Consultation as a Community-Building Power

Consultation bestows greater awareness and transmutes conjecture into certitude. It is a shining light which, in a dark world, leads the way and guides. For everything there is and will continue to be a station of perfection and maturity. The maturity of the gift of understanding is made manifest through consultation

(Bahá'u'lláh, in Consultation: A Compilation, p. 3

            Human beings are community-building creatures.  The classroom is both a shared physical space and a shared reality between members of a learning community.  Learning should be, in part, student-directed, but all learning should have both an inward-looking direction to find the Self, and an outward looking orientation to engage in acts of service.  Students need to explore themselves and their environment in their reciprocal interactions.  They must know themselves so they can be of proper service to their community.  Consultation is the proper means to accomplish all these ends.

            Consultation has many aspects and levels. It is more than the sharing of opinions in a common search for truth.  It is a means of self-reflection leading to the development of new capacities for individual perception, for good consultation enables people to know in common what they cannot know alone, and is, therefore, a way to accelerate the development of human thought.  Communication is thinking together and thinking in common is the basis of community.  Consultation is thinking in and toward comm-unity.  I mean that it is a process of shared reflection where truth may visit and thus confirm the search for truth of the community of searchers.  But this new confirmed community is built upon an implied community, for consultation does not assume that there are those who know and those who do not.  It assumes that everyone knows something essential to the full unveiling of truth.  Consultation brings these knowledges together in a new configuration that opens onto a new field of consciousness where truth may be perceived. 

            The foundation for these social and intellectual results is attitudes that individuals must bring into the consultative endeavor to create a real context of meaning. Some of these essential attitudes are: respect for others opinions, detachment from one's own opinion, courtesy, humility, honesty and frankness.  Such qualities create a magnet that attracts the needed truth.  Finally, consultation enables people to harmonize conflicting forces in themselves and their environment, and through service to others to build new, more inclusive social relations that reflect a sense of spiritual community.       

            The Universal House of Justice states that we should not underestimate the capabilities of children and especially youth in this regard.  Yet around the world that is precisely what is done.  The age group called youth is seen as lost in the throes of tumultuous physical and emotional change, unresponsive and self-consumed.  Yet within them are latent and powerful forces for altruism and idealism. They possess an acute sense of justice, an eagerness to learn about the universe, and a real desire to contribute to the construction of a better world.  Adolescence is that stage in life when an individual is highly interested in exploring questions of a philosophical character, especially those related to the purpose and nature of human existence. 

            We do not often see these qualities manifest because passivity is bred into active children.  It is this bred passivity that is the source of those unsightly qualities we often associate with adolescence.  So it is often assumed that youth only want to play and goof-off; that they are lazy and will not work unless they are watched diligently.  Further, that they are not capable of making wise choices; they are irresponsible.  Under the pernicious influence of such assumptions, a whole phalanx of external controls is instituted to keep a system of coercion intact, to keep pent-up, undirected energy siphoned off, to keep passivity going.   Independence and self-control are blocked and thwarted.  Initiative is blunted or goes unrewarded.  The end result is that their passivity justifies administrative tyranny in the name of “for their own good” and huge amounts of time are spent discussing student control and discipline.    

            Students must be provided real opportunities to expand their consciousness in an exploration of reality; an exploration that helps them to analyze the constructive and destructive forces at work in their towns, cities, neighborhoods, and schools, and to recognize how those forces work to direct their thoughts along certain pathways already laid out for them.  We must help them to sharpen their spiritual perception, enhance their powers of expression, and reinforce the moral structures that are the foundation of a strong individual and community life. They must be guided by adults who, themselves, are engaged in this great process of community building and the renewal of civilization.  We must so thoroughly establish this education that it takes on the dynamics of an irrepressible movement driven by the new vistas of knowledge that are unveiled.

            A consultative atmosphere is absolutely essential to a process whereby inner values get turned into social virtues, for learning that finds its end in service is civic.  An inner value goes from moral ideal to social virtue only when knowledge of spiritual principles enters into and helps to construct, regulate and transform social relationships.  Education must lead to transformative action through service to the common good. 

           But the importance of service will be seen only if the social purpose of spiritual education is understood and appropriate instructional methodologies that both reflect how human beings learn and that emphasize the ethical content of learning are used. Much of the effectiveness of such instruction depends upon the students will to learn and receive instruction.  If they don't see their purpose as advancing civilization by their personal nobility of character and behavior and by serving others they will not consent to be spiritually educated, nor make the effort to do so. 

            There are intrinsic rewards to this, of course, but consent can be achieved in part by pointing out the individual and social benefits to spiritual behavior and self-sacrifice.  People who advance the interests of other group members often rise higher and faster in social hierarchies.  Power to truly influence goes to those who are socially engaged.  Love, generosity, compassion, gratitude, charity—these are some of the key emotions to spiritual education and community.  What makes us happy is the quality of our human bonds, the health of our families, the time we spend with good friends, the connections we make with community members.

            Within a real classroom and school community each student is involved in the education of all other students.  They are mutually responsible for each other’s success and growth. For many that means entering into, perhaps for the first time, healing relationships.  Healing relationships actually retune the brain waves and help reframe events.  Many children need just one healthy relationship to steer them correctly.  Teachers have the opportunity to be that relationship. Teaching is not about managing people, but managing context to develop character.  Character is far more important than knowledge or skills, though knowledge and skills are tools to help build character. 

            Teachers, too, should join into networks, work together to liberate themselves and their own experience from the fetters of outworn notions of what they believe they are supposed to be doing.  Their intent must be to see clearly, think deeply and act effectively, so they may teach their students to do the same.  In this way, teachers can be powerful facilitators of social transformation, leaders in a process of community growth and change based upon their ability to evoke the humanity of their students, and not just functionaries passing on bits of cultural inheritance.
           The next post will discuss some pedagogical ideas.