Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education

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What is true of our idea of an orange is true of every other idea.
Whether it be the understanding of a plant, an animal, a city, a
picture, a poem, an historical event, an arithmetical problem, or a
scientific experiment, the process is always the same. The apperceptive
process of interpreting the new by selecting and relating elements of
former experience, or the process of analysis-synthesis, is universal in
learning. Expressed in another form, what is at first indistinct and
indefinite becomes clear and defined through attention selecting, for
the interpretation of the new presentation, suitable old ideas and
setting up relationships among them. Analysis, or selection, is
incomplete without an accompanying unification, or synthesis; synthesis,
or organization, is impossible without analysis, or selection. It is on
account of the mind's ability to unify a number of mental factors into a
single experience, that the process of unification, or synthesis, is
said to imply economy within our experiences. This fact will become even
more evident, however, when later we study such mental processes as
sense perception and conception.

INTERACTION OF PROCESSES

It is to be noted, however, that the selecting and the relating of the
different interpreting ideas during the learning process are not
necessarily separate and distinct parts of the lesson. In other words,
the mind does not first select out of its former knowledge a whole mass
of disconnected elements, and then later build them up into a new
organic experience. There is, rather, in almost every case, a continual
interplay between the selecting and relating activity, or between
analysis and synthesis, throughout the whole learning process. As soon,
for instance, as a certain feature, or characteristic, is noted, this
naturally relates itself to the central problem. When later, another
characteristic is noted, this may relate itself at once both with the
topic and with the formerly observed characteristic into a more complete
knowledge of the object. Thus during a lesson we find a gradual growth
of knowledge similar to that illustrated in the case of the scholar's
knowledge of the triangle, involving a continual interplay of analysis
and synthesis, or of selecting and relating different groups of ideas
relative to the topic. This would he illustrated by noting a pupil's
study of the cat. The child may first note that the cat catches and eats
rats and mice, and picks meat from bones. These facts will at once
relate themselves into a certain measure of knowledge regarding the food
of the animal. Later he may note that the cat has sharp claws, padded
feet, long pointed canines, and a rough tongue; these facts being also
related as knowledge concerning the mouth and feet of the animal. In
addition to this, however, the latter facts will further relate
themselves to the former as cases of adaptation, when the child notes
that the teeth and tongue are suited to tearing food and cleaning it
from the bones, and that its claws and padded feet are suited to
surprising and seizing its living prey.

=Example from Study of Conjunctive Pronoun.=--This continuous selecting
and relating throughout a process of learning is also well illustrated
in the pupil's process of learning the _conjunctive pronoun_. By
bringing his old knowledge to bear on such a sentence as "The men _who_
brought it returned at once"; the pupil may be asked first to apperceive
the subordinate clause, _who brought it_. This will not likely be
connected by the pupil at first with the problem of the value of _who_.
From this, however, he passes to a consideration of the value of the
clause and its relation. Hereupon, these various ideas at once
co-ordinate themselves into the larger idea that _who_ is conjunctive.
Next, he may be called upon to analyse the subordinate clause. This, at
first, also may seem to the child a disconnected experience. From this,
however, he passes to the idea of _who_ as subject, and thence to the
fact that it signifies man. Thereupon these ideas unify themselves with
the word _who_ under the idea _pronoun_. Thereupon a still higher
synthesis combines these two co-ordinated systems into the more complex
system, or idea--_conjunctive pronoun_.

[Illustration]

This progressive interaction of analysis and synthesis is illustrated by
the accompanying figure, in which the word _who_ represents the
presented unknown problem; _a_, _b_, and _c_, the selecting and relating
process which results in the knowledge, _conjunction_; _a'_, _b'_, and
_c'_, the building up of the _pronoun_ notion; and the circle, the final
organization of these two smaller systems into a single notion,
_conjunctive pronoun_.

The learning of any fact in history, the mastery of a poem, the study of
a plant or animal, will furnish excellent examples of these subordinate
stages of analysis and synthesis within a lesson. It is to be noted
further that this feature of the learning process causes many lessons to
fall into certain well marked sub-divisions. Each of these minor
co-ordinations clustering around a sub-topic of the larger problem, the
whole lesson separates itself into a number of more or less distinct
parts. Moreover, the child's knowledge of the whole lesson will largely
depend upon the extent to which he realizes these parts both as separate
co-ordinations and also as related parts of the whole lesson problem.

ALL KNOWLEDGE UNIFIED

Nor does this relating activity of mind confine itself within the single
lesson. As each lesson is organized, it will, if fully apprehended, be
more or less directly related with former lessons in the same subject.
In this way the student should discover a unity within the lessons of a
single subject, such as arithmetic or grammar. In like manner, various
groups of lessons organize themselves into larger divisions within the
subject, in accordance with important relations which the pupil may read
into their data. Thus, in grammar, one sequence of lessons is organized
into a complete knowledge of sentences; another group, into a complete
knowledge of inflection; a smaller group within the latter, into a
complete knowledge of tense or mood. It is thus that the mind is able to
construct its mass of knowledge into organized groups known as sciences,
and the various smaller divisions into topics.

CHAPTER XII

APPLICATION OF KNOWLEDGE

OR

LAW OF EXPRESSION

=Practical Significance of Knowledge.=--In our consideration of the
fourth phase of the learning process, or the law of expression, it is
necessary at the outset to recall what has already been noted regarding
the correlation of knowledge and action. In this connection it was
learned that knowledge arises naturally as man faces a difficulty, or
problem, and that it finds significance and value in so far as it
enables him to meet the practical and theoretical difficulties with
which he may be confronted. In other words, man is primarily a doer, and
knowledge is intended to guide the conduct of the individual along
certain recognized lines. This being the case, while instruction aims to
control the process by which the child is to acquire valuable social
experience, or knowledge, it is equally important that it should promote
skill by correlating that knowledge with expression, or should strive to
influence action while forming character. To apperceive, for instance,
the rules of government and agreement in grammar will have a very
limited value if the student is not able to give expression to these in
his own conversation. It becomes imperative, therefore, that as far as
possible, expression should enter as a factor in the learning process.

=Examples of Expression.=--Man's expressive acts are found, however, to
differ greatly in their form. When one is hurt, he distorts his face
and cries aloud; when he hears a good speech he claps his hands and
shouts approval; when he reads an amusing story he laughs; when he
learns of the death of a friend he sheds tears; when he is affronted his
face grows red, his muscles tense, and he strikes a blow or breaks into
a torrent of words; when he has seen a striking incident he tells some
one about it or writes an account to a distant friend. When his feelings
are stirred by a patriotic address, he springs to his feet and sings,
"God Save the King." The desire that his team should carry the foot-ball
to the southern goal causes the spectator to lean and push in that
direction. When he conceives how he may launch a successful venture, the
business man at once proceeds to carry it into effect. These are all
examples of _expression_. Every impression, idea, or thought, tends
sooner or later to work itself out in some form of motor expression.

TYPES OF ACTION

=A. Uncontrolled Actions.=--Passing to an examination of such physical,
or motor, activities, we find that man's expressive acts fall into three
somewhat distinct classes. A young child is found to engage in many
movements which seem destitute of any conscious direction. Some of these
movements, such as breathing, sneezing, winking, etc., are found to be
useful to the child, and imply what might be termed inherited control of
conduct, though they do not give expression to any consciously organized
knowledge, or experience. At other times, his bodily movements seem to
be mere random, or impulsive, actions. These latter actions at times
arise in a spontaneous way as a result of native bodily vigour, as, for
instance, stretching, kicking, etc., as seen in a baby. At other times
these uncontrolled acts have their origin in the various impressions
which the child is receiving from his surroundings, or environment, as
when the babe impulsively grasps the object coming in contact with his
hand. Although, moreover, these instinctive movements may come in time
under conscious control, such actions do not in themselves imply
conscious control or give expression to organized knowledge.

=B. Actions Subject to Intelligent Control.=--To a second class of
actions belong the orderly movements which are both produced and
directed by consciousness. When, in distinction to the movements
referred to above, a child pries open the lid to see what is in the box,
or waves his hand to gain the attention of a companion, a conscious aim,
or intention, produces the act, and conscious effort sustains it until
the aim is reached. The distinction between mere impulsive and
instinctive actions on the one hand, and guided effort on the other,
will be considered more fully in Chapter XXX.

=C. Habitual Actions.=--Thirdly, as has been noted in Chapter II, both
consciously directed and uncontrolled action may, by repetition, become
so fixed that it practically ceases to be directed by consciousness, or
becomes habitual.

Our expressive actions may be classified, therefore, into three
important groups as follows:

1. Instinctive, reflex, and impulsive action
2. Consciously controlled, or directed action
3. Habitual action.

NATURE OF EXPRESSION

=Implies Intelligent Control.=--It is evident that as a stage in the
learning process, expression must deal primarily with the second class
of actions, since its real purpose is to correlate the new conscious
knowledge with action. Expression in education, therefore, must
represent largely consciously produced and consciously directed action.

=Conscious Expression may Modify A. Instinctive Acts.=--While this is
true, however, expression, as a stage in the educative process, will
also have a relation to the other types of action. As previously noted,
the expression stage of the learning process may be used as a means to
bring instinctive and impulsive acts under conscious control. This is
indeed an important part of a child's education. For instance, it is
only by forming ideas of muscular movements and striving to express them
that the child can bring his muscular movements under control. It is
evident, therefore, that the expressive stage of the lesson can be made
to play an important part in bringing many instinctive and impulsive
acts under conscious direction. By expressing himself in the games of
the kindergarten, the child's social instinct will come under conscious
control. By directing his muscular movements in art and constructive
work, he gains the control which will in part enable him to check the
impulse to strike the angry blow. These points will, however, be
considered more fully in a study of the inherited tendencies in Chapter
XXI.

=B. Habits.=--Further, many of our consciously directed acts are of so
great value that they should be made more permanent through habituation.
Expression must, therefore, in many lessons be emphasized, not merely to
test and render clear present conscious knowledge, but also to lead to
habitual control of action, or to create skill. This would be especially
true in having a child practise the formation of figures and letters.
Although at the outset we must have him form the letter to see that he
really knows the outline, the ultimate aim is to enable him to form
these practically without conscious direction. In language work, also,
the child must acquire many idiomatic expressions as habitual modes of
speech.

TYPES OF EXPRESSION

Since the tendency to express our impressions in a motor way is a law of
our being, it follows that the school, which is constantly seeking to
give the pupil intelligent impressions, or valuable knowledge, should
also provide opportunity for adequate expression of the same. The forms
most frequently adopted in schools are speech and writing. Pupils are
required to answer questions orally or in writing in almost every school
subject, and in doing so they are given an opportunity for expression of
a very valuable kind. In fact, it would often be much more economical to
try to give pupils fewer impressions and to give them more opportunities
for expression in language. But written or spoken language is not the
only means of expression that the school can utilize. Pupils can
frequently be required to express themselves by means of manual
activity. In art, they represent objects and scenes by means of brush
and colour, or pencil, or crayon; in manual training, they construct
objects in cardboard and wood; in domestic science, they cook and sew.
The primary object of these so-called "new" subjects of the school
programme is not to make the pupils artists, carpenters, or
house-keepers, but partly to acquaint them with typical forms of human
activity and partly to give them means of expression having an educative
value. In arithmetic, the pupils express numerical facts by
manipulating blocks and splints, and measure quantities, distances,
surfaces, and solids. In geography, they draw maps of countries, model
them in sand or clay, and make collections to illustrate manufactures at
various stages of the process. In literature, they dramatize stories and
illustrate scenes and situations by a sketch with pencil or brush. In
nature study, they illustrate by drawings and make mounted collections
of plants and insects.

VALUE OF EXPRESSION

=A. Influences Conduct.=--In nature study, history, and literature, the
most valuable kind of expression is that which comes through some
modification of future conduct. That pupil has studied the birds and
animals to little purpose who needlessly destroys their lives or causes
them pain. He has studied the reign of King John to little purpose if he
is not more considerate of the rights of others on the playground. He
has gained little from the life of Robert Bruce, Columbus, or La Salle,
if he does not manfully attack difficulties again and again until he has
overcome them. He has not read _The Heroine of Vercheres_, or _The
Little Hero of Haarlem_ aright, if he does not act promptly in a
situation demanding courage. He has learned little from the story of
Damon and Pythias if he is not true to his friends under trying
circumstances, and he has not imbibed the spirit of _The Christmas
Carol_ if he is not sympathetic and kindly toward those less fortunate
than himself. From the standpoint of the moral life, therefore, right
knowledge is valuable only as it expresses itself in right action.

=B. Aids Impression.=--Apart from the fact that it satisfies a demand of
our being, expression is most important in that it tests the clearness
of the applied knowledge. We often think that our impression is clear,
only to discover its vagueness when we attempt to express it in some
form. People often say that they understand a fact thoroughly, but they
cannot exactly express it. Such a statement is usually incorrect. If the
impression were clear, the expression under ordinary circumstances would
also be clear. In this connection a danger should be pointed out. Pupils
sometimes express themselves in language with apparent clearness, when
in reality they are merely repeating words that they have memorized and
that are quite meaningless to them. The alert teacher can, however, by
judicious questioning, avoid being deceived in this regard.

=C. Adds to Clearness of Knowledge.=--Not only does expression test the
clearness of the apperceived new knowledge, but at the same time it
gives the knowledge greater clearness. We learn to know by doing. A
pupil realizes a story more fully when he has reproduced it for somebody
else. He images a scene described in a poem more clearly when he has
drawn it. He has a clearer idea of the volume of a cord when he has
actually measured out a cord of wood. He has a more accurate conception
of the difficulties attending the discoveries of La Salle when he has
drawn a map and traced the routes of his various expeditions. There is
much truth in the statement that one never fully knows some things until
he has taught them to somebody else. The teacher in grammar and
geography will often have occasion to realize this. Greater clearness of
impression means, of course, greater permanence. We remember best those
facts of which our impression was most vivid.

DANGERS OF OMITTING EXPRESSION

=A. Knowledge not Practical.=--It is apparent, then, that if the pupil
is not given opportunity for expression, his ideas are vague and
evanescent. Further than this, his capacities for _knowing_ will be
developed but his capacities for _doing_ ignored. His _intellectual_
powers will be exercised and his _volitional_ powers neglected. The
pupil is thus likely to develop into a mere _theorist_; and as the
tendencies of childhood are accentuated in later life, he becomes an
_impractical_ man. There are many men in the world who apparently know a
great deal, but who, through inability to make practical application of
their knowledge, are unsuccessful in life. It is, however, seriously to
be doubted whether knowledge is ever _real_ until it has been worked out
in practice and conduct. To avoid the danger of becoming impractical, a
pupil should have every opportunity for expression.

=B. Feelings Weakened.=--A second serious danger of neglecting
expression lies in the field of the emotions. To have generous emotions
continually aroused and never to act upon them, to have one's sympathies
frequently stirred and never to perform a kindly act, to experience
feelings of love and never to express them in acts of service, is to
cultivate a weakness of character. A classic instance of this is that of
the lady who wept bitterly over the imaginary sorrows of the heroine in
the play while her coachman was freezing to death outside the theatre.
If worthy emotions are ever to be of the slightest moral value to us,
they must be expressed in action. The pupil frequently has his emotions
stirred in the lessons in literature, history, and nature study, and
there are situations constantly arising in the school room, on the
playground, on the street, and in the home, that afford opportunity for
expression. To give a single instance, there is a story in the _Ontario
Third Reader_ by Elizabeth Phelps Ward, called "Mary Elizabeth." No
pupil could read that story without being stirred with a deep pity and
yet profound admiration for the pathetic figure of poor little Mary
Elizabeth. The natural expression for such emotions would be a more
kindly and sympathetic attitude towards some unfortunate child in the
school.

RELATION OF EXPRESSION TO IMPRESSION

=Knowledge Tends Toward Expression.=--On account of the evident
connection between knowledge and action, the law of expression has
formulated itself into a well-known pedagogical law of method--no
impression without expression. Like many other educational maxims,
however, this law may be interpreted in too wide a sense. The law of
expression in education claims only that valuable experiences, or
valuable forms of new knowledge, should not be built up in the child's
mind without adequate accompanying expression. In the first case, as
already seen, many impressions come to us which are never seized upon
sufficiently by our consciousness to become intelligent rules for
conduct, or action. It is true, of course that, so far as such
impressions stimulate us, they tend toward expression, and to that
extent the maxim is true. For instance, when a child is impressed, say,
by a sudden strange sound, he has a tendency to express himself by
straining his attention, and when the man imagines an enemy is before
him, he finds his arms and fists assuming the fighting attitude.

=Expression at Times Inhibited.=--It is to be noted that the child
should early learn to form intelligent plans of action and postpone or
even condemn them as forms of expression. In other words, a child
should early learn to select and co-ordinate ideas into an orderly
system independently of their actual expression in physical action.
Without this power to suppress, or inhibit, expression, the child would
be unable adequately to weigh and compare alternative courses of action
and suppress such as seem undesirable. Such indeed is the weakness of
the man who possesses an impulsive nature. Although, therefore, it is
true that all knowledge is intended to serve in meeting actual needs, or
to function in the control of expression, it is equally true that not
every organized experience should find expression in action. Part at
least of man's efficiency must consist in his ability to organize a new
experience in an indirect way and condemn it as a rule of action. While,
therefore, we emphasize the importance, under ordinary conditions, of
having the child's knowledge function as directly as possible in some
form of actual expression, it is equally important to recognize that in
actual life many organized plans should not find expression in outer
physical action. This being the case, the divorce between organized
experience, or knowledge, and practical expression, which at times takes
place in school work, is not necessarily unsound, since it tends to make
the child proficient in separating the mental organizing of experience
from its immediate expression, and must, therefore, tend to make him
more capable of weighing plans before putting them into execution. This
will in turn habituate the child to taking the necessary time for
reflection between "the acting of a thing and the first purpose." This
question will be considered more fully in Chapter XXX, which treats of
the development of voluntary control.

It should be noted in conclusion that the law of expression as a fourth
stage of the learning process differs in purpose from the use of
physical action as a means of creating interest in the problem, as
referred to on page 62. When, for instance, we set a pupil who has no
knowledge of long measure to use the inch in interpreting the yard
stick, expressive action is merely a means of putting the problem before
the child in an interesting form on account of his liking for physical
action. When, on the other hand, the child later uses the foot or yard
as a unit to measure the perimeter of the school-room, he is applying
his knowledge of long measure, which has been acquired previously to
this expressive act.

CHAPTER XIII

FORMS OF LESSON PRESENTATION

The chief office of the teacher, in controlling the pupils' process of
learning, being to direct their self-activity in making a selection of
ideas from their former knowledge which shall stand in vital connection
with the problem, and lead finally to its solution, the question arises
in what form the teacher is to conduct the process in order to obtain
this desired result. Three different modes of directing the selecting
activity of the student are recognized and more or less practised by
teachers. These are usually designated the lecture method, the text-book
method, and the developing method.

THE LECTURE METHOD

=Example of Lecture Method.=--In the lecture method so-called, the
teacher tells the students in direct words the facts involved in the new
problem, and expects these words to enable the pupils to call up from
their old knowledge the ideas which will give the teacher's words
meaning, and thus lead to a solution of the problem. For example, in
teaching the meaning of alluvial fans in geography, a teacher might seek
to awaken the interpreting ideas by merely stating in words the
characteristic of a fan. This would involve telling the pupils that an
alluvial fan is a formation on the floor of a main river valley,
resulting from the depositing of detritus carried down the steep side of
the valley by a tributary stream and deposited in the form of a fan,
when the force of the water is weakened as it enters the more level
floor of the valley. To interpret this verbal description, however, the
pupil must first interpret the words of the teacher as sounds, and then
convert these into ideas by bringing his former knowledge to bear upon
the word symbols. If we could take it for granted that the pupil will
readily grasp the ideas here signified by such words as, formation, main
river valley, depositing, detritus, steep side, etc., and at once feel
the relation of these several ideas to the more or less unknown
object--alluvial fan--this method would undoubtedly give the pupil the
knowledge required.

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