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simply by “observing that others are like himself in that their
cares and quandaries are like his own” but also by
“experienc[ing] himself as seen by others in the same way.”
Put simply, students whom we, as teachers, would see attain
relativism and commitment both “[need] not only models to
emulate but the experience of community with them,” in this way,
the “personal” becoming “social” and the “social” becoming
“personal,” both dialectically furthering and deepening the
other in the process. With Perry’s developmental “scheme” then,
what you have is that dialectic manifesting at different times
and at different places in students’ experience of the
educational process. Most profoundly, there exists the
dialectic between uncertainties and certainties among “knowledge
and values” and “values and points of view” through exposure to
“diversity” and relativity” and between the uncertainty of
relativistic thought and the certainty of commitment. And all
the while, these churn and surge back and forth across an
“intellectual and ethical” field that is defined by yet another
dialectic, this between the “personal,” the “internal,” and the
“social,” the “community.” All of them influence and are
influenced by the others in a dynamic that is “ongoing,
unfolding.” In this way, the “intellectual and ethical
development” that Perry observed through his study and described
in his subsequent report is, ideally, not something that ends
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