Humane Educators’ Toolbox: 12 Angry Men

Posted on July 18, 2011 by zoeweil

I watched the classic film, 12 Angry Men, recently, and I was struck by the ways in which the film so accurately depicts what social psychology experiments reveal about people’s willingness to suspend their own thinking faculties to go along with the group [in particular, the Asch experiments, in which individuals deny their own senses to agree with the majority, demonstrating the lengths (no pun intended) to which people will go to conform].

In the movie, had one man’s commitment to integrity and reason not prevailed, another man, reasonably likely to have been innocent of the crime he was charged with, would have been electrocuted. It is not a surprise that only one man of twelve was willing to step out on the proverbial limb in a group vote in which he was the only dissenter, nor is it a surprise that some went along with the prevailing view without much thought – easily swayed and influenced.

We all know these characters. We all know people whose beliefs can be too easily altered by new ideas; others whose beliefs are so entrenched that reason and rationality cannot sway them; others who stand out as extremely clear-headed and models of critical thinking; others who don’t care enough to be bothered to think very hard for themselves and will follow the crowd no matter what; others whose deep emotional needs and pain influence their ability to think rationally. And most of us realize that there is a little bit of each of such characters in ourselves.

The challenge for each of us, I believe, is to strive to be like the character played by Henry Fonda, a man committed to truth and aware that truth is often elusive; a man unafraid of speaking his truth even when it differs from others; someone whose heart and mind work together toward a goal of integrity and honesty; a person whose mind is not so open his “brain falls out,” but who exemplifies open-mindedness.

This film is an excellent tool for any critical thinking or criminal justice course, as well as for a course in American History. Though fiction, it offers much food for thought and discussion. As a supplement to the social psychology films at the Heroic Imagination Project website, 12 Angry Men offers humane educators – those who wish to ensure that their students have the knowledge, tools, and motivation to be solutionaries for a just, compassionate world – an excellent opportunity to use film and culture to explore issues of character and choicemaking.

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

Like my blog? Please share it with others, comment, and/or subscribe to the RSS feed.

Filed under: critical thinking, Cultural Issues, humane education, integrity, justice, movies, videos | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Paying Teachers $125K for Excellence

Posted on March 25, 2011 by zoeweil

In this 60 Minutes episode, “Charter School’s $125,000 Experiment,” Katie Couric reports on a New York City charter school experimenting with high salaries to attract great teachers, none of whom are provided the safety net of tenure.

What do you think?

Zoe Weil, President, Institute for Humane Education
Author of Most Good, Least Harm, Above All, Be Kind, and The Power and Promise of Humane Education
My TEDx talk: “The World Becomes What You Teach“

Like my blog? Please share it with others, comment, and/or subscribe to the RSS feed.

Filed under: education | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Comments Off

Imagine a Different Experiment: Ted Kaczynski and the Murray Experiment at Harvard

Posted on July 19, 2010 by zoeweil

I recently read an article from The Atlantic Monthly online titled “Harvard and the Making of the Unabomber.” The author, Alston Chase, has corresponded with Ted Kaczynski at length and also wrote the book A Mind for Murder: The Education of the Unabomber and the Origins of Modern Terrorism. I first came across Alston Chase’s work when I listened to a Radio Lab podcast about an experiment conducted at Harvard during the 1950s. The experimenter, psychologist Harry Murray, had worked for the OSS, the precursor to the CIA, studying (and creating experiments on) stress in interrogations. It’s unclear whether his experiments at Harvard were under the auspices of the OSS or whether they were independently motivated. According to Chase, it’s even unclear what the real purpose of the Harvard experiments were.

The experiments, conducted over a period of 3 years, deceived Harvard students and subjected them to severe stress and cruelty. At one point in the experiments, students were asked to write an autobiography and detail very personal accounts related to their sexuality, toilet training, and other intimate experiences. They were told they’d be meeting with another student, who had also written an autobiography, to discuss their various experiences. Instead, they were placed in brightly lit interrogation rooms, hooked to electrodes to monitor their responses, filmed through a one-way mirror — from which they were being observed — and then ridiculed, humiliated, insulted and victimized by an older stooge, not a peer as they were expecting. They were later required to watch the videos of themselves undergoing this humiliation and trauma.

Ted Kaczynski was one of the students in these experiments, and although he wouldn’t talk about them with Chase, it turns out that he had a huge negative response, according to the monitors of his stress levels. Chase explores whether these experiments influenced Kaczynski such that he became more predisposed to carry out his murders as the Unabomber.

When I heard about these experiments, and after getting over my shock that they were ever conducted, I couldn’t help but wonder what might have happened had a different experiment been performed. In one of the experiments Murray did, the students wrote their life philosophies. What if an experimenter asked students to write a combination autobiography, personal philosophy and goals for their lives and a “stooge” validated their ideas and encouraged their interests and supported their goals, and rather than humiliate them, extolled their virtues. What if they went over the top in the other direction? I’m not suggesting that this would be a good thing to do, but I wonder what the result would be. What might the students do with such praise and validation? Who might they become? How might Ted Kaczynski’s life have been different had this been the experimental protocol conducted over three years? And lastly, where are the social psychology experiments that seek to bring out the best in people so that we can learn how better to foster compassion, courage, honesty and integrity for a healthier world?

Zoe Weil
Author of Most Good, Least Harm and Above All, Be Kind

Image courtesy of myguerrilla via Creative Commons.

Like my blog? Please share it with others, comment, and/or subscribe to the RSS feed.

Filed under: Cultural Issues, human rights, responsibility, social psychology | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments »

Tweenbots: Another Sign of Hope for Humanity

Posted on April 15, 2009 by zoeweil

One of the graduates of our Humane Education Certificate Program sent me this link to Tweenbots. Take a look.

Recently, I’ve found myself absorbed in thinking about the Milgram Experiments, conducted in the 1960s at Yale University, in which ordinary men and women were willing to administer electric shocks – up to 450 volts – to a fellow participant in a study on learning (or so they thought; the test was really about obedience to authority, and no shocks were actually administered). Prior to the study, 14 senior Yale psychology students were asked what percentage of people they thought would administer the maximum voltage. The average of their guesses was 1.2%. This was far, far different from what transpired. In the experiments, nearly two thirds of participants were willing to administer the maximum voltage, thinking they were harming — and possibly killing — their compatriot. Even psychology students, less than 20 years after the Holocaust, could not predict humanity’s enormous capacity for harm and cruelty.

Then along comes something as simple as Tweenbots, and I’m reminded of humanity’s equally great capacity for kindness – even kindness to a robot.

If only we could crack this nut – figure out what forces conspire to lead us to acts of altruism, heroism, and simple kindness and what ignites such events as the genocide in Rwanda, or the everyday exploitation of millions of people who are enslaved around the world.

As a humane educator, I believe that if we give youth the knowledge, tools, and motivation to be positive choicemakers and changemakers for good, then we will shift societal systems that are cruel and destructive towards ones that are healthy and sustainable. This is an act of faith. When I teach courses, I make sure that my students learn about the Milgram and Stanford Prison Experiments. I want them to understand what we humans – and they themselves – are capable of, so they can shield against such obedience to systems that are designed to be destructive or cruel. I also teach them about acts of goodness and about changemakers who make a profound difference in the world.

But now I will add the Tweenbots – not because this little experiment reveals the best in us, but because it demonstrates very ordinary kindness and desire to be helpful, when it matters not a whit, yet still inspires our care. And because it’s a light and joyful little example of simple virtue, and makes us each a little more likely – I hope – to do good.

~ Zoe

Image copyright Kacie Kinzer.

Filed under: changemakers, compassion, systemic change, values | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off

What Happens When We Pay Attention?

Posted on April 13, 2009 by zoeweil

Visit: http://www.sicklesinsight.com/experimental-psychology-human-perception/ and watch the video. Make sure that you do not read the information below the video until after you have followed the instructions carefully. And don’t read the rest of this blog post until you’ve done the above, too. Then come back and read the rest.

——————————————–

When we bring our attention to something specific and concentrate very hard, we miss all sorts of things – even big things – as the experiment above reveals. There are so many ways in which our attention is diverted, and so we constantly miss the gorilla in the room. Whether it is diverted by fear-mongering, or images of success that are unsustainable and destructive (but which sway us as they simultaneously create anxiety), or what is happening in our immediate lives that distracts us from the greater world — or, conversely, what is happening in the greater world that distracts us from our immediate lives — where we put our attention largely determines what we believe and how we behave.

Intense focus on a narrow subject is often good and useful, but not if we become unable to shift our focus and expand its range.

Because I’m committed to the spread of humane education, I’ll “attend” to that subject in this post, near and dear to my heart as it is. What are our students typically asked to attend to? Where is their attention? It’s on the details necessary to pass mostly multiple choice, standardized tests in various subjects. It’s on sports. It’s not on how we can live sustainably on this planet, or peacefully, or humanely. It’s not on the role we can and should play to solve our challenges and create a thriving, healthy world for all. It’s not on getting along.

If our schools asked our youth to pay attention to what makes them most enthusiastic and engaged, or to what they most care about, or to the fixable problems we face, or even to what we’ve actually learned from history (as opposed to the names and dates of battles), we might actually start attending to what so desperately needs our attention. We would see the most important gorillas.

~ Zoe

Filed under: Cultural Issues, education, humane education, systemic change, values | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 437 other followers