Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's IdealsJames, William
Science
Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals
James, William
College students -- Conduct of life; Educational psychology; Teachers -- Professional ethics
pretty sure to miss accuracy and balance and measure in those who get a
license to lay down the law to them from above.
As regards this subject of psychology, now, I wish at the very threshold
to do what I can to dispel the mystification. So I say at once that in
my humble opinion there _is_ no 'new psychology' worthy of the name.
There is nothing but the old psychology which began in Locke's time,
plus a little physiology of the brain and senses and theory of
evolution, and a few refinements of introspective detail, for the most
part without adaptation to the teacher's use. It is only the fundamental
conceptions of psychology which are of real value to the teacher; and
they, apart from the aforesaid theory of evolution, are very far from
being new.--I trust that you will see better what I mean by this at the
end of all these talks.
I say moreover that you make a great, a very great mistake, if you think
that psychology, being the science of the mind's laws, is something from
which you can deduce definite programmes and schemes and methods of
instruction for immediate schoolroom use. Psychology is a science, and
teaching is an art; and sciences never generate arts directly out of
themselves. An intermediary inventive mind must make the application, by
using its originality.
The science of logic never made a man reason rightly, and the science of
ethics (if there be such a thing) never made a man behave rightly. The
most such sciences can do is to help us to catch ourselves up and check
ourselves, if we start to reason or to behave wrongly; and to criticise
ourselves more articulately after we have made mistakes. A science only
lays down lines within which the rules of the art must fall, laws which
the follower of the art must not transgress; but what particular thing
he shall positively do within those lines is left exclusively to his own
genius. One genius will do his work well and succeed in one way, while
another succeeds as well quite differently; yet neither will transgress
the lines.
The art of teaching grew up in the schoolroom, out of inventiveness and
sympathetic concrete observation. Even where (as in the case of Herbart)
the advancer of the art was also a psychologist, the pedagogics and the
psychology ran side by side, and the former was not derived in any sense
from the latter. The two were congruent, but neither was subordinate.
And so everywhere the teaching must _agree_ with the psychology, but
need not necessarily be the only kind of teaching that would so agree;
for many diverse methods of teaching may equally well agree with
psychological laws.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account