Honor and Dignity as Indicators of Distinct Educational Approaches ()
1. Introduction
Tapola (2011) shows that the terms “honor” and “dignity” occupy a substantial place in educational rhetoric, but have no clear meaning when put in use. We suggest that ambiguity of this sort might result from a deeper misunderstanding of the concept of education. The notions of honor and dignity underlie two distinct educational approaches. One, which is related to the dignity concept, has a coherent cross-disciplinary basis in the philosophy of education, sociology, psychology, and psychoanalysis. The other, which is related to the concept of honor, prevails but is not supported by social psychology, sociology, or psychoanalysis in a way that associates it with any branch of the philosophy of education. Only the honor-related approach contains familiar problems such as loss of teachers’ authority, the relevance of curriculum, and classroom discipline; only the dignity approach consists of professional potential to promote academic performances in heterogeneous classes, critical thinking, and motivation for learning.
Honor and dignity are identified as two regulative principles that constitute two social orders (Gilabert, 2015; Kamir, 2006; McCrudden, 2008; Pols et al., 2018; Taylor, 1994). According to this distinction, honor codes form the structure of hierarchical relations, in which some members enjoy privileges that others cannot legitimately hope to possess. The concept of dignity regulates social relations that are based on the demand for equal rights and the idea of equal value of human life, in which all members are considered to be entitled to the same manner of respect (Hernandez, 2015; Taylor, 1994). A system of honor is composed of acknowledged rules and codes, which are both manifestations of power and disciplinary tools (Kamir, 2006). Dignity appears in the texts by all the authors mentioned above and below as a vague concept devoid of particular content, yet one that functions as a basis of the demand for equal rights or as a regulative concept for caregiving.
In schools, the distinction between an honor-based approach and a dignity-based approach is fundamental. Educational relations that aim at inculcating codes of honor are regulated by demands, directed to students, to maintain discipline and to assimilate the hierarchal order and its manners. In our findings, most of the teachers who adopt this attitude expressed a sense of incompetence and frustration. The concept of dignity regulates educational relations in which the teachers direct demands to themselves—to unconditionally offer social settings that facilitate the development of self-respect. Efforts to create these conditions include overlooking infractions and norm violations. In our findings, all teachers who adopt this attitude expressed a sense of joy and satisfaction and made no mention of disciplinary problems. These two forms of educational encounter align with Freud’s concept of socialization: One enhances the mental qualities that Freud (Freud, 2019) calls the superego, the other enhances the mental qualities that Freud calls the ego.
Both frames of interaction are perceived as educational but differ in their goals and practices. When teachers are asked about their attitude towards the concept of honor, their answers reveal the two concepts of education.
1.1. The Two Concepts of Education
1.1.1. The Power of the Teacher
As Tandler and Dalbert (Tandler & Dalbert, 2020) and Rubie-Davies et al. (Rubie-Davies et al., 2020) show, following many other researchers, e.g. (Gao et al., 2020) (Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1966), the teacher’s attitude play a significant role in students’ success. This comes with no surprise. Bourdieu (Bourdieu, 2001) and Goffman (Goffman, 1979), following Cooley (Cooley, 1922) and Mead (Mead, 1934), claim that all manners and performance, as natural as they seem to the performer, are acquired and learned through innumerable encounters with socialization agents. Bourdieu (Bourdieu, 1990) calls these manners and body gestures a “habitus” that becomes second nature through socialization.
The Pygmalion effect, identified by Rosenthal and Jacobson (Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1966), was found to significantly affect children in the first and second school years (Cervone & Peake, 1986; Chadha & Narula, 2016; Rosenthal, 2002). Holt (Holt, 1982) showed that children’s achievements increase and their behavior is transformed when the teacher changes his attitude from aiming to control to creating a trustful, empowering environment. According to Mead (Mead, 1934), socialization agents’ responses to a child’s gestures constitute a source of meaning, hence a source for self-image and identity formation. Goffman (Goffman, 1979, 1986) showed how stigmatization shapes subjects’ self-perception (Link & Phelan, 2014). Keeping Rosenthal’s findings in mind, we assume that labeling works in both directions: in the event of failure and in the event of success.
In view of the wealth of well-established, accepted knowledge, educators’ task should have been simple: They only had to learn how to produce the desired effect—empowerment. Thus, the main body of research in the field, as well as teachers’ education, should have been devoted to this task. But nothing of this sort happens (Aviram & Yonah, 2004; Lampert, 2003). Why?
1.1.2. Honor vs Dignity
Educational relations are always structured as power relations (Shudak & Avoseh, 2015). In dignity-based education, the teacher uses her privileged position to empower the learner. That is, she holds social demands and beliefs in abeyance or uses her intellectual power to challenge them, creating a virtual, intellectual, or physical space in which the learner can try her original/individual ideas and apply her talents. The teacher directs demands to herself—to create these conditions. When students fail to obey, she asks “Why?” This form of interaction strengthens the pattern of response to stimuli that represents what Freud calls the ego: forgiveness and acknowledgment of drives, individual needs, and self-worth (Damianidou & Phtiaka, 2016; Dewey, 1966; Lampert, 2003; Noddings, 2005; Rousseau, 1921).
In honor-based education, the teacher uses her power to regulate behavior and thinking to ensure conformity with norms, sanctioned knowledge, and models of success (Aviram & Yonah, 2004; Dewey, 1966). Hence, the student constitutes an object of supervision and control. Teachers direct their demands to the children to assimilate knowledge, to honor them and the social order, and to obey the rules (Bowles & Gintis, 2011). The teacher directs demands to herself merely to behave according to the code of honor associated with her status as “teacher” (Pajak, 2012). This form of interaction strengthens a pattern of response to stimuli that represents what Freud called the superego, which means guilt feelings, and a sense of imperfection and inferiority while facing authority and rules or their representatives (Carveth, 2015; Reddish, 2018; Tauber, 2013).
The aforementioned dual possibility of using teachers’ power is extensively described in depth by Dewey (Dewey, 1961, 1966), Freire (Freire, 2018), Holt (Holt, 1982), Illich (Illich, 1973), Aviram and Yona (Aviram & Yonah, 2004), Lampert (Lampert, 2003), and Gran (Grant, 2002), although each uses a different terminology to describe it.
We clarify that in neither approach can power relations be eliminated from the educational encounter. Socialization of any sort takes place through socialization agents’ responses to gestures of the socialized (Bourdieu, 1977, 2001; Cooley, 1922; Mead, 1934). Although the socialized agent plays a role by interpreting these responses, the dependence of the socialized places the power to define the situation in the hands of socialization agents. These power relations cannot be ignored.
Goffman (Goffman, 1979) claims that every encounter entails struggles for control and power that cause gains and losses for participants. Taylor (Taylor, 1994) explains that the concept of honor, which reflects and reproduces power relations, is tidily related to hierarchical order and stands in reverse relation to diversity. The “honor system” is a zero-sum game, in which “one person’s glory must be another’s shame, or at least obscurity” (Kamir, 2006; Taylor, 1995). Hence, in education, every success of the educator in gaining authority is a loss of dignity for the student, as Waller (Pajak, 2012), Holt (Holt, 1982), Freire (Freire, 2018), Illich (Illich, 1973) and Dewey (Dewey, 1966) have noted. On the other hand, according to Taylor, recognition of one’s identity is a key factor of empowerment and proper functioning of the individual. A recognition of one’s identity is, among other things, a form of dignity as we define it here.
Power relations, when used for liberation and empowerment, can be formed only in a way that creates “gains” for the underprivileged (here, the learner), such as a sense of success, dignity, and control over the situation.
1.1.3. The System of Honor Is Based on Ignorance
All approaches to sociology concur that the basic structures of the social order become invisible during socialization. Durkheim uses the term “social facts”, to describe the unwitting assimilation of manners and beliefs of which people cannot reflect. The Marxist term is “false consciousness”. Goffman says that what appears to be “natural behavior” is in fact an accepted “definition of the situation” whose past struggles have been forgotten. Paulo Freire uses the term “limit situations”.
Empowerment is the process by which the educator uses her power in a way that enables the learner to identify those invisible patterns of the social definition of reality. This is a cognitive development, since former unintelligible phenomena become intelligible (Adorno, 1993; Lyotard, 1989; Shudak & Avoseh, 2015). Since the dismantlement of “limit situations” (or “social facts”) occurs when excluded groups, subaltern and silenced agents, gain power and become visible despite their different appearance and “deviant” behavior (Adorno, 1993; Freire, 2018; Lyotard, 1989; Rimon-Or, 2010), cognitive development is also a social and political type of empowerment for the subaltern (Darder et al., 2003; Shudak & Avoseh, 2015). Honor-based education strives to do the opposite: to inculcate accepted norms, so they become second nature. When socialization agents’ power is used to subjugate the socialized to the dominant definitions of the situation, this process is called “symbolic violence” (Bourdieu, 2001).
The latter process might be seen as proper education by the educator, if her aim is to induct the learner into the social order. Nevertheless, this system cannot supply justifications on the grounds of universalism or human needs, other than the social unity created by the interdependency of the ranks (Taylor, 1994). By supplying this social unity and the stability that derives from the fear of breaching it, and through repetition, this course of socialization takes form in itself as a source of safety and social unity. Its internalization constitutes a condition for integration into the social ranks, hence for security, identity, and other social goods (Bowles & Gintis, 2002). Nevertheless, since it is based on coercion and fear, and has no universal justification, the source of the teacher’s authority and the legitimacy of the social order to which they induct the children must be banished from the educational discourse (Adorno, 2005; Mack, 2002). The ignorance regarding its origin and justifications cannot be undone, other than at the cost of marginalization.
What Taylor describes as the social array of honor is the form of a social order based on the developed superego, in Freudian terms. It is the presence of the law and its representations, and a form of repetition that reinforces and legitimizes the law and positions it beyond the reach of reason (Adorno, 2005; Carveth, 2015; Fenichel, 2006; Mack, 2002; Reddish, 2018). Goffman acknowledges this when he addresses the origin of the legitimation of the royal family, or that of the aristocratic order: He claims that manners of honor create legitimations and prestige, and not vice versa (Goffman, 1956).
Raddish (Reddish, 2018) adds that as long as the subject is subjugated to the authority of social conventions, he or she lives in a “dream like” mode. Discussing a patient who developed an ability to separate judgments from the urge to conform to social demands for the first time, she writes, that “the patient could think”, as opposed to only “being able to have thoughts”.
This is the reason for the argument that empowerment, which is based on the concept of dignity, is not only a source of good feeling but a source of intellect: it enables thinking. Nevertheless, it cannot be a part of educators’ cognition as long as they work from within a system of honor-based education, since within this paradigm they strive to inculcate these very cultural and social structures.
1.1.4. Freud’s Theory of Personality as Two Systems of Socialization
Freud’s concepts of personality and socialization reveal the concepts of honor and dignity as two practices of socialization: One enhances the form of response to stimuli that follows the structure of the superego, the other nurtures responses in the structure of the ego.
1) Ego-Based Education
The ego-enhancing processes of socialization are built on the foundations of unconditional love and care (Freud, 2019). These strengthen the child’s ability to respond to stimuli (internal and external) according to the reality principle, which is directed at preserving life, combining life with ever-growing social circles (Freud, 1961), and bringing satisfaction to the id in safe ways (Freud, 2019). Together, these principles of response combine into what is called “reason” (Fenichel, 2006; Tauber, 2013).
Although Freud doesn’t formulate it this way, this attitude on the part of socialization agents represents a morality based on dignity, as formulated by Gilligan (Gilligan, 1993). Lloyd (Lloyd, 2018), McCrudden (McCrudden, 2008), Tasioulas (Tasioulas, 2015), Byers (Byers, 2016), Bernstein (Bernstein, 2015), and Hernandez (Hernandez, 2015) all claim that the moral attitude of dignity does not contain any particular content, but forms a basis for the concept of human rights.
Gilligan’s (Gilligan, 1993) notion of care explains this quality of dignity: Because caring is always focused on the particular needs of an individual subject at a particular time, it cannot be based on rules. Nevertheless, according to Gilligan, the attitude towards the other/s in this case is a form of morality.
We can settle the argument by saying that caring relations form a basis for a morality of human rights, as long as its set of rules is not designed to achieve obedience or self-preservation, but rather to preserve life and dignity. Hence, its regulative manners are constantly subject to evaluation, interpretation, and modification, according to human needs. This is the principle of the functioning of the Freudian ego, if and when it functions at its best (Freud, 2019).
Bernstein (Bernstein, 2015) and Hernandez (Hernandez, 2015) stress that dignity, with the concept of human rights that hangs on it, depends on others: Dignity can be taken, or given, by others. This idea is well demonstrated by Goffman (Goffman, 1977, 1981), Lyotard (Lyotard, 1988) and Bourdieu (Bourdieu, 2001) in different terms. Teachers who provide dignity turn educational relations into a source of dignity. Thus, they produce a reasonable source of authority that cannot be taken from them, since children and adults need it for their well-being.
As noted above, dignity-based relations are based on rules. Reddish (Reddish, 2018), Goffman (Goffman, 1955, 1956, 1979, 2013) Berger and Luckmann (Berger & Luckmann, 1966), Adorno (Adorno, 1973), and Lyotard (Lyotard, 1988) use different terms to illustrate that every social interaction and every process of sense-making must be preceded by a determination of rules of conduct and rules of meaning. In addition, every act of learning includes imitation and repetitions. These two understandings already appear in Freud, in the concept of repetition compulsion, which is an indispensable part of drive binding, which is, in turn, a prerequisite for the pleasure principle and hence, for every process of meaning (Freud, 1961).
Ego-based education is distinguished by the status of its rules: One, they are designated to create an empowering environment and to ease the fear created by dependence and helplessness (Damianidou & Phtiaka, 2016; Noddings, 2005). Two, they are instrumental, not a target for internalization. Three, they are visible and form an object of examination and reflection.
2) Super-Ego Based Education
The superego is an internal authority characterized by its function of watching, measuring, and judging (Fenichel, 2006; Freud, 2013, 2019; Reddish, 2018). Its pattern of response to stimuli (internal and external) is fear of unruly drives and phenomena (Mack, 2002). This form of response is driven by guilt feelings, which cause the drives to be seen as targets for prohibition, disregarding the reality principle (Freud, 1989, 2019).
This form of response to stimuli is also an internalization of punishing, judging and blaming aspects of socialization agents that take care of the child in times of helplessness and dependence (Freud, 1989, 2019; Reddish, 2018; Reiner, 2009). Gestures of honor are demanded of children in return for recognition, acceptance, and inclusion in the social order. Children’s ability to conform signifies a degree of educational success and a prospective place in the social hierarchy. As Rosenthal (Rosenthal, 2002) shows on the one hand, and Bowel and Gintis (Bowles & Gintis, 2002) on the other, students’ assessments and their subsequent stratified mobility are sometimes determined in advance according to their stigmas, symbolic capital, economic class, and behavioral factors. If we keep in mind that structural ignorance and arbitrariness are manufactured into honor-based social relations, we can assume that measurement, supervision, and score-pursuit triumph, since they constitute an anchor of meaning, might form a substitute for the absence of justifications for social stratification.
Producing an atmosphere of empowerment, individual needs-orientation, or equality of qualifications simply has no meaning in such a system of socialization. When teachers acknowledge the aforementioned values yet practice honor-based education, the outcome is cognitive dissonance. This does not mean that warmth, or gestures of care, cannot appear. The stratified social order based on the demand to obey is a source of safety and consolidation (Fenichel, 2006). Nevertheless, respect for individuality, equal unconditional dignity, and a basis for human rights cannot take the upper hand in such a system.
The two approaches to socialization described above form two paradigms of education. Hence, two behavioral methods should be reflected in teachers’ everyday work in schools. As Tapola (Tapola, 2011) showed, the concepts of honor and dignity are central to educators’ perceptions of their profession, and the ambiguous ways in which they use these terms reflect the ambiguity that characterizes the field. For that reason, we used the terms as indicators of teachers’ professional perceptions, assuming that they would expose the two paradigms.
The aim of this study was to examine whether other elements of role perceptions are associated with teachers’ attitudes toward the themes of honor and dignity as defined above. An honor-based approach will appear as the teacher’s expectation of discipline, respect for rules, a desire for status-based recognition, and emphasis of measured achievements. A dignity-based approach will appear as a focus on students’ needs and well-being, seeking of pleasure during lessons, an aspiration to make the material relevant to students’ lives, a dissociation between norm and rule violations and feelings of anger or disappointment, and marginalization of disciplinary issues and measured achievements. For these reasons, we focused on these topics during the interviews. In addition, we allowed the discussion to be as open as possible, to allow the teachers to express themselves in a way that reflects their personal experiences. In this way, the additional elements related to their role perceptions were revealed in the best possible way.
1.2. Research Questions
1) How do teachers perceive the terms honor and dignity?
2) How do teachers apply their perceptions of honor and dignity in their practice?
3) What is the relationship between teachers’ perception of honor and dignity and their experiences of children’s attitudes toward them and toward school?
4) How do teachers perceive the issue of discipline in the classroom and in school?
1.3. Methodology
This is a narrative study. Educational perceptions are, first and foremost, narratives: They are the accounts of a professional identity. The aim of a narrative study is to unveil the unique perspective of an experience-based narrative and allow its investigation (Clandinin & Connelly, 2006). All human interactions include the construction of personal and social stories (Grimmett & Mackinnon, 1992), and these stories constitute the narrator’s identity and perception of reality (Gudmundsdottir, 1991). A narrative analysis is the point of encounter between the individual phenomenological experience and a theoretical frame (Levitzky, 2010). For this reason, a narrative study is suitable for investigating teachers’ perspectives on honor and dignity, as reflected in their attitude toward students, their expectations of students, their understanding of the terms honor and dignity, and the way they perceive current and desired practices. A narrative analysis is able to connect these perceptions to a theoretical frame that distinguishes between honor-based education and dignity-based education. Using a narrative analysis we are also able to examine our argument that these two role perceptions are congruent with the theoretical distinction between ego-based education and super-ago based education, reflecting the concepts developed by Freud.
1.4. Participants
The study was based on a sample of 16 educators who teach in Israel’s education system. All the teachers who were interviewed teach in regular public schools. Of the participants, 15 were female and 1 was male; 4 were elementary school teachers and 12 were junior- and high-school teachers; 8 teachers were home-room teachers, 3 were school principals, 2 were deputy-principals, and 3 were subject teachers. The sample was created using the snowball method, based on the researchers’ personal acquaintance with several teachers who recruited their colleagues to the study. All the names in the study were changed to protect the interviewees’ privacy.
1.5. The Interviews
The study is based on semi-structured interviews, grounded in a desire to understand the interviewees’ experiences and the meanings they ascribe to them. The in-depth interviews were based on an informal conversation in a relaxed atmosphere, which illuminated the cultural contexts of the interviewees’ behaviors and the meanings ascribed to them (Seidman, 1991).
Interviews were conducted in a comfortable setting selected by the interviewees, and lasted approximately one hour. All interviews were recorded and subsequently transcribed to allow the interviewer to direct maximum attention to the interviewees during the interview. The interview included questions concerning the interviewees’ interactions with their pupils; the challenges they encounter in their work; the meaning of the words honor and dignity; the interviewees’ expectations and to whom they are directed; their challenges and their perceptions of norms, discipline, and empowerment.
After each interview, the researchers conducted a discussion to summarize their impressions of the interviewee. The aim was to touch upon all the general issues that emerged in the interview and the interviewee’s general worldview, before the formal analysis and deconstruction.
The interviews were conducted over a course of single school year, in order to eliminate temporal effects.
2. Analysis of Findings
Data analysis proceeded in three stages:
Stage 1—All interview materials were carefully read in succession to understand the general context of the perceptions expressed in the interviews (Dey, 1993). We then applied the open coding method to identify the main idea in each interview section (Shimoni, 2016). The units of analysis were statements and episodes. Statements referred mainly to teachers’ educational perceptions, while episodes referred to descriptions of events, examples, and experiences that emerged in the course of the interview. Text fragments that represented similar ideas were clustered together. At this point we identified themes related to teachers’ perceptions, their educational approach, the meanings they ascribe to their interactions with their pupils, their attitudes toward children with special needs, the significance of following rules and norms, their sense of failure or success, and their expectations of their pupils.
Mapping analysis—In this stage we performed horizontal coding (Morse, 2004) designed to identify connections between the themes. Among other things, we examined the context in which a given theme arose, and the type of connections between the identified themes. Figure 1 indicates that the core category is teachers’ response structure, which is a function of their educational approach. Response structure leads teachers to adopt various positions on eight educational dilemmas discussed in the interview: the teacher’s approach to teachers’ status; the teacher’s approach to pupils’ weaknesses; the target of the demand to respect; the goal of teaching and means of instruction; the teacher’s preoccupation in the interview with their own success or failure; the teacher’s approach to pupils’ achievements, the goals of education, and pupils’ violation of norms. The teacher’s attitudes to these issues led to two primary feelings that recurred in the interviews: the teacher’s belief in their ability to meet the challenges of teaching (a sense of self-efficacy), and the teacher’s sense of the respect they receive (or fail to receive) from their pupils and parents. The following table presents the categories and mutual effects that emerged from the interviews.
Theoretical conceptualization—In this stage we performed a theoretical translation of the categories to create a foundation for our theoretical explanation (Charmaz, 1983). In classifying the categories related to educational approaches, we identified two theory-based response structures. The dignity-based approach we identified in the interviews can be conceptualized in theoretical Freudian terms as developing the ego, while the honor-based approach can be conceptualized as developing the super-ego. Each response structure leads to different positions on the eight educational dilemmas and to variance in attitudes toward receiving honor and sense of self-efficacy (which are illustrated in the Findings section below).
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Figure 1. Teachers’ pattern of response to eight educational dilemmas affects their sense of efficacy and respect.
3. Findings
The Findings section is divided into two subsections: A general summary of the trends reflected in the findings is presented first, and followed by an analysis of the themes that emerged in the interviews. Table 1 presents the categories of teachers’ behaviors and outcomes, by response structure type.
As Table 1 indicates, each approach leads to different teacher behaviors, and accordingly, to different attitudes toward the teachers’ work and their relationship with their pupils and the pupils’ parents.
In general, we can see that teachers who tend toward an honor-based educational approach stress the importance of following school rules and norms and maintaining cultural codes. They also are preoccupied with the concept of success vs. failure in the teaching process, expect respect from their pupils, and
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Table 1. Teachers’ behaviors and outcomes, by response structure.
expect pupils to respect them for their status as teachers. They stress productivity and treat pupils’ weaknesses as a burden that taxes the learning process. In the interviews, these teachers spoke of investing extensive efforts with little results, and noted their frustration as a result of the lack of respect they receive from pupils and parents.
In contrast, teachers who tend toward a dignity-based educational approach demonstrate a forgiving attitude toward deviations from procedure, and they view their goal as empowering their pupils. They demand that they be respectful of their pupils, and respect for a teacher’s status is not an important issue for them. They emphasize the learning experience rather than the volume of learning outputs, and view pupils’ weaknesses as a starting point for learning. In the interviews, these teachers expressed a sense of self-efficacy in coping with educational challenges, and a feeling that they are respected by parents and pupils.
To examine whether honor-based and dignity-based educational approaches are two mutually exclusive approaches or whether teachers combine elements of both approaches in their practice, we summed up the types of responses in each interview that fit each educational approach (nine themes overall, shown in Table 1), and assigned a score to each interview that represented the total number of education elements mentioned in the interview (range from 0 - 9). Figure 1 presents interviewees’ honor scores, dignity scores, and total response scores1.
Figure 2 shows that the responses of all but two participants were consistently
aligned with either a dignity-based approach or an honor-based approach, with little integration of the two approaches in their practice2.
Of the remaining teachers, four tended toward an honor-based response structure while 10 tended toward a dignity-based response structure. However, these findings appear to be somewhat biased and do not necessarily represent the situation in the public-school system. Teachers who have a disposition toward an honor-based attitude were less enthusiastic to cooperate with the study for the very reasons that appear in the findings: They feel less confident in their work and they are more confused about the causes of the situation.
The themes emerging from the interviews are described below.
Factors that strengthen teachers’ response structures
We focused on the distinction between honor-based and dignity-based educational approaches, which we posited corresponded to responses that reinforce the superego and responses that reinforce the ego, respectively. An honor-based approach develops the tendencies that Freud associated with the precepts of the superego, through the use of punishments and rewards. Safety, acknowledgment and warmth are given in exchange for obedience. Since conceptual power is not based on reason but is instead formed by repetition and power relations, the teacher is unable to justify her methods, or coherently explain their utility. Instead, clichés and slogans are used to rationalize this educational process.
My son had a principal… And I really loved his method of using a “carrot and a stick”… most of all, we want to create an optimal climate3 (Galit).
Repetition is the source of validation of the honor approach. For this reason, implementation of this approach creates yearning for a past that a response attempts to reproduce in the present. In the recalled (real or imagined) past, pupils appear to have been more obedient, and boundaries appear to have been more strictly respected. The fact that things seem to have worked better in the past is used to legitimate current response patterns, and prevents one from questioning the ethical or practical aspects of the response pattern itself.
Once there were laws and rules and children knew what was allowed and what was forbidden…. If he knows what’s forbidden and what’s permitted at home, this also is reflected here, and if he is used to saying “I don’t feel like it” at home … then he will also feel that it’s permissible to say that to a teacher … I don’t know why we aren’t successful today… (Tamar).
In a dignity-based approach, the educational aim is to satisfy pupils’ physical and emotional needs, and to create a respectful and supportive environment for this process. From a theoretical perspective, the goal of education is to support pupils through their personal growth or provide a protected environment in which pupils can safely experiment and develop their own capacities. The teachers we interviewed were unable to express themselves in these terms, but offered examples of such behaviors.
First and foremost there is the pupil, the child. I see him opposite me, and this may sound like a cliché, but I really look at him the way I look at my own kids. When you come the recognition that each person is also different, it’s easier for you to approach them (Netta).
Attitudes to norm violations
The following two descriptions of regulating the school entrance illustrate the differences between the two educational approaches. In the honor-based approach, the pupils, their body, and their clothing are objects of supervision. Subjecting pupils to regulation. It is part of the educational process that begins even before the official start of the school day. Michal describes how she and other teachers greet the pupils as they come to school in the morning.
Beyond good morning, it’s actual supervision. We record the late-comers, we comment on the uniforms … there are no “discounts’ regarding uniforms, no, none at all” (Michal).
In the dignity-based approach, the teacher’s encounter with the child is designed to instill a sense of safety and self-respect. In her description of her morning routine, the following deputy principal explained that she believes that it is important for the pupils to encounter a figure that instills a sense of safety rather than with a supervisory figure.
In the morning I arrive at school before everyone else… I am the one who opens the gate, not the guard, because I want to see them, and they hug me… they treat me with respect…. I treat them [like that] and they treat me [like that], in other words, there’s reciprocity (Gal).
The aim of education
1) The role of empowerment in the educational process
In the honor approach, pupils’ empowerment is used as a means of obtaining compliance with norms’. In the following account, Galit describes her failure in this process and how the team feels that empowerment had no effect.
He learns magic tricks after school. So the principal lets him do his magic tricks during recess. …I am not sure that this was successful in this case… On the day that we stopped this activity, there was a serious regression (Galit).
In a dignity-based approach, empowerment is the center of the learning process, and is not accompanied by tacit aspirations of discipline or order. Netta describes empowerment in her sports class, which is considered the class with the academically weakest pupils in the school.
They had a meeting with Maccabi team players4… and we used it to create a prominent school even…. to elevate their self-esteem … they had their photographs taken with [the players]… And the entire junior high school was there and applauded them…. (Netta).
2) The role of norms in classroom management
In the honor-based approach, education is based on a fundamental lack of logic whose only success is the reproduction and inculcation of the desired order and knowledge. Ruti describes her failure to produce this effect. She spoke of the lack of logic and her awareness that her pupils’ boredom is justified, but she does not connect this insight to a need for change. She partially attributes the failure to the pupils’ own character.
The children sit miserably in rows, I placed them in groups—they were talking like crazy, didn’t accept my authority, didn’t accept boundaries. They talk because they are bored! They’re not interested in me, I’m no attraction for them. I bore them, and their feeling is justified! (Ruti).
Honor-based education may also include rules that may appear to be humiliating, and the reason for these rules is repetition. Repetition and adherence to existing procedures are also a source of justification and the source of respect.
It’s …respect for the person I am with, how I ask to be excused to the bathroom… I don’t stand up and shout “I need to pee”. We use a signal-one finger for pee and two fingers for poop. I don’t know why there has to be a difference for pee and poop, but that’s something from long ago (Orit).
In contrast, in dignity-based education, pupils’ behavior is not a central focus of the process, and disciplinary violations are not considered a sign of disrespect for the teacher or the peer group, even if it occurs during learning, because the goal is to create a setting that offers the best opportunity for teaching.
This week I was unable to teach… they didn’t let me talk… I told them—I don’t teach by force and I don’t teach if you aren’t listening, so you can go home and open Wikitext… study the material and next lesson you will tell me about it… It was a real challenge for them (Irit).
3) Vision
At the heart of honor-based education lies cognitive dissonance, therefore it is difficult to formulate a coherent vision without reducing this approach into a series of procedures and clichés. The teachers fail to connect the vision to practices designed to empower the pupils or develop their abilities.
The vision is that they arrive home safety and stay safe at school and have nothing happen to them, that’s the main vision … There is also the educational vision that is grand, and it’s about collaboration and dialogue, but it doesn’t work well (Orit).
In dignity-based education, the school staff understand their role in terms of creating an educational environment that facilitates learning, exploration, development, and experimentation. Expectations of proper behavior from pupils are not part of the vision in dignity-based education.
Our school vision is “Learn out of wonder, out of creativity development, and human spirit” …not to have pupils come to school because they have no choice… We all orient ourselves to [that vision], to create excitement for learning, to evoke thinking and experiences (Vered).
The aim of teaching and teaching methods
In honor-based education, the aim of teaching is to convey knowledge and cultivate discipline (Apple, 2015, 2019). The teaching method is considered the decisive factor that determines the success or failure of teaching, and there is a tendency to view innovation in teaching as a means of creating interest.
There is progress in everything, technology progressed significantly… and the teacher is stuck like a pain in their butts. Technology moved forward and the teacher stands there, boring them… If you talk, they don’t listen, but if you show a video clip, they are hypnotized! (Ruti).
In dignity-based education, the aim is to trigger pupils’ thinking. The teaching methods are of less importance, and creating interest is not considered to be a function of teaching methods or technology.
I bring a map … and I open the map and show them… Many times I start the lesson… and I end it with something completely different because someone might ask a question… and then one thing leads to another (Irit).
Attitude to pupils’ achievements
In the honor-based approach, “formal achievements are the main source of teachers” power and legitimation. Achievements are considered critical for pupils’ future, and failure is considered an obstacle for future success.
Our target is… to have them really understand that we share the same desire… for them to really succeed, to have a good matriculation certificate… I tell them, “It’s not for me, so that I have a high rate of success…” I really am acting out of a view of three years from now, [to ensure] that they won’t have to redo their exams… Teachers are frustrated when pupils don’t understand that (Michal).
For teachers working in a dignity-based approach, achievements are not important, and matriculation scores have no significance for pupils’ future. Failure in school can become success in the future, depending on the pupils’ own life course.
I tell them that “it’s only an exam, it’s not important,” and they answer: “it’s the most important thing!” So I tell them, “This whole matriculation thing is not important because you can do it over… nothing will happen if you don’t succeed.” It’s reversible, and whatever is reversible is okay… (Adar).
Moreover, teachers who embrace a dignity-based approach may use grades as a means of empowerment rather than as a measure of success.
Grades are very cruel for children…When you give a child a 40, it’s like you are saying to him “you are stupid.” If you give him an 80, even if he doesn’t deserve it, and you work with him individually so that he will achieve an 80 on his own, then he will say “I can do it” (Eyal).
Target of the demand for respect
In the honor-based approach, conforming to the school order is an essential part of respect and one of the goals of instruction. When pupils don’t meet these requirements, teachers feel they are being disrespected, and experience frustration and disappointment.
We’re at the end of the year and I feel the chaos. I am not an authority figure, there is no respect, a teacher’s word means nothing… I think that there are basic obligations, like for example, doing homework, preparing a schedule, preparing for exams, that pupils must complete. They don’t only have rights (Tamar).
In dignity-based education, educational work is designed to create an educational space in which teachers’ respect for pupils emerges; This is the teacher’s responsibility, and is independent of pupils’ behaviors. If a teacher is frustrated, that means that she should reflect on her own practice.
If a teacher speaks to a pupil in a disparaging manner or in a way that implies “You’re not important right now, then the pupil will feel unimportant, so why should the teacher be important to him?… The teacher has the authority… and she should use it to create a different class, a positive one” (Lital).
Attitude to pupils’ weaknesses
In honor-based education, children are measured by the “disruption” they create when deviating from the code of behavior and honor. A child who fails to fulfill these expectations may be labeled incapable or “a problem child” or ill, and these often become stigmas that the children adopt. Pupils’ abilities are considered to be inherently linked to their personality, which is considered to be a given set of facts that the teacher encounters and over which the teacher has no responsibility. Irit describes her first meeting with her sixth graders.
they told me “we’re the misbehavers” …so I told them, “There’s no such thing as a class of misbehavers”, and they answered, “We know that we’re like that, all our lives we’ve been told that is what we are” (Irit).
This type of attitude toward pupils releases the teachers from responsibility for the class’s performance, and allows them to view the need for “correction” as a process that involves increasing conformity with adults’ expectations. In such a case, teachers view failure as evidence of pupils’ inaptitude. A first-grade teacher described the social situation in her classroom as follows.
They come in at the beginning of the year like 3-year old babies… I was exhausted by the kids… I felt as if they came without the most basic skills that I felt should have been there (Ruti).
Pupils who do not undergo a “remediation” process are considered to have an organic (medical or biological) disorder. A school principal describes teachers’ positive attitudes toward children who undergo drug therapy, and their negative attitudes toward children who do not participate in “corrective” interventions.
The parents of two children who were in the same condition as he was, decided to put them into drug therapy. When he saw that his two friends, who supposedly had also been stigmatized as bad students, were suddenly being praised by their teachers and were given surprise gifts [from the teachers], were allowed to stand in front of the entire class and give presentations about stories…this child wanted to take drug therapy himself (Shula).
In contrast, in dignity-based education, a child’s weaknesses constitute the starting point for the teacher’s work and are not considered an inherent component of the pupil’s personality. According to this approach, any child can succeed with the correct guidance, and it is the teacher’s responsibility to provide this guidance.
There is no such thing as a child who can’t be relied on… you help him once and the next time he’ll succeed, he’ll know how… I give them responsibility, they feel meaningful because I let them feel that it doesn’t matter if what they did is good or not… (Gal).
When norms are violated, a dignity-based approach will lead the teacher to use protective practices rather than judge the child who disobeys the rules. This prevents the child from being labeled as a rule-breaker, and consequently, the child gains access to a realm of conduct in which they are appreciated.
To the kids who find school difficult, I say, “I trust you, I’m not checking up on you.” They have an obligation and a feeling that someone trusts them to do it (Vered).
Because pupils’ difficulties are not perceived as a disorder but as part of the normal course of development, drug therapy does not enter the teachers’ frame of reference. Instead, a tolerance for these difficulties emerges.
A child has his childhood, he has to experience his childhood… Sometimes he has some difficulties. When [the teachers] don’t understand the child’s challenges, then it’s a problem (Eyal).
Attitude to teachers’ own status
Teachers operating from an honor-based approach tend to seek acknowledgement of their status as teachers, and are empowered by this acknowledgement. Pupils’ failure ds to grant such recognition is perceived as a negative evaluation. Nevertheless, negative evaluation of this sort does not necessarily prompt teachers to reflect on their work.
This year, the children are very miserable, they’re not happy, they’re sick and tired of everything. My class last year had cheerful children who always flattered me by telling me that I was the prettiest teacher in the school… You know how great that was?! I strutted around like a peacock… (Ruti).
In dignity-based education, teachers do not position themselves at the center of the learning process and don’t expect to be the center of their pupils’ attention. They see the pupil as the center of the relations, which results in greater tolerance for misbehavior and violations.
When a pupil comes late to my class, if my first thought is that he is being disrespectful, then as a result I become absorbed in my own ego… He isn’t being disrespectful, it’s only one of 1500 possible explanations [for his behavior]… So I have to ask myself, what does this child need when he comes in late? (Adar).
4. Discussion
We identified two approaches to education that originate in teachers’ attitudes toward students and are correlated with two attitudes toward regulative codes. We identified these approaches as the honor-based approach and the dignity-based approach. We assumed, in line with substantial literature, that these approaches are reflected in distinct educational goals and patterns of social relations involving teachers and students, irrespective of other educational factors. The findings of the current research clearly show that those two approaches are reflected in mutually exclusive practices manifested in everyday school life and in the teachers’ perceptions of their daily work and their attitudes to their students. All the teachers who follow an honor-based approach expressed a common feeling of pupils’ lack of interest or self-discipline, and a lack of respect from parents and pupils, and a sense of lack of self-efficiency. To explain this situation, teachers focused on how their schools were lagging behind in technological and cultural changes and they blamed the parents’ behavior. Beside one, all reported a deep sense of frustration and ineffectiveness in dealing with their teaching challenges, and their relationship with their pupils. None of the teachers who implement the dignity-based approach expressed frustration with their teaching experience or their relationships with their pupils. They all recounted constructive ways they use to address the various problems emerging during the school day and reported a sense of relevance and high self-efficacy. Technological innovations did not play a major role in these teachers’ accounts.
The two exceptions were one teacher who made extensive use of clichés in the accounts of her work, and a principal in the religious public system who considered the inculcation of norms and values as the core of her work, a belief that was endorsed by the pupils and parents at her school.
All the teachers whose approach corresponded to honor-based education spoke extensively of their sense of failure vs. success in their work, and the majority emphasized their sense of failure. The teachers whose practices corresponded to a dignity-based approach, based on the interviews, did not address these issues unless explicitly questioned.
These differences imply that a school’s relevance and teachers’ feeling that their work contributes to the development of pupils’ aptitudes are independent of general cultural processes, pupils’ areas of interest, socialization patterns in the home, or use of innovative technologies. Our findings imply that teachers’ educational approach plays a more important role than these factors. In line with Holt (Holt, 1982), Erikson’ (1993) developmental approach, the motivational approaches of Deci and Ryan (2000) and Maslow (Maslow, 1954), and findings by Rosenthal (Rosenthal, 2002), children’s need for a supportive, reliable, respectful social setting does not vary as a function of technological, cultural or economic changes.
Teachers who adopt an honor-based approach expressed yearning for a past in which honor-based education produced well-functioning education systems. Based on the perspective we offer, it is possible to assume that what functioned well was not necessarily “education”. The sense that the system functioned effectively in the past may, in itself, be an outcome of the adoption of an honor-based approach, which is based on a response pattern that corresponds to the patterns that Freud typically attributed to the superego. In this pattern, there is a tendency to imagine a pristine existence that forms an object of longing, which current practices seek to reproduce.
Our findings indicate that teaching methods do not constitute a major factor in teachers’ sense of success. Even with respect to the use of traditional, classic teaching methods such as frontal teaching, our findings point to a significant difference between teachers who adopt an honor-based approach and those who adopt a dignity-based approach. Teachers who adopt a dignity-based approach also report using traditional and conventional teaching methods, but they report that they are achieving success with these methods. These findings suggest that the academic debate in education should extend beyond the debate over teaching methods and their effectiveness and touch on the deeper roots of teachers’ approaches to education, which emerge here, in line with Holt (Holt, 1982), as the key factor affecting learning quality.
Holt (Holt, 1982) indeed demonstrated that the main cause of children’s failure is fear, and Reddish (Reddish, 2018) showed how internalization of a judgmental and evaluative glance generates fear and a sense of inferiority. In contrast, all the motivational approaches show that satisfying the child’s need for acceptance and appreciation is a significant factor in creating motivation for learning. Therefore, teaching methods may constitute a secondary factor and have less importance than teachers’ attitudes toward pupils during their encounter.
Our findings show that when teachers who adopt an honor-based approach direct an attention to their students, their aim is to supervise, while teachers in a dignity-based approach seek to empower, support, and provide love. Teachers who adopt an honor-based approach reported focusing on deviations from norms and rules, while teachers who adopt a dignity-based approach tend to disregard such rule infractions. As a result, teachers who adopt an honor-based approach assess pupils on the basis their ability to obey instructions and meet demands and therefore view misbehaving students as deficient and in need of remediation. In contrast teachers who adopt a dignity-based approach view pupils as individuals who deserve a supportive attitude and accepting environment. The nature of the teacher’s gaze is determined by the teacher’s own educational approach, rather than by school conditions or the demands placed on the education system.
Today’s educators frequently speak of the learner-centered approach. The findings indicate that when the honor-based approach is adopted, this approach is devoid of meaning. According to the super-ego response pattern described by Freud and illustrated in the current study, teachers identify pupils on the basis of the traits they lack, and assume a remedial role of correcting these deficiencies. Hence, it is not the child who is at the center but rather the child’s shortcomings and weaknesses, and it is the aim of the education system to correct them.
Our findings indicate that both types of teachers use the concept of empowerment, but the concept carries very different meanings in both approaches. In honor-based education, empowerment is instrumental in creating the conditions that facilitate the child’s adjustment to the system’s demands. In dignity-based education, empowerment is the core of the educational encounter, and the goal of education. Therefore, teachers adopting the dignity-based approach tend to maintain their pupils’ dignity by ignoring infractions of rules and norm violations. The implication of the differences between these two approaches is that a fruitful discussion on empowerment is not possible without first determining the approach within which the discussion is conducted.
Honor-based education is based on inherent ignorance. In the interviews, teachers working under the dignity-based approach compared the two approaches, which indicate that they were aware of both approaches and the fact that some teachers adopt an honor-based approach, even if it not explicitly named as such. In contrast, teachers operating under the honor-based approach were not aware of an alternative approach that does not include supervision and a continuous struggle with pupils. From their perspective, school is a normalizing, supervisory institution; normalization is the school’s mission and its contribution to pupils’ future. The teachers in both approaches have a sense of mission related to giving children the tools necessary to integrate into society as adults, but these missions are fundamentally different, as are the tools that the teachers in both groups aim to provide.
5. Summary
In this study we identified two distinct approaches to education, which we associated with the concepts of dignity and honor. We argued that both approaches establish a process called “education” but in each approach education is based on different conceptions of the educational process, which lead to distinct practices of educational contact, and aim to achieve distinct outcomes. We identified a clear distinction between these approaches: With the exception of the school principal in the religious education sector, all the teachers who adopted an honor-based approach experienced a sense of irrelevance, low self-efficacy, and little respect from pupils and parents. All the teachers who practiced dignity-based education reported a sense of self-efficacy, and experienced success and respect from pupils and parents. We found no indication that innovative teaching methods are associated with teachers’ sense of relevance or success.
Because the dignity-based approach is based on satisfying children’s basic needs for respect and appreciation, we assume that dignity-based education is not affected by cultural changes or technological developments, because these are basic human needs that remain stable over time and across cultures and technologies. A sense of self-respect, appreciation, and acceptance are conditions for developing a sense of curiosity that motivates meaningful learning. Teaching methods, however novel and innovative, cannot by themselves evoke such curiosity if they fail to satisfy these basic needs.
Acknowledgements
We wish to thank the Research Authority Fund of the College of Management Academic Studies, Rishon Le’Zion, Israel, for funding the study leading to this publication.
NOTES
1Importance of achievements was excluded after responses in this category were found to be dependent on teacher’s position and pupils’ age, which precluded a comparison between interviewees. This category of responses was nonetheless included in the summary of findings as it emerged as a prominent issue in several interviews. Teachers in lower elementary grades did not respond to questions concerning grades because these grades do not use numerical scoring. As a result, their maximal score was 8 rather than 9. Orit achieved a score of only 7 because she failed to respond to the question on respect from children and their parents. She teaches in lower elementary school.
2The exceptions are Shula and Galit. Shula is a principal in the public religious education system. Her success in inculcating norms and behavioral codes was a source of pride for her, and she felt that parents and pupils respected her for these achievements. It is possible that parents and pupils respected her because they internalized those very values of respect for authority and conformist behavior that she sought to instill in them. The responses of Galit, a teacher in the public education system, were difficult to attribute to either approach, mainly because she spoke using clichés and platitudes.
3Optimal Climate is the name of an anti-violence program in schools.
4Maccabi Tel Aviv is one the major sports teams in Israel.