Social Control through Anticipation
Examples of anticipatory arrangements are not difficult to find. All the material equipments of the school contribute to class management. The division of the building into small classrooms provides for the division of the school into manageable groups. The arrangement of seats and the precautions against the noise and distraction which result from the shuffling about of furniture are further examples of preparation in advance for the management of classes.
In like fashion, the program for the day is worked out in advance by the wise administrator. This program provides for a distribution of work and recreation such that there will be no undue tax on the child. The third-grade pupil, for example, cannot sit still for thirty-five minutes at a time, so the teacher changes the character of the exercise at the end of every twenty or thirty minutes.
Anticipatory measures of the type here pointed out are usually not thought of by the inexperienced teacher as devices of class management. Class discipline is usually assumed to be a matter of the moment. If one will learn to look ahead, it is surprising how far most situations can be anticipated. The first day a teacher meets a class it is possible to foresee that it will be safer to require certain members of the group to sit apart. It is better to arrange their seats at once rather than to wait until an overt act precipitates a separation as a punishment.
The fact is that unfavorable social situations usually grow out of conditions that are remote and cannot be dealt with adequately at the moment. The disorderly boy is often one whose physical condition is unfit. The school is beginning to recognize the importance of proper feeding and proper hours of sleep, and is taking steps to see that pupils receive at home and at the luncheon hour the kind of hygienic attention which will prepare them for the work of the class. The social situation in the classroom is thus anticipated by a whole series of preparatory moves which at first sight seem remote from the teacher’s direct task of meeting a class.
The attitude which is encouraged by a study of anticipatory measures is the same as that which is coming into the practice of medicine. There was a time when the physician regarded it as his chief duty to deal with disease after it had actually appeared. To-day the far-sighted practitioner is an advocate of what he calls preventive medicine. He aims to get the community interested in preparing in advance wholesome conditions which will conduce to health. The teacher’s task ought not to be that of constantly penalizing pupils who have done wrong; it should be rather that of preparing conditions which will reduce disorder to a minimum and promote to its highest degree orderly procedure in the class.