CHAPTER XIII

PERIODICITY IN THE PUPIL’S DEVELOPMENT

RECOGNITION OF PERIODICITY IN PRESENT ORGANIZATION

Both the school curriculum and the general organization of the school program in such matters as the length of class periods and the forms of order required, reflect the fact that the pupil passes through distinct periods or epochs in his physical and intellectual development. Each of these epochs requires that a certain type of subject-matter be used for instruction and that a certain type of school discipline be administered. There is a progressive maturing of the pupil and a corresponding broadening and deepening of the education which can be given him. The general outline of this maturing process will be reviewed in this chapter.

THE MEANING OF INFANCY

Before examining the changes which take place during school life, it will be instructive to review the general matter which has been discussed by John Fiske under the title “The Meaning of Infancy.”[62] Writing from the point of view of the student of evolution, Fiske calls attention to the fact that the period of infancy has gradually lengthened with the increase in complexity of animal forms. The lowest animals have practically no period of infancy. They begin their independent lives with all of the capacities of the adult. For example, when a unicellular animal is produced, it results from a division of the parent cell into two equal parts. Each part immediately takes up an independent life, and it may be said that adulthood begins at birth. Further up the scale the parent organism provides protection and food, and the infant requires a longer period of time to arrive at adulthood.

This lengthening of infancy is paralleled by an increase in complexity of the animal form itself. The highest stages of complexity are reached in man, and here we find also the longest period of infancy. The human infant is helpless for years, and the care which parents must give to it includes not only the provision of food and protection but also the gradual training of the child to assume the responsibilities of an independent life.

When viewed by the evolutionist, infancy and even childhood thus appear to be the clearest evidences of the need of educational care. Indeed, childhood may be described as a period of preparation or of gradual maturing of the powers until the individual can carry on his independent personal activities.

THE PERIOD BEFORE ENTERING SCHOOL

Just as the period of childhood taken as a whole has a clearly definable character and purpose in the economy of life, so each epoch within this period can be set off from the others as serving a distinct purpose in the child’s development. This is especially clear with regard to the years that precede school. In all civilized countries there is practical agreement that regular schooling shall begin with the normal child in the sixth year. To be sure, there are special institutions like the kindergarten, which receive children at an earlier age, but these institutions aim to serve in a somewhat more systematic way the same purposes that under other circumstances are served by home training.

What is the character of the education given in the home or the kindergarten preliminary to the work of the primary school? The answer to this question can be given negatively by saying it is not of a type which belongs to a public institution. When the pupil comes to primary school he must be reasonably prepared to live with people who are comparative strangers. This implies that he must have a sufficient command of language to make his wants known and to understand what others want him to do. He must be somewhat independent of maternal care, and must be ready to be initiated into a social world where his individuality will be recognized as somewhat detached from that of everyone else. Put in positive terms, the pre-school training may be described as training in language and in personal independence of a very elementary type.

This statement can be applied to the kindergarten, where the purposes of the pre-school training have been brought to fairly clear consciousness. The kindergarten gives the child much opportunity to play with things that are given to him. He must learn to distinguish objects for himself; he must learn to handle them with enough skill so that he becomes an independent individual. Second, he must play with other children, learning through games that social life consists of a give and take which marks him off from others and yet makes him responsible to the group. The social training of the kindergarten is a preparation for life in an institution where the pupil will have to recognize the reciprocal duties of life in a large group. Third, the chief instrument of social life, and the most important means of effective contact with the group, is speech. The kindergarten child, through songs and stories, learns words and sentences and cultivates the power to which home-training also contributes—the power of independent oral communication.

The kindergarten does in an energetic and systematic way what the home does incidentally, for in any home, however meager its resources, the child learns in five years something of his mother tongue and something of the demands of group living. The pre-school period is an important epoch in education as well as in physical growth. We recognize the physical fact that the child must cultivate strength enough to run around independently and to use his hands in holding what he needs. So it is also in the sphere of his mental life; he must be able to take care of himself.

THE PRIMARY PERIOD ONE OF SOCIAL IMITATION

At five or six years of age the pupil comes to the primary school. His experience is very limited; his senses are open to the impressions of color and sound and touch, and he eagerly or timidly mixes in the social group which is often to him bewilderingly large and strange. The key to the understanding of this period is to be found in the simple psychological principle that out of all the bewildering mass of childish experience it is persons who attract the child’s most vivid attention. The experiences of childhood are to be thought of not as meager but as confusing in their abundance. The world is so full of a number of things that one hardly knows where to turn. In the mass of this experience one turns to some person and follows in a docile way the lead of that person. The first grade is a place where children do what others do. First-graders are a flock of sheep. The teacher can lead them into almost anything because they are eager to do whatever they see others do.

Sometimes this period is described as a period when children are absorbed in sense impressions. This statement is true if it means that colors and sounds constitute the content of experience. It is false if it is meant to teach that little children are absorbed in the study of objects. The sounds and colors which hold the attention of primary children are those which attach to people. A little child will give up a plaything which he has in hand for a less attractive plaything in the hands of someone else. Primary children are social creatures first, last, and all the time.

This description of the primary child’s mental attitudes gives us the formula for the organization of the primary course of study. There is an eager desire on the part of the first-grader to write his name. He does not need any artificial stimulation to undertake writing. Other people write; that is enough for him. He is eager to be initiated. Other people look into books; he must do the same. The period is not a period for nature study in any analytical scientific sense. It is a period for social companionships. The primary child likes animals as playthings; he is not interested in studying their structure. Show an animal to a little child and let him ask the questions that are in his mind, and social questions are the only ones which will come. “Where can I get one?” “Will it bite me?”

The judgment of the race has been right; this is the period for the teaching of reading and writing. The oral language which the pupil acquires in the pre-school period is the basis on which the primary work must be erected. The first reading lessons are lessons in the association of known oral symbols with those complicated social devices, the printed symbols. The ability to live in society which the pupil brings to the first grade must be extended through the mastery of language in its written and printed forms.

The utter absorption of the child of this age in society rather than in material things is attested by his credulity for fairy tales which are full of people but are grotesquely impossible in their description of material facts. In his eager desire to illustrate every story he hears, the child produces drawings which have very little merit as representations of things but are often expressive of action in the highest degree. A child of this age is keen in his observation of people but neglectful of things.

THE PERIOD OF INDIVIDUALISM

The primary attitude of mind lasts about three years. In the normal child nine years of age is a turning point. By this time he has learned to read fairly independently. He can write and can solve simple problems in arithmetic. He has control of some of the simpler objects about him. He has imitated his elders until he has habits of his own. Now comes a change. Sometimes the change is sudden and violent. The pupil who has been laboriously writing from copy throws the example of his copy book to the winds and composes a note to one of his friends in a rapid, scrawling hand. The child has become an independent master of writing for his own private purposes. So it is with his other activities. Even in social matters he asserts his independence by refusing to follow the dictates of the teacher. School discipline suddenly comes to be a serious problem.

The change here described reflects itself in a fact of administration which is of frequent recurrence. Pupils fail of promotion in the fourth or fifth grade much more commonly than in the second, third, or sixth. In other words, there is here, just after the primary grades, a period of violent readjustment.

The readjustment which comes at this point can be described by saying that the pupil is entering on a period of self-recognition. The primary child is an imitator absorbed in social examples. The intermediate child is an individualist. He is aware of his own powers and ambitions. The boys of this period have been described as young barbarians. They are disregardful of the rights of others. They step on the little children; they refuse to be friends with the girls. They are ambitious to leave school and do something to assert their independence.

The school has dealt with this period with much less intelligence than it has exhibited in the primary years. In general, the intermediate grades have followed in subject-matter and in methods too closely the example of the successful primary grades. The result appears in the fact that the migration out of elementary schools is very common in the fifth and sixth grades. The intermediate grades have been described as periods of drill. If there is one kind of work that is not appropriate here, it is routine drill. There ought to be a new and thoroughgoing study of the needs of this period and the introduction of a type of instruction which will meet the needs of children who are vividly aware of themselves and of their personal relations to the world.

That a change is coming about in the methods of dealing with pupils in these years is shown by the fact that the elementary school is setting apart the fourth, fifth, and sixth grades as the years in which the strictly elementary work is to be completed. Much that was postponed to the seventh and eighth grades under the older form of organization will doubtless be brought down into the intermediate grades. The children will no longer be drilled in the forms of the social arts while waiting for the enlarged opportunities of the upper grades, but will be introduced at once to experiences with the objects of the physical world. They will be encouraged to see things and handle them for themselves.

EARLY ADOLESCENCE AS A PERIOD OF SOCIAL CONSCIOUSNESS

The close of this period of individualism is marked by physical and mental changes of a very definite and significant type. From twelve years on the child begins to realize anew the social world about him. Physical changes are going on within him that stimulate this type of thought. The literature of education has emphasized the fact that at this period there is a maturing of the sex organs and an accompanying development of feelings and interests in the opposite sex. There has been doubtless an overemphasis on the sexual characteristics of this period. The fact is that a profound general physical and mental change is going forward.

On the physical side the organism which has been accumulating powers through its mastery of the fundamental processes of life is now ready for its last large development. We shall understand the meaning of this statement only when we realize that the organism has to cultivate a whole series of internal habits in order that it may be internally harmonious. The little child is easily disturbed, for example, in his digestion. This means that the habits of digestion are not established. The immature nervous organism of the pupil needs training to bring it to the point where digestion will go forward without interruption or distraction. The same is true of circulation and respiration. The organism has to learn to live. The school period is a period of mastery of these internal processes quite as much as a period of intellectual training.

At about twelve years of age the inner coördination is reaching its consummation. If one were to select for discussion the most significant physical fact that marks this period, one would lay stress on the development of the heart. This organ grows rapidly in size and strength. Its more vigorous action raises the blood pressure throughout the body. Organs which have been slow in their development now grow rapidly. The whole life of the individual is intensified. It is not alone the sex organs which mature; the nervous system acts with greater energy, and the muscular system develops. In short, a period of the most active life sets in.

The physical vigor of the twelve-year-old and the thirteen-year-old child is only part of the explanation of the characteristic intellectual temper of this period. Just prior to this period the child, as we have seen, passes through an era of marked individualism. The unsocial tendencies of that period bring disappointments and new lessons, and finally the child is ready for a renewal of his contacts with the social group. He cannot now be purely imitative as was the primary child, for he has gained self-consciousness. He cannot be content with pure individualism, because his experience has broadened so that he sees his dependence on others. A new social era opens. With self-consciousness and with a desire to get back into society by accepting its ways and complying with its demands, the adolescent seeks, albeit somewhat clumsily, a new contact with his fellows. The awkwardness of this period, its lack of self-assurance, its eagerness for social recognition, are all perfectly clear to the student of human nature who has analyzed the case of a twelve-year-old pupil.

THE NEW SCHOOL ADAPTED TO ADOLESCENCE

Has the school met the legitimate demand for a suitable education of the adolescent? The answer is that the school has been slow in meeting this situation. The archaic form of school organization which attached the seventh and eighth grades to the elementary school has hindered greatly a proper recognition of the special needs of adolescence. The child of twelve or thirteen does not need a review of the elementary work so much as a preparation for the active life of adulthood. The adolescent needs to be given an insight into the organization of society. He needs to be brought into contact with the ways and languages of other peoples. Fortunately, the keener educational insights of the present day are bringing us to a recognition of these needs. The school for the adolescent is beginning to emerge out of the current reorganizations of the seventh and eighth grades.

In many schools these two grades have been gradually separating from the rest of the elementary grades. The teaching has been organized on the departmental plan; that is, a number of special teachers, each dealing with a single subject, replace the single teacher who has charge of the whole curriculum in the lower grades. Furthermore, the curriculum has been enlarged. Manual arts and household science have been introduced and, in some cases, other subjects which were formerly offered only in the high school. A new type of school, including the seventh, eighth, and ninth grades and known as the junior high school or the intermediate school, is appearing.

Where these and like changes have not been made in the seventh and eighth grades, criticism has made itself increasingly heard because the pupils do not get ahead in these grades. The reviews which are sometimes carried on at great length in preparation for promotion into the high school are a waste of time and energy and leave the pupils without enthusiasm for school work and without habits of concentration.

In an earlier chapter it was shown that the seventh and eighth grades came from Europe during the decade 1840-1850. Every line of evidence which is taken up points to the desirability of a complete reorganization of the work of these grades.

The spread of the junior-high-school idea has been remarkably rapid. This is due to the growing conviction that pupils in the seventh and eighth grades require a higher type of instruction and discipline than that which is supplied in the lower grades. The curriculum is being enriched by the addition of science, foreign language, mathematics other than arithmetic, and several of the practical arts. Instruction is being intrusted to teachers of broader training, and the individual needs of pupils are being more adequately met by the introduction of some elective courses.

LATER ADOLESCENCE A PERIOD OF SPECIALIZATION

The early part of the adolescent period which has been under consideration in the foregoing paragraphs is followed by a period which can be described as the beginning of specialization. The fact that individual differences here assert themselves and that individual outlooks determine the training demanded is clearly recognized in the adoption of the elective system by the high school. Special education has an adequate foundation in the work of the earlier years, and now the student must build his individual career on this foundation. He comes to a new period of individualism. He is not individualistic in the sense in which the fourth-grade boy is when he breaks away from imitating social examples. The boy of fifteen to eighteen has passed through the first period of individualism and through the socializing training of early adolescence; he now comes to a new type of individualistic effort which will fit him for his place in the social system.

The upper limit of this period, as set down in the foregoing discussions, coincides with the age at which a normal student is now supposed to finish high school. There can be very little doubt that with the readjustments going on in the seventh and eighth grades there will be far-reaching changes in the upper high school also. It is not too much to expect that with improved methods of teaching and with a better curriculum it will be possible for the normal student to complete at eighteen years of age the first two years of the college curriculum. The complete reorganization of the higher institutions is thus likely to follow the changes which are now under way in the high school.

The freshman and sophomore years of American colleges are at present filled with subjects which are essentially secondary in character. The reorganization suggested is therefore altogether legitimate.

THE REORGANIZED SCHOOL SYSTEM

The scheme of school organization which is in keeping with the foregoing study of mental development is as follows: Three primary years are to be devoted to the rudiments of the social arts. Three intermediate years following the primary are to be devoted to gaining an outlook on the world. Three years covering the period now covered by grades seven, eight, and nine are to be devoted to social studies and a systematization of knowledge of the world. The three years from fifteen to eighteen are to be devoted to a completion of general training and to the beginning of specialization. After this will come complete specialization.

Not all students can go through the full training thus outlined. More and more, however, communities will provide for, and require the completion of, the whole cycle. If a student’s training must be curtailed, there will doubtless be an increasing tendency to bring the higher stages down rather than to terminate education before preparation for life has been carried far enough to give specialized individual training.

EXERCISES AND READINGS

Considering the kindergarten and the first grade in the light of the discussions of this chapter, what are the characteristics of pupils which justify placing them in the one or the other? What is the present rule with regard to this placing? Should there be any systematic education of children in the home? If so, along what lines?

Make a detailed catalogue of the kinds of ability, both physical and mental, exhibited by a group of pupils in the first grade, and then attempt, by contrasting a third-grade group, to determine what pupils acquire in the primary years. Which of the new characteristics noted are consciously sought by the school?

What kind of reading matter should be offered to pupils in the fourth, fifth, and sixth grades? What grade of experience is required of teachers in the middle grades?

What readjustments is the student called on to make as he passes from elementary school to high school? From high school to college? Do the institutions concerned put forth any effort to help the student in making these transitions?

When should formal education stop? Should pupils be given a course in the methods of educating themselves? If so, at what school period?

Show in terms of earlier chapters what are the forces making for reorganization of the school system and the forces opposing this reorganization.

AMES, E. S. Psychology of Religious Experience. Houghton Mifflin Company. Like other books on the psychology of religion, this calls attention to the great importance of the changes that come with adolescence.

HALL, G. S. Adolescence. D. Appleton and Company. This is a somewhat erratic and often purely hypothetical description of the development of pupils at the beginning of the high-school age. It called attention, however, to the importance of the period and marked an epoch in the development of educational theory.

HALL, G. S. Youth. D. Appleton and Company. A brief summary based on the foregoing.

KIRKPATRICK, E. A. Fundamentals of Child Study. The Macmillan Company. This is the best summary of the child-study movement. It offers a treatment of the different periods of a child’s life somewhat different from that in the text.

FOOTNOTES:

[62] John Fiske, The Meaning of Infancy. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1909.