Training the Teacher

by A. F. Schauffler; Martin Grove Brumbaugh; Antoinette Abernethy Lamoreaux; Marion Lawrance

The Intermediate Age (Concluded)

26. Opportunities of the Intermediate Age.—There is a significant difference in the purpose of the opportunities presented during childhood and during adolescence. If they were to be summed up in key-words, that for childhood would be absorption; for adolescence, adjustment.

The opportunities of childhood converge toward supplying the soul with material needful for growth—influences, impressions, and a mass of facts more or less unconnected in the beginning. But this is only the first step in character building. These materials must be arranged, facts must be related to one another, and the life must be related to other lives in real interest, sympathy, and service. This process of relating fact to fact, life to life, and each soul anew to God is the paramount task of adolescence, even though absorption continues with almost unabated strength.

Analyzing the opportunities which are presented to the Intermediate teacher in this new adjustment of life, three stand out prominently:

(1) The opportunity to foster high ideals. Whether it be consciously defined or not, every one has that toward which ambitions and effort go forth, and this ideal determines what character shall be. No one can give an ideal to another, as a book is handed over, for it is a personal thing, to be fashioned by each soul for itself out of that which it has absorbed through the years.

It is in the transition from childhood to maturity that every life decides what (for it) seems most worth while, and to this ideal makes surrender of thought, desire, and effort. Is not God's gracious purpose evident, in that this is the time when life is most easily influenced?

(2) Opportunity to develop self-reliance. A life cannot count for God and for others unless it can make decisions and meet tests by itself. The power to do this comes only through effort to do it. During the Intermediate age, the young people may be more and more thrown upon their own resources, permitted to decide matters for themselves, learning wiser judgment through mistakes as well as successes. One of the most serious errors on the part of the teacher lies at this very point, dictating instead of suggesting, choosing for the pupil instead of allowing him to choose, thinking for him instead of stimulating every power of his soul to rise to a personal solution of the problem in hand. If strength and independence of character do not come in these years of adjustment, the probabilities are that life will always be weak and vacillating.

(3) The opportunity to strengthen the altruistic feeling or "love for the other."—In the broadening and deepening experience of adolescence such conceptions as love, suffering, sacrifice, and surrender reveal a new meaning and strange force of attraction. No opportunity comparable to the one presented in this awakening ever returns, as the soul, with life before it, stands at the divergence of the paths, one leading toward God and service, the other away from him into self, and deliberate, decisive choice to be made.

If through the influence of the Holy Spirit the pathway of service be chosen, two laws of God tend to make it permanent; (a) The law of growth and development. If the feelings have proper nourishment, i. e., something to arouse them, and are given expression in action, they will just as surely grow strong as a well-nourished, vigorous body, and obviously, the stronger the feelings of loving interest, the more assured is the life of service. (b) The law of habit. A feeling will become habitual if continually indulged and expressed, and it is during adolescence that habits are permanently fixed.

27. Needs of the Intermediate Age.—The needs of this period are of two sorts—important and imperative. It is exceedingly important that the pupil be treated with consideration, respect, and appreciation, that he be given good literature, that he be guarded and guided in his social life. It is imperative, however, that he be established in the right relation to God and to his neighbor at this time of new consciousness of these relationships. Four things will definitely further this supreme end:

(1) The teacher with the vision of what may be done. If he is not disobedient to the vision, it will lead him to close fellowship with God and the pupil, for two things are evident,—he cannot lead the pupil unless he is in sympathetic touch with him, nor can he lead him to any higher place than he himself occupies. If he be in vital relation with God and live with the pupil in his ambitions, discouragements, successes, temptations, the most dynamic external force that can operate in this period will be his to wield, namely, a spiritual personal influence.

(2) Definite decisions. The danger-point in this crisis lies in permitting these newly awakened feelings to be dissipated without decision and action. If this occurs they weaken, the impulse to take the right stand lessens, and irresolution finally becomes the tacit choice of the self-seeking life.

(3) Definite responsibilities. A life of service is made up of definite servings. The beauty and duty of loving sacrifice appeal to the emotions, but a concrete thing to be done calls the will into action. To every pupil should be given definite tasks both in the class itself and in the church, in order to arouse effort and make the thought of service habitual.

(4) Definite objects of benevolence. The teachers of the Intermediate age can almost determine when the world shall be given to Jesus Christ. At no time can a permanent interest in missionary enterprises and philanthropies at home be so easily launched as now if the subjects considered be concrete, enthusiastically presented on a basis of facts, and followed by definite response in gift, prayer, or service.

28. Difficulties in the Intermediate Age.

(1) Lack of mental balance and consequent instability of conduct.

(2) The fascination of the social world and the growing interest of each sex in the other.

(3) The half-way position between childhood and maturity which retains the immaturity of childhood, but feels the selfhood of the man.

(4) The attraction of the external rather than of intrinsic worth. In this is the key to many of the problems. What appears to advantage allures, even if it be not the best. This gives superficial standards of measuring people and things and easily opens the way to harmful influences at the critical time when ideals and life purposes are forming. The teacher himself is the most important factor in the solution of these problems, not by any attempt to force, but by a patient, suggestive, and inspiring touch upon the pupil's life.

29. Results to be Expected.—The pupil ought to leave this period in the right attitude toward God and toward his neighbor. To render this attitude strong and unchangeable is the work of the next period.