The dangers of rushing through life’s stages

Palaima: The dangers of rushing through life’s stages

[On-line title: “The dangers of rushing into the working world”]

Posted: 2:04 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 27, 2012

http://www.statesman.com/news/news/opinion/palaima-the-dangers-of-rushing-into-the-working-wo/nSNSt/

By Tom Palaima  Special to the Austin American-Statesman

PRINT EDITION Friday, September 28, 2012

“There is a time to every purpose under heaven.” But is that time four or five years long and what is it for?

Several years ago, I heard my friend Ira Iscoe, Ashbel Smith Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, give a talk on Erik Erikson’s theories about the developmental stages of man. Iscoe’s talk was typically lucid. His and Erickson’s ideas have rattled around in my brain, heart and soul as I have thought about how what the ancient Greeks called a “teknon,” literally ‘birthed thing,” develops into a socialized adult.

The Greeks were not alone in emphasizing the “thing-ness” of young human beings. The German word for child “das Kind” also comes from a root meaning “be born.” Our English word “child” is related to the Gothic word for “womb.” The blunt pragmatism of such vocabulary underscores the long, difficult and miraculous process by which we become adults.

Each of us is born unable to survive on our own and “un-speaking,” the meaning of the Latin word “infans” that gives us our word “infant.” Parents, literally “those who bring forth,” if we are lucky, nurture us to the point where we can be entrusted to socially constructed educational systems, outside or within (“home-schooled”) primary family groups, that will “lead us forth” (Latin “educare”).

The ancient Greeks were so impressed at how this all worked that they called education “paideia” or “paideusis,” literally the activity of “child-ing.” They then used “paideia” to stand for all forms of high cultural attainment that mark us out as educated individuals in civilized societies.

The genius of Erickson’s eight developmental stages is that in tracking human personal and social growth from infancy to old age and death, they highlight the tension and confusion between who we are or aim to be to satisfy our own needs and who society wants us to become under the rubric of “being responsible adults.” Erickson’s categories also track strengths and weaknesses, failures and successes at each stage in relation to what went on before and what came later.

When we debate practical decisions such as how much time we should allot to formal post-secondary education during the opening years of Erickson’s stage 6 (young adulthood, ages 18-35), we should try to keep in mind this big picture of the miracle of who we are, what we want to be, and what different forces in society think we should be. The notion of getting students through college in four years has become a political lightning rod in recent years. Much of the political rhetoric and pressure has to do with costs. But preoccupation with current costs can be disastrous. Just look at the American Society of Civil Engineers 2009 report card on aviation, bridges, water, dams, roads, solid waste and waste water — and schools. Schools get a D, the average GPA of all items. What we don’t spend on today can be ruinous in all of our tomorrows.

In an increasingly complicated world, we should heed Erickson’s pronouncement, “It is human to have a long childhood; it is civilized to have an even longer childhood.” And we should do so with Erickson’s caution. He saw the danger of a “life-long residue of emotional immaturity” from putting off adult responsibilities too long. But I doubt whether Erickson would have viewed as dangerous students taking an extra semester or year in order to get degrees in fields to which they are best suited, as individuals and as agents of social goodness. What is dangerous is rushing students through like “animate tools’ and not giving them sufficient opportunity to view holistically, morally and ethically the challenges of the increasingly complex world they are facing.

A recent study of UT undergraduate students linked “healthy out-of-classroom activities” such as “participating in community service, clubs, organizations and sports/fitness” with higher grade point averages (GPAs) and four-year graduation rates.

Two notes of caution must be sounded in interpreting such results. First, such surveys do not, because they cannot, measure long-term happiness or long-term self-awareness and social orientation toward others for the good of society. Second, we would like to know whether participation in extra-curricular activities is linked to income level. It may well be that some students who take longer to graduate and have lower GPAs are holding down part-time jobs or fulfilling family obligations as their extracurricular activities.

Regular Contributor Tom Palaima is Robert M. Armstrong Centennial Professor of Classics at the University of Texas at Austin: tpalaima@sbcglobal.net.