Positive Psychology: Sister Corita Kent – Ten Rules for Students and Teachers

Monday, May 16, 2022

Sister Corita Kent – Ten Rules for Students and Teachers

Sister Corita Kent – Ten Rules for Students and Teacher

Sister Mary Corita Kent was an American Catholic religious sister, artist and educator.

Purpose

Corita Kent created the manifesto as part of a class project. It later became the official rules of the art department at LA’s Immaculate Heart Convent and was popularized later by Cage.

Manifesto

RULE ONE: Find a place you trust, and then try trusting it for awhile.

RULE TWO: General duties of a student — pull everything out of your teacher; pull everything out of your fellow students.

RULE THREE: General duties of a teacher — pull everything out of your students.

RULE FOUR: Consider everything an experiment.

RULE FIVE: Be self-disciplined — this means finding someone wise or smart and choosing to follow them. To be disciplined is to follow in a good way. To be self-disciplined is to follow in a better way.

RULE SIX: Nothing is a mistake. There’s no win and no fail, there’s only make.

RULE SEVEN: The only rule is work. If you work it will lead to something. It’s the people who do all of the work all of the time who eventually catch on to things.

RULE EIGHT: Don’t try to create and analyze at the same time. They’re different processes.

RULE NINE: Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It’s lighter than you think.

RULE TEN: “We’re breaking all the rules. Even our own rules. And how do we do that? By leaving plenty of room for X quantities.” (John Cage)

HINTS: Always be around. Come or go to everything. Always go to classes. Read anything you can get your hands on. Look at movies carefully, often. Save everything — it might come in handy later.
Source

Nick Lovegrove on Pinterest

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corita_Kent

Comments

This points to how things evolve as they are created and shared. From the humble beginnings as a class project, it was adopted by the school itself and then shared more widely when a renowned figure like John Cage becomes involved.

This manifesto also shows the variation possible in a set of rules. They are mostly not specific rules like ‘no running’ that is common at a public swimming pool.

Instead, it has a set of more general guidelines such as (my favourite) “consider everything an experiment”.

This reflects the different tight (no running) or loose (experiments) rules that you can have in your manifesto.

I like to think of this as flavours – you can have a spicy or sweet meal and a tight or loose set of rules.

Positive Psychology given credence by Academia:

Positive psychology is the scientific study of the strengths and virtues that enable individuals and communities to thrive.

Commentators on the subject Martin Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, note that:

"The field of positive psychology at the subjective level is about valued subjective experiences: well-being, contentment, and satisfaction (in the past); hope and optimism (for the future); and flow and happiness (in the present).

At the individual level, it is about positive individual traits: the capacity for love and vocation, courage, interpersonal skill, aesthetic sensibility, perseverance, forgiveness, originality, future mindedness, spirituality, high talent, and wisdom.

At the group level, it is about the civic virtues and the institutions that move individuals toward better citizenship: responsibility, nurturance, altruism, civility, moderation,tolerance, and work ethic."