‘The Other Half’ of Education: Unconscious education of children

Abstract

Ideas about child education are inevitably underpinned by particular views of children, including their nature and development. The purpose of this paper is to discuss C. G. Jung's account of child education in relation to his psychological theory and view of children. However, as Jung's theory predominantly concerns the psychological development of adults and not children, the current paper makes selective use of Jung's texts that focus on children, and examines what Jung calls ‘the other half’ of education that works through the teacher's personality indirectly affecting the student's development of personality. From a close study of Jung's texts, the paper discusses the nature and the extent of children's involvement in ‘the other half’ of education and considers some problems with Jung's account of unconscious education. The paper identifies the active and autonomous roles played by children in unconscious education and suggests that Jung's account of ‘the other half of education’ could provide fresh insights about the meaning and quality of education.

Keywords:

• C. G. Jung
• psychology
• unconscious
• education
• children
• development
• teacher‐student relationship