A The Point of View in Teaching R. RAY SCOTT, PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION, HMONG the valuable mental endowments possessed by man none ought to be more highly prized than his ability to make choices. Choosing is a rational process which involves the use of standards of relative value. The mere possession of a set of standards is no guarantee that the individual has done some thinking, for it is a notorious fact that "homo sapiens" acquires the major part of his fundamental beliefs by a process of absorption from the primary groups with which he is identified, a process singularly uncharacterized by reflective thinking. However, the use of one's code in situations where conflict is present, that is, in situations permitting or demanding choice, calls for a certain measure of ratiocination. In this man finds his best weapon in the battle for adjustment. His ammunition consists of standards or valuations. Is a proposed course of action or anticipated experience to be preferred to an alternative one? The answer is found by comparing the two in the light of one's accepted values. Which will render the greater pleasure, beauty, utility, justice or satisfaction? It is very obvious that it makes a vast difference what standards a person holds, both as determining his success in living on the level desired, and as determining the level upon which he will desire to live. Mr. Chesterton is quoted as saying, "We think that for a landlady considering a lodger it is important to know his income, but still more important to know his philosophy. We think that for a general about to fight an enemy it is important to know the enemy's numbers, but still more important to know the enemy's philosophy." If a man's philosophy is important to his landlady and his enemies how much more important is it to himself. The choices that an individual makes reveal his values. What one really values one will strive to attain. Therefore our values become ends or goals. Goals are not something off at the end of life which we may or may not reach; they are proximate, functioning in moment-to-moment living. Every satisfying experience a person has is a goal attained. However, in view of the fact that goals have a selective or determinative effect on experience, the quality of the experience had will be tremendously affected by the degree to which the values embody reflective thought. The truth of this statement is seen nowhere quite so strikingly as in a society where individualism has made heavy inroads on the folkways. It is conceded that a man could make a pair of shoes simply by following a set of instructions formulated by another, and could reduce his procedure to habit. He makes a good pair of shoes only because some one else has dealt with relative values. It can readily be seen where we would come out if this simple expedient of avoiding responsibility should become universal. Also we must recognize that all life situations are not as simple as converting a given amount of material into a given product. While admitting that much of life can be met adequately on an habitual plane, we cannot avoid recognizing that there are still large areas that call for a thinking adjustment, and that here we have a need for standards of values, i. e., goals or objectives. For illustrative purposes let us see how this bears upon a typical professional activity, that of teaching. We can allow at the outset that teaching is a series of complex reactions since the situation to be met is one which has many variables. It follows that habitual reactions will not suffice, although it is possible for a teacher to reduce his actions in the classroom very largely to a set of habits; in which case he would have to shut his eyes to variables, and develop a callousness to consequences other than those expressed as habit reactions on the part of his pupils. Where a case of this kind is found you have teaching on its lowest possible level. A higher level is recognizable where an instructor is motivated by ends which can be expressed only in terms of immediate lessons taught. Such ends are not an adequate basis for teaching because they generally assume values in the subject-matter or activities employed of which the teacher has no intelligent appreciation. A craftsman working on this level may be working intelligently and effectively, but he is in danger of demagoguery. The immediacy of his ends will invariably lead to barrenness of subject-matter. On the highest plane of teaching effectiveness the instructor adds to immediate subject-matter objectives ends which are more comprehensive. That is, he has a philosophy of education which makes a difference in his teaching. This he has distilled from an exhaustive study of life in all its various aspects. We are moved to say here that no man is really fit to teach until he has tasted enough of life to view it impersonally, and then he is too old. The profession must look for its salvation to the philosophic youth-whatever may be his age. We have set up a thesis which will need no argumentative buttressing for those precious teachers who see in their profession something more than mere subjects and lessons, but one which will hardly stand of its own weight for those "practical" souls who think philosophy simply a convenient blind for inefficiency. The philosopher who pleads for a point of view in teaching cannot escape the pragmatic test: neither will he seek to do so if he be a true philosopher. What advantage, then, do we expect from placing teaching on a philosophic basis, or to be more explicit, from training each teacher to instruct in the light of perceived values which have more than an immediate application to the subjectmatter in hand? Our question is in short, What is the value of an aim? The most obvious answer is that it introduces plan into one's procedure thus making for economy of time and energy. This can be claimed for any aim, however proxi mate. The more remote aims which are emancipated from the particularism of a school "subject" partake of this advantage, but, since I have accepted the "onus probandi" for a philosophy of education, I cannot let the argument rest at this point. The particular advantage of ultimate ends is one which depends upon the character of those ends. Simply to say that ultimate ends help a teacher to teach so as to make for their realization begs the whole question. The crux of the matter is: What are these ends which are to constitute a philosophy of education? We hasten to allay any premature suspicions by stating that we have in mind neither metaphysical systems such as used to preempt the field of philosophy or dogmatic creeds, political, religious or social. We are not desirous of making Transcendentalists or Positivists out of our children any more than we are of making Republicans, Socialists, Evolutionists, or Lutherans of them-excellent as these all are. It is an educational philosophy we want. It must be simple enough to provide practical guidance in everyday teaching, and yet comprehensive enough to avoid stifling progress. Let us not minimize the difficulties to be overcome in formulating such a philosophy. We are familiar with the type of effort which ascribes to the study of a given subject so many values that the teacher staggers before the task set. In his monograph entitled "The Teaching of History in the High School," published in 1913, Mr. Ernest Hartwell, after mentioning that the high school teacher has at his disposal a maximum of one hundred and fifty hours, sadly susceptible to curtailment, asserts: "The purpose of this monograph is to discuss the means by which the teacher can engender in his students a genuine enthusiasm for the subject, stimulate research and historical judgment, correlate history, geography, literature, and the arts; cultivate proper ideals of government, establish a habit of systematic note-taking, and possibly prepare the student for college entrance examinations." A rather ambitious program. A more recent statement appears on page 174 of the bulletin, "State of West Virginia Organization, Administration, and Course of Study of Junior and Senior High Schools," 1927, where eighteen very worthy objectives are listed for the course in Modern World History. It is necessary to remind oneself of the natural proclivity of specialists to claim everything for their subjects so as not to overlook anything. This may be due in part to laudable enthusiasm, and in part to the instinct of self-preservation called into play by the competition among subjects in the modern curriculum. Liberally discounting these considerations it seems reasonable to suppose that history may be a source of appreciation or pleasure, and it may aid in the elucidation of problematical situations, thus facilitating adaptation. This gives us a key to a simple statement of an educational philosophy. After all an individual's main business in life is living, that is, appreciating and solving the problems arising from a changing world and a changing organism. Of course this is something more than mere adaptation, but the adaptation concept will adequately cover the situation provided we do not conceive it in terms of a static world. In simplest phraseology the main purpose of education is a thinking adjustment to life. A large amount of emphasis has been laid on this point in recent years. It hardly seems possible to overstress it, though it is capable of many misapplications. The human race has definitely launched itself into the age of reason, although, it must be confessed, the masses have not committed themselves very extensively to this manner of life as yet. There have not been wanting scholars, like Rousseau, who believed that the world was overcivilized, and that the instincts and feelings were adequate guides to life. There are not wanting today dangerous teachers, too often writers of fiction, who advocate by suggestion and precept that people consult only their desires and act according to their dictates. "Fay ce que vouldras" This doctrine might have been well in the Abbey of Theleme, but it would be disastrous in twentieth century America. |