People are Process
The classroom is the platform for the growth of human
beings. The teachers manage this platform in a way that
they facilitate the creation of an environment,
where the human being's freedom to think is unleashed
and enhanced. If the human being was not there in the
first place, there would be no school, no classroom,
and no teacher.
Photo by Nicholas Sampson on Unsplash
What is "People are Process"?
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Tristan believes that people are process. An emphasis on process enables us to see the individual as free, free to pursue his goals, free to realize his own values. He believes that values can never be forced into a human being, can never be imposed from the outside. The teacher, as a person in "authority" cannot coerce his students into inheriting his own sense of
value. Values that seem to have been assimilated by the students through a coercive process, he believes, will not stand for long. As soon as the hold of force or submission is removed, the individual will continue to live his life according to the values that he finds relevant.
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Tristan believes that a person's growth is determined by his values, and that for one to be successful in facilitating the creation of an environment that builds on this process of growth, one needs to be propelled by a sense of reverence for the person. He says, "because you respect the fact that your students have their own value systems, you need to facilitate
the creation of an environment where the students could be free to express themselves."
This environment is founded also upon an atmosphere of trust. One must believe that an individual, given the liberty to pursue his own sense of value, would seek out his own process of growth. With this trust comes compassion, and through compassion, one's sense of freedom becomes fuller.
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Saying that people are process also means that we go beyond the usual perception in education that the student is just mind, or that nurturing the mind is the only thing that is relevant to education. Tristan believes that education should enable the individuals, not only to grow cognitively, but also to become better people. Education should engage the totality of the person and not just his intellect. As Morris Berman writes in his article "The Body of History" of the study of history, so shall we say for education, "our education has been disembodied long enough; the time has come to flesh it out."
Photo by Robert Collins on Unsplash
