Chapter X: Individual Differences and Teaching

OUTLINE--CHAPTER X

The causes of individual differences.--Norsworthy and Whitley on
the significance of parentage.--The teacher's obligation to know
parents.--The influence of sex.--Environment as a
factor.--Thorndike quoted.--B.H. Jacobsen on individual
differences.

So far we simply have made the point that individuals differ. We are concerned in this chapter in knowing how these differences affect the teaching process. Fully to appreciate their significance we must know not only that they exist, and the degree of their variation, but also the forces that produce them. On the side of heredity, race, family, and sex, are the great modifying factors. Practically, of course, we are concerned very little as Church teachers with problems of race. We are all so nearly one in that regard that a discussion of racial differences would contribute but little to the solution of our teaching problem.

The matter of family heritage is a problem of very much more immediate concern. Someone has happily said: "Really to know a boy one must know fully his father and his mother." "Yes," says a commentator, "and he ought to know a deal about the grandfather and grandmother." The significance of parentage is made to stand out with clearness in the following paragraph from Norsworthy and Whitley, _The Psychology of Childhood_:

"Just as good eyesight and longevity are family characteristics, so
also color blindness, left-handedness, some slight peculiarity of
structure such as an extra finger or toe, or the Hapsburg lip, sense
defects such as deafness or blindness, tendencies to certain
diseases, especially those of the nervous system,--all these run in
families. Certain mental traits likewise are obviously handed down
from parents to child, such as strong will, memory for faces, musical
imagination, abilities in mathematics or the languages, artistic
talent. In these ways and many others children resemble their
parents. The same general law holds of likes and dislikes, of
temperamental qualities such as quick temper, vivacity, lovableness,
moodiness. In all traits, characteristics, features, powers both
physical and mental and to some extent moral also, children's
original nature, their stock in trade, is determined by their
immediate ancestry. 'We inherit our parents' tempers, our parents'
conscientiousness, shyness and ability, as we inherit their stature,
forearm and span,' says Pearson."

The teacher who would really appreciate the feelings and responses of a boy in his class must be aware, therefore, that the boy is not merely one of a dozen type individuals--he is a product of a particular parentage, acting as he does largely because "he was born that way."

We shall point out in connection with environmental influences the importance of a teacher's knowing the home condition of his pupils; but it is important here, in passing, to emphasize the point that even though a child were never to live with its parents it could be understood by the teacher acquainted with the peculiar traits of those parents. "Born with a bent" is a proverb of such force that it cannot be ignored. To know the parental heritage of a boy is to anticipate his reaction to stimuli--is to know what approach to make to win him.

Because of the fact that in many of our organizations we are concerned with the problem of teaching boys and girls together, the question of the influence of sex is one which we must face. There are those who hold that boys and girls are so fundamentally different by nature that they ought not to be taught coeducationally. Others maintain that they are essentially alike in feeling and intellectuality, and that because of the fact that eventually they are to be mated in the great partnership of life they should be held together as much as possible during the younger years of their lives. Most authorities are agreed that boys and girls differ not so much because they are possessed of different native tendencies, but because they live differently--they follow different lines of activity, and therefore develop different interests. To quote again from Norsworthy and Whitley:

"That men and women are different, that their natures are not the
same, has long been an accepted fact. Out of this fact of difference
have grown many hot discussions as to the superiority of one or the
other nature as a whole. The present point of view of scientists
seems well expressed by Ellis when he says, 'We may regard all such
discussions as absolutely futile and foolish. If it is a question of
determining the existence and significance of some particular
physical sexual difference, a conclusion may not be impossible. To
make any broad statement of the phenomena is to recognize that no
general conclusion is possible. Now and again we come across facts
which group themselves with a certain uniformity, but as we continue,
we find other equally important facts which group themselves with
equal uniformity in another sense. The result produces compensation.'
The question of interest then is, what in nature is peculiar to the
male sex and what to the female? What traits will be true of a boy,
merely because he is a boy, and vice versa? This has been an
extremely difficult question to answer, because of the difficulty
encountered in trying to eliminate the influence of environment and
training. Boys are what they are because of their original nature
plus their surroundings. Some would claim that if we could give boys
and girls the same surroundings, the same social requirements, the
same treatment from babyhood, there would be no difference in the
resulting natures. Training undoubtedly accentuates inborn sex
differences, and it is true that a reversal of training does lessen
this difference; however, the weight of opinion at present is that
differences in intellect and character do exist because of
differences of sex, but that these have been unduly magnified. H.B.
Thompson, in her investigation entitled _The Mental Traits of Sex_,
finds that 'Motor ability in most of its forms is better developed in
men than in women. In strength, rapidity of movement, and rate of
fatigue, they have a very decided advantage, and in precision of
movement a slight advantage.... The thresholds are on the whole lower
in women, discriminative sensibility is on the whole better in
men.... All these differences, however, are slight. As for the
intellectual faculties, women are decidedly superior to men in
memory, and possibly more rapid in associative thinking. Men are
probably superior in ingenuity.... The data on the life of feeling
indicate that there is little, if any, sexual difference in the
degree of domination by emotion, and that social consciousness is
more prominent in men, and religious consciousness in women.'

"Pearson, in his measurement of traits, not by objective tests but by
opinions of people who know the individual, finds that boys are more
athletic, noisy, self-assertive, self-conscious; less popular, duller
in conscience, quicker-tempered, less sullen, a little duller
intellectually and less efficient in penmanship. Heymans and Wiersma,
following the same general method as Pearson, state as their general
conclusions that the female is more active, more emotional, and more
unselfish than the male. 'They consider women to be more impulsive,
less efficient intellectually, and more fickle than men as a result
of the first two differences mentioned above; to be gifted in music,
acting, conversation and the invention of stories, as a result in
part of the second difference; and to think well of people and to be
easily reconciled to them as a result of the third.' Thorndike finds
the chief differences to be that the female varies less from the
average standard, is more observant of small visual details, less
often color-blind, less interested in things and their mechanisms,
more interested in people and their feelings, less given to pursuing,
capturing and maltreating living things, and more given to nursing,
comforting and relieving them than is the male. H. Ellis considers
the chief differences to be the less tendency to variability, the
greater affectability, and the greater primitiveness of the female
mind, and the less ability shown by women in dealing with the more
remote and abstract interests in life. All the authors emphasize the
smallness of the differences; and after all the striking thing is not
the differences between the sexes, but the great difference within
the same sex in respect to every mental trait tested. The difference
of man from man, and woman from woman, in any trait is almost as
great as the differences between the sexes in that trait. Sex can be
the cause, then, of only a fraction of the difference between the
original nature of individuals."

It is reasonably certain, then, that a teacher may safely appeal to both boys and girls on the ground of the fundamental instincts, feeling confident that common stimuli will produce largely the same results.

Important as it is that we know what our pupils are from their parentage, it is even more important in the matter of religious instruction that we shall appreciate the force of the varieties of environment that have been operative. Though boys and girls may be essentially alike at the outset of their lives they may be thrown into such associations as to make their ideals and conduct entirely different. Fancy the contrast between the case of a girl brought up for fifteen years in a household of refinement and in a companionship of gentility, and the case of a boy who during the same years has been the pal of bullies on street corners. Surely stimuli that are to promote proper reaction in these two cases will have to be suited to the person in question.

Then, too, the teacher must realize that one child may come from a home of faith, confidence, and contentment; whereas, another may come from a home of agitation, doubt, and suspicion. One may have been taught to pray--another may have been led to disbelieve. One may have been stimulated to read over sacred books--another may have been left to peruse cheap, sensational detective stories. To succeed in reaching the hearts of a group of such boys and girls, a teacher surely ought to be aware of individual differences and ought to be fortified with a wealth of material so that the appeal may be as varied as possible. To quote from Thorndike's _Principles of Education_:

"A teacher has to choose what is for the greatest good of the
greatest number. He cannot expect to drive forty children abreast
along the highroad of education." "Yet the differences in children
should not blind us to their likenesses." "We need general principles
and their sagacious application to individual problems."

"The worst error of teachers with respect to individual differences
is to neglect them, to form one set of fixed habits for dealing with
all children, to teach 'the child instead of countless different
living individuals.' To realize the varieties of human nature, the
nature and amount of mental differences, is to be protected against
many fallacies of teaching."

Our treatment of individual differences was well summed up in the following paper by B.H. Jacobsen, a member of the B.Y.U. Teacher-Training class:

_The Significance of Individual Differences in Teaching_

"Individual instruction in our religious organizations as in the
public schools is under present condition impracticable. We are
compelled to teach in groups or classes of somewhat varying size.
Consequently, it is of prime importance for the teacher, in trying to
apply that fundamental principle of pedagogy--an understanding of the
being to be taught--to know first what characteristics and
tendencies, whether native or acquired, are known to a large majority
of the children in the class. Leaving out of consideration the
possible presence of subnormal children, the language used must be
clear and simple enough to be comprehended by all; the great majority
of the questions must be intended for all to find answers to; the
stories, illustrations, incidents, pictures, and various devices
employed must be reasonably within the range of experience and
comprehension of all members.

"At the same time, it is important to recognize the fact that, after
all, the class as a whole does not in any very fundamental,
pedagogical sense constitute the objective unit of instruction.
Though it seems natural for most teachers to look upon the class as a
more or less uniform mass, and the exigencies of the situation make
this to some extent unavoidable, still the individual child remains
always the real unit, and furthermore the units are all different--in
appearance, training and temperament.

"In general the methods and material will be uniform for all, but
there will still be abundant opportunity for exercising little
individual touches and tricks in relation to individual pupils,
especially those who vary somewhat widely from the average. Even such
a superficial matter as size, especially superior size, might
profitably receive a little special consideration by the teacher and
thus at times save some pupil a little physical embarrassment. The
boy unusually active might be given some physical task to perform,
even if it has to be provided for the occasion, though it must not be
too artificially created, as this is sure of detection.

"Questions requiring more than ordinary mental ability to answer may
be directed to those of superior alertness and intelligence, who may
also be given more difficult subjects to look up for presentation to
the class. Special interests in animals, flowers, books, aeroplanes,
industries, vocations, should be discovered and utilized by the
watchful teacher. Even though the connection may be a little remote,
any contribution of real interest and value is legitimate in order to
relieve the monotony of a dull class.

"Pupils differ very widely in temperament and disposition as well as
in capacity. The timid boy or girl should be given special
encouragement and commendation, while the over-bold will take no
injury from a mild "squelch" occasionally. The child of gloomy
disposition should if anything have more smiles and sunny words sent
his way than the cheerful one, who is in no danger of losing his
share. The talkative child will need cautioning and careful
directing, while the one who seldom speaks needs the frequent
stimulus of a kind and encouraging look or word. The child who is
naturally docile and obedient will develop smoothly and without great
need of special attention and direction, while the stubborn, the
rebellious, the untractable child, the cause of continual worry and
solicitude, is the one on whom special thought must be bestowed; for
his soul is no less precious in the sight of God, and the wise
teacher may be the means of making him a useful citizen, as well as
directing him in the way of working out his eternal salvation."

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QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS--CHAPTER X

1. Discuss the relative significance of race, sex, family, and environment as factors producing individual differences.

2. Why is it essential that teachers know the parents of pupils?

3. What are the advantages of having boys and girls together in class? What are the arguments for separating them?

4. How can a teacher be governed by the force of individual differences when he has to teach a group of forty pupils?

5. Discuss the statement that teaching is both a social and an individual process.

6. Choose a subject of general interest and illustrate how it might be presented to satisfy different types of pupils.

HELPFUL REFERENCES

Those listed in Chapter VII.