This is the period of the junior high school. It is primarily the time for the development of the right type of habit-reactions, sound conceptions of moral values, proper individual and group contacts between the sexes, and for giving physical, moral, social, and educational guidance. It is a time too, when attachments and ideals of large importance are most easily formed, when the "will" may be most readily strengthened, and when the personality of youth, which has been in the making for so long, can be most surely moulded into form. In school instruction it is a time for differentiation of work, for experimental studies to determine tastes and aptitudes, for guiding the expanding mental life along desirable lines, and for much participation in citizenship activities. The work of the junior high school is to carry the early adolescent development - mental, social, moral, religious, personal - along normal lines. This calls for real teaching skill. The teacher here must have unlimited faith in her pupils, and must work earnestly for the proper development of character and personality in each. The senior high-school period. The later years of adolescence mark another change in the pupil, and the development of a new type of individualism. That which now develops is not of the type known in the upper elementaryschool grades, when the pupil tends to break away from social standards, but rather one of individual effort to fit himself for his place in the world of people and affairs. Each pupil now tends to reach out to grasp the meaning of the world, to form plans for life, to find a useful career. Self, too, is far less in evidence than formerly. Strong convictions are easily established; a "set" in thinking develops; a feeling of injustice, once aroused, rankles. Individual differences often become markedly evident; individual outlooks demand different studies and types of training; and individual points of view are important. Group action and group loyalty are likely at any time to run strong. Some sex differences in training now become of importance in planning the instruction of the school. An entirely different type of teacher now is called for than was needed for the elementary school. There knowledge was of less importance than teaching technique. In the high school the reverse is the case. Method now counts for far less, knowledge and understanding for far more. Every subject may now be assumed to possess real attractiveness in itself, and every pupil to have reached a stage of intellectual maturity where motivation by the teacher is little needed. Education, culture, travel, knowledge of the world, life contacts, and social understanding are now the essentials. Good teaching ability is still of importance, but of much less significance than in an elementary school grade. The work of teachers and principals now is to study capacity, to guide and reveal youth to itself, to respect personality and to endeavor constantly but tactfully to bring pupils to realize the higher interests of life, and to help them to form ideals of personal usefulness and service. Discipline, when needed, must always be personal and carefully adjusted to situations. The scope of this chapter. In this chapter we have given, first, a few of the more important fundamental laws relating to the physical development of the child, and have enumerated some of the factors influencing growth. These and other phases of child development would be presented in a course dealing with The Physical Development of the Child, or The Hygiene of the School Child. These courses give the teacher a good conception of the biological basis of the life of the pupil. We next considered chronological, physical, and mental age, intelligence testing, the significance of intelligence measurements, and the question of nature vs. nurture. Such topics as these would come in a general way into the study known as Educational Psychology, which all teachers in training should study. In a more detailed form these topics would form the substance of a special course in Intelligence Testing, or Mental Tests. Such courses are usually given in colleges or universities, and are designed to prepare teachers to give intelligence tests to school children. The question of individual differences, the meaning of infancy, and something as to the psychological and educational significance of the larger periods of child development also belong to the field of Educational Psychology, and would be treated as parts of such a course. The phases of child development treated in this chapter form a very interesting study, and one to which many teachers find it profitable to give more than ordinary attention. Carried to any extent, it leads into the fields of biology and psychology, each a special subject by itself. QUESTIONS FOR CLASS DISCUSSION 1. The growth tables and curves have been made up from the measurement of thousands of children; show how the growth curve of any individual might cover a shorter period than the curves show. 2. Would it be possible for the school to modify favorably such nonhereditary growth influences as social and living conditions? How? 3. Name some ways in which the school could influence favorably physical development. 4. Would there seem to be both physical and financial justification for the school providing, for children needing them: (a) mid-day lunches; (b) spectacles; (c) care of teeth; (d) simple nose or throat operations? On what theory do you base your replies? 5. Explain the tendency to promote over-age and "nice" children, and to hold back young but bright children. 1 6. Should acceleration and retardation be approximately equal, throughout the grades, in a well-organized and graded school? Why? 7. In most city schools the curve showing the distribution of intelligence among the pupils tends to be more bulged at one end than at the other, instead of being symmetrical, as in Figure 17. How do you explain this? 8. What effect would a rigid enforcement of the compulsory attendance laws have on the distribution of intelligence in the schools? 9. What changes in school procedure have been emphasized by the new knowledge as to intelligence distribution? 10. If nurture is of real importance, what can the school do to increase its influence? 11. Show the importance in education of the pre-school years, in the light of Fiske's theory of the lengthened period of infancy. 12. Show how the junior high school has a large importance educationally, instead of being merely a good solution of a building and pupil-housing problem. EXERCISES AND PROBLEMS 1. Secure an age-and-grade distribution sheet for some school (this may be compiled, or taken from school survey reports), and transfer the results into a drawing similar in form to Figure 15. What does the figure indicate as to the school? 2. Observe a few lessons given by a teacher to a class, and then grade the pupils according to evidenced learning ability. 3. When observing instruction, note the different ways employed by the teacher in adjusting instruction to different learning capacities during the conduct of the recitation, the assignment, or in other ways. 4. Visit schools of different types and note differences in emphasis and the work of the teachers in: (a) primary grades; (b) upper grades; (c) a junior high school; (d) senior high school. 5. Examine some School Survey Report and note the differences in pupil ability brought out by the use of tests, in any subject and grade. COLLATERAL READING *Bagley, Wm. C., and Keith, J. A. H. An Introduction to Teaching, chap. VIII. Edwards, A. S. The Psychology of Elementary Education, chap. II. Hines, H. C. Measuring Intelligence, chaps. I, VII, VIII. (88 pp.) *Judd, C. H. Introduction to the Scientific Study of Education, chaps. XII and XIII. *Kirkpatrick, E. A. Fundamentals of Child Study, chaps. II and III. Pechstein, L. A., and Jenkins, F. Psychology of the Kindergarten-Primary Child. (280 pp.) Pechstein, L. A., and McGregor, A. L. Psychology of the Junior High School Pupil. (280 pp.) Seechrist, F. K. *Terman, L. M. Terman, L. M. *Thorndike, E. L. Education and the General Welfare, chap x. CHAPTER XII THE LEARNING PROCESS Each generation must learn anew. It is of the utmost significance to us as a people, living as we do in such a rapidly changing world, that we have to begin the process of education all over with each new-born child. Each generation must start anew, and the gradual education of each child in the accumulated learning and experience and ideals and traditions and ways of thinking of its people presents at once the greatest difficulty and the greatest opportunity for progress. It is a work of large proportions, as was set forth in Chapter III, of both replacement and development. Education, in consequence, is raised to a position of great importance with civilized man, and the more rapidly society is advancing the more essential does it become. Not only must we transmit to the new generation what an older generation has learned and experienced, but, due to man's greater intelligence, we are able to select from among the experiences and the stock of knowledge, emphasizing those things we wish to perpetuate and minimizing those we wish to repress. This ability to transmit a modified experience, and thus reshape our inheritance and in consequence make progress, represents one of the most striking differences between the brute creation and mankind. The animal reproduces a common set of habits and reactions; the human being changes these more or less at will, and progressively modifies his environment. We not only learn from our own experiences, but we are able also to profit by the experiences of others, and on the basis of the knowledge we thus gain we alter the character of that which is transmitted the better to adapt it to the needs of the life the new generation is to lead. |