Behavior in history.—Before the teacher can win a starting-point in her efforts to organize the activities of her school in such a manner that they may function in behavior, she must have a pretty clear notion as to what behavior really is. To gain this comprehensive notion she must review in her thinking the events that make up history. In the presence of each one of these events she must realize that this is the behavior in which antecedent activities functioned. Then she will be free to speculate upon the character of those activities, what modifications, accretions, or abrasions they experienced in passing from the place of their origin to the event before her, and whether like activities in another place or another age would function in a similar event. She need not be discouraged if she finds no adequate answer, for she will be the better teacher because of the speculation, even lacking a definite answer.
Machinery.—She must challenge every piece of machinery that meets her gaze with the question “Whence camest thou?” She knows, in a vague way, that it is the product of mind, but she needs to know more. She needs to know that the machine upon which she is looking did not merely happen, but that it has a history as fascinating as any romance if only she cause it to give forth a revelation of itself. She may find in tracing the evolution of the plow that the original was the forefinger of some cave man, in the remote past. For a certainty, she will find, lurking in some machine, in some form, the multiplication table, and this fact will form an interesting nexus between behavior in the form of the machine and the activities of the school. She will be delighted to learn that no machine was ever constructed without the aid of the multiplication table, and when she is teaching this table thereafter she does the work with keener zest, knowing that it may function in another machine.
Art.—When she looks at the “Captive Andromache” by Leighton she is involved in a network of speculations. She wonders by what devious ways the mind of the artist had traveled in reaching this type and example of behavior. She wonders whether the artistic impulse was born in him or whether it was acquired. She sees that he knew his Homer and she would be glad to know just how his reading of the “Iliad” had come to function in this particular picture. She further wonders what lessons in drawing and painting the artist had had in the schools that finally culminated in this masterpiece, and whether any of his classmates ever achieved distinction as artists. She wonders, too, whether there is an embryo artist in her class and what she ought to do in the face of that possibility. Again she wonders how geography, grammar, and spelling can be made to function in such a painting as Rosa Bonheur’s “The Plough Oxen,” and her wonder serves to invest these subjects with new meaning and power.
Shakespeare.—In the school at Stratford they pointed out to her the desk at which Shakespeare sat as a lad, with all its boyish hieroglyphics, and her thought instinctively leaped across the years to “The Tempest,” “King Lear,” and “Hamlet.” She pondered deeply the relation between the activities of the lad and the behavior of the man, wondering how much the school had to do with the plays that stand alone in literature, and whether he imbibed the power from associations, from books, from people, or from his ancestors. She wondered what magic ingredient had been dropped into the activities of his life that had proven the determining factor in the plays that set him apart among men. She realizes that his behavior was distinctive, and she fain would discover the talisman whose potent influence determined the bent and power of his mind. And she wonders, again, whether any pupil in her school may ever exemplify such behavior.
History.—When she reads her history she has a keener, deeper, and wider interest than ever before, for she now realizes that every event of history is an effect, whose inciting causes lie back in the years, and is not fortuitous as she once imagined. She realizes that the historical event may have been the convergence of many lines of thinking emanating from widely divergent sources, and this conception serves to make her interest more acute. In thus reasoning from effect back to cause she gains the ability to reason from cause to effect and, therefore, her teaching of history becomes far more vital. She is studying the philosophy of history and not a mere catalogue of isolated and unrelated facts. History is a great web, and in the events she sees the pattern that minds have worked. She is more concerned now with the reactions of her pupils to this pattern than she is with mere names and dates, for these reactions give her a clew to tendencies on the part of her pupils that may lead to results of vast import.
Poetry.—In every poem she reads she finds an illustration of mental and spiritual behavior, and she fain would find the key that will discover the mental operations that conditioned the form of the poem. She would hark back to the primal impulse of each bit of imagery, and she analyzes and appraises each word and line with the zeal and skill of a connoisseur. She would estimate justly and accurately the activities that functioned in this sort of behavior. She seeks for the influences of landscapes, of sky, of birds, of sunsets, of clouds,—in short, of all nature, as well as of the manifestations of the human soul. Thus the teacher gains access into the very heart of nature and life and can thus cause the poem to become a living thing to her pupils. In all literature she is ever seeking for the inciting causes; for only so can she prove an inspiring guide and counselor in pointing to them the way toward worthy achievements.
Attitude of teacher.—In conclusion, then, we may readily distinguish the vitalized teacher from the traditional teacher by her attitude toward the facts set down in the books. The traditional teacher looks upon them as mere facts to be noted, connoted, memorized, reproduced, and graded, whereas the vitalized teacher regards them as types of behavior, as ultimate effects of mental and spiritual activities. The traditional teacher knows that seven times nine are sixty-three, and that is quite enough for her purpose. If the pupil recites the fact correctly, she gives him a perfect grade and recommends him for promotion. For the vitalized teacher the bare fact is not enough. She does not disdain or neglect the mechanics of her work, but she sees beyond the present. She sees this same fact merging into the operations of algebra, geometry, trigonometry, calculus, physics, and engineering, until it finally functions in some enterprise that redounds to the well-being of humanity.
Conclusion.—To her every event of history, every fact of mathematics and science, every line of poetry, every passage of literature is pregnant with meaning, dynamic, vibrant, dramatic, and prophetic. Nothing can be dull or prosaic to her electric touch. All the facts of the books, all the emotions of life, and all the beauties of nature she weaves into the fabric of her dreams for her pupils. The goal of her aspirations is far ahead, and around this goal she sees clustered those who were her pupils. In every recitation this goal looms large in her vision. She can envisage the viewpoint of her pupils, and thus strives to have them envisage hers. She yearns to have them join with her in looking down through the years when the activities of the school will be functioning in worthy behavior.
Questions and Exercises
- Discuss the relative importance of environment as a factor in the behavior of plants; animals; children; men.
- How may an understanding of the mutual reaction of the child and his environment assist the teacher in planning for character building in pupils?
- Make specific suggestions by which children may influence their environment.
- Discuss the vitalized teacher’s contribution to the environment of the child.
- After reading this chapter give your definition of “behavior.”
- Discuss the author’s idea of leadership.
- Define education in terms of behavior, environment, and heredity.
- Account for the difference in behavior of some of the characters mentioned in the chapter.
- How may the vitalized teacher be distinguished from the traditional teacher in her attitude toward facts?
- Discuss the doctrine of educational predestination.