Smart & Good High Schools - The Flippen Group

CHAPTER 3: The Ethical Learning Communitynity, and necessary for optimal human development.Schools have already accepted the principle of collectiveresponsibility at the adult level. Teaching was once an isolatedprofession; teachers went into the classroom, closedthe door, and did as they saw fit. In the past two decades,however, teaching has become a thoroughly collaborativeenterprise. The “professional learning community,” whereteachers help each other do their best work, has become,if not yet the norm, the gold standard to which all goodschools aspire.In some schools, students saidboth teachers and peers “pushedthem” to be their best.So it should be with students, parents, and everyone inthe ethical learning community. In some of the schoolswe visited, students talked about how not only their teachersbut also their peers “pushed them” to be their best. Inother schools, students never talked that way. In thoseschools where students held each other accountable tohigh standards of performance character and moral character,the school had made a deliberate effort to promoteand institutionalize an ethic of collective responsibility.The psychologist John Gibbs, in his book Moral Developmentand Reality, reviews research showing the power of“positive peer culture” to influence youth behavior inhealthy directions, especially when coupled with directinstruction in perspective-taking and communicationskills. This is true even with youth who have histories ofantisocial behavior. 43In our view, creating a positive peer culture through anethic of collective responsibility is an excellent developmentalmatch for adolescents, for at least three reasons:First, as one boy on our Student Leaders Panel said,“Most teenagers’ main goal is to fit in and be liked.” Thetask of adults is to help shape a positive peer culture thatteens can fit into.Adolescents themselves know that peer pressure can bepositive as well as negative. As another boy on our StudentLeaders Panel said:A negative group mentality can create a very strong temptationwith regard to drugs, smoking, alcohol, sex, and evenacademic performance. But in a highly motivated and supportivegroup, a positive collective mentality can be an amazingmotivator to push individuals’ limits and help themachieve new goals.A girl in an inner-city school spoke about what happenswhen there is not a positive peer culture that speaks witha moral voice:The reason for most of the wrong things that adolescentsdo is that their friends are afraid to confront them and tellthem what they should not do. Most adolescents do notspeak up about what they really believe.Second, a positive peer culture, committed to supportingthe “quest for one’s best,” helps to offset the influence ofthe media culture. Collective responsibility, cultivatedwisely, provides students with a strong support system thatcan help them establish some distance from media messagesand develop an identity, based on solid values, thatthey can feel good about.Finally, an ethic of collective responsibility helps to counterthe distorting and destructive aspects of competitiveindividualism. Unbalanced by collective responsibility, theintense competition so prevalent in today’s culture createsa high-stress environment that fosters unethicalbehavior. An ethic of collective responsibility, while increasingpositive peer pressure to perform at one’s highest level,simultaneously provides the system of mutual supportneeded to reduce stress and the temptation to succeed atany price.Research shows the powerof a positive peer culture, evenwith youth who have historiesof antisocial behavior.ELC 5: Practice collective responsibility.Promising Practice 1:5.1 Model care-frontation as adults.ELCStudents will be able to push each other tobe their best when caring adults havepushed them to be their best. A girl in a public urbanschool told us:The teachers who have most influenced my moral characterhave helped me realize some bad habits I have and helpedme change them. Mr. K., my advisor, has helped me realizehow my anger issues can be a distraction in my learning,and together we’ve come up with ways to avoid taking outmy anger on other people. Mr. W., who is like a father tome, is always checking up on me and giving me little lecturesand pep talks on being a young lady. He probablythinks it goes in one ear and out the other, but the things54Smart & Good High Schools