Habit breaking is possible only when a new habit is being formed in
place of the old one. A child will say, “I just can’t keep from
whispering,” telling thus both a truth and a falsehood. The truth is
that when the external conditions and the inner set of the mind are both
favorable, the habitual act is certain to occur. The falsehood is that
the child “cannot control the habit.”
Whispers need oftentimes a decisive shock in order to shake them loose
from an ingrained habit. This shaking up may be largely
self-administered if a tactful teacher knows how to make a pupil measure
himself and pass judgment on his own behavior.
Changing the seat breaks up the complex circumstances in which
whispering has hitherto been practiced. The removal to a new location
creates a mental shock, yet offers no insult to one’s personal feelings.
There is valuable aid in hurrying the mind of a pupil on from one point
to another while establishing a new set of ideas in the mind. Keeping a
pupil busy following your program by the presentation of new tasks,
duties, recreations, helps to save him from falling back into the moods
that have been the fruitful source of improper conduct.
When dealing with a disciplinary case, a wise administrator attempts,
just as far as possible, to keep a sharp eye on the train of events that
transpires in that pupil’s life. Any serious interruption of the
sequence of ideas and moods that are favorable to the reform,
necessarily postpones the fixation of the new trait, habit or
resolution.
Pupils will quickly learn that a firm disciplinary policy, a helpful
watchfulness, can be maintained without carrying with them an
aggravating scrutiny of conduct. Friendship and good fellowship can be
revealed through teamwork in the building of a character as well as in
the coaching of a football team.
Some of the best chums are those who occupy the relation of player and
coach. When on the athletic field the coach exercises rigid mandatory
control. The onlooker may suppose that he is something of a tyrant, but
the boys on the team know better; they sense his genuine good fellowship
underneath the harsh exterior. By common consent the future victory is
willingly bought with the price of undergoing these strenuous activities
under an apparently despotic supervision.
In like manner the school teacher must learn to exercise a positive
control over the activities of a pupil, which shall not abolish, but
covertly disclose, rather, a fine sense of the comradeship that binds a
good teacher to a responsive pupil.
Sometimes out of a spirit of helpfulness a child is led to whisper when,
in reality, the one to whom he whispers is most at fault, as in the
following instance taken from an experience in the Fourth Grade.