Teacher as the Icarus Archetype: Like
Icarus, a teacher's "wax wings will melt in the unforgiving daily sun of classroom reality" if they lack the humility to recognize themselves as "co-learners" involved in the process of learning with their students. Teachers who function as "co-learners" and authoritative facilitators create the best classroom environments :
Potential: when archetype is balanced it can foster 'cognitive intelligence' and 'higher order thinking' :
Problem: over emphasis on this archetype constricts other domains i.e. poetics and spiritual insights
2. Civic Spirituality – Teacher as national prophet :
Potential: calls students to their "noblest traditions and aspirations" in terms of social justice and communal equity. :
Problem: the teacher as a shadow prophet can call students toward a "bias against merit, wealth, individual achievement" – understanding these to be racist vices.
3. Ontological Spirituality – Teacher as Zen master, counsellor, mother :
Potential: Zen teaching becomes a mysterious and paradoxical form of "non-teaching" and counsellor/mother teaching is grounded in receptiveness, relatedness and responsiveness (focused on the needs of the Other). :
Problem: The ontological exemplar can deteriorate into elitism, anti-intellectualism and self-absorption for both teacher and student.
4. Incarnational Spirituality – Teacher as priest :
Potential: Teacher becomes "minister of light and love", and teaching is seen as a sacred act that incarnates religious doctrine into a teaching practice in order to create a positive learning environment for all students (regardless of faith commitment). :
Problem: Teachers may consciously or unconsciously project their faith commitments onto their students in the context of increasingly multicultural classrooms.
Individuation and self-realization Individuation is a process of psychological differentiation, having for its goal the development of the individual personality. "In general, it is the process by which individual beings are formed and differentiated; in particular, it is the development of the psychological individual as a being distinct from the general, collective psychology" (C.G. Jung. Psychological Types. Collected Works Vol. 6., par. 757). An innate need for
self-realization leads people to explore and integrate these rejected materials. This natural process is called
individuation, or the process of becoming an individual. According to Jung, self-realization can be divided into two distinct tiers. In the first half of their lives, humans separate from humanity. They attempt to create their own identities (I, myself). This is why there is such a need for young men to be destructive, and can be expressed as animosity from teens directed at their parents. Jung also said they have a sort of "second puberty" that occurs between 35 and 40 – outlook shifts from emphasis on materialism, sexuality, and having children to concerns about community and spirituality. In the second half of their lives, humans reunite with the human race. They become part of the collective once again. This is when adults start to contribute to humanity (volunteer time, build, garden, create art, etc.) rather than destroy. They are also more likely to pay attention to their unconscious and conscious feelings. Young men rarely say "I feel angry." or "I feel sad." This is because they have not yet rejoined the human collective experience, commonly reestablished in their older, wiser years, according to Jung. A common theme is for young rebels to "search" for their true selves and realize that a contribution to humanity is essentially a necessity for a whole
self. Jung proposes that the ultimate goal of the collective unconscious and self-realization is to pull humans to the highest experience. This, of course, is spiritual. ==See also==