Principles of Teaching Part 10

If these same men could be taken one by one into a music studio and have their voices tested for range, the same interesting variations would be found. There would be a few very high tenors, a few exceptionally low ba.s.sos, and a crowd with medium range with fillers-in all along the line.

If we were interested in carrying the experiment still further we might apply the speed test. In a 100-yard dash a few men would be found to be particularly fast, a few others would trail away behind at a snail's pace, while the big crowd of men would make the distance in "average time."

Of course, it would be foolish to attempt to make tenors of all these men--equally foolish to try to make speeders of them all. In these practical matters we appreciate the wisdom of letting each man fit into that niche for which he is qualified.

Nor are these differences confined to the field of physical characteristics and achievements. Tests by the hundred have demonstrated beyond all question that they hold equally well of mental capabilities.

In the past children have gone to school at the age of six. They have remained there because they were six. At seven they were in grade two, and so on up through the grades of our public schools. Tests and measurements now, however, are showing that such a procedure works both a hardship and an injustice on the pupils. Some boys at six are found as capable of doing work in grade two as other boys at eight. Some boys and girls at six are found wholly incapable of doing what is required in grade one. One of the most promising prospects ahead educationally is that we shall be able to find out just the capacity of a child regardless of his age, and fit him into what he can do well, making provisions for his pa.s.sing on as he shows capability for higher work.

Not only has this matter of individual differences been found to apply generally in the various grades of our schools--it has been found to have significant bearing upon achievements in particular subjects. For all too long a time we have held a boy in grade four until he mastered what we have called his grade four arithmetic, spelling, geography, grammar, history, etc. As a matter of fact, many a boy who is a fourth-grader in grammar may be only a second-grader in arithmetic--a girl, for whom fourth grade arithmetic is an impossibility, because of her special liking for reading, may be seventh grade in her capacity in that subject. In the specific subjects, individual differences have been found to be most marked. Surely it is unfair to ask a boy "born short"

in history to keep up to the pace of a comrade "born long" in that subject; so, too, it is unfair to ask a girl "born long" in geography to hold back to the pace of one "born short" in that subject. The results of these observations are leading to developments that are full of promise for the educational interests of the future.

In order that we may more fully appreciate the reality of these observations let us set down the concrete results of a few experiments.

The first three tests are quoted from Thorndike:

In a test in addition, all pupils being allowed the same time,

1 pupil did 3 examples correctly 2 pupils did 4 examples correctly 1 pupil did 5 examples correctly 5 pupils did 6 examples correctly 2 pupils did 7 examples correctly 4 pupils did 8 examples correctly 6 pupils did 9 examples correctly 14 pupils did 10 examples correctly 8 pupils did 11 examples correctly 7 pupils did 12 examples correctly 8 pupils did 13 examples correctly 5 pupils did 14 examples correctly 5 pupils did 15 examples correctly 6 pupils did 16 examples correctly 1 pupil did 17 examples correctly 5 pupils did 18 examples correctly 1 pupil did 19 examples correctly 2 pupils did 20 examples correctly

The rapidity of movement of ten-year-old girls, as measured by the number of crosses made in a fixed time:

6 or 7 by 1 girl 8 or 9 by 0 girl 10 or 11 by 4 girls 12 or 13 by 3 girls 14 or 15 by 21 girls 16 or 17 by 29 girls 18 or 19 by 33 girls 20 or 21 by 13 girls 22 or 23 by 15 girls 24 or 25 by 11 girls 26 or 27 by 5 girls 28 or 29 by 2 girls 30 or 31 by 5 girls 32 or 33 by 3 girls 34 or 35 by 5 girls 36 or 37 by 0 girl 38 or 49 by 4 girls 40 or 41 by 1 girl

Two papers, A and B, written by members of the same grade and cla.s.s in a test in spelling:

A. B.

greatful gratful elegant eleagent present present patience paisionce succeed suckseed severe survere accident axadent sometimes sometimes sensible sensible business biusness answer anser sweeping sweping properly prooling improvement improvment fatiguing fegting anxious anxchus appreciate apresheating a.s.sure ashure imagine amagen praise prasy

In a test in spelling wherein fifty common words were dictated to a cla.s.s of twenty-eight pupils, the following results were obtained:

2 spelled correctly all 50 3 spelled correctly between 45 and 48 5 spelled correctly between 40 and 45 11 spelled correctly between 30 and 40 6 spelled correctly between 20 and 30 1 spelled correctly between 15 and 20

And now the question--what has all this to do with the teaching of religion? Just this: the differences among men as found in fields already referred to, are found also in matters of religion. For one man it is easy to believe in visions and all other heavenly manifestations; for another it is next to impossible. To one man the resurrection is the one great reality; to another it is merely a matter of conjecture. One man feels certain that his prayers are heard and answered; another feels equally certain that they cannot be. One man is emotionally spiritual; another is coldly hard-headed and matter-of-fact. The point is not a question which man is right--it is rather that we ought not to attempt to reach each man in exactly the same way, nor should we expect each one to measure up to the standards of the others.

An interesting ill.u.s.tration of this difference in religious att.i.tude was shown recently in connection with the funeral of a promising young man who had been taken in death just as he had fairly launched upon his life's work. In a discussion that followed the service, one good brother found consolation in the thought that the Lord needed just such a young man to help carry on a more important work among the spirits already called home. His companion in the discussion found an explanation to his satisfaction in the thought that it was providential that the young man could be taken when he was, that he thereby might be spared the probable catastrophies that might have visited him had he lived. Each man found complete solace in his own philosophy, though neither could accept the reasoning of the other.

An interesting case of difference of view came to the attention of the teacher-training cla.s.s at Provo when someone asked how the lesson on Jonah could be presented so that it would appeal to adolescent boys and girls. The query was joined in by several others for whom Jonah had been a stumbling block, when Brother Sainsbury, of Vernal, startled the cla.s.s by saying Jonah was his favorite story. "I would rather teach that story than any other one in the Bible," he declared, and ill.u.s.trated his method so clearly that the account of Jonah took on an entirely new aspect.

Many men and women in the world are shocked at the thought that G.o.d is a personality. To them the idea that G.o.d is simply a "man made perfect," a being similar to us, but exalted to deity, is akin to blasphemy. And then to add the idea of a heavenly mother is beyond comprehension. To Latter-day Saints, on the other hand, these thoughts are the very glory of G.o.d. To them a man made perfect is the n.o.blest conception possible.

It makes of Him a reality. And the thought of Mother--Heaven without a Mother would be like home without one.

And so with all the principles and conceptions of religion, men's reactions to them are as varied as they are to all the other facts of life. Everywhere the opinions, the capacities, the attainments of men vary. The law of individual differences is one of the most universal in our experience.

QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS--CHAPTER IX

1. Just what is the meaning of the term Individual Differences?

2. Ill.u.s.trate such differences in families with which you are familiar.

3. Apply the test to your ward choir.

4. Name and characterize twenty men whom you know. How do they differ?

5. Have a report brought in from your public school on the results of given tests in arithmetic, spelling, etc.

6. Have the members of your cla.s.s write their opinions relative to some point of doctrine concerning which there may be some uncertainty.

7. Observe the att.i.tude and response of each of the members of a typical Sunday School, Kindergarten, of an advanced M.I.A. cla.s.s.

8. Ill.u.s.trate individual differences as expressed in the religious att.i.tudes of men you know.

9. To what extent are boys different from girls in mental capability and att.i.tude?

HELPFUL REFERENCES

Those listed in Chapter VII.

CHAPTER X

INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES AND TEACHING

OUTLINE--CHAPTER X

The causes of individual differences.--Norsworthy and Whitley on the significance of parentage.--The teacher's obligation to know parents.--The influence of s.e.x.--Environment as a factor.--Thorndike quoted.--B.H. Jacobsen on individual differences.

So far we simply have made the point that individuals differ. We are concerned in this chapter in knowing how these differences affect the teaching process. Fully to appreciate their significance we must know not only that they exist, and the degree of their variation, but also the forces that produce them. On the side of heredity, race, family, and s.e.x, are the great modifying factors. Practically, of course, we are concerned very little as Church teachers with problems of race. We are all so nearly one in that regard that a discussion of racial differences would contribute but little to the solution of our teaching problem.

The matter of family heritage is a problem of very much more immediate concern. Someone has happily said: "Really to know a boy one must know fully his father and his mother." "Yes," says a commentator, "and he ought to know a deal about the grandfather and grandmother." The significance of parentage is made to stand out with clearness in the following paragraph from Norsworthy and Whitley, _The Psychology of Childhood_:

"Just as good eyesight and longevity are family characteristics, so also color blindness, left-handedness, some slight peculiarity of structure such as an extra finger or toe, or the Hapsburg lip, sense defects such as deafness or blindness, tendencies to certain diseases, especially those of the nervous system,--all these run in families. Certain mental traits likewise are obviously handed down from parents to child, such as strong will, memory for faces, musical imagination, abilities in mathematics or the languages, artistic talent. In these ways and many others children resemble their parents. The same general law holds of likes and dislikes, of temperamental qualities such as quick temper, vivacity, lovableness, moodiness. In all traits, characteristics, features, powers both physical and mental and to some extent moral also, children's original nature, their stock in trade, is determined by their immediate ancestry. 'We inherit our parents' tempers, our parents'

conscientiousness, shyness and ability, as we inherit their stature, forearm and span,' says Pearson."

The teacher who would really appreciate the feelings and responses of a boy in his cla.s.s must be aware, therefore, that the boy is not merely one of a dozen type individuals--he is a product of a particular parentage, acting as he does largely because "he was born that way."

We shall point out in connection with environmental influences the importance of a teacher's knowing the home condition of his pupils; but it is important here, in pa.s.sing, to emphasize the point that even though a child were never to live with its parents it could be understood by the teacher acquainted with the peculiar traits of those parents. "Born with a bent" is a proverb of such force that it cannot be ignored. To know the parental heritage of a boy is to antic.i.p.ate his reaction to stimuli--is to know what approach to make to win him.

Because of the fact that in many of our organizations we are concerned with the problem of teaching boys and girls together, the question of the influence of s.e.x is one which we must face. There are those who hold that boys and girls are so fundamentally different by nature that they ought not to be taught coeducationally. Others maintain that they are essentially alike in feeling and intellectuality, and that because of the fact that eventually they are to be mated in the great partnership of life they should be held together as much as possible during the younger years of their lives. Most authorities are agreed that boys and girls differ not so much because they are possessed of different native tendencies, but because they live differently--they follow different lines of activity, and therefore develop different interests. To quote again from Norsworthy and Whitley:

"That men and women are different, that their natures are not the same, has long been an accepted fact. Out of this fact of difference have grown many hot discussions as to the superiority of one or the other nature as a whole. The present point of view of scientists seems well expressed by Ellis when he says, 'We may regard all such discussions as absolutely futile and foolish. If it is a question of determining the existence and significance of some particular physical s.e.xual difference, a conclusion may not be impossible. To make any broad statement of the phenomena is to recognize that no general conclusion is possible. Now and again we come across facts which group themselves with a certain uniformity, but as we continue, we find other equally important facts which group themselves with equal uniformity in another sense. The result produces compensation.'

The question of interest then is, what in nature is peculiar to the male s.e.x and what to the female? What traits will be true of a boy, merely because he is a boy, and vice versa? This has been an extremely difficult question to answer, because of the difficulty encountered in trying to eliminate the influence of environment and training. Boys are what they are because of their original nature plus their surroundings. Some would claim that if we could give boys and girls the same surroundings, the same social requirements, the same treatment from babyhood, there would be no difference in the resulting natures. Training undoubtedly accentuates inborn s.e.x differences, and it is true that a reversal of training does lessen this difference; however, the weight of opinion at present is that differences in intellect and character do exist because of differences of s.e.x, but that these have been unduly magnified. H.B.

Thompson, in her investigation ent.i.tled _The Mental Traits of s.e.x_, finds that 'Motor ability in most of its forms is better developed in men than in women. In strength, rapidity of movement, and rate of fatigue, they have a very decided advantage, and in precision of movement a slight advantage.... The thresholds are on the whole lower in women, discriminative sensibility is on the whole better in men.... All these differences, however, are slight. As for the intellectual faculties, women are decidedly superior to men in memory, and possibly more rapid in a.s.sociative thinking. Men are probably superior in ingenuity.... The data on the life of feeling indicate that there is little, if any, s.e.xual difference in the degree of domination by emotion, and that social consciousness is more prominent in men, and religious consciousness in women.'