The Vitalized School Part 9

=Absorbing standards.=--If we give full credence to Tennyson's statement, "I am a part of all that I have met," then it follows that we have become what we are, in some appreciable measure, through the process of absorption. In other words, we are a composite of all our ideals. The vase of flowers, daintily arranged, on the breakfast table becomes the standard of good taste thenceforth, and all through life a vase of flowers arranged less than artistically gives one a sensation of discomfort. A traveler relates that in a hotel in Brussels he saw window curtains of a delicate pattern; and, since that time, he has sought in many cities for curtains that will fill the measure of the ideal he absorbed in that hotel. Beauty is not in the thing itself, but in the eye of the beholder, and the eye is but the interpreter of the ideal.

One person rhapsodizes over a picture that another turns away from, because the latter has absorbed an ideal that is unknown to the former.

=Education by absorption.=--This subject of absorption has not received the careful attention that its importance warrants. In the social consciousness education has been so long a.s.sociated with books, and formal processes, that we find it difficult to conceive of education outside of or beyond books. If, as we so confidently a.s.sert, education is a spiritual process, then whatever stimulates the spirit must be education, whether a landscape, a flower, a picture, or a person. The traveler who sits enrapt before the Jungfrau for an hour or a day is becoming more highly educated, even in the absence of books and formalities. The beauty of the mountain touches his spirit, and there is a consequent reaction that fulfills all the claims of the educational processes. In short, he is lifted to a higher plane of appreciation, and that is what the books and the schools are striving to achieve.

=The principle ill.u.s.trated.=--In the presence of this mountain the tourist gains an ideal of grandeur which becomes his standard of estimating scenery throughout life. A boy once heard "The Dead March"

played by an artist, and when he was grown to manhood that was still his ideal of majestic music. A traveler a.s.serts that no man can stand for an hour on the summit of Mt. Rigi and not become a better and a stronger man for the experience. A writer on art says that it is worth a trip across the ocean to see the painting of the bull by Paul Potter; but that, of course, depends upon the ideals of the beholder. All these ill.u.s.trations conform to and are in harmony with the psychological dictum that in the educational process the spirit reacts to its environment.

=The teacher as environment.=--But the environment may include people as well as inanimate objects, mountains, rivers, flowers, and pictures.

And, as a part of the child's environment, the teacher takes her place in the process of education by absorption. A city superintendent avers that there is one teacher in his corps who would be worth more to his school than the salary she receives even if she did no teaching. This means that her presence in the school is a wholesome influence, and that she is the sort of environment to which the pupils react to their own advantage. It might not be a simple thing to convince some taxpayers of the truth of the superintendent's statement, but this fact only proves that they have not yet come into a realization of the fact that there can be education by absorption.

=The Great Stone Face.=--The people of Florence maintain that they need not travel abroad to see the world, for the reason that the world comes to them. It is true that many thousands visit that city annually to win a definition of art. There they absorb their ideals of art and thus attain abiding standards. In like manner the child may sojourn in the school to gain an ideal of grace of manner and personal charm as exemplified by the teacher, and no one will have the temerity to a.s.sert that this phase of the child's education is less important than those that are acquired through the formal processes. The boy in the story grew into the likeness of the "Great Stone Face" because that had become his ideal, and not because he had had formal instruction in the subject of stone faces, or had taken measurements of or computed the dimensions of the one stone face. He grew into its likeness because he thought of it, dreamed of it, absorbed it, and was absorbed by it, and reacted to it whenever it came into view.

=Pedagogy in literature.=--Hawthorne, in this story, must have been trying to teach the lesson of unconscious education or education by absorption, but his readers have not all been quick to catch his meaning. Teachers often take great unction in the reflection that they afford to the child his only means of education, and that but for them the child would never become educated at all. We are slow to admit that there are many sources of education besides the school, and that formal instruction is not the only road to the acquisition of knowledge.

Tennyson knew and expressed this conception in the quotation already given, but we have not acquired the habit of consulting the poets and novelists for our pedagogy. When we learn to consult these, we shall find them expressing many tenets of pedagogy that are basic.

=The testimony of experience.=--But we need not go beyond our own experiences to realize that much of our education has been unconsciously gained, that we have absorbed much of it, and, possibly, what we now regard as the most vital part of it. We have but to explore our own experiences to discover some person whose standards have been effective in luring us out of ourselves and causing us to yearn toward higher levels; who has been the beacon light toward which our feet have been stumbling; who has been the pattern by which we have sought to shape our lives; and for whom we feel a sense of grat.i.tude that cannot be quenched. The influence of that person has been a liberal education in the vital things that the books do not teach, and we shudder to think what we might have been had that influence not come into our lives. This ideal is not some mythical, far-away person, but a real man or woman who has challenged our admiration by looks, by conduct, by position, and by general bearing in society.

=The one teacher.=--This preliminary part of the subject has been dwelt upon thus at length in an effort to win a.s.sent to the general proposition that unconscious education is not only possible, but an actuality. This a.s.sent being once given, the mind feels out at once for applications of the principle and, inevitably, brings the parent and the teacher into the field of view. But the parent is too near to us in time, in s.p.a.ce, and in relation to afford the ill.u.s.tration that we seek, and we pa.s.s on to the teacher. In the experience of each one of us there stands out at least one teacher as clear in definition as a cameo. This teacher may not have been the most scholarly, or the most successful in popular esteem, or even the most handsome, but she had some quality that differentiates her in our thinking from all others. Others may seem but a sort of blur in our memory, but not so this one. She alone is distinct, distinctive, and regnant.

=Her supremacy.=--The vicissitudes of life have not availed to dethrone her, nor have the losses, perplexities, and sorrows of life caused the light of her influence to grow dim. She is still an abiding presence with us, nor can we conceive of any influence that could possibly obliterate her. She may have been idealized by degrees, but when she came fully into our lives she came to stay. She came not as a transient guest, but as a lifelong friend and comrade. She crept into our lives as gently as the dawn comes over the hills, and since her arrival there has been no sunset. Nor was there ever by pupil or teacher any profession or protestation, but we simply accepted each other with a frankness that would have been weakened by words.

=The role of ideal.=--But the role of ideal is not an easy one. It is a comparatively simple matter to give instruction in geography, arithmetic, and history, but to know one's self to be the ideal of a child, or to conceive of the possibility of such a situation and relation, is sufficient to render the teacher deeply thoughtful. Once it is borne in upon her that the child will grow into her likeness, she cannot dismiss the matter from her thinking as she can the lesson in grammar. The child may be unconscious of the matter, but the teacher is acutely conscious. When she stands before her cla.s.s she sees the child growing into her image, and this reflection gives cause and occasion for a careful and critical introspection. She feels constrained to take an inventory of herself to determine whether she can stand a test that is so searching and so far-reaching.

=The teacher's other self.=--As she stands thus in contemplation she sees the child grown to maturity with all her own predilections--physical, mental, spiritual--woven into the pattern of its life. In this child grown up she sees her other self and can thus estimate the qualities of body, mind, and spirit that now const.i.tute herself, as they reveal themselves in another. She thus gains the child's point of view and so is able to see herself through the child's eyes. When she is reading a book, she is aware that the child is looking over her shoulder to note the quality of literature that engages her interest. When she is making a purchase at the shop, she finds the child standing at her elbow and duplicating her order. When she is buying a picture, she is careful to see to it that there are two copies, knowing that a second copy must be provided for the child. When she is arranging her personal adornment, she is conscious of the child peeping through the door and absorbing her with languishing eyes.

=The status irrevocable.=--Wherever she goes or whatever she does, she knows that the child is walking in her footsteps and reenacting her conduct. Her status is irrevocably fixed in the life of the child, nor can any philosophy or sophistry absolve her from the situation. She cannot abdicate her place in favor of another, nor can she win immunity from responsibility. She is the child's ideal for weal or woe, nor can men or angels change this big fact. Through all the hours of the day she hears the child saying, "Whither thou goest I will go," and there is no escape.

=The child's viewpoint.=--This is no flight of fancy. Rather it is a reality in countless schoolrooms of the land if only the teachers were alive to the fact. But we have been so busy measuring, estimating, scoring, and surveying the child for our purposes that we have given but scant consideration to the child's point of view as regards the teacher.

We have not been quick to note the significant fact that the child is estimating, measuring, scoring, and surveying the teacher for purposes of its own and in the strictest obedience to the laws of its nature.

=The child's need of ideals.=--Every child needs and has a right to ideals, and finds the teacher convenient both in s.p.a.ce and in the nature of her work to act in this capacity. Because of the character of her work and her peculiar relation to the child, the teacher a.s.sumes a place of leadership, and the child naturally appropriates her as the lodestar for which his nature is seeking. And so, whether the teacher leads into the mora.s.s or into the jungle, the child will follow; but if she elects to take her way up to the heights, there will be the child as faithful as her shadow. If the teacher plucks flowers by the way, then, in time, gathering flowers will become habitual to the child, nor will there be any need to admonish the child to gather flowers. The teacher plucks flowers, and that becomes the child's command. Education by absorption needs neither admonition nor homilies.

=The ideal a perpetual influence.=--And all this is life--actual life, fundamental life, and inevitable life. Moreover, the inevitableness of this phase of life serves to accentuate its importance. The idealized teacher gives to the child his ideals of conduct, literature, art, music, home, school, and service. Take this teacher out of his life and these ideals vanish. Better by far eliminate the formal instruction, important as that may be made to be, than to rob the child of his ideals. They are the influences that are ever active even when formal instruction is quiescent. They are potent throughout the day and throughout the year. They induce reactions and motor activities that groove into habits, and they are the external stimuli to which the spirit responds.

=The teacher's att.i.tude.=--The vitalized school takes full cognizance of this phase and means of education and gives large scope and freedom for its exercise and development. The teacher is more concerned with who and what her pupils are to be twenty years hence than she is in getting them promoted to the next grade. She knows full well that vision clarifies sight, and she is eager to enlarge their vision in order to make their sight more keen and clear. She, therefore, adopts as her own standards of life and conduct what she wishes for her pupils when they have come to maturity. She may not proclaim herself an ideal teacher or a model teacher, but she is cognizant of the fact that she is the model and the ideal of one or more pupils in her school and bases her rule of life upon this fact.

=Prophetic conduct.=--In her dress she decides between ornateness and simplicity as a determining factor in the lives of her pupils both for the present and for the years to come. In this she feels that she is but doing her part in helping to determine the trend and quality of civilization. She is reading such books as she hopes to find in their libraries when they have come to administer homes of their own. She is directing her thinking into such channels as will bear the thoughts of her pupils out into the open sea of bigness and sublimity. Knowing that pettiness will be inimical to society in the next generation, she is careful to banish it from her own life.

=Her rule of life.=--In her thinking she comes into intimate relations with the sea and all its ramified influences upon life. She invites the mountains to take her into their confidence and reveal to her the mysteries of their origin, and their influence upon the winds, the seasons, the products of the earth, and upon life itself. She communes with the great of all times that she may learn of their concepts as to the immensities which the mind can explore, as well as intricate and infinite manifestations of the human soul. She a.s.sociates with the planets and rides the s.p.a.ces in their company. She asks the flowers, the sunrise glow of the morning, the hues of the rainbow, and the drop of dew to explain to her what G.o.d is, and rejoices in their responses.

=Her growth.=--And so, through her thinking she grows big--big in her aspirations, big in her sympathies with all nature and mankind, big in her altruism, and big in her conceptions of the universe and all that it embraces. And when people come to know her they almost lose sight of the teacher in their contemplation of the woman. Her pupils, by their close contact and communion, became inoculated with the germs of her bigness and so follow the lead of her thinking, her aspirations, her sympathies, and her conceptions of life. Thus they grow into her likeness by absorbing her thoughts, her ideals, her standards, in short, herself.

=Seeing life large.=--The bigness of her spirit and her ability to see and feel life in the large superinduce dignity, poise, and serenity. She never flutters; but, calm and masterful, she moves on her majestic way with regal mien. Nor is her teaching less thorough or less effective because she has a vision. On the contrary, she teaches cube root with accuracy and still is able to see and to cause her pupils to see the index finger pointing out and up toward the mathematical infinities. She can give the lat.i.tude and longitude of Rome, and, while doing so, review the achievements of that historic city. She can explain the action of the geyser and still find time and inclination to take delight in its wonders. She can a.n.a.lyze the flower and still revel in its beauty. She can teach the details of history and find in them the footprints of great historical movements. All these things her pupils sense and so invest her with the attributes of an ideal.

QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1. Do most teachers realize to what extent they have influence?

2. Is it comfortable to think that one is an example? If not, why not?

Is it only teachers who need to feel that they are examples? Is it fair to demand a higher standard of the teacher and preacher?

3. Give from your own experience instances in which you have absorbed an ideal which has persisted. Is there danger of adopting an ideal that, while it is worthy as far as it goes, is merely incidental and not worth while? (Such are an accurate memory of unimportant details, certain finesse in manners and speech, punctiliousness in engagements, exhaustiveness in shopping before making purchases, perfection in penmanship and other arts at the expense of speed: suggest others.)

4. How can the contemplation of a rainbow educate? What education should result from a view of Niagara Falls?

5. What qualities would a teacher have to possess that her influence aside from her teaching might be of more value than the teaching itself?

6. That one may have influence is it enough for one to be good, or is it what one does that counts? Suggest lines of action for a teacher that would increase her influence for good.

7. Explain how a fine unconscious influence exerted by a teacher helps to keep pupils in school.

8. In Hawthorne's story of the _Great Stone Face_ what qualities were attained by those whom Ernest expected to grow into the likeness?

9. Why did Ernest's face come to resemble that of the great stone face?

10. In what ways is good fiction of value to teachers?

11. Cite something that you have gained from the unconscious influence of another.

12. What attainments or qualities have you yet to acquire in order to stand out as "distinctive and regnant" to a good many pupils?

13. A bacteriologist makes a "culture" of a drop of blood, multiplying many times the bacteria in it, to determine whether serious disease germs are prevalent. If the influence of a person could be observed in a large way, would that be conclusive as to the person's character, just as the result of the culture proves the condition of the blood? May there not be an obscure element in the teacher's character that is having a deleterious effect? Or is it only the outstanding features of his conduct that affect the pupils?

14. Why is it more important to acquire ideals than to acquire knowledge?

15. Describe the att.i.tude of the teacher toward the pupils in the "vitalized" school.

16. Show how the teacher should have in view the future of the pupils.

17. Is it a compliment to be easily recognized as a teacher? Why or why not?

18. Just what is meant by "narrowness" in a teacher? What is meant by "bigness"? What is their effect if the teacher is taken as an ideal?

19. Can one instill high ideals in others without frequently absorbing inspiration himself? What are suitable sources?

CHAPTER XV

THE SOCIALIZED RECITATION

=The term defined.=--The socialized recitation, as its name implies, is a recitation in which teacher and pupils form themselves into a committee of the whole for the purpose of investigating some phase of a school study. In this committee the line of cleavage between teacher and pupils is obliterated as nearly as possible, the teacher exercising only so much of authority as will preserve the integrity of the group and forestall its disintegration. The teacher thus becomes a coordinate and cooperating member of the group, and her superior knowledge of the subject is held in abeyance to be called into requisition only in an emergency and as a last resort. It will readily be seen, however, that the teacher's knowledge of the subject must be far more comprehensive in such a procedure than in the question-and-answer type of recitation, for the very cogent reason that the discussion is both liable and likely to diverge widely from the limits of the book; and the teacher must be conversant, therefore, with all the auxiliary facts. She must be able to cite authorities in case of need, and make specific data readily accessible to all members of the group. This presupposes wide reading on her part, and a consequent familiarity with all the sources of knowledge that have a bearing upon the subject under consideration.

=The pupil-teacher.=--In order to make the cooperative principle of the recitation active in practice a pupil acts as chairman of the meeting, serving in rotation, and gives direction to the discussion. He is clothed with authority, also, to restrict the discussion to time limits that there may be no semblance of monopoly and that the same rights and privileges may be accorded to each member of the cla.s.s. The chairman, in short, acts both as captain and as umpire, with the teacher in the background as the court of final appeal. Knowing the order of rotation, each pupil knows in advance upon what day he is to a.s.sume the functions of chairman and makes preparation accordingly, that he may acquit himself with credit in measuring up to the added responsibilities which the position imposes. In taking the chair he does not affect an air of superiority for the reason that he knows the position to have come to him by rotation and that upon his conduct of the duties depend his chances for honor; and acting for his peers he is careful not to do anything that will lead to a forfeiture of their respect and good will.

=Some advantages.=--It requires far more time to describe these preliminary arrangements than it does to put them into operation.