INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES
OUTLINE--CHAPTER IX
Fundamental significance of individual differences.--Typical
illustration.--The truth illustrated physically; in range of voice,
in speed, in mental capabilities.--The same truth applied
spiritually.--Some cases in point.
Everybody is like everybody else in this--that everybody is different
from everybody else. Having discussed how all men enjoy a common
heritage by way of native endowments, let us now turn to a consideration
of how men differ.
Two of the terms most frequently met in recent educational publications
are statistical methods and individual differences. There is nothing
particularly new in this latter term--it merely represents a new
emphasis being given to the old idea that no two of us are alike. Every
parent is aware of the very marked differences in his children. Even
twins differ in disposition and mental capabilities. In fact, one of the
difficulties that attaches to parenthood is just this problem of making
provision in one household for such various personalities.
A member of the stake presidency in one of the stakes in southern Utah,
in discussing this matter a short time ago, remarked that in his family
of four boys one very definitely had decided to become a farmer and was
already busy at getting acquainted with the details of the work; a
second boy was devoted to music and voiced a very vigorous protest
against farming; the third son was so bashful and reticent that he
hadn't given expression to any notion of preference; the fourth, a
happy-go-lucky sort of chap, free and noisy in his cutting up about the
place, wasn't worrying about what he was to do in life--he just didn't
want anything to do with strenuous effort.
"How can I drive a four-horse team such as that?" was the interesting
query of this father.
Practically every family presents this variety of attitude and
practically every parent is trying to work out a solution to the
problem, so there is nothing startling about the term individual
differences. Educators have just given the matter more careful and
scholarly attention of recent years.
If the matter of differences in children constitutes a problem of
concern in a family of from two to ten children, how much greater must
that problem be in a class from thirty to fifty with approximately as
many families represented. The problem has led to some very interesting
investigations--investigations so simple that they can be carried on by
anyone interested. For instance, if we could line up all the men in Salt
Lake City according to size we should find at one end of the line a few
exceptionally tall men, likely from six feet to six feet six inches in
height. At the other end of the line would be a few exceptionally small
men--undersized men from three feet eight or ten inches to four feet six
inches. In between these two types would come in graduated order all
sorts of men with a decidedly large number standing about five feet six
or eight inches. This latter height we call the average.
Practically we see the significance of these differences. No
manufacturer thinks of making one size of overall in the hope that it
will fit each of these men. He adapts his garment to their size, and he
knows approximately how many of each size will be called for in the
course of ordinary business.
If these same men could be taken one by one into a music studio and have
their voices tested for range, the same interesting variations would be
found. There would be a few very high tenors, a few exceptionally low
bassos, and a crowd with medium range with fillers-in all along the
line.
If we were interested in carrying the experiment still further we might
apply the speed test. In a 100-yard dash a few men would be found to be
particularly fast, a few others would trail away behind at a snail's
pace, while the big crowd of men would make the distance in "average
time."
Of course, it would be foolish to attempt to make tenors of all these
men--equally foolish to try to make speeders of them all. In these
practical matters we appreciate the wisdom of letting each man fit into
that niche for which he is qualified.
Nor are these differences confined to the field of physical
characteristics and achievements. Tests by the hundred have demonstrated
beyond all question that they hold equally well of mental capabilities.
In the past children have gone to school at the age of six. They have
remained there because they were six. At seven they were in grade two,
and so on up through the grades of our public schools. Tests and
measurements now, however, are showing that such a procedure works both
a hardship and an injustice on the pupils. Some boys at six are found as
capable of doing work in grade two as other boys at eight. Some boys and
girls at six are found wholly incapable of doing what is required in
grade one. One of the most promising prospects ahead educationally is
that we shall be able to find out just the capacity of a child
regardless of his age, and fit him into what he can do well, making
provisions for his passing on as he shows capability for higher work.
Not only has this matter of individual differences been found to apply
generally in the various grades of our schools--it has been found to
have significant bearing upon achievements in particular subjects. For
all too long a time we have held a boy in grade four until he mastered
what we have called his grade four arithmetic, spelling, geography,
grammar, history, etc. As a matter of fact, many a boy who is a
fourth-grader in grammar may be only a second-grader in arithmetic--a
girl, for whom fourth grade arithmetic is an impossibility, because of
her special liking for reading, may be seventh grade in her capacity in
that subject. In the specific subjects, individual differences have been
found to be most marked. Surely it is unfair to ask a boy "born short"
in history to keep up to the pace of a comrade "born long" in that
subject; so, too, it is unfair to ask a girl "born long" in geography to
hold back to the pace of one "born short" in that subject. The results
of these observations are leading to developments that are full of
promise for the educational interests of the future.
In order that we may more fully appreciate the reality of these
observations let us set down the concrete results of a few experiments.
The first three tests are quoted from Thorndike:
In a test in addition, all pupils being allowed the same time,
1 pupil did 3 examples correctly
2 pupils did 4 examples correctly
1 pupil did 5 examples correctly
5 pupils did 6 examples correctly
2 pupils did 7 examples correctly
4 pupils did 8 examples correctly
6 pupils did 9 examples correctly
14 pupils did 10 examples correctly
8 pupils did 11 examples correctly
7 pupils did 12 examples correctly
8 pupils did 13 examples correctly
5 pupils did 14 examples correctly
5 pupils did 15 examples correctly
6 pupils did 16 examples correctly
1 pupil did 17 examples correctly
5 pupils did 18 examples correctly
1 pupil did 19 examples correctly
2 pupils did 20 examples correctly
The rapidity of movement of ten-year-old girls, as measured by the
number of crosses made in a fixed time:
6 or 7 by 1 girl
8 or 9 by 0 girl
10 or 11 by 4 girls
12 or 13 by 3 girls
14 or 15 by 21 girls
16 or 17 by 29 girls
18 or 19 by 33 girls
20 or 21 by 13 girls
22 or 23 by 15 girls
24 or 25 by 11 girls
26 or 27 by 5 girls
28 or 29 by 2 girls
30 or 31 by 5 girls
32 or 33 by 3 girls
34 or 35 by 5 girls
36 or 37 by 0 girl
38 or 49 by 4 girls
40 or 41 by 1 girl
Two papers, A and B, written by members of the same grade and class in a
test in spelling:
A. B.
greatful gratful
elegant eleagent
present present
patience paisionce
succeed suckseed
severe survere
accident axadent
sometimes sometimes
sensible sensible
business biusness
answer anser
sweeping sweping
properly prooling
improvement improvment
fatiguing fegting
anxious anxchus
appreciate apresheating
assure ashure
imagine amagen
praise prasy
In a test in spelling wherein fifty common words were dictated to a
class of twenty-eight pupils, the following results were obtained:
2 spelled correctly all 50
3 spelled correctly between 45 and 48
5 spelled correctly between 40 and 45
11 spelled correctly between 30 and 40
6 spelled correctly between 20 and 30
1 spelled correctly between 15 and 20
And now the question--what has all this to do with the teaching of
religion? Just this: the differences among men as found in fields
already referred to, are found also in matters of religion. For one man
it is easy to believe in visions and all other heavenly manifestations;
for another it is next to impossible. To one man the resurrection is the
one great reality; to another it is merely a matter of conjecture. One
man feels certain that his prayers are heard and answered; another feels
equally certain that they cannot be. One man is emotionally spiritual;
another is coldly hard-headed and matter-of-fact. The point is not a
question which man is right--it is rather that we ought not to attempt
to reach each man in exactly the same way, nor should we expect each one
to measure up to the standards of the others.
An interesting illustration of this difference in religious attitude was
shown recently in connection with the funeral of a promising young man
who had been taken in death just as he had fairly launched upon his
life's work. In a discussion that followed the service, one good brother
found consolation in the thought that the Lord needed just such a young
man to help carry on a more important work among the spirits already
called home. His companion in the discussion found an explanation to his
satisfaction in the thought that it was providential that the young man
could be taken when he was, that he thereby might be spared the probable
catastrophies that might have visited him had he lived. Each man found
complete solace in his own philosophy, though neither could accept the
reasoning of the other.
An interesting case of difference of view came to the attention of the
teacher-training class at Provo when someone asked how the lesson on
Jonah could be presented so that it would appeal to adolescent boys and
girls. The query was joined in by several others for whom Jonah had been
a stumbling block, when Brother Sainsbury, of Vernal, startled the class
by saying Jonah was his favorite story. "I would rather teach that story
than any other one in the Bible," he declared, and illustrated his
method so clearly that the account of Jonah took on an entirely new
aspect.
Many men and women in the world are shocked at the thought that God is a
personality. To them the idea that God is simply a "man made perfect," a
being similar to us, but exalted to deity, is akin to blasphemy. And
then to add the idea of a heavenly mother is beyond comprehension. To
Latter-day Saints, on the other hand, these thoughts are the very glory
of God. To them a man made perfect is the noblest conception possible.
It makes of Him a reality. And the thought of Mother--Heaven without a
Mother would be like home without one.
And so with all the principles and conceptions of religion, men's
reactions to them are as varied as they are to all the other facts of
life. Everywhere the opinions, the capacities, the attainments of men
vary. The law of individual differences is one of the most universal in
our experience.
* * * * *
QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS--CHAPTER IX
1. Just what is the meaning of the term Individual Differences?
2. Illustrate such differences in families with which you are familiar.
3. Apply the test to your ward choir.
4. Name and characterize twenty men whom you know. How do they differ?
5. Have a report brought in from your public school on the results of
given tests in arithmetic, spelling, etc.
6. Have the members of your class write their opinions relative to some
point of doctrine concerning which there may be some uncertainty.
7. Observe the attitude and response of each of the members of a typical
Sunday School, Kindergarten, of an advanced M.I.A. class.
8. Illustrate individual differences as expressed in the religious
attitudes of men you know.
9. To what extent are boys different from girls in mental capability and
attitude?
HELPFUL REFERENCES
Those listed in Chapter VII.