Method in education; a text-book for teachers

Preface

" Psychology in Education," the first book in a series of which this is the second, was intended as a foundation whereon to build a pedagogy.

" Method in Education " attempts to develop in detail the applications of psychology in the work of teaching.

RURIC N. ROARK.

Lexington, Kentucky.

Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from The Library of Congress

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Introduction -. . . 7

II. Foundations of Method ...... 12

Introduction

What to teach. — The subject-matter of education must be determined largely by what the educated man and woman should be and do, as they modify, and are rightly modified by, their individual, national, and race environment. Formal education (the education of the schools) is to make not only men and women of cultivated intelligence and sound character, but men and women who shall be equipped in both physical health and moral strength to sustain that character against the stress and strain of active life, and to apply their intelligence to the practical bread and butter affairs, as well as to the spiritual things, of a complex civilization. The debate is still on between those who insist upon a utilitarian education and those who plead for the liberal or cultural education. Here, as everywhere, the middle way is safest, and there should be no debate as to whether all classes should have somewhat of culture as a result of education, nor as to whether any class could long survive to enjoy its culture if it did not get something in its schooling whereby to make a living.

Not determined by sociology alone. — But what should be put into courses of study cannot be determined solely upon the sociological basis ; counsel must be taken also of the inner nature of the one taught. Since the mind and body are the instruments with which the man or woman is to make or mar life, what will best and most quickly fit them to do their work aright must find place in any adequate scheme of education. The content of education, then, while indicated mainly by sociology, is also partly indicated by psychology and the laws of physical growth.

How to teach. — On the other hand, the question as to form of education — the how to teach — must be answered in the main by a practical psychology, and only slightly and incidentally by sociology. If, as Laurie says, " teaching is simply helping the mind to perform its function of knowing and growing," then only a careful, persistent, and sympathetic study of the growing mind can show the teacher by what processes it acquires knowledge, assimilates it, and expresses the . results (concepts and conclusions); and under what stimuli these processes are best and most fruitfully set going.

Depends somewhat on the matter. — The formulation of right method is also dependent upon the matter of education. There is a how to be discovered in the different subjects taught, as well as in the mind to be trained. Every legitimate subject of study is related both to the mind of the learner and to the practical requirements of liberal living; hence each subject will suggest methods based upon this double relation. Dr. Jacobi very neatly sums it up by saying that the teacher is " to produce effects upon a living organism, to modify forces which begin by being psychological and end by being sociological."

Distinction between management and method. — The consideration of what to teach, together with many other questions growing out of this one, falls within the sphere of educational Management. The question of how to

INTRODUCTION- 9

teach belongs to the subject of educational Method. Although these two branches of pedagogics touch and overlap at several points, as indicated in the preceding paragraphs, yet this general distinction may be drawn between them — Management deals with the organization of the individual school and its courses of study, and with the correlation and administration of all educational forces; Method deals with the principles upon which good teaching must be based, and with the means of making each subject in the curriculum produce the best educational results. Very much depends upon the order and way in which a body of knowledge is built into the mind. The same fact produces different results at different times, and when presented in different ways. It is the province of methodology to determine the best order and the best way ; its problem is how to get mind out to matter and matter into mind. Discrimination should be made between method and methods.

Method and methods. — As has been said elsewhere, 1 " By method is to be understood that body of principles drawn chiefly from a sound psychology, which are applicable to all teaching ; by methods are to be understood the special plans and devices to be used in teaching a particular branch or subject." The general principles of method are obtained by induction and inference from a study of individual and race development; methods are applications of these general principles in the teaching of the several branches..

Education justifying itself as a science. — Occasionally even now one may hear it said that there is no need of a study of method in education, that if the teacher

1 Page 267, Roark's " Psychology in Education."

knows thoroughly the subject-matter to be taught he knows all that is necessary to equip him for safe teaching. The science of education is justifying itself so admirably, in these latter days when educational matters are on everybody's tongue and on the pages of every popular periodical, that those who deny teaching a place among the liberal professions have a heavy burden of proof to carry. The question of method has forced an asking in all the higher institutions of learning, and there is hardly a college or university in this country to-day that does not have its department of pedagogy.

Adequate knowledge is only one essential. — To know well what is to be taught is, of course, one prerequisite of teaching, but it is only one of three. The other two are a knowledge of mind and its laws of growth, and a knowledge of how to make subject-matter stimulate and nourish growing mind. An attempt to teach without this knowledge of mind would be much like an attempt to practice medicine with only a knowledge of the pharmacopoeia, and with none of anatomy and physiology. Some quite successful "doctoring" used to be done by good people who did not know the course of the blood's circulation, but in most states the laws now protect a too confiding public against pure empiricism in medicine. Nor is it enough for the physician to know the drugs and their general value, and the anatomy and physiology of the human body. He must know also how to use drugs, and how to modify the conditions of diet, sleep, and work so as to cause the normal functioning of every organ. The teacher must know how to cause growing mind to react healthily upon the subject-matter. But the revolt which was sure to come against the claim that full knowledge of subject-matter is the only essen-

INTRODUCTION- 1 1

tial, carried some enthusiastic reformers too far the other way, and so there was for a while a magnification of method — or rather methods — and an unfortunate minification of knowledge. Hence it came about that some over-methodized folk brought themselves, and the cause for which they tried to stand, into an easy disrepute from which it has been somewhat difficult fully to recover.

So, while it is still true that teachers with good method, without full knowledge, will sometimes accomplish as much as the thorough scholar who lacks method, — and may even accomplish more, — yet the best teaching is done when sound and broad scholarship is joined to sympathetic knowledge of mind processes, and to skill in making mind hungry for the best nutriment. In place of the former demand, therefore, that the teacher should know only the "three R's," there has grown up the more rational one that he shall know the " three M's " — Matter, Mind, Method, which include the older requirements and much more.

Chapter II

How does the child grow and know ? — The inquiry that stands at the very threshold of the subject of Method is 5 " How does the child grow and know f " At the age of six, when school education usually begins, the child has proportionately a larger amount of wellassimilated knowledge, and corresponding power of physical and mental expression, than he usually gets in any later six years of his life ; and the general contour of habit and character is already defined. Knowing this, the teacher's constant aim should be to find out how the child has come thus far so quickly.

Through the sympathetic study of normal childhood the following facts have become more or less clearly evident, and may be accepted as the basis of a system of educational method : —

I. The healthy child is full of activity of body and mind.

The muscles are active long before there is evidence of consciousness. When consciousness is fully awakened, then all the powers of the mind are alert and responsive to their environment, and every muscle is a-quiver with the tendency to function.

The child cannot keep still ; its physical life is one of ceaseless movement, and its mental life is marked by a rapid increase of energy — a never ending inflow of sensations and outflow of impulses.

II. The child enjoys this natural and inherent activity. Normal activity is pleasant. — It is a fundamental law

in psychology as in biology, that growth is dependent on use ; that is, every faculty, as every organ, must function normally in order to grow. Since this law cannot be comprehended by the child, there must be some other way to bring about use than through the knowledge of its necessity; hence, the inherent pleasurableness of normal activity. The child, without thinking about it at all, is active in body and mind because it is pleasant to be active, and unpleasant, even painful, to be inactive. He enjoys the functioning of muscles and stomach, of lungs and hands, of sight and touch, of memory and imagination, of feeling and will. His normal condition is one of happy intaking of impressions, and of expression in movement and speech.

III. The first important act of consciousness is sensory perception.

The physical senses are the gates through which the object-world enters to awaken and stimulate consciousness, which, until it is thus awakened, exists only as a possibility.

Consciousness first reached only through the senses. — So far as can be known, the human being born without the physical senses, would, if he could survive at all, live merely a vegetal life. In the case of the normal child, impressions begin to impinge upon his sense organs at birth. After, a while — almost at once — impressions received from without flow along the proper nerve tracts to the brain and then become sensations in consciousness — sensations of warmth, softness, light, sound. Still later — a very little later — consciousness refers these sensations to their objective causes, and the objects are perceived. The specific act of objective perception is this reference of sensation to its cause, the awareness of consciousness of something external to itself. Even this act of external perception involves that inner perception which is called intuition, a perceptive power the importance of whose activity is altogether too much ignored by psychologists and pedagogists.

This, so far as we know, is the real awakening of the mind, and the fact that the teacher must not forget is, that it is brought about by the reaction of consciousness to the stimulus of external objects.

IV. The first effect of perception is to arouse feelings, either agreeable or disagreeable ; and the first conscious movements of the child are expressions, in various ways, of these feelings.

By the time the child enters school, other mental activities have developed greatly, and in large measure modify these first impulsive and purely egoistic feelings. But they still constitute a very considerable part of the child's life, and must be treated as prominent factors in any effective scheme of method or management.

The feelings are potent stimulators of all the nascent powers, and from now on there is rapid growth in the child's life. Impressions come crowding upon one another from the outside world of things, quickening and energizing consciousness into the higher forms of perception, and the growing mind intuits relation, likeness and unlikeness, function, cause and effect. The child learns rapidly and readily, and by the time he enters school he is far on the road along which it is the business of the teacher to direct his further progress.

V. The general operations of learning are two — acquisition and assimilation.

Processes of acquisition. — The processes of acquisition — of getting knowledge-material — are (1) perception, (2) conception, (3) retention.

Perception, as said before, consists essentially in consciousness becoming aware of objects external to itself, as they affect it through the senses.

Conception is the process of forming general notions from the percepts of individuals, through the natural tendency of the mind to note likeness. Objects that resemble one another are classed together by even the very young child, and a name learned for one is applied to all. Thus concepts, or general notions, of the things in the child's object-world are built up in the acquisitive mind. Abstract concepts — concepts of qualities, as power, beauty, truthfulness — are formed in the same way — from percepts of these qualities as shown in individuals.

No real acquisition without retention. — Retention is a function of the memory. Neither percept nor concept can be said to have been really acquired unless it is retained. Two facts of prime importance for the teacher, in this connection, are (1) the memory is very plastic and retentive in childhood ; and (2) the memory retains and recalls associated facts and ideas more readily than disconnected ones.

The learner, then, acquires facts — knowledge and knowledge-material — through sense contact with things. The mind sets to work to understand, to reflect upon and assimilate, these facts. Acquisition and assimilation go on together, or at least so closely does assimilation, in greater or less degree, follow acquisition that the two acts can hardly be distinguished in time after the first two or three months of the child's existence. Logically, of course, acquisition must precede assimilation ; and psychologically there is more acquisition than assimilation during the first fourth of life.

Sense learning. — On the presentation of a new object, the learning child, filled with curiosity, — the desire to know, — looks at it, then almost immediately reaches to get it in his hands, and continues his sensory investigation until he is satisfied that he does not know what thing it is. Then he seeks from the object itself or from some one — parent, teacher, or playmate — an answer to the question, "What is it?" by which he means, "What is it for?" "What is its use?" "What things that I already know is this new thing like?" Even before he can talk, his active mind finds answers to these unformulated questions by an investigation of the object. As he grows older, he may be so unfortunate as to have these questions answered in words only, instead of being helped to closer questioning of objects themselves.

Assimilation is the special work of judgment, because to assimilate is, in its first movement, to pe7 r ceive relations. No fact is of value out of relation to some other fact or facts ; hence the need of correlation in teaching.

VI. The process of learning is analytico-synthetic.

An object is first apprehended, somewhat vaguely, as a whole ; then its various properties — color, size, shape, density — are noted more in detail, and something is learned of the relations of its parts to one another. Thus what was first observed as a whole is gradually reduced to its elements of impression.

Assimilation is synthetic. — Second, the mind, by this analysis, becomes ready for the next operation, that of assimilation, and passes immediately to it, synthesizing the various elements, reached by analysis, into a better-

FOUNDATIONS OF METHOD i;

apprehended whole, and seeking to assimilate the new facts further by asking the use of the object — its relations to other objects or to self. There is a spontaneous effort to relate the new acquisition to facts already learned, to build it into or onto the knowledge already possessed, and to strengthen this assimilation by discriminating the new object from familiar objects. This act of discrimination, of perceiving differences, is essential to clear conception.

Synthesis is carried into generalization. — Observation of the child's mental processes makes it evident that, long before he can talk, he generalizes — reaches conclusions, and acts upon them. The synthesis, of which the first step is putting the parts of an analyzed whole together, and the second is putting the whole into its class, goes farther, and from classified and correlated individual facts and ideas generalizes — that is, reaches a conclusion or principle which at once becomes a test for new knowledge or a guide to new actions.

These processes the same for advanced learners. — Although we rightly go back to the child to study the genesis of mental states and activities, yet, after all that is said about " child psychology," the truth remains that essential psychoses of the learner are the same, whether he be in the kindergarten or the university. The " object" of the kindergarten child may be a cylinder; the "object" of the pupil in the technological laboratory may be a new dynamo ; the " object " of the university student may be a bit of old Greek philosophy.. In either case, learning goes forward by the same process — analysis, synthesis, generalization. If it were not so, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to have any general principle of method. As it is, there is continuity and unity ; and the processes of teaching, corresponding to the processes of learning, are the same in essence for all grades.

VII. Acquisition and assimilation are accompanied and followed by expression.

In the earliest years, expression is mainly the outlet, in various ways, of feeling ; later, it becomes the outlet of thought and volition also.

Expression takes many forms, consisting at first mainly, if not altogether, of involuntary muscular movements and inarticulate cries ; it passes through coordinated and voluntary muscular activities, the beginnings of speech, the first efforts at manners and conduct, on into written language, and finally into the highest forms of manual skill, literature and the arts, and the altruistic life.

Expression has three forms. — The child's activities find expression in three general ways : in physical bearing and action, in language and representative arts, — such as drawing, modeling in sand and clay, whittling, — and in conduct and behavior. These forms of expression are more or less closely interrelated, and each one may serve as an outlet for the activities that ordinarily flow through the other two. Physical expression is not only a sign and test of health, natural or attained, but is moreover a test of intellectual alertness, the state of the feelings and volition. Intellectual and emotional expression are much modified by the physical condition and the functional health of physical organs ; and moral expression varies with health and the intellectual and emotional activities.

VIII. All activity is in direct proportion to interest. Any force, mental as well as physical, works best along lines of least resistance. In the case of human activity, in child or adult, the lines of least resistance are marked by interests.

There is nothing in the objective world around him in which the growing child does not take an interest. Everything touches him, and he responds promptly to the stimulus.

Interests are universal. — Nor is interest any less when the mind begins to peep into the world of abstract ideas. The six-year-old wants to know the "why" and "how" of everything; he is a theologian, alternately reverent and skeptical, asking questions that are as old as man ; he is a psychologist, searching into the causes of the feelings and beliefs of those about him ; he is a sociologist, wanting to know the sources and limitations of authority in those set over him. He has the same kind of interests that have caused the formulation of all the sciences and all the philosophies.

Interests are evanescent. — But although the child's interests are intense, they are apt to be evanescent and shifting, — too easily satisfied or too easily discouraged. As he grows older, some interests, on account of environment or natural aptitudes, become atrophied, and the teacher finds them in that condition when the child first comes to him. One problem the teacher has constantly set for his solution is how to revivify these interests, and how to direct and satisfy those that are actively alive.

IX. The activities of childhood are largely imitative.

The early conscious and semiconscious expressions of the child take the directions indicated by the activities of those with whom he is in daily association. He learns his speech, his manners, his modes of thought, by imitating the older children and the adults around him. At the same time, what he does soon comes to be marked by individual traits peculiar to himself. There is original variation in his language, manners, and ways of thinking and doing. In most cases these are only variations, however, and throughout his life he retains the impress made by imitation of what he saw and heard in early childhood.

X. The tendency of any organ or facility is to form habits by repetition.

There is an inherent tendency to repeat, unconsciously or sub-consciously, movements that at first are merely reflex. After a little, the muscle that has contracted in a certain way several times, finds it easier to contract in that way than in any other ; and so, in accordance with the law of least resistance, muscular habits are formed.

As the child grows, certain modes of observing, of thinking, of doing, are repeated more than others, — ■ on account, perhaps, of some hereditary tendency or peculiarity of environment, — and habits of thought and conduct are formed.

Repetition results in habits, and upon habits depend physical dexterity, quickness and accuracy of thought, and the worth and permanency of moral character.

So much having been discovered (it has been known for a long time), the teacher's problem may be stated thus : How shall this growing self-activity be kept pleasantly and profitably engaged ; how shall it be energized and directed so that it may busy itself to find what things in life are worth while, and may concern itself with these and with no others ; and how best shall there be imitated or continued, in the formal education of the school, the natural processes by which the child of six obtained its sum of knowledge and skill, and projected its lines of habit and character?

Chapter III

From the foregoing salient facts of growth a fewprinciples of education may be deduced, if only in a tentative way and as forming a plan by which something better may be worked to.

I. The processes of teaching sliould conform to the order and laws of individual growth.

In this principle the whole of method is summed up.

The principles and laws of a science can be formulated only after patient study of the facts with which the science is concerned ; and it must be assumed that the facts are true and rest upon fixed laws. So education as a science must be formulated upon phenomena and their causes and relations.

The science of education rests upon natural phenomena. — The earliest lesson the educator must learn is that the mind exhibits phenomena as uniform, governed by laws as fixed as any others in nature. Scarcely a beginning has been made of observing these phenomena and formulating their laws; and teaching has gone too much on the idea that the phenomena and the laws are both wrong and must be changed.

But most educationists now are convinced that the mind is a normal growth, and that the work of teaching must, to be effective, move along lines indicated by the mind's own natural development.

School curricula and mental operations. — Consequently, school curricula should be so planned that during childhood and early youth the emphasis shall be put upon acquisitional studies and exercises ; in the middle years of school life, upon assimilational work ; and in the last two years of college and in the university, upon expression through some form of specialized skill. But in each period and in each study or exercise, of course, attention will be paid to all three operations of the mind.

II. All the powers of the body and all the faculties of the mind must be developed, and trai?ied to proper functioning.

This is only a little closer statement of the first principle ; for if we develop and train according to the order and laws of growth, we must omit no physical or mental faculty, as each has its own order and law of activity ; and to fall short of the education called for by these is to fall short of the well-rounded fullness of manhood and womanhood.

APPLICATIONS TO PHYSICAL EDUCATION

A school without necessary appliances for physical education will some day be looked upon as one is now which has no apparatus for aiding in intellectual education. It is a trite saying that the mind must have a sound body to be sound in. The old idea of the scholar's brow being sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought has no place in modern conceptions of the mutual relations of body and mind.

A sound physical basis is necessary. — To meet the heavy demands of life as it must be lived to-day there should be a strong and resilient physical basis, — welltoned muscles, thorough digestion and assimilation, capacious lungs, all contributing to the efficiency of a healthy brain. These are commonplaces of educational theory, but the theory has hardly begun to be put into practice. In only a few of the largest cities is there medical inspection of pupils, and such inspection does not, as yet, often go beyond the determination of the affections of the eye and ear, and the detection of contagious diseases.

In every university and college, and in every system of schools in the large cities, there should be — will be, some early day — provisions made for the regular testing, not only of the eyes and ears, but of digestion, heart, lungs, and muscles. Such testing will be preliminary to the prescription of courses in physical training and in hygienic living, just as an entrance test in intellectual attainments and power is preliminary to the assignment of a pupil to a suitable grade or group in which he may do profitable mental work.

Courses in physical training and hygiene. — Before this idea of adequate physical education can be effectively carried out, some matters of educational management must be settled. No difficulty — except indifference and conservatism — seems to stand in the way in the case of the well-to-do higher institutions, public and private. But in the country, where the greatest numbers are taught, and where, therefore, the teaching should be as good as the best, there are grave difficulties in the way of adequate inspection of the physical conditions of the pupils, and of affording them professionally directed development and training.

Perhaps that which will do most to remove these difficulties is the spread of the plan now in use in parts of a few states, of centralizing educational appliances and forces, and conveying pupils to a well-equipped, well-officered central school. Meanwhile the conscientious country teacher can do much to improve the physical condition and direct the physical training of his pupils.

Physical education in country schools. — Every teacher should have some practical knowledge of physiology and hygiene, and thus be able to detect abnormal conditions in his pupils, and to do much toward correcting such conditions by plain, specific lessons on bathing, eating, sleeping, and exercising. And there should be the same intelligent and sympathetic supervision and direction of the play activities of the pupils as of their studies. The teacher should be quick to plan new games and variations of familiar ones, so as to secure the interested participation of all pupils. The sports should be classified — in the teacher's mind, at least — according to the needs of different pupils, and should be so directed as to bring into spontaneous and natural activity the muscles or other organs that most need development, in individual cases.

Other aims of physical education besides attainment of health. — But the attainment and preservation of health are not the only aims of physical education. The body, as the temple of the soul, as the mind's instrument, should be made, not only vigorously healthy, but also beautiful and graceful. Only a slight study of biology and physiology is necessary to make plain somewhat of the great value, to the race, of both grace and beauty.

Manual training. — Another phase of education is manual or mamimental training, in which the relation of physical and mental powers is most intimate. Both parts of the " muscle-nerve machine " are taught to work together harmoniously ; muscle learns to obey nerve, and mind finds the easiest and most economical motor outlet. At first, both muscle and mind work naturally in the large. Movement and thought are inexact and approximate. If the teacher heeds this fact, the young child will be occupied with the large free movements that are natural, instead of being compelled to do the braiding, pricking, and sewing of the modern kindergarten, which require close and delicate adjustment of eye, arm, and hand.