The first part of this paper reviews briefly two theories of the self as person. The second contains my own rather extended visual presentation of the constitution of the human person and upon this model, what I see to be the basis of education. On this last point I try not to duplicate what has already been done quite very well by The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy with its publication of Act and Agent: Philosophical Foundations for Moral Education and Character Development.¹

The third section outlines in broad theoretical terms the nature of the person's education in society. This section serves essentially as an introduction to two concrete cases of miseducation broadly described in the remaining two sections of the paper.

Sri Aurobindo in his at once mystical, metaphysical and

Furthermore, the divine element in each individual human is not the Absolute Divine Self (Brahmanatman); rather it is the "individual spirit-self" (jivatman) which is the individual's "true, or central being." The jivatman is self-existent or subsistent. But besides this self-existent being, it has a "second aspect" or "psychic being" (caitya purusha) This is the "self-as-soul," which is "in" and "behind" the individual's mental and vital and material manifestations.² Thus, according to Sri Aurobindo, the individual human person is a composite of "self" which is at once spirit and soul in Aristotle's sense of "form of matter"and vital principle, and of matter itself which is continuously or evolutionarily transformed.

For St. Thomas, the "self" in the strict sense of that which is at the core of the individual human person is the soul that subsists as spirit. Yet that same soul is understood also as the unifying and organizing principle-form which accounts for the body's being existing, living and human. Human materiality, therefore, cannot be identified with the "self as spirit-soul"; but it can be thought of only as a "cofactor," specifically a potentiality for the actualizing spirit-form.

What might be the "self" for Aquinas in the broad sense of that term? I would take it to be the entire human person conscious of itself and its acts. The person-self then is not a spirit in isolation but an "embodied spirit," a complete individual human being whose "spirit-soul" shares at once with its body the very act of existence it receives durationally from a durationless God, inasmuch as there is only one act of existence to each individual human person, despite the temporal unfolding or evolution of multiple operative powers and functions each human individual is truly one being and one "person-self".³

A visual integration (see Figure A) of these two views would represent the integral human person as a circle whose center, area and circumference stand, respectively, for spirit (spiritus, jivatman), soul (ani-

Just as the circumference as a one-dimensional curved line can move in but one direction at a time, so any formation, education or training of the body would have to respect this space-time limitation of the human person.

The circumference/body cannot be spoken of as the whole circle or even pointed to as a human body without the immediate presence of a shape or form which, like the enclosed area of the circle, gives shape to, supports, animates and is "behind" and "in" the body and its manifestations. This enclosed area or "soul-form" has two dimensions: it evolves in terms of "before" and "after". Thus, whatever cognitive, affective or operative mental formation or education could be effected with each individual person would have to take essential account of chronological order and the roles of memory and imagination.

The encircled area or embodied soul may be viewed also from two directions. Outward from the center, the area/soul is "behind" and immediately one with its circumscribing limit, the body. Inward from the circumference, it comes to the center of the person, which point is the spirit, pure and open, "observant of the whole,"⁴ one and somehow all. Without it there would be no starting point of the circle, no foundation of the person. It is the abiding source of an infinite number of possible, continuous irradiations--both outward and inward--which constitute the fulfillment of the human person within human society and beyond.

There is something paradoxical about this central core, or "spirit-self". As the "true central being" of each person it is a solid point of existence; it is unique and irrepeatable inasmuch as it is the center point of this and not that, nor of any other temporally and spatially formed or besouled human body. Yet as zero in dimension the center is open to infinity; in fact, it can be viewed as an open "hole" (as would be made by a schoolboy in circumscribing a circle with his compass). This is the center had by each human "circle".

This core opening or emptiness is freedom itself which among other things enables one to relate to beings of one's kind. Thus a society of free persons could be forming anywhere, at anytime, and be of whatever size. Furthermore, education as the individual personal formation of values within any society would be on-going. In any case, freedom appears to be the deepest value for the individual person, though to absolutize that core value could lead to great social evils.⁵

The spirit-center of each person is both an opening and an infinite source of three distinct types of irradiation. If the spirit-center is like a "spark of the Divine Fire," it lights, heats and burns. That is to say, this spiritual core irradiate the light of intellect, the warmth of will (or love) an the burning action of creative power.

Like three equally long hands of an imaginary clock, the spirit-self's infinite capacities of intellect, will and creativity can move indefinitely in any direction, overlap each other, align with one another, etc.; they are limited only in their outreach and their return to self by the dimensions of space and time. From this metaphysico-psychological perspective a person can thus be defined, not just a being of intelligence and will or a being capable of understanding and loving, but as a being of intellect, will and creative power.

Furthermore, one might argue that if the human person was created in the image of a Trinitarian God, why should it be surprising if humans should exhibit creative powers along with capacities for wisdom and love? That creative power or force may be used either to "subdue" even "rape" the earth or to work with, "serve" and "preserve" it,⁶ since the created/creative power of every free creature can make a value of the "ugly" or the "beautiful".

In any event, in view of the person's value-formation in society and correspondingly, of society's transmission of its values there would seem to be a basis here not merely for an education that is cognitive and affective, intellectual and moral, but also for one that is practical and operative in content or coaching and motivative in method.

As the three irradiations of intellect, will and creative power seek truth, choose good and effect beauty, respectively, they could pair off in three ways: (a) intellect and will, (b) will and creativity, and (c) creativity and intellect.

When one sees clearly or vaguely that one does not and cannot know all truths and/or that something not directly or totally evident might be true but wills nonetheless to accept it as true, then he or she is laying down the axis for the formation of one's sphere of belief. This broad realm of values would concern education and would include not just religion but would also overlap directly the realms of positive knowledge such as science and history, and of morality.

When one wills deeply enough to affirm one's own being and world and uses one's creative powers to respond to each and any of them with delight, then the individual might be said to be setting down the axis on which the esthetic sphere rotates. This second realm of values is broad enough to include art and overlaps directly morality and work. This too is a concern of education.

Furthermore, as the person's three powers of intellect, will and creativity radiate outward and back again to the central "self," various levels and forms of consciousness can be delineated in the "blank area" or "empty slate" which would be the "mind". The intellect with its functions of cognitive insight and understanding, lighting on the data of experience, can line up explicit conceptual and propositional forms of reason. The same light of intellect and range of reason can enlighten one's will to "straighten out" at least the more complex affective feelings and render them well-regulated emotions. An enlightened will and reasonably well-ordered emotions, in turn, can guide the creative use of one's power toward meeting needs and aligning drives.

Such are the psychic formations of conscious rational thoughts, conscious emotive feelings and conscious drives. (In figure A they are represented by the three equal and straight lines that together form a triangle within the big circle.)

At the intersection of intellect and reason, will and emotion, creativity and drive, it is possible to circumscribe, respectively, three other spheres of human values: viz., science, morality and work. "Science" is used here as a general term for the overlapping and concentric circles of knowledge that deal with the physical and human-social world, use mathematics at the core of their respective methods, proceed by way of discovery and reasoned explanation, and accumulate positive knowledge within history. Morality is the sphere that directly involves volitions and emotions with respect to human valuations of right and wrong. Work is that sphere of human activity which arises from the creative spirit, is carried out by expending physical and mental energy, and is performed within the socio-cosmic framework for satisfying essentially the "survival needs".

Together with the other three major realms of value-esthetic, play and belief--science, morality and work thereby become the concern of education as the lifelong value-formation of the person. Society transmits its values precisely in these basic spheres. The six spheres of values overlap and revolve about the center-spirit of the person while being circumscribed within the spatio-temporal limits of the body. (In figure A they are represented by the six overlapping circles inside the bigger one.)

The body or physical structure, in turn, is represented (also in figure A) in three divisions or three circumferential arcs. First, the cognitive/neural senses (i. generic touch, ii. taste, iii. smell, iv. hearing and v. sight) are subtended within the sector of human cognition by the range of reason. Second, the affective/chemical "senses" (vi. anger,

vii. desire aversion, viii. daring-fear, ix. joy-sorrow and x. hope-despair) are subtended within the sector of affectivity by the range of primary emotions of the same names. Third, the "five senses of action" from Hindu psychology,⁷ (xi. evacuation--here changed to generic "survival sense" or need for air, water, food, waste elimination and rest; xii. locomotion, xiii. manipulation, xiv. procreation and xv. communication all using specifically evolved muscles) are subtended by the full range of drive within the sector of overt human action.

All the "fifteen senses", when operative and well-regulated, are crucial windows, conditions sine qua non, means and bases for education to take place. A community that cannot meet even the basic survival needs would not likely advance literacy or any cognitive development; the same applies to moral development and creativity.

Finally, at the junction of deep emotion and drive, opened up by the combined thrust of creativity and will in direct alignment with intelligence, an "angle" is formed that would represent the opening of art (angle "A" in figure A). At the heart of this way of life of a van Gogh is the channel of artistic intuition as a first major expression of the freedom of the spirit.

At the junction of drive and reason, opened up by the combined thrust of intellect and creativity in direct alignment with the moral will, there forms an "angle" that could represent the opening of philosophy (angle "B"). At the heart of this way of life of a Spinoza is the channel of metaphysical intuition as a second major expression of the freedom of the spirit.

At the junction of reason (at its limit) and the high emotion of hope, opened up by the combined thrust of intellect and will in direct alignment with creativity, a third "angle" is formed that could represent the opening of religion (angle "C"). At the heart of this way of life of a Mother Teresa is the channel of religious intuition as a third major expression of the freedom of the spirit.

Art, philosophy and religion as the three angles in the triangle are of no less concern to education, for they are the cornerstones of personal and society's culture and of civilization. The civilization that would survive and replace, dominate or define others is the one that has all of these three approaches to wisdom in their most explicit, distinct and sophisticated forms.

The model of the human person that has been presented so far is not intended to convey a static view and departmentalization of human powers and functions. The model if seen in motion could as well represent the person as a "dynamic constellation of acts,"⁸ aiming at values of truth, goodness and beauty, just as the physicist's light can be viewed under two reconcilable aspects.

With this model the process of education or personal value-formation can be looked upon as consisting ideally in a balanced employment of one's intelligence, will and creativity. As an individual reaches outward intelligently, willfully and creatively to society and the world at large and then returns inward, values are formed. One is educable insofar as one can become a person of esthetic taste, at creative play and with intelligent belief; and insofar as one can develop a "scientific" head, a moral heart and productive hands. To be fully educated is ideally always to be "loving" wisdom in an artistic, philosophic and religious mode. If art, philosophy and religion are the great cornerstones of civilization, then the educated person is at least open to all of these. Correspondingly, inasmuch as education is society's transmission of its values, it is encumbent upon society to promote not only the intellectual but also the moral and the creative development of its members.

Furthermore, the task of educating on the part of the authority needs to be a work of love itself. Should any of the key ingredients of love, viz., confidence, care and communication with others, the world and oneself be missing or out of balance with the other ingredients, miseducation would result.

Can an individual be educated without society? If mankind started out and remained with only one individual human, or if after a nuclear holocaust only one were left alive, conceivably that one individual's process of forming, reforming and transforming values by and for oneself still could take place. Theoretically, an individual would be a person exercising intelligence, will and creative power without a community. As a free spirit or opening to infinity at one's core, even in the total absence of a human society the hypothetical single human could still seek communion with the cosmos at large or with an immanent-transcendent Divine, or keep company at least with one's own thoughts.

In reality, however, given human multiplicity, persons form society even while society forms persons. An ideal society might be defined as "a communion of persons seeking to fulfill their need to receive and to give". (A descriptive analysis, not provided here, of the person's "fifteen senses," and the potentially infinite outreach and intake of one's intellect, will and creative power along with Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs could clarify the nature not only of one's need to receive from society and nature, but no less of one's need to give to others and the world.) Thus, social responsibility and individual autonomy are not contradictory.⁹ In fact, the more truly a person becomes an individual, the higher the level attained by society.¹⁰

The process through which society and person shape each other is education. In practice this can only take place within society, whether the private society of husband and wife, the semi-private society of a couple with one child, or the ever broader and broader public society from a clan to a conceivable "family of mankind".¹¹ In each case education, as a lifelong process of personal value-formation and as society's transmission of its values is a complex activity involving interaction with others in a systematic way.

Where a given society is more bent on miseducation, malformation and deformation of the individual, individuals can use their intellect, will and creative energy to re-form or trans-form at least their own attitudes or, to bide their time where circumstances are all too constricting until changes occur or exposure to other societies materializes. No society can be totally a hindrance to the formation of a person for one can still look upon even hindrance as a challenge to one's enlightened and creative will.

Unlike China and Japan, the Philippines was never a unified nation prior to the 16th-century European colonization. From this point on the diverse inhabitants of the seven-thousand plus islands which the Spaniards named Las Filipinas learned too well the role of subservient persona. After three and one-third centuries of Spanish rule, feudalism and factionalism were deeply ingrained, although imported Christianity is even now acknowledged as a positive value in this sole Christian country in Asia. The succeeding American tutelage (1900-1946) brought universal education and a democratic form of government, but the colonial mentality, continued factionalism and the absence of a single native language for education, government and commerce all militated against an effective and positive value-formation of the masses. The Japanese occupation of the Islands during the Second World War destroyed, among others, whatever tradition there was of altruistic leaderships in most segments of society. What followed the independence of 1946 was a line of presidents all too beholden to Washington and progressively more rapacious of the country's already abused resources. Inevitably, someone like Marcos would come to promote from the top a near total deformation of Filipino values.

Many Philippine values have turned out to be actually ambivalent. One such value, utang na loob ("debt of gratitude")¹³ has led both to lifelong fidelity to others and to nepotism of even the insidious type as Marcos' cronyism. It has taken the form too of customary appointments of well-connected but unqualified public teachers.

Another Philippine value is bahala na or Bahala na ang Maykapal ("It's up to divine providence.")¹⁴ Often it has devolved from genuine trust in God to careless and irresponsible risk taking, a false sense of resignation and fatalism. This has been the root of national apathy and collective paralysis of action; particularly during the Marcos dictatorship it took the form of national frustration, helplessness and despair. But the same trust in divine providence also steeled the hearts of hundreds of thousands who stopped soldiers and tanks in their tracks with rosaries and flowers during the four days of the February, 1986 "non-violent revolution," and toppled the Philippine equivalent of European autocrats of bygone days.

Today during the period of Philippine reconstruction, calls are being made for a "value-framework" in the re-education of the people. A Jesuit educator proposes an additional compulsory seventh and eighth grade "education that would develop the human person as a self (physical, intellectual, moral, esthetic and religious)...to prepare the Filipino as a person in community."¹⁴ Such values as katotohanan, kalayaan and katarungan ("Truth, Freedom and Justice") which were nonexistent during the Marcos regime are the essential value-goals of the human person's intellect, will and creativity within the realms of science, morality, work, and esthetic, play and faith spheres. There are two very distinct words for "we" in the present Philippine national language (1) kami ("we," not including "you" and "yours"); and (2) tayo ("we" including "you" and "yours"). As kami has been overplayed, a national Philippine program of value-formation or re-education does well to start, as in the new Constitution, with this significant linguistic. There is finally a realization that Filipinos, in or out of formal schooling, need to discover the values of tayo as a "we" that is an ever enlarging, not terminally factional, "family."

The sixth or seventh largest city in the nation, situated on a low plain several hundreds of miles from the nearest sea or mountain, Dallas is not quite blessed with a geography or climate that invites its inhabitants occasionally to raise their sights higher than the dull, hot, humid plain, or in moments of distress to be lulled by a cool breeze and the undulating rhythm of an ocean. There is essentially only one game played in town; it is business. The protestant work ethic seems to be the only ethic. Even the fundamentalist religion of this "buckle of the Bible Belt" has arguably turned into mere "negotiation with the Lord."

The city population that doubled to one million in some twenty years and the total three million plus that filled the metropolitan area within the same period were mostly newcomers attracted by plentiful employment, and trained, if at all, to do a specialized job. Palpably missing, even now, is a general humanistic education and its ideally developed universal learning skills.

The newly arrived and the newly born have been met with no comprehensive city planning in education at least for the first twelve grades or in creative play. Most had no family tradition of higher education. To plan and provide for their eighteen year-old in college has simply not been a high-priority, if a value at all, among most middle and lower class white citizens of the Dallas County--certainly among the poorer African- and Mexican-Americans who were literally left with the entire jobless southern half of the city. The city is most like a third-world country, for real wealth and power are still in the hands of less than five percent of the people there.

Lately, after the oil bust, Dallas is second only to Washington, D.C. in the rate of murders related to drugs. For several years it has been ahead of all major cities in minority slaying by the police force. The usual academic and disciplinary city school problems are not quite as obvious as those in New York city, when students enter the system of the Dallas County Community College District previous miseducation and mal formation become evident.

The Dallas Community College system of seven strategically located colleges (total enrollment: 55,000 credit students; 50,000 non-credit; open-door admission policy) is almost literally the only mass educator in the county. A few other higher institutions in the area are all generally too small, specialized, elitist or even factionalist to touch the entire local population. In almost every one of the seven Dallas county community colleges one could observe in the concrete the effects of the failure of the U.S. universal twelve-year schooling that Mortimer Adler and his Paideia Group has bemoaned more systematically and publicly since their Paideia Proposal of 1982.

In an "Introduction to Philosophy" class, for example, as much as ninety-five percent of the enrollees clearly have not attained what Adler outlines as the three goals of basic schooling.¹⁵ Specifically, (a) previous acquisition of the basic information for a citizen, (b) some developed intellectual or learning skills, and (c) some enlargement of the understanding with regard to ideas and values at least of democracy cannot be presupposed. One out of four in the class might be there simply to fill a gap in their schedule. Upon notice of a first exam, or a required paper or reading, twenty-five percent of the class might disappear. A second quarter of the class might think they did not need philosophy, especially if evolution would be discussed, for they already have their answers from their religion. They might thus complain to the wrong people for the wrong reason, and quietly drop out of the course. The third quarter, or as many as half, show genuine interest; but their two jobs, their spouse on the run, a sick child, a job schedule, a change location, a newly-purchased $10,000 car which keeps them from purchasing the $20 textbook, or a simply inability to acquire the skills needed to do college work would keep many from completing the course. The one out of four that is "most proximately" educable might still need much assistance to develop intellectual skills (hence the coaching-motivating method of teaching), to acquiring the basic information (hence, the continuing didactic method of instruction), and to deepen their understanding of ideas and values (hence, the maieutic or Socratic method of questioning and discussion).

But it is from this last group that new leaders of the Texas middle class and minorities can emerge. Many have confidently moved on to out-of-town, even out-of-state, universities, have continued to learn from larger and larger society, have reached such professions as law and medicine, or are even now are still striving to become good educators back in town.

Akin to the pursuit of religious values which took Western missionaries in colonization times and lately, to third world countries, education can find in much of Dallas County a veritable mission territory. It is a challenge and a privilege to help provide educational opportunities to those almost as equally deprived as many in third world countries. In such places as Dallas are to be found many of the "paradoxical poor" amidst the show or simply under the shadow, of wealth and the havoc wrought by it on the human--not to mention the natural-resources. Despite the travails of helping bring forth freedom, it is rewarding to be able to assist fellow members of society (and oneself) to the new, or renewed, light of an open religious study, philosophy and of art. The values science, morality and work (and the limits especially of the latter) are further values that can be transmitted, reformed as need be and transformed from generation to generation. It is good to hear or at least hope, that young and old can now temper their personal freedom or rugged individualism, with social responsibility.

A state-mandated program, TASP (Texas Academic Skills) is now being implemented. It is designed to ensure that all students attending public institutions of higher education in Texas have the reading, mathematics and writing skills necessary to perform effectively in college-level coursework. Much debated in previous years, this program has put the necessary pressure on education at lower levels to produce better prepared high school graduates and may now temporarily delay the academically unprepared in enrolling in college until they pass the required tests. All this appears to be a good beginning.

The essence of education is the same, whether in the first, second or third worlds. It is the "bringing forth" through, with and in freedom of the person's deepest potentials for truth, good and beauty. It is the process whereby the person and any society, from the smallest to the largest, the most oppressive or the most uplifting, can shape each other. When a perpetual seeker and traveler finally realizes that, given present human nature and the necessary imperfection of anything less than a perfect Creator, there cannot be a best possible world, and that the way of life that makes sense--or the way of wisdom--is not just theory and talk, but through action,¹⁶ then one can initially "lower expectations"¹⁷ and help form a "smaller" and more fulfilling society. Theoretically, if absolutely necessary, one could keep one's own company without thereby ceasing to pursue one's own value-formation or education through interaction with the larger cosmos and a possible Divine Other.

Just because the person's basic concrete interaction with society is work, it does not mean that as a free creative spirit one cannot jump to the sphere of play or any of the six overlapping, moving spheres or realms of value, and in so doing make like one "confluence of action" in a dance (Sanskrit, lila). One may glide infinitely around and about the center point of one's concentricity with the cosmos at large and the Divine All. Or at least with respect to ecology one could learn for oneself the value of the "democracy of all . . . creatures,"²⁰ instead of tyranny over all.

On the other hand, the present community of societies could conceivably evolve into a real "family of mankind" at peace, wherein as in an ideal family, every newborn consciousness could more fully become a free person through education or growth in confidence, care and communication, i.e., through love wed to wisdom and action.

2. The Teaching of Sri Aurobindo (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1966), pp. 25-26. See also Sri Aurobindo, The Life Divine (Pondicherry: Sri Aurobindo Ashram, 1982),pp.218-239.

10. George McLean, "Notions of Person and Self-Realization," Seminar: Person and Society.

14. Ibid., p. 110.

15. Ibid., p. 110.

17. Voltaire, Candide, p. 144.

20. Hoge, "Judeo-Christian Values."