vague as to be innocent of practical bearing. Its significance in detail,
in application, however, means the possibility, and in many respects
the necessity, of quite a radical change of kindergarten procedure. To
state it baldly, the fact that “play” denotes the psychological attitude
of the child, not his outward performances, means complete emancipation
from the necessity of following any given or prescribed system, or
sequence of gifts, plays, or occupations. The judicious teacher will
certainly look for suggestions to the activities mentioned by Froebel (in
his _Mother-Play_ and elsewhere), and to those set forth in such minute
detail by his disciples; but she will also remember that the principle of
play requires her carefully to investigate and criticize these things,
and decide whether they are really activities for her own children, or
just things which may have been vital in the past to children living
in different social conditions. So far as occupations, games, etc.,
simply perpetuate those of Froebel and his earlier disciples, it may
fairly be said that in many respects the presumption is against them—the
presumption is that in the worship of the external doings discussed by
Froebel we have ceased to be loyal to his principle.
The teacher must be absolutely free to get suggestions from any and from
every source, asking herself but these two questions: Will the proposed
mode of play appeal to the child as his own? Is it something of which
he has the instinctive roots in himself, and which will mature the
capacities that are struggling for manifestation in him? And again: Will
the proposed activity give that sort of expression to these impulses that
will carry the child on to a higher plane of consciousness and action,
instead of merely exciting him and then leaving him just where he was
before, plus a certain amount of nervous exhaustion and appetite for more
excitation in the future?
There is every evidence that Froebel studied carefully—inductively we
might now say—the children’s plays of his own time, and the games which
mothers played with their infants. He also took great pains—as in his
_Mother-Play_—to point out that certain principles of large import were
involved. He had to bring his generation to consciousness of the fact
that these things were not merely trivial and childish because done by
children, but were essential factors in their growth. But I do not see
the slightest evidence that he supposed that just these plays, and only
these plays, had meaning, or that his philosophic explanation had any
motive beyond that just suggested. On the contrary, I believe that he
expected his followers to exhibit their following by continuing his own
study of contemporary conditions and activities, rather than by literally
adhering to the plays he had collected. Moreover, it is hardly likely
that Froebel himself would contend that in his interpretation of these
games he did more than take advantage of the best psychological and
philosophical insight available to him at the time; and we may suppose
that he would have been the first to welcome the growth of a better
and more extensive psychology (whether general, experimental, or as
child study), and would avail himself of its results to reinterpret
the activities, to discuss them more critically, going from the new
standpoint into the reasons that make them educationally valuable.
SYMBOLISM
It must be remembered that much of Froebel’s symbolism is the product of
two peculiar conditions of his own life and work. In the first place,
on account of inadequate knowledge at that time of the physiological
and psychological facts and principles of child growth, he was often
forced to resort to strained and artificial explanations of the value
attaching to the plays, etc. To the impartial observer it is obvious
that many of his statements are cumbrous and far-fetched, giving
abstract philosophical reasons for matters that may now receive a
simple, everyday formulation. In the second place, the general political
and social conditions of Germany were such that it was impossible to
conceive continuity between the free, co-operative social life of the
kindergarten and that of the world outside. Accordingly, he could not
regard the “occupations” of the schoolroom as literal reproductions of
the ethical principles involved in community life—the latter were often
too restricted and authoritative to serve as worthy models.
Accordingly he was compelled to think of them as symbolic of abstract
ethical and philosophical principles. There certainly is change enough
and progress enough in the social conditions of the United States of
today, as compared with those of the Germany of his day, to justify
making kindergarten activities more natural, more direct, and more
real representations of current life than Froebel’s disciples have
done. Even as it is, the disparity of Froebel’s philosophy with German
political ideals has made the authorities in Germany suspicious of
the kindergarten, and has been undoubtedly one force operating in
transforming its social simplicity into an involved intellectual
technique.
IMAGINATION AND PLAY
An excessive emphasis on symbolism is sure to influence the treatment of
imagination. It is of course true that a little child lives in a world
of imagination. In one sense, he can only “make believe.” His activities
represent or stand for the life that he sees going on around him. Because
they are thus representative they may be termed symbolic, but it should
be remembered that this make-believe or symbolism has reference to
the activities suggested. Unless they are, to the child, as real and
definite as the adult’s activities are to him, the inevitable result
is artificiality, nervous strain, and either physical and emotional
excitement or else deadening of powers.
There has been a curious, almost unaccountable, tendency in the
kindergarten to assume that because the value of the activity lies in
what it stands for to the child, therefore the materials used must be
as artificial as possible, and that one must keep carefully away from
real things and real acts on the part of the child. Thus one hears
of gardening activities which are carried on by sprinkling grains of
sand for seeds; the child sweeps and dusts a make-believe room with
make-believe brooms and cloths; he sets a table using only paper cut
in the flat (and even then cut with reference to geometric design,
rather then to dishes), instead of toy tea things with which the child
outside of the kindergarten plays. Dolls, toy locomotives, and trains
or cars, etc., are tabooed as altogether too grossly real—and hence not
cultivating the child’s imagination.
All this is surely mere superstition. The imaginative play of the
child’s mind comes through the cluster of suggestions, reminiscences,
and anticipations that gather about the things he uses. The more natural
and straightforward these are, the more definite basis there is for
calling up and holding together all the allied suggestions which make his
imaginative play really representative. The simple cooking, dishwashing,
dusting, etc., which children do are no more prosaic or utilitarian to
them than would be, say, the game of the Five Knights. To the children
these occupations are surcharged with a sense of the mysterious values
that attach to whatever their elders are concerned with. The materials,
then, must be as “real,” as direct and straightforward, as opportunity
permits.
But the principle does not end here—the reality symbolized must also lie
within the capacities of the child’s own appreciation. It is sometimes
thought the use of the imagination is profitable in the degree it stands
for very remote metaphysical and spiritual principles. In the great
majority of such cases it is safe to say that the adult deceives himself.
He is conscious of both the reality and the symbol, and hence of the
relation between them. But since the truth or reality represented is far
beyond the reach of the child, the supposed symbol is not a symbol to him
at all. It is simply a positive thing on its own account. Practically
about all he gets out of it is its own physical and sensational meaning,
plus, very often, a glib facility in phrases and attitudes that he
learns are expected of him by the teacher—without, however, any mental
counterpart. We often teach insincerity, and instil sentimentalism, and
foster sensationalism when we think we are teaching spiritual truths
by means of symbols. The realities reproduced, therefore, by the child
should be of as familiar, direct, and real a character as possible. It is
largely for this reason that in the kindergarten of our School the work
centers so much about the reproduction of home and neighborhood life.
This brings us to the topic of
SUBJECT-MATTER
The home life in its setting of house, furniture, utensils, etc.,
together with the occupations carried on in the home, offers,
accordingly, material which is in a direct and real relationship to the
child, and which he naturally tends to reproduce in imaginative form.
It is also sufficiently full of ethical relations and suggestive of
moral duties to afford plenty of food for the child on his moral side.
The program is comparatively unambitious compared with that of many
kindergartens, but it may be questioned whether there are not certain
positive advantages in this limitation of the subject-matter. When
much ground is covered (the work going over, say, industrial society,
army, church, state, etc.), there is a tendency for the work to become
over-symbolic. So much of this material lies beyond the experience and
capacities of the child of four and five that practically all he gets
out of it is the physical and emotional reflex—he does not get any real
penetration into the material itself. Moreover, there is danger, in these
ambitious programs, of an unfavorable reaction upon the child’s own
intellectual attitude. Having covered pretty much the whole universe in a
purely make-believe fashion, he becomes blasé, loses his natural hunger
for the simple things of direct experience, and approaches the material
of the first grades of the primary school with a feeling that he has
had all that already. The later years of a child’s life have their own
rights, and a superficial, merely emotional anticipation is likely to do
the child serious injury.
Moreover, there is danger that a mental habit of jumping rapidly from
one topic to another be induced. The little child has a good deal of
patience and endurance of a certain type. It is true that he has a liking
for novelty and variety; that he soon wearies of an activity that does
not lead out into new fields and open up new paths for exploration. My
plea, however, is not for monotony. There is sufficient variety in the
activities, furnishings, and instrumentalities of the homes from which
the children come to give continual diversity. It touches the civic and
the industrial life at this and that point; these concerns can be brought
in, when desirable, without going beyond the unity of the main topic.
Thus there is an opportunity to foster that sense which is at the basis
of attention and of all intellectual growth—a sense of continuity.
This continuity is often interfered with by the very methods that
aim at securing it. From the child’s standpoint unity lies in the
subject-matter—in the present case, in the fact that he is always dealing
with one thing: home life. Emphasis is continually passing from one
phase of this life to another; one occupation after another, one piece
of furniture after another, one relation after another, etc., receive
attention; but they all fall into building up one and the same mode of
living, although bringing now this feature, now that, into prominence.
The child is working all the time _within a unity_, giving different
phases of its clearness and definiteness, and bringing them into
coherent connection with each other. When there is a great diversity of
subject-matter, continuity is apt to be sought simply on the formal side;
that is, in schemes of sequence, “schools of work,” a rigid program of
development followed with every topic, a “thought for the day” from which
the work is not supposed to stray. As a rule such sequence is purely
intellectual, hence is grasped only by the teacher, quite passing over
the head of the child. Hence the program for the year, term, month, week,
etc., should be made out on the basis of estimating how much of the
common subject-matter can be covered in that time, not on the basis of
intellectual or ethical principles. This will give both definiteness and
elasticity.
METHOD
The peculiar problem of the early grades is, of course, to get hold of
the child’s natural impulses and instincts, and to utilize them so that
the child is carried on to a higher plane of perception and judgment,
and equipped with more efficient habits; so that he has an enlarged
and deepened consciousness and increased control of powers of action.
Wherever this result is not reached, play results in mere amusement and
not in educative growth.
Upon the whole, constructive or “built up” work (with, of course, the
proper alternation of story, song, and game which may be connected, so
far as is desirable, with the ideas involved in the construction) seems
better fitted than anything else to secure these two factors—initiation
in the child’s own impulse and termination upon a higher plane. It
brings the child in contact with a great variety of material: wood, tin,
leather, yarn, etc.; it supplies a motive for using these materials in
real ways instead of going through exercises having no meaning except
a remote symbolic one; it calls into play alertness of the senses and
acuteness of observation; it demands clear-cut imagery of the ends to
be accomplished, and requires ingenuity and invention in planning; it
makes necessary concentrated attention and personal responsibility in
execution, while the results are in such tangible form that the child may
be led to judge his own work and improve his standards.
A word should be said regarding the psychology of imitation and
suggestion in relation to kindergarten work. There is no doubt that
the little child is highly imitative and open to suggestions; there is
no doubt that his crude powers and immature consciousness need to be
continually enriched and directed through these channels. But on this
account it is imperative to discriminate between a use of imitation and
suggestion which is so external as to be thoroughly non-psychological,
and a use which is justified through its organic relation to the child’s
own activities. As a general principle no activity should be _originated_
by imitation. The start must come from the child; the model or copy may
then be supplied in order to assist the child in imaging more definitely
what it is that he really wants—in bringing him to consciousness. Its
value is not as model to copy in action, but as guide to clearness and
adequacy of conception. Unless the child can get away from it to his own
imagery when it comes to execution, he is rendered servile and dependent,
not developed. Imitation comes in to reinforce and help out, not to
initiate.
There is no ground for holding that the teacher should not suggest
anything to the child until he has _consciously_ expressed a want in that
direction. A sympathetic teacher is quite likely to know more clearly
than the child himself what his own instincts are and mean. But the
suggestion must _fit in_ with the dominant mode of growth in the child;
it must serve simply as stimulus to bring forth more adequately what
the child is already blindly striving to do. Only by watching the child
and seeing the attitude that he assumes toward suggestions can we tell
whether they are operating as factors in furthering the child’s growth,
or whether they are external, arbitrary impositions interfering with
normal growth.
The same principle applies even more strongly to so-called dictation
work. Nothing is more absurd than to suppose that there is no middle
term between leaving a child to his own unguided fancies and likes or
controlling his activities by a formal succession of dictated directions.
As just intimated, it is the teacher’s business to know what powers are
striving for utterance at a given period in the child’s development,
and what sorts of activity will bring these to helpful expression, in
order then to supply the requisite stimuli and needed materials. The
suggestion, for instance, of a playhouse, the suggestion that comes from
seeing objects that have already been made to furnish it, from seeing
other children at work, is quite sufficient definitely to direct the
activities of a normal child of five. Imitation and suggestion come in
naturally and inevitably, but only as instruments to help him carry out
his own wishes and ideas. They serve to make him realize, to bring to
consciousness, what he already is striving for in a vague, confused,
and therefore ineffective way. From the psychological standpoint it may
safely be said that when a teacher has to rely upon a series of dictated
directions, it is just because the child has no image of his own of what
is to be done or why it is to be done. Instead, therefore, of gaining
power of control by conforming to directions, he is really losing it—made
dependent upon an external source.
In conclusion, it may be pointed out that such subject-matter and the
method connect directly with the work of the six-year-old children
(corresponding to the first grade of primary work). The play reproduction
of the home life passes naturally on into a more extended and serious
study of the larger social occupations upon which the home is dependent;
while the continually increasing demands made upon the child’s own
ability to plan and execute carry him over into more controlled use of
attention upon more distinctively intellectual topics. It must not be
forgotten that the readjustment needed to secure continuity between
“kindergarten” and “first-grade” work cannot be brought about wholly
from the side of the latter. The school change must be as gradual and
insensible as that in the growth of the child. This is impossible unless
the subprimary work surrenders whatever isolates it, and hospitably
welcomes whatever materials and resources will keep pace with the full
development of the child’s powers, and thus keep him always prepared,
ready, for the next work he has to do.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF OCCUPATIONS
VI
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF OCCUPATIONS
By occupation is not meant any kind of “busy work” or exercises that may
be given to a child in order to keep him out of mischief or idleness
when seated at his desk. By occupation I mean a mode of activity on
the part of the child which reproduces, or runs parallel to, some form
of work carried on in social life. In the University Elementary School
these occupations are represented by the shopwork with wood and tools; by
cooking, sewing, and by the textile work herewith reported upon.
The fundamental point in the psychology of an occupation is that it
maintains a balance between the intellectual and the practical phases
of experience. As an occupation it is active or motor; it finds
expression through the physical organs—the eyes, hands, etc. But it also
involves continual observation of materials, and continual planning
and reflection, in order that the practical or executive side may be
successfully carried on. Occupation as thus conceived must, therefore, be
carefully distinguished from work which educates primarily for a trade.
It differs because its end is in itself; in the growth that comes from
the continual interplay of ideas and their embodiment in action, not in
external utility.
It is possible to carry on this type of work in other than trade schools,
so that the entire emphasis falls upon the manual or physical side. In
such cases the work is reduced to a mere routine or custom, and its
educational value is lost. This is the inevitable tendency wherever,
in manual training for instance, the mastery of certain tools, or the
production of certain objects, is made the primary end, and the child is
not given, wherever possible, intellectual responsibility for selecting
the materials and instruments that are most fit, and given an opportunity
to think out his own model and plan of work, led to perceive his own
errors, and find out how to correct them—that is, of course, within
the range of his capacities. So far as the external result is held in
view, rather than the mental and moral states and growth involved in
the process of reaching the result, the work may be called manual, but
cannot rightly be termed an occupation. Of course the tendency of all
mere habit, routine, or custom is to result in what is unconscious and
mechanical. That of occupation is to put the maximum of consciousness
into whatever is done.
This enables us to interpret the stress laid (_a_) upon personal
experimenting, planning, and reinventing in connection with the textile
work, and (_b_) its parallelism with lines of historical development.
The first requires the child to be mentally quick and alert at every
point in order that he may do the outward work properly. The second
enriches and deepens the work performed by saturating it with values
suggested from the social life which it recapitulates.
Occupations, so considered, furnish the ideal occasions for both
sense-training and discipline in thought. The weakness of ordinary
lessons in observation, calculated to train the senses, is that they have
no outlet beyond themselves, and hence no necessary motive. Now, in the
natural life of the individual and the race there is always a reason for
sense-observation. There is always some need, coming from an end to be
reached, that makes one look about to discover and discriminate whatever
will assist him. Normal sensations operate as clues, as aids, as stimuli,
in directing activity in what has to be done; they are not ends in
themselves. Separated from real needs and motives, sense-training becomes
a mere gymnastic and easily degenerates into acquiring what are hardly
more than mere knacks or tricks in observation, or else mere excitement
of the sense organs.
The same principle applies in normal _thinking_. It also does not occur
for its own sake, nor end in itself. It arises from the need of meeting
some difficulty, in reflecting upon the best way of overcoming it, and
thus leads to planning, to projecting mentally the result to be reached,
and deciding upon the steps necessary and their serial order. This
concrete logic of action long precedes the logic of pure speculation or
abstract investigation, and through the mental habits that it forms is
the best of preparations for the latter.
Another educational point upon which the psychology of occupations
throws helpful light is the place of interest in school work. One of the
objections regularly brought against giving in school work any large
or positive place to the child’s interest is the impossibility on such
a basis of proper selection. The child, it is said, has all kinds of
interests, good, bad, and indifferent. It is necessary to decide between
the interests that are really important and those that are trivial;
between those that are helpful and those that are harmful; between those
that are transitory or mark immediate excitement, and those which endure
and are permanently influential. It would seem as if we had to go beyond
interest to get any basis for using interest.
Now, there can be no doubt that occupation work possesses a strong
interest for the child. A glance into any school where such work is
carried on will give sufficient evidence of this fact. Outside of the
school, a large portion of the children’s plays are simply more or less
miniature and haphazard attempts at reproducing social occupations.
There are certain reasons for believing that the type of interest which
springs up along with these occupations is of a thoroughly healthy,
permanent, and really educative sort; and that by giving a larger place
to occupations we should secure an excellent, perhaps the very best, way
of making an appeal to the child’s spontaneous interest, and yet have, at
the same time, some guaranty that we are not dealing with what is merely
pleasure-giving, exciting, or transient.