NATIVE TENDENCIES
OUTLINE--CHAPTER VII
Importance of Child Study to teachers.--Teaching both a social and
an individual process.--A Child's characteristics--his
birthright.--What the nervous system is.--Types of original
responses.--The significance of instinctive action.--Colvin's list
of native tendencies.--Sisson's list.--A knowledge of native
tendencies essential to proper control of human behavior.
We have now discussed the significance and meaning of teaching, together
with the consideration of the characteristics that constitute the
personal equation of the teacher. It is now pertinent that we give some
attention to the nature of the child to be taught, that we may the more
intelligently discuss methods of teaching, or how teacher and pupil get
together in an exchange of knowledge.
Teaching is a unique process. It is both social and individual. The
teacher meets a class--a collection of pupils in a social unit. In one
way he is concerned with them generally--he directs group action. But in
addition to this social aspect, the problem involves his giving
attention to each individual in the group. He may put a general
question, but he gets an individual reply. In short, he must be aware of
the fact that his pupils, for purposes of recitation, are all alike; and
at the same time he must appreciate the fact that they are peculiarly
different. In a later chapter we shall consider these differences; let
us here consider the points of similarity.
The fact that a boy is a boy makes him heir to all of the
characteristics that man has developed. These characteristics are his
birthright. He responds in a particular way to stimuli because the race
before him has so responded. There is no need here of entering into a
discussion as to how great a controlling factor heredity may be in a
man's life, or how potent environment may be in modifying that life--we
are concerned rather with the result--that man is as he is. It is
essential that we know his characteristics, particularly as they
manifest themselves in youth, so that we may know what to expect in his
conduct and so that we may proceed to modify and control that conduct.
Just as the first task of the physician is to diagnose his case--to get
at the cause of the difficulty before he proceeds to suggest a
remedy--so the first consideration of the teacher is a query, "Whom do I
teach?"
Man may normally be expected to respond in a particular way to a
particular stimulus because men throughout the history of the race have
so responded. Certain connections have been established in his nervous
system and he acts accordingly--he does what he does because he is
_man_. We cannot here go into a detailed discussion of the physiological
processes involved in thinking and other forms of behavior, but perhaps
we may well set down a statement or two relative to man's tendencies to
act, and their explanations:
"The nervous system is composed of neurones of three types: Those
that receive, the afferent; those that effect action, the efferent;
and those that connect, the associative. The meeting places of these
neurones are the synapses. All neurones have the three
characteristics of sensitivity, conductivity, and modifiability. In
order for conduct or feeling or intellect to be present, at least two
neurones must be active, and in all but a few of the human activities
many more are involved. The possibility of conduct or intelligence
depends upon the connections at the synapses,--upon the possibility
of the current affecting neurones in a certain definite way. The
possession of an 'original nature,' then, means the possession, as a
matter of inheritance, of certain connections between neurones, the
possession of certain synapses which are in functional contact and
across which a current may pass merely as a matter of structure. Just
why certain synapses should be thus connected is the whole question
of heredity. Two factors seem to affect the functional contact of a
synapses,--first, proximity of the neurone ends, and second, some
sort of permeability which makes a current travel on one rather than
another of two neurones equally near together in space. This
proximity and permeability are both provided for by the structure and
constitution of the nervous system. It should be noted that the
connection of neurones is not a one-to-one affair, but the
multiplicity of fibrils provided by original nature makes it possible
for one afferent to discharge into many neurones, and for one
efferent neurone to receive the current from many neurones. Thus the
individual when born is equipped with potentialities of character,
intellect and conduct, because of the pre-formed connections or
tendencies to connections present in his nervous system.
"_Types of Original Responses._--These unlearned tendencies which
make up the original nature of the human race are usually classified
into automatic or physiological actions, reflexes, instincts, and
capacities. Automatic actions are such as those controlling the
heart-beats, digestive and intestinal movements; the contraction of
the pupil of the eye from light, sneezing, swallowing, etc., are
reflexes; imitation, fighting, and fear, are instincts, which
capacities refer to those more subtle traits by means of which an
individual becomes a good linguist, or is tactful, or gains skill in
handling tools. However, there is no sharp line of division between
these various unlearned tendencies; what one psychologist calls a
reflex or a series of reflexes, another will call an instinct. It
seems better to consider them as of the same general character but
differing from each other in simplicity, definiteness, uniformity of
response, variableness among individuals, and modifiability. They
range from movements such as the action of the blood vessels to those
concerned in hunting and collecting; from the simple, definite,
uniform knee-jerk, which is very similar in all people and open to
very little modification, to the capacity for scholarship, which is
extremely complex, vague as to definition, variable both as to
manifestation in one individual and amounts amongst people in
general, and is open to almost endless modification. This fund of
unlearned tendencies is the capital with which each child starts, the
capital which makes education and progress possible, as well as the
capital which limits the extent to which progress and development in
any line may proceed." _The Psychology of Childhood_, pp. 21, 22, 23.
Weigle, in his _Talks to Sunday School Teachers_, begins his second
chapter in a rather unique and helpful manner relative to this same
question:
"The little human animal, like every other, is born going. He is
already wound up. His lungs expand and contract; his heart is pumping
away; his stomach is ready to handle food. These organic, vital
activities he does not initiate. They begin themselves. The organism
possesses them by nature. They are the very conditions of life.
"There are many other activities, not so obviously vital as these,
for which nature winds him up quite as thoroughly--yes, and sets him
to go off at the proper time for each. He will suck when brought to
the breast as unfailingly as his lungs will begin to work upon
contact with the air. He will cry from hunger or discomfort, clasp
anything that touches his fingers or toes, carry to his mouth
whatever he can grasp, in time smile when smiled at, later grow
afraid when left alone or in the dark, manifest anger and affection,
walk, run, play, question, imitate, collect things, pull things
apart, put them together again, take pleasure in being with friends,
act shy before strangers, find a chum, belong to a 'gang' or 'bunch,'
quarrel, fight, become reconciled, and some day fall in love with one
of the opposite sex. These, and many more, are just his natural human
ways. He does not of purpose initiate them any more than he initiates
breathing or heart-beat. He does these things because he is so born
and built. They are his instincts."
As Norsworthy and Whitley point out, we are not especially concerned
with the boundary lines between automatic actions, reflexes, and
instincts--we are rather concerned with the fact that human beings
possess native tendencies to act in particular ways. Some psychologists
stress them as instincts; others as capacities, but they have all pretty
generally agreed that under certain stimuli there are natural tendencies
to react.
These tendencies begin to manifest themselves at birth--they are all
potentialities with the birth of the child--and continue to develop in
turn, certain ones being more pronounced in the various stages of the
child's life. Colvin in his _The Learning Process_, runs through the
complete list of possibilities. According to him man, in a lifetime, is
characterized by the following tendencies: Fear, anger, sympathy,
affection, play, imitation, curiosity, acquisitiveness,
constructiveness, self-assertion (leadership), self-abasement, rivalry,
envy, jealousy, pugnacity, clannishness, the hunting and predatory
instincts, the migratory instinct, love of adventure and the unknown,
superstition, the sex instincts, which express themselves in sex-love,
vanity, coquetry, modesty; and, closely allied with these, the love of
nature and of solitude, and the aesthetic, the religious, and the moral
emotions.
Sisson, in a little book that every teacher ought to know, _The
Essentials of Character_, emphasizes the importance for teaching of ten
tendencies: bodily activity, sense-hunger and curiosity, suggestibility,
tastes and aesthetic appreciation, self-assertion, love, joy, fear, the
growing-up impulse, the love of approbation.
As already indicated, the teacher should give attention to these
tendencies that he may the better know how to proceed. If he knows that
the one great outstanding impulse of a boy of seven is to do something,
he perhaps will be less likely to plan an hour's recitation on the
theory that for that hour the boy is to do nothing. If he knows that one
of the greatest tendencies of boys from ten to fourteen is to organize
"gangs" for social and "political" purposes, he will very likely
capitalize on this idea in building up a good strong class spirit.
Knowing that children naturally respond to certain stimuli in very
definite ways, the teacher can better set about to furnish the right
stimuli--he can be in a better position to _direct and control
behavior_.
* * * * *
QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS--CHAPTER VII
1. What significance attaches to the statement, "Children are born
'going'"?
2. Why is it of vital importance that teachers give attention to the
native tendencies in children?
3. What constitutes instinctive action? Illustrate.
4. Name the instincts that are essentially individualistic. Those that
are essentially social.
5. What native tendencies are of most concern to teachers?
6. Discuss the relative significance of heredity, environment, and
training in the development of children.
7. To what extent is a child limited in its development by its nervous
system?
HELPFUL REFERENCES
Norsworthy and Whitley, _The Psychology of Childhood_; Weigle, _Talks to
Sunday School Teachers_; Colvin, _The Learning Process_; Sisson, _The
Essentials of Character_; Stiles, _The Nervous System and its
Conservation_; Thorndike, _Principles of Teaching_; Harrison, _A Study
of Child Nature_; Kirkpatrick, _Fundamentals of Child Study_.