The child and his school; an interpretation of elementary education as a social process

Front matter

■H tti muMM mii>J f im » i ' t m f U tK nM 4a g jBi m r v i u a»f (iui ii

Pass L ^ l !TS5^

Book ^H^

Foreword

From among the many contributions that have enriched our professional literature during recent years, what selection shall be made by the teacher who seeks to translate the more modern philosophy of education into terms of daily school procedure and curriculum? What available sources adequately present the scientific background of that philosophy? Where shall we find interpretations of the scientific problems involved? What aids can the school library provide both for the teacher's use and for the children's reading?

Miss Hartman has answered these questions by combining a selection of library sources with an outline of the principles they illustrate, and a discussion of resulting implications for the school curriculum.

We believe her study wiU be welcomed by teachers as a resume of exceptional value, discussing, as it does within a single volume, materials widely distributed through the pages of books and periodicals, many of them not easily available outside of special libraries. To the student and general reader we recommend it as presenting an able introduction to those precious conceptions of childhood and youth by which the word education is re-interpreted for those who hold it.

Bureau of Educational Experiments.

New York, November, 1921.

vii

Preface

This study was originally undertaken as a bibliography in response to a request made of the Bureau of Educational Experiments by a group of teachers representing several schools, all of whom are conducting experimental work in curriculum-making. In the course of the undertaking, it soon became evident that a bibliography to be of fundamental educational value must be governed by clearly defined principles of selection. The theory of the book is an attempt to organize in terms of the best authenticated knowledge, after careful study of a wide range of authoritative sources, a working hypothesis for experimental procedure. Since a pedagogy of any scientific pretensions presupposes a basis of modern biology, psychology, and sociology, of which it is a derivative science, a background of the points of view in. those sciences, which have significance for education, is given in support of the educational philosophy advocated. Whenever significant points of view have lent themselves to direct quotation, the quotation has been incorporated with the text, since it conveys the idea in a far more vivid way than any digest could give.

The predominance of references and quotations from the works of Dr. John Dewey is significant as indicating Dr. Dewey's profound service to the cause of modern education, in translating the findings of modern science and philosophy into their educational equivalents. The deep obligation of the writer to the work of Dr. Dewey in this instance only reflects the indebtedness of an ever-growing body of workers in the educational field.

It gives me pleasure to record here my indebtedness to the Bureau of Educational Experiments, who have made it possible for me to undertake the study.

Gertrude Hartman.

New York, November, 1921.

ix

Contents

PAGE

Introduction. ^Thb Present Educational Situation 1

PART I. The Scientific Basis op Education 9 The Biological Basis 9

The Evolution op the Regulatory System 12

The Psychological Basis 14

The Significance op Childhood 19

The Social Basis 23

The Evolution of Occupations 25

The Influence of Environment upon the Development

op Social Life 30

The Relation of Occupations to the Development op

Social Life 32

The Relation op Art and Science to Occupations 34

The Evolution of the Scibntipic Method op Thinking. . 39

The Evolution op Knowledge 41

The Evolution op Organs op Social Regulation 45

The Present Social Situation 48

PART II. The Educative Process ." 55 The Function op Education 55

The Place op Activity in Education "" 60

The Organization op Activities 67

Activity as Play 68

Dramatic Activities 73

Investigation and Experimentation ,74

Art Activities 77

Rhythmic and Musical Activities 85

The School Festival 87

Linguistic Activities 91

Composition 99

Literature 101 xii CONTENTS

' PAGE

Activity as Work 107

Science 112

The Tool Subjects 118

Writing 126

Spelling 127

Arithmetic 131

The Organization op Subject-matter 134

The Study op Social Life 137

Community Study 139

Our National Life 150

The Study op Other Nations 155

Social Philosophy 161

Moral Education 163

The Function op the Various Subjects op Study in

Expanding Experience 167

The Function op the Teacher 177

Measuring Progress 182

Equipment and Arrangements 185

POSTSCRIPT. A Call to Teachers 189

PART III. Bibliography op Sources por Subject-matter. . 191 Community Study 192

Food 192

Clothing 196

Shelter 199

Transportation , 204

Communication 206

Conservation op Wealth 207

Education 208

Recreation 208

Religion 209

Protection 209

Government 210

Primitive Life 210

CONTENTS xiii

PAGE

Our National Life 212

GENEBAIi 212

Government 213

The Study op Other Nations 221

General 221

North America 222

South America 226

Europe 227

Asia 241

Africa 246

Australia 247 k

Introduction

THE PRESENT EDUCATIONAL SITUATION

Educationally speaking we seem to be "between two worlds, one dead, the other powerless to be born," There are numerous signs indicating that the old educational order is passing; there are vital tendencies everywhere showing the newer trend of the times ; but as yet there is no new education in definite existence ; even our most progressive schools can be looked upon only as a transition and a compromise. Current educational practice is still dominated by psychological assumptions which the new developments of psychology have shown to be untenable, and by sociological implications which are survivals from a social situation no longer existing.

The gap between school practice and the modern point of view in psychology is painfully apparent. The old psychology looked upon mind and the subject matter of thought as two distinct entities more or less antagonistic to each other, which it was the business of education to reconcile. Knowledge was abstracted from the situation which made it useful and looked upon as an end in itself. The teaching of subjects, not in their relation to experience, but according to a fixed order and classification, the following of logical methods of instruction, the belief in the doctrine of formal discipline — all find their explanation in this outworn psychological creed. ''The supposed externality of subject-matter is but the counterpart phase of the alleged internal isolation of mind. If mind means certain powers or faculties existing in themselves and needing only to be exercised by and upon presented subject-matter, the presented subject-matter must mean something complete in its ready-made and fixed separateness. Objects, facts, truths of geography, history, and science not being conceived as means and ends for the intelligent development of experience, are thought of just as stuff to be learned. Eeading, writing, figuring are mere external forms of skill to be mastered. Even the arts — drawing, singing — are thought of as meaning so many ready-made things, pictures, songs, that are to be externally produced and reproduced. . . . Some means must be found to overcome the separation of mind and subject-matter; problems of methods in teaching are reduced to various ways of overcoming a gap which exists only because a radically wrong method had already been entered upon," (John Dewey, Interest and Effort in Education, p. 94,*)

"Philosophers have debated concerning the nature and method of knowledge. It is hardly cynical to say that positiveness of assertion on those points has been in proportion to the lack of any assured method of knowing in actual operation. The whole idea and scope of knowledge-getting in education has reflected the absence of such a method, so that learning has meant, upon the whole, piling up, worshiping, and holding fast to what is handed down from the past with the title of knowledge. But the actual practice of knowing has finally reached a point where learning means discovery, not memorizing traditions; where knowledge is actively constructed, not passively absorbed; and where men's beliefs must be openly recognized to be experimental in nature, involving hypothesis and testing through being set at work. Upon the side of subject-matter, the ideas of energy, process, growth, and evolutionary change have become supreme at the expense of the older notions of permanent substance, rigid fixity, and uniformity. The basic conceptions which form men's standards of interpretation and valuation have thus undergone radical altera-

*By permission HougMon Mifflin Co. Copyright 1913 by John Dewey.

INTRODUCTION 3

tion." (John Dewey, P7iilosophy of Education, Cyelopasdia of Education, pp. 702-703.*) According to the old point of view mental structure tended to fall apart into various faculties working more or less independently; the new point of view is an analysis of the processes of adaptive behavior, showing how they came into existence as the result of certain needs of life, and how they work together to maintain human beings to meet the constantly changing conditions of their environment.

The false psychological basis of education is paralleled by a lack of realization of its social requirements. Strong social forces have for a long time been silently at work, and as a result our social life has undergone a complete and radical transformation. In education, on the other hand, outworn points of view have been handed on from generation to generation and thus perpetuated, we have become habituated to traditional modes of thinking — ^in a word, education has become institutionalized. The result is that it now bears no clear and direct relation to the needs and opportunities of contemporaiy life. ''If we go back a few centuries, we find a practical monopoly of learning. The term possession of learning is, indeed a happy one. Learning was a class matter. This was a necessary result of social conditions. There was not in existence any means by which the multitude could possibly have access to intellectual resources. These were stored up and hidden away in manuscripts. Of these, there were at best only a few, and it required a long and toilsome preparation to be able to do anything with them. A high-priesthood of learning which guarded the treasury of truth and which doled it out to the masses under severe restrictions, was the inevitable expression of these conditions. But, as a direct result of the industrial revolution . . . this has been changed. Printing was invented ; it was made commercial . . . The result has been an intellectual revolution. Learning has been put into circulation. "While there still is, and probably always will be, a particular class having the special business of inquiry in hand, a distinctively learned class is henceforth out of

*B7 permission The Maemillan Co. Copyright 1911.

the question. It is an anachronism. . . . Our school methods, and to a very considerable extent our curriculum, are inherited from the period when learning and command of certain symbols, affording as they did, the only access to learning, were all-important. The ideals of this period are still largely in control, even where the outward methods and studies have been changed . . . our present education ... is highly specialized, one-sided and narrow. It is an education dominated almost entirely by the mediaeval conception of learning. It is something which appeals for the most part simply to the intellectual aspect of our natures, our desire to learn, to accumulate information, and to get control of the symbols of learning; not to our impulses and tendencies to make, to do, to create, to produce, whether in the form of utility or art. . . .

"'"While training for the profession of learning is regarded as the type of culture, or a liberal education, the training of a mechanic, a musician, a lawyer, a doctor, a farmer, a merchant, or a railroad manager is regarded as purely technical and professional. The result is that whi'ch we see about us everywhere — the division into 'cultured* people and 'workers' . . . ." John 'Dewey, The School and Society, pp. 22-25.*) Such an educational situation tends to accentuate all the undemocratic tendencies of our time by strengthening class distinctions. Education under these circumstances tends to fall apart into two types seeking specialized aims. The education of the leisure class takes on more or less the character of an accomplishment; it is removed from the realities of every-day life and is concerned with an unproductive expenditure of time. On the other hand we see growing up a narrow, barren conception of technological education, dominated by the demands of industry rather than by educational principles, seeking to habituate workers in the various specialized modes of skill necessary for the efficient performance of their trades. Dissatisfaction is shown by the mass of the people to the making of a type of education a badge of inferiority, and

*By permission University of Chicago Press. Copyright 1900 by the University of Chicago. Copyright 1900 and 1915 by John Dewey.

INTRODUCTION 5

they therefore make every effort to secure the leisure-class education regardless of its serviceability.

The pressing demand of the present is for the reestablishment of human relationships upon a saner and more secure foundation. It constitutes a challenge which the school cannot evade. If democracy is to be anything more than a mere political term, there must be a new educational theory which will relate education directly to the changed conditions brought about by the industrial revolution. The social aim of education for democracy must he of the sort which does not admit the implication of a class superiority. It will ie vocational, hut it will aim not -at a living hut a living together; it will he liheral, hecause it makes men free. *'We need to know the difference that the democratic ideal makes in our moral aims and methods; we need to come to consciousness of the changed conception of the nature of existence that its spread imports. We must reckon intelligently with the new and gigantic industrial forces that have come into being, securing by education a disposition to subordinate them to general welfare and to equality of opportunity so that they may not plunge us into class hatreds, intellectual deadness, and artistic vulgarity. Unless our science is to become as specialized and isolated a thing as was ever any scholastic scheme whose elaborate futility we ridicule, we must make the experimental attitude the pervasive ideal of all our intellectual undertakings, and learn to think habitually in terms of dynamic processes and genetic evolution. Clearness upon the issues, problems, and aims which our own period has brought to the foreground is a necessity for free and deliberate participation in the tasks that present-day education has to perform." (John Dewey, Philosophy of Education, Cyclopasdia of Education, p. 703.*)

"What is needed is a thorough overhauling of our educational beliefs, the rejection of everything that is outworn, and the formulation of a philosophy of curriculum organization consistent with the findings of modern biology, psychology and sociology, upon which alone can a sound

*By permission The Macmillan Co. Copyright 1911.

philosophy of education be built. Unless we have such an organized philosophy we are without a standard by which to measure our day to day accomplishment, or to judge of the value of contemplated changes in procedure. Progress under any other conditions is due to a happy combination of external circumstances rather than to the application of scientific principles.

Angell, J, R. — Tli6 'Province of Functional Psychology,

Psychological Review, March, 1907.

CooLEY, C. H. — A Primary Culture for Democracy, Papers and Proceedings, American Sociological Society, 1918. Dewey, John — Democracy and Education, Macmillan. Chap. XIX. Labor and Leisure.

Chap. XX. Intellectual and Practical Studies. Chap. XXI. Physical and Social Studies. Chap. XXIII. Vocational Aspects of Education. Chap. XXIV. Philosophy of Education.

Dewey, John — The Educational Situation, University of

Chicago Press.

Dewey, John — The Relation of Theory to Practice in Education, National Society for Scientific Study of Education, Year Book, 1904.

Dewey, John — Schools of To-morrow, Dutton.

Chap. IX. Industry and Educational Readjustment.

Chap. XI. Democracy and Education.

Dewey, John — The School and Society, University of Chicago Press.

Chap. I. The School and Social Progress. Chap. IV. The Psychology of Elementary Education. Dewey, John — American Education and Culture, New

Republic, July 1, 1916.

Yeblen, T. — The Theory of the Leisure Class, Huebsch.

Chap. XIV. The Higher Learning as an Expression of the Pecuniary Culture.

INTRODUCTION 7

Watson, J. B. — Psychology as a Behaviorist Views It,

Psychological Review, March, 1913.

WooDWORTH, R. S. — Dynamic Psychology, Columbia University Press.

Chap. I. The Modem Movement in Psychology. Chap. II. The Problems and Methods of Psychology,

Part I

The human species appears to possess characteristics so essentially different from those of every other animal species that it is not surprising if for centuries man regarded himself as a separate and distinct creation. Indeed, although the work of Darwin established beyond doubt our biological connection with the rest of the animate world, it is only within recent years that the evolutionary conception of life has materially influenced psychological and sociological thought. The development of a functional psychology, of a dynamic sociology, and the pragmatic point of view in philosophy, however, are all making increasingly clear how completely our mental, our social, and our moral life are the result of that age-long experience which stretches back into the dim past when the first bit of protoplasm stirred in the primordial ooze and life began upon the earth. Since in the child, with whom the school has to deal, we have the latest product of that race experience, it is necessary before attempting to formulate any mode of school procedure, to trace in a general way the workings of those great natural forces which have combined to make him what he is. What heritage have those forces bestowed upon him? What limitations do they impose upon education ? What resources do they offer ? These are the questions which education asks of evolution.

The Biological Basis

Wherever conditions on the earth are favorable, life exists, and the whole great concourse of living things, high as well as low, are forced to engage in a never-ending lOv THE CHILD AND HIS SCHOOL

struggle to maintain their existence. However rudimentary in structure an organism may be, it must perform all the functions necessary to sustain life or else be extinguished. As nourishment is fundamental to the continuance of life, all organisms perform ceaseless and untiring movements in search of food. The lower organisms usually move about at random, making trial of all sorts of conditions, until possibly by chance collision they meet success in their quest. Jennings in his Behavior of the Loiver Organisms describes bacteria as swimming about in a direction determined by the position of the body axis until the movement subjects them to unfavorable change; whereupon they reverse and swim in some other direction with rapid movements and much sensitiveness to unfavorable influences. This soon results in their finding and remaining in the favorable regions. We see, then, that a living being is not an independent thing existing in isolated passivity; the very conditions of its life force it into active relationship with the world of materials and forces upon which it depends for its sustenance. Life may be regarded as the sum total of the functions of an organism in their reciprocal relations, as the outcome of its relationship with the environment. Every organism reacts in ways that are advantageous to the functioning of its life processes. "If it gets into hot water, it takes measures to get out again, and the same .is true if it gets into excessively cold water. If it encounters an injurious chemical substance, it at once changes its behavior and escapes. If it lacks materials for its metabolic processes, it sets in operation movements which secure such material, suspending these movements when the lack is fully supplied. If it lacks oxygen for its respiration it moves to a region where oxygen is found. If injured, it flees to safer regions." (H. S. Jennings, The Method of Regulation in Behavior and in Other Fields. Journal of Experimental Zoology, November, 1905.) The continued existence of an organism depends upon harmony being preserved between changes in the environment and changes within the organism. Anything injurious to the organism produces changes in behavior until a favorable condition is reached. In conditions that are entirely favorable there is no need for a change in behavior, A change in behavior takes place only when there is some interference with the life process.

Out of this situation has developed that essential characteristic of all living beings — their power of adaptability. All living things in order to maintain themselves, are forced into processes of adaptive behavior, and variations within an organism arise in accordance with this requirement. The variety and complexity of environmental conditions require subtle modifications within the organism to meet the exigencies of the diverse circumstances to which it is subjected. Organisms are able to make adaptive changes in behavior because of that characteristic common to all protoplasm known as plasticity. Lower forms of life have only a limited ability to adjust themselves to their surroundings. If changes in the environment are too sudden or too great, the organism dies. The essential conditions of life therefore put a premium upon the better and better adaptation of the organism to its environment. This necessity for a more adequate adaptation of life to environment has given rise to increasing elaboration of structure in the scale of animal life. Organisms that vary in such a way as to make them unfitted to carry on their life functions are eliminated ; those which improve their functioning through improved structure survive and produce others after their kind.

The struggle of an organism for more adequate functioning involves an effort to control its environment; elaboration of structure contributes to increased control of the environment by increasing the precision of movements ; on the other hand it tends to restrict the form of movement to certain types. An organism which has adopted some special type of behavior becomes unadapted to other behavior. It develops structures under the infiuence of its adaptive behavior that make it difficult for it to react in other than one way. After a time it loses all tendency to react in other ways owing to the structural changes it has undergone. Complete specialization of structure leads to a condition of stability in the relationship between the organism and its environment. The perfection of meclianism is unfavorable to further development. Animals become committed to one form of life and in so doing sacrifice their plasticity. Natural selection, therefore, while it favors variation of structure, also favors the persistence of plasticity, since plasticity is a prerequisite to growth. An organism to retain its plasticity must have the power of making over its environment in accordance with its own needs. The increasing control given by increasing elaboration of structure enables organisms to deal with an environment which grows constantly more complex, more varied and more remote in time and space. A species which can adjust itself to only a few elements of its environment is less efficient than one which has diverse relationships and an extensive range of possible adaptations. The world of a protozoan is a drop of water; it can move but a short distance and distinguish but a few objects; the higher animals range over a wide territory and become acquainted with a great variety of objects; man lives in a world which is bounded by the most distant star, and which stretches back in time to ages before recorded history.

The Evolution of the Regulatory System. — Eegulation signifies any kind of reaction of the organism which reestablishes the normal state of functioning. The securing of an effective method of regulation is therefore a matter of supreme importance to life. As we progress up the scale of life, we see that in the elaboration of structure function develops from a generalized to a specialized condition. The one-celled organism responds as a whole to stimulus. Gradually in the differentiation of structure we see that certain cells are set apart for receiving stimuli, and others for responding to them. There is then necessity for some sort of connection between these two sets of cells, and still other cells form a line of connection to transmit the stimulus from the receiving cells to the responding cells. Such, in general, is the mechanism constituting the rudimentary nervous system of lower animals. Once established, such a system dominates the organism since it forms an apparatus by which the inner processes are kept in harmony and the whole organism the better equipped to make adaptive movements. From this simplest form of mechanism has been gradually evolved the elaborate structure of the nervous system with all its varied and highly specialized functions. *'A study of the comparative anatomy of the nervous system shows that its form is always correlated with the behavior of the animal possessing it. The simplest form of nervous system consists of a diffuse network of nerve-cells and connecting fibres distributed among the other tissues of the body. Such a nervous system is found in some jelly-fishes and in parts of the sympathetic nervous system of higher animals. Animals which possess this diffuse type of nervous system can perform only very simple acts, chiefly total movements of the whole body or general movements of large parts of it, with relatively small capacity for refined activities requiring the cooperation of many different organs. But even the lowest animals which possess nerves show a tendency for the nervous net to be condensed in some regions for the general control of the activities of the different parts of the body." (C. J. Herriek, Introduction to Neurology, pp. 28-29.)

By the possession of a highly organized nervous system a multitude of activities may be made to work together in unity for the welfare of the whole organism. In the lower animals there is only one course which the stimulus can take; as the neural processes become more complex, the path from stimulus to response is increasingly roundabout. If the stimulus can go by only one route the organism can never learn to discriminate between the response it is able to make and some other possible response. A highly developed adjusting mechanism enables the organism to select its present stimulus with reference to past experience and thus provide more adequately for the future.

The supreme place in nature attained by man is due to the progressive evolution of the nervous system. In purely physical respects the human body is inferior to that of other animals. It is not through superior physique but through ability to direct the activities of the body that man excels in the struggle for existence. This infinitely elaborated control system enables the human organism not only to respond appropriately to stimuli, but to order its behavior through an infinite series of responses, each determined by a preceding stimulus. From the biological point of view the human brain is the highest expression of an organizing system for the purpose of adaptation. The possession of a brain constitutes the greatest safeguard for success in the struggle for existence.

Dewey, John. — Articles on Activity, Adaptation, Adjustment, Environment, and Organism. Cyclopaedia of Education. Macmillan.

Jennings, H. S. — The Study of the Behaviour of Lower Organisms. Carnegie Institution. Pub. No. 16. The Method of Trial and Error in the Behavior of Lower Organisms.

Jennings, H. S. — Modifiahility in Behavior. Journal of Experimental Zoology, November, 1905.

Jennings, H. S. — The Method of Regulation in Behavior and in Other Fields. Journal of Experimental Zoology, November, 1905.

Millee, I. E. — The Psychology of Thinking. Macmillan. Chaps. I and II. The Biological Point of View.

Morgan, C. L. — Animal Behaviour. Arnold, London. Chap. I. Organic Behaviour.

Chap. VII. The Evolution of Animal Behaviour.

Parker, C H. — The Origin and Evolution of the Nervous System. Popular Science Monthly, February, 1914.

Smith, 0. E. — The Evolution of Man. Nature, September 26, 1912, or Report of the Smithsonian Institution, 1912.

The Psychological Basis

The life process is essentially a unit. To consider it under two categories, the biological and the psychological, is to run the risk of suggesting a separation where none exists.

The physiological and the psychical are merely two aspects of the same thing separated here only for convenience in discussion.

Just how the conscious processes came to be, remains part of the mystery of the origin of life itself. "Whatever their origin, the important fact is that they, like every other characteristic of living matter, developed out of the struggle for more effective functioning, and that each step in their elaboration has been regulated by the general evolutionary process of more complex and effective forms out of simpler and more general forms. From the evolutionary point of view consciousness is a superior device for securing adaptation ; it advances life more quickly, more economically, and more effectively than unconscious processes could do. The value of consciousness in the struggle for existence is self evident. An animal which reacted in a certain way to its environment and continued doing so, no matter how disastrous the results, would run the risk of annihilation. Therefore, any interference with the functioning of the life processes gives rise to changes in behavior in even the lowest organisms. This change in behavior is at first, for the most part, automatic, and highly subject to chance occurrence. Yet in the organism's choice of an environment which furthers its life processes, and in indifference to, or rejection of, that which does not, we have the essence of consciousness.

For an animal to be subject to the changes in its environment is very precarious, and it is to its interest to gain control of its environment and thus render itself more secure. As we ascend the animal scale, therefore, we find that instincts are not rigid, but are capable of being modified to suit varying circumstances. Inherited modes of action are modified by the experience of the organism. Even the lowest organisms do not always react in the same way to a given stimulus. The response may depend upon a number of inner states or changes. As an animal profits by its past experience in adjusting its response to a present stimulus, we are justified in saying that it has undergone a conscious process, that its past experience is somehow brought into relation with its present situation and influences behavior. In the higher animals a very simple stimulus may give rise to a very complex response. The higher the type of organism the greater the variety of responses which may be called forth, and the greater the power of inhibition, the balancing of one possible stimulus against another, and the choice of the most advantageous one. We see, therefore, as we ascend the animal scale a growing tendency toward the regulation of action for the achievement of more and more clearly realized ends. The more an animal is able to look ahead and, on the basis of past experience, to manipulate the elements of its environment so that desired results are brought about, the more secure it is. The more an animal is able to predict different futures for itself and to choose the proper course of action, the greater its chance of survival. The only way that an organism can control its future is by modifying its present environment through its responses. Therefore, wherever we see conscious activity at work we find attempts being made to make over the environment for the more efficient performance of life functions. As we pass from lower to higher forms of life we see that animals participate in shaping the course of their actions, and that inherited modes of reaction are more and more modified by experience. All of this means the growth of intelligence.