"Notes Toward an Ideal College" (first published 1973)

by Gerald Grow

School of Journalism, Media & Graphic Arts

Florida A&M University, Tallahassee FL 32307 USA

Available: http://www.longleaf.net/ggrow

Premises

1. The world goes by much too fast for thought; that is why we have feelings. But the world changes faster than our feelings do; that is why we have thought. Considered separately, feeling actually embodies a higher level of integration than thought. Deep body-feeling can include dozens, perhaps hundreds, of simultaneous processes in extremely complex interrelationships. Thought excludes and simplifies to attain a greater clarity: clarity which can educate and adjust, or adjust to, the deeper feeling responses. In moments of crisis, excitement, creative joy, and illumination, thought and feeling can merge into a total body-mind state which we then recognize as "normal"--and rare. Directly intuitive, feelingful thoughts are the norm for human beings, and contain our greatest accumulated wisdom. Learning becomes integrated into the person only when it penetrates to and becomes infused with feeling, when it becomes second nature, as if the student had himself created the knowledge out of his own experience and inner urge. 2. Truth, identity, and society are interdependent, ever-changing human creations and are always subject to the test of experience. 3. Truth is characterized by (1) intensity and variety of contact, and (2) range and depth of integration. 4. Each person is potentially capable of self-regulation. Authority, law, tradition, and even truth are human creations. Our task is not to follow them, but to generate the kinds of authority, law, tradition and truth that fulfill the circumstances of our lives. If a tradition is valid, an inquiring student will re-create its essentials for himself. If a tradition is invalid, hopefully, over time, inquiring students will gradually replace it with a newly-created tradition that more fully meets human reality. Everything is subject to one test: does it, in the long run, lead to a fuller life? Since most students, by the age of 5, have already established limiting and perhaps destructive patterns of behavior, self-regulation must be carefully developed. Freedom is not enough. Sudden freedom may lead to chaos and a comforting dictatorship. Therefore, a college devoted to continuous renewal must include two focuses: (1) how to alter self-defeating attitudes and behavior; and (2) how to prevent them. 5. Since human beings have basically the same perceptual, neural, and physical equipment through which to learn the truth, and since the same basic experiences are available to everyone, the truth is one. That is, all persons living openly and fully will find a wide area of common understanding. 6. The goal of a teacher is to teach people not to need teachers. The best education culminates in self-education.

"Notes Toward an Ideal College" (first published 1973)

by Gerald Grow

School of Journalism, Media & Graphic Arts

Florida A&M University, Tallahassee FL 32307 USA

Available: http://www.longleaf.net/ggrow

Purpose

To cultivate the human center from which civilization springs: a center of identity from which students may securely experience change; a center of strength to which they may return for renewal; a creative center from which they may generate solutions to new problems; a center of securely grounded learning by which they may judge new experiences; a center of simple innocence with which they may approach the world freshly; a center rooted in the wisdom and energy of the body as well as the mind; a center of verve, vitality, and deep joy through which they may live a rich and varied life. One of the most important functions of college is providing a setting for HUMAN CHANGE. Here, people who wish to change may come to try a wide range of techniques, from great books to creative arts to religion to various therapies -- or simply a supportive environment in which people can wander about and, in their own ways, rediscover themselves and redirect their lives. In an atmosphere where the essentials of life are continually explored, felt, and emphasized, change could be more secure and less chaotic than among the groundless variety of half-solutions in society at large. College could be a place where people come to re-connect with their deepest selves, to re-experience their deepest feelings, to dissolve constricting patterns, to explore the best of the past, and, in general, to renew the kind of inner direction, vitality, joy, and commitment that make life worthwhile. According to current estimates, 85% of the products to be on the market by the year 2000 have not been invented yet [written in 1973]. This is only one index of the unimaginable rate of change ahead of us. We must prepare ourselves and our students to meet this change by developing a firm physical and mental center, an openness to experience, a sense of adventure, and a tested respect for one's own creative capacities.

Problem and Potential

Each person is born with the potential of living a life that, by his own terms, is fulfilling and joyful. Tragically, much of this potential becomes locked into unproductive patterns, and the person lives mainly among the unresolved problems of his past. Some patterns are imposed by social conditions-such as poverty. Some are-or soon become-internal in origin, such as limiting personality traits. But even in his most constricted state, each person is capable of re-establishing contact with that relatively pure center from which his life springs, and in which his real identity lies, surrounded by organic processes larger than consciousness.

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