Spontaneous Activity in Education Part 9

The following diagram represents a very lofty stage of childish development:

[Ill.u.s.tration: SUPERIOR STAGE _Average type_]

Even the preparatory work is now of a higher kind: as soon as the child comes into school, he will choose, for instance, the letters of the alphabet, or will write, then (his strenuous work) he will read.

For recreation he will choose an intelligent pastime, such as looking at ill.u.s.trated books.

All his intellectual occupations are of a higher order, as are also his moral attributes (obedience, serenity, perseverance).

Taking the line of quiescence as a level of development, it follows that the level has become higher.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Line of work_]

In a superior stage, the line of work tends to become straight, parallel to the line of quiescence.

Meanwhile it has been established that it is possible to determine _degrees of development_, or _averages_ of internal development, by means of which individual variations may be studied. In the primordial type the characteristics are _disorderly conduct_, and _incapacity to concentrate attention_; in such a case there is no real line of work, and the main part of the diagram remains below the line of quiescence.

For the type in which the phenomenon of permanent concentration of attention on a task has manifested itself, the average characteristic diagram of normal orderly work of the first degree is now established: _i. e. preliminary_ work followed by a period of restlessness, and then _strenuous work_ followed by a state of repose.

Afterwards we distinguish a second degree, where the average is characterized by the disappearance of the period of unrest, and the strenuous work is brought to a close in contemplation; this is the stage of discoveries, of generalized observation, of obedience; work has become a habit.

This is followed by a general elevation, to be recognized by the choice of higher preliminary work; disciplined behavior has become a habit.

During this progression the diagram of work tends to become straight, and parallel to the line of quiescence.

[Ill.u.s.trations: A RECAPITULATORY TABLE OF DEVELOPMENT _Diagrams of average developments_]

The rise in the level of the plane is related to the qualities of more advanced intellectual work; and the straightening of the line is related to qualities of internal _construction_ and of the _organization of the personality_; qualities which would be considered of a _moral order_, such as serenity, discipline, self-mastery as manifested in obedience and in the various activities of the child.

When work has become a habit, the intellectual level rises rapidly, and organized order causes good conduct to become a _habit_. Children then work with order, perseverance, and discipline, persistently and naturally; the permanent, calm, and vivifying work of the physical organism resembles the respiratory rhythm.

The pivot, the medium of this construction of the personality, is working in freedom, in accordance with the natural wants of the inner life; thus _freedom in intellectual work_ is found to be the _basis of internal discipline_. The great achievement of the "Children's Houses" (_Case dei Bambini_) is to produce _disciplined children_.

It is this internal organization which gives them a special "type," or character, the type or character _required_ to continue the free exercise of activities for the _conquests of culture_ in successive stages.

The elementary school period presents itself insensibly as a continuation of the "Children's Houses." In these, _behavior is a habit_ superposed on and fused with the earlier _habit of work_.

Henceforth it will be sufficient to present the material of further culture, and the child, gradually exercising himself upon it, will pa.s.s from one intellectual stage of culture to another.

The difference shown in the successive ages arises from an intellectual interest which is no longer merely the impulse to exercise oneself by repet.i.tion of the exercises, but is a higher interest directed to the work itself, and tending to complete an external work, or to complete a branch of knowledge as a whole. Thus the child creates and seeks for things organized in themselves; for instance, he desires to compose a design by means of combinations of geometrical figures with the metal insets, and devotes himself to this work with the greatest intensity until he has completed it. Again, we see a child occupied for seven or eight consecutive days with the same work. Another child becomes interested in the potentialities of numbers or in the arithmetical frame, and perseveres with the same work for days, until his knowledge of it has matured.

Upon a basis of interior order produced by internal organization, the mind then builds up its castle with the same leisurely calm with which a living organism grows spontaneously after birth.

We can give but a primary idea at present of the _practical possibility_ of determining _average levels_ of interior development according to age. We shall further require many perfect experiments, in which h.o.m.ogeneous children, completely suitable environment, and trained teachers will afford adequate material for observation. Then students will be able to undertake a scientific work, which will perhaps be characterized by a precision superior even to that with which it is at present possible to measure the body, and give the mathematical averages of growth.

We must consider, however, that the indications available to-day represent a long, systematic toil, and that they rest upon the still greater labor of finding external material means for natural development.

This will give some idea of the difficulty of scientific researches, which many still believe it possible to make by means of arbitrary and superficial tests such as those of Binet and Simon!

The study of the child cannot be accomplished by an "instantaneous"

process; his characteristics can only be ill.u.s.trated cinematographically.

"External means," organized in accordance with the needs of psychical life, are of fundamental importance; for how is it possible to judge of individual differences in the acquisition of internal order, in the ascent to abstraction, in the progressive stages of intellectual development, in the achievement of discipline, without the existence of pre-determined and unvarying external means which, like so many points of support, lead the child in process of formation towards his goal?

In order to determine _individual differences_ logically, there must be a _constant work or aim_; and this is the external means on which each personality builds itself up. When the external support is the same, and corresponds in general to the psychical needs of a given age, a difference of internal construction is _due to the individual himself_. On the other hand, if the means were different, the variations in reaction might be attributed to differences in the means.

Finally, it is obvious that in all scientific research, the _instrument of measurement_ must be fixed. But each _thing to be measured_ requires a special instrument, and the constant instrument in psychical measurement should be "the method of education."

A series of formulae, such as the Binet-Simon tests, can neither measure anything, nor give even an approximate idea of intellectual levels of intelligence according to age; as to the children who respond, whence is their response derived? How far is this due to the intrinsic activity of the individual, and how far to the action of environment? And if the portion due to environment be ignored, who can determine what intrinsic psychical value should be given to the response?

In each personality we must recognize two parts: one is the individual, natural, spontaneous activity by means of which elements may be taken from the environment wherewith the personality may be elaborated internally, constructed and augmented, and hence _characterized_; another part is the external instrument with which all this may be done. For instance, a child who at the age of four can recognize sixty-four colors, shows that he possesses remarkable activity in the perception of colors, and in the arrangement of them in gradation in his mind, etc.; but he also shows that he has had the means to accomplish this achievement; he has had, for instance, sixty-four color-tablets, with which he has been able to practise at his leisure and undisturbed, as long as was necessary for such a.s.similation.

The psychical factor P is the sum of two factors, one internal, the other external:

P = I + E

of these the unknown, non-directly measurable factor I may be indicated by X:

P = X + E

If we were to compare two children, one of whom has had at his disposal the sixty-four colors in the conditions described above, and another who has been left to himself in poor surroundings, where gray and brown tints prevail, and who seems dull and un.o.bservant, etc., we should find a very remarkable psychical difference. Such a difference is not, however, intrinsic; it might well be that, subjected to the same conditions as the first child, the second would recognize the sixty-four colors. The judgment we should give in such a case would be based upon an external factor, not upon internal potentialities. We should really be appraising two different environments, not two different individuals.

To enable us to judge of individual differences, it would be necessary for the two children to have had _the same means of development_. In this case, if at the same age they were not equally capable of distinguis.h.i.+ng the sixty-four colors, but if, for instance, one of the two could recognize only thirty of these, a true individual psychical difference would be apparent. One of the tests proposed by one of the greatest authorities on experimental psychology in Italy, to determine the intellectual level of sub-normal (backward or deficient) children, was to make a child pick out the largest and the smallest cube in a series. This choice, in common with nearly all the tests proposed for the same purpose, we considered quite independently of the influence of _culture_ and _education_; and it was appreciated as the expression of an intimate, personal activity of the intelligence itself. But if one of the deficient children I had educated on my method had been subjected to the test, he would, in virtue of a long sensory training, have chosen the largest and the smallest cube very much more easily than the children selected by the psychologist from his special schools; and my deficient child might even have been not only younger, but even more backward intellectually than the other.

The test would therefore have measured the different methods of education, whereas the psychical differences between the two children, really existent by reason of age or of intellectual attainment, would have remained absolutely obscure.

Man is a fusion of personality and education, and education includes the series of experiences he undergoes during his life. The two things cannot be separated in the individual: intelligence without acquirement is an abstraction. That which holds good of all living beings: that the individual cannot be divorced from his environment, is more profoundly true in its application to psychical life, because the content of environment, const.i.tuting the means of auto-experience which evolves man, is an essential part of him, and, indeed, is the individual himself. Nevertheless, we all know that the psychical individual is not his environment, but a life in himself.

Given the formula

P = X + E

in which X is the internal and intrinsic part peculiar to the individual life, it may be said that every individual has his X. But in order to _approach_ to direct knowledge of X, it is essential to know P and E.

He who carries out an examination, or supposes himself to be performing a "psychical measurement" by dwelling on psychical results, is in reality measuring a mixture of two unknown quant.i.ties, one of which, being external to the individual, nullifies the results of research.

Hence, to study individual differences in isolated activities, such as the perception of colors, musical sounds, the letters of the alphabet; or the capacity for observation of surroundings and the detection of errors; or coordination of movements, language, etc., it is essential to have first determined a _constant_ element: the means of development offered by environment.

Here a simple and clearly defined difference between pedagogy and psychology manifests itself: pedagogy determines experimentally the means of development and the method of applying them while respecting the internal or personal liberty of the individual; psychology studies average reactions or individual reactions in the species or the individual. But the two things are two aspects of a single fact, which is the development of man; the individual and the environment are the two factors X and E of the same product: the psychical ent.i.ty.

Isolated psychical researches of a moral order must also, if they are to be of any real value, be based upon prolonged observation, _after the internal activities have become orderly_; because it is easy to make errors of judgment in a chaos. In clinical psychiatry or in criminal pathology, when we speak of "keeping a subject under observation" for purposes of diagnosis, we mean placing him in special surroundings, under hygienic and disciplinary conditions, etc., and observing him for some time in such an environment. Such a process has a value still more extensive and profound in the case of normal individuals in process of evolution. In such a case it is necessary not only to offer orderly external surroundings, but to reduce the chaotic internal world of the child to order, and, after this, to observe him for a considerable time.

We may offer as an ill.u.s.tration the following observations made upon two of the most interesting children who attended our schools. They were admitted into the training school for teachers during my last International Course in Rome.

ASPECTS OF THE TWO CHILDREN

_During the period they were retained as subjects for anthropological observation in the cla.s.s-room for teachers_

There was a considerable clamor among the students; some were talking, some laughing. In the center of the room stood a pedometer. The behavior of the two children was almost identical. They were sitting apart quietly, working at the lacing frames which they had gone spontaneously to fetch from a neighboring room; they did not look up at the noise, nor join in the laughter. Their att.i.tude was that of persons at work and anxious not to lose any time. When invited by a single gesture to come and be measured, they obeyed in a wonderful manner, leaving off work at once, and moving with smiles, as if fascinated; they evidently felt pleasure in obeying, and an internal delight which came from the consciousness of being able to work, and of being ready to leave something that they liked doing, at a summons to something of a higher order. They arranged themselves very carefully on the pedometer to be measured; when any modification was necessary in the position of the body, it sufficed to murmur a word in their ears and the almost imperceptible movement required was made with the utmost exact.i.tude; they could control their voluntary movements and direct them; they were able to translate the words they heard into actions: _this enabled them_ to obey, and this const.i.tuted for them a fascinating internal conquest. When the measuring was over, nothing was said; they waited expectantly for a moment, then gave an intelligent glance and a smile, which was, as it were, their greeting; they had understood, and they returned voluntarily to their corner to take up their frames and resume their work. Presently they were wanted again, and the same actions were repeated.