The type of judgment formed by these devices is not a
desirable addition to character. If these statements give too
highly colored a picture of usual school methods, the
exaggeration may at least serve to illustrate the point: the need
of active pursuits, involving the use of material to accomplish
purposes, if there are to be situations which normally generate
problems occasioning thoughtful inquiry.
II. There must be data at command to supply the considerations
required in dealing with the specific difficulty which has
presented itself. Teachers following a "developing" method
sometimes tell children to think things out for themselves as if
they could spin them out of their own heads. The material of
thinking is not thoughts, but actions, facts, events, and the
relations of things. In other words, to think effectively one
must have had, or now have, experiences which will furnish him
resources for coping with the difficulty at hand. A difficulty
is an indispensable stimulus to thinking, but not all
difficulties call out thinking. Sometimes they overwhelm and
submerge and discourage. The perplexing situation must be
sufficiently like situations which have already been dealt with
so that pupils will have some control of the meanings of handling
it. A large part of the art of instruction lies in making the
difficulty of new problems large enough to challenge thought, and
small enough so that, in addition to the confusion naturally
attending the novel elements, there shall be luminous familiar
spots from which helpful suggestions may spring.
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