And where children are engaged in doing
things and in discussing what arises in the course of their
doing, it is found, even with comparatively indifferent modes of
instruction, that children's inquiries are spontaneous and
numerous, and the proposals of solution advanced, varied, and
ingenious.
As a consequence of the absence of the materials and occupations
which generate real problems, the pupil's problems are not his;
or, rather, they are his only as a pupil, not as a human being.
Hence the lamentable waste in carrying over such expertness as is
achieved in dealing with them to the affairs of life beyond the
schoolroom. A pupil has a problem, but it is the problem of
meeting the peculiar requirements set by the teacher. His
problem becomes that of finding out what the teacher wants, what
will satisfy the teacher in recitation and examination and
outward deportment. Relationship to subject matter is no longer
direct. The occasions and material of thought are not found in
the arithmetic or the history or geography itself, but in
skillfully adapting that material to the teacher's requirements.
The pupil studies, but unconsciously to himself the objects of
his study are the conventions and standards of the school system
and school authority, not the nominal "studies." The thinking
thus evoked is artificially one-sided at the best. At its worst,
the problem of the pupil is not how to meet the requirements of
school life, but how to seem to meet them -- or, how to come near
enough to meeting them to slide along without an undue amount of
friction.
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