Jung's View of the Symbol and the Sign in Education

Abstract

With the increasing focus in U.S. education on standardized instruction and strictly quantifiable assessments that offer seductive rewards for students who do well on them and shames those who cannot or will not do so, students are becoming more and more estranged from what Jung called “the symbolic life.” The current politically uncritical and psychospiritually empty approach to education is what Mayes has elsewhere called “training in the service of the sign,” for, as Jung pointed out, a “sign” by definition signifies only one thing and allows no room for subjectivity, interpretation, and inner exploration. On the other hand, Mayes's “education in the spirit of the symbol” honors and nurtures the intangible, unquantifiable, and delicate transformations of consciousness and emotion that transformative education promotes. Jung privileged the symbol over the sign because of the symbol's dynamic and multifaceted nature. Education in the spirit of the symbol revolves around personal meaning, cultural relevance, social critique, and ethical renewal. Where training takes precedence over education in defining a culture's educational aims, schooling begins to serve anti-educational purposes. It stops the student dead in his or her existential tracks—to ultimately sacrifice him or her on a high-tech altar of various corporate agendas. To encourage students to think creatively is to teach them to think symbolically, regardless of the discipline. Being primarily concerned with the critical, psychospiritual, and ethical transformation of students, the authors argue for invoking Jung's distinction between the sign and the symbol in educational theory and practice.