Principles of Teaching, Adam S. Bennion [top ebook reader .txt] 📗
- Author: Adam S. Bennion
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In order that we may more fully appreciate the reality of these observations let us set down the concrete results of a few experiments.
The first three tests are quoted from Thorndike:
In a test in addition, all pupils being allowed the same time,
The rapidity of movement of ten-year-old girls, as measured by the number of crosses made in a fixed time:
Two papers, A and B, written by members of the same grade and class in a test in spelling:
In a test in spelling wherein fifty common words were dictated to a class of twenty-eight pupils, the following results were obtained:
And now the question—what has all this to do with the teaching of religion? Just this: the differences among men as found in fields already referred to, are found also in matters of religion. For one man it is easy to believe in visions and all other heavenly manifestations; for another it is next to impossible. To one man the resurrection is the one great reality; to another it is merely a matter of conjecture. One man feels certain that his prayers are heard and answered; another feels equally certain that they cannot be. One man is emotionally spiritual; another is coldly hard-headed and matter-of-fact. The point is not a question which man is right—it is rather that we ought not to attempt to reach each man in exactly the same way, nor should we expect each one to measure up to the standards of the others.
An interesting illustration of this difference in religious attitude was shown recently in connection with the funeral of a promising young man who had been taken in death just as he had fairly launched upon his life's work. In a discussion that followed the service, one good brother found consolation in the thought that the Lord needed just such a young man to help carry on a more important work among the spirits already called home. His companion in the discussion found an explanation to his satisfaction in the thought that it was providential that the young man could be taken when he was, that he thereby might be spared the probable catastrophies that might have visited him had he lived. Each man found complete solace in his own philosophy, though neither could accept the reasoning of the other.
An interesting case of difference of view came to the attention of the teacher-training class at Provo when someone asked how the lesson on Jonah could be presented so that it would appeal to adolescent boys and girls. The query was joined in by several others for whom Jonah had been a stumbling block, when Brother Sainsbury, of Vernal, startled the class by saying Jonah was his favorite story. "I would rather teach that story than any other one in the Bible," he declared, and illustrated his method so clearly that the account of Jonah took on an entirely new aspect.
Many men and women in the world are shocked at the thought that God is a personality. To them the idea that God is simply a "man made perfect," a being similar to us, but exalted to deity, is akin to blasphemy. And then to add the idea of a heavenly mother is beyond comprehension. To Latter-day Saints, on the other hand, these thoughts are the very glory of God. To them a man made perfect is the noblest conception possible. It makes of Him a reality. And the thought of Mother—Heaven without a Mother would be like home without one.
And so with all the principles and conceptions of religion, men's reactions to them are as varied as they are to all the other facts of life. Everywhere the opinions, the capacities, the attainments of men vary. The law of individual differences is one of the most universal in our experience.
Questions and Suggestions—Chapter IX
1. Just what is the meaning of the term Individual Differences?
2. Illustrate such differences in families with which you are familiar.
3. Apply the test to your ward choir.
4. Name and characterize twenty men whom you know. How do they differ?
5. Have a report brought in from your public school on the results of given tests in arithmetic, spelling, etc.
6. Have the members of your class write their opinions relative to some point of doctrine concerning which there may be some uncertainty.
7. Observe the attitude and response of each of the members of a typical Sunday School, Kindergarten, of an advanced M.I.A. class.
8. Illustrate individual differences as expressed in the religious attitudes of men you know.
9. To what extent are boys different from girls in mental capability and attitude?
Helpful References
Those listed in Chapter VII.
CHAPTER X INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES AND TEACHINGOutline—Chapter X
The causes of individual differences.—Norsworthy and Whitley on the significance of parentage.—The teacher's obligation to know parents.—The influence of sex.—Environment as a factor.—Thorndike quoted.—B.H. Jacobsen on individual differences.
So far we simply have made the point that individuals differ. We are concerned in this chapter in knowing how these differences affect the teaching process. Fully to appreciate their significance we must know not only that they exist, and the degree of their variation, but also the forces that produce them. On the side of heredity, race, family, and sex, are the great modifying factors. Practically, of course, we are concerned very little as Church teachers with problems of race. We are all so nearly one in that regard that a discussion of racial differences would contribute but little to the solution of our teaching problem.
The matter of family heritage is a problem of very much more immediate concern. Someone has happily said: "Really to know a boy one must know fully his father and his mother." "Yes," says a commentator, "and he ought to know a deal about the grandfather and grandmother." The significance of parentage is made to stand out with clearness in the following paragraph from Norsworthy and Whitley, The Psychology of Childhood:
"Just as good eyesight and longevity are family characteristics, so also color blindness, left-handedness, some slight peculiarity of structure such as an extra finger or toe, or the Hapsburg lip, sense defects such as deafness or blindness, tendencies to certain diseases, especially those of the nervous system,—all these run in families. Certain mental traits likewise are obviously handed down from parents to child, such as strong will, memory for faces, musical imagination, abilities in mathematics or the languages, artistic talent. In these ways and many others children resemble their parents. The same general law holds of likes and dislikes, of temperamental qualities such as quick temper, vivacity, lovableness, moodiness. In all traits, characteristics, features, powers both physical and mental and to some extent moral also, children's original nature, their stock in trade, is determined by their immediate ancestry. 'We inherit our parents' tempers, our parents' conscientiousness, shyness and ability, as we inherit their stature, forearm and span,' says Pearson."
The teacher who would really appreciate the feelings and responses of a boy in his class must be aware, therefore, that the boy is not merely one of a dozen type individuals—he is a product of a particular parentage, acting as he does largely because "he was born that way."
We shall point out in connection with environmental influences the importance of a teacher's knowing the home condition of his pupils; but it is important here, in passing, to emphasize the point that even though a child were never to live with its parents it could be understood by the teacher acquainted with the peculiar traits of those parents. "Born with a bent" is a proverb of such force that it cannot be ignored. To know the parental heritage of a boy is to anticipate his reaction to stimuli—is to know what approach to make to win him.
Because of the fact that in many of our organizations we are concerned with the problem of teaching boys and girls together, the question of the influence of sex is one which we must face. There are those who hold that boys and girls are so fundamentally different by nature that they ought not to be taught coeducationally. Others maintain that they are essentially alike in feeling and intellectuality, and that because of the fact that eventually they are to be mated in the great partnership of life they should be held together as much as possible during the younger years of their lives. Most authorities are agreed that boys and girls differ not so much because they are possessed of different native tendencies, but because they live differently—they follow different lines of activity, and therefore develop different interests. To quote again from Norsworthy and Whitley:
"That men and women are different, that their natures are not the same, has long been an accepted fact. Out of this fact of difference have grown many hot discussions as to the superiority of one or the other nature as a whole. The present point of view of scientists seems well expressed by Ellis when he says, 'We may regard all such discussions as absolutely futile and foolish. If it is a question of determining the existence and significance of some particular physical sexual difference, a conclusion may not be impossible. To make any broad statement of the phenomena is to recognize that no general conclusion is possible. Now and again we come across facts which group themselves with a certain uniformity, but as we continue, we find other equally important facts which group themselves with equal uniformity in another sense. The result produces
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