Part 15 (2/2)

_First._ _The difference in the reaction between deficient and normal children, in the presentation of didactic material made up of graded stimuli._ This difference is plainly seen from the fact that the same didactic material used with deficients _makes education possible_, while with normal children it _provokes auto-education_.

This fact is one of the most interesting I have met with in all my experience, and it inspired and rendered possible the method of _observation_ and _liberty_.

Let us suppose that we use our first object,--a block in which solid geometric forms are set. Into corresponding holes in the block are set ten little wooden cylinders, the bases diminis.h.i.+ng gradually about the millimetres. The game consists in taking the cylinders out of their places, putting them on the table, mixing them, and then putting each one back in its own place. The aim is to educate the eye to the differential perception of dimensions.

With the deficient child, it would be necessary to begin with exercises in which the stimuli were much more strongly contrasted, and to arrive at this exercise only after many others had preceded it.

With normal children, this is, on the other hand, the first object which we may present, and out of all the didactic material this is the game preferred by the very little children of two and a half and three years.

Once we arrived at this exercise with a deficient child, it was necessary continually and actively to recall his attention, inviting him to look at the block and showing him the various pieces. And if the child once succeeded in placing all the cylinders properly, he stopped, and the game was finished. Whenever the deficient child committed an error, it was necessary to correct it, or to urge him to correct it himself, and when he was able to correct an error he was usually quite indifferent.

Now the normal child, instead, takes spontaneously a lively interest in this game. He pushes away all who would interfere, or offer to help him, and wishes to be alone before his problem.

It had already been noted that little ones of two or three years take the greatest pleasure in arranging small objects, and this experiment in the ”Children's Houses” demonstrates the truth of this a.s.sertion.

Now, and here is the important point, the normal child attentively observes the relation between the size of the opening and that of the object which he is to place in the mould, and is greatly interested in the game, as is clearly shown by the expression of attention on the little face.

If he mistakes, placing one of the objects in an opening that is small for it, he takes it away, and proceeds to make various trials, seeking the proper opening. If he makes a contrary error, letting the cylinder fall into an opening that is a little too large for it, and then collects all the successive cylinders in openings just a little too large, he will find himself at the last with the big cylinder in his hand while only the smallest opening is empty. The didactic material _controls every error_. The child proceeds to correct himself, doing this in various ways. Most often he feels the cylinders or shakes them, in order to recognise which are the largest. Sometimes, he sees at a glance where his error lies, pulls the cylinders from the places where they should not be, and puts those left out where they belong, then replaces all the others. The normal child always repeats the exercise with growing interest.

Indeed, it is precisely in these errors that the educational importance of the didactic material lies, and when the child with evident security places each piece in its proper place, he has outgrown the exercise, and this piece of material becomes useless to him.

This self-correction leads the child to concentrate his attention upon the differences of dimensions, and to compare the various pieces. It is in just this comparison that the _psycho-sensory_ exercise lies.

There is, therefore, no question here of teaching the child the _knowledge_ of the dimensions, through the medium of these pieces.

Neither is it our aim that the child shall know how to use, _without an error_, the material presented to him thus performing the exercises well.

That would place our material on the same basis as many others, for example that of Froebel, and would require again the _active_ work of the _teacher_, who busies herself furnis.h.i.+ng knowledge, and making haste to correct every error in order that the child may _learn the use of the objects_.

Here instead it is the work of the child, the auto-correction, the auto-education which acts, for the _teacher must not interfere_ in the _slightest_ way. No teacher can furnish the child with the _agility which he acquires_ through gymnastic _exercises_: it is necessary that the _pupil perfect himself_ through his own efforts. It is very much the same with the _education of the senses_.

It might be said that the same thing is true of every form of education; a man is not what he is because of the teachers he has had, but because of what he has done.

One of the difficulties of putting this method into practice with teachers of the old school, lies in the difficulty of preventing them from intervening when the little child remains for some time puzzled before some error, and with his eyebrows drawn together and his lips puckered, makes repeated efforts to correct himself. When they see this, the old-time teachers are seized with pity, and long, with an almost irresistible force, to help the child. When we prevent this intervention, they burst into words of compa.s.sion for the little scholar, but he soon shows in his smiling face the joy of having surmounted an obstacle.

Normal children repeat such exercises many times. This repet.i.tion varies according to the individual. Some children after having completed the exercise five or six times are tired of it. Others will remove and replace the pieces at least _twenty times_, with an expression of evident interest. Once, after I had watched a little one of four years repeat this exercise sixteen times, I had the other children sing in order to distract her, but she continued unmoved to take out the cylinders, mix them up and put them back in their places.

An intelligent teacher ought to be able to make most interesting individual psychological observations, and, to a certain point, should be able to measure the length of time for which the various stimuli held the attention.

In fact, when the child educates himself, and when the control and correction of errors is yielded to the didactic material, there _remains for the teacher nothing but to observe_. She must then be more of a psychologist than a teacher, and this shows the importance of a scientific preparation on the part of the teacher.

Indeed, with my methods, the teacher teaches _little_ and observes _much_, and, above all, it is her function to direct the psychic activity of the children and their physiological development. For this reason I have changed the name of teacher into that of directress.

At first this name provoked many smiles, for everyone asked whom there was for this teacher to direct, since she had no a.s.sistants, and since she must leave her little scholars _in liberty_. But her direction is much more profound and important than that which is commonly understood, for this teacher directs _the life and the soul_.

_Second._ _The education of the senses has, as its aim, the refinement of the differential perception of stimuli by means of repeated exercises._

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