This article was originally published as "Moral Development: The Experiential Perspective" in The Journal of Moral Education, Winter 1992.
Currently there are two 'camps' of thought or perspective on moral education. The Conventional perspective is essentially behavioral, asserting that morality involves discernible rights and wrongs and that moral action involves the ability to discern or remember those rights and wrongs. The Developmental perspective is essentially cognitive, asserting that morality runs parallel with cognitive development and that moral action involves the ability to set and solve moral problems. This paper introduces the Perceptual-Experiential perspective, which asserts that morality involves the development of perceptual mechanisms through stages and transformations and that moral action involves the ability to create an accurate and appropriate synthesis of perceptual and psychological factors. Figure 1 provides a further comparison of the three perspectives regarding their stances on moral aptitude, training, and remediation.
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Figure 1
Conventional Developmental Experiential
Source 'tabula rosa' psycho-neural psycho-sensory & nature (no moral pre- aptitudes & predispositions of moral dispositions) predispositions tied to personal aptitude identifiable by urge to develop cognitive stage & transform senses
Rationale character training: facilitation in model, expect; guide & form of model, reward, cognitive problem- sense-heightening moral ed. punish, explain setting/solving challenges/projects
Sources of character flaws as character flaws as character flaws as character result of improper result of poor or result of imposition of flaws training or modeling lack of exposure expectations or values to thinking about contrary to natural moral dilemmas sensings & rhythms
Methods correct flaws through correct flaws thru correct flaws through for punishment, re- dialogue over real opportunities to correction training/programming & hypothetical resolve sensory (behavioral & social issues requiring distortions/discrepan- learning models) moral judgment cies toward self-trust
Ideal 'social lab' with 'just community' 'mini-society' including setting staff with high school with interface with nature, ethics & effective peer groups/support husbandry, community management; curric- & facilitative staff; for realistic challenges ulum to include curriculum to in- to refine & transform learning about highly clude problem-solving, senses; perceptually moral figures in especially on moral mature & insightful history & literature; issues; cooperative staff but facilitative emphasis on student learning to reinforce in approach; balance of duty & responsibility skills of social individual & cooperative mediation activities emphasizing the development of the sense of appropriateness
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Proponents of the two current perspectives are given excellent coverage in Nucci's (1989) Moral Development and Character Education: A Dialogue. Conventionalists (e.g. Kevin Ryan, Edward Wynne, Herbert Walberg) tend toward a view that humans are born with no moral aptitude or predisposition, that a moral 'tabula rosa' exists that must be filled with 'character training'. That training would include reinforcement, modeling, exhortation, explanation, and practicing social responsibilities. The ideal setting for moral education would resemble a 'social laboratory'. Morally mature teachers would use effective management that reinforced ethical behavior through consequences and through student involvement in classroom responsibilities. The curriculum would further reinforce moral understanding by introducing moral issues from literature and history. Students who were not responsive (character-flawed) would receive a more individualized and intensive program of reinforcement and the study of consequences to counteract an assumed background of faulty training or modeling.
Developmentalists (e.g. Lawrence Kohlberg, Carol Gilligan, Nona Lyons) tend toward a view that humans are born with moral predispositions that parallel their cognitive development towards meta-cognition and formal operations. Training in moral development would coincide with the honing of cognitive skills at each stage. That training would include cognitive deliberation over hypothetical or actual moral dilemmas. (Current theory allows for two types of 'solutions', based on either a morality of justice or of caring.) Students might also receive training in setting issues into contexts of either morality (justice and rights) or convention (customs and expectations). The ideal setting for moral education would be a 'just community' with peer groups problem-solving on real and imagined issues. Teachers would act as facilitators, both in discussion groups and in cooperative learning in the subject areas, so that students would receive an education that consistently stressed cooperation and cognitive processing in both form and content. Students who were not responsive would be viewed as lacking in cognitive processing skills and would be given extra opportunity to engage in dialogue with others to learn their perspectives and skills.
Training programs have been devised which incorporate both Conventional and Developmental components. For example, Nucci's volume describes the Child Development Project, where adults set expectations for children regarding behavior and discipline, but also where children learn cooperatively and discuss issues of cooperation.
The Perceptual-Experiential perspective, based initially on the developmental work of the late John Waskom (1972; Rose, 1991), views humans as born with moral predispositions that parallel their natural psycho-sensory development towards clarity and meaningfulness. ('Psycho-sensory' involves the interplay of basic physical senses, subtle bio-sensory mechanisms, and psychological sensibilities, as described in the following section.) Training in moral development would coincide with the honing of psycho-sensory skills through direct experiences and challenges, since it is only through these that senses and sensibilities can develop. Thus an ideal setting for moral education would resemble a 'mini-society' in which students experienced realistic challenges as they interacted with nature, husbandry, peers, and community. Teachers would model perceptual clarity and psychological health but would use their psycho-sensory refinement to help young people through their own challenges, rather than to teach morality. Students who were not responsive would be seen as character-flawed through previous imposition of expectations or values that were contrary to their natural psycho-sensory rhythms. Remediation would take the form of opportunities to resolve their sensory distortions and discrepancies through carefully guided challenges and de-briefings which would help the young person to establish perceptual acuity and thus regain self-trust and self-assurance.
Although the Perceptual-Experiential approach may include elements similar to those of the Conventionalists and Developmentalists, it involves a view of human development that differs significantly from the behavioral and cognitive stances, upon which the others are, respectively, based. A further discussion of the Experiential view of development, and its implications for moral education, follows.
Major Constructs of the Experiential Perspective
Psycho-sensory Urges
Psycho-sensory urges are the drives toward perfection of the 'human equipment', that is, towards perceptual acuity, psychological stability, and an overall sense of personal coherence and meaningfulness. These urges involve the development of the senses, which can be divided into two levels, the basic and the subtle.
At the basic or tangible level are the physical, muscular, and motor senses, such as the senses of sight, hearing, muscle tension, and balance. These are developed through age-appropriate training and through natural maturational processes, if they are allowed to progress without the interference of age-inappropriate stresses. (An example of age-inappropriate stress is instructing children in reading skills before eyesight is fully acute.)
At the subtle level are biomagnetic senses that 'read', interpret, and adjust to electromagnetic impulses which emanate from living organisms (Levine, 1985; Zimmerman, 1988, 1989). One such sense is the ability to monitor internal feedback, as when one suddenly craves certain foods without knowing that those foods will counteract an impending illness, or when one makes undetectable adjustments to change a mood or attitude. Another subtle sense is the ability to ascertain hidden aspects of the environment, as when one 'senses' another's honesty or insincerity or 'senses' danger or excitement when entering a new setting. These senses are most likely developed through non-interference; that is, they probably refine through allowing a child to trust and act on hunches (Licauco, 1984). Training these 'biomagnetic' senses may be feasible, but such training is outside the domain of education as it is presently known.
Both basic and subtle senses mature, and they can also be refined to a great degree, depending on the needs of the individual and the demands of the culture. But beyond such refinement, the senses have the potential for metaphorical transformation and further refinement after transformation. For instance, sight is not fully developed at birth, and physiological processes continue for several years to complete the visual mechanism. During that time, usage of the visual sense helps bring it to acuity, and that combines with cultural and individual training to bring about perceptual refinement, as in the ability to read or to note subtle differences in hues or to discern slight movement in tall grass. At some point, which is associated with the cognitive abilities of conceptualization and abstraction, the individual becomes ready to realize that there is a metaphorical or symbolic experience of seeing that is at once similar to, yet greater than, physical sight. Now the sense of 'seeing' can also take on the meaning of cognizance, of 'Aha!' or 'vision' about abstract concepts and possibilities. This transformation can be further refined as the individual is trained to envision on increasingly abstract levels and to discern increments and shades of meaning on the road towards comprehensive perception. (See Figure 2.)
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Figure 2
| physical senses present at ==> birth (often incomplete) | refinement through ==> maturation and training | metaphorical transformation in association ==> with cognitive readiness | refinement of metaphoric senses through training |
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By the same token, the sense of balance is quite imperfect at birth, and it improves with maturity and usage to aid in standing, walking, and running. Beyond such ordinary improvement, the sense of balance can be refined to include physical grace and poise, as applied in dance and athletics. Beyond that yet again, the sense of balance has the potential to transform metaphorically into psychological and aesthetic appreciation. In other words, as one comes to know fully, and appreciate, the sensation of physical balance and poise, one can realize that it is possible to know and apply that same sense in psychosocial contexts (i.e. expressing 'balance' or tact in relation to people or circumstances) and in matters of aesthetic discernment (i.e. choosing art forms, attire, or even words that reflect appropriate balance and proportion).
As with vision, the newly transformed sense of balance begins at a primitive level and needs refinement through training for its potential to be realized.
Of course, there is no one-to-one correspondence of physical senses with psychological sensibilities, and it would be futile to try to map the direction each transformation takes. For instance, the sense of touch transforms into components of both empathy and discrimination, as does the sense of warmth. The idea here, then, is to introduce the reader to the avenue by which psychological sensibilities occur (namely through the senses), rather than try to establish or even suggest one-to-one correspondence.
How does the notion of psycho-sensory urges and transformations relate to moral or character education? As Waskom intimated, as senses are refined and transformed, character is established. This would be especially true if one looks at the sum of all transformed senses (discernment, balance, empathy, etc.) as the most important and most morally critical sense of all: the sense of appropriateness. If such is the case, moral development would be at least as much a function of sensory refinement as it is of modeling (per Conventionalists) and problem-solving (per Developmentalists).
The Experiential, psycho-sensory viewpoint establishes a naturalistic basis for character development and moral education. This gives educators a rationale for training young people in citizenship and moral reasoning without having to resort to 'moralizing' on the one hand or 'mentalizing' on the other. Instead, educators would concentrate on heightening awareness and ability by providing opportunities for refinement and transformation of sense mechanisms. Such a psycho-sensory development curriculum would begin by listing those senses or qualities educators consider critical for academic success and psychological well-being. Such a list might look like Figure 3, with other senses added as deemed appropriate.
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Figure 3
Observation Discernment Vision Courage
Resourcefulness Responsibility Stamina Empathy
Concentration Interdependence Intuition Balance
Proportion Meta-cognition Justice Humor
Loyalty Self-reliance Pride Esteem
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These senses could then be developed through a three-stage process of instructional planning and implementation:
1. pinpointing basic and subtle senses that best relate to that quality;
2. providing natural or realistic settings and activities (outdoors,
community, hands-on or interactive teaching and learning, etc.) which
require the self-controlled use and refinement of those senses; and
3. providing age-appropriate opportunities and strategies for consciously
processing the experience (verbally or in writing) during and after the
activity, so that sensory learning is cognitively reinforced.
Meta-senses and Developmental Stages
In order to establish an age-appropriate curriculum of psycho-sensory development, it would be necessary to map the development of the individual in an overall sequence. This necessitates the positing of a sequence of meta-senses, which relates to Erikson's (1982) sequence of psycho-social urges or tasks. Like Erikson, the idea of a meta-sense acknowledges a powerful milieu or backdrop upon which all subsets of current development are played out. Unlike Erikson, a meta-sense is a perceptual milieu, based on psycho-sensory urges to perfect, rather than a psychoanalytic milieu which is based on psycho-social urges to cope. This difference is crucial, for whereas the psychological theorists of the early twentieth century relied on the medical (largely pathological) model of human adjustment or coping, the psycho-sensory approach affirms the more recent model of 'wellness', or the drive toward self-actualization.
A meta-sense, then, determines or at least highly influences the nature of developmental activity in each stage of the human lifespan, including sensory and moral development. Using a scheme developed by Waskom (1972) (influenced by Steiner) and refined by Rose (in press), a sequence of meta-senses for the ages of schooling, and their implications for moral education, is outlined below.
Early Childhood: WILL
This meta-sense involves urges to gain control over the
physical domain and express/know the sense of life in self
and others. It includes Erikson's tasks of trust, autonomy,
and initiative and spans the sensorimotor and pre-operational
cognitive stages.
The individual's initial sense of morality is tied to the developing understanding and expression of Will. On the one hand, the child is absorbed in discovering and expressing self-will, but on the other hand is confronted with the challenge of sensing, accommodating, and even imitating the will of others. This presents a need for balance between self-control in the sense of self-mastery over body functions, motor dexterity, and free expression, and self-control in the sense of self-restraint or delaying gratification in order to meet social expectations and learn social roles.
Basic perceptual and motor senses are developing at this time, and since they will later transform into formative character traits, these need to be carefully guided through activity. The development of Will is accommodated through games, song, rhythm, manipulatives, and a balance of exploratory, imitative, and repetitive (routine) activities that allow the child to gain initial control over body and environment. By learning to control the self through guided activity, the child learns natural laws and limits. This probably works as well as (and certainly more healthily than) learning laws and limits through fear, reprimands, threats, or age-inappropriate explanations, all of which impose stresses on the child.
The sense of sentience is also critical at this stage. This is the ability to sense 'aliveness' in oneself and others. The young child tends to attribute sentience to nearly everything (rocks, dolls, the moon), yet does not always behave as if it mattered, as when he/she pulls the dog's tail or hurts a playmate. So it would seem imperative that this sense be given careful guidance, as morality hinges on the ability to sense aliveness and demonstrate understanding of its implications in feelings and acts of reciprocity (justice) and empathy (caring). Guidance could include exposure to gardening and husbandry, where a child can witness directly the interdependence and cross-nurturance of living forms in mutually beneficial ways. At this stage of limited memory and cognition, such observational and participatory activities would be preferable to reprimands or explanations to guide the child into moral sentience.
Middle Childhood: FEELING
This meta-sense involves urges to feel confidence and
competence, which entails the refinement of senses and
initial transformations. It includes Erikson's task of
industry and spans the cognitive stage of concrete operations.
Physical, perceptual, and cognitive abilities are expanding in a context of broadening social awareness. Thus it is, at this stage, that sensory refinements can be specifically trained and their metaphorical transformations have the greatest potential for occurring.
Morality is now associated with Feeling, including such senses as pride, courage, fair play, loyalty, accomplishment, and getting along. Specific training or challenges in sensory refinement (e.g. detailed observation of attributes and patterns) would help build competencies which could result in confidence or self-esteem. This would, in turn, tend to make the child less self-conscious or self-centered, and thus more 'moral' in outlook and behavior. Such training for refinement of perception would need to include a wide range of senses (muscular, aesthetic, cognitive, perceptual, etc.) in order to accommodate the range of potential competencies in children. For this reason, a wide variety of learning objectives, settings, and styles would need to be utilized.
As sensory transformations are imminent, moral guidance would also need to include the nurturance of these budding potentialities and traits. Since many years will be needed actually to refine these transformations, and since abstract cognitive skills would need to be in place for much formal training to be of benefit, it would be enough for those in Middle Childhood simply to get a 'feel' for how sensory transformations can influence life choices and moral sensibilities. For instance, having prime responsibility for a pet or small garden plot can help foster the transformation of feeling/receiving physical and emotional warmth into the ability to sense and offer warmth and care. Likewise, having a part in a play or academic project can help foster the transformation of egocentrism into a sense of interdependence. Although the middle child cannot fully appreciate or understand what is happening cognitively and morally in such settings, such experiences can serve as vivid and poignant exercises to introduce a larger world of moral concerns and behavior.
Adolescence: THINKING
This meta-sense involves the urge towards meta-cognition: to
know how to use/control thought processes and to know oneself
in terms of values (sexual, political, social, etc.). It
includes Erikson's task of identity and is marked by movement
into the cognitive stage of formal operations.
Whereas the young child's moral choices are a function of Will ('Should I gratify or restrain?') and the middle child's moral choices are a function of Feeling ('What action will make me feel most happy/proud/assured?'), the adolescent confronts moral choices largely through Thinking, and ultimately that thinking is about values. Paraphrased, the adolescent's choosing would sound like, 'What do I think about this issue, and what do others think about my thinking?' So as morality at this stage is tied in with the ability to think, the clarity of thinking will determine the clarity and logic of moral values, choices, and behaviors.
Training adolescents to think clearly (especially in the area of values) is a considerable challenge. Immature emotions, which are often the very subject of thought, can play a distracting role. Lack of real experience on which to base thought is another impediment. The 'just community' schools have gone a long way toward giving young people a forum (with ground rules and a safe, neutral setting) for processing values-related issues. However, these schools do not seem to provide guidance for working through or avoiding emotional confusion, nor do they afford opportunities for novel and challenging experiences upon which thought and feeling can be expanded and values re-assessed. Without such components, adolescents may show some gains in moral stage progression, but in other ways they will be 'spinning their wheels' into ruts of perceptual sameness and emotional 'soap operas' that never resolve.
Adolescence would be an excellent time to introduce novel types of learning settings. Apprenticeships and mentorships would require the young person to think clearly, to acquire real (not imagined) expertise in an endeavor of interest, and to learn to avoid trivial emotional distractions. Outdoor experiential learning would also provide experiences for testing one's ability to process thought clearly, on one's own and within a group context. Of course, for these or even more traditional settings to be beneficial in the development of thinking and valuing, the adults in charge must be clear-headed and able to provide the mental and emotional support needed by young people in their care. They must be models as regards their own sense development and values, so that they can be completely available to facilitate the deepening understanding of young people, by sensitive interaction, not by lecturing or explaining in the abstract.
Finally, the value of a 'Walkabout' fits well here. This term is borrowed from the Australian aborigines, who send young boys into the Outback for months of self-testing. Upon their return, they are inducted into the tribe as adults. Our young people, of both sexes, would benefit from a similar experience at the culmination to their educational 'childhood'. It might include wilderness adventures, inner city projects, foreign travel, scientific exploration, or any combination of challenges requiring self-reliance, and synthesis of previous learning. Besides the benefits of such experience in sharpening cognition and self-esteem, it would give society a 'marker' upon which to base a true 'rite of passage', something many psychologists say is missing, to the detriment of everyone's mental health. Thus a Walkabout of some kind would offer adolescents a major stepping-stone for clarifying their sense of values and thus their moral outlook as they move into young adulthood (Gibbons, 1974; Knapp, 1989).
Psycho-Sensory Remediation and Healing
When a child has received repeated sensory input that is antagonistic to natural sensings, rhythms, and sequences, a developmental flaw is likely to occur. That flaw will be initially a perceptual flaw, then an emotional and cognitive flaw, as it manifests itself in observably flawed behavior.
For example, a child who is neglected during infancy (due to inattention or the lack of a single, stable caregiver) will tend to perceive the world as an untrustworthy place. This perception, although accurate from the child's standpoint, is too over-generalized to be an actual fact. However, it is believed, and it constantly reinforces the message, 'Watch out for yourself; no one is on your side.' This message becomes self-fulfilling, since the child will unconsciously avoid intimacy, which would disprove the initial perception, in the name of self-protection. This perceptual set becomes an emotional issue as the child comes to interact with other children, taking the form of slyness, bullying, or uncaring attitudes. It also may influence the child's cognitive mode, forcing the child into denials and rationalizations when confronted by peers or adults. This is the typical psychology of the young psychopath (Magid and McKelvey, 1988).
From a psycho-sensory viewpoint, this child has been flawed by a sensory imposition of uncaring which has distorted the meta-sense of Will. Due to the perceptual influence of that imposition, the Will has been side-tracked into an unbalanced and paranoid mode, and behavior shifts toward expressing self-will and away from accommodating to the will of others.
Another typical, but less recognized, developmental flaw is caused by adults who repeatedly impose their (faulty) perceptions on a child, who must then repress his or her own natural responses. This occurs when adults tell the child what feelings to have toward a third person (relative, playmate, etc.). It also occurs when a child is forced into unnatural eating, sleeping, activity, or learning patterns. If the child has perceptions that are at variance with the imposed message, self-trust is diminished, and, over time, this might lead to serious problems. The individual may be unable to trust his or her own judgments, to take even minimal risks, to 'read' even the most obvious body language in another person, or to recognize and act on the most obvious internal messages regarding health or safety. In short, the individual is reduced to dependency on the perceptions of others and must seek refuge in that which is secure and well-demarcated. This flaw has no clinical name; it is proposed that it pervades society so widely that unless it causes near-paralysis of action, it is considered within the range of normal functioning.
Many other developmental flaws can be traced to perceptual or psycho-sensory distortions that manifest in emotional, cognitive, and behavioral distortions. It is proposed here that this not only includes so-called character flaws, but also many learning disabilities. It is difficult to establish cause-and-effect relationships between imposed values and perceptions on the one hand and learning disabilities on the other. However, if psychological stress can cause somatic disabilities, i.e. disease, it stands to reason that such stresses could also cause cognitive or learning disabilities through similar psychosomatic mechanisms. So if the individual's perceptual set influences development, any distortion imposed upon that set could be a potential stressor in the generation of developmental dysfunction, whether physical, emotional, or cognitive.
The cure of psycho-sensory distortions that have manifested as physical disease and learning disabilities is beyond the scope of this article. However, these two areas are being tackled by workers in their respective fields, and point to perceptual and/or character flaws as the basis for many ills and their alleviation. In the medical field, researchers and practitioners have established conclusively the role of self-perception and attitude in both the onset and treatment of many diseases. In the field of learning disabilities, the link between self-perception and remediation is also well documented, although a link between perception and the onset of learning disabilities has not been established so far.
To remedy psycho-sensory distortions that have manifested themselves emotionally, and that impair moral sensibilities (e.g. psychopathy, distrust, hopelessness, rage), a new perceptual set must be introduced to the child, and it must be delivered in an emotionally powerful enough message to break through the faulty perceptual loop already established. Ken Magid has developed a treatment mode that does this for the young psychopath, one that is highly experiential, even physical, between patient and client. Other than this, what else is available to counteract the emotional ravages of previous psycho-sensory impositions? One promising area is that of experiential education and some of its more therapeutic offshoots. In particular, the Outward Bound program has worked with young people with various character (as well as physical) distortions with great success. When confronted with the unemotional and unforgiving face of nature, young people respond relatively quickly to the notion of dropping their selfish and defensive attitudes and facing circumstances from an interdependent perspective.
The above-mentioned therapies and techniques were developed outside a well-defined psycho-sensory paradigm or formalized school of thought. However, at the root of their work the developers have recognized that changing perceptual sets is the key to changing attitudes and behaviors. The paradigm is growing among social scientists, each working independently and developing differing approaches. But their premises and conclusions are very similar, as summed up in the title to one current book which emphasizes perceptual or psycho-sensory healing: You'll See It When You Believe It (Dyer, 1989). As the field becomes more organized and coherent, and as the physical sciences refine our abilities to ascertain and measure subtle perception, our ability to offer sensory in-filling interventions will most likely become more precise and effective.
Obviously, it is much easier to teach or facilitate than it is to remediate, and this applies to moral development no less than academic studies. However, as long as there are distorted adults, there will be distorted children, and it is heartening to know that there are highly experiential treatments available to bring balance back into the lives of those who have been perceptually abused.
Implications and Conclusions
An Experiential approach to moral education may look intriguing on paper, but the idea undoubtedly sparks a host of questions that others may want to answer through investigation and application. Researchers may want to explore specific links between the development of perception and moral outlook. They may also want to explore more closely how psycho-sensory interferences might lead to character flaws.
Practitioners may want to explore influences of experiential education on moral outlook, choice, and behavior. They may want to plan a detailed curriculum and consider methods for implementing and evaluating it. Curricula that address the remediation of character flaws would need to pay particular attention to the overall psycho-sensory environment and to the level of intensity participants can accommodate in their challenges.
In summary, it has been proposed that the moral person is one who possesses perceptual acuity, emotional stability, and a sense of meaningfulness. In other words, this person sees a situation accurately, is free from emotional distractions in relation to the situation, acts appropriately, and sees the entire episode as part of a meaningful life gestalt. To reach this point of maturity, the moral person must have developed psycho-sensory skills through experience -- ideally, directed or facilitated experiences which challenge and provoke growth.
Guiding moral growth is allied to guiding sensory refinement at the physical-biological and perceptual-psychological levels. This means that moral development can be guided by refining psycho-sensory mechanisms, which are present at birth, and their metaphorical transformations, which occur later in childhood and adolescence. A curriculum of moral education would include a set of target senses for growth and transformation, and a plan of naturalistic experiences and challenges which would spur the refinement of those senses. Age-appropriateness of objective and content would be determined by the meta-sense stage of the child, which includes psychological, neurological, and physical capabilities and urges. A final, culminating school-age challenge would be useful both for the individual and the society as a marker to designate the entrance to young adulthood.
Moral remediation would be highly naturalistic and experiential. Without involving undue amounts of moral exhortation or mental exhumation, adults could set up challenges which would 'jump start' young persons to new perceptions and attitudes.
The Experiential approach to moral development and education gives youth stage-appropriate tools for constructing their own moral reality within a social and environmental reality. This is crucial, for as many educators would agree, when an experience becomes one's own reality, the learning sticks. This may be the greatest advantage of the Experiential approach: rather than as issues to be explained by adults or discussed by peers, moral concerns are experienced -- and verified -- by one's own sensory mechanisms. That can only lead to a continuing, formative interaction between the experiencing individual and the field of experience -- life itself.
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