How to Teach Part 3

QUESTIONS

1. Why do all children attend when the teacher raps on the desk, when she writes on the board, when some one opens the door and comes into the room?

2. Some teachers are constantly rapping with their pencils and raising their voices in order to attract attention. What possible weakness is indicated by this procedure?

3. Why do adults attend to fewer things than do children?

4. In what sense is it possible to attend to two things at the same time?

5. Why are children less able to concentrate their attention than are most adults?

6. Will a boy or girl in your cla.s.s be more or less easily distracted as he gives free attention or forced attention to the work in hand?

7. What educational value is attached to an exercise which requires that a boy sit at his desk and work, even upon something in which he is not very much interested, for twenty minutes?

8. In what sense is it true that we form the habit of concentrating our attention?

9. Why is it wrong to extend a lesson beyond the period during which children are able to concentrate their attention upon the work in hand, or beyond the period during which they do concentrate their attention?

10. How is it possible to extend the period devoted to a lesson in reading, or in geography, or in Latin, beyond the time required to read a story or draw a map, or translate a paragraph?

11. Why is it possible to have longer recitation periods in the upper grades and in the high school than in the primary school?

12. Give examples from your cla.s.s work of free attention; of forced attention; of free derived attention.

13. In what sense is it true that we work hardest when we give free attention?

14. In what sense is it true that we work hardest when we give forced attention?

15. Can you give any example of superficiality or inaccuracy which has resulted from divided attention, upon the part of any member of one of your cla.s.ses?

16. Does free attention imply lack of effort?

17. Name incidents which you think might properly be offered boys and girls in order to secure free derived attention.

18. Can you cite any example in your teaching in which children have progressed from forced to free attention?

19. What interests have been developed in your cla.s.ses which you think may make possible the giving of free attention in the field in question, even after school days are over?

20. How can you teach children what it is to concentrate their attention and the value of concentrated attention?

IV. THE FORMATION OF HABITS

Habit in its simplest form is the tendency to do, think, or act as one has done, thought, or acted in the past. It is the tendency to repeat activities of all kinds. It is the tendency which makes one inclined to do the familiar action rather than a new one. In a broader sense, habit formation means learning. It is a statement of the fact that conduct _is_ modifiable and that such modifications may become permanent.

The fact of learning depends physiologically on the plasticity of the nervous system. The neurones, particularly those concerned with intellectual life, are not only sensitive to nerve currents but are modified by them. The point where the greatest change seems to take place is at the synapses, but what this modification is, no one knows.

There are several theories offered as explanations of what happens, but no one of them has been generally accepted, although the theory of chemical change seems to be receiving the strongest support at present.

There can be no disagreement, however, as to the effects of this change, whatever it may be. Currents originally pa.s.sing with difficulty over a certain conduction unit later pa.s.s with greater and greater ease. The resistance which seems at first to be present gradually disappears, and to that extent is the conduct modified. This same element of plasticity accounts for the breaking of habits. In this case the action is double, for it implies the disuse of certain connections which have been made and the forming of others; for the breaking of a bad habit means the beginning of a good one.

The plasticity of neurone groups seems to vary in two respects--as to modifiability and as to power to hold modifications. The neurone groups controlling the reflex and physiological operations are least easily modified, while those controlling the higher mental processes are most easily modified. The neurone groups controlling the instincts hold a middle place. So far as permanence goes, connections between sensorimotor neurone groups seem to hold modifications longer than do connections between either a.s.sociative-motor or a.s.sociative-a.s.sociation.

It is probably because of this fact that habit in the minds of so many people refers to some physical activity. Of course this is a misconception. Wherever the nervous system is employed, habits are formed. There are intellectual, moral, emotional, temperamental habits, just as truly as physical habits. In the intellectual field every operation that involves a.s.sociation or memory also involves habits. Good temper, or the reverse, truthfulness, patriotism, thoughtfulness for others, open-mindedness, are as much matters of learning and of habit as talking or skating or sewing. Habit is found in all three lines of mental development: intellect, character, and skill.

Not only does the law of habit operate in all fields of mental activity, but the characteristics which mark its operation are the same. Two of these are important. In the first place, habit formation results in a lessening of attention to the process. Any process that is habitual can be taken care of by a minimum of attention. In other words, it need no longer be in the focal point, but can be relegated to the fringe. At the beginning of the modification of the neurone tract focal attention is often necessary, but as it progresses less and less attention is needed until the activity becomes automatic, apparently running by itself. Not all habits reach this stage of perfection, but this is the general tendency. This lessening of the need for attention means that less energy is used by the activity, and the individual doing the work is less likely to be fatigued. In the second place, habit tends to make the process more and more sure in its results. As the resistance is removed from the synapses, and the one particular series of units come to act more and more as a unit, the current shoots along the path with no sidetracking, and the act is performed or the thought reached unwaveringly with very little chance of error. If the habit being formed is that of writing, the appropriate movements are made with no hesitation, and the chances that certain ones will be made the first time increase in probability. This means a saving of time and an increase in confidence as to the results.

A consideration of these characteristics of habits makes clear its dangers as well as its values. The fact that habit is based on actual changes which take place in the nervous system, that its foundation is physical, emphasizes its binding power. Most people in talking and thinking of habit regard it as something primarily mental in nature and therefore believe all that is necessary to break any habit is the sufficient exercise of will power. But will power, however strong, cannot break actual physical connections, and it is such connections that bind us to a certain line of activity instead of any other, when once the habit is formed. It is just as logical to expect a car which is started on its own track to suddenly go off on to another track where there is no switch, as to expect a nerve current traveling along its habitual conduction unit to run off on some other line of nervous discharge. Habit once formed binds that particular line of thought to action, either good or bad. Of course habits may be broken, but it is a work of time and must result from definite physical changes. Every habit formed lessens the likelihood of any other response coming in that particular situation. Every interest formed, every act of skill perfected, every method of work adopted, every principle or ideal accepted, limits the recognition of any other possible line of action in that situation. Habit binds to one particular response and at the same time blinds the individual to any other alternative. The danger of this is obvious. If the habits formed are bad or wasteful ones, the individual is handicapped in his growth until new ones can be formed. On the other hand, habit makes for limitation.

Despite these dangers, habit is of inestimable value in the development of both the individual and the human race. It is through it that all learning is possible. It makes possible the preservation of our social inheritance. As James says, "Habit is the enormous fly-wheel of society, its most precious conservative agent." Because of its power of limitation it is sometimes considered the foe of independence and originality, but in reality it is the only road to progress. Other things being equal, the more good habits a person has, the greater the probability of his doing original work. The genius in science or in art or in statesmanship is the man who has made habitual many of the activities demanded by his particular field and who therefore has time and energy left for the kind of work that demands thinking. Habit won't make a genius, but all men of exceptional ability excel others in the number and quality of their habits in the field in which they show power. As the little child differs from the adult in the number and quality of his habits, so the ordinary layman differs from the expert.

It is scarcity, not abundance, of habits that forces a man into a rut and keeps him mediocre. Just as the three year old, having taken four or five times as long as the adult to dress himself, is tired out at the end of the task, so the amateur in literature or music or morals as compared with the expert. The more habits any one has in any line, the better for him, both from the standpoint of efficiency and productivity, provided that the habits are good and that among them is found the habit of breaking habits.

The two great laws of habit formation are the laws of exercise and effect. These laws apply in all cases of habit formation, whether they be the purposeless habits of children or the purposive habits of maturity. The law of exercise says that the oftener and the more emphatically a certain response is connected with a certain situation, the more likely is it to be made to that situation. The two factors of repet.i.tion and intensity are involved. It is a common observance that the oftener one does a thing, other things being equal, the better he does it, whether it be good or bad. Drill is the usual method adopted by all cla.s.ses of people for habit formation. It is because of the recognition of the value of repet.i.tion that the old maxim of "Practice makes Perfect" has been so blindly adhered to. Practice may make perfect, but it also may make imperfect. All that practice can do is to make more sure and automatic the activity, whatever it is. It cannot alone make for improvement. A child becomes more and more proficient in bad writing or posture, in incorrect work in arithmetic and spelling, with practice just as truly as under other conditions he improves in the same activities. Evidence from school experiments, which shows that as many as 40 per cent of the children examined did poorer work along such lines in a second test than in the first which had been given several months earlier, bears witness to the inability of mere repet.i.tion to get "perfect" results. To get such results the repet.i.tion must be only of the improvements. There must be a constant variation towards the ideal, and a selection of just those variations for practice, if perfect as well as invariable results are to be obtained.

The amount of repet.i.tion necessary in the formation of any given habit is not known. It will, of course, vary with the habit and with the individual, but experimental psychology will some day have something to offer along this line. We could make a great saving if we knew, even approximately, the amount of practice necessary under the best conditions to form some of the more simple and elementary habits, such as learning the facts of multiplication.

One other fact in connection with repet.i.tion should be noted, namely, that the exercise given any connection by the learner, freely, of his own initiative counts more than that given under purposive learning.

This method of learning is valuable in that it is incidental and often saves energy and possible imitation on the part of the child, but it has certain drawbacks. Habits formed this way are ingrained to such an extent that they are very difficult to modify. They were not consciously attended to when they were formed, and hence it is difficult later to raise them to the focal point. Hence it is best whenever habits are partial and will need to be modified later, or when the habits must later be rationalized, or when bad habits must be broken, to have the process focalized in attention. The methods of gaining attention have already been discussed.

In the second place, if the habit being formed is connected with an instinct, the element of intensity is added. This, of course, means that a connection already made and one which is strongly ready to act is made to give its support to the new connection being formed. Of course the instinct chosen for this purpose must be in accord with the particular habit and with the nature of the learner. They may vary from the purely personal and physical up to those which have to do with groups and intellectual reactions. The added impetus of the instinct hastens the speed of the direction or supervision. The psychology of the value of self-activity is operative. It should be borne in mind, however, that the two kinds of exercise must be of the same degree of accuracy if this better result in self-initiated practice is to be obtained.

Not only is it true that repet.i.tion makes for automaticity, but intensity is also an aid. Connections which are made emphatically as well as often tend to become permanent. This is particularly true of mental habits. There are two factors of importance which make for intensity in habit formation. First, the focalization of attention on the connections being made adds intensity. Bagley in his discussion of this topic makes "focalization in attention" a necessity in all habits.

Although habits may be formed without such concentration, still it is true that if attention is given to the process, time is saved; for the added intensity secured increases the speed of learning. In certain types of habits, however, when incidental learning plays a large part, much skill may be acquired without focalization of attention in the process. Much of the learning of little children is of this type. Their habits of language, ways of doing things, mannerisms, and emotional att.i.tudes often come as a result of suggestion and imitation rather than as a result of definite formation of the new habit.

The second great law of habit formation is the law of effect. This law says that any connection whose activity is accompanied by or followed by satisfaction tends thereby to be strengthened. If the accompanying emotional tone is annoyance, the connection is weakened. This law that satisfaction stamps connections in, and annoyance inhibits connections, is one of the greatest if not the greatest law of human life. Whatever gives satisfaction, that mankind continues to do. He learns only that which results in some kind of satisfaction. Because of the working of this law animals learn to do their tricks, the baby learns to talk, the child learns to tell the truth, the adult learns to work with the fourth dimension. Repet.i.tion by itself is a wasteful method of habit formation.

The law of effect must work as well as the law of exercise, if the results are to be satisfactory. As has already been pointed out, it is not the practice alone that makes perfect, but the _stressing_ of improvements, and that fixing is made possible only by satisfaction.

Pleasure, in the broad sense, must be the accompaniment or the result of any connection that is to become habitual. This satisfaction may be of many different sorts, physical, emotional, or intellectual. It may be occasioned by a reward or recognition from without or by appreciation arising from self-criticism. In some form or other it must be present.

Two further suggestions in habit formation which grow out of the above laws should be borne in mind. The first is the effect of primacy. In everyday language, "first impressions last longest." The character of the first responses made in any given situation have great influence on all succeeding responses. They make the strongest impression, they are the hardest to eradicate. From a physiological point of view the explanation is evident. A connection untraversed or used but a few times is much more plastic than later when it has been used often. Hence the first time the connection is used gives a greater set or bent than any equal subsequent activity. This is true both of the nervous system as a whole and of any particular conduction unit. Thus impressions made in childhood count more than those of the same strength made later. The first few attempts in p.r.o.nouncing foreign words fixes the p.r.o.nunciation.

The first few weeks in a subject or in dealing with any person influences all subsequent responses to a marked degree.

The second suggestion has to do with the effect of exceptions. James says, "Never allow an exception to occur" in the course of forming a habit. Not only will the occurrence of one exception make more likely its recurrence, but if the exception does not recur, at least the response is less sure and less accurate than it otherwise would be. It tends to destroy self-confidence or confidence in the one who allowed the exception. Sometimes even one exception leads to disastrous consequences and undoes the work of weeks and months. This is especially true in breaking a bad habit or in forming a new one which has some instinctive response working against it.

There has been a great deal of work done in experimental laboratories and elsewhere in the study of the formation of particular habits. The process of habit formation has been shown by learning curves. When these learning curves are compared, it becomes clear that they have certain characteristics in common. This is true whether the learning be directed to such habits as the acquisition of vocabularies in a foreign language or to skill in the use of a typewriter. Several of the most important characteristics follow.

In the first place it is true of all learning that there is rapid improvement at first. During the beginning of the formation of a habit more rapid advance is made than at any other time. There are two princ.i.p.al reasons for this fact. The adjustments required at the beginning are comparatively simple and easily made and the particular learning is new and therefore is undertaken with zest and interest.

After a time the work becomes more difficult, the novelty wears off, therefore the progress becomes less marked and the curve shows fluctuations.

Another characteristic of the learning curve is the presence of the so-called "plateaus." Plateaus show in the curve as flat, level stretches during which there has apparently been no progress. The meaning of these level stretches, and whether or not they can be entirely done away with in any curve, is a matter of dispute. These pauses may be necessary for some of the habits to reach a certain degree of perfection before further progress can be made. However this may be, there are several minor causes which tend to increase the number of plateaus and to lengthen the time spent in any one. In the first place an insecure or an inaccurate foundation must result in an increase of plateaus. If at the beginning, during the initial spurt, for instance, the learner is allowed to go so fast that what he learns is not thoroughly learned, or if he is pushed at a pace that for him makes thoroughness impossible, plateaus must soon occur in his learning curve.

In the second place a fruitful cause of plateaus is loss of interest,--monotony. If the learner is not interested, he will not put forth the energy necessary for continued improvement, and a time of no progress is the result. The att.i.tude of the learner toward the work is extremely important, not only in the matter of interest, but in the further att.i.tude of self-confidence. Discouragement usually results in hindering progress, whereas confidence tends to increase it. The psychological explanation of this is very evident. Both lack of interest in the learning and the presence of discouragement are likely to result in divided attention and that, as has already been shown, results in unsatisfactory work. A third cause for plateaus is physiological. Not only must the learner be in the right att.i.tude towards the work, but he must feel physically "fit." There seem to be certain physiological rhythms that may disturb the learning process whose cause cannot be directly determined, but generally the feeling of unfitness can be traced to a simple cause,--such as physical illness, loss of sleep, exercise, or food, or undue emotional strain.

The older psychology has left an impression that improvement in any function is limited both as to amount and as to the period during which it must be attained. The physiological limit of improvement has been thought of as one which was rather easily reached. The loss of plasticity of the nervous system has been supposed to be rather rapid, so that marked improvement in a habit after one has pa.s.sed well into the twenties was considered improbable. Recent experiments, however, seem to show that no such condition of affairs exists. There is very great probability that any function whatsoever is improvable with practice, and in most cases to a very marked degree. To find a function which has reached the physiological limit has been very rare, even in experimental research, and even with extended practice series it has been unusual to reach a stage of zero improvement even with adults. Thorndike says, "Let the reader consider that if he should now spend seven hours, well distributed, in mental multiplication with three place numbers, he would thereby much more than double his speed and also reduce his errors; or that, by forty hours of practice, he could come to typewrite (supposing him to now have had zero practice) approximately as fast as he can write by hand; or that, starting from zero knowledge, he could learn to copy English into German script at a rate of fifty letters per minute, in three hours or a little more."[3] It is probably true that the majority of adults are much below their limit of efficiency in most of the habits required by their profession, and that in school habits the same thing is true of children. Spurious levels of accomplishment have been held up as worthy goals, and efficiency accepted as ultimate which was only two thirds, and often less than that, of what was possible. Of course it may not be worth the time and energy necessary to obtain improvement in certain lines,--that must be determined by the particular case,--but the point is, that improvement; is possible with both children and adults in almost every habit they possess with comparatively little practice.

Neither the physiological limit of a function nor the age limit of the individual is reached as easily or as soon as has been believed.