Carl Rogers: Educational History

picture; www.infed.org/thinkers/et-rogers.htm

Rogers’s upbringing greatly influenced the way he approached life and learning. Unlike his European psychiatric predecessors, he was a homegrown American, born in 1902 in Oak Park Illinois to a  religious, hard working and suspicious of outsiders minister’s family. When he was twelve, the family moved to a farm outside of Chicago, mainly to escape the “temptations” of the city. There, Rogers grew enamored with scientific theory via his study of agriculture and animal husbandry. He started college 1917, as an agriculture major but shifted to history with intent of becoming a mister. In 1922, he attended the International World Student Christian Federation Conference in China. Contextually, WW1 had just concluded and the Boxer Rebellion in 1901. Being in China, at that time, was an eye opener. He was exposed to the concept that people could hold very different religious beliefs and still be good people. This was at odds with his religious upbringing enough for him to break free of the sway of his family.

Upon his return to the United States and through the ensuing riff with his parents, he in love with and married childhood friend, and enrolled in the Union Theological Seminary, the most liberal seminary of the time. There, freedom of inquiry and following a truth to an end was a key component of the religious training. However, being “required to work in a field where I would be required to believe in some specific religious doctrine. It seemed to me to be a horrible thing to have to profess a set of beliefs, in order to remain in one’s profession. I wanted to be sure my freedom of thought would not be limited.” (Rogers, 1951) became the truth that he found. Quitting his venture into the ministry, he became a psychologist and enrolled in Colombia University. This lead to a position as a psychologist in the Child Study Department of the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children in 1930. During his years there, he and his wife had two children. The job and the birth of his children were profoundly influential. Rogers developed client-centered psychotherapy and was the front runner in using scientific methods to study results of therapy while at the Child Study Department.  In 1942, he was the first to use recorded therapy sessions and published his findings in several books of which On Becoming a Person was one. It also made him one of the signature psychotherapists of the 1950s and 1960 leading to a humanistic movement dubbed  Rogerian psychotherapy or person-centered therapy, Rogers worked in a variety of capacities in the following years: as a lecturer at the University of Rochester (1935-40);  at Ohio State University (1940-44); in the University of Chicago (1945-57); at the University of Wisconsin at Madison (1957-1963); and finished up his professional career at the Center for Studies of the Person in La Jolla, California, where he became deeply involved in the encounter group movement. When he was in his seventies, he organized the Vienna Peace Project and helped form conflict resolution and citizen diplomacy sessions in Northern Ireland, South Africa, and Russia. Carl Rogers died February 4, 1987 after suffering a heart attack during hip surgery.

His stance on education goes hand in glove with his stance on psychotherapy. Person-centered therapy has its locus on the concept that any client, no matter what the problem, can improve without being taught anything specific by the therapist, once he/she accepts and respects themselves (Shaffer, 1978). The resources needed all lie within the client himself. Therapy is the way for a person identify his or her own needs and remove obstacles which hinder independence and self-direction. A therapist facilitates this by making sure that he himself is genuine and attuned when he is with the client (congruence) and is understanding of the person’s feelings and experiences (empathy) as he mirrors what he is hearing from the person back to him. This environment of unconditional positive regard is formed within the context of a relationship. A therapist feels the client to be a person of self-worth; of value no matter what his condition, his behavior or his feelings. He respects him for what he is, and accepts him as he is, with his potentialities (Rogers, 1965) The client understands and feels this from the therapist. This in turn, allows the person, to identify the problems he wants to work on, explore the factors and feelings he currently holds true about himself as he progresses from being ridged, and locked, in his self-perceptions to fluid and honed. The therapist’s job is to try to understand the client’s world as the client sees it but not to judge or evaluate. Nor does he try to figure out the unconscious underpinnings. The focus is on the here and now and the clients working out his or her world.

Rogers’s views about education deeply reflected these psychological tenets. His views were provocative and a marked departure from the educational norm── then and now. He first presented them in a 1952 Harvard symposium about student-centered teaching. “Not only is teacher-centered education authoritarian, it is based upon a false conception of education, the notion that education is a process of transmission. But this conception is wrong, Rogers insists, for "we cannot teach another person directly; we can only facilitate his learning." Like the therapist, the teacher is to become a facilitator.” (Perkinson, 2005)

His definition of significant learning was “learning that was more than an accumulation of facts. It is learning which makes a difference ─in the individual’s behavior, in the course of action that he chooses in the future, in his attitudes and in his personality. It is pervasive learning which not just an accretion of knowledge, but which interpenetrates every portion of his existence.” (Rogers, 1958) Learning occurs when there is a perceived problem, identified by the student himself, to be solved. If a group of students feel the same need, then that is when people gather together in fluid groups to work on the problem. The job of the teachers is to create a classroom that facilitates a climate where learning can take place. The teacher does this in several ways. The teacher needs to be real. He does should not feel the need to expect the students to feel the same way nor does he impose his thoughts on them. He must provide unconditional regard for the students and accept them as they are as they tackle the issues at hand. The teacher also is to serve as a resource for the students not only in the traditional ways, such as making sure they have the physical materials needed, but also to his knowledge and experiences. However, how to make use of the resources of the teacher are up to the students and only offered as options by the teacher. The students have the right to take what they want and in the format they choose. The curriculum, course, and progress are all up to the students to determine. Self-actualization in the students as they work through the shifting problems of important to them was a linchpin of Roger’s educational rational. Outside external criteria like examinations, testing and grading are eliminated as they only measure superficial learning and are irrelevant. School as it was and is now, for the most part, structured need not and should not exist. “ The classroom climate that the teacher creates facilitates learning of a different quality, proceeding at a different pace, with a greater degree of permanence. Feelings--positive, negative, confused--become a part of the classroom experience. Learning, Rogers concludes, becomes life, "and a very vital life at that." In this kind of classroom, the student is set on his way, sometimes excitedly, sometimes reluctantly, to becoming a learning, changing being. The students themselves become more real, more accepting, and more understanding.” (Perkinson, 2005)

The synchronicity between a description of a four week workshop at Brandeis University Rogers lead, using his student centered and non-directive teaching methods of education, and what we are undergoing here at Pepperdine is stunning. Documented by Samuel Tenenbaum in 1958, Rogers arrived in a room with twenty-five students. After sitting down at the central table, he said that it would be nice if they introduced themselves and said why they were in the course. After that, he said that he had brought materials and films and passed out a bibliography of recommended readings. The only request he had made was to ask if the material could be placed in a special spot by someone. Other than that, that was the only direction given. The next couple of days were a play in frustration. People spoke, sometimes carrying on a thread, some times speaking over one another. Subjects were carried and dropped. To each, Rogers listened with attention and non-judgment. The class grew frustrated, waiting for direction from Rogers. Rogers just listened to their frustration but did not get drawn into the dialogue. Outside of class, emotions were high. One student demanded that Rogers lecture on an unpublished paper. Seeing that it was the will and need of the group to use him like this as a resource, he did so. However, it fell flat as the students found that their own interactions were more vivid and exciting than the traditional lecture they had received. By the fifth session, a shift had happened. There was cohesion to the group, the teacher was just one of many- it was the group that was important and the center. If they wanted a certain action or dialogue it was they who had to come up with it along with the responsibility and ownership of what happened. People mellowed and modified toward a more positive and accepting stance towards learning for themselves and others. People worked hard, talked hard and were engaged beyond anything they had done before. Not all people appreciated this approach- a few finish angry with the outcome. However, the learning that had taken place had become pervasive in each individual and had made a significant difference in their behavior, thought patterns and how they viewed the world. Thus, according to Roger’s definition, significant learning had taken place.

• On Becoming A Person: A Therapists View of Psychotherapy. Rogers, Carl. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1961. 

• Cowart, Kingston. J. Self-Change. Helping You Move From Potential to Realization. The Library for the Center of Change, 2005. www.self- change.com/orion/biblio.htm#rogerspsy

• Demorest, Amy. Psychology's Grand Theorists:  How Personal Experiences Shaped Professional Ideas. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2005. Questia. 16 Oct. 2005

• Neumann, Richard A. "A Report from the 23rd International Conference on Alternative Education." Phi Delta Kappan 75.7 (1994): 547+. Questia. 16 Oct. 2005

• Perkinson, Henry J. Learning from Our Mistakes: A Reinterpretation of Twentieth-Century Educational Theory. Westport, CT:  Greenwood Press, 1984. Questia. 16 Oct. 2005