Principles of Teaching, Adam S. Bennion [top ebook reader .txt] 📗

Fundamental significance of individual differences.—Typical illustration.—The truth illustrated physically; in range of voice, in speed, in mental capabilities.—The same truth applied spiritually.—Some cases in point.

Everybody is like everybody else in this—that everybody is different from everybody else. Having discussed how all men enjoy a common heritage by way of native endowments, let us now turn to a consideration of how men differ.

Two of the terms most frequently met in recent educational publications are statistical methods and individual differences. There is nothing particularly new in this latter term—it merely represents a new emphasis being given to the old idea that no two of us are alike. Every parent is aware of the very marked differences in his children. Even twins differ in disposition and mental capabilities. In fact, one of the difficulties that attaches to parenthood is just this problem of making provision in one household for such various personalities.

A member of the stake presidency in one of the stakes in southern Utah, in discussing this matter a short time ago, remarked that in his family of four boys one very definitely had decided to become a farmer and was already busy at getting acquainted with the details of the work; a second boy was devoted to music and voiced a very vigorous protest against farming; the third son was so bashful and reticent that he hadn't given expression to any notion of preference; the fourth, a happy-go-lucky sort of chap, free and noisy in his cutting up about the place, wasn't worrying about what he was to do in life—he just didn't want anything to do with strenuous effort.

"How can I drive a four-horse team such as that?" was the interesting query of this father.

Practically every family presents this variety of attitude and practically every parent is trying to work out a solution to the problem, so there is nothing startling about the term individual differences. Educators have just given the matter more careful and scholarly attention of recent years.

If the matter of differences in children constitutes a problem of concern in a family of from two to ten children, how much greater must that problem be in a class from thirty to fifty with approximately as many families represented. The problem has led to some very interesting investigations—investigations so simple that they can be carried on by anyone interested. For instance, if we could line up all the men in Salt Lake City according to size we should find at one end of the line a few exceptionally tall men, likely from six feet to six feet six inches in height. At the other end of the line would be a few exceptionally small men—undersized men from three feet eight or ten inches to four feet six inches. In between these two types would come in graduated order all sorts of men with a decidedly large number standing about five feet six or eight inches. This latter height we call the average.

Practically we see the significance of these differences. No manufacturer thinks of making one size of overall in the hope that it will fit each of these men. He adapts his garment to their size, and he knows approximately how many of each size will be called for in the course of ordinary business.

If these same men could be taken one by one into a music studio and have their voices tested for range, the same interesting variations would be found. There would be a few very high tenors, a few exceptionally low bassos, and a crowd with medium range with fillers-in all along the line.

If we were interested in carrying the experiment still further we might apply the speed test. In a 100-yard dash a few men would be found to be particularly fast, a few others would trail away behind at a snail's pace, while the big crowd of men would make the distance in "average time."

Of course, it would be foolish to attempt to make tenors of all these men—equally foolish to try to make speeders of them all. In these practical matters we appreciate the wisdom of letting each man fit into that niche for which he is qualified.

Nor are these differences confined to the field of physical characteristics and achievements. Tests by the hundred have demonstrated beyond all question that they hold equally well of mental capabilities. In the past children have gone to school at the age of six. They have remained there because they were six. At seven they were in grade two, and so on up through the grades of our public schools. Tests and measurements now, however, are showing that such a procedure works both a hardship and an injustice on the pupils. Some boys at six are found as capable of doing work in grade two as other boys at eight. Some boys and girls at six are found wholly incapable of doing what is required in grade one. One of the most promising prospects ahead educationally is that we shall be able to find out just the capacity of a child regardless of his age, and fit him into what he can do well, making provisions for his passing on as he shows capability for higher work. Not only has this matter of individual differences been found to apply generally in the various grades of our schools—it has been found to have significant bearing upon achievements in particular subjects. For all too long a time we have held a boy in grade four until he mastered what we have called his grade four arithmetic, spelling, geography, grammar, history, etc. As a matter of fact, many a boy who is a fourth-grader in grammar may be only a second-grader in arithmetic—a girl, for whom fourth grade arithmetic is an impossibility, because of her special liking for reading, may be seventh grade in her capacity in that subject. In the specific subjects, individual differences have been found to be most marked. Surely it is unfair to ask a boy "born short" in history