Chapter Three: Education as Direction
1. The Environment as Directive.
We now pass to one of the special forms which the general
function of education assumes: namely, that of direction,
control, or guidance. Of these three words, direction, control,
and guidance, the last best conveys the idea of assisting through
cooperation the natural capacities of the individuals guided;
control conveys rather the notion of an energy brought to bear
from without and meeting some resistance from the one controlled;
direction is a more neutral term and suggests the fact that the
active tendencies of those directed are led in a certain
continuous course, instead of dispersing aimlessly. Direction
expresses the basic function, which tends at one extreme to
become a guiding assistance and at another, a regulation or
ruling. But in any case, we must carefully avoid a meaning
sometimes read into the term "control." It is sometimes assumed,
explicitly or unconsciously, that an individual's tendencies are
naturally purely individualistic or egoistic, and thus
antisocial. Control then denotes the process by which he is
brought to subordinate his natural impulses to public or common
ends. Since, by conception, his own nature is quite alien to
this process and opposes it rather than helps it, control has in
this view a flavor of coercion or compulsion about it. Systems
of government and theories of the state have been built upon this
notion, and it has seriously affected educational ideas and
practices.
Pages:
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55