Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education
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Title: Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education
Author: Ontario. Department of Education
Release date: May 25, 2006 [eBook #18451]
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ONTARIO NORMAL SCHOOL MANUALS: SCIENCE OF EDUCATION ***
Produced by Suzanne Lybarger and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)
ONTARIO NORMAL SCHOOL MANUALS
SCIENCE OF EDUCATION
AUTHORIZED BY THE MINISTER OF EDUCATION
TORONTO THE RYERSON PRESS
COPYRIGHT, CANADA, 1915, BY THE MINISTER OF EDUCATION FOR ONTARIO
Second Printing, 1919.
Third Printing, 1923.
CONTENTS
PART I
THE PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION
CHAPTER I PAGE
NATURE AND PURPOSE OF EDUCATION 1
Conditions of Growth and Development 2
Worth in Human Life 4
Factors in Social Efficiency 6
CHAPTER II
FORMS OF REACTION 9
Instinctive Reaction 9
Habitual Reaction 10
Conscious Reaction 11
Factors in process 12
Experience 13
Relative value of experiences 15
Influence of Conscious Reaction 17
CHAPTER III
PROCESS OF EDUCATION 19
Conscious Adjustment 19
Education as Adjustment 19
Education as Control of Adjustment 22
Requirements of the Instructor 24
CHAPTER IV
THE SCHOOL CURRICULUM 25
Purposes of Curriculum 25
Dangers in Use of Curriculum 28
CHAPTER V
EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS 34
The School 34
Other Educative Agents 35
The church 35
The home 36
The vocation 36
Other institutions 36
CHAPTER VI
THE PURPOSE OF THE SCHOOL 38
Civic Views 38
Individualistic Views 40
The Eclectic View 43
CHAPTER VII
DIVISIONS OF EDUCATIONAL STUDY 46
Control of Experience 46
The Instructor's Problems 48
General method 49
Special methods 49
School management 50
History of education 50
PART II
METHODOLOGY
CHAPTER VIII
GENERAL METHOD 52
Subdivisions of Method 52
Method and Mind 53
CHAPTER IX
THE LESSON PROBLEM 55
Nature of Problem 55
Need of Problem 57
Pupil's Motive 59
Awakening Interest 61
Knowledge of Problem 67
How to Set Problem 69
Examples of Motivation 71
CHAPTER X
LEARNING AS A SELECTING ACTIVITY 75
The Selecting Process 77
Law of Preparation 82
Value of preparation 83
Precautions 84
Necessity of preparation 85
Examples of preparation 86
CHAPTER XI
LEARNING AS A RELATING ACTIVITY 89
Nature of Synthesis 90
Interaction of Processes 91
Knowledge unified 94
CHAPTER XII
APPLICATION OF KNOWLEDGE 95
Types of Action 96
Nature of Expression 97
Types of Expression 99
Value of Expression 100
Dangers of Omitting 102
Expression and Impression 103
CHAPTER XIII
FORMS OF LESSON PRESENTATION 106
The Lecture Method 106
The Text-book Method 109
Uses of text-book 111
Abuse of text-book 113
The Developing Method 113
The Objective Method 116
The Illustrative Method 118
Precautions 119
Modes of Presentation Compared 121
CHAPTER XIV
CLASSIFICATION OF KNOWLEDGE 122
Acquisition of Particular Knowledge 122
Through senses 122
Through imagination 122
By deduction 123
Acquisition of General Knowledge 124
By conception 124
By induction 125
Applied knowledge general 126
Processes of Acquiring Knowledge Similar 127
CHAPTER XV
MODES OF LEARNING 129
Development of Particular Knowledge 129
Learning through senses 129
Learning through imagination 131
Learning by deduction 133
Examples for study 137
Development of General Knowledge 139
The conceptual lesson 139
The inductive lesson 140
The formal steps 141
Conception as learning process 143
Induction as learning process 144
Further examples 145
The inductive-deductive lesson 148
CHAPTER XVI
THE LESSON UNIT 150
Whole to Parts 151
Parts to Whole 154
Precautions 155
CHAPTER XVII
LESSON TYPES 156
The Study Lesson 157
The Recitation Lesson 160
Conducting recitation lesson 161
The Drill Lesson 162
The Review Lesson 165
The topical review 166
The comparative review 169
CHAPTER XVIII
QUESTIONING 171
Qualifications of Good Questioner 171
Purposes of Questioning 173
Socratic Questioning 174
The Question 177
The Answer 179
Limitations 181
PART III
EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
CHAPTER XIX
CONSCIOUSNESS 183
Value of Educational Psychology 186
Limitations 186
Methods of Psychology 187
Phases of Consciousness 189
CHAPTER XX
MIND AND BODY 192
The Nervous System 192
The Cortex 198
Reflex Acts 199
Characteristics of Nervous Matter 202
CHAPTER XXI
INSTINCT 207
Human Instincts 209
Curiosity 214
Imitation 217
Play 221
Play in education 223
CHAPTER XXII
HABIT 226
Formation of Habits 230
Value of Habits 231
Improvement of Habits 234
CHAPTER XXIII
ATTENTION 237
Attention Selective 240
Involuntary Attention 243
Non-voluntary Attention 245
Voluntary Attention 246
Attention in Education 251
CHAPTER XXIV
THE FEELING OF INTEREST 257
Classes of Feelings 258
Interest in Education 261
Development of interests 264
CHAPTER XXV
SENSE PERCEPTION 267
Genesis of Perception 270
Factors in Sensation 273
Classification of Sensations 274
Education of the Senses 276
CHAPTER XXVI
MEMORY AND APPERCEPTION 282
Distinguished 283
Factors of Memory 284
Conditions of Memory 285
Types of Recall 288
Localization of Time 290
Classification of Memories 290
Memory in Education 291
Apperception 293
Conditions of Apperception 294
Factors in Apperception 296
CHAPTER XXVII
IMAGINATION 298
Types of Imagination 299
Passive 299
Active 300
Uses of Imagination 301
CHAPTER XXVIII
THINKING 304
Conception 305
Factors in concept 309
Aims of conceptual lessons 310
The definition 313
Judgment 315
Errors in judgment 317
Reasoning 320
Deduction 320
Induction 323
Development of Reasoning Power 328
CHAPTER XXIX
FEELING 330
Conditions of Feeling Tone 331
Sensuous Feelings 334
Emotion 334
Conditions of emotion 335
Other Types of Feeling 340
Mood 340
Disposition 340
Temperament 340
Sentiments 341
CHAPTER XXX
THE WILL 342
Types of Movement 342
Development of Control 343
Volition 345
Factors in volitional act 346
Abnormal Types of Will 348
CHAPTER XXXI
CHILD STUDY 352
Methods of Child Study 355
Periods of Development 358
Infancy 358
Childhood 359
Adolescence 361
Individual Differences 363
APPENDIX
SUGGESTED READINGS 369
THE SCIENCE OF EDUCATION
PART I. PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION
CHAPTER I
NATURE AND PURPOSE OF EDUCATION
=Value of Scientific Knowledge.=--In the practice of any intelligent
occupation or art, in so far as the practice attains to perfection,
there are manifested in the processes certain scientific principles and
methods to which the work of the one practising the art conforms. In the
successful practice, for example, of the art of composition, there are
manifested the principles of rhetoric; in that of housebuilding, the
principles of architecture; and in that of government, the principles of
civil polity. In practising any such art, moreover, the worker finds
that a knowledge of these scientific principles and methods will guide
him in the correct practice of the art,--a knowledge of the science of
rhetoric assisting in the art of composition; of the science of
architecture, in the art of housebuilding; and of the science of civil
polity, in the art of government.
=The Science of Education.=--If the practice of teaching is an
intelligent art, there must, in like manner, be found in its processes
certain principles and methods which may be set forth in systematic form
as a science of education, and applied by the educator in the art of
teaching. Assuming the existence of a science of education, it is
further evident that the student-teacher should make himself acquainted
with its leading principles, and likewise learn to apply these
principles in his practice of the art of teaching. To this end,
however, it becomes necessary at the outset to determine the limits of
the subject-matter of the science. We shall, therefore, first consider
the general nature and purpose of education so far as to decide the
facts to be included in this science.
CONDITIONS OF GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT
=A. Physical Growth.=--Although differing in their particular conception
of the nature of education, all educators agree in setting the child as
the central figure in the educative process. As an individual, the
child, like other living organisms, develops through a process of inner
changes which are largely conditioned by outside influences. In the case
of animals and plants, physical growth, or development, is found to
consist of changes caused in the main through the individual responding
to external stimulation. Taking one of the simplest forms of animal
life, for example, the amoeba, we find that when stimulated by any
foreign matter not constituting its food, say a particle of sand, such
an organism at once withdraws itself from the stimulating elements. On
the other hand, if it comes in contact with suitable food, the amoeba
not only flows toward it, but by assimilating it, at once begins to
increase in size, or grow, until it finally divides, or reproduces,
itself as shown in the following figures. Hence the amoeba as an
organism is not only able to react appropriately toward different
stimuli, but is also able to change itself, or develop, by its
appropriate reactions upon such stimulations.
In plant life, also, the same principle holds. As long as a grain of
corn, wheat, etc., is kept in a dry place, the life principle stored up
within the seed is unable to manifest itself in growth. When, on the
other hand, it is appropriately stimulated by water, heat, and light,
the seed awakens to life, or germinates. In other words, the seed
reacts upon the external stimulations of water, heat, and light, and
manifests the activity known as growth, or development. Thus all
physical growth, whether of the plant or the animal, is conditioned on
the energizing of the inherent life principle, in response to
appropriate stimulation of the environment.
[Illustration: A. Simple amoeba.
B. An amoeba developing as a result of assimilating food.
C. An amoeba about to divide, or propagate.]
=B. Development in Human Life.=--In addition to its physical nature,
human life has within it a spiritual law, or principle, which enables
the individual to respond to suitable stimulations and by that means
develop into an intelligent and moral being. When, for instance, waves
of light from an external object stimulate the nervous system through
the eye, man is able, through his intelligent nature, to react mentally
upon these stimulations and, by interpreting them, build up within his
experience conscious images of light, colour, and form. In like manner,
when the nerves in the hand are stimulated by an external object, the
mind is able to react upon the impressions and, by interpreting them,
obtain images of touch, temperature, and weight. In the sphere of
action, also, the child who is stimulated by the sight of his elder
pounding with a hammer, sweeping with a broom, etc., reacts imitatively
upon such stimulations, and thus acquires skill in action. So also when
stimulated by means of his human surroundings, as, for example, through
the kindly acts of his mother, father, etc., he reacts morally toward
these stimulations and thus develops such social qualities as sympathy,
love, and kindness. Nor are the conditions of development different in
more complex intellectual problems. If a child is given nine blocks on
which are printed the nine digits, and is asked to arrange them in the
form of a square so that each of the horizontal and the vertical columns
will add up to fifteen, there is equally an inner growth through
stimulation and response. In such a case, since the answer is unknown to
the child, the problem serves as a stimulation to his mind. Furthermore,
it is only by reacting upon this problem with his present knowledge of
the value of the various digits when combined in threes, as 1, 6, 8; 5,
7, 3; 9, 2, 4; 1, 5, 9; etc., that the necessary growth of knowledge
relative to the solution of the problem will take place within the mind.
WORTH IN HUMAN LIFE
But the possession of an intellectual and moral nature which responds to
appropriate stimulations implies, also, that as man develops
intellectually, he will find meaning in human life as realized in
himself and others. Thus he becomes able to recognize worth in human
life and to determine the conditions which favour its highest growth, or
development.
=The Worthy Life not a Natural Growth.=--Granting that it is thus
possible to recognize that "life is not a blank," but that it should
develop into something of worth, it by no means follows that the young
child will adequately recognize and desire a worthy life, or be able to
understand and control the conditions which make for its development.
Although, indeed, there is implanted in his nature a spiritual tendency,
yet his early interests are almost wholly physical and his attitude
impulsive and selfish. Left to himself, therefore, he is likely to
develop largely as a creature of appetite, controlled by blind passions
and the chance impressions of the moment. Until such time, therefore, as
he obtains an adequate development of his intellectual and moral life,
his behaviour conforms largely to the wants of his physical nature, and
his actions are irrational and wasteful. Under such conditions the young
child, if left to himself to develop in accordance with his native
tendencies through the chance impressions which may stimulate him from
without, must fall short of attaining to a life of worth. For this
reason education is designed to control the growth, or development, of
the child, by directing his stimulations and responses in such a way
that his life may develop into one of worth.
=Character of the Worthy Life.=--If, however, it is possible to add to
the worth of the life of the child by controlling and modifying his
natural reactions, the first problem confronting the scientific educator
is to decide what constitutes a life of worth. This question belongs
primarily to ethics, or the science of right living, to which the
educator must turn for his solution. Here it will be learned that the
higher life is one made up of moral relations. In other words, the
perfect man is a social man and the perfect life is a life made up of
social rights and duties, wherein one is able to realize his own good
in conformity with the good of others, and seek his own happiness by
including within it the happiness of others. But to live a life of
social worth, man must gain such control over his lower physical wants
and desires that he can conform them to the needs and rights of others.
He must, in other words, in adapting himself to his social environment,
develop a sense of duty toward his fellows which will cause him to act
in co-operation with others. He must refuse, for instance, to satisfy
his own want by causing want to others, or to promote his own desires by
giving pain to others. Secondly, he must obtain such control over his
physical surroundings, including his own body, that he is able to make
these serve in promoting the common good. In the worthy life, therefore,
man has so adjusted himself to his fellow men that he is able to
co-operate with them, and has so adjusted himself to his physical
surroundings that he is able to make this co-operation effective, and
thus live a socially efficient life.
FACTORS IN SOCIAL EFFICIENCY
=A. Knowledge, a Factor in Social Efficiency.=--The following simple
examples will more fully demonstrate the factors which enter into the
socially efficient life. The young child, for instance, who lives on the
shore of one of our great lakes, may learn through his knowledge of
colour to distinguish between the water and the sky on the horizon line.
This knowledge, he finds, however, does not enter in any degree into his
social life within the home. When on the same basis, however, he learns
to distinguish between the ripe and the unripe berries in the garden, he
finds this knowledge of service in the community, or home, life, since
it enables him to distinguish the fruit his mother may desire for use
in the home. One mark of social efficiency, therefore, is to possess
knowledge that will enable us to serve effectively in society.
=B. Skill, a Factor in Social Efficiency.=--In the sphere of action,
also, the child might acquire skill in making stones skip over the
surface of the lake. Here, again, however, the acquired skill would
serve no purpose in the community life, except perhaps occasionally to
enable him to amuse himself or his fellows. When, on the other hand, he
acquires skill in various home occupations, as opening and closing the
gates, attending to the furnace, harnessing and driving the horse, or
playing a musical instrument, he finds that this skill enables him in
some measure to serve in the community life of which he is a member. A
second factor in social efficiency, therefore, is the possession of such
skill as will enable us to co-operate effectively within our social
environment.
=C. Right Feeling, a Factor in Social Efficiency.=--But granting the
possession of adequate knowledge and skill, a man may yet fall far short
of the socially efficient life. The machinist, for instance, may know
fully all that pertains to the making of an excellent engine for the
intended steamboat. He may further possess the skill necessary to its
actual construction. But through indifference or a desire for selfish
gain, this man may build for the vessel an engine which later, through
its poor construction, causes the loss of the ship and its crew. A third
necessary requisite in social efficiency, therefore, is the possession
of a sense of duty which compels us to use our knowledge and skill with
full regard to the feelings and rights of others. Thus a certain amount
of socially useful knowledge, a certain measure of socially effective
skill, and a certain sense of moral obligation, or right feeling, all
enter as factors into the socially efficient life.
FORMAL EDUCATION
Assuming that the educator is thus able to distinguish what constitutes
a life of worth, and to recognize and in some measure control the
stimulations and reactions of the child, it is evident that he should be
able to devise ways and means by which the child may grow into a more
worthy, that is, into a more socially efficient, life. Such an attempt
to control the reactions of the child as he adjusts himself to the
physical and social world about him, in order to render him a more
socially efficient member of the society to which he belongs, is
described as formal education.
CHAPTER II
FORMS OF REACTION
INSTINCTIVE REACTION
Since the educator aims to direct the development of the child by
controlling his reactions upon his physical and social surroundings, we
have next to consider the forms under which these reactions occur. Even
at birth the human organism is endowed with certain tendencies, which
enable it to react effectively upon the presentation of appropriate
stimuli. Our instinctive movements, such as sucking, hiding, grasping,
etc., being inherited tendencies to react under given conditions in a
more or less effective manner for our own good, constitute one type of
reactive movement. At birth, therefore, the child is endowed with
powers, or tendencies, which enable him to adapt himself more or less
effectively to his surroundings. Because, however, the child's early
needs are largely physical, many of his instincts, such as those of
feeding, fighting, etc., lead only to self-preservative acts, and are,
therefore, individual rather than social in character. Even these
individual tendencies, however, enable the child to adjust himself to
his surroundings, and thus assist that physical growth without which, as
will be learned later, there could be no adequate intellectual and moral
development. But besides these, the child inherits many social and
adaptive tendencies--love of approbation, sympathy, imitation,
curiosity, etc., which enable him of himself to participate in some
measure in the social life about him.
=Instinct and Education.=--Our instincts being inherited tendencies, it
follows that they must cause us to react in a somewhat fixed manner upon
particular external stimulation. For this reason, it might be assumed
that these tendencies would build up our character independently of
outside interference or direction. If such were the case, instinctive
reactions would not only lie beyond the province of formal education,
but might even seriously interfere with its operation, since our
instinctive acts differ widely in value from the standpoint of the
efficient life. It is found, however, that human instincts may not only
be modified but even suppressed through education. For example, as we
shall learn in the following paragraphs, instinctive action in man may
be gradually supplanted by more effective habitual modes of reaction.
Although, therefore, the child's instinctive tendencies undoubtedly play
a large part in the early informal development of his character outside
the school, it is equally true that they can be brought under the
direction of the educator in the work of formal education. For that
reason a more thorough study of instinctive forms of reaction, and of
their relation to formal education, will be made in Chapter XXI.
HABITUAL REACTION
A second form of reaction is known as habit. On account of the plastic
character of the matter constituting the nervous tissue in the human
organism, any act, whether instinctive, voluntary, or accidental, if
once performed, has a tendency to repeat itself under like
circumstances, or to become habitual. The child, for example, when
placed amid social surroundings, by merely yielding to his general
tendencies of imitation, sympathy, etc., will form many valuable modes
of habitual reaction connected with eating, dressing, talking,
controlling the body, the use of household implements, etc. For this
reason the early instinctive and impulsive acts of the child gradually
develop into definite modes of action, more suited to meet the
particular conditions of his surroundings.
=Habit and Education.=--Furthermore, the formation of these habitual
modes of reaction being largely conditioned by outside influences, it is
possible to control the process of their formation. For this reason, the
educator is able to modify the child's natural reactions, and develop in
their stead more valuable habits. No small part of the work of formal
education, therefore, must consist in adding to the social efficiency of
the child by endowing him with habits making for neatness, regularity,
accuracy, obedience, etc. A detailed study of habit in its relation to
education will be made in Chapter XXII.
CONSCIOUS REACTION
=An Example.=--The third and highest form of human reaction is known as
ideal, or conscious, reaction. In this form of reaction the mind,
through its present ideas, reacts upon some situation or difficulty in
such a way as to adjust itself satisfactorily to the problem with which
it is faced. As an example of such a conscious reaction, or adjustment,
may be taken the case of a young lad who was noticed standing over a
stationary iron grating through which he had dropped a small coin. A few
moments later the lad was seen of his own accord to take up a rod lying
near, smear the end with tar and grease from the wheel of a near by
wagon, insert the rod through the grating, and thus recover his lost
coin. An analysis of the mental movements involved previously to the
actual recovery of the coin will illustrate in general the nature of a
conscious reaction, or adjustment.
=Factors Involved in Process.=--In such an experience the consciousness
of the lad is at the outset occupied with a definite problem, or felt
need, demanding adjustment--the recovering of the lost coin, which need
acts as a stimulus to the consciousness and gives direction and value to
the resulting mental activity. Acting under the demands of this problem,
or need, the mind displays an intelligent initiative in the selecting of
ideas--stick, adhesion, tar, etc., felt to be of value for securing the
required new adjustment. The mind finally combines these selected ideas
into an organized system, or a new experience, which is accepted
mentally as an adequate solution of the problem. The following factors
are found, therefore, to enter into such an ideal, or conscious,
reaction:
1. _The Problem._--The conscious reaction is the result of a definite
problem, or difficulty, presented in consciousness and grasped by the
mind as such--How to recover the coin.
2. _A Selecting Process._--To meet the solution of this problem use is
made of ideas which already form a part of the lad's present experience,
or knowledge, and which are felt by him to have a bearing on the
presented problem.
3. _A Relating Process._--These elements of former experience are
organized by the child into a mental plan which he believes adequate to
solve the problem before him.
4. _Application._--This resulting mental plan serves to guide a further
physical reaction, which constitutes the actual removal of the
difficulty--the recovery of the coin.
=Significance of Conscious Reactions.=--In a conscious reaction upon any
situation, or problem, therefore, the mind first uses its present ideas,
or experience, in weighing the difficulties of the situation, and it is
only after it satisfies itself in theory that a solution has been
reached that the physical response, or application of the plan, is made.
Hence the individual not only directs his actions by his higher
intelligent nature, but is also able to react effectively upon varied
and unusual situations. This, evidently, is not so largely the case with
instinctive or habitual reactions. For efficient action, therefore,
there must often be an adequate mental adjustment prior to the
expression of the physical action. For this reason the value of
consciousness consists in the guidance it affords us in meeting the
demands laid upon us by our surroundings, or environment. This will
become more evident, however, by a brief examination into the nature of
experience itself.
EXPERIENCE
=Its Value.=--In the above example of conscious adjustment it was found
that a new experience arises naturally from an effort to meet some need,
or problem, with which the mind is at the time confronted. Our ideas,
therefore, naturally organize themselves into new experiences, or
knowledge, to enable us to gain some desired end. It was in order to
effect the recovery of the lost coin, for example, that conscious effort
was put forth by the lad to create a mental plan which should solve the
problem. Primarily, therefore, man is a doer and his ideas, or
knowledge, is meant to be practical, or to be applied in directing
action. It is this fact, indeed, which gives meaning and purpose to the
conscious states of man. Hour by hour new problems arise demanding
adjustment; the mind grasps the import of the situation, selects ways
and means, organizes these into an intelligent plan, and directs their
execution, thus enabling us:
Not without aim to go round
In an eddy of purposeless dust.
=Its Theoretic or Intellectual Value.=--But owing to the value which
thus attaches to any experience, a new experience may be viewed as
desirable apart from its immediate application to conduct. Although, for
instance, there is no immediate physical need that one should learn how
to resuscitate a drowning person, he is nevertheless prepared to make of
it a problem, because he feels that such knowledge regarding his
environment may enter into the solution of future difficulties. Thus the
value of new experience, or knowledge, is often remote and intellectual,
rather than immediate and physical, and looks to the acquisition of
further experience quite as much as to the directing of present physical
movement. Beyond the value they may possess in relation to the removal
of present physical difficulty, therefore, experiences may be said to
possess a secondary value in that they may at any time enter into the
construction of new experiences.
=Its Growth: A. Learning by Direct Experience.=--The ability to recall
and use former experience in the upbuilding of an intelligent new
experience is further valuable, in that it enables a person to secure
much experience in an indirect rather than in a direct way, and thus
avoid the direct experience when such would be undesirable. Under direct
experience we include the lessons which may come to us at first hand
from our surroundings, as when the child by placing his hand upon a
thistle learns that it has sharp prickles, or by tasting quinine learns
that it is bitter. In this manner direct experience is a teacher,
continually adjusting man to his environment; and it is evident that
without an ability to retain our experiences and turn them to use in
organizing a new experience without expressing it in action, all
conscious adjustments would have to be secured through such a direct
method.
=B. Learning Indirectly.=--Since man is able to retain his experiences
and organize them into new experiences, he may, if desirable, enter into
a new experience in an indirect, or theoretic, way, and thus avoid the
harsher lessons of direct experience. The child, for example, who knows
the discomfort of a pin-prick may apply this, without actual expression,
in interpreting the danger lurking in the thorn. In like manner the
child who has fallen from his chair realizes thereby, without giving it
expression, the danger of falling from a window or balcony. It is in
this indirect, or theoretic, way that children in their early years
acquire, by injunction and reproof, much valuable knowledge which
enables them to avoid the dangers and to shun the evils presented to
them by their surroundings. By the same means, also, man is able to
extend his knowledge to include the experiences of other men and even of
other ages.
=Relative Value of Experiences.=--While the value of experience consists
in its power to adjust man to present or future problems, and thus
render his action more efficient, it is to be noted that different
experiences may vary in their value. Many of these, from the point of
their value in meeting future problems or making adjustments, must
appear trivial and even useless. Others, though adapted to meet our
needs, may do this in a crude and ineffective manner. As an
illustration of such difference in value, compare the effectiveness and
accuracy of the notation possessed by primitive men as illustrated in
the following strokes:
1, 11, 111, 1111, 11111, 111111, etc.,
with that of our present system of notation as suggested in:
1, 10, 100, 1000, 10000, 100000, 1000000, etc.
In like manner to experience that ice is cold is trivial in comparison
with experiencing its preservative effects as seen in cold storage or
its medicinal effects in certain diseases; to know that soda is white
would be trivial in comparison with a knowledge of its properties in
baking.
=Man Should Participate in Valuable Experiences.=--Of the three forms of
human reaction, instinctive, habitual, and conscious, or ideal, it is
evident that, owing to its rational character, ideal reaction is not
only the most effective, but also the only one that will enable man to
adjust himself to unusual situations. For this reason, and because of
the difference in value of experiences themselves, it is further evident
that man should participate in those experiences which are most
effective in facilitating desired adjustments or in directing right
conduct. It is found, moreover, that this participation can be effected
by bringing the child's experiencing during his early years directly
under control. It is held by some, indeed, that the whole aim of
education is to reconstruct and enrich the experiences of the child and
thereby add to his social efficiency. Although this conception of
education leaves out of view the effects of instinctive and habitual
reaction, it nevertheless covers, as we shall see later, no small part
of the purpose of formal education.
INFLUENCE OF CONSCIOUS REACTION
=A. On Instinctive Action.=--Before concluding our survey of the various
forms of reaction, it may be noted that both instinctive and habitual
action are subject to the influence of conscious reaction. As a child's
early instinctive acts develop into fixed habits, his growing knowledge
aids in making these habits intelligent and effective. Consciousness
evidently aids, for example, in developing the instinctive movements of
the legs into the rhythmic habitual movements of walking, and those of
the hands into the later habits of holding the spoon, knife, cup, etc.
Greater still would be the influence of consciousness in developing the
crude instinct of self-preservation into the habitual reactions of the
spearman or boxer. In general, therefore, instinctive tendencies in man
are subject to intelligent training, and may thereby be moulded into
effective habits of reaction.
=B. On Habitual Action.=--Further new habits may be established and old
ones improved under the direction of conscious reaction. When a child
first learns to represent the number four by the symbol, the problem is
necessarily met at first through a conscious adjustment. In other words,
the child must mentally associate into a single new experience the
number idea and certain ideas of form and of muscular movement.
Although, however, the child is conscious of all of these factors when
he first attempts to give expression to this experience, it is clear
that very soon the expressive act of writing the number is carried on
without any conscious direction of the process. In other words, the
child soon acquires the habit of performing the act spontaneously, or
without direction from the mind. Inversely, any habitual mode of
action, in whatever way established, may, if we possess the necessary
experience, be represented in idea and be accepted or corrected
accordingly. A person, for instance, who has acquired the necessary
knowledge of the laws of hygiene, may represent ideally both his own and
the proper manner of standing, sitting, reclining, etc., and seek to
modify his present habits accordingly. The whole question of the
relation of conscious to habitual reaction will, however, be considered
in Chapter XXII.
CHAPTER III
THE PROCESS OF EDUCATION
CONSCIOUS ADJUSTMENT
From the example of conscious adjustment previously considered, it would
appear that the full process of such an adjustment presents the
following characteristics:
1. _The Problem._--The individual conceives the existence within his
environment of a difficulty which demands adjustment, or which serves as
a problem calling for solution.
2. _A Selecting Process._--With this problem as a motive, there takes
place within the experience of the individual a selecting of ideas felt
to be of value for solving the problem which calls for adjustment.
3. _A Relating Process._--These relevant ideas are associated in
consciousness and form a new experience believed to overcome the
difficulty involved in the problem. This new experience is accepted,
therefore, mentally, as a satisfactory plan for meeting the situation,
or, in other words, it adjusts the individual to the problem in hand.
4. _Expression._--This new experience is expressed in such form as is
requisite to answer fully the need felt in the original problem.
EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT
=Example from Writing.=--An examination of any ordinary educative
process taken from school-room experience will show that it involves in
some degree the factors mentioned above.
As a very simple example, may be taken the case of a young child
learning to form capital letters with short sticks. Assuming that he has
already copied letters involving straight lines, such as A, H, etc., the
child, on meeting such a letter as C or D, finds himself face to face
with a new problem. At first he may perhaps attempt to form the curves
by bending the short thin sticks. Hereupon, either through his own
failure or through some suggestion of his teacher, he comes to see a
short, straight line as part of a large curve. Thereupon he forms the
idea of a curve composed of a number of short, straight lines, and on
this principle is able to express himself in such forms as are shown
here.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
In this simple process of adjustment there are clearly involved the four
stages referred to above, as follows:
1. _The Problem._--The forming of a curved letter by means of straight
sticks.
2. _A Selecting Process._--Selecting of the ideas straight and curved
and the fixing of attention upon them.
3. _A Relating Process._--An organization of the selected ideas into a
new experience in which the curve is viewed as made up of a number of
short, straight lines.
4. _Expression._--Working out the physical expression of the new
experience in the actual forming of capitals involving curved lines.
=Example from Arithmetic.=--An analysis of the process by which a child
learns that there are four twos in eight, shows also the following
factors:
1. _The Problem._--To find out how many twos are contained in the
vaguely known eight.
2. _A Selecting Process._--To meet this problem the pupil is led from
his present knowledge of the number two, to proceed to divide eight
objects into groups of two; and, from his previous knowledge of the
number four, to measure the number of these groups of two.
3. _A Relating Process._--Next the three ideas two, four, and eight are
translated into a new experience, constituting a mental solution of the
present problem.
4. _Expression._--This new experience expresses itself in various ways
in the child's dealings with the number problems connected with his
environment.
=Example from Geometry.=--Taking as another example the process by which
a student may learn that the exterior angle of a triangle is equal to
the two interior and opposite angles, there appear also the same stages,
thus:
1. _The Problem._--The conception of a difficulty or problem in the
geometrical environment which calls for solution, or adjustment--the
relation of the angle _a_ to the angles _b_ and _c_ in Figure 1.
[Illustration: Fig. 1]
[Illustration: Fig. 2]
[Illustration: Fig. 3]
2. _A Selecting Process._--With this problem as a motive there follows,
as suggested by Figure 2, the selecting of a series of ideas from the
previous experiences of the pupil which seem relative to, or are
considered valuable for solving the problem in hand.
3. _A Relating Process._--These relative ideas pass into the formation
of a new experience, as illustrated in Figure 3, constituting the
solution of the problem.
4. _Expression._--A further applying of this experience may be made in
adjusting the pupil to other problems connected with his geometric
environment; as, for example, to discover the sum of the interior angles
of a triangle.
EDUCATION AS CONTROL OF ADJUSTMENT
The examples of adjustment taken from school-room practice, are found,
however, to differ in one important respect from the previous example
taken from practical life. This difference consists in the fact that in
the recovery of the coin the modification of experience took place
wholly without control or direction other than that furnished by the
problem itself. Here the problem--the recovery of the coin--presents
itself to the child and is seized upon as a motive by his attention
solely on account of its own value; secondly, this problem of itself
directs a flow of relative images which finally bring about the
necessary adjustment. In the examples taken from the school, on the
other hand, the processes of adjustment are, to a greater or less
extent, directed and regulated through the presence of some type of
educative agent. For instance, when a student goes through the process
of learning the relation of the exterior angle to the two interior and
opposite angles, the control of the process appears in the fact that the
problem is directly presented to the student as an essential step in a
sequence of geometric problems, or adjustments. The same direction or
control of the process is seen again in the fact that the student is not
left wholly to himself, as in the first example, to devise a solution,
but is aided and directed thereto, first, in that the ideas bearing upon
the problem have previously been made known to the student through
instruction, and secondly, in that the selecting and adjusting of these
former ideas to the solution of the new problem is also directed through
the agency of either a text-book or a teacher. A conscious adjustment,
therefore, which is brought about without direction from another,
implies only a process of learning on the part of the child, while a
controlled adjustment implies both a process of learning on the part of
the child and a process of teaching on the part of an instructor. For
scientific treatment, therefore, it is possible to limit formal
education, so far as it deals with conscious adjustment, to those
modifications of experience which are directed or controlled through an
educative agent, or, in other words, are brought about by means of
instruction.
REQUIREMENTS OF THE INSTRUCTOR
Formal education being an attempt to direct the development of the child
by controlling his stimulations and responses through the agency of an
instructor, we may now understand in general the necessary
qualifications and offices of the teacher in directing the educative
process.
1. The teacher must understand what constitutes the worthy life; that
is, he must have a definite aim in directing the development of the
child.
2. He must know what stimulations, or problems, are to be presented to
the child in order to have him grow, or develop, into this life of
worth.
3. He must know how the physical, intellectual, and moral nature of the
child reacts upon these appropriate stimulations.
4. He must have skill in presenting the stimuli, or problems, to the
child and in bringing its mind to react appropriately thereon.
5. He must, in the case of conscious reactions, see that the child not
only acquires the new experience, but that he is also able to apply it
effectively. In other words, he must see that the child acquires not
only knowledge, but also skill in the use of knowledge.
CHAPTER IV
THE SCHOOL CURRICULUM
=Valuable Experience: Race Knowledge.=--Since education aims largely to
increase the effectiveness of the moral conduct of the child by adding
to the value of his experience, the science of education must decide the
basis on which the educator is to select experiences that possess such a
value in directing conduct. Now a study of the progress of a nation's
civilization will show that this advancement is brought about through
the gradual interpretation of the resources at the nation's command, and
the turning of these resources to the attainment of human ends. Thus
there is gradually built up a community, or race, experience, in which
the materials of the physical, economic, political, moral, and religious
life are organized and brought under control. By this means is
constituted a body of race experience, the value of which has been
tested in its direct application to the needs of the social life of the
community. It is from the more typical forms of this social, or race,
experience that education draws the experience, or problems, for the
educative process. In other words, through education the experiences of
the child are so reconstructed that he is put in possession of the more
typical and more valuable forms of race experience, and thus rendered
more efficient in his conduct, or action.
PURPOSES OF CURRICULUM
=Represents Race Experiences.=--So far as education aims to have the
child enter into typical valuable race experiences, this can be
accomplished only by placing these experiences before him as problems
in such form that he may realize them through a regular process of
learning. The purpose of the school curriculum is, therefore, to provide
such problems as may, under the direction of the instructor, control the
conscious reactions of the child, and enable him to participate in these
more valuable race experiences. In this sense arithmetic becomes a means
for providing the child with a series of problems which may give him the
experiences which the race has found valuable in securing commercial
accuracy and precision. In like manner, constructive work provides a
series of problems in which the child experiences how the race has
turned the materials of nature to human service. History provides
problems whose solution gives the experience which enables the pupil to
meet the political and social conditions of his own time. Physics shows
how the forces of nature have become instruments for the service of man.
Geography shows how the world is used as a background for social life;
and grammar, what principles control the use of the race language as a
medium for the communication of thought.
=Classifies Race Experience.=--Without such control of the presentation
of these racial experiences as is made possible through the school and
the school curriculum, the child would be likely to meet them only as
they came to him in the actual processes of social life. These processes
are, however, so complex in modern society, that, in any attempt to
secure experience directly, the child is likely to be overwhelmed by
their complex and unorganized character. The message boy in the
dye-works, for example, may have presented to him innumerable problems
in number, language, physics, chemistry, etc., but owing to the
confused, disorganized, and mingled character of the presentation, these
are not likely to be seized upon by him as direct problems calling for
adjustment. In the school curriculum, on the other hand, the different
phases of this seemingly unorganized mass of experiences are abstracted
and presented to the child in an organized manner, the different phases
being classified as facts of number, reading, spelling, writing,
geography, physics, chemistry, etc. Thus the school curriculum
classifies for the child the various phases of this race experience and
provides him with a comprehensive representation of his environment.
=Systematizes Race Experience.=--The school curriculum further presents
each type of experience, or each subject, in such a systematic order
that the various experiences may develop out of one another in a natural
way. If the child were compelled to meet his number facts altogether in
actual life, the impressions would be received without system or order,
now a discount experience, next a problem in fractions, at another time
one in interest or mensuration. In the school curriculum, on the other
hand, the child is in each subject first presented with the simple,
near, and familiar, these in turn forming basic experiences for learning
the complex, the remote, and the unknown. Thus he is able in geography,
for example, on the basis of his simple and known local experiences, to
proceed to a realization of the whole world as the background for human
life.
=Clarifies Race Experience.=--Finally, when a child is given problems by
means of the school curriculum, the experiences come to him in a pure
form. That is, the trivial, accidental, and distracting elements which
are necessarily bound up with these experiences when they are met in the
ordinary walks of life are eliminated, and the single type is presented.
For instance, the child may every day meet accidentally examples of
reflection and refraction of light. But these not being separated from
the mass of accompanying impressions, his mind may never seize as
distinct problems the important relations in these experiences, and may
thus fail to acquire the essential principles involved. In the school
curriculum, on the other hand, under the head of physics, he has the
essential aspects presented to him in such an unmixed, or pure, form
that he finds relatively little difficulty in grasping their
significance. Thus the school curriculum renders possible an effective
control of the experiencing of the child by presenting in a
comprehensive form a classified, systematized, and pure representation
of the more valuable features of the race experience. In other words, it
provides suitable problems which may lead the child to participate more
fully in the life about him. Through the subjects of the school
curriculum, therefore, the child may acquire much useful knowledge which
would not otherwise be met, and much which, if met in ordinary life,
could not be apprehended to an equal degree.
DANGERS IN USE OF CURRICULUM
While recognizing the educational value of the school curriculum, it
should be noticed that certain dangers attach to its use as a means of
providing problems for developing the experiences of the child. It is
frequently argued against the school that the experiences gained therein
too often prove of little value to the child in the affairs of practical
life. The world of knowledge within the school, it is claimed, is so
different from the world of action outside the school, that the pupil
can find no connection between them. If, however, as claimed above, the
value of experience consists in its use as a means of efficient control
of conduct, it is evident that the experiences acquired through the
school should find direct application in the affairs of life, or in
other words, the school should influence the conduct, or behaviour, of
the child both within and without the school.
=A. Child may not see Connection with Life.=--Now the school curriculum,
as has been seen, in representing the actual social life, so classifies
and simplifies this life that only one type of experience--number,
language, chemistry, geography, etc., is presented to the child at one
time. It is evident, however, that when the child faces the problems of
actual life, they will not appear in the simple form in which he meets
them as represented in the school curriculum. Thus, when he leaves the
school and enters society, he frequently sees no connection between the
complex social life outside the school and the simplified and
systematized representation of that life, as previously met in the
school studies. For example, when the boy, after leaving school, is set
to fill an order in a wholesale drug store, he will in the one
experience be compelled to use various phases of his chemical,
arithmetical, writing, and bookkeeping knowledge, and that perhaps in
the midst of a mass of other accidental impressions. In like manner, the
girl in her home cooking might meet in a single experience a situation
requiring mathematical, chemical, and physical knowledge for its
successful adjustment, as in the substitution of soda and cream of
tartar for baking-powder. This complex character of the problems of
actual life may prove so bewildering that the person is unable to see
any connection between the outside problem and his school experiences.
Thus school knowledge frequently fails to function to an adequate degree
in the practical affairs of life.
=How to Avoid This Danger.=--To meet this difficulty, school work must
be related as closely as possible to the practical experiences of the
child. This would cause the teacher, for example, to draw his problems
in arithmetic, his subjects in composition, or his materials for nature
study from the actual life about the child, while his lessons in hygiene
would bear directly on the care of the school-room and the home, and the
health of the pupils. Moreover, that the work of the school may
represent more fully the conditions of actual life, pupils should
acquire facility in correlating different types of experience upon the
same problem. In this way the child may use in conjunction his knowledge
of arithmetic, language, geography, drawing, nature study, etc., in
school gardening; and his arithmetic, language, drawing, art, etc., in
conjunction with constructive occupations.
=Value of Typical Forms of Expression.=--A chief cause in the past for
the lack of connection between school knowledge and practical life was
the comparative absence from the curriculum of any types of human
activity. In other words, though the ideas controlling human activity
were experienced by the child within the school, the materials and tools
involved in the physical expression of such ideas were almost entirely
absent. The result was that the physical habits connected with the
practical use of knowledge were wanting. Thus, in addition to the lack
of any proper co-ordinating of different types of knowledge in suitable
forms of activity, the knowledge itself became theoretic and abstract.
This danger will, however, be discussed more fully at a later stage.
=B. Curriculum May Become Fossilized.=--A second danger in the use of
the school curriculum consists in the fact that, as a representation of
social life, it may not keep pace with the social changes taking place
outside the school. This may result in the school giving its pupils
forms of knowledge which at the time have little functional value, or
little relation to present life about the child. An example of this was
seen some years ago in the habit of having pupils spend considerable
time and energy in working intricate problems in connection with British
currency. This currency having no practical place in life outside the
school, the child could see no connection between that part of his
school work and any actual need. Another marked example of this tendency
will be met in the History of Education in connection with the
educational practice of the last two centuries in continuing the
emphasis placed on the study of the ancient languages, although the
functional relation of these languages to everyday life was on the
decline, and scientific knowledge was beginning to play a much more
important part therein. While the school curriculum may justly represent
the life of past periods of civilization so far as these reflect on, and
aid in the interpreting of, the present, it is evident that in so far as
the child experiences the past without any reference to present needs,
the connection which should exist between the school and life outside
the school must tend to be destroyed.
=C. May be Non-progressive.=--As a corollary to the above, is the fact
that the school, when not watchful of the changes going on without the
school, may fail to represent in its curriculum new and important phases
of the community life. At the present time, for example, it is a
debatable question whether the school curriculum is, in the matter of
our industrial life, keeping pace with the changes taking place in the
community. It is in this connection that one of the chief dangers of the
school text-book is to be found. The text is too often looked upon as a
final authority upon the particular subject-matter, rather than being
treated as a mode of representing what is held valuable and true in
relation to present-day interests and activities. The position of
authority which the text-book thus secures, may serve as a check against
even necessary changes in the attitude of the school toward any
particular subject.
=D. May Present Experience in too Technical Form.=--Lastly, the school
curriculum, even when representing present life, may introduce it in a
too highly technical form. So far at least as elementary education is
concerned, each type of knowledge, or each subject, should find a place
on the curriculum from a consideration of its influence upon the conduct
and, therefore, upon the present life of the child. There is always a
danger, however, that the teacher, who may be a specialist in the
subject, will wish to stress its more intellectual and abstract phases,
and thus force upon the child forms of knowledge which he is not able to
refer to his life needs in any practical way. This tendency is
illustrated in the desire of some teachers to substitute with young
children a technical study of botany and zoology, in place of more
concrete work in nature study. Now when the child approaches these
phases of his surroundings in the form of nature study, he is able to
see their influence upon his own community life. When, on the other
hand, these are introduced to him in too technical a form, he is not
able, in his present stage of learning, to discover this connection, and
the so-called knowledge remains in his experience, if it remains at all,
as uninteresting, non-significant, and non-digested information. In the
elementary school at least, therefore, knowledge should not be presented
to the child in such a technical and abstract way that it will seem to
have no contact with daily life.
CHAPTER V
EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS
THE SCHOOL
As man, in the progress of civilization, became more fully conscious of
the worth of human life and of the possibilities of its development
through educational effort, the providing of special instruction for the
young naturally began to be recognized as a duty. As this duty became
more and more apparent, it gave rise, on the principle of the division
of labour, to corporate, or institutional, effort in this direction. By
this means there has been finally developed the modern school as a fully
organized corporate institution devoted to educational work, and
supported as an integral part of our civil or public obligations.
=Origin of the School.=--To trace the origin of the school, it will be
necessary to look briefly at certain marked stages of the development of
civilization. The earliest and simplest forms of primitive life suggest
a time when the family constituted the only type of social organization.
In such a mode of life, the principle of the division of labour would be
absent, the father or patriarch being the family carpenter, butcher,
doctor, judge, priest, and teacher. In the two latter capacities, he
would give whatever theoretic or practical instruction was received by
the child. As soon, however, as a tribal form of life is met, we find
the tribe or race collecting a body of experience which can be retained
only by entrusting it to a selected body. This experience, or knowledge,
is at first mainly of a religious character, and is possessed and
handed on by a body of men forming a priesthood. Such priestly bodies,
or colleges, may be considered the earliest special organizations
devoted to the office of teaching. As civilization gradually advanced, a
mass of valuable practical knowledge relative to man's environment was
secured and added to the more theoretic forms. As this practical
knowledge became more complex, there was felt a greater need that the
child should be made acquainted with it in some systematic manner during
his early years. Thus developed the conception of the school as an
instrument by which such educative work might be carried on more
effectively. On account of the constant increase of practical knowledge
and its added importance in directing the political and economic life of
the people, the civil authorities began in time to assume control of
secular education. Thus the government of the school as an institution
gradually passed to the state, the teacher taking the place of the
priest as the controlling agent in the education of the young.
OTHER EDUCATIVE AGENTS
=The Church.=--But notwithstanding the organization of the present
school as a civic institution, it is to be noticed that the church still
continues to act as an educative agent. In many communities, in fact,
the church is still found to retain a large control of education even of
a secular type. Even in communities where the church no longer exercises
control over the school, she still does much, though in a more indirect
way, to mould the thought and character of the community life; and is
still the chief educational agent concerned in the direct attempt to
enrich the religious experiences of the race.
=The Home.=--While much of the knowledge obtained by the child within
his own home necessarily comes through self, or informal, education, yet
in most homes the parent still performs in many ways the function of a
teacher, both by giving special instruction to the child and by
directing the formation of his habits. In certain forms of experience
indeed, it is claimed by the school that the instruction should be given
by the parent rather than by the teacher. In questions of morals and
manners, the natural tie which unites child and parent will undoubtedly
enable much of the necessary instruction to be given more effectively in
the home. It is often claimed, in fact, that parents now leave too much
to the school and the teacher in relation to the education of the child.
=The Vocation.=--Another agent which may directly control the
experiences of the young is found in the various vocations to which they
devote themselves. This phase of education was very important in the
days of apprenticeship. One essential condition in the form of agreement
was that the master should instruct the apprentice in the art, or craft,
to which he was apprenticed. Owing to the introduction of machinery and
the consequent more complex division of labour, this type of formal
education has been largely eliminated. It may be noted in passing that
it is through these changed conditions that night classes for mechanics,
which are now being provided by our technical schools, have become an
important factor in our educational system.
=Other Educational Institutions.=--Finally, many clubs, institutes, and
societies attempt, in a more accidental way, to convey definite
instruction, and therefore serve in a sense as educational institutions.
Prominent among such institutions is the modern Public Library, which
affords opportunity for independent study in practically every
department of knowledge. Our Farmers' Institutes also attempt to convey
definite instruction in connection with such subjects as dairying,
horticulture, agriculture, etc. Many Women's Clubs seek to provide
instruction for young women, both of a practical and also of a moral and
religious character. Various societies of a scientific character have
also done much to spread a knowledge of nature and her laws and are
likewise to be classed as educational institutions. Such movements as
these, while taking place without the limits of the school, may not
unreasonably claim a certain recognition as educational factors in the
community and should receive the sympathetic co-operation of the
teacher.
CHAPTER VI
THE PURPOSE OF THE SCHOOL
CIVIC VIEWS
Since the school of to-day is organized and supported by the state as a
special corporate body designed to carry on the work of education, it
becomes of public interest to know the particular purpose served through
the maintenance of such a state institution. We have already seen that
the school seeks to interpret the civilized life of the community, to
abstract out of it certain elements, and to arrange them in systematic
or scientific order as a curriculum of study, and finally to give the
child control of this experience, or knowledge. We have attempted to
show further that by this means education so increases the effectiveness
of the conscious reactions of the child and so modifies his instincts
and his habits as to add to his social efficiency. As, however, many
divergent and incomplete views are held by educators and others as to
the real purpose of public instruction, it will be well at this stage to
consider briefly some of the most important types of these theories.
=Aristocratic View.=--It may be noted that the experience, or knowledge,
represented in the curriculum cannot exist outside of the knowing mind.
In other words, arithmetic, grammar, history, geography, etc., are not
something existing apart from mind, but only as states of consciousness.
Text-books, for instance, do not contain knowledge but merely symbols of
knowledge, which would have no significance and give no light without a
mind to interpret them. Some, therefore, hold that the school, in
seeking to translate this social experience into the consciousness of
the young, should have as its aim merely to conserve for the future the
intellectual and moral achievements of the present and the past. This
they say demands of the school only that it produce an intellectual
priesthood, or a body of scholars, who may conserve wisdom for the light
and guidance of the whole community. Thus arises the aristocratic view
of the purpose of education, which sees no justification in the state
attempting to provide educational opportunities for all of its members,
but holds rather that education is necessary only for the leaders of
society.
=Democratic View.=--Against the above view, it is claimed by others
that, while public education should undoubtedly be conducted for the
benefit of the state as a whole; yet, since a chain cannot be stronger
than its weakest link, the efficiency of the state must be measured by
that of its individual units. The state, therefore, must aim, by means
of education, to add to its own efficiency by adding to that of each and
all of its members. This demands, however, that every individual should
be able to meet in an intelligent way such situations as he is likely to
encounter in his community life. Although carried on, therefore, for the
good of the state, yet education should be democratic, or universal, and
should fit every individual to become a useful member of society.
=These Views Purely Civic.=--It is to be noted that though the latter
view provides for the education of all as a duty of the state, yet both
of the above views are purely civic in their significance, and hold that
education exists for the welfare of the state as a whole and not for the
individual. If, therefore, the state could be benefited by having the
education of any class of citizens either limited or extended in an
arbitrary way, nothing in the above conception of the purpose of state
education would forbid such a course.
INDIVIDUALISTIC VIEWS
Opposed to the civic view of education, many hold, on the other hand,
that education exists for the child and not for the state, and
therefore, aims primarily to promote the welfare of the individual. By
these educators it is argued that, since each child is created with a
separate and distinct personality, it follows that he possesses a divine
right to have that personality developed independently of the claims of
the community to which he belongs. According to this view, therefore,
the aim of education should be in each case solely to effect some good
for the individual child. These educators, however, are again found to
differ concerning what constitutes this individual good.
=The Culture Aim.=--According to the practice of many educators,
education is justified on the ground that it furnishes the individual a
degree of personal culture. According to this view, the worth of
education is found in the fact that it puts the learner in possession of
a certain amount of conventional knowledge which is held to give a
polish to the individual; this polish providing a distinguishing mark by
which the learned class is separated from the ignorant. It is
undoubtedly true that the so-called culture of the educated man should
add to the grace and refinement of social life. In this sense, culture
is not foreign to the conception of individual and social efficiency. A
narrow cultural view, however, overlooks the fact that man's experience
is significant only when it enables him to meet the needs and problems
of the present, and that, as a member of a social community, he must
apply himself to the actual problems to be met within his environment.
To acquire knowledge, therefore, either as a mere possession or as a
mark of personal superiority, is to give to experience an unnatural
value.
=The Utilitarian Aim.=--Others express quite an opposite view to the
above, declaring that the aim of education is to enable the individual
to get on in the world. By this is meant that education should enable us
to be more successful in our business, and thus live more comfortable
lives. Now, so far as this practical success of the individual can be
achieved in harmony with the interests of society as a whole, we may
grant that education should make for individual betterment. Indeed it
may justly be claimed that an advancement in the comfort of the
individual under such conditions really implies an increase in the
comfort of society as a whole; for the man who is not able to provide
for his own welfare must prove, if not a menace, at least a burden to
society. If, however, it is implied that the educated man is to be
placed in a position to advance his own interests irrespective of, or in
direct opposition to, the rights and comforts of others, then the
utilitarian view of the end of education must appear one-sided. To
emphasize the good of the individual irrespective of the rights of
others, and to educate all of its members with such an end in view,
society would tend to destroy the unity of its own corporate life.
=The Psychological Aim.=--According to others, although education aims
to benefit the child, this benefit does not come from the acquisition of
any particular type of knowledge, but is due rather to a development
which takes place within the individual himself as a result of
experiencing. In other words, the child as an intelligent being is born
with certain attributes which, though at first only potential, may be
developed into actual capacities or powers. Thus it is held that the
real aim of education is to develop to the full such capacities as are
found already within the child. Moreover, it is because the child has
such possibilities of development within him, and because he starts at
the very outset of his existence with a divine yearning to develop these
inner powers, that he reaches out to experience his surroundings. For
this reason, they argue that every individual should have his own
particular capacities and powers fully and harmoniously developed. Thus
the true aim of education is said to be to unfold the potential life of
each individual and allow it to realize itself; the purpose of the
school being primarily not to make of the child a useful member of
society, but rather to study the nature of the child and develop
whatever potentialities are found within him as an individual. Because
this theory places such large emphasis on the natural tendencies and
capacities of the child, it is spoken of as the psychological aim of
education.
=Limitations of the Aim.=--This view evidently differs from others in
that it finds the justification for education, not primarily in the
needs or rights of a larger society of which the child is a member, but
rather in those of the single individual. Here, however, a difficulty
presents itself. If the developing of the child's capacities and
tendencies constitute the real purpose of public education, may not
education at times conflict with the good of the state itself? Now it is
evident that if a child has a tendency to lie, or steal, or inflict pain
on others, the development of such tendencies must result in harm to the
community at large. On the other hand, it is clear that in the case of
other proclivities which the child may possess, such as industry,
truthfulness, self-sacrifice, etc., the development of these cannot be
separated from the idea of the good of others. To apply a purely
individual aim to education, therefore, seems impossible; since we can
have no standard to distinguish between good and bad tendencies, unless
these are measured from a social standpoint or from a consideration of
the good of others, and not from the mere tendencies and capacities of
the individual. Moreover, to attempt the harmonious development of all
the child's tendencies and powers is not justifiable, even in the case
of those tendencies which might not conflict with the good of others. As
already noted, division of labour has now gone so far that the
individual may profitably be relieved from many forms of social
activity. This implies as a corollary, however, that the individual will
place greater stress upon other forms of activity.
THE SOCIAL, OR ECLECTIC, VIEW
Moreover, because, as already noted, the child is by his very nature a
social being, it follows that the good of the individual can never in
reality be opposed to the good of society, and that whenever the child
has in his nature any tendencies which conflict with the good of others,
these do not represent his true, or social, nature. For education to
suppress these, therefore, is not only fitting the child for society but
also advancing the development of the child so far as his higher, or
true, nature is concerned. Thus the true view of the purpose of the
school and of education will be a social, or eclectic, one, representing
the element of truth contained in both the civic and the individualistic
views. In the first place, such a view may be described as a civic one,
since it is only by considering the good of others, that is of the
state, that we can find a standard for judging the value of the child's
tendencies. Moreover, it is only by using the forms of experience, or
knowledge, that the community has evolved, that conditions can be
provided under which the child's tendencies may realize themselves.
Secondly, the true view is equally an individualistic view, for while it
claims that the child is by his nature a social being, it also demands a
full development of the social or moral tendencies of the individual, as
being best for himself as well as for society.
=This View Dynamic.=--In such an eclectic view of the aim of education,
it is to be noted further that society may turn education to its own
advancement. By providing that an individual may develop to his
uttermost such good tendencies as he may possess, education not only
allows the individual to make the most of his own higher nature, but
also enables him to contribute something to the advancement, or
elevation, of society itself. Such a conception of the aim of education,
therefore, does not view the present social life as some static thing to
which the child must be adapted in any formal sense, but as dynamic, or
as having the power to develop itself in and through a fuller
development of the higher and better tendencies within its individual
members.
=A Caution.=--While emphasizing the social, or moral, character of the
aim of education, it is to be borne in mind by the educator that this
implies more than a passive possession by the individual of a certain
moral sentiment. Man is truly moral only when his moral character is
functioning in goodness, or in _right action_. This is equivalent to
declaring that the moral man must be individually efficient in action,
and must likewise control his action from a regard for the rights of
others. There is always a danger, however, of assuming that the
development of moral character consists in giving the child some
passive mark, or quality, without any necessity of having it continually
functioning in conduct. But this reduces morality to a mere sentiment.
In such a case, the moral aim would differ little from the cultural aim
mentioned above.
CHAPTER VII
DIVISIONS OF EDUCATIONAL STUDY
CONTROL OF EXPERIENCE
=Significance of Control.=--From our previous inquiry into the nature of
education, we may notice that at least two important problems present
themselves for investigation in connection with the educative process.
Our study of the subject-matter of education, or the school curriculum,
has shown that its function as an educational instrumentality is to
furnish for the child experiences of greater value, this enhanced value
consisting in the greater social significance of the race experiences,
or knowledge, embodied within the curriculum, when compared with the
more individual experiences of the average child. It has been noted
further, however, that the office of education is not merely to have the
child translate this race experience into his own mind, but rather to
have him add to his social efficiency by gaining an adequate power of
control over these experiences. It is not, for instance, merely to know
the number combinations, but to be able to meet his practical needs,
that the child must master the multiplication tables. Control of
experience, however, as we have seen from our analysis of the learning
process, implies an ability to hold an aim, or problem, in view, and a
further ability to select and arrange the means of gaining the desired
end. In relation to the multiplication table, therefore, control of
experience implies that a person is able to apprehend the present number
situation as one that needs solution, and also that he can bring, or
apply, his knowledge of the table to its solution.
=Nature of Growth of Control.=--The young child is evidently not able at
first to exercise this power of control over his experiences. When a
very young child is aroused, say by the sound proceeding from a bell,
the impression may give rise to certain random movements, but none of
these indicate on his part any definite experience or purpose. When,
however, under the same stimulation, in place of these random movements,
the child reacts mentally in a definite way, it signifies on his part
the recognition of an external object. This recognition shows that the
child now has, in place of the first vague image, a more or less
definite idea of the external thing. Before it was vague noise; now it
is a bell. But a yet more valuable control is gained by the child when
he gives this idea a wider meaning by organizing it as an element into
more complex experiences, as when he relates it with the idea of a fire,
of dinner, or of a call to school. Before it was merely a bell; now it
is an alarm of fire. So far, however, as the child is lacking in the
control of his experiences, he remains largely a mere creature of
impulse and instinct, and is occupied with present impressions only.
This implies also an inability to set up problems and solve them through
a regular process of adjustment, and a consequent lack of power to
arrange experiences as guides to action. In the educative process,
however, as previously exemplified, we find that the child is not a
slave to the passing transient impressions of the present, but is able
to secure a control over his experience which enables him to set up
intelligent aims, devise plans for their attainment, and apply these
plans in gaining the end desired. Growth of control takes place,
therefore, to the extent to which the child thus becomes able to keep
an end in view and to select and organize means for its realization.
=Elements of Control.=--In the growth of control manifested in the
learning process, the child, as we have noticed, becomes able to judge
the value, or worth, of experience. In other words, he becomes able to
distinguish between the important and the trivial, and to see the
relative values of various experiences when applied to practical ends.
Further, he gains right feeling or an emotional warmth toward that which
his intelligence affirms to be worthy, or grows to appreciate the right.
Thirdly, he secures a power in execution that enables him to attain to
that which his judgment and feeling have set up as a desirable end. In
fine, the educative process implies for the child a growth of control by
which he becomes able (1) to select worthy ends; (2) to devise plans for
their attainment; and (3) to put these plans into successful execution.
THE INSTRUCTOR'S PROBLEMS
The end in any learning process being to set the pupils a problem which
may stimulate them to gain such an efficient control of useful
experience, or knowledge, we may note two important problems confronting
the teacher as an instructor:
1. _Problem of Matter._--The teacher must be so conversant with the
subject-matter of the curriculum and with its value in relation to
actual life, that he may select therefrom the problems and materials
which will enable the child to come into possession of the desirable
experiences. This constitutes the question of the subject-matter of
education.
2. _Problem of Method._--The teacher must further be conversant with the
process by which the child gets command of experience or with the way in
which the mind of the child, in reacting upon any subject-matter,
selects and organizes his knowledge into new experience and puts the
same into execution. In other words, the teacher must fully understand
how to direct the child successfully through the four stages of the
learning process.
(_a_) _General Method._--In a scientific study of education it is
usually assumed that the student-teacher has mastered academically the
various subjects of the curriculum. In the professional school,
therefore, the subject-matter of education is studied largely from the
standpoint of method. In his study of method the student of education
seeks first to master the details of the process of education outlined
in the opening Chapters under the headings of problem, selecting
process, relating process, and application. By this means the teacher
comes to understand in greater detail how the mind of the child reacts
upon the presented problems of the curriculum in gaining control over
his experiences, or, in other words, how the process of learning
actually takes place within the consciousness of the child. This
sub-division is treated under the head of _General Method_.
(_b_) _Special Methods._--In addition to General Method, the
student-teacher must study each subject of the curriculum from the
standpoint of its use in setting problems, or lessons, which shall
enable the child to gain control of a richer experience. This
sub-division is known as _Special Methods_, since it considers the
particular problems involved in adapting the matter of each subject to
the general purpose of the educative process.
3. _Problem of Management._--From what has been seen in reference to the
school as an institution organized for directing the education of the
child, it is apparent that in addition to the immediate and direct
control of the process of learning as involved in the method of
instruction, there is the more indirect control of the process through
the systematic organization and management of the school as a corporate
institution. These more indirect problems connected with the control of
education within the school will include, not only such topics as the
organization and management of the pupils, but also the legal ways and
means for providing these various educational instrumentalities. These
indirect elements of control constitute a third phase of the problem of
education, and their study is known as _School Organization and
Management_.
4. _An Historic Problem._--It has been noted that the corporate
institution known as the school arose as the result of the principle of
the division of labour, and thus took to itself duties previously
performed under other less effective conditions. Thus the school
presents on its organic side a history with which the teacher should be
more or less familiar. On its historical side, therefore, education
presents a fourth phase for study. This division of the subject is known
as the _History of Education_.
SUMMARY
The facts of education, as scientifically considered by the
student-teacher, thus arrange themselves under four main heads:
1. General Method
2. Special Methods
3. School Organization and Management
4. History of Education
The third and fourth divisions of education are always studied as
separate subjects under the above heads. In dealing with Special
Methods, also, it is customary in the study of education to treat each
subject of the curriculum under its own head in both a professional and
an academic way. There is left, therefore, for scientific consideration,
the subject of General Method, to a study of which we shall now
proceed.
PART II.--METHODOLOGY
CHAPTER VIII
GENERAL METHOD
=Meaning of Method.=--In the last Chapter it was seen that, in relation
to the child, education involves a gaining of control over experiences.
It has been seen further, that the child gains control of new experience
whenever he goes through a process of learning involving the four steps
of problem, selecting activity, relating activity, and expression.
Finally it has been decided that the teacher in his capacity as an
instructor, by presenting children with suitable problems, may in a
sense direct their selecting and relating activities and thus exercise a
certain control over their learning processes. To the teacher,
therefore, method will mean an ability to control the learning process
in such a way that the children shall, in their turn, gain an adequate
control over the new experience forming the subject-matter of any
learning process. Thus a detailed study by student-teachers of the
various steps of the learning process, with a view to gaining knowledge
and skill relative to directing pupils in their learning, constitutes
for such teachers a study of General Method.
=Subdivisions of Method.=--For the student-teacher, the study of general
method will involve a detailed investigation of how the child is to gain
control of social experiences as outlined above, and how the teacher may
bring about the same through instruction.
Tn such an investigation, he must examine in detail the various steps of
the educative process to discover:
1. How the knowledge, or social experience, contained in the school
curriculum should be presented to the child. This will involve an
adequate study of the first step of the learning process--the problem.
2. How the mind, or consciousness, of the child reacts during the
learning process upon the presented materials in gaining control of this
knowledge. This will embrace a study of the second and third steps of
the process--the selecting and relating activities.
3. How the child is to acquire facility in using a new experience, or in
applying it to direct his conduct. This involves a particular study of
the fourth step of the process--the law of expression.
4. How the teacher may use any outside agencies, as maps, globes,
specimens, experiments, etc., to assist in directing the learning
process. This involves a study of various classes of educational
instrumentalities.
5. How the principles of general method are to be adapted to the
different modes by which the learner may gain new experience, or
knowledge. This will involve a study of the different kinds of lessons,
or a knowledge of lesson types.
METHOD IMPLIES KNOWLEDGE OF MIND
Before we proceed to such a detailed study of the educative process as a
process of teaching, it should be noted that the existence of a general
method is possible only provided that the growth of conscious control
takes place in the mind of the child in a systematic and orderly manner.
All children, for instance, must be supposed to respond in the same
general way in the learning process when they are confronted with the
same problem. Without this they could not secure from the same lesson
the same experiences and the same relative measure of control over
these experiences. But if our conscious acts are so uniform that the
teacher may expect from all of his pupils like responses and like states
of experience under similar stimulations, then a knowledge on the part
of the teacher of the orderly modes in which the mind works will be
essential to an adequate control of the process of learning. Now a full
and systematic account of mind and its activities is set forth in the
Science of Psychology. As the Science of Consciousness, or Experience,
psychology explains the processes by which all experience is built up,
or organized, in consciousness. Thus psychology constitutes a basic
science for educational method. It is essential, therefore, that the
teacher should have some knowledge of the leading principles of this
science. For this reason, frequent reference will be made, in the study
of general method, to underlying principles of psychology. The more
detailed examination of these principles and of their application to
educational method will, however, be postponed to a later part of the
text. Each of the four important steps of the learning process will now
be treated in order, beginning in the next Chapter with the problem.
CHAPTER IX
THE LESSON PROBLEM
=Problem, a Motive.=--The foregoing description and examples of the
educative process have shown that new knowledge necessarily results
whenever the mind faces a difficulty, or need, and adjusts itself
thereto. In other words, knowledge is found to possess a practical value
and to arise as man faces the difficulties, or problems, with which he
is confronted. The basis of conscious activity in any direction is,
therefore, a feeling of _need_. If one analyses any of his conscious
acts, he will find that the motive is the satisfaction of some desire
which he more or less consciously feels. The workman exerts himself at
his labour because he feels the need of satisfying his artistic sense or
of supplying the necessities of those who are dependent upon him; the
teacher prepares the lessons he has to present and puts forth effort to
teach them successfully, because he feels the need of educating the
pupils committed to his care; the physician observes symptoms closely
and consults authorities carefully, because he feels the need of curing
his patients; the lawyer masters every detail of the case he is
pleading, because he feels the need of protecting the interests of his
client. What is true of adults is equally true of children in school.
The pupil puts forth effort in school work because he feels that this
work is meeting some of his needs.
=Nature of Problem.=--It is not to be assumed, however, that the only
problem which will prompt the individual to put forth conscious effort
must be a purely physical need, such as hunger, thirst, or a distinct
desire for the attainment of a definite object, as to avoid danger or to
secure financial gain or personal pleasure. Nor is it to be understood
that the learner always clearly formulates the problem in his own mind.
Indeed, as will be seen more fully later, one very important motive for
mastering a presented problem is the instinct of curiosity. As an
example of such may be noted a case which came under the observation of
the writer, where the curiosity of a small child was aroused through the
sight of a mud-turtle crawling along a walk. After a few moments of
intense investigation, he cried to those standing by, "Come and see the
bug in the basket." Here, evidently, the child's curiosity gave the
strange appearance sufficient value to cause him to make it an object of
study. Impelled by this feeling, he must have selected ideas from his
former experience (bug--crawling thing; basket--incasing thing), which
seemed of value in interpreting the unknown presentation. Finally by
focusing these upon this strange object, he formed an idea, or mental
picture, which gave him a reasonable control over the new vague
presentation. Such a motive as curiosity may not imply to the same
degree as some others a personal need, nor does it mean that the child
consciously says to himself that this new material or activity is
satisfying a specific need, but in some vague way he knows that it
appeals to him because of its attractiveness in itself or because of its
relation to some other attractive object. In brief, it interests him,
and thus creates a tendency on the part of an individual to give it his
attention. In such situations, therefore, the learner evidently feels to
a greater or less degree a necessity, or a practical need, for solving
the problem before him.
NEED OF PROBLEM
=Knowledge Gained Accidentally.=--It is evident, however, that at times
knowledge might be gained in the absence of any set problem upon which
the learner reacts. For example, a certain person while walking along a
road intent upon his own personal matters observed a boy standing near a
high fence. On passing further along the street, he glanced through an
opening and observed a vineyard within the inclosure. On returning along
the street a few minutes later, he saw the same boy standing at a near
by corner eating grapes. Hereupon these three ideas at once co-ordinated
themselves into a new form of knowledge, signifying stealing-of-fruit.
In such a case, the experience has evidently been gained without the
presence of a problem to guide the selecting and relating of the ideas
entering into the new knowledge. In like manner, a child whose only
motive is to fill paper with various coloured crayon may accidentally
discover, while engaged on this problem, that red and yellow will
combine to make orange, or that yellow and blue will combine to make
green. Here also the child gains valuable experience quite
spontaneously, that is, without its constituting a motive, or problem,
calling for adjustment.
=Learning without Motive.=--In the light of the above, a question
suggests itself in relation to the lesson problem, or motive. Granting
that a regular school recitation must contain some valuable problem for
which the learning process is to furnish a solution, and granting that
the teacher must be fully conscious both of the problem and of its mode
of solution, the question might yet be asked whether a problem is to be
realized by the child as a felt need at the beginning of the lesson. For
example, if the teacher wishes his pupils to learn how to compose the
secondary colour purple, might he have them blend in a purely arbitrary
way, red and blue, and finally ask them to note the result? Or again, if
he wishes the pupils to learn the construction of a paper-box or
fire-place, would he not be justified in directing them to make certain
folds, to do certain cutting, and to join together the various sections
in a certain way, and then asking them to note the result? If such a
course is permissible, it would seem that, so far at least as the
learner is concerned, he may gain control of valuable experience, or
knowledge, without the presence of a problem, or motive, to give the
learning process value and direction.
=Problem Aids Control.=--It is true that in cases like the above, the
child may gain the required knowledge. The cause for this is, no doubt,
that the physical activity demanded of the pupil constitutes indirectly
a motive for attending sufficiently to gain the knowledge. But in many
cases no such conditions might exist. It is important, therefore, to
have the pupil as far as possible realize at the outset a definite
motive for each lesson. The advantage consists in the fact that the
motive gives a value to the ideas which enter into the new knowledge,
even before they are fully incorporated into a new experience. For
example, if in a lesson in geometrical drawing, the teacher, instead of
having the child set out with the problem of drawing a pair of parallel
lines, merely orders him to follow certain directions, and then requests
him to measure the shortest distance between the lines at different
points, the child is not likely to grasp the connections of the various
steps involved in the construction of the whole problem. This means,
however, that the learner has not secured an equal control over the new
experience.
=Pupils Feel Its Lack.=--A further objection to conducting a lesson in
such a way that the child may find no motive for the process until the
close of the lesson, is the fact that he is himself aware of its lack.
In school the child soon discovers that in a lesson he selects and gives
attention to various ideas solely in order to gain control over some
problem which he may more or less definitely conceive in advance. For
this reason, if the teacher attempts, as in the above examples, to fix
the child's attention on certain facts without any conception of
purpose, the pupil nevertheless usually asks himself the question: "What
does the teacher intend me to do with these facts?" Indeed, without at
least that motive to hold such disconnected ideas in his mind, it is
doubtful whether the pupil would attend to them sufficiently to organize
them into a new item of knowledge. When, therefore, the teacher proposes
at the outset an attractive problem to solve, he has gone a long way
toward stimulating the intellectual activity of the pupil. The setting
of problems, the supplying of motives, the giving of aims, the awakening
of needs--this constitutes a large part of the business of the teacher.
PUPIL'S MOTIVE
=Pupil's Problem versus Teacher's.=--But it is important that the
problem before the pupil at the beginning of the lesson should really be
the pupil's and not the teacher's merely. The teacher should be careful
not to impose the problem on the pupils in an arbitrary way, but should
try to connect the lesson with an interest that is already active. The
teacher's motive in teaching the lesson and the pupil's motive in
attending to it are usually quite different. The teacher's problem
should, of course, be identical with the real problem of the lesson.
Thus in a literature lesson on "Hide and Seek" (_Ontario Third Reader_),
the teacher's motive would be to lead the pupil to appreciate the music
of the lines, the beauty of the images, and the pathos of the ideas; and
in general, to increase the pupil's capacities of constructive
imagination and artistic appreciation. The pupil's motive might be to
find out how the poet had described a familiar game. In a nature study
lesson on "The Rabbit," the teacher's motive would be to lead the pupil
to make certain observations and draw certain inferences and thus add
something to his facility in observation and inference. The pupil's
motive in the same lesson would be to discover something new about a
very interesting animal. In general, the teacher's motive will be (1) to
give the pupil a certain kind of useful knowledge; (2) to develop and
strengthen certain organs; or (3) to add something to his mechanical
skill by the forming of habitual reactions. In general, the pupil's
motive will be to learn some fact, to satisfy some instinct, or perform
some activity that is interesting either in itself or because of its
relation to some desired end. That is, the pupil's motive is the
satisfaction of an interest or the promotion of a purpose.
=Pupil's Motive May Be Indirect.=--It is evident from the foregoing that
the pupil's motive for applying himself to any lesson may differ from
the real lesson problem, or motive. For instance, in mastering the
reading of a certain selection, the pupil's chief motive in applying
himself to this particular task may be to please and win the approbation
of the teacher. The true lesson problem, however, is to enable the
learner to give expression to the thoughts and feelings of the author.
When the aim, or motive, is thus somewhat disconnected from the lesson
problem itself, it becomes an _indirect_ motive. While such indirect
motives are undoubtedly valuable and must often be used with young
children, it is evident that when the pupil's motive is more or less
directly associated with the real problem of the lesson, it will form a
better centre for the selecting and organizing of the ideas entering
into the new experience.
=Relation to Pupil's Feeling.=--A chief essential in connection with the
pupil's motive, or attitude, toward the lesson problem, is that the
child should _feel_ a value in the problem. That is, his apprehension of
the problem should carry with it a desire to secure a complete mastery
of the problem from a sense of its intrinsic value. The difference in
feeling which a pupil may have toward the worth of a problem would be
noticed by comparing the attitude of a class in the study of a military
biography or a pioneer adventure taken from Canadian or United States
sources respectively. In the case of the former, the feeling of
patriotism associated with the lesson problem will give it a value for
the pupils entirely absent from the other topic. The extent to which the
pupil feels such a value in the lesson topic will in most cases also
measure the degree of control he obtains over the new experience.
AWAKENING INTEREST IN PROBLEMS
As will be seen in Chapter XXIX, where our feeling states will be
considered more fully, feeling is essentially a personal attitude of
mind, and there can be little guarantee that a group of pupils will feel
an equal value in the same problem. At times, in fact, even where the
pupil understands fairly well the significance of a presented lesson
problem, he may feel little personal interest in it. One of the most
important questions of method is, therefore, how to awaken in a class
the necessary interest in the lesson problem with which they are being
presented.
1. =Through Physical Activity.=--It is a characteristic of the young
child to enjoy physical activity for the sake of the activity itself.
This is true even of his earliest acts, such as stretching, smiling,
etc. Although these are merely impulsive movements without conscious
purpose, the child soon forms ideas of different acts, and readily
associates these with other ideas. Thus he takes a delight in the mere
functioning of muscles, hands, voice, etc., in expressive movements. As
he develops, however, on account of the close association, during his
early years, between thought and movement, the child is much interested
in any knowledge which may be presented to him in direct association
with motor activity. This fact is especially noticeable in that the
efforts of a child to learn a strange object consist largely in
endeavouring to discover what he can do with it. He throws, rolls,
strikes, strives _to_ open it, and in various other ways makes it a
means of physical expression. Whenever, especially, he can discover the
use of an object, as to cut with knife or scissors, to pound with a
hammer, to dip with a ladle, or to sweep with a broom, this social
significance of the object gives him full satisfaction, and little
attention is paid to other qualities. For these reasons the teacher will
find it advantageous, whenever possible, to associate a lesson problem
directly with some form of physical action. In primary number work, for
example, instead of presenting the child with mere numbers and symbols,
the teacher may provide him with objects, in handling which he may
associate the number facts with certain acts of grouping objects. It is
in this way that a child should approach such problems as:
How many fours are there in twelve?
How many feet in a yard?
How many quarts in a peck? etc.
The teaching of fractions by means of scissors and cardboard; the
teaching of board measure by having boards actually measured; the
teaching of primary geography by means of the sand-table; the teaching
of nature study by excursions to fields and woods; these are all easy
because we are working in harmony with the child's natural tendency to
be physically active. The more closely the lesson problem adjusts itself
to these tendencies, the greater will be the pupil's activity and hence
the more rapid his progress.
2. Through Constructive Instinct.--The child's delight in motor
expression is closely associated with his instinctive tendency to
construct. When, therefore, new knowledge can be presented to the child
in and through constructive exercises, he is more likely to feel its
value. Thus it is possible, by means of such occupations as paper
folding or stick-laying, to provide interesting problems for teaching
number and geometric forms. In folding the check-board, for example, the
child will master necessary problems relating to the numbers, 2, 4, 8,
and 16. In learning colour, it is more interesting for the child to
study different colours through painting leaves, flowers, and fruits,
than to learn them through mere sense impressions, or even through
comparing coloured objects, as in the Montessori chromatic exercises. A
study of the various kindergarten games and occupations would give an
abundance of examples illustrative of the possibility of presenting
knowledge in direct association with various types of constructive
work.
=A. Activity must be Directly Connected with Problem.=--It may be noted,
however, that certain dangers associate themselves with these methods.
One danger consists in the fact that, if care is not taken, the physical
activity may not really involve the knowledge to be conveyed, but may be
only very indirectly associated with it. Such a danger might occur in
the use of the Montessori colour tablets for teaching tints and shades.
In handling those, kindergarten children show a strong inclination to
build flat forms with the tablets. Now unless these building exercises
involve the distinguishing of the various tints and shades, the
constructive activity will be likely to divert the attention of the
pupil away from the colour problem which the tablets are supposed to set
for the pupils.
=B. Not too much Emphasis on Manual Skill.=--Again, in expressive
exercises intended merely to impart new knowledge, it may happen that
the teacher will lay too much stress on perfect form of expression. In
these exercises, however, the purpose should be rather to enable the
child to realize the ideas in his expressive actions. When, for example,
a child, in learning such geographical forms as island, gulf, mountain,
etc., uses sand, clay, or plasticine as a medium of expression, too much
striving after accuracy of form in minor details may tend to draw the
pupil's attention from the broader elements of knowledge to be mastered.
In other words, it is the gaining of certain ideas, or knowledge, and
not technical perfection, that is being aimed at in such expressive
movements.
=3. Instinct of Curiosity as Motive.=--The value of the instinct of
curiosity in setting a problem for the young child has been already
referred to. From what was there seen, it is evident that to the extent
to which the teacher awakens wonder and curiosity in his presentation
of a lesson problem, the child will be ready to enter upon the further
steps of the learning process. For example, by inserting two forks and a
large needle into a cork, as illustrated in the accompanying Figure, and
then apparently balancing the whole on a small hard surface, we may
awaken a deep interest in the problem of gravity. In the same manner, by
calling the pupils' attention to the drops on the outside of a glass
pitcher filled with water, we may have their curiosity aroused for the
study of condensation. So also the presentation of a picture may arouse
curiosity in places or people.
[Illustration]
=4. Ownership as Motive.=--The natural pleasure which children take in
collection and ownership may often be associated with presented problems
in a way to cause them to take a deeper interest in the knowledge to be
acquired. For example, in presenting a lesson on the countries of
Europe, the collection of coins or stamps representative of the
different countries will add greatly to the interest, compared with a
mere outline study of the political divisions from a map. A more
detailed examination of the instincts and tendencies of the child and
their relation to the educative process will, however, be found in
Chapter XXI.
=5. Acquired Interest as Motive.=--Finally, in the case of individual
pupils, a knowledge of their particular, or special, interests is often
a means of awakening in them a feeling of value for various types of
school work. As an example, there might be cited the experience of a
teacher who had in his school a pupil whom it seemed impossible to
interest in reading. Thereupon the teacher made it his object to learn
what were this pupil's chief interests outside the school. Using these
as a basis for the selecting of simple reading matter for the boy, he
was soon able to create in him an interest in reading for its own sake.
The result was that in a short time this pupil was rendered reasonably
efficient in what had previously seemed to him an uninteresting and
impossible task.
=6. Use of Knowledge as Motive.=--In the preceding cases, interest in
the problem is made to rest primarily upon some native instinct, or
tendency. It is to be noted, however, that as the child advances in the
acquisition of knowledge, or experience, there develops in him also a
desire for mental activity. In other words, the normal child takes a
delight in the use of any knowledge over which he possesses adequate
control. It is to be noted further, that the child masters the new
problem by bringing to bear upon it suitable ideas selected out of his
previously acquired experiences. It is evident, therefore, that, when a
lesson problem is presented to the child in such a way that he sees a
connection between it and his present knowledge and feels, further, that
the problem may be mastered by a use of knowledge over which he has
complete mastery, he will take a deeper interest in the learning
process. When, on the other hand, he has imperfect control over the old
knowledge from which the interpreting ideas are selected, his interest
in the problem itself will be greatly reduced. Owing to this fact, the
teacher may adapt his lesson problems, or motives, to the stage of
development of the pupils. In the case of young children, since they
have little knowledge, but possess a number of instinctive tendencies,
the lesson problem should be such as may be associated with their
instinctive tendencies. Since, however, the expressing of these
tendencies necessarily brings to the child ideas, or increases his
knowledge, the pupil will in time desire to use his growing knowledge
for its own sake. Here the child becomes able to grasp a problem
consciously, or in idea, and, so far as it appeals to his past
experience, will desire to work for its solution. Thus any problem which
is recognized as having a vital connection with his own experience
constitutes for the child a strong motive. For older pupils, therefore,
the lesson problem which constitutes the strongest motive is the one
that is consciously recognized and felt to have some direct connection
with their present knowledge.
KNOWLEDGE OF PROBLEM
=Relation to Pupil's Knowledge.=--Since the conscious apprehension of
the problem by the pupil in its relation to his present knowledge
constitutes the best motive for the learning process, a question arises
how this problem is to be grasped by the pupil. First, it is evident
that the problem is not a state of knowledge, or a complete experience.
If such were the case, there would be nothing for him to learn. It is
this partial ignorance that causes a problem to exist for the learner as
a felt need, or motive. On the other hand it is not a state of complete
ignorance, otherwise the learner could not call up any related ideas
for its solution. When, for example, the child, after learning the
various physical features, the climate, and people of Ontario, is
presented with the problem of learning the chief industries, he is able
by his former knowledge to realize the existence of these industries
sufficiently to feel the need of a fuller realization. In the same way
the student who has traced the events of Canadian History up to the year
1791, is able to know the Constitutional Act as a problem for study,
that is, he is able to experience the existence of such a problem and to
that extent is able to know it. His mental state is equally a state of
ignorance, in that he has not realized in his own consciousness all the
facts relative to the Act. In the orderly study of any school subject,
therefore, the mastery of the previous lesson or lessons will in turn
suggest problems for further lessons. It is this further development of
new problems out of present knowledge that demands an orderly sequence
of topics in the different school subjects, a fact that should be fully
realized by the teacher.
=Recognition of Problem: A. Prevents Digressions.=--An adequate
recognition of the lesson problem by the pupil in the light of his own
experience is useful in preventing the introduction of irrelevant
material into the lesson. Young children are particularly prone (and,
under certain circumstances, older students also) to drag into the
lessons interesting side issues that have been suggested by some phase
of the work. As a rule, it is advisable to follow closely the straight
and narrow road that leads to the goal of the lesson and not to permit
digressions into attractive by-paths. If a pupil attempts to introduce
irrelevant matter, he should be asked what the problem of the lesson is
and whether what he is speaking of will be of any value in attaining
that end. The necessity of this will, however, be seen more fully in our
consideration of the next division of the learning process.
=B. Organizes the Lesson Facts.=--The adequate recognition of the lesson
problem is valuable in helping the pupil to organize his knowledge. If
you take a friend for a walk along the streets of a strange city
engaging him in interesting conversation by the way, and if, when you
have reached a distant point, you tell him that he must find his way
back alone, he will probably be unable to do so without assistance. But
if you tell him at the outset what you are going to do, he will note
carefully the streets traversed, the corners turned, the directions
taken, and will likely find his way back easily. This is because he had
a clearly defined problem before him. The conditions are much the same
in a lesson. When the pupil starts out with no definite problem and is
led along blindly to some unknown goal, he will be unable to retrace his
route; that is, he will be unable to reproduce the matter over which he
has been taken. But with a clearly defined problem he will be able to
note the order of the steps of the lesson, their relation to one another
and to the problem, and when the lesson is over he will be able to go
over the same course again. The facts of the lesson will have become
organized in his mind.
HOW TO SET LESSON PROBLEM
=Precautions.=--If the teacher expects his pupils to become interested
in a problem by immediately recognizing a connection between it and
their previous knowledge, he must avoid placing the problem before them
in a form in which they cannot readily apprehend this connection. The
teacher who announced at the beginning of the grammar lesson, "To-day we
are going to learn about Mood in verbs" started the problem in a form
that was meaningless to the class. The simplest method in such a lesson
would be to draw attention to examples in sentences of verbs showing
this change and then say to the class, "Let us discover why these verbs
are changed." Similarly, to propose as the problem of the history lesson
"the development of parliamentary government during the Stuart period"
would be to use terms too difficult for the class to interpret. It would
be better to say: "We are going to find out how the Stuart kings were
forced by Parliament to give up control of certain things." Instead of
saying, "We shall study in this lesson the municipal government of
Ontario," it would be much better to proceed in some such way as the
following: "A few days ago your father paid his taxes for the year. Now
we are going to learn by whom, and for what purposes, these taxes are
spent." Similarly, "Let us find out all we can about the cat," would be
inferior to, "Of what use to the cat are his sharp claws, padded feet,
and rough tongue?"
On the other hand, it is evident that, in attempting to present the
problem in a form in which the pupils may recognize its connection with
their previous experiences, care must be taken not to tell outright the
whole point of the lesson. In a lesson on the adverb, for instance, it
would not do to say: "You have learned how adjectives modify, or change
the meaning of, nouns. To-day we shall study words that modify verbs." A
more satisfactory way of proceeding in such a lesson would be to have on
the black-board two sets of sentences exactly alike except that the
second would contain adverbs and the first would not. Then ask: "What
words are in the second group of sentences that are not in the first?
Let us examine the use of these words." In the same way, to state the
problem of an arithmetic lesson as the discovery of "how to add
fractions by changing them to equivalent fractions having the same
denominator" is open to the objection of telling too much. In this case
a better method would be to present a definite problem requiring the use
of addition of fractions. The pupil will see that he has not the
necessary arithmetical knowledge to solve the problem and will then be
in the proper mental attitude for the lesson.
EXAMPLES OF MOTIVATION
A few additional examples, drawn from different school subjects, are
here added to illustrate further what is meant by setting a problem as a
need, or motive.
=A. History.=--The members of a Form IV class were about to take up the
study of the influence of John Wilkes upon parliamentary affairs during
the reign of George III. As most of the pupils had visited the Canadian
Parliament Buildings and had watched from the galleries the proceedings
of the House of Commons, the teacher took this as the point of departure
for the lesson. First, he obtained from the class the facts that the
members of the Commons are elected by the different constituencies of
the Dominion and that nobody has any power to interfere with the
people's right to elect whomsoever they wish to represent them. The same
conditions exist to-day in England, but this has not always been the
case there. There was a time when the people's choice of a
representative was sometimes set aside. The teacher then inquired
regarding the men who sit in the gallery just above the Speaker's chair.
These are the parliamentary reporters for the important daily
newspapers throughout the Dominion. They send telegraphic despatches
regarding the debates in the House to their respective newspapers. These
despatches are published the following day, and the people of the
country are thus enabled to know what is going on in Parliament. Nobody
has any right to prevent these newspapers from publishing what they wish
regarding the proceedings, provided, of course, the reports are not
untruthful. These conditions prevail also in England now, but have not
always done so.
The work of the lesson was to see how these two conditions, freedom of
elections and liberty of the press, have been brought about. The pupils
were thus placed in a receptive attitude to hear the story of John
Wilkes.
=B. Arithmetic.=--A Form IV class had been studying decimals and knew
how to read and write, add and subtract them. The teacher suggested a
situation requiring the use of multiplication, and the pupils found
themselves without the necessary means to meet the situation. For
instance, "Mary's mother sent her to buy 2.25 lb. tea which cost $.375
per lb. What would she have to pay for it?" Or, "Mr. Brown has a field
containing 8.72 acres. Last year it yielded 21.375 bushels of wheat to
the acre. Wheat was worth 97.5 cents per bushel. What was the crop from
the field worth?" The pupils saw that, in order to solve these
questions, they must know how to multiply decimals. Multiplication of
decimals became the problem of the lesson, the goal to be attained.
=C. Grammar.=--The teacher wished to show the meaning of _case_ as an
inflection of nouns and pronouns. He had written on the black-board such
sentences as:
I dropped my book when John pushed me.
When the man passed, he had his dog with him.
He asked the pupils what words in these sentences refer to the same
person, and obtained the answer that _I_, _my_, and _me_ all refer to
one person, and _he_, _his_, and _him_ to another. Then, he proposed the
problem, "Let us find out why we have three different forms of a word
all meaning the same person." The problem was adapted to animate the
curiosity of the pupils and call into activity their capacity for
perceiving relationships.
=D. Literature.=--The teacher was about to present the poem, "Hide and
Seek," to a Form III class. He said, "You have all played 'hide and
seek.' How do you play it? You will find on page 50 of your _Ontario
Third Reader_ a beautiful poem describing a game of 'hide and seek' that
is rather a sad one. Let us see how the poet has described this game."
The pupils were at once interested in what the poet had to say about
what was to them a very familiar diversion, and, while the lesson was in
progress, their capacity for sympathy and for artistic appreciation was
appealed to.
=E. Geography.=--A Form III class was to study some of the more
important commercial centres of Canada. Speaking of Montreal, the
teacher proposed the problem, "Do you think we can find out why a city
of half a million people has grown up at this particular point?" The
pupils' instinct of curiosity was here appealed to and their capacity
for perceiving relationships was challenged.
=F. Composition.=--The teacher wished to take up the writing of letters
of application with a class of Form IV pupils. He wrote on the
black-board an advertisement copied from a recent newspaper, for
example, "Wanted--A boy about fifteen to assist in office; must be a
good writer and accurate in figures; apply by letter to Martin & Kelly,
8 Central Chambers, City." Then he said, "Some day in the near future
many of you will be called upon to answer such an advertisement as this.
Now what should a letter of application in reply to this contain?" The
class at once proceeded, with the teacher's assistance, to work out a
satisfactory letter. Here, a purpose for the future was the principal
need promoted.
=G. Nature Study.=--The pupils of a Form II class had been making
observations regarding a pet rabbit that one of their number had brought
to school. After reporting these observations, the pupils were asked,
"What good do you think these long ears, large eyes, strong hind legs,
split upper lip, etc., are to the rabbit?" Here the problem set was
related to the children's instinctive interest in a living animal,
appealed to the instinct of curiosity, and challenged their capacity to
draw inferences.
CHAPTER X
LEARNING AS A SELECTING ACTIVITY
OR
PROCESS OF ANALYSIS
=Knowledge Obtained Through Use of Ideas.=--As already noted, the
presented problem of a lesson is neither a state of complete knowledge
nor a state of complete ignorance. On the other hand, its function is to
provide a starting-point and guide for the calling up of a number of
suitable ideas which the pupil may later relate into a single
experience, constituting the new knowledge. Take, for example, a person
without a knowledge of fractions, who approaches for the first time the
problem of sharing as found in such a question as:
Divide $15 between John and William, giving John $3 as often as William
gets $2.
In gaining control of this situation, the pupil must select the ideas $3
and $2, the knowledge that $3 and $2 = $5, and the further knowledge
that $15 contains $5 three times. These various ideas will constitute
data for organizing the new experience of $9 for John and $6 for
William. In the same manner, when the student in grammar is first
presented with the problem of interpreting the grammatical value of the
word _driving_ in the sentence, "The boy _driving_ the horse is very
noisy," he is compelled to apply to its interpretation the ideas noun,
adjectival relation, and adjective, and also the ideas object, objective
relation, and verb. In this way the child secures the mental elements
which he may organize into the new experience, or knowledge
(participle), and thus gain control of the presented word.
=Interpreting Ideas Already Known.=--It is to be noticed at the outset
that all ideas selected to aid in the solution of the lesson problem
have their origin in certain past experiences which have a bearing on
the subject in hand. When presented with a strange object (guava), a
person fixes his attention upon it, and thereupon is able, through his
former sensation experiences, to interpret it as an unknown thing. He
then begins to select, out of his experiences of former objects, ideas
that bear upon the thing before him. By focusing thereon certain ideas
with which he is perfectly familiar, as rind, flesh, seed, etc., he
interprets the strange thing as a kind of fruit. In the same way, when
the student is first presented in school with an example of the
infinitive, he brings to bear upon the vague presentation various ideas
already contained within his experience through his previous study of
the noun and the verb. To the extent also to which he possesses and is
able to recall these necessary old ideas, will he be able to adjust
himself to the new and unfamiliar presented example (infinitive). It is
evident, therefore, that a new presentation can have a meaning for us
only as it is related to something in our past experience.
=Further Examples.=--The mind invariably tries to interpret new
presentations in terms of old ideas. A newspaper account of a railway
wreck will be intelligible to us only through the revival and
reconstruction of those past experiences that are similar to the
elements described in the account. The grief, disappointment, or
excitement of another will be appreciated only as we have experienced
similar feelings in the past. New ideas are interpreted by means of
related old ideas; new feelings and acts are dependent upon and made
possible by related old feelings and acts. Moreover, the meaning
assigned to common objects varies with different persons and even with
the same person under different circumstances. A forest would be
regarded by the savage as a place to hide from the attacks of his
enemies; by the hunter as a place to secure game; by the woodcutter as
affording firewood; by the lumberman as yielding logs for lumber; by the
naturalist as offering opportunity for observing insects and animals; by
the artist as a place presenting beautiful combinations of colours. This
ability of the mind to retain and use its former knowledge in meeting
and interpreting new experiences is known in psychology as
_apperception_. A more detailed study of apperception as a mental
process will be made in Chapter XXVI.
THE SELECTING PROCESS
=Learner's Mind Active.=--A further principle of method to be deduced
from the foregoing is, that the process of bringing ideas out of former
experiences to bear upon a presented problem must take place within the
mind of the learner himself. The new knowledge being an experience
organized from elements selected out of former experiences, it follows
that the learner will possess the new knowledge only in so far as he has
himself gone through the process of selecting the necessary interpreting
ideas out of his own former knowledge and finally organizing them into
new knowledge. This need for the pupil to direct mental effort, or
attention, upon the problem in order to bring upon it, out of his former
knowledge, the ideas relative to the solution of the question before
him, is one of the most important laws of method. From the standpoint of
the teacher, this law demands that he so direct the process of learning
that the pupil will clearly call up in consciousness the selected
interpreting ideas as portions of his old knowledge, and further feel a
connection between these and the new problem before him.
=Learner's Experience Analysed.=--The second stage of the learning
process is found to involve also a breaking up of former experience.
This appears in the fact that the various ideas which are necessary to
interpret the new problem are to be selected out of larger complexes of
past experience. For example, in a lesson whose problem is to account
for the lack of rainfall in the Sahara desert, the pupil may have a
complex of experiences regarding the position of the desert. Out of this
mass of experience he must, however, select the one feature--its
position in relation to the equator. In the same way, he may have a
whole body of experience regarding the winds of Africa. This body must,
however, be analysed, and the attention fixed upon the North-east
trade-wind. Again, he may know many things about these winds, but here
he selects out the single item of their coming from a land source.
Again, from the complex of old knowledge which he possesses regarding
the land area from which the wind blows, he must analyse out its
temperature, and compare it with that of the areas toward which the wind
is blowing. Thus it will be seen that, step by step, the special items
of old knowledge to be used in the apperceptive process are selected out
of larger masses of experience. For this reason this phase of the
learning process is frequently designated as a process of analysis.
=Problem as Object of Analysis.=--Although the second step of the
learning process has been described as a selecting of elements from past
experience, it might be supposed that the various elements which the
mind has been said to select from its former experiences to interpret
the new problem, come in a sense from the presentation itself. Thus it
is often said, in describing the present step in the learning process,
that the presentation embodies a certain aggregate of experience, which
the learner can master by analysing it into its component parts and
recombining the analysed parts into a better known whole.
=Analysis Depends upon Selection.=--It is not in the above sense,
however, that the term analysis is to be applied in the learning
process. It is not true, for instance, when a person is presented with a
strange object, say an _ornithorhynchus_, and realizes it in only a
vague way, that any mere analysis of the object will discover for him
the various characteristics which are to synthesize into a knowledge of
the animal. This would imply that in analysis the mind merely breaks up
a vaguely known whole in order to make of it a definitely known whole.
But the learner could not discover the characteristics of such an object
unless the mind attended to it with certain elements of its former
experiences. Unless, for instance, the person already knew certain
characteristics of both birds and animals, he could not interpret the
ornithorhynchus as a bird-beaked animal. In the case of the child and
the mud-turtle, also, there could have been no analysis of the problem
in the way referred to, had the child not had the ideas, bug and basket,
as elements of former experience. These characteristics, therefore,
which enter into a definite knowledge of the object, do not come out of
the object by a mere mechanical process of analysis, but are rather read
into the object by the apperceptive process. That is, the learner does
not get his new experience directly out of the presented materials, but
builds up his new experience out of elements of his former knowledge. In
other words, the learner sees in the new object, or problem, only such
characteristics as his former knowledge and interest enable him to see.
Thus while the learner may be said from one standpoint to analyse the
new problem, this is possible only because he is able to break up, or
analyse, his former experience and read certain of its elements into the
new presentation. To say that the mind analyses the unknown object, or
topic, in any other sense, would be to confound mental interpretation
with physical analysis.
=A Further Example.=--The following example will further show that the
learner can analyse a presented problem only to the extent that he is
able to put characteristics into it by this process of analysing or
selecting from his past experience. Consider how a young child gains his
knowledge of a triangle. At first his control of certain sensations
enables him to read into it two ideas, three-sidedness and
three-angledness, and only these factors, therefore, organize themselves
into his experience triangle. Nor would any amount of mere attention
enable him at this stage to discover another important quality in the
thing triangle. Later, however, through the growth of his geometric
experience, he may be able to read another quality into a triangle,
namely two-right-angledness. This new quality will then, and only then,
be organized with his former knowledge into a more complete knowledge of
a triangle. Here again it is seen that analysis as a learning process is
really reading into a new presentation something which the mind already
possesses as an element of former experience, and not gaining something
at first hand out of the presented problem.
=Problem Directs Selection.=--It will be well to note here also that the
selecting of the interpreting ideas is usually controlled by the problem
with which the mind is engaged. This is indicated from the various ways
in which the same object may be interpreted as the mind is confronted
with different problems. The round stone, for instance, when one wishes
to crack the filbert, is viewed as a hammer; when he wishes to place his
paper on the ground, it becomes a weight; when he is threatened by the
strange dog, it becomes a weapon of defence. In like manner the sign _x_
suggests an unknown quantity in relation to the algebraic problem; in
relation to phonics it is a double sound; in relation to numeration, the
number ten. It is evident that in all these cases, what determines the
meaning given to the presented object is the _need_, or _problem_, that
is at the moment predominant. In the same way, any lesson problem, in so
far as it is felt to be of value, forms a starting-point for calling up
other ideas, and therefore starts in the learner's mind a flow of ideas
which is likely to furnish the solution. Moreover, the mind has the
power to measure the suitability of various ideas and select or reject
them as they are felt to stand related to the problem in hand. For
example, when a pupil is engaged in a study of the grammatical value of
the word _driving_ in the sentence, "The boy driving the horse is very
noisy," it is quite possible that he may think of the horse at his own
home, or the shouting of his father's hired man, or even perhaps the
form of the word _driving_, if he has just been viewing it in a writing
lesson. The mind is able, however, to reject these irrelevant ideas, and
select only those that seem to adjust themselves to the problem in hand.
The cause of this lies in the fact that the problem is at the outset at
least partly understood by the learner, which fact enables him to
determine whether the ideas coming forward in consciousness are related
in any way to this partially known topic. Thus in the example cited,
the learner knows the problem sufficiently to realize that it is a
question of grammatical function, and is able, therefore, to feel the
value, or suitability, of any knowledge which may be applied to it, even
before he is fully aware of its ultimate relation thereto.
LAW OF PREPARATION
=Control of Old Knowledge Necessary.=--But notwithstanding the direction
given the apperceptive process through the aim, or problem, it is
evident that if the pupil is to select from his former experiences the
particular elements which bear upon the problem in hand, he must have a
ready and intelligent control over such former knowledge. It is too
evident, however, that pupils frequently do not possess sufficient
control over the old knowledge which will bear upon a presented problem.
In endeavouring, for example, to grasp the relation of the exterior
angle to the two interior and opposite angles, the pupil may fail
because he has not a clear knowledge of the equality of angles in
connection with parallel lines. For this reason teachers will often find
it necessary (before bringing old knowledge to bear upon a new problem)
to review the old knowledge, or experience, to be used during the
apperceptive process. Thus a lesson on the participle may begin with a
review of the pupils' knowledge of verbs and adjectives, a lesson on the
making of the colours orange and green for painting a pumpkin with its
green stem may begin with a recognition of the standard colours, red,
yellow, and blue, and the writing of a capital letter with a review of
certain movements.
=Preparation Recalls Interpreting Ideas.=--It must be noted that this
review of former knowledge always implies, either that the pupil is
likely to have forgotten at least partially this former knowledge, or
that without such review he is not likely to recall and apply it readily
when the new problem is placed before him. For this reason the teacher
is usually warned that his lesson should always begin with a review of
such of the pupil's old knowledge as is to be used in mastering the new
experiences.
VALUE OF PREPARATION
=A. Aids the Understanding.=--The main advantage of this preparatory
work is that it brings into clear consciousness that group of ideas and
feelings best suited to give meaning to the new presentation. Without
it, the pupil may not understand, or only partially understand, or
entirely misunderstand the lesson. (1) He may not understand the new
matter at all because he does not bring any related facts from his past
experience to bear upon it. Multiplication of decimals would in all
probability be a merely mechanical process if the significance of
decimals and the operation of multiplying fractions were not brought to
bear upon it, the pupil not understanding it at all as a rational
process. (2) He may only partially understand the new matter because he
does not see clearly the relation between his old ideas and the new
facts, or because he does not bring to the new facts a sufficient
equipment of old ideas to make them meaningful. The adverbial objective
would be imperfectly understood if it were not shown that its functions
are exactly parallel with those of the adverb. The pupil would have only
a partial understanding of it. (3) He may entirely misunderstand the new
facts because he uses wrong old experiences to give them meaning. Such
was evidently the difficulty in the case of the young pupil who, after a
lesson on the equator, described it as a menagerie lion running around
the earth. Many of the absurd answers that a pupil gives are due to his
failure to use the correct old ideas to interpret the new facts. He has
misunderstood because his mind was not prepared by making the proper
apperceiving ideas explicit.
=B. Saves Time.=--There is the further advantage of economy of time,
when an adequate preparation of the mind has been made. When the
appropriate ideas are definitely in the forefront of consciousness, they
seize upon kindred impressions as soon as these are presented and give
them meaning. On the other hand, when sufficient preparation has not
been made, time must be taken during the presentation of the new problem
to go back in search of those experiences necessary to make it
meaningful. Frequent interruptions and consequent waste of time will be
inevitable. Time will be saved by having the apperceiving ideas ready
and active.
=C. Provides for Review.=--One of the most important values of the
preparatory step is the opportunity given for the review of old ideas.
These have to be revived, worked over, and reconstructed, and in
consequence they become the permanent possessions of the mind. The
pupil's knowledge of the functions of the adverb is reviewed when he
learns the adverb phrase and adverb clause, and is still further
illuminated when he comes to study the adverbial objective. Further, the
apperceiving ideas become more interesting to the pupil, when he finds
that he can use them in the conquest of new fields. He has a
consciousness of power, which in itself is a source of satisfaction and
pleasure.
PRECAUTIONS REGARDING PREPARATION
=Must not be too Long.=--Two precautions seem advisable in the
preparatory step. The first is that too long a time should not be spent
over it. There is sometimes a tendency to go back too far and drag
forward ideas that are only remotely connected with the new ideas to be
presented. Under such conditions much irrelevant material is likely to
be introduced, and often a train of associations out of harmony with the
meaning and spirit of the lesson is started. This is especially
dangerous in lessons in literature and history. Only those experiences
should be revived which are necessary to a clear apprehension of the
ideas or a full appreciation of the emotions to be presented in the new
lesson.
=Must Recall Vital Ideas.=--The most active, vivid, and powerful ideas
in the pupil's mind are those which are closely connected with his life.
This suggests the second precaution, namely, the use wherever possible
of the ideas associated with his surroundings, his games, his
occupations. When this is done, not only will the new knowledge have a
much greater interest attached to it but it will also be much more
vividly apprehended. This will be referred to further in connection with
the use of illustrations in teaching.
NECESSITY OF PREPARATION
Teachers, however, are not always agreed as to the amount of time or
emphasis to be given to this preparatory step. If the teacher can assure
himself that a lesson is following in easy sequence upon something with
which the children are undoubtedly familiar, he may, many argue, safely
omit such preparatory work. Indeed it is evident that after leaving
school the child will have no personal monitor to call up beforehand the
ideas that he must apply in solving the problems continually presenting
themselves in practical life. On the other hand, however, it is to be
remembered that the young child is, at the best, feeling his way in the
process of adjusting himself to new experiences. For this reason, the
first work for the teacher in any lesson is to ascertain whether the
pupils are in a proper attitude for the new knowledge, and, so far as is
necessary, prepare their minds through the recall of such knowledge as
is related to the new experiences to be presented. Although, therefore,
the step of preparation is not an essential part of the learning
process, since it constitutes for the pupil merely a review of knowledge
acquired through previous learning processes, it may be accepted as a
step in the teacher's method of controlling the learning process.
EXAMPLES OF PREPARATION
The following additional examples as to the mode and form of the step of
preparation may be considered by the student-teacher:
In a lesson in phonic reading in a primary class, the preparation should
consist of a review of those sounds and those words which the pupil
already knows that are to be used in the new lesson. In a nature study
lesson on "The Rabbit," in a Form II class, the preparation should
include a recall of any observations the pupils may have made regarding
the wild rabbit. They may have observed its timidity, its manner of
running, what it feeds upon, where it makes its home, its colour during
the winter and during the summer, the kind of tracks it makes in the
snow, etc. All these facts will be useful in interpreting the new
observations and in assisting the pupils to make new inferences. In a
lesson in a Form III class on "Ottawa as a Commercial Centre," the
preparation consists of a recall of the pupil's knowledge regarding the
position of the city; the adjacent rivers, the Ottawa, Gatineau,
Rideau, Lièvre, Madawaska; the waterfalls of the Rideau and Chaudière;
the forests to the north and west, with their immense supplies of pine,
spruce, and hemlock; and the fact that it is the Dominion capital. All
these facts are necessary in inferring the causes of the importance of
Ottawa. In a literature lesson in a Form III class on _The Charge of the
Light Brigade_, the preparation would involve a recall of some deed of
personal heroism with which the pupils are familiar, such as that of
John Maynard, Grace Darling, or any similar one nearer home. Recall how
such a deed is admired and praised, and the memory of the doer is
cherished and revered. Then the teacher should tell the story of
Balaklava with all the dramatic intensity he is master of, in order that
the pupils may be in a proper mood to approach the study of the poem. In
a grammar lesson on "The Adverbial Objective" the preparation should
consist of a review of the functions of the adverb as modifying a verb,
an adjective, and sometimes another adverb. Upon this knowledge alone
can a rational idea of the adverbial objective be built. In an
arithmetic lesson on "Multiplication of Decimals," in a Form IV class,
the preparation should involve a review of the meaning of decimals, of
the interconversion of decimals and fractions (for example, .05 = 5
hundredths; 27 ten-thousandths = .0027, etc.); and of the multiplication
of fractions. Unless the pupil can do these operations, it is obviously
impossible to make his knowledge of multiplication of decimals anything
more than a merely mechanical process.
PREPARATION MERELY AIDS SELECTION
Before closing our consideration of preparation as a stage of method, it
will be well again to call attention to the fact that this is not one
of the four recognized stages of the learning process, but rather a
subsidiary feature of the second, or apperceptive stage. In other words,
actual advance is made by the pupil toward the control of a new
experience, not through a review of former experience, but by an active
relating of elements selected from past experience to the interpretation
of the new problem.
CHAPTER XI
LEARNING AS A RELATING ACTIVITY
OR
PROCESS OF SYNTHESIS
=Learning a Unifying Process.=--It has been seen that the learner, in
gaining control of new knowledge, must organize into the new experience
elements selected from former experiences. For instance, when a person
gains a knowledge of a new fruit (guava), he not only brings forward in
consciousness from his former knowledge the ideas--rind, flesh, seed,
etc.,--to interpret the strange object, but also associates these into a
single experience, a new fruit. So long also as the person referred to
in an earlier chapter retained in his consciousness as distinct factors
three experiences--seeing a boy at the fence, seeing the vineyard, and
finally, seeing the boy eating grapes--these would not, as three such
distinct experiences, constitute a knowledge of grape-stealing. On the
other hand, as soon as these are combined, or associated by a relating
act of thought, the different factors are organized into a new idea
symbolized by the expression, _grape-stealing_.
=Examples From School-room Procedure.=--A similar relating process is
involved when the learner faces a definite school problem. When, for
instance, the pupil gains a knowledge of the sign ÷, he must not only
bring forward in consciousness from his former knowledge distinct ideas
of a line, of two dots, and of a certain mathematical process, but must
also associate these into a new idea, division-sign. So also a person
may know that air takes up more moisture as it becomes warmer, that the
north-east trade-winds blow over the Sahara from land areas, and that
the Sahara is situated just north of the equator. But the mind must
unify these into a single experience in order to gain a knowledge of the
condition of the rainfall in that quarter.
NATURE OF SYNTHESIS
=Deals with Former Experiences.=--This mental organizing, or unifying,
of the elements of past experiences to secure control of the new
experience, is usually spoken of as a process of synthesis. The term
synthesis, however, must be used with the same care as was noted in
regard to the term analysis. Synthesis does not mean that totally _new_
elements are being unified, but merely that whatever selected elements
of old knowledge the mind is able to read into a presented problem, are
built, or organized, into a new system; and constitute, for the time
being, one's knowledge and control of that problem. This is well
exemplified by noting the growth of a person's knowledge of any object
or topic. Thus, so long as the child is able to apperceive only the
three sides and three angles of a triangle, his idea of triangle
includes a synthesis of these. When later, through the building up of
his geometric knowledge, he is able to apperceive that the interior
angles equal two right angles, his knowledge of a triangle expands
through the synthesis of this with the former knowledge.
=All Knowledge a Synthesis.=--The fact that all knowledge is an
organization from earlier experiences becomes evident by looking at the
process from the other direction. The adult who has complete knowledge
of an orange has it as a single experience. This experience is found,
however, to represent a co-ordination of other experiences, as touch,
taste, colour, etc. Moreover, each of these separate characteristics is
an association of simpler experiences. Experiencing the touch of the
orange, for instance, is itself a complex made up of certain muscular,
touch, and temperature sensations. From this it is evident that the
knowledge of an orange, although a unity of experience in adult life, is
really a complex, or synthesis, made up of a large number of different
elements.
What is true of our idea of an orange is true of every other idea.
Whether it be the understanding of a plant, an animal, a city, a
picture, a poem, an historical event, an arithmetical problem, or a
scientific experiment, the process is always the same. The apperceptive
process of interpreting the new by selecting and relating elements of
former experience, or the process of analysis-synthesis, is universal in
learning. Expressed in another form, what is at first indistinct and
indefinite becomes clear and defined through attention selecting, for
the interpretation of the new presentation, suitable old ideas and
setting up relationships among them. Analysis, or selection, is
incomplete without an accompanying unification, or synthesis; synthesis,
or organization, is impossible without analysis, or selection. It is on
account of the mind's ability to unify a number of mental factors into a
single experience, that the process of unification, or synthesis, is
said to imply economy within our experiences. This fact will become even
more evident, however, when later we study such mental processes as
sense perception and conception.
INTERACTION OF PROCESSES
It is to be noted, however, that the selecting and the relating of the
different interpreting ideas during the learning process are not
necessarily separate and distinct parts of the lesson. In other words,
the mind does not first select out of its former knowledge a whole mass
of disconnected elements, and then later build them up into a new
organic experience. There is, rather, in almost every case, a continual
interplay between the selecting and relating activity, or between
analysis and synthesis, throughout the whole learning process. As soon,
for instance, as a certain feature, or characteristic, is noted, this
naturally relates itself to the central problem. When later, another
characteristic is noted, this may relate itself at once both with the
topic and with the formerly observed characteristic into a more complete
knowledge of the object. Thus during a lesson we find a gradual growth
of knowledge similar to that illustrated in the case of the scholar's
knowledge of the triangle, involving a continual interplay of analysis
and synthesis, or of selecting and relating different groups of ideas
relative to the topic. This would he illustrated by noting a pupil's
study of the cat. The child may first note that the cat catches and eats
rats and mice, and picks meat from bones. These facts will at once
relate themselves into a certain measure of knowledge regarding the food
of the animal. Later he may note that the cat has sharp claws, padded
feet, long pointed canines, and a rough tongue; these facts being also
related as knowledge concerning the mouth and feet of the animal. In
addition to this, however, the latter facts will further relate
themselves to the former as cases of adaptation, when the child notes
that the teeth and tongue are suited to tearing food and cleaning it
from the bones, and that its claws and padded feet are suited to
surprising and seizing its living prey.
=Example from Study of Conjunctive Pronoun.=--This continuous selecting
and relating throughout a process of learning is also well illustrated
in the pupil's process of learning the _conjunctive pronoun_. By
bringing his old knowledge to bear on such a sentence as "The men _who_
brought it returned at once"; the pupil may be asked first to apperceive
the subordinate clause, _who brought it_. This will not likely be
connected by the pupil at first with the problem of the value of _who_.
From this, however, he passes to a consideration of the value of the
clause and its relation. Hereupon, these various ideas at once
co-ordinate themselves into the larger idea that _who_ is conjunctive.
Next, he may be called upon to analyse the subordinate clause. This, at
first, also may seem to the child a disconnected experience. From this,
however, he passes to the idea of _who_ as subject, and thence to the
fact that it signifies man. Thereupon these ideas unify themselves with
the word _who_ under the idea _pronoun_. Thereupon a still higher
synthesis combines these two co-ordinated systems into the more complex
system, or idea--_conjunctive pronoun_.
[Illustration]
This progressive interaction of analysis and synthesis is illustrated by
the accompanying figure, in which the word _who_ represents the
presented unknown problem; _a_, _b_, and _c_, the selecting and relating
process which results in the knowledge, _conjunction_; _a'_, _b'_, and
_c'_, the building up of the _pronoun_ notion; and the circle, the final
organization of these two smaller systems into a single notion,
_conjunctive pronoun_.
The learning of any fact in history, the mastery of a poem, the study of
a plant or animal, will furnish excellent examples of these subordinate
stages of analysis and synthesis within a lesson. It is to be noted
further that this feature of the learning process causes many lessons to
fall into certain well marked sub-divisions. Each of these minor
co-ordinations clustering around a sub-topic of the larger problem, the
whole lesson separates itself into a number of more or less distinct
parts. Moreover, the child's knowledge of the whole lesson will largely
depend upon the extent to which he realizes these parts both as separate
co-ordinations and also as related parts of the whole lesson problem.
ALL KNOWLEDGE UNIFIED
Nor does this relating activity of mind confine itself within the single
lesson. As each lesson is organized, it will, if fully apprehended, be
more or less directly related with former lessons in the same subject.
In this way the student should discover a unity within the lessons of a
single subject, such as arithmetic or grammar. In like manner, various
groups of lessons organize themselves into larger divisions within the
subject, in accordance with important relations which the pupil may read
into their data. Thus, in grammar, one sequence of lessons is organized
into a complete knowledge of sentences; another group, into a complete
knowledge of inflection; a smaller group within the latter, into a
complete knowledge of tense or mood. It is thus that the mind is able to
construct its mass of knowledge into organized groups known as sciences,
and the various smaller divisions into topics.
CHAPTER XII
APPLICATION OF KNOWLEDGE
OR
LAW OF EXPRESSION
=Practical Significance of Knowledge.=--In our consideration of the
fourth phase of the learning process, or the law of expression, it is
necessary at the outset to recall what has already been noted regarding
the correlation of knowledge and action. In this connection it was
learned that knowledge arises naturally as man faces a difficulty, or
problem, and that it finds significance and value in so far as it
enables him to meet the practical and theoretical difficulties with
which he may be confronted. In other words, man is primarily a doer, and
knowledge is intended to guide the conduct of the individual along
certain recognized lines. This being the case, while instruction aims to
control the process by which the child is to acquire valuable social
experience, or knowledge, it is equally important that it should promote
skill by correlating that knowledge with expression, or should strive to
influence action while forming character. To apperceive, for instance,
the rules of government and agreement in grammar will have a very
limited value if the student is not able to give expression to these in
his own conversation. It becomes imperative, therefore, that as far as
possible, expression should enter as a factor in the learning process.
=Examples of Expression.=--Man's expressive acts are found, however, to
differ greatly in their form. When one is hurt, he distorts his face
and cries aloud; when he hears a good speech he claps his hands and
shouts approval; when he reads an amusing story he laughs; when he
learns of the death of a friend he sheds tears; when he is affronted his
face grows red, his muscles tense, and he strikes a blow or breaks into
a torrent of words; when he has seen a striking incident he tells some
one about it or writes an account to a distant friend. When his feelings
are stirred by a patriotic address, he springs to his feet and sings,
"God Save the King." The desire that his team should carry the foot-ball
to the southern goal causes the spectator to lean and push in that
direction. When he conceives how he may launch a successful venture, the
business man at once proceeds to carry it into effect. These are all
examples of _expression_. Every impression, idea, or thought, tends
sooner or later to work itself out in some form of motor expression.
TYPES OF ACTION
=A. Uncontrolled Actions.=--Passing to an examination of such physical,
or motor, activities, we find that man's expressive acts fall into three
somewhat distinct classes. A young child is found to engage in many
movements which seem destitute of any conscious direction. Some of these
movements, such as breathing, sneezing, winking, etc., are found to be
useful to the child, and imply what might be termed inherited control of
conduct, though they do not give expression to any consciously organized
knowledge, or experience. At other times, his bodily movements seem to
be mere random, or impulsive, actions. These latter actions at times
arise in a spontaneous way as a result of native bodily vigour, as, for
instance, stretching, kicking, etc., as seen in a baby. At other times
these uncontrolled acts have their origin in the various impressions
which the child is receiving from his surroundings, or environment, as
when the babe impulsively grasps the object coming in contact with his
hand. Although, moreover, these instinctive movements may come in time
under conscious control, such actions do not in themselves imply
conscious control or give expression to organized knowledge.
=B. Actions Subject to Intelligent Control.=--To a second class of
actions belong the orderly movements which are both produced and
directed by consciousness. When, in distinction to the movements
referred to above, a child pries open the lid to see what is in the box,
or waves his hand to gain the attention of a companion, a conscious aim,
or intention, produces the act, and conscious effort sustains it until
the aim is reached. The distinction between mere impulsive and
instinctive actions on the one hand, and guided effort on the other,
will be considered more fully in Chapter XXX.
=C. Habitual Actions.=--Thirdly, as has been noted in Chapter II, both
consciously directed and uncontrolled action may, by repetition, become
so fixed that it practically ceases to be directed by consciousness, or
becomes habitual.
Our expressive actions may be classified, therefore, into three
important groups as follows:
1. Instinctive, reflex, and impulsive action
2. Consciously controlled, or directed action
3. Habitual action.
NATURE OF EXPRESSION
=Implies Intelligent Control.=--It is evident that as a stage in the
learning process, expression must deal primarily with the second class
of actions, since its real purpose is to correlate the new conscious
knowledge with action. Expression in education, therefore, must
represent largely consciously produced and consciously directed action.
=Conscious Expression may Modify A. Instinctive Acts.=--While this is
true, however, expression, as a stage in the educative process, will
also have a relation to the other types of action. As previously noted,
the expression stage of the learning process may be used as a means to
bring instinctive and impulsive acts under conscious control. This is
indeed an important part of a child's education. For instance, it is
only by forming ideas of muscular movements and striving to express them
that the child can bring his muscular movements under control. It is
evident, therefore, that the expressive stage of the lesson can be made
to play an important part in bringing many instinctive and impulsive
acts under conscious direction. By expressing himself in the games of
the kindergarten, the child's social instinct will come under conscious
control. By directing his muscular movements in art and constructive
work, he gains the control which will in part enable him to check the
impulse to strike the angry blow. These points will, however, be
considered more fully in a study of the inherited tendencies in Chapter
XXI.
=B. Habits.=--Further, many of our consciously directed acts are of so
great value that they should be made more permanent through habituation.
Expression must, therefore, in many lessons be emphasized, not merely to
test and render clear present conscious knowledge, but also to lead to
habitual control of action, or to create skill. This would be especially
true in having a child practise the formation of figures and letters.
Although at the outset we must have him form the letter to see that he
really knows the outline, the ultimate aim is to enable him to form
these practically without conscious direction. In language work, also,
the child must acquire many idiomatic expressions as habitual modes of
speech.
TYPES OF EXPRESSION
Since the tendency to express our impressions in a motor way is a law of
our being, it follows that the school, which is constantly seeking to
give the pupil intelligent impressions, or valuable knowledge, should
also provide opportunity for adequate expression of the same. The forms
most frequently adopted in schools are speech and writing. Pupils are
required to answer questions orally or in writing in almost every school
subject, and in doing so they are given an opportunity for expression of
a very valuable kind. In fact, it would often be much more economical to
try to give pupils fewer impressions and to give them more opportunities
for expression in language. But written or spoken language is not the
only means of expression that the school can utilize. Pupils can
frequently be required to express themselves by means of manual
activity. In art, they represent objects and scenes by means of brush
and colour, or pencil, or crayon; in manual training, they construct
objects in cardboard and wood; in domestic science, they cook and sew.
The primary object of these so-called "new" subjects of the school
programme is not to make the pupils artists, carpenters, or
house-keepers, but partly to acquaint them with typical forms of human
activity and partly to give them means of expression having an educative
value. In arithmetic, the pupils express numerical facts by
manipulating blocks and splints, and measure quantities, distances,
surfaces, and solids. In geography, they draw maps of countries, model
them in sand or clay, and make collections to illustrate manufactures at
various stages of the process. In literature, they dramatize stories and
illustrate scenes and situations by a sketch with pencil or brush. In
nature study, they illustrate by drawings and make mounted collections
of plants and insects.
VALUE OF EXPRESSION
=A. Influences Conduct.=--In nature study, history, and literature, the
most valuable kind of expression is that which comes through some
modification of future conduct. That pupil has studied the birds and
animals to little purpose who needlessly destroys their lives or causes
them pain. He has studied the reign of King John to little purpose if he
is not more considerate of the rights of others on the playground. He
has gained little from the life of Robert Bruce, Columbus, or La Salle,
if he does not manfully attack difficulties again and again until he has
overcome them. He has not read _The Heroine of Verchères_, or _The
Little Hero of Haarlem_ aright, if he does not act promptly in a
situation demanding courage. He has learned little from the story of
Damon and Pythias if he is not true to his friends under trying
circumstances, and he has not imbibed the spirit of _The Christmas
Carol_ if he is not sympathetic and kindly toward those less fortunate
than himself. From the standpoint of the moral life, therefore, right
knowledge is valuable only as it expresses itself in right action.
=B. Aids Impression.=--Apart from the fact that it satisfies a demand of
our being, expression is most important in that it tests the clearness
of the applied knowledge. We often think that our impression is clear,
only to discover its vagueness when we attempt to express it in some
form. People often say that they understand a fact thoroughly, but they
cannot exactly express it. Such a statement is usually incorrect. If the
impression were clear, the expression under ordinary circumstances would
also be clear. In this connection a danger should be pointed out. Pupils
sometimes express themselves in language with apparent clearness, when
in reality they are merely repeating words that they have memorized and
that are quite meaningless to them. The alert teacher can, however, by
judicious questioning, avoid being deceived in this regard.
=C. Adds to Clearness of Knowledge.=--Not only does expression test the
clearness of the apperceived new knowledge, but at the same time it
gives the knowledge greater clearness. We learn to know by doing. A
pupil realizes a story more fully when he has reproduced it for somebody
else. He images a scene described in a poem more clearly when he has
drawn it. He has a clearer idea of the volume of a cord when he has
actually measured out a cord of wood. He has a more accurate conception
of the difficulties attending the discoveries of La Salle when he has
drawn a map and traced the routes of his various expeditions. There is
much truth in the statement that one never fully knows some things until
he has taught them to somebody else. The teacher in grammar and
geography will often have occasion to realize this. Greater clearness of
impression means, of course, greater permanence. We remember best those
facts of which our impression was most vivid.
DANGERS OF OMITTING EXPRESSION
=A. Knowledge not Practical.=--It is apparent, then, that if the pupil
is not given opportunity for expression, his ideas are vague and
evanescent. Further than this, his capacities for _knowing_ will be
developed but his capacities for _doing_ ignored. His _intellectual_
powers will be exercised and his _volitional_ powers neglected. The
pupil is thus likely to develop into a mere _theorist_; and as the
tendencies of childhood are accentuated in later life, he becomes an
_impractical_ man. There are many men in the world who apparently know a
great deal, but who, through inability to make practical application of
their knowledge, are unsuccessful in life. It is, however, seriously to
be doubted whether knowledge is ever _real_ until it has been worked out
in practice and conduct. To avoid the danger of becoming impractical, a
pupil should have every opportunity for expression.
=B. Feelings Weakened.=--A second serious danger of neglecting
expression lies in the field of the emotions. To have generous emotions
continually aroused and never to act upon them, to have one's sympathies
frequently stirred and never to perform a kindly act, to experience
feelings of love and never to express them in acts of service, is to
cultivate a weakness of character. A classic instance of this is that of
the lady who wept bitterly over the imaginary sorrows of the heroine in
the play while her coachman was freezing to death outside the theatre.
If worthy emotions are ever to be of the slightest moral value to us,
they must be expressed in action. The pupil frequently has his emotions
stirred in the lessons in literature, history, and nature study, and
there are situations constantly arising in the school room, on the
playground, on the street, and in the home, that afford opportunity for
expression. To give a single instance, there is a story in the _Ontario
Third Reader_ by Elizabeth Phelps Ward, called "Mary Elizabeth." No
pupil could read that story without being stirred with a deep pity and
yet profound admiration for the pathetic figure of poor little Mary
Elizabeth. The natural expression for such emotions would be a more
kindly and sympathetic attitude towards some unfortunate child in the
school.
RELATION OF EXPRESSION TO IMPRESSION
=Knowledge Tends Toward Expression.=--On account of the evident
connection between knowledge and action, the law of expression has
formulated itself into a well-known pedagogical law of method--no
impression without expression. Like many other educational maxims,
however, this law may be interpreted in too wide a sense. The law of
expression in education claims only that valuable experiences, or
valuable forms of new knowledge, should not be built up in the child's
mind without adequate accompanying expression. In the first case, as
already seen, many impressions come to us which are never seized upon
sufficiently by our consciousness to become intelligent rules for
conduct, or action. It is true, of course that, so far as such
impressions stimulate us, they tend toward expression, and to that
extent the maxim is true. For instance, when a child is impressed, say,
by a sudden strange sound, he has a tendency to express himself by
straining his attention, and when the man imagines an enemy is before
him, he finds his arms and fists assuming the fighting attitude.
=Expression at Times Inhibited.=--It is to be noted that the child
should early learn to form intelligent plans of action and postpone or
even condemn them as forms of expression. In other words, a child
should early learn to select and co-ordinate ideas into an orderly
system independently of their actual expression in physical action.
Without this power to suppress, or inhibit, expression, the child would
be unable adequately to weigh and compare alternative courses of action
and suppress such as seem undesirable. Such indeed is the weakness of
the man who possesses an impulsive nature. Although, therefore, it is
true that all knowledge is intended to serve in meeting actual needs, or
to function in the control of expression, it is equally true that not
every organized experience should find expression in action. Part at
least of man's efficiency must consist in his ability to organize a new
experience in an indirect way and condemn it as a rule of action. While,
therefore, we emphasize the importance, under ordinary conditions, of
having the child's knowledge function as directly as possible in some
form of actual expression, it is equally important to recognize that in
actual life many organized plans should not find expression in outer
physical action. This being the case, the divorce between organized
experience, or knowledge, and practical expression, which at times takes
place in school work, is not necessarily unsound, since it tends to make
the child proficient in separating the mental organizing of experience
from its immediate expression, and must, therefore, tend to make him
more capable of weighing plans before putting them into execution. This
will in turn habituate the child to taking the necessary time for
reflection between "the acting of a thing and the first purpose." This
question will be considered more fully in Chapter XXX, which treats of
the development of voluntary control.
It should be noted in conclusion that the law of expression as a fourth
stage of the learning process differs in purpose from the use of
physical action as a means of creating interest in the problem, as
referred to on page 62. When, for instance, we set a pupil who has no
knowledge of long measure to use the inch in interpreting the yard
stick, expressive action is merely a means of putting the problem before
the child in an interesting form on account of his liking for physical
action. When, on the other hand, the child later uses the foot or yard
as a unit to measure the perimeter of the school-room, he is applying
his knowledge of long measure, which has been acquired previously to
this expressive act.
CHAPTER XIII
FORMS OF LESSON PRESENTATION
The chief office of the teacher, in controlling the pupils' process of
learning, being to direct their self-activity in making a selection of
ideas from their former knowledge which shall stand in vital connection
with the problem, and lead finally to its solution, the question arises
in what form the teacher is to conduct the process in order to obtain
this desired result. Three different modes of directing the selecting
activity of the student are recognized and more or less practised by
teachers. These are usually designated the lecture method, the text-book
method, and the developing method.
THE LECTURE METHOD
=Example of Lecture Method.=--In the lecture method so-called, the
teacher tells the students in direct words the facts involved in the new
problem, and expects these words to enable the pupils to call up from
their old knowledge the ideas which will give the teacher's words
meaning, and thus lead to a solution of the problem. For example, in
teaching the meaning of alluvial fans in geography, a teacher might seek
to awaken the interpreting ideas by merely stating in words the
characteristic of a fan. This would involve telling the pupils that an
alluvial fan is a formation on the floor of a main river valley,
resulting from the depositing of detritus carried down the steep side of
the valley by a tributary stream and deposited in the form of a fan,
when the force of the water is weakened as it enters the more level
floor of the valley. To interpret this verbal description, however, the
pupil must first interpret the words of the teacher as sounds, and then
convert these into ideas by bringing his former knowledge to bear upon
the word symbols. If we could take it for granted that the pupil will
readily grasp the ideas here signified by such words as, formation, main
river valley, depositing, detritus, steep side, etc., and at once feel
the relation of these several ideas to the more or less unknown
object--alluvial fan--this method would undoubtedly give the pupil the
knowledge required.
=The Method Difficult.=--To expect of young children a ready ability in
thus interpreting words would, however, be an evident mistake. To
translate such sound symbols into ideas, and immediately adjust them to
the problem, demands a power of language interpretation and of
reflection not usually found in school children. The purely lecture
method, therefore, has very small place with young children, whatever
may be its value with advanced students. Pupils in the primary grades
have not sufficient power of attention to listen to a long lecture on
any subject, and no teacher should think of conducting a lesson by that
method alone. The purpose of the lecture is merely to give information,
and that is seldom the sole purpose of a lesson in elementary classes.
There the more important purposes are to train pupils to acquire
knowledge by thinking for themselves, and to express themselves, both of
which are well-nigh impossible if the purely lecture method is followed.
=Does not Insure Selection.=--The weakness of such a method is well
illustrated in the case of the young teacher who, in giving her class a
conception of the equator, followed the above method, and carefully
explained to the pupils that the equator is an imaginary line running
around the earth equally distant from the two poles. When the teacher
came later to review the work with the class, one bright lad described
the equator as a menagerie lion running around the earth. Here evidently
the child, true to the law of apperception, had interpreted, or rather
misinterpreted, the words of the teacher, by means of the only ideas in
his possession which seemed to fit the uttered sounds. It is evident,
therefore, that too often in this method the pupils will either thus
misinterpret the meaning of the teacher's words, or else fail to
interpret them at all, because they are not able to call up any definite
images from what the teacher may be telling them.
=When to be Used.=--It may be noted, however, that there is some place
for the method in teaching. For example, when young children are
presented with a suitable story, they will usually have no difficulty in
fitting ideas to words, and thus building up the story. It requires, in
fact, the continuity found in the telling method to keep the children's
attention on the story, the tone of voice and gesture of the reciter
going a long way in helping the child to call up the ideas which enable
him to construct the story plot. Moreover, some telling must be done by
the teacher in every lesson. Everything cannot be discovered by the
pupils themselves. Even if it were possible, it would often be
undesirable. Some facts are relatively unimportant, and it is much
better to tell these outright than to spend a long time in trying to
lead pupils to discover them. The lecture method, or telling method,
should be used, then, to supply pupils with information they could not
find out for themselves, or which they could find out only by spending
an amount of time disproportionate to the importance of the facts. The
teacher must use good judgment in discriminating between those facts
which the pupils may reasonably be expected to find out for themselves
and those facts which had better be told. Many teachers tell too much
and do not throw the pupils sufficiently on their own resources. On the
other hand, many teachers tell too little and waste valuable time in
trying to "draw" from the pupils what they do not know, with the result
that the pupils fall back upon the pernicious practice of guessing. The
teacher needs to be on his guard against "the toil of dropping buckets
into empty wells, and growing old in drawing nothing up."
It may be added further that, in practical life, man is constantly
required to interpret through spoken language. For this reason,
therefore, all children should become proficient in securing knowledge
through spoken language, that is, by means of the lecture, or telling,
method.
THE TEXT-BOOK METHOD
=Nature of Text-book Method.=--In the text-book method, in place of
listening to the words of the teacher, the pupil is expected to read in
a text-book, in connection with each lesson problem, a series of facts
which will aid him in calling up, or selecting, the ideas essential to
the mastery of the new knowledge. This method is similar, therefore, in
a general way, to the lecture method; since it implies ability in the
pupil to interpret language, and thus recall the ideas bearing upon the
topic being presented. Although the text-book method lacks the
interpretation which may come through gesture and tone of voice, it
nevertheless gives the pupil abundance of time for reflecting upon the
meaning of the language without the danger of losing the succeeding
context, as would be almost sure to happen in the lecture method.
Moreover, the language and mode of presentation of the writer of the
text-book is likely to be more effective in awakening the necessary old
knowledge, than would be the less perfect descriptions of the ordinary
teacher. On the whole, therefore, the text-book seems more likely to
meet the conditions of the laws of apperception and self-activity, than
would the lecture method.
=Method Difficult for Young Children.=--The words of the text-book,
however, like the words of the teacher, are often open to
misinterpretation, especially in the case of young pupils. This may be
illustrated by the case of the student, who upon reading in her history
of the mettle of the defenders of Lacolle Mill, interpreted it as the
possession on their part of superior arms. An amusing illustration of
the same tendency to misinterpret printed language, in spite of the time
and opportunity for studying the text, is seen in the case of the
student who, after reading the song entitled "The Old Oaken Bucket," was
called upon to illustrate in a drawing his interpretation of the scene.
His picture displayed three buckets arranged in a row. On being called
upon for an explanation, he stated that the first represented "The old
oaken bucket"; the second, "The iron-bound bucket"; and the third, "The
moss-covered bucket." Another student, when called upon to express in
art his conception of the well-known lines:
All at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze;
represented on his paper a bed of daffodils blooming in front of a
platform, upon which a number of female figures were actively engaged in
the terpsichorean art.
=Pupil's Mind Often Passive.=--As in the lecture method, also, the pupil
may often go over the language of the text in a passive way without
attempting actively to call up old knowledge and relate it to the
problem before him. It is evident, therefore, that without further aid
from a teacher, the text-book could not be depended upon to guide the
pupil in selecting the necessary interpreting ideas. As with the lecture
method, however, it is to be recognized that, both in the school and in
after life, the student must secure much information by reading, and
that he should at some time gain the power of gathering information from
books. The use of the text-book in school should assist in the
acquisition of this power. The teacher must, therefore, distinguish
between the proper _use_ of the text-book and the _abuse_ of it. There
are several ways in which the text-book may be effectively used.
USES OF TEXT-BOOK
1. After a lesson has been taught, the pupils may be required by way of
review to read the matter covered by the lesson as stated by the
text-book. This plan is particularly useful in history and geography
lessons. The text-book strengthens and clarifies the impression made by
the lesson.
2. Before assigning the portion to be read in the text-book, the teacher
may prepare the way by presenting or reviewing any matter upon which the
interpretation of the text depends. This preparatory work should be just
sufficient to put the pupils in a position to read intelligently the
portion assigned, and to give them a zest for the reading. Sometimes in
this assignment, it is well to indicate definitely what facts are
sufficiently important to be learned, and where these are discussed in
the text-book.
3. The mastery of the text by the pupils may sometimes be aided by a
series of questions for which answers are to be found by a careful
reading. Such questions give the pupils a definite purpose. They
constitute a set of problems which are to be solved. They are likely to
be interesting, because problems within the range of the pupils'
capacity are a challenge to their intelligence. Further, these questions
will emphasize the things that are essential, and the pupils will be
enabled to grasp the main points of the lesson assigned. Occasionally,
to avoid monotony, the pupils should be required, as a variation of this
plan, to make such a series of questions themselves. In these cases, the
pupil with the best list might be permitted, as a reward for his effort,
to "put" his questions to the class.
4. In the more advanced classes, the pupils should frequently be
required to make a topical outline of a section or chapter of the
text-book. This demands considerable analytic power, and the pupil who
can do it successfully has mastered the art of reading. The ability is
acquired slowly, and the teacher must use discretion in what he exacts
from the pupil in this regard. If the plan were followed persistently,
there would be less time wasted in cursory reading, the results of which
are fleeting. What is read in this careful way will become the real
possession of the mind and, even if less material is read, more will be
permanently retained.
The facts thus learned from the text-book should be discussed by the
teacher and pupils in a subsequent recitation period. This may be done
by the question and answer method, the teacher asking questions to which
the pupils give brief answers; or by the topical recitation method, the
pupils reporting in connected form the facts under topics suggested by
the teacher. The teacher has thus an opportunity of emphasizing the
important facts, of correcting misconceptions, and of amplifying and
illustrating the facts given in the text-book. Further, the pupils are
given an opportunity of expressing themselves, and have thus an exercise
in language which is a valuable means of clarifying their impressions.
ABUSE OF TEXT-BOOK
As instances of the abuse of the text-book, the following might be
cited:
1. The memorization by the pupils of the words of the text-book without
any understanding of the meaning.
2. The assignment of a certain number of pages or sections to be learned
by the pupils without any preliminary preparation for the study.
3. The employment of the text-book by the teacher during the recitation
as a means of guiding him in the questions he is to ask--a confession
that he does not know what he requires the pupils to know.
=Limitation of Text-book.=--The chief limitation of the text-book method
of teaching is that the pupil makes few discoveries on his own account,
and is, therefore, not trained to think for himself. The problems being
largely solved for him by the writer, the knowledge is not valued as
highly as it would be if it came as an original discovery. We always
place a higher estimation on that knowledge which we discover for
ourselves than on that which somebody else gives us.
THE DEVELOPING METHOD
=Characteristics of the Method.=--The third, or developing, method of
directing the selecting activity of the learner, is so called because
in this method the teacher as an instructor aims to keep the child's
mind actively engaged throughout each step of the learning process. He
sees, in other words, that step by step the pupil brings forward
whatever old knowledge is necessary to the problem, and that he relates
it in a definite way to this problem. Instead of telling the pupils
directly, for instance, the teacher may question them upon certain known
facts in such a way that they are able themselves to discover the new
truth. In teaching alluvial fans, for example, the teacher would begin
questioning the pupil regarding his knowledge of river valleys,
tributary streams, the relation of the force of the tributary water to
the steepness of the side of the river valley, the presence of detritus,
etc., and thus lead the pupil to form his own conclusion as to the
collecting of detritus at the entrance to the level valley and the
probable shape of the deposit. So also in teaching the conjunctive
pronoun from such an example as:
He gave it to a boy _who_ stood near him;
the teacher brings forward, one by one, the elements of old knowledge
necessary to a full understanding of the new word, and tests at each
step whether the pupil is himself apprehending the new presentation in
terms of his former grammatical knowledge. Beginning with the clause
"who stood near him," the teacher may, by question and answer, assure
himself that the pupil, through his former knowledge of subordinate
clauses, apprehends that the clause is joined adjectively to _boy_, by
the word _who_. Next, he assures himself that the pupil, through his
former knowledge of the conjunction, apprehends clearly the consequent
_conjunctive_ force of the word _who_. Finally, by means of the pupil's
former knowledge of the subjective and pronoun functions, the teacher
assures himself that the pupil appreciates clearly the _pronoun_
function of the word _who_. Thus, step by step, throughout the learning
process, the teacher makes certain that he has awakened in the mind of
the learner the exact old knowledge which will unify into a clearly
understood and adequately controlled new experience, as signified by the
term _conjunctive pronoun_.
=Question and Answer.=--On account of the large use of questioning as a
means of directing and testing the pupils' selecting of old knowledge,
or interpreting ideas, the developing method is often identified with
the question and answer method. But the real mark of the developing
method of teaching is the effort of an instructor to assure himself
that, step by step, throughout the learning process, the pupil himself
is actively apprehending the significance of the new problem by a use of
his own previous experience. It is true, however, that the method of
interrogation is the most universal, and perhaps the most effective,
mode by which a teacher is able to assure himself that the learner's
mind is really active throughout each step of the learning process.
Moreover, as will be seen later, the other subsidiary methods of the
developing method usually involve an accompanying use of question and
answer for their successful operation. It is for this reason that the
question is sometimes termed the teacher's best instrument of
instruction. For the same reason, also, the young teacher should early
aim to secure facility in the art of questioning. An outline of the
leading principles of questioning will, therefore, be given in Chapter
XVIII.
=Other Forms of Development.=--Notwithstanding the large part played by
question and answer in the developing method, it must be observed that
there are other important means which the teacher at times may use in
the learning process in order to awaken clear interpreting ideas in the
mind of the learner. In so far, moreover, as any such methods on the
part of the teacher quicken the apperceptive process in the child, or
cause him to apply his former knowledge in a more active and definite
way to the problem in hand, they must be classified as phases of the
developing method. Two of these subsidiary methods will now be
considered.
THE OBJECTIVE METHOD
=Characteristics of the Objective Method.=--One important sub-section of
the developing method is known as the objective method. In this method
the teacher seeks, as far as possible, (1) to present the lesson problem
through the use of concrete materials, and (2) to have the child
interpret the problem by examining this concrete material. A child's
interest and knowledge being largely centred in objects and their
qualities and uses, many truths can best be presented to children
through the medium of objective teaching. For example, in arithmetic,
weights and measures should be taught by actually handling weights and
measures and building up the various tables by experiment. Tables of
lengths, areas, and volumes may be taught by measurements of lines,
surfaces, and solids. Geographical facts are taught by actual contact
with the neighbouring hills, streams, and ponds; and by visits to
markets and manufacturing plants. In nature study, plants and animals
are studied in their natural habitat or by bringing them into the
class-room.
=Advantages of the Objective Method.=--The advantages of this method in
such cases are readily manifest. Although, for instance, the pupil who
knows in a general way an inch space and the numbers 144, 9, 30-1/4, 40,
and 4, might be supposed to be able to organize out of his former
experiences a perfect knowledge of surface measure, yet it will be found
that compared with that of the pupil who has worked out the measure
concretely in the school garden, the control of the former student over
this knowledge will be very weak indeed. In like manner, when a student
gains from a verbal description a knowledge of a plant or an animal, not
only does he find it much more difficult to apply his old knowledge in
interpreting the word description than he would in interpreting a
concrete example, but his knowledge of the plant or animal is likely to
be imperfect. Objective teaching is important, therefore, for two
reasons:
1. It makes an appeal to the mind through the senses, the avenue through
which the most vivid images come. Frequently several senses are brought
to bear and the impressions thereby multiplied.
2. On account of his interest in objects, the young child's store of old
experiences is mainly of objects and of their sensuous qualities and
uses. To teach the abstract and unfamiliar through these, therefore, is
an application of the law of apperception, since the object makes it
easier for the child's former knowledge to be related to the presented
problem.
=Limitations of Objective Method.=--It must be recognized, however, that
objective teaching is only a means to a higher end. The concrete is
valuable very often only as a means of grasping the abstract. The
progress of humanity has ever been from the sensuous and concrete to the
ideal and abstract. Not the objects themselves, but what the objects
symbolize is the important thing. It wou
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