[Sidenote: Teacher Becomes Ringleader]
Miss Moss went from a small town to a two-room school in a mining
settlement, to teach the first four grades. The school consisted of
forty-two miners’ children, and one very pretty, well-dressed girl of
ten, Florence Adamson, who was the daughter of the company store-keeper.
This little girl’s mother was a clever dressmaker, who kept her daughter
in the smartest of frocks and the perkiest of big hair-ribbon bows. The
child was bright, learned her lessons easily and had always been a
leader of the other children, who regarded her as a very wonderful being
indeed.
Although Florence made trouble among the miners’ children occasionally,
she was always forgiven this when she “made up,” a process accomplished
by the aid of a winning manner and generous bribes of allday suckers and
gum. The children followed her wishes slavishly, adored every silly
thing she did, and regarded her childish naughtiness in school as the
acme of brilliance. They tried to stand in her good graces by outdoing
her in whatever she did; if she whispered, they talked in undertones,
and if she threw paper wads, they threw bits of coal.
Miss Moss had analyzed the situation by the end of the first week. She
saw that Florence had exercised more influence than the teacher, through
her ability to provide amusement for the pleasure-starved little people.
Her entertainment usually took the form of covert ridicule directed
toward the teacher, and she always organized and managed the playground
games, in so far as there were any. Miss Moss saw that she must
substitute her own wholesome leadership for the leadership of this
spoiled child. She saw that she must introduce a wholesome democracy for
the boss management of a skillful and unscrupulous little tyrant.
She brought back with her from her first week-end at home, several
pretty waists and frocks which she had not intended to wear to school;
for she saw that one element in her leadership must be the satisfaction
of the starved sense of beauty which lived in these miners’ children.
She brought back also some dotted Swiss sash-curtains for the windows;
but these she did not put up at once. She announced on Monday morning
that she had a surprise, and that she intended to let three pupils know
about it that afternoon after school. She was so very mysterious about
her secret that the children spent the day in speculation about it.
Florence found her efforts at entertainment, for once, quite ignored.
Of course Florence expected to be one of the three who were to share the
secret after school, but at four o’clock Miss Moss chose Edward Hare, a
great, overgrown boy who should have been in the seventh grade, and
Mollie Sluss, a thin, shy, little thing who always bent over a book that
she could never master, and Dicey Savage, who was Florence’s most
enthusiastic follower. Miss Moss did not intend that the charge should
miss fire. Florence headed a crowd which gathered at the windows to peep
in at the uncovering of the great secret, but Miss Moss merely directed
the favored ones to put on their things and go to her boarding-house.
Here each one was given a package to carry, and the quartet returned to
the schoolhouse. The first package proved to be sash-curtains; the
second contained the brass fixtures; but the third was put upon the
desk, with the promise that is should be opened when the curtains were
up.
“Clean hands first!” said Miss Moss, and there ensued a scrubbing bee.
Then the curtains were put up, with much awkward help from the children,
who were unused to such tasks. When all hung in snowy beauty, then Miss
Moss gathered her helpers about her, and told them fairy stories while
they ate the candy that was in the box. It was really a little party,
and a party is a rare thing in the life of a miner’s child.
That was Miss Moss’ beginning; three children in that school now
regarded her as a source of happiness and entertainment, and pretty
things. Florence had a rival; and in the days to come the children
slowly grew to feel that Miss Moss could make them have better times
than Florence could, and that pleasing Miss Moss paid better than
pleasing Florence. Miss Moss had no scruples of conscience in pursuing
this course, for she knew that human beings have to be won to right
courses of action long before they can be made to understand abstract
reasons for doing right. She knew she could not win those children by
preaching to them; she knew they would listen to a sermon only after
they had grown to love and trust her.
There were many steps to the process of readjusting the warped relations
in that school. Florence gradually, and not at all gracefully, accepted
her new position of plain lay member of the school, a person with no
special privileges, and with no abnormal influence. The climax came at
Christmas, when Miss Moss trained her little band to present a short
cantata in which an angel told the news of the birth of the Babe to
representatives of all the nations of the earth. The leading character
was the angel, and here Miss Moss encountered a common difficulty;
Florence was really the only child in school who could take the
character well. The others were all too shy or too phlegmatic.
Miss Moss had to choose between a pretty, successful performance, one
which would bring her praise and admiration, one which the company
store-keeper would report in glowing terms to the company itself, and
the final success of her scheme of normal adjustment. She made the shy
little Mollie Sluss the angel. Mollie stepped on the end of the sheet in
which she was draped, she forgot her part twice and could never be heard
at the back of the room; she lost one of her wings at an inopportune
moment, and she failed most lamentably to look like an angel. She looked
more like a lost soul which is too frightened even to ask the way back
to its habitat. Mollie was not a shining success as an angel, but as a
means to an end she did very well.
For Mollie’s father and mother sat in the audience, and their usually
heavy faces wore a look of pride as their pale little daughter blundered
through her leading part. Mollie had her first taste of leadership that
day; Mollie knew that Florence no longer fell heir to all the good
things just because she was Florence. Florence, meekly sitting in the
background among the heathen nations, accepted this new order of things
at last as inevitable, and submitted to taking her fair turn with the
others. Her bribes had ceased to produce results; she had been outbid by
one who could offer her very place as leader, as a prize for merit.
Miss Moss showed her mastery of the situation by raising other children
to prominence among the pupils and thereby calling attention and
admiration away from Florence who had heretofore monopolized the
applause of the children.
In doing this she gave no commands. She merely brought about naturally a
transference of admiration from Florence to others.
On the day when Miss Moss selected three pupils to help her prepare her
“surprise,” she acted wisely in naming those whom she wanted. Had she
asked, “Who would like to help me?” many pupils would have offered their
services and the selection of three would have caused much antagonism,
since the others who offered their services would be sure she knew they
wanted to help.
(2) _Higher grades._ In the higher grades a ringleader who arrays
himself against the teacher’s authority is much more exasperating than
is a similar pupil in the lower grades, not only because of his greater
influence upon other pupils, but also because it is much more difficult
for the teacher to make excuses for him. “They know better!” is the
thought that will intrude itself into the teacher’s consciousness to
make difficult any feeling of leniency toward offending pupils. What,
then, shall be done? Must the teacher watch the pupil closely and
whenever he discovers evil beginnings, punish the offender? No; that is
the method which in the past has driven thousands out of the school,
only to become permanent burdens to society and in many instances
paupers and criminals.
It will be necessary for the teacher to get the confidence of such a
pupil. Enlist his abilities in leadership. He will thus become a
valuable assistant to the teacher in “regulating” his clique of pupils.
The teacher should interest the ringleader in his work, and approve of
his efforts and work whenever possible. When there is some particular
task to be performed, have the ringleader do it. When a game is to be
organized, make him captain or leader, and so on. There are scores of
places where he can be pressed into service in such a way as to gain his
good will and confidence, and at the same time in such a way as to make
him an aid to his schoolmates rather than a detriment. When once his
confidence is won he will obey every command and wish.
Stating it briefly—if the ringleader feels you are on his side and are
sympathetic with him, then, just as surely as water runs down hill he
will come over to your side.
If you treat a boy as though he were on the same level with yourself,
you are taking the first and most important step in winning his
confidence. And he will immediately see that you get fair play,
especially if he is a ringleader.
Our experience with human nature tells us that a sure way to get the
confidence of another person is to coöperate with that person along the
line of his own interests.
If the above statements hold true of the grades, still more do they
apply to the high school.
(3) _High School._ Disciplinary problems in the high school should be
solved on the largest basis possible. The increased scope of vision
enables a pupil to view a situation in the larger connections. In the
grades each act tends to stand by itself. The child is taking one step
at a time into a larger area. The youth begins to make leaps over larger
stretches and is impatient with the pettiness of a narrow method.
Consequently a wise teacher will omit all annoying puerilities in
managing high school pupils. He will expect numerous childish follies to
be retained even in the high school period. In some cases a method used
with a child in the grades will work effectively in the case of a high
school pupil. But discrimination must be very painstaking. A childish
method, unwisely used, dampens a pupil’s esteem for his teacher because
personal pride in the pupil has been injured.
On the other hand, by using a solution that puts the issue on a broad,
high level, one appeals to the maturing intelligence and sense of
personal dignity. Moreover, such procedure discloses to a pupil the
connections that bind a particular act to other factors.
The boys who tied a schoolmate to the railroad track first saw their
deed in its isolation; under judicious leadership the place of such a
deed in the life of a school community may be vividly conceived, and
when so viewed may be heartily repudiated. Such a type of revulsion
against an unsocial act is most healthful; a mere decision not to repeat
a proscribed prank has little moral worth.
The whole machinery of a well planned school system is concerned in
getting a response from pupils. Any study which proves its worthlessness
by winning no general response when well handled, is to be abandoned.
So much for the essential feature of school duty, that is, winning an
acceptance and reaction for the lessons taught. But all the more this
holds good in respect to the personal relation between teacher and
pupil. If a teacher makes no effort to secure a personal response toward
himself he can not hope to educate his pupils; he may feed an awakened
intellect; this alone can not suffice—coöperation must appear in the
teacher’s plans for the pupil’s good.