The story of education; Psychological education

You're Pacific University program today and in the broadcast the follow is based upon the story of education published by Chilton books in June 1962 co-author with your narrator was Dr. Eugene Moleski an assistant superintendent in charge of teacher recruitment for the New York City Board of Education. By presenting these excerpts from our book The Story of education we are hoping that you are listening audience maybe better able to understand the whys and the wherefores of our own American schools. Our topic today psychological education. Historically psychology dates back to the conflicting views on human nature of Plato and Aristotle Plato set up a theory to fit his political and economic proposals as well his metaphysical philosophy of the universe is divided into a spiritual and a material world. Likewise human nature consists of spirit the soul and matter the body. The soul is eternal changeless and non

material. The body is born grows decays and is destroyed as do all things a change in imperfection. Plato's human nature is determined and carried by heredity and is mixed from birth. Aristotle conceived man as being made to form the soul and matter the body. His scientific studies led him to make more of the relationship between human and lower levels of life. Human nature is they come pound a vegetative animal and human characteristics. Man's vegetative nature grows reproduces the Kaizen dies. Death is plant life. It is animal nature has desires sensory impressions an active movement as has all other animal lives. A man alone possesses a distinctly human nature that no lower form of life has namely the reason which accounts for Aristotle's frequently repeated words is a rational animal.

This difference in outlook between these two great Greek philosophers led to violent intellect to controversies in the Middle Ages when the realists look to Plato for support and the nominalist depended upon Aristotle. Psychological education received its modern impetus as have so many other movements from John Locke although are originally concerned with the academic problem of how the mind works out of John Locke's where it did develop a careful study of childhood which in its later stages was greatly influenced by the theory of evolution. This movement which began to affect education in the late 18th century vigorously oppose the common practice in schools of that day of imposing adult standards upon children advocated was the principle that each individual develops from within. It should be noted that from their psychological attack there did not come drastic changes in subject matter or in the organization of schools. The benefits

deride were a better understanding of the learning processes development of new methods and improved training of teachers. When Russo proclaim that education is a matter of the free and unrestricted development of the natural powers and inclinations of the individual he set the stage for acceptance of psychological education naturalism had been a reaction against educational practices growing out of the doctrine of original sin the belief that a child is wicked by nature and that nurture must be used to transform him into a more godlike being on the other hand. Naturalism unadulterated proved impractical. It was too negative and thus entirely too wasteful a procedure to let the child ignore all experiences of his elders and to learn entirely by his own the psychological approach attempted to reconcile the traditional viewpoint that education is every molding of human nature from without

with Rousseau's idea that education should be a matter of I'm hampered natural growth. The psychologist accepted the naturalistic view point of growth being an unfolding of native capacities. However they held that this development is subject to help or hindrance and therefore by the use of proper teaching methods can be guided into desirable channels. In other words affective education means a stimulation of natural capacities by means of these viable activities. For nearly a century psychological education reforms were almost entirely limited to elementary schools and only in more recent years have they noticeably affected secondary schools in higher education. The development of psychological thought can best be understood by examining briefly the work of three great European educators who psychologies have greatly influenced American education.

Don't hand me pets the lot say I feed fame not only because he wrote about educational theories he also put them into practice for all to see. Many observers from distant lands carried home their enthusiasms concerning the work of the Swiss born humanitarian. He was not as many claimed a radical. The man was profoundly religious and always placed moral instruction that children as first in his list of important aims were education. He did talk of social reform and allied himself with liberal groups but the reform he demanded was to improve society by helping the individual to help himself. Although opposed by conservatives in France and pressure that philosophy sympathy for the underprivileged touched a responsive chord. I specially among the middle classes with his emphasis upon practical activity to children studying with motor skills in leading to vocational

competence in trade industry and farming puffed a lot. He was able to offer a constructive program to those who are dissatisfied with the then current exclusively literary and linguistic emphasis given by most schools of his day. That's the lot. The infested that the natural instinct for the child to provide the MODIS for learning. He considered cooperation and sympathy rather than compulsion or physical punishment as the proper means by which to achieve discipline free expression allows the natural powers of the child to develop. Since it is nature that gives the drive to life. The teacher's responsibility is to adapt instruction to each individual according to his particular changing unfolding nature as required at the various stages of his development. That's a lot to look upon the child as a unity made up of moral physical intellectual powers where the purpose of education being to develop these

harmoniously. Sense perceptions. Thought a lot see vitally important in the development of a child's mind. Among younger pupils especially this makes it necessary to rely upon observations of actual things and natural objects rather than upon books and reading. To help a child develop his sense of pride sight and sound but philosophy designed an entire series of object lessons as instructional aids for mastering the fundamentals of language number and form he advocated proceeding from the concrete to the abstract and from the particular to the general using everyday objects such as animals plants into those. All this greatly impressed visiting educators at a time when children were studying Latin moves very little understanding of its meaning. Furthermore the locks he had developed his methods down to such a fine detail that it became evident a definite system of training would be necessary to permit teachers to study the

child more closely if they were to guide his personal development and to adjust instruction to his particular requirements and interests. Joe and Friedrich have two principal psychological contributions to education where his stress upon social and moral character building and his formulation a systematic teaching method. For 26 years he held the chair of Philosophy at the University of Carnac Sperry formerly occupied by the famous Emanuel. Their hair but found it a pedagogical seminar and a practice school for teacher training in which experimentation was carried on for the purpose of developing new teaching methods have theories unlike those of Pessah Lotfi found their widest acceptance among secondary schools and institutions of higher learning. He himself had had no practical experience outside the universities and except for a limited period of tutoring three sons from a wealthy family.

Have Bart and advocating sound character as the most important aim of education. Hell that instruction should be primarily moral and if Outlook and intent. However this he considered more a matter of adjustment of the individual to society than a religious concept of morality. History and Literature were emphasized that the most effective subject matter for the developing of desirable social attitudes in children. These should be the core of study upon which a child concentrates his efforts and lives which all other school subjects to be correlated with. Herr Bart proposed an intellectual approach to the learning process despite his insistence upon moral and social aims of education stressed was the importance of developing clear ideas and above all the teacher must concentrate on the problem of interest. It is perhaps most frequently identified with these five formal steps. The

systematic planning of lessons had been discussed by many earlier writers Cicero in his 55 BCT oratory dealt with a four part seven hour ration and these were later Sladen usually followed by great co Roman teachers have likewise somewhat casually suggested a four step outline by which the mind acquires knowledge and reaches conclusions. His followers known has hair back eons seized upon this outline expanding the four steps into five and made a deadening out of this sequence. Preparation. Present taste and comparison and abstraction. Generalization and application. It is only fair to say that Herr bot realized what every good teacher knows that instruction must not be stereotyped. To be truly effective it should possess an element of surprise and novelty. He did not regard the five steps as a fixed scheme to be followed Slade

was. Certainly he did not propose to have this plan carried through it every lesson as was being done so frequently by head by audience at the turn of the present sentry. FRIEDRICH Wilhelm's right about talk this path a lot see and then conducted his own schools in Switzerland in Germany. He was impressed not only with a sense of realism of his colleague but also of the idealistic philosophy of his day. He felt the school educated process should start with a small child of 3 or 4 years and that play activities are the proper methods for aiding growth and learning. Play is is natural and appropriate for youngsters as work is for adults and toward this and for I Bell saw a variety of play activities to develop the whole nature of the child moral and emotional as well as intellectual. In these hand polluted singing dancing dramatic stories painting coloring play modeling and manipulation of objects.

His school he called the kindergarten a garden where children grow. Being a mistake for about I find that these activities in large measure as symbolism objects were considered as gifts of God activities as divine occupations. Everything done in the kindergarten was supposed to lead to a closer identification of the child with the divine spirit and social unity. The sitting in a circle so he claimed makes the child feel his identification as a member of the social group. That's mysticism did much to discredit the Good Friday I had to offer but stripped of the symbolism his ideas became tremendously influential in American educations. The child gained from a doubt a new respect for his individuality the recognition of his dynamic and active qualities meant the beginning of a decline in rigid discipline and the gradual disappearance

of the deadening traditional formality in classroom atmosphere for Bell's curriculum was an activity curriculum. His content was made up of all types of self-expression activities. He encouraged language as the earliest and most fundamental means by which unfolding occurs. Believing that language must accompany all other educational activities.