the parent or teacher shows a willingness to learn from the child.

This idea of learning from the child also tends to enhance rather than restrict her curiosity. Children feel more valued – what they are interested in, what they think about, how they view the world … all this has importance. Their interest and curiosity are validated.

Along these lines, it is useful to consider some of the strategies used in working with intellectually gifted children. The teachers in these programs give the gifted children various problems and situations — and they encourage them to experiment and to risk making mistakes. They want the children to think outside the box, to explore themselves and their environment for possible solutions and different ways to view things. The teachers decrease the use of shame — they encourage mistakes! They recognize what we talked about earlier – that shame impedes the interest affect. So often in education, shame is used to highlight a mistake, an error. That is, a narcissistic (self-esteem) injury is delivered. This may serve to “correct,” or to motivate, but it may also serve to constrict one’s curiosity. It may take the joy out of learning and discovery.

The second point about later schooling is related to but different from the first. It involves not just appreciating and validating the importance of the child’s interest and curiosity, but also creating a vehicle for the expression of this interest. In other words, I would suggest schools should aim their projects at the students’ individual interests whenever possible. This focus on the students’ individual interests tends to generate more enthusiasm, studying, and learning — and less oppositionality — than assigning a topic. For example, say the class is studying medieval history and a project is in the offing. Rather than assign topics, why not let the students follow up on their own interests? For example, the student who loves the military could study weaponry and defenses. The student who loves baseball could explore the types of games played in the Middle Ages, possibly with particular reference to games involving balls. The student who loves firefighting could study the vulnerability of the structures to fire and how fires were handled through historical periods.

I have no question that capable teachers can deal with individual topics. Teachers and schools often rationalize why all students need to write or do a project on the same topic — but it is just that, a rationalization. The problem, I think, is that often schools and teachers — like parents — do not understand the significance of the interest affect. They don’t appreciate the potential for energy and discovery and learning which is wrapped up in the positive feelings of interest and enjoyment and surprise. They are, in fact, often leery of that kind of enthusiasm and exuberance and passion, and that wariness stems from misunderstanding feelings and creativity.

What Keeps Us From Learning More? What Is Learning?

What does keep us from learning more at times, and what is learning, anyhow? Does the psychology of affect help us here?

Some suggest learning involves the increased capacity to adapt to changing circumstances. Much of our current clinical psychological work with patients involves helping them understand their motives and behaviors and not repeat patterns which have gotten them into difficulty. In some sense it involves helping them adapt beneficially to their environment or to a changing environment or to trauma of some kind. In other words, this process involves learning.

So why is learning so difficult at times? One very powerful reason has been noted: the constriction of the interest affect in the early parent-child interactions. For example, the negative affects of fear and shame can predominate in situations of potential learning. Remember the little boy who was playing and exploring exuberantly, and whose father couldn’t tolerate it and became increasingly punitive and restrictive? That’s how learning and exploring and creativity can be shut down. The necessary focus on the positive affects does not exist, and there is an overemphasis on the negative affects.

There are additional ways to conceptualize why learning can be so difficult. One involves the built-in tendency of the infant to “pattern-matching.” In other words, the infant tends toward familiar scenarios — people, food, locations, and so on. This tendency toward repetition and pattern–matching is what lies behind the concept of “transference” which is used therapeutically in psychodynamic psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. The past casts a shadow over the present … we tend to repeat behavioral patterns and relationships (see Gedo, 2005, for a cogent discussion of this). This tendency in the infant toward pattern-matching is balanced, however, by an attraction to novelty — that is, our old friend the feeling of interest. Interest and pattern-matching exist side by side. Thus, when interest is restricted, via fear or shame or whatever, pattern-matching and repetition take over, and learning and creativity diminishes.

An additional way to conceptualize learning involves what psychoanalyst Robert Galatzer-Levy calls the disorganizing tendency of learning. The idea is this. The function of the brain is to create order out of disorder, i.e., the brain has to process a variety of incoming messages (Basch, 1988). When new stimuli or data or information comes in, it has a potentially disorganizing effect—the brain has to disrupt the current organization in order to include the new information. This disorganizing effect is often felt subjectively as quite uncomfortable, and hence we often shy away from new information because it can unsettle us. It forces us to think differently about a situation or person.

Of course, often new information leads to a reorganization which feels quite uplifting. Say you have been troubled and puzzled about a particular problem, and you hear additional information and then things click into place – what a relief! The new information diminishes the tension. Remember, this was the definition of enjoyment described previously.

However, new data (i.e. learning) seem so frequently to be more discombobulating than not. In addition to the internal disorganizing effect, learning also may inflict what we call a “narcissistic injury” — a blow to one’s self-esteem. To take seriously something new is, for many people, like saying to oneself “I didn’t know that before! How stupid I am!” In other words, to accept new information and learn often means acknowledging to oneself that “I didn’t know it before, I was flawed, defective.” And, of course, we tend to shy away from that feeling. This is why the best teachers and psychotherapists will cushion their teaching, not humiliate, but convey the new information tactfully in a way that can be more readily heard and integrated by the student or patient.

Summing Up

This wraps up our exploration of Education through the lens of affect, language, and cognition. We have now examined Verbalization of Affect, Physical Punishment—And Violence, and Education in this fashion. Next month we will delve into Religion.

REFERENCES FOR INTERESTED READERS

Amabile TM (1996). Creativity in Context. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press.

Basch MF (1988). Understanding Psychotherapy: The Science Behind the Art. New York: Basic Books.

Brown S (2009). Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul. New York: Avery (Penguin).

Demos EV (1995). Exploring Affect: The Selected Writings of Silvan S. Tomkins. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Field K, Cohler BJ, Wool G (eds.) (1989). Learning and Education: Psychoanalytic Perspectives. Madison CT: International Universities Press.

Galatzer-Levy R (2004). Chaotic possibilities: Toward a new model of development. Int J Psycho-Analysis 85: 419-441.

Gedo JE (2005). Psychoanalysis as Biological Science: A Comprehensive Theory. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Russell B, Wyatt W (1960). Bertrand Russell Speaks His Mind (First edition). Cleveland: World Publishing Co.

Pink DH (2009). Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. New York: Riverhead Books (Penguin).

Spitz RA (1945). Hospitalism—An inquiry into the genesis of psychiatric conditions in early childhood. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child 1: 53-74.

Spitz RA (1965). The First Year of Life: A Psychoanalytic Study of Normal and Deviant Development of Object Relations. New York: International Universities Press.

Winnicott DW (1960). Ego distortion in terms of true and false self. In The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment: Studies in the Theory of Emotional Development, 1965 (pp. 140-152). New York: International Universities Press.

Winnicott DW (1965). The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment. New York: International Universities Press.

Winnicott DW (1971). Playing and Reality. London: Routledge.

Zeanah CH (ed) (2000). Handbook of Infant Mental Health: Second Edition. The Guilford Press: New York.

FILM

Abeles V (Producer, Director), Congdon J (Director), Attia M (Writer) (2009). Race to Nowhere. USA: Reel Link Films.

[Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children] Updated leaflet on progress (and delay) in achieving prohibition of corporal punishment in Africa

The Global Initiative is delighted to announce publication of the updated leaflet “Prohibiting all corporal punishment of children in Africa: progress and delay”, graphically illustrating progress (and delay) in achieving prohibition in Africa, where seven states have fully prohibited in all settings, including the home, but in another seven states, corporal punishment is not fully prohibited in any setting.