Newsgroups: bit.listserv.edpolyan
Date:         Thu, 30 Jul 1992 09:56:29 MST
              <EDPOLYAN@ASUACAD.BITNET>
From:         Gene Glass <ATGVG@ASUACAD.BITNET>
Subject:      School Choice and Narcissism

     The Winter 1992 issue of Independent School, a journal aimed
at private college-prep schools in the U.S., carried the
transcript of an interview with Robert Coles. Coles is the
brilliant Harvard psychiatrist who has written extensively on
childhood and psychological development; his most famous work is
Children of Crisis, an account of the effects of the civil rights
movements on the lives of the children caught up in it. The
editor of Independent School was interviewing Coles on the
occasion of the publication of his new book The Privileged Ones.
I have excerpted some highlights from the interview; they appear
below followed by some comments of my own on the "choice"
movement in American education.


Editor Kane: In your chapter "Entitlement," in The Privileged
Ones, you describe the characteristics of children who are
spoiled, entitled, and narcissistically entitled. Would you
describe ways in which these characteristics manifest themselves
socially and psychologically in adolescents?

Coles: I would respond by reminding myself and all of us
interested in this subject that narcissism is by no means the
exclusive property of the well-to-do--that every  human being
struggles with some kind of self-centeredness as a psychological
and moral matter, and that this self-centeredness is actually
very important to each of us. We have to learn to take care of
ourselves and have an interest in ourselves or else we would not
survive, we would not eat well and get enough sleep, and we would
not take the necessary care of body and mind that characterizes a
reasonably functioning human being.
     So with that caveat, one then goes on to this question of
excessive self-centeredness, and it is at this point that
privilege enters the picture because privilege enables more and
more appetites to be not only appeased but set in motion. Society
encourages individualism and the right of every one of us to
express ourselves as we wish--and this is a valuable thing
politically and culturally. Nevertheless, the risk of self-
centeredness accelerates with this emphasis on the individual as
opposed to the community. These are some of the background
influences I was thinking about when I was describing
entitlement.

Kane: I think that comes across well in the chapter. Could you
describe some specific social and psychological characteristics
of the narcissistically entitled?

Coles: The social and psychological characteristics include a
self-preoccupation that is all too apparent to anyone who looks
at the phenomenon--self-centeredness, immersion in one's own
fantasies, wishes, interests, and aspirations with no redeeming
interest in others, or in the problems and needs of the world and
the troubles going on in the world. The social manifestations
become clear when one notices young people who lack an interest
in anyone or anything other than their own particular rhythms and
thoughts and fantasies. What is excluded from their lives is any
contact with people outside of their own realm or any interest in
having such contact. I guess what I am thinking about is what
George Eliot describes as "unreflecting egotism," a kind of tug
toward one's own thoughts and wishes that is not in any way
impeded or thwarted by some countervailing tug toward others and
their needs and concerns and difficulties.

Kane: That is beautifully stated and clarifies the concept very
well. Now, how do independent schools contribute to a sense of
entitlement among privileged youth?

Coles: I am going to be quite blunt and maybe uncomfortably so.
The very notion of an independent school in its own way can cater
to just that kind of entitlement because, after all, what is the
independent school but a social version of privilege? It's a
school devoted to those who have the means and the wish to
separate themselves from others and get a kind of education that
presumably is distinctive and better, that offers more
opportunities, possibilities and privileges. Most of us think of
independent schools as centers of privilege. There are some
independent schools directed at overcoming particular problems--
dyslexia, for example--but I am thinking of the nationally known
independent schools, whether in the Northeast, where they
predominate, or in other parts of the country. They are often
thought of as centers of privilege and power, and the children
going to them know even before they go there that a part of their
privileged and powerful lives is that they have access to these
schools--or if they are from poor and working-class backgrounds,
they know that those schools offer them the opportunity to obtain
more privilege and power in the future.

Kane: In what ways might [independent] schools counterbalance the
sense of privilege?

Coles: It is a real struggle. The school stands for
exclusiveness, privilege, authority, power, social achievement,
cultural achievement, status. We have to be very much aware of
the cachet those schools have for families. I do not think the
families send kids to those schools only for the educational
opportunities they offer. I think they are sending them in many
cases for a larger purpose, which is not unlike the reason that
kids go to exclusive colleges if they can get into them. Also, in
the case of well-known boarding schools, parents are choosing,
for all of these reasons, to send their children away during the
middle of adolescence, when in many cases the kids need to be
home and in touch with their parents rather than separated from
them.

       END OF INTERVIEW EXCERPTS.

    I just can't read these excerpts of the exchange between
Coles and Editor Pearl Rock Kane without thinking that Ms. Kane
is way beyond her depth and is not quite understanding what Coles
is saying. Coles is saying that independent schools are part of
the problem in America, not part of the solution.

    There is a way in which some of the more obvious developments
in contemporary American education can be seen as emanating from
precisely the dynamics that Coles draws out in the interview. The
most obvious social phenomenon of the last twenty years is the
widening of the gap between rich and poor in this country. This
increasing of the distance between the "haves" and the "have-
nots" is the side-effect of attempts to correct what were,
perhaps, over-zealous attempts in the opposite direction to
control all business and public life by big government. It is no
news to anyone alive during the past thirty years that the
counter movement to the Great Society has resulted in degraded
public services and a skewing of the income curve toward rich
persons. Life at the bottom has grown a little meaner and uglier;
drugs have contributed significantly to this picture, and it is
unclear whether they represent cause or mere concomitant.

    In any event, the motive has never been stronger for the
upper middle class to wish to protect their children from the
unpleasantness of associating with the lumpen proletariate. They
fear that their children are placed in danger when enrolled in
the public schools: not just the danger of being assaulted, or
hooked on crack, but also the danger of not being educated for
success in society. In an attempt to protect their children and
ensure their success, parents seek ways of isolating them from
the mass of humanity that languishes in the public school system.
Of course, they seek private schools that can exclude the
undesirable, and naturally they would seek political advantages
that would accrue from most voucher and "choice" proposals.

    The "choice" movement has to be seen in these terms, it seems
to me; as one manifestation of powerful economic forces that have
shaped access to privilege and power, not as an educational
reform idea rationalized by metaphors of capitalist competition
and cliches about private sector superiority.

_______________________________________________________________________

GENE V GLASS                                    ATGVG AT ASUACAD.BITNET
COLLEGE OF EDUCATION                            ATGVG AT ASUACVAX.BITNET
ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY                        INTERNET ADDRESS:
Tempe, AZ 85287-2411                            ATGVG@ASUVM.INRE.ASU.EDU
602-965-2692  (303-499-2816 from June '92 until Dec. '92)
  (While on sabbatical until Dec. '92, I can be reached at
    GLASS@SPOT.COLORADO.EDU )
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU