THE PROCESS OF EDUCATION
CONSCIOUS ADJUSTMENT
From the example of conscious adjustment previously considered, it would appear that the full process of such an adjustment presents the following characteristics:
1. The Problem.—The individual conceives the existence within his environment of a difficulty which demands adjustment, or which serves as a problem calling for solution.
2. A Selecting Process.—With this problem as a motive, there takes place within the experience of the individual a selecting of ideas felt to be of value for solving the problem which calls for adjustment.
3. A Relating Process.—These relevant ideas are associated in consciousness and form a new experience believed to overcome the difficulty involved in the problem. This new experience is accepted, therefore, mentally, as a satisfactory plan for meeting the situation, or, in other words, it adjusts the individual to the problem in hand.
4. Expression.—This new experience is expressed in such form as is requisite to answer fully the need felt in the original problem.
EDUCATION AS ADJUSTMENT
Example from Writing.—An examination of any ordinary educative process taken from school-room experience will show that it involves in some degree the factors mentioned above.
As a very simple example, may be taken the case of a young child learning to form capital letters with short sticks. Assuming that he has already copied letters involving straight lines, such as A, H, etc., the child, on meeting such a letter as C or D, finds himself face to face with a new problem. At first he may perhaps attempt to form the curves by bending the short thin sticks. Hereupon, either through his own failure or through some suggestion of his teacher, he comes to see a short, straight line as part of a large curve. Thereupon he forms the idea of a curve composed of a number of short, straight lines, and on this principle is able to express himself in such forms as are shown here.