Fact and Value in TeachingUsing illustrations principally from the teaching of American government

and politics, the author lists five common ways in which the objective and moralworlds are dealt with . The systematic presentation of general factual statements,supplemented by methodological and action training, is the preferred mode ofinstruction . University authorities should provide a general moral program,rather than relegating the burden to political scientists .

Education is a communication, atransaction that comments on the "ob-jective world" and connotes or denotesa moral. A question that faces everyreflective instructor in political scienceor another social science is : How shouldthe objective world and the moral worldaffect the communication of my subject?

The practical answers to this questioncan be observed in the following pro-cedures,cedures, which take courses in Americannational government for purposes ofillustration .

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(a) Only facts of a relatively loworder of generalization, grouped aroundinstitutions such as the Constitution, thejudiciary, the presidency, the politicalparty, etc ., arc taught students. Studentsare made to be so busy learning factsthat they do not query the meaningful-ness of their activity .

(b) Assertedly "non - controversialvalues" are injected into teaching, such .as, "The government ought to be welladministered," "The cities ought to befairly represented in State legislatures,"

Ind of correct political practice are twomethods that are greatly beneficial,when controlled, and should be incor-porated into every course in politicalscience. They are essential tools of theoperating political scientist and citizen,and greatly promote the assimilation ofmaterials presented in a systematic, gen-eral, factual manner. The only reserva-tions are that they should not remove thecourse from the integrity and scope ofits materials, from the control of theprofessor, and from the dispassionate ap-proach that students are supposed toimitate.

In general, therefore, there are im-portant reasons for preferring the methodof general, contemplative, factual state-ments to other modes of conductingcourses in social science, includingAmerican national government . It isassumed that no one will say that thismethod is antithetical to moral teach-ings or that it will produce amoral stu-dents. Neither is true, and to insure thatneither is believed true, an additionalrecommendation is to be made .

American educational institutions, withsome notable exceptions among denomi-national schools, run without moral di-rection. Probably the main reason forthis anarchy of morals rests in our fearthat another kind of morality may takeprecedence over our own. Hence we tendto justify the hubbub of insignificantactivity and the resulting moral indif-ference of our educated population ongrounds that they reveal the essentialstrength of our many-sided morality anddemocracy : everyone believes what hewishes and that is good. But by originand temperament, university presidentsare increasingly administrators, who ap-pear to be conducting a circus for itsown sake, or public relations men, whosegoal seems to be to help outsiders toenjoy the circus . Such a morality isscarcely to be applauded; educational in-stitutions ought to be as morally guidedas governmental institutions. Differences

in governance in school and state oughtto result principally from the differencesin mean age of their inmates.

University presidents and trustees can-not avoid responsibility for neglect ofmorals ; neither can they expect politicalscientists to convert their classrooms intochurches to fill the gap . Most of themoral problems of life are not politicalin the professional sense of the term.Biology, chemistry, physics, physical edu-cation, English composition, and, in fact,every discipline in the college, has asmuch or as little to do with morals aspolitical science . There is no more rea-son to ask a professor to pour out hishatred of racial discrimination in apolitical science class than there is toask his colleague in an astronomy classto describe at length his great love forthe God that inhabits the heavens .

Such responsibilities should be cen-trally organized as the responsibility ofthe university community. If there aregood things about American government,the board of trustees or president shouldexpound them at length and at will tothe students in the proper places at theproper time. Chapels, student associa-tions, and the many other fora for suchmoral instruction should be rescued fromwhat is often degenerate triviality . Someuniversities may ask their faculty to givesome fraction of their time to moral ex-position in the context of their courses .And the exposition of moral views oughtnot to be limited to politics . Sex rela-tions, family relations, religion, andbusiness ought to share a school's evan-gelical energies . These methods of re-conciling American institutions to thediversity of American moral codes ispreferable, in the opinion of the author,to each college being all things to allmen but nothing of importance to anyone.

Alfred de Grazia

New York University

Yet, I am interested in the problem, soI systematically delineate the conditionsthat produce decentralized or nationalizedparties and describe the effects of eachmode of party organization .)

(b) It relates to other people's valuesand will put them in better control oftheir values. (Suppose that I am not atall interested in this question, but I seethat my audience wishes stronger na-tional parties ; so I go through the sameprocess as in (a].)

(c) It relates to a consensus of cots-cern among people who arc in conflict.This fact is deemed important to all ofthem. (Suppose that I observe a greatconflict on this question of nationalizingparties ; I therefore go through the samesystematizing and generalizing process ongrounds that each participant in the con-troversy will derive what he needs fromthe discussion.)

(d) It relates to existing facts thathave been built into a "field of science"because they have been related to (a),(b), or (c), above. In this case, itsselection can be indirectly attributed to(a), (b), or (c), which thus can bekept as the models that exhaust the rea-sons for the selection of facts . (Supposethat neither I nor many others have anyinterest in this problem, but that "decen-tralization" and "centralization" are keyconcepts in the study of government ad-ministration ; thus I bring them into thefield of political parties in order betterto understand the concepts as they oper-ate in spheres other than government ad-ministration .)

These categories and the extended ex-ample show the ways in which factualstatements originate from values ; theyalso may partially reveal how values door do not influence pedagogy.

In this sense of objectivity, the teachertakes it upon himself to reject tempor-arily his dwn values, to select factualgeneralizations as his aim, to satisfy war-ring social elements, and to contributeto a striking social phenomenon : thedevelopment of an integrated and system-atic body of political science . Indeed,

to diverge from the main argument fora moment, the leading concepts of anyscience are, in a sense, the residues fromthe social process whereby value-judg-ments are reduced, modified, subjected toa new logic, and given a lease on life ina strange environment where other re-formed convicts dwell .

It is thus maintained, on the basis ofthe analysis, that the systematic presen-tation of general factual statements issignificantly different from the state-ment of value-judgments. And, further-more, it is suggested that the nature ofthese differences arbitrates against thevalue-judgment practice and on behalfof the organization of teaching aroundgeneral factual statements. The follow-ing is a résumé of the reasons for thisbelief

(a) The professor controls students'attention according to professional (i.e.,conventional "scientific") standards and,at the same time, fosters the developmentof such standards .

(b) There is a consensus, profession-ally defined, as to the importance of mat-ters under discussion .

(c) Loose talk, and time-consumingand emotional debate, are avoided .

(d) The analysis of direct and in-direct consequences of events is built intothe pedagogical process, for scientific in-quiry requires a full awareness of conse-quences in discussing events .

(e) The students are given an oppor-tunity to reformulate their position onneutral ground, rather than being re-quired to accept or reject an opposingposition . This procedure allows them toreturn to their previous value-judgmentor to form or accept a new value-judg-ment . (Often, too, professors have beenso proud of the few students they havearoused to activity by their exhortationsof values that they overlook other stu-dents who have been reduced to resent-ful or cloddish apathy.)

It is asserted that this method shouldbe the fundamental one ; it should beamended to a certain extent, however .The teaching of correct political logic

second value-judgment emerges from thefact that what is learned may be usedagainst one as well as for one. One electsto arm his enemies. That is, teachingstudents how to do what they want inpolitics, without previously indoctrinat-ing them about what they ought to do,sets up a risk that they will not do whatone wants. (In fact, however, the class-room at the college level is not a veryeffective propaganda vehicle . If we weremore modest, several generations of ob-serving the dissimilar voting behaviorsof alumni and faculties would convinceus of this point.)

The third value-judgment, or realmof many such judgments, lies in theselection of concepts to teach and oftactics to prescribe. For example, shouldone devote his time in class to teachingstudents the principles of gaining officein the government of the United Statesvia elections, or of influencing politicianswith cash and otherwise, or of subvert-ing the government? Obviously, there isa range of morality, into which differentobjective tactics fit with different utili-ties . To clarify by impractical hypo-thesis, one way around this dilemmawould be individual instruction : each stu-dent would be asked initially to clarifyhis political goals, and instruction wouldbe designed to assist his attainment ofthose goals . At 8 :00 A.M., one wouldteach a student who is to be a business-man how to tell whether or not a "five-per-center," who in effect promises fav-orable government action on a contingentcommission, has influence ; at 9 :00 A.M.,a communist how to demoralize the De-partment of State ; at 10 :00 A .M ., afascist how to demoralize the State de-partment ; and at 11 :00 A.M., a futureforeign service officer how to administerthe State department "well ." In doingso, one would be practicing essentiallythe form of pedagogy used in the naturalsciences, and indeed following a patternthat. is a substantial part of all educa-tion. We would fit a person for his life,not our life. It is partly because of thefrequent joining of "non-controversial"1 Wssbixgtou Post, October 23, 1959, p. 3 3 .

morals with the action approach thatincidents such as the following are notmore common :

The University of Maryland came under fireyesterday for its plans to sponsor a discussionnext week on "legitimate ways to resist a uniondrive" at its 11th annual Office ManagementConference .

J. C. Turner, president of the Greater Wash-ington Central Labor Council, sent telegramsof protest to University officials and Gov. J.Millard Tawes. Complaints were also receivedfrom unidentified Maryland Legislators .

"We protest most vehemently the use offacilities of the University of Maryland for thepurpose of defeating the legitimate objectives offree trade unions in this country," Turner said .'The practice of turning students loose

in all kinds of political organizations sothat they may learn from within is onlyanother way of doing the same thing ;without having said so in so many words,one guides the student to find his ownmilieu in politics. "Are you interestedin cooperatives? Then visit one and fol-low its activities. Let me have a paperon it before the semester ends ."

It appears that certain kinds of value-free teaching of a "know-how" typecan easily get out of hand . One shouldapproach value-free teaching with dif-ferent principles for settling on thematerials to be taught .

The contemplative (rather than ac-tion) mode of teaching, which is in-volved in the idea of teaching generalfactual principles, needs to be looked atmore closely. The statement of factualprinciples is in one sense a sophisticatedavoidance of value-judgments : one istelling people what is, rather than whatought to be. But such is not the truemeaning of a factual statement, for anyfactual statement is a selection, from in-finite phenomena, of one condition orseries of events on one of the followinggrounds :

(a) It relates to one of my valuesand will put me in better control of myvalues. (To illustrate : I may not wishto tell people that I like the probableeffects of nationalizing the decentralizedAmerican national political parties. Thatwould be unjust to my listeners, I feel .

"A political party ought to stand forclear principles," or, "A citizen oughtto be staunchly active in the affairs ofhis government."

(c) Facts of a high (as well as low)order of generality are used to avoidvalue-judgments and at the same timemaximize the utility of the instructionfor later life. Examples would be theuse of such concepts as "oligarchy" inthe study of parties, "apathy vs. involve-ment" in the study of citizen participa-tion of leadership, or "interests" in thestudy of parties. Students are taughtabout values, as well as facts, but arenot indoctrinated with values.

(d) "Process of thinking" is empha-sized so that the student is not told whatto think but rather how to think . He isshown how to work his way through thebroad and deep stream of information onpolitical subjects . He learns techniquesof library reference, of simple contentanalysis, of detecting political fallaciesof a logical character, or of observingthe changing character of institutions andpolitics.

(e) "Process of acting" is emphasized .The student is placed in the politicalprocess to learn by doing . He is encour-aged to join or observe organizationssuch as parties, pressure groups, mocklegislatures, newspapers, and courts, andis not supposed to be told that any onephenomenon is better than any other .

Pedagogy probably has improved tothe point where one need not discuss whythe teaching of facts of a low level ofgeneralization should be held to a mini-mum. It conveys no meaning, is easilyforgotten, and is conducive to moralapathy.

What is to be said of the "non-con-troversial value-judgment" approach?Is it to be used or not? It presents amost difficult problem, for several rea-sons. First, its vapid morality passeseasily by the watchful guardians of aca-demic morals in our day. In addition,students like to hear such moral stric-tures because they do not violate whatthey have heard before, because they

satisfy the appetite for value-judgments,because the professor is supposed to be asuperior moral being, and because theprofessor of political science is presumedto' be an expert on matters of good orbad political morals .

Yet the disadvantages of the methodare great because usually these value-judgements are superficial . If one pursuesthe direct and indirect consequences ofany such statement of preference, hebegins to uncover differences of beliefamong students and instructors. For ex-ample, although the belief that "politicalparties ought to have clear principles" isserenely accepted by most people, it ac-tually covers up explosive issues in ourpolitical life. It is the kind of statementthat excites a faint elation, for who canbe against "clear principles," but it con-ceals warring ways of life in the value-structures of individuals. So with thevalue-judgement that the "governmentought to be well administered ." Bywhom? For whom? One can recollectadministration which is hateful to thedegree that it follows the textual prin-ciples of hierarchy, control, and effective-ness. If I were a politician, I should spenda fair share of my time hampering someadministrative efforts towards machinedperfection. I should also resent the slo-ganized morals of faculties and their stu-dents, since I would regard them asfrustrating a "better choice" of officialconduct. If some political scientistsrealized the extent to which they wereprey to professional slogans and ideolo-gies, they would not so blithely advisestudents as to the best administration,the best citizen, the best foreign policy,or the best political party.

Rejecting the preachment of "non-controversial" morality leaves one withpractices that are assertedly objective, i.e.,the teaching of general factual princi-ples, of correct political thinking, andof techniques of political action . Letit be admitted here and now, however,that these are value-free only in a sense .

The first value-judgment is, of course,to choose these ways of teaching. The