How to Teach — Context and Discussion

r IV. When the modification involves definite inhibition, there are three possible methods,--punishment, disuse, and substitution. As an example of the use of the three methods take the case of a child who develops a fear of the dark. In using the first method the child would be punished every time he exhibited fear of the dark. By using the second method he would never be allowed to go into a dark room, a light being left burning in his bedroom, etc., until the tendency to fear the dark had passed. In the third method the emotion of fear would be replaced by that of joy or satisfaction by making the bedtime the occasion for telling a favorite story or for being allowed to have the best-loved toy, or for being played with or cuddled. The situation of darkness might be met in still another way. If the child were old enough, the emotion of courage might replace that of fear by having him make believe he was a soldier or a policeman.

The method of punishment is the usual one, the one most teachers and parents use first. It relies for its effectiveness on the general law of the nervous system that pain tends to weaken the connections with whose activity it is associated. The method is weak in that pain is not a strong enough weapon to break the fundamental connections; it is not known how much of it is necessary to break even weaker ones; it is negative in its results--breaking one connection but replacing it by nothing else. The second method of inhibition is that of disuse. It is possible to inhibit by this means, because lack of use of connections in the nervous system results in atrophy. As a method it is valuable because it does not arouse resistance or anger. It is weak in that as neither the delayedness nor the transitoriness of instincts is known, when to begin to keep the situation from the child, and how long to keep it away in order to provide for the dying out of the connections, are not known. The method is negative and very unsure of results. The method of substitution depends for its use upon the presence in the individual of opposing tendencies and of different levels of development in the same tendency. Because of this fact a certain response to a situation may be inhibited by forming the habit of meeting the situation in another way or of replacing a lower phase of a tendency by a higher one. This method is difficult to handle because of the need of knowledge of the original tendencies of children in general which it implies as well as the knowledge of the capacities and development of the individual child with whom the work is being done. The amount of time and individual attention necessary adds another difficulty. However, it is by far the best method of the three, for it is sure, is economical, using the energy that is provided by nature, is educative, and is positive. To replace what is poor or harmful by something better is one of the greatest problems of human life--and this is the outcome of the method of substitution. All three methods have their place in a system of education, and certain of them are more in place at certain times than at others, but at all times if the method of substitution can be used it should be.

The instinct of physical activity is one of the most noticeable ones in babyhood. The young baby seems to be in constant movement. Even when asleep, the twitchings and squirmings may continue. This continued muscular activity is necessary because the motor nerves offer the only possible path of discharge at first. As higher centers in the brain are developed, the ingoing currents, aroused by all sense stimuli, find other connections, and ideas, images, trains of thoughts, are aroused, and so the energy is consumed; but at first all that these currents can do is to arouse physical activity. The strength of this instinct is but little diminished by the time the child comes to school. His natural inclination is to do things requiring movement of all the growing muscles. Inhibition, "sitting still," "being quiet," takes real effort on his part, and is extremely fatiguing. This instinct is extremely valuable in several ways: it gives the exercise necessary to a growing body, provides the experience of muscle movements necessary for control, and stimulates mental growth through the increase and variety of experiences it gives.

The tendency to enjoy mental activity, to be satisfied with it for its own sake, is peculiarly a human trait. This capacity shows itself in two important ways--in the interest in sensory stimuli, usually discussed under the head of curiosity, and in the delight in "being a cause" or mental control. The interest in tastes, sounds, sights, touches, etc., merely for their own sake, is very evident in a baby. He spends most of his waking time in just that enjoyment. Though more complex, it is still strong when the child enters school, and for years any object of sense which attracts his attention is material which arouses this instinct. The second form in which the instinct for mental ability shows itself is later in development and involves the secondary brain connections. It is the satisfaction aroused by results of which the individual is the cause. For example, the enjoyment of a child in seeing a ball swing or hearing a whistle blown would be a manifestation of curiosity, while the added interest which is always present when the child not only sees the ball swing but swings it, not only hears the whistle but blows it himself, is a result of the second tendency, that of joy in being a cause. As the child grows older the same tendency shows itself on a higher level when the materials dealt with, instead of being sensations or percepts, are images or ideas. The interest in following out a train of ideas to a logical conclusion, of building "castles in the air," of making plans and getting results, all find their taproot in this instinctive tendency towards mental activity.

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. It is possible to conceive of a situation in which some children need to be encouraged to fight, even to the extent of engaging in physical combat, in order to develop a kind of courage which will accept physical discomfort rather than give up a principle or ideal. In the same group there may be children for whom the teacher must work primarily in terms of developing, in so far as he can, the willingness to reason or discuss the issue which may have aroused the fighting instinct.

For all children in elementary and in high schools the possibility of utilizing their original nature for the sake of that development which will result in action which is socially desirable is still present. The problem which the teacher faces will be more or less difficult in proportion as the child's endowment by original nature is large or small, and as previous education has been successful or unsuccessful. The skillful teacher is the one who will constantly seek to utilize to the full those instincts or capacities which seem most potent. This utilization, as has already been pointed out, does not mean a blind following of the instinctive tendencies, but often the substitution of a higher form of action for a lower, which may seem to be related to the instinct in question. It is probably wise to encourage collections of stamps, of pictures, of different kinds of wood, and the like, upon the part of children in the elementary school, provided always that the teacher has in mind the possibility of leading these children, through their interest in objects, to desire to collect ideas. Indeed, a teacher might measure her success in utilizing the collecting instinct in proportion as children become relatively less interested in things collected, and more interested in the ideas suggested by them, or in the mastery of fields of knowledge or investigation in which objects have very little significance. The desire for physical activity upon the part of children is originally satisfied by very crude performances. Development is measured not simply in an increase in manual dexterity, but also in terms of the higher satisfaction which may come from producing articles which have artistic merit, or engaging in games of skill which make for the highest physical efficiency.

During the whole period of childhood and adolescence we may never assume that the results of previous education, whether they be favorable or unsatisfactory, are permanent. Whether we succeed or not in achieving the ends which we desire, the fact of modifiability, of docility, and of plasticity remains. The teacher who seeks to understand the individuals with whom he works, both in terms of their original nature and in terms of their previous education, and who at the same time seeks to substitute for a lower phase of an instinctive tendency a higher one, or who tries to have his pupils respond to a situation by inhibiting a particular tendency by forming the habit of meeting the situation in another way, need not despair of results which are socially desirable.

1. May a teacher ever expect the children in his class to be equal in achievement? Why?

2. Why is it not possible to educate children satisfactorily by following where instincts lead?

3. Which of the instincts seem most strong in the children in your class?

4. Can you give any example of an instinctive tendency which you think should have been outgrown but which seems to persist among your pupils?

5. Give examples of the inhibition of undesirable actions based upon instinctive tendencies by means of (1) punishment, (2) disuse, (3) substitution.

6. How can you use the tendency to enjoy mental activity?

7. Why does building a boat make a stronger appeal to a boy than engaging in manual training exercises which might involve the same amount of activity?

8. Cite examples of collections made by boys and girls in which the ideas associated with the objects collected may be more important than the objects themselves.

9. In what degree are we justified in speaking of the social instinct? The instinct to imitate?

10. How can you use the fighting instinct in your work with children?

11. What can teachers do to influence the education which children have received or are getting outside of school?

12. What differences in action among the children in your class do you attribute to differences in original nature? What to differences in education?

III. ATTENTION AND INTEREST IN TEACHING