Principles of Teaching, Adam S. Bennion [top ebook reader .txt] 📗
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"Types of Original Responses.—These unlearned tendencies which make up the original nature of the human race are usually classified into automatic or physiological actions, reflexes, instincts, and capacities. Automatic actions are such as those controlling the heart-beats, digestive and intestinal movements; the contraction of the pupil of the eye from light, sneezing, swallowing, etc., are reflexes; imitation, fighting, and fear, are instincts, which capacities refer to those more subtle traits by means of which an individual becomes a good linguist, or is tactful, or gains skill in handling tools. However, there is no sharp line of division between these various unlearned tendencies; what one psychologist calls a reflex or a series of reflexes, another will call an instinct. It seems better to consider them as of the same general character but differing from each other in simplicity, definiteness, uniformity of response, variableness among individuals, and modifiability. They range from movements such as the action of the blood vessels to those concerned in hunting and collecting; from the simple, definite, uniform knee-jerk, which is very similar in all people and open to very little modification, to the capacity for scholarship, which is extremely complex, vague as to definition, variable both as to manifestation in one individual and amounts amongst people in general, and is open to almost endless modification. This fund of unlearned tendencies is the capital with which each child starts, the capital which makes education and progress possible, as well as the capital which limits the extent to which progress and development in any line may proceed." The Psychology of Childhood, pp. 21, 22, 23.
Weigle, in his Talks to Sunday School Teachers, begins his second chapter in a rather unique and helpful manner relative to this same question:
"The little human animal, like every other, is born going. He is already wound up. His lungs expand and contract; his heart is pumping away; his stomach is ready to handle food. These organic, vital activities he does not initiate. They begin themselves. The organism possesses them by nature. They are the very conditions of life.
"There are many other activities, not so obviously vital as these, for which nature winds him up quite as thoroughly—yes, and sets him to go off at the proper time for each. He will suck when brought to the breast as unfailingly as his lungs will begin to work upon contact with the air. He will cry from hunger or discomfort, clasp anything that touches his fingers or toes, carry to his mouth whatever he can grasp, in time smile when smiled at, later grow afraid when left alone or in the dark, manifest anger and affection, walk, run, play, question, imitate, collect things, pull things apart, put them together again, take pleasure in being with friends, act shy before strangers, find a chum, belong to a 'gang' or 'bunch,' quarrel, fight, become reconciled, and some day fall in love with one of the opposite sex. These, and many more, are just his natural human ways. He does not of purpose initiate them any more than he initiates breathing or heart-beat. He does these things because he is so born and built. They are his instincts."
As Norsworthy and Whitley point out, we are not especially concerned with the boundary lines between automatic actions, reflexes, and instincts—we are rather concerned with the fact that human beings possess native tendencies to act in particular ways. Some psychologists stress them as instincts; others as capacities, but they have all pretty generally agreed that under certain stimuli there are natural tendencies to react.
These tendencies begin to manifest themselves at birth—they are all potentialities with the birth of the child—and continue to develop in turn, certain ones being more pronounced in the various stages of the child's life. Colvin in his The Learning Process, runs through the complete list of possibilities. According to him man, in a lifetime, is characterized by the following tendencies: Fear, anger, sympathy, affection, play, imitation, curiosity, acquisitiveness, constructiveness, self-assertion (leadership), self-abasement, rivalry, envy, jealousy, pugnacity, clannishness, the hunting and predatory instincts, the migratory instinct, love of adventure and the unknown, superstition, the sex instincts, which express themselves in sex-love, vanity, coquetry, modesty; and, closely allied with these, the love of nature and of solitude, and the aesthetic, the religious, and the moral emotions.
Sisson, in a little book that every teacher ought to know, The Essentials of Character, emphasizes the importance for teaching of ten tendencies: bodily activity, sense-hunger and curiosity, suggestibility, tastes and aesthetic appreciation, self-assertion, love, joy, fear, the growing-up impulse, the love of approbation.
As already indicated, the teacher should give attention to these tendencies that he may the better know how to proceed. If he knows that the one great outstanding impulse of a boy of seven is to do something, he perhaps will be less likely to plan an hour's recitation on the theory that for that hour the boy is to do nothing. If he knows that one of the greatest tendencies of boys from ten to fourteen is to organize "gangs" for social and "political" purposes, he will very likely capitalize on this idea in building up a good strong class spirit.
Knowing that children naturally respond to certain stimuli in very definite ways, the teacher can better set about to furnish the right stimuli—he can be in a better position to direct and control behavior.
Questions and Suggestions—Chapter VII
1. What significance attaches to the statement, "Children are born 'going'"?
2. Why is it of vital importance that teachers give attention to the native tendencies in children?
3. What constitutes instinctive action? Illustrate.
4. Name the instincts that are essentially individualistic. Those that are essentially social.
5. What native tendencies are of most concern to teachers?
6. Discuss the relative significance of heredity, environment, and training in the development of children.
7. To what extent is a child limited in its development by its nervous system?
Helpful References
Norsworthy and Whitley, The Psychology of Childhood; Weigle, Talks to Sunday School Teachers; Colvin, The Learning Process; Sisson, The Essentials of Character; Stiles, The Nervous System and its Conservation; Thorndike, Principles of Teaching; Harrison, A Study of Child Nature; Kirkpatrick, Fundamentals of Child Study.
CHAPTER VIII "WHAT TO DO WITH NATIVE TENDENCIES"Outline—Chapter VIII
Characteristic tendencies of the various stages of child life.—The teacher's attitude toward them.—Follow the grain.
Four methods of procedure: 1. The method of disuse; 2. The method of rewards and punishment; 3. The method of substitution; 4. The method of stimulation and sublimation.
Having listed the native tendencies generally, we might well now consider them as they manifest themselves at the various stages of an individual's development. As already indicated, they constitute his birthright as a human being, though most of them are present in the early years of his life only in potentiality. Psychologists of recent years have made extensive observations as to what instincts are most prominent at given periods. Teachers are referred particularly to the volumes of Kirkpatrick, Harrison, and Norsworthy and Whitley. In this latter book, pages 286, 287, and 298-302, will be found an interesting tabulation of characteristics at the age of five and at eleven. For the years of adolescence Professor Beeley, in his course at the Brigham Young Summer School, in the Psychology of Adolescence, worked out very fully the characteristics unique in this period, though many of them, of course, are present at other stages:
Characteristics Unique in the Adolescent Period
1. Maturing of the sex instincts. 2. Rapid limb growth. 3. Over-awkwardness. 4. Visceral organs develop rapidly (heart, liver, lungs, genital organs.) 5. Change in physical proportions; features take on definite characteristics. 6. Brain structure has matured. 7. Self-awareness. 8. Personal pride and desire for social approval. 9. Egotism. 10. Unstable, "hair-trigger," conflicting emotions. 11. Altruism, sincere interest in the well-being of others. 12. Religious and moral awakening. 13. New attitude. 14. Aesthetic awakening. 15. Puzzle to everybody. 16. Desire to abandon conventionalities, struggle for self-assertion. 17. Career motive. 18. Period of "palling" and mating; clique and "gang" spirit. 19. Positiveness,—affirmation, denial. 20. Inordinate desire for excessive amusement. 21. Evidence of hereditary influences. 22. "Hero worship," castle building. 23. "Wanderlust." 24. Hyper-suggestibility. 25. Ideals; ambitions. 27. Yearning for adult responsibility.Having listed these tendencies we still face the question, "What shall we do with them? What is their significance in teaching?"
It is perfectly clear, in the first place, that we ought not to ignore them. None of them is wholly useless, and few of them can safely be developed just as they first manifest themselves. They call for training and direction.
"Some instincts are to be cherished almost as they are; some rooted out by withholding stimuli, or by making their exercise result in pain or discomfort, or by substituting desirable habits in their place; most of the instincts should be modified and redirected."—(Thorndike.)
Our concern as teachers ought to be that in our work with boys and girls, men and women, we are aware of these natural tendencies that we may work with them rather than contrary to them—that we may "follow the grain" of human nature.
Since these tendencies are the result of responses to stimuli they may be modified by attention either to the stimuli or to the reaction that attends the stimulation. Four methods call for our consideration:
1. The method of disuse. 2. The method of rewards and punishments. 3. The method of substitution. 4. The method of stimulation and sublimation.No one of these methods can be said always to be best. The nature of the person in question, his previous experience and training, together with the circumstances attending a given situation, all are factors which determine how we should proceed. The vital point is, that both as parents and teachers we should guard against falling into the rut of applying the same treatment to all cases regardless of their nature.
1. The Method of Disuse
This method is largely negative. It aims to safeguard an individual against ills by withholding stimuli. The mother aims to keep scissors out of reach and sight of the baby that it may not be lured into danger. Some parents, upon discerning that the pugnacious instinct is manifesting itself vigorously in their boy, isolate him from other boys—keep him by himself through a period of a year or more that the tendency may not be accentuated. Other parents, observing their daughter's inclination to be frivolous, or seeing the instinct of sex begin to manifest itself in her interest in young men, send her away to a girl's school—a sort of intellectual nunnery.
Frequently teachers follow this method in the conduct of their classes. The tendency to self-assertion and verbal combat, natural to youth, is smothered by an unwillingness on the part of the teacher to indulge questions and debate or by a marked inclination to do all the talking.
It is clear that this method of disuse has its place in the training of children, though grave dangers attend its too frequent indulgence. Children and others of immature judgment need the protection of withheld stimuli. But clearly this is not a method to be recommended for general application. The boy who is never allowed to quarrel or fight may very possibly grow up to be a
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