2. Method as General and as Individual.
—In brief, the method of teaching is the method of an art, of
action intelligently directed by ends. But the practice of a fine art
is far from being a matter of extemporized inspirations. Study of the
operations and results of those in the past who have greatly succeeded
is essential. There is always a tradition, or schools of art, definite
enough to impress beginners, and often to take them captive. Methods of
artists in every branch depend upon thorough acquaintance with materials
and tools; the painter must know canvas, pigments, brushes, and the
technique of manipulation of all his appliances. Attainment of this
knowledge requires persistent and concentrated attention to objective
materials. The artist studies the progress of his own attempts to see
what succeeds and what fails. The assumption that there are no
alternatives between following ready-made rules and trusting to native
gifts, the inspiration of the moment and undirected "hard work," is
contradicted by the procedures of every art.
Such matters as knowledge of the past, of current technique, of
materials, of the ways in which one's own best results are assured,
supply the material for what may be called general method. There exists
a cumulative body of fairly stable methods for reaching results, a body
authorized by past experience and by intellectual analysis, which an
individual ignores at his peril. As was pointed out in the discussion
of habit-forming
(ante, p. 58),
there is always a danger that these methods will become mechanized and
rigid, mastering an agent instead of being powers at command for his own
ends. But it is also true that the innovator who achieves anything enduring,
whose work is more than a passing sensation, utilizes classic methods more
than may appear to himself or to his critics. He devotes them to new uses,
and in so far transforms them.
Education also has its general methods. And if the application of this
remark is more obvious in the case of the teacher than of the pupil, it
is equally real in the case of the latter. Part of his learning, a very
important part, consists in becoming master of the methods which
the experience of others has shown to be more efficient in like cases of
getting knowledge.
[9]
These general methods are in no way opposed to individual initiative and
originality—to personal ways of doing things. On the contrary they are
reënforcements of them. For there is radical difference between even the
most general method and a prescribed rule. The latter is a direct guide
to action; the former operates indirectly through the enlightenment it supplies
as to ends and means. It operates, that is to say, through intelligence, and
not through conformity to orders externally imposed. Ability to use even in
a masterly way an established technique gives no warranty of artistic
work, for the latter also depends upon an animating idea.
If knowledge of methods used by others does not directly tell us what to
do, or furnish ready-made models, how does it operate? What is meant by
calling a method intellectual? Take the case of a physician. No mode of
behavior more imperiously demands knowledge of established modes of
diagnosis and treatment than does his. But after all, cases are like,
not identical. To be used intelligently, existing practices, however
authorized they may be, have to be adapted to the exigencies of
particular cases. Accordingly, recognized procedures indicate to the
physician what inquiries to set on foot for himself, what measures to
try. They are standpoints from which to carry on investigations; they
economize a survey of the features of the particular case by suggesting
the things to be especially looked into. The physician's own personal
attitudes, his own ways (individual methods) of dealing with the
situation in which he is concerned, are not subordinated to the general
principles of procedure, but are facilitated and directed by the latter.
The instance may serve to point out the value to the teacher of a
knowledge of the psychological methods and the empirical devices found
useful in the past. When they get in the way of his own common sense,
when they come between him and the situation in which he has to act,
they are worse than useless. But if he has acquired them as
intellectual aids in sizing up the needs, resources, and difficulties
of the unique experiences in which he engages, they are of constructive
value. In the last resort, just because everything depends upon
his own methods of response, much depends upon how far he can
utilize, in making his own response, the knowledge which has accrued
in the experience of others.
As already intimated, every word of this account is directly applicable
also to the method of the pupil, the way of learning. To suppose that
students, whether in the primary school or in the university, can be
supplied with models of method to be followed in acquiring and
expounding a subject is to fall into a self-deception that has
lamentable consequences.
(See ante, p. 199.)
One must make his own reaction in any case. Indications of the standardized
or general methods used in like cases by others—particularly by those
who are already experts—are of worth or of harm according as they make
his personal reaction more intelligent or as they induce a person to
dispense with exercise of his own judgment.
If what was said earlier (See p. 159)
about
originality of thought seemed overstrained, demanding more of education
than the capacities of average human nature permit, the difficulty is
that we lie under the incubus of a superstition. We have set up the
notion of mind at large, of intellectual method that is the same for
all. Then we regard individuals as differing in the quantity
of mind with which they are charged. Ordinary persons are then expected
to be ordinary. Only the exceptional are allowed to have originality.
The measure of difference between the average student and the genius is
a measure of the absence of originality in the former. But this notion
of mind in general is a fiction. How one person's abilities compare in
quantity with those of another is none of the teacher's business. It is
irrelevant to his work. What is required is that every individual shall
have opportunities to employ his own powers in activities that have
meaning. Mind, individual method, originality (these are convertible
terms) signify the quality of purposive or directed action. If we
act upon this conviction, we shall secure more originality even by the
conventional standard than now develops. Imposing an alleged uniform
general method upon everybody breeds mediocrity in all but the very
exceptional. And measuring originality by deviation from the mass
breeds eccentricity in them. Thus we stifle the distinctive quality of
the many, and save in rare instances (like, say, that of Darwin) infect
the rare geniuses with an unwholesome quality.
