Virtue vs. Success: A Response to Paul Theobald’s Teaching the Commons Curtis R. Rogers - EDLP 726

Virtue vs. Success: A Response to Paul Theobald’s Teaching the Commons- Curtis R. Rogers - EDLP 726 - September 18, 1997

The most striking comparisons made by Theobald are those of whether or not it is more important to be virtuous or successful in the context of rebuilding community by implementing systemic curricular change beginning with America’s rural schools. A dictionary defines virtue as a conformity to a standard of right: morality, while success is defined as the attainment of wealth, favor, or eminence. Clearly, these standard definitions have quite different meanings yet most of today’s American society will immediately place a greater importance success over virtue. Is this because educators and parents place more importance on success? If educators can work at placing more importance upon virtue by teaching morally, communities can begin a rebirth.

Theobald makes the argument at least twice in his text for the case of virtue. First by stating that, “Virtue speaks of attention to shouldering one’s obligations to others and is therefore more at home in a community-oriented worldview. Success, by contrast, confines itself to the level of the individual.”1 From this point, I am reflective upon Socrates’ teachings:

Socrates’ contribution to philosophy was essentially ethical in character. Belief in a purely objective understanding of such concepts as justice, love, and virtue, and the self-knowledge that he inculcated, were the basis of his teachings. He believed that all vice is the result of ignorance, and that no person is willingly bad; correspondingly, virtue is knowledge, and those who know the right will act rightly.2

Secondly, the reference to Senge’s ‘learning organizations’, opened my mind to the clarity of learning for the sake of learning ... playing a sport for the sake of playing ... gaining knowledge and insight from all experiences good or bad. Theobald’s observations based on Senge’s ‘learning organizations’ are distinctly stated by, “[learning] for the joy of learning, in and of itself ... can be an important counterbalance to the seduction of mobility and ever more material accumulation.”3 The simplicity of character is the result of profound thought and the ebbing of community is the result of no thought.

The hypothesis that systemic change must commence in rural schools in pleasing because it brings with it the sense that virtue is, in fact, more important than success. However, I would like to see this broadened to include all cultures of the world. Virtue lies within the self and sometimes will innately expose itself when natural order is in jeopardy. In a community, whether it be a group of farmers in North Dakota helping one another to prepare for the rugged winter or a gathering of people from various countries of the world logged into a Hinduism Internet chat room, the members can feel a sense of fulfillment, reliance and need. Class members can even feel a sense on community in our online discussion group where views and concerns for leadership as it relates to curriculum are shared.

Howard Rheingold asks the question, “We know the rules of community; we know the healing effect of community in terms of individual lives. If we could somehow find a way across the bridge of our knowledge, would not these same rules have a healing effect upon our world?” 4 Many answers may exist but until we as educators begin working perseveringly toward rebuilding community through teaching, i.e. ethically and morally, at the most common levels, our efforts will go unnoticed.

The construction and organization of Theobald’s text afford me the insight for how and why community began in the raw nature of human existence. From the romance of the harsh middle ages to the eagerness of the early American homesteaders, rural communities have been the backbone of a moral society. The chronicling of historical events depicted by Theobald gives me a much better understanding of the need for community. However, my interest lies in the community’s relationship to and a sky-rocketing reliance upon technology.

As an Internet trainer and web administrator, I have begun to see not only how the Industrial Age is being replaced by the Information Age but also the creation of global communities. As an information professional, I am able to successfully access a world of knowledge using the Internet. I can build relationships with groups of people who share my same interests, ask for help on topics related to my work as well as private life, and feel a sense of community in those communicative aspects technology can now bring directly to our desktops in the office, school, or home. Is this not the creation of community at the global level? Can we as educators use this to our advantage?

Instead of ‘going back’ to the simple life chronicled by Theobald, we must take into consideration the technology available to educators and utilize it to bring into being community in the non-traditional sense. By creating new curricula that embraces technology and promotes morals and ethics, the next generation of learners will be able to make the changes necessary to produce their own version of community.

It is fine to embrace the romance of what used to be but to try and recreate community in today’s society based solely on those precepts would be a mistake. Nothing can ever be the way it once was. Change is not only inevitable, it is a process and not one single event. It might be that in our minds the past holds a place of importance for reflection but the next generation of learner is confronted with change more rapidly than ever before.

Those who are now being left behind in the brave new world of technology believe that the new global technologies are of no use to them are similar to those who had no use for television and believed that it would never amount to a hill of beans. The inability or reluctance to change within a community is a hindrance to the whole of the community. If we can accept and learn from change with regard to the moral and ethical aspects, community can flourish. Similar to Theobald’s hope, it is my wish that a new generation who can work to create braoder worldwide communities can be born from the Information Age. However, it will take virtuous educators with open minds who are capable of adapting quickly to change to influence the future of all communities whether they be rural, urban or global.

1. Theobald, Paul. Teaching the Commons. 1997. p.47.

3.Theobald, Paul. Teaching the Commons. 1997. p.149.

4. Rheingold, Howard. The Virtual Community (Introduction). http://www.well.com/user/hlr/vcbook/index.html [accessed 9/13/97]