ТОП просматриваемых книг сайта:
How to Teach. Naomi Norsworthy
Читать онлайн.Название How to Teach
Год выпуска 0
isbn 4057664616265
Автор произведения Naomi Norsworthy
Жанр Документальная литература
Издательство Bookwire
In close connection with the general tendency towards physical activity is the instinct of manipulation. From this crude root grows constructiveness and destructiveness. As it shows itself at first it has the elements of neither. The child inherits the tendency to respond by "many different arm, hand, and finger movements to many different objects"--poking, pulling, handling, tearing, piling, digging, and dropping objects. Just what habits of using tools, and the like, will grow out of this tendency will depend on the education and training it gets. The habits of constructiveness may be developed in different sorts of media. The order of their availability is roughly as follows: first, in the use of materials such as wood, clay, raffia, etc.; second, in the use of pencil and brush with color, etc.; third, in the use of words. We should therefore expect and provide for considerable development along manual lines before demanding much in the way of literary expression. Indeed, it may be argued that richness of experience in doing is prerequisite to verbal expression.
Acquisitiveness and collecting are two closely allied tendencies of great strength. Every child has a tendency to approach, grasp, and carry off any object not too large which attracts his attention, and to be satisfied by its mere possession. Blind hoarding and collecting of objects sometimes valueless in themselves results. This instinct is very much influenced in its manifestation by others which are present at the same time, such as the food-getting instinct, rivalry, love of approval, etc. The time at which the tendency to collect seems strongest is at about nine years, judged by the number of collections per child.
Rivalry as an instinct shows itself in increased vigor, in instinctive activity when others are engaged in the same activity, and in satisfaction when superiority is attained. There is probably no inborn tendency whereby these responses of increased vigor and satisfaction are aroused in connection with any kind of activity. We do not try to surpass others in the way we talk or in our moral habits or in our intellectual attainments, as a result of nature, but rather as a result of painstaking education. As an instinct, rivalry is aroused only in connection with other instinctive responses. In getting food, in securing attention or approval, in hunting and collecting, the activity would be increased by seeing another doing the same thing, and satisfaction would be aroused at success or annoyance at failure. The use of rivalry in other activities and at other levels comes as a result of experience.
The fighting responses are called out by a variety of situations. These situations are definite and the responses to them differ from each other. In each case the child tries by physical force of some kind, by scratching, kicking, biting, slapping, throwing, and the like, to change the situation into a more agreeable one. This is true whether he be trying to escape from the restraining arms of his mother or to compel another child to recognize his mastery. Original nature endows us with the pugnacious instinct on the physical level and in connection with situations which for various reasons annoy us. If this is to be raised in its manner of response from the physical to the intellectual level, if the occasions calling it out are to be changed from those that merely annoy one to those which involve the rights of others and matters of principle, it must be as a result of education. Nature provides only this crude root.
Imitation has long been discussed as one of the most important and influential of human instincts. It has been regarded as a big general tendency to attempt to do whatever one saw any one else doing. As such a tendency it does not exist. It is only in certain narrow lines that the tendency to imitate shows itself, such as smiling when smiled at, yelling when others yell, looking and listening, running, crouching, attacking, etc., when others do. To this extent and in similar situations the tendency to imitate seems to be truly an instinct. Imitating in other lines, such as writing as another writes, talking, dressing, acting like a friend, trying to use the methods used by others, etc., are a result of experience and education. The "spontaneous," "dramatic," and "voluntary" imitation discussed by some authors are the stages of development of habits of imitation.
The desire to be with others of the same species, the satisfaction at company and the discomfort aroused by solitude, is one of the strongest roots of all social tendencies and customs. It manifests itself in young babies, and continues a strong force throughout life. As an instinct it has nothing to do with either being interested in taking one's share in the duties or pleasures of the group or with being interested in people for their own sakes. It is merely that company makes one comfortable and solitude annoys one. Anything further must come as a result of experience.
Motherliness and kindliness have as their characteristic behavior tendencies to respond by instinctive comforting acts to signs of pain, grief, or misery shown by living things, especially, by children, and by the feeling of satisfaction and the sight of happiness in others. Of course very often these instinctive responses are interfered with by the presence of some other instinct, such as fighting, hunting, ownership, or scorn, but that such tendencies to respond in such situations are a part of the original equipment of man seems beyond dispute. They are possessed by both sexes and manifest themselves in very early childhood.
There are original tendencies to respond both in getting and in giving approval and scorn. By original nature, smiles, pats, admiration, and companionship from one to whom submission is given arouses intense satisfaction; and the withdrawal of such responses, and the expression of scorn or disapproval, excites great discomfort. Even the expression of approval or scorn from any one--a stranger or a servant--brings with it the responses of satisfaction or discomfort. Just as strongly marked are original tendencies which cause responses of approval and cause as a result of "relief from hunger, rescue from fear, gorgeous display, instinctive acts of strength, daring and victory," and responses of scorn "to the observation of empty-handedness, deformity, physical meanness, pusillanimity, and defect." The desire for approval is never outgrown--it is one of the governing forces in society. If it is to be shown or desired on any but this crude level of instinctive response, it can only come by education.
Children come to school with both an original nature determined by their human inheritance and by their more immediate family relationship, and with an education more significant, perhaps, than any which the school can provide. From earliest infancy up to the time of entering a kindergarten or a first grade, the original equipment in terms of instincts, capacities, and abilities has been utilized by the child and directed by his parents and associates in learning to walk and to talk, to conform to certain social standards or requirements, to accept certain rules or precepts, or to act in accordance with certain beliefs or superstitions. The problem which the teacher faces is that of directing and guiding an individual, who is at the same time both educated and in possession of tendencies and capacities which make possible further development.
Not infrequently the education which children have when they come to school may in some measure handicap the teacher. It is unfortunate, but true, that in some homes instinctive tendencies which should have been overcome have been magnified. The control of children is sometimes secured through the utilization of the instinct of fear. The fighting instinct may often have been overdeveloped in a home in which disagreement and nagging, even to the extent of physical violence, have taken the place of reason. Pride and jealousy may have taken deep root on account of the encouragement and approval which have been given by thoughtless adults.
The teacher does not attack the problem of education with a clean slate, but rather it is his to discover what results have already been achieved in the education of the child, whether they be good or bad, for it is in the light of original nature or original tendencies to behave, and in the light of the education already secured, that the teacher must work.
When one realizes the great variety or differences in ability or capacity, as determined by heredity, and when there is added to this difference in original nature the fact of variety in training which children have experienced prior to their school life, he cannot fail to emphasize the necessity for individualizing children. While it is true that we may assume that all children will take delight in achievement, it may be necessary with one child to stir as much as possible the spirit of rivalry, to give as far as one can the delight which comes from success, while for another child in the same class one may need to minimize success on account of a spirit of arrogance which has been developed before school life began.