Part 21 (1/2)
The first test will be to find whether the name is still a.s.sociated in the child's mind with the object. She must allow the necessary time to elapse, letting a short period of silence intervene between the lesson and the test. Then she may ask the child, p.r.o.nouncing slowly and very clearly the name or the adjective she has taught: ”Which is _smooth_?
Which is _rough_?”
The child will point to the object with his finger, and the teacher will know that he has made the desired a.s.sociation. But if he has not done this, that is, if he makes a mistake, _she must not correct him_, but must suspend her lesson, to take it up again another day. Indeed, why correct him? If the child has not succeeded in a.s.sociating the name with the object, the only way in which to succeed would be to _repeat_ both the action of the sense stimuli and the _name_; in other words, to repeat the lesson. But when the child has failed, we should know that he was not at that instant ready for the psychic a.s.sociation which we wished to provoke in him, and we must therefore choose another moment.
If we should say, in correcting the child, ”No, you have made a mistake,” all these words, which, being in the form of a reproof, would strike him more forcibly than others (such as smooth or rough), would remain in the mind of the child, r.e.t.a.r.ding the learning of the names. On the contrary, the _silence_ which follows the error leaves the field of consciousness clear, and the next lesson may successfully follow the first. In fact, by revealing the error we may lead the child to make an undue _effort_ to remember, or we may discourage him, and it is our duty to avoid as much as possible all unnatural effort and all depression.
_Third._ If the child has not committed any error, the teacher may provoke the _motor activity_ corresponding to the idea of the object: that is, to the _p.r.o.nunciation of the name_. She may ask him, ”What is this?” and the child should respond, ”Smooth.” The teacher may then interrupt, teaching him how to p.r.o.nounce the word correctly and distinctly, first, drawing a deep breath and, then, saying in a rather loud voice, ”Smooth.” When he does this the teacher may note his particular speech defect, or the special form of baby talk to which he may be addicted.
In regard to the _generalisation_ of the ideas received, and by that I mean the application of these ideas to his environment, I do not advise any lessons of this sort for a certain length of time, even for a number of months. There will be children who, after having touched a few times the stuffs, or merely the smooth and rough cards, _will quite spontaneously touch the various surfaces about them_, repeating ”Smooth!
Rough! It is velvet! etc.” In dealing with normal children, we must _await_ this spontaneous investigation of the surroundings, or, as I like to call it, this _voluntary explosion_ of the exploring spirit. In such cases, the children experience a joy at each _fresh discovery_.
They are conscious of a sense of dignity and satisfaction which encourages them to seek for new sensations from their environment and to make themselves spontaneous _observers_.
The teacher should _watch_ with the most solicitous care to see when and how the child arrives at this generalisation of ideas. For example, one of our little four-year-olds while running about in the court one day suddenly stood still and cried out, ”Oh! the sky is blue!” and stood for some time looking up into the blue expanse of the sky.
One day, when I entered one of the ”Children's Houses,” five or six little ones gathered quietly about me and began caressing, lightly, my hands, and my clothing, saying, ”It is smooth.” ”It is velvet.” ”This is rough.” A number of others came near and began with serious and intent faces to repeat the same words, touching me as they did so. The directress wished to interfere to release me, but I signed to her to be quiet, and I myself did not move, but remained silent, admiring this spontaneous intellectual activity of my little ones. The greatest triumph of our educational method should always be this: _to bring about the spontaneous progress of the child_.
One day, a little boy, following one of our exercises in design, had chosen to fill in with coloured pencils the outline of a tree. To colour the trunk he laid hold upon a red crayon. The teacher wished to interfere, saying, ”Do you think trees have red trunks?” I held her back and allowed the child to colour the tree red. This design was precious to us; it showed that the child was not yet an observer of his surroundings. _My way of treating this was to encourage the child to make use of the games for the chromatic sense._ He went daily into the garden with the other children, and could at any time see the tree trunks. When the sense exercises should have succeeded in attracting the child's spontaneous attention to colours about him, then, in some _happy moment_ he would become aware that the tree trunks were not red, just as the other child during his play had become conscious of the fact that the sky was blue. In fact, the teacher continued to give the child outlines of trees to fill in. He one day chose a brown pencil with which to colour the trunk, and made the branches and leaves green. Later, he made the branches brown, also, using green only for the leaves.
Thus we have _the test_ of the child's intellectual progress. We can not create observers by saying, ”_observe_,” but by giving them the power and the means for this observation, and these means are procured through education of the senses. Once we have _aroused_ such activity, auto-education is a.s.sured, for refined well-trained senses lead us to a closer observation of the environment, and this, with its infinite variety, attracts the attention and continues the psychosensory education.
If, on the other hand, in this matter of sense education we single out definite concepts of the quality of certain objects, these very objects become a.s.sociated with, or a part of, the training, which is in this way limited to those concepts taken and recorded. So the sense training remains unfruitful. When, for example, a teacher has given in the old way a lesson on the names of the colours, she has imparted an idea concerning that particular _quality_, but she has not educated the chromatic sense. The child will know these colours in a superficial way, forgetting them from time to time; and at best his appreciation of them will lie within the limits prescribed by the teacher. When, therefore, the teacher of the old methods shall have provoked the generalisation of the idea, saying, for example, ”What is the colour of this flower!” ”of this ribbon?” the attention of the child will in all probability remain torpidly fixed upon the examples suggested by her.
We may liken the child to a clock, and may say that with the old-time way it is very much as if we were to hold the wheels of the clock quiet and move the hands about the clock face with our fingers. The hands will continue to circle the dial just so long as we apply, through our fingers, the necessary motor force. Even so is it with that sort of culture which is limited to the work which the teacher does with the child. The new method, instead, may be compared to the process of winding, which sets the entire mechanism in motion.
This motion is in direct relation with the machine, and not with the work of winding. So the spontaneous psychic development of the child continues indefinitely and is in direct relation to the psychic potentiality of the child himself, and not with the work of the teacher.
The movement, or the _spontaneous psychic activity_ starts in our case from the education of the senses and is maintained by the observing intelligence. Thus, for example, the hunting dog receives his ability, not from the education given by his master, but from the _special acuteness_ of his senses; and as soon as this physiological quality is applied to the right environment, the _exercise of hunting_, the increasing refinement of the sense perceptions, gives the dog the pleasure and then the pa.s.sion for the chase. The same is true of the pianist who, refining at the same time his musical sense and the agility of his hand, comes to love more and more to draw new harmonies from the instrument. Thia double perfection proceeds until at last the pianist is launched upon a course which will be limited only by the personality which lies within him. Now a student of physics may know all the laws of harmony which form a part of his scientific culture, and yet he may not know how to follow a most simple musical composition. His culture, however vast, will be bound by the definite limits of his science. Our educational aim with very young children must be to _aid the spontaneous development of the mental, spiritual, and physical personality_, and not to make of the child a cultured individual in the commonly accepted sense of the term. So, after we have offered to the child such didactic material as is adapted to provoke the development of his senses, we must wait until the activity known as observation develops. And herein lies the _art of the educator_; in knowing how to measure the action by which we help the young child's personality to develop. To one whose att.i.tude is right, little children soon reveal _profound individual differences_ which call for very different kinds of help from the teacher. Some of them require almost no intervention on her part, while others demand actual _teaching_. It is necessary, therefore, that the teaching shall be rigorously guided by the principle of limiting to the greatest possible point the active intervention of the educator.
Here are a number of games and problems which we have used effectively in trying to follow this principle.
GAMES OF THE BLIND
The Games of the Blind are used for the most part as exercises in general sensibility as follows:
_The Stuffs._ We have in our didactic material a pretty little chest composed of drawers within which are arranged rectangular pieces of stuff in great variety. There are velvet, satin, silk, cotton, linen, etc. We have the child touch each of these pieces, teaching the appropriate nomenclature and adding something regarding the quality, as coa.r.s.e, fine, soft. Then, we call the child and seat him at one of the tables where he can be seen by his companions, blindfold him, and offer him the stuffs one by one. He touches them, smooths them, crushes them between his fingers and decides, ”It is velvet,--It is fine linen,--It is rough cloth,” etc. This exercise provokes general interest. When we offer the child some unexpected foreign object, as, for example, a sheet of paper, a veil, the little a.s.sembly trembles as it awaits his response.
_Weight._ We place the child in the same position, call his attention to the tablets used for the education of the sense of weight, have him notice again the already well-known differences of weight, and then tell him to put all the dark tablets, which are the heavier ones, at the right, and all the light ones, which are the lighter, to the left. We then blindfold him and he proceeds to the game, taking each time two tablets. Sometimes he takes two of the same colour, sometimes two of different colours, but in a position opposite to that in which he must arrange them on his desk. These exercises are most exciting; when, for example, the child has in his hands two of the dark tablets and changes them from one hand to the other uncertain, and finally places them together on the right, the children watch in a state of intense eagerness, and a great sigh often expresses their final relief. The shouts of the audience when the entire game is followed without an error, gives the impression that their little friend _sees with his hands_ the colours of the tablets.
_Dimension and Form._ We use games similar to the preceding one, having the child distinguish between different coins, the cubes and bricks of Froebel, and dry seeds, such as beans and peas. But such games never awaken the intense interest aroused by the preceding ones. They are, however, useful and serve to a.s.sociate with the various objects those qualities peculiar to them, and also to fix the nomenclature.
APPLICATION OF THE EDUCATION OF THE VISUAL SENSE TO THE OBSERVATION OF THE ENVIRONMENT
_Nomenclature._ This is one of the most important phases of education.
Indeed, nomenclature prepares for an _exactness_ in the use of language which is not always met with in our schools. Many children, for example, use interchangeably the words thick and big, long and high.
With the methods already described, the teacher may easily establish, by means of the didactic material, ideas which are very exact and clear, and may a.s.sociate the proper word with these ideas.
_Method of Using the Didactic Material_
_Dimensions._ The directress, after the child has played for a long time with the three sets of solid insets and has acquired a security in the performance of the exercise, takes out all the cylinders of equal height and places them in a horizontal position on the table, one beside the other. Then she selects the two extremes, saying, ”This is the _thickest_--This is the _thinnest_.” She places them side by side so that the comparison may be more marked, and then taking them by the little b.u.t.ton, she compares the bases, calling attention to the great difference. She then places them again beside each other in a vertical position in order to show that they are equal in height, and repeats several times, ”thick--thin.” Having done this, she should follow it with the test, asking, ”Give me the thickest--Give me the thinnest,” and finally she should proceed to the test of nomenclature, asking, ”What is this?” In the lessons which follow this, the directress may take away the two extreme pieces and may repeat the lesson with the two pieces remaining at the extremities, and so on until she has used all the pieces. She may then take these up at random, saying, ”Give me one a little thicker than this one,” or ”Give me one a little thinner than this one.” With the second set of solid insets she proceeds in the same way. Here she stands the pieces upright, as each one has a base sufficiently broad to maintain it in this position, saying, ”This is the highest” and ”This is the lowest.” Then placing the two extreme pieces side by side she may take them out of the line and compare the bases, showing that they are equal. From the extremes she may proceed as before, selecting each time the two remaining pieces most strongly contrasted.