Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Evil, Existential Terror, and Classroom Climate

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
An Education in 'Evil'

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Educational Futures ((PSEF))

  • 365 Accesses

Abstract

Ernest Becker noted that, ironically, the worst evils are created in the process of us trying to escape from evil. Humans commit terrible acts that arise from our fight against the evil of death. This chapter discusses how aspects of our curriculum and pedagogy are shaped by attempts to escape anxiety about our own mortality. There is a particular focus on the profession of teaching as an immortality project (potentially helpful and harmful), as well as how we encounter resistance to alternative viewpoints arising from worldview threat.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 64.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Bailey, M. (1946). The teacher’s immortality. Education, 66(8), 115.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baldwin, J. (1962, November 17). Letter from a region in my mind. The New Yorker. Retrieve from http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1962/11/17/letter-from-a-region-in-my-mind.

  • Becker, E. (1973). The denial of death. New York, NY: Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Becker, E. (1975). Escape from evil. New York, NY: Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Biesta, G. (2010). Good education in an age of measurement: Ethics, politics, democracy. Boulder, CO: Paradigm.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blacker, D. J. (1997). Dying to teach: The educator’s search for immortality. New York, NY: Teachers College.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bregman, L. (1985). Academic ‘immortality’ and the eschatological destiny of the dead. Religion and Intellectual Life, 2(3), 28–36.

    Google Scholar 

  • Britzman, D. P. (1986). Cultural myths in the making of a teacher: Biography and social structure in teacher education. Harvard Educational Review, 56, 442–456.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burke, B. L., Martens, A., & Faucher, E. H. (2010). Two decade of terror management theory: A meta-analysis of mortality salience research. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 14, 155–195. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868309352321.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Burke, K. J., & Segall, A. (2015). Teaching as Jesus making: The hidden curriculum of Christ in schooling. Teachers College Record, 117(3), 1–27.

    Google Scholar 

  • Butterfield, E. W. (1921). The teacher’s immortality. The Journal of Education, 94(11), 289–290. https://doi.org/10.1177/002205742109401105.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ciaccio, J. (2000). A teacher’s chance for immortality. Education Digest, 65(6), 44.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clandinin, D. J., & Connelly, F. M. (1996). Teachers’ professional knowledge landscapes: Teacher stories—Stories of teachers—School stories—Stories of schools. Educational Researcher, 25(3), 24–30.

    Google Scholar 

  • Critchley, S. (2009). The book of dead philosophers. New York, NY: Vintage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dahlbeck, J. (2015). Educating for immortality: Spinoza and the pedagogy of gradual existence. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 49(3), 347–365. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9752.12107.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Donald, D. T. (2009). The curricular problem of Indigenousness: Colonial frontier logics, teacher resistances, and the acknowledgement of ethical space. In J. Nahachewsky & I. Johnston (Eds.), Beyond “presentism”: Re-imagining the historical, personal, and social places of curriculum (pp. 23–41). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense.

    Google Scholar 

  • Farber, B. (1991). Crisis in education. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

    Google Scholar 

  • Freire, P. (1989). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York, NY: Continuum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fritsche, J., Jonas, E., Fisher, P., Koranyi, N., Berger, N., & Fleischmann, B. (2007). Mortality salience and the desire for offspring. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 43(5), 753–762. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2006.10.003.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fullan, M. G. (1993). Why teachers must become change agents. Educational Leadership, 50(6), 1–13.

    Google Scholar 

  • Garrett, H. J. (2017). Learning to be in the world with others: Difficult knowledge and social studies education. New York, NY: Peter Lang.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Greenberg, J., Pyszczynski, T., & Solomon, S. (1986). The causes and consequences of a need for self-esteem: A terror management theory. In R. F. Baumeister (Ed.), Public self and private self (pp. 189–212). New York, NY: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Greenberg, J., Pyszczynski, T., Solomon, S., Rosenblatt, A., Veeder, M., Kirkland, S., & Lyon, D. (1990). Evidence for terror management theory II: The effects of mortality salience on reaction to those who threaten or bolster the cultural worldview. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 308–318. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.58.2.308.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Greenberg, J., Schimel, J., Martens, A., Solomon, S., & Pyszczynski, T. (2001). Sympathy for the devil: Evidence that reminding whites of their mortality projects promotes more favorable reactions to white racists. Motivation and Emotion, 25(2), 113–133. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1010613909207.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Greenberg, J., Simon, L., Pyszczynski, T., Solomon, S., & Chatel, D. (1992). Terror management theory and tolerance: Does mortality salience always intensify negative reactions to others who threaten one’s worldview? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 212–220. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.63.2.212.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Greenberg, J., Solomon, S., & Arndt, J. (2007). A uniquely human motivation: Terror management. In J. Shah & W. Gardner (Eds.), Handbook of motivation science (pp. 114–134). New York, NY: Guilford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hayes, J., Schimel, J., & Williams, T. (2008). Fighting death with death: The buffering effects of learning that worldview violators have died. Psychological Science, 19(5), 501–507. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02115.x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hayes, J., Schimel, J., Williams, T., Howard, A. L., Webber, D., & Faucher, E. H. (2015). Worldview accommodation: Selectively modifying committed beliefs provides defense against worldview threat. Self and Identity, 14(5), 521–548. https://doi.org/10.1080/15298868.2015.1036919.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Heflick, N. A., Goldenberg, J. L., Cooper, D. P., & Puvia, E. (2011). From women to objects: Appearance focus, target gender, and perceptions of warmth, morality and competence. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 47(3), 572–581. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2010.12.020.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hirschberger, G., Pyszczynski, T., Ein-Dor, T., Shani Sherman, T., Kadah, E., Kesebir, P., & Park, Y. C. (2016). Fear of death amplifies retributive justice motivations and encourages political violence. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 22, 67–74. https://doi.org/10.1037/pac0000129.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Howard, S., & Johnson, B. (2004). Resilient teachers: Resisting stress and burnout. Social Psychology of Education, 7, 399–420. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-004-0975-0.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Liechty, D. (2015). Biography. Ernest Becker Foundation. Retrieved from http://ernestbecker.org/about-becker/biography/.

  • Madden, B. (2016). (Un)becoming teacher of school-based Aboriginal education: Early career teachers, teacher identify, and Aboriginal education across institutions (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.

    Google Scholar 

  • May, T. (2009). Death. New York, NY: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • McGregor, H., Lieberman, J. D., Solomon, S., Greenberg, J., Arndt, J., Simon, L., & Pyszczynski, T. (1998). Terror management and aggression: Evidence that mortality salience motivates aggression against worldview threatening others. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 590–605. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.74.3.590.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Plutarch. (1927). De auditu (F. C. Babbitt, Trans). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press (Loeb Classical Library). Retrieved from http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Moralia/De_auditu*.html.

  • Pyszczynski, T., Abdollahi, A., Solomon, S., Greenberg, J., Cohen, F., & Weise, D. (2006). Mortality salience, martyrdom, and military might: The great Satan versus the axis of evil. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 32, 525–537. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167205282157.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pyszczynski, T., Greenberg, J., & Solomon, S. (1999). A dualprocess model of defense against conscious and unconscious death-related thoughts: An extension of terror management theory. Psychological Review, 106, 835–845.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pyszczynski, T., Greenberg, J., Solomon, S., & Maxfield, M. (2006). On the unique psychological import of the human awareness of mortality: Theme and variations. Psychological Inquiry, 17, 328–356. https://doi.org/10.1080/10478400701369542.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Roberts, P. (2008). Life, death, and transformation: Education and incompleteness in Herman Hesse’s ‘The Glass Bead Game’. Canadian Journal of Education, 31(3), 667–696.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roberts, T.-A., Goldenberg, J. L., Power, C., & Pyszczynski, T. (2002). “Feminine protection”: The effects of menstruation on attitudes toward women. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 26(2), 131–139. https://doi.org/10.1111/1471-6402.00051.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rosenblatt, A., Greenberg, J., Solomon, S., Pyszczynski, T., & Lyon, D. (1989). Evidence for terror management theory: I. The effects of mortality salience on reactions to those who violate or uphold cultural values. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 681–690. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.57.4.681.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schimel, J., & Greenberg, J. (2013). The birth and death of belonging. In C. N. DeWall (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of social exclusion. New York, NY: Oxford. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195398700.013.0027.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Schimel, J., Hayes, J., & Sharp, M. (2018). A consideration of three critical hypotheses. In C. Routledge & M. Vess (Eds.), The handbook of terror management theory (pp. 1–25). London, UK: Academic Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schimel, J., Hayes, J., Williams, T., & Jahrig, J. (2007). Is death really the worm at the core? Converging evidence that worldview threat increases death-thought accessibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(5), 789–803. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.92.5.789.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Solomon, S., Greenberg, J., & Pyszczynski, T. (2015). The worm at the core: On the role of death in life. New York, NY: Random House.

    Google Scholar 

  • van Kessel, C., & Burke, K. (2018). Teaching as immortality project: Positing weakness in response to terror. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 52(2), 216–229. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9752.12301.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Webber, D., Zhang, R., Schimel, J., & Blatter, J. (2016). Finding death in meaninglessness: Evidence that death-thought accessibility increases in response to meaning threats. British Journal of Social Psychology, 55(1), 144–161. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12118.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada

    Cathryn van Kessel

Authors
  1. Cathryn van Kessel
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Cathryn van Kessel .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

van Kessel, C. (2019). Evil, Existential Terror, and Classroom Climate. In: An Education in 'Evil'. Palgrave Studies in Educational Futures. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16605-2_7

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16605-2_7

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-16604-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-16605-2

  • eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation