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.
Organization of Routine
The anticipation of social needs passes insensibly into the organization of regular forms of routine to be followed in the class exercise itself. The class exercise is not different in its essentials from any social gathering. It has been found necessary in meetings of any type to require one who would speak to secure the floor. It would lead to social chaos if everyone in an assembly spoke his mind according to his own personal impulse.
The difficulty in applying this analogy to the classroom and the difficulty in general about all fixed routine is that free discussion is often defeated by formality. The teacher is anxious, if he understands his task, to draw out the enthusiastic response of every member of his class. How to do this and at the same time avoid confusion which will disturb the whole group is a nice problem of adjustment. Formal methods should be required and adhered to far enough to insure the smooth operation of the social life of the class, but spontaneity should be prized and conserved.
Another and perhaps more fortunate example of routine to avoid confusion is to be found in an effective beginning of a class exercise. When a recitation is about to begin, it is a matter of major importance that the teacher be ready with something which will attract the attention of the whole class. Some instructors accomplish this with the first question; some resort to such a device as the announcement of the next assignment; some begin with a summary of the last lesson; some have the members of the class write for a few minutes. In sharp contrast with these methods which indicate that the instructor is ready and knows what he wants done are the aimless wanderings of some instructors who look over their desks for a book which seems to be lost in the débris, or the time-consuming roll call indulged in by others.
A third type of illustration of orderly procedure is the systematization of methods of passing in material. If pupils arrange their written work or their books or other material in a regular fashion, there will be no disorder in handling them. The social group will move as a unit, and this common movement will itself make for social solidarity.
There is much sanction in social psychology for this emphasis on routine. The customs of primitive peoples take on the character of sacred rites, so essential are they to the common life of the social group. Even in civilized society the demands of the group are paramount. There is in the family a fixed time for eating meals, not because hunger coincides in its reappearances with the movements of the clock but because the joint activities of a social group proceed better when they are systematized.
The routinizing of school work can go too far. The requirement has been imposed within the memory of this adult generation that pupils sit in their seats through long recitation periods with their hands behind their backs. Marching in lockstep from class to class has sometimes been required. The list could be lengthened indefinitely. The trouble in most of these cases is that the teacher loses sight of the educational motive of all discipline and begins to think of so-called order as an end in itself.