Dissensions like small streams are first begun;
Scarce seen they rise but gather as they run!
So lines that from their parallels decline
More they proceed, the more they still disjoin.
—Garth.
It is distasteful to a first grade teacher to be called upon to pacify
the petty quarrels that children in the first grade sometimes have.
While this annoyance is not very marked in the first grade, still it is
prevalent enough to need discussion. Besides, the quarrelsome habits
that a child may acquire in the first year of school may cling to him
throughout life and prove a burden, seriously handicapping him in his
life’s vocation.
The first step toward preventing quarreling among children is to remove,
as far as possible, all causes that may instigate quarrels. Some pupils
who enter the school quarrel frequently in their homes and, much to the
discredit of the parents, quarrel with them even. Provoked by the least
pretext, such children will quarrel with their schoolmates. Children who
are not allowed to quarrel in their homes will often quarrel at school
enough to be annoying. Both types of pupils will respond to the same
treatment, but the method will only be completely effective in the
latter instance. The former class may cease to quarrel at school, but
they will undoubtedly continue it at home.
Punishment does the offender little good; it serves to drive the child
to quarrel at times when the teacher can not find out about it. This
will add to the quarreling habit, deception, which is a bad fault in
itself. It is too fundamental a rule to pass without mentioning at this
point, that punishment never removes the motive of any misdemeanor. The
desire to do the wrong remains, and what is worse, the tendency often
seems to be removed, when, in reality, the child, through a spirit of
revenge, resorts to some wrong act which can be hidden from the teacher,
but which will still satisfy the lower nature. In other words, to forbid
the performance of a misdemeanor in a child’s life and to substitute no
activity in its place leaves a gap in his life into which, if
undirected, he will probably put some wrong act.
Even in higher grades quarrels among children seem unavoidable, but are
not really so. Some one threatens injury and the response comes quickly
in the form of coercive measures for rescue or defense. Sometimes the
provocation is real, sometimes imagined.
The onset of the quarrel usually finds expression in faultfinding. The
offender’s sins are held up to view and satisfaction is demanded.
Failure on the part of a comrade to repudiate the irritating conduct
usually ends in anger, and sooner or later in a vigorous quarrel or even
fight.
The tendency to anger can not be eradicated. It is a self-preservative
instinct and hence must be controlled, not uprooted. By controlled is
meant that the emotions must be drained off into another channel, and
the quicker this is accomplished the better for all concerned, for, in
general, anger increases in intensity by being expressed, and also
begets a corresponding anger in one’s opponent.