THE UNGRADED TEACHERS ASSOCIATION OF NEW YORK CITY ELIZABETH E. FARRELL, Inspector of Ungraded Classes, President The Ungraded Teacher as Psychologist WILLIAM J. TAYLOR, PH.D. Head of the Department of Psychology, Brooklyn Training School for Teachers In no department of education is the need of psychological insight and attitude more pressing than in the special classes for mentally deficient children. In case of the normal child certain well-known standards for measuring progress have been determined from long experience. Though individual differences exist, and are perhaps too often ignored in teaching, still the average child conforms as an instructional type pretty exactly to these standards. This conformity underlies the success of all graded courses of study, and is usually markedly exhibited in the process of learning. But in the case of the mentally deficient child, the situation is very different. Here we have a departure from the norm, marked by a slackening in the expected progress of learning. When it comes, however, to an estimate of the amount and direction of this deficiency, a conjecture of what it portends as an obstacle to learning, and a suggestion of remedial measures, one is completely at sea until he gains some practical insight into the mental processes of the deviate. This means really that each deviating mental life is a case of unique character, not predictable in any practical measure from other cases, and, in its turn, not furnishing grounds for conclusive inference in future cases. In other words, all generalization. is dangerous when applied to mental deficiency. We have cases to deal with, not types. Admitting this, we are confronted by the necessity of studying each case as a bit of behavior standing alone. We must learn each child's mental processes anew almost as though we had previously had no experience with others. A concession to the fact that defectives. do not easily group into mental classes is evidenced in provision for smaller teaching groups than is customary with normal children. There is here, then, the appealing but difficult problem of a psychology of the individual. Moreover, the individual in question deviates in some unknown degree from the standard that we recognize as obtaining in our own psychical functions. It is a recognized difficulty of interpretation in normal child psychology to determine the degree to which it is safe to project our own adult consciousness into the child as a means of describing his mental life. How far may we assume that adult motives, perceptions, emotions, are enough like those of the average child to serve as a basis of understanding and description? In so far as we explain the psyche of the normal child by the method of introspection, we make the very debatable assumption that his processes are like ours in kind but different in degree. Practically all child psychology is built upon this assumption. When it comes to applying this rule of interpretation to defectives, one stretches this assumption beyond its elastic limit. Not only is there the problem of the psychology of the individual, but there is the complication that the individual departs in some unknown degree and direction from the standard by which we know ourselves and the normals around us. Indeed, it is very doubtful if the introspective method should be employed at all in this field of the abnormal. The teacher who would turn psychologist to make her work more effectual is thus in much the position of the animal psychologist. The latter is precluded from using the introspective method by reason of the immense and impassible chasm that lies between his mental life and that of the animal. The teacher of defectives is also embarrassed by the gulf that yawns between her normal mind and the abnormal mind she studies. The animal psychologist has found it expedient to resort to the behavioristic method of study and interpretation in his field, and the same method promises to prove the most fruitful one to employ upon abnormal human beings also. The sum and substance of method in behavioristic psychology is this: Construct an environment as nearly as possible like that of nature about the individual under observation; bring the stimuli that are to be used in this experimental environment under artificial control of the observer; observe and record the reactions to the stimuli, noting especially the trend of their development; and from the record make inferences with a minimum of subjective interpretation, and a maximum of explanation in terms of stimulus-reaction. This is precisely what is done in the best testing technique when giving the Binet-Simon, Healy, De Sanctis, and other tests. It puts the data into objective, scientific form, letting the behavior, not the prejudices and prepossessions of the observer, tell the story. This being in all likelihood the best road to the psychology of defectives, it becomes the duty of the teacher of the special class to adopt it, and build up the habit of accurate, scientific observation of the learning behavior of her charges. For only in so far as she is herself a field psychologist can she acquire the psychological insight and tact that are necessary to secure improvement in the Ungraded classroom. Nor should her psychology be the vicarious, long-distance variety that she may readily borrow in small helpings from the report of the psycho-clinicist whose examination has placed the child in her class. Not that she should ignore this record. She must needs start from it in continuing her own observations. But it should never be the final word in her psychological grasp of the case. It must be checked and supplemented by her own efforts. Once committed to her charge, the task of inducing beneficial mental changes in the child is hers alone. She must be a devoted student of the individual psychology of her cases to get efficient results. She must, if the conclusions reached above are correct, become an acute and accurate observer of behavior and function. It has been questioned whether the average teacher, beset with her many imperative schoolroom problems, can become a practical psychologist. The psychological expert has usually advised against the teacherpsychologist. And yet, how illogical! No one doubts in this advanced day of a pedagogy grounded upon psychology that the teacher needs to study psychology in preparation for her professional career. No institution for the training of teachers worthy its charter would for an instant think of framing a curriculum without giving the science of mind a conspicuous place. Under one name or another the laws of mental genesis and function are restated time and again by the teacher in training. Now it is principles of teaching, again it is general or special method, and always it is the old story of the unfolding mind told anew. Is it in the program for its mere disciplinary or cultural value? By no means. The disciplinary theory is all but abandoned in current educational practice. A subject in a professional curriculum must show its functional value or yield place to another that can. As for cultural value, this aim is always incidental in professional study-groups, and the persistence and growing importance of psychology proves it to be a strictly professional subject as much so, indeed, as case-studies in medicine or law. It is in the course for professional training because every day's experience renders it more and more apparent that, aside from scholarly mastery of the subject-matter to be taught, nothing avails the prospective teacher so much as a comprehension of the laws of mental life. The teacher, whose appeals are all stated in terms of mental change, must have intimate knowledge of the facts of psychic life. The reason that this master-key to expert teaching has not been of as great profit as it should, is that it has remained too much upon the plane of general statement, and has not been sufficiently linked up in the teacher's mind with the problem of individual behavior. Take it as a physician does his study of cases through the clinic and by reading, with a constant impulse to bring the general description into adjustment to the particular case under treatment, and it becomes as if by magic an instrument of the utmost facility and promise. We cannot agree, then, with those cautious advisers who would have it that this knowledge which the teacher has acquired with such painstaking effort in preparation for her calling should be shelved in the actual work of teaching. No, the teacher is given a grounding in psychology in order that she may become a practical psychologist in the presence of the most perfectly equipped laboratory that it is possible to supply, the actively behaving child-mind. She She may be trusted to psychologize, and should by all means be encouraged to do so. It is a sad commentary on the pragmatic consequences of the teaching of the psychologists themselves, if those who should, of all others, garner the most abundant harvest are forbidden to do so in the palsying fear that a tare might chance to come in with the wheat. As we stated in the beginning, the teacher of mental defectives needs the most delicate psychological insight, the most effectual observational technique. She must be quick to detect the smallest abortive germ of a function, and psychologically sympathetic to nurse it into a fuller life. She must realize the existence of beneficial change when it is so slow and so slight as to pass unnoticed by those who are used to the leaps and bounds by which the normal child makes his mental growth. She must feel growth in power and control when too slight to be seen by one whose psychological perceptions have not been rendered acute by noting the minute increments of change by which the psychic development of defectives reveals itself. In conclusion, a few practical suggestions for making a study of the behavior of the individual child are submitted. The teacher should keep a commonplace book in which to preserve the records of the children. A good title for such a book would be, Psychogenetic Record Book. There should be space left in the heading of each entry for name, chronological age, physiological age, and mental age (Binet test record); also for heredity history, sociological status of the family, child's school history, and probably, too, a line for entering a note or two on any striking peculiarity of psychopathic history. The object of these data would be to have constantly before the eye of the recorder a few salient points that might be assumed to weigh heavily in determining the future development of the child's mind. It is well to avoid numerous data from past history of the case, as they would prove confusing, and sometimes misleading. It would be best for the teacher to give the child most of the tests suggested below once in two weeks, but, as special classes are at present organized, this would doubtless prove entirely too heavy a burden. Once a month would do very well, and it might be practically necessary to select only a few specially important cases for the most complete record. A study of even one or two, intensively carried out, would prove very illuminating, and would bear fruit in an improved psychological attitude toward all. The points to be observed, and suggestions as to how to get data, follow: I. Instinct. Study especially play, imitation, construction, curiosity, co-operation. Experimental control of the instincts is difficult. But it should be possible to put stimulating material, such as toys, before the child under observation, for a short time, and to watch and record his behavior. It is also possible to acquire much valuable material for record by observation when he is not under experimental control. II. Habit. It is quite possible to make an experimental study of habit. All that is necessary is to limit the learning periods to a definite length, arrange for a periodical recurrence of them daily for, say, ten days, select a habit that can be accurately estimated in quantity of product, and record the total ouput for each practice period. The occupational work in use in Ungraded classes offers an excellent practice material. The number of meshes that are tied in each practice period in hammock-making would furnish a very interesting experiment. It would be well to supple |