{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_29259/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_29259","id":"gutenberg_29259","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29259","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Teaching & Education","Education"],"text":"E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram, Andrew D. Hwang, and the Project\nGutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from\ndigital material generously made available by Internet Archive/Canadian\nLibraries (http://www.archive.org/details/toronto)\n\n\n\nNote: Images of the original pages are available through\n      Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries. See\n      http://www.archive.org/details/childandcurricul00deweuoft\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE CHILD AND THE CURRICULUM\n\nby\n\nJOHN DEWEY\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: Publisher's Device]\n\nThe University of Chicago Press\nChicago & London\n\nThe University of Chicago Press, Chicago & London\n\nThe University of Toronto Press, Toronto 5, Canada\n\nCopyright 1902 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.\nPublished 1902. Twenty-eighth Impression 1966 Printed in the United\nStates of America\n\n\n\n\n_The Child and the Curriculum_\n\n\nProfound differences in theory are never gratuitous or invented. They\ngrow out of conflicting elements in a genuine problem--a problem\nwhich is genuine just because the elements, taken as they stand, are\nconflicting. Any significant problem involves conditions that for the\nmoment contradict each other. Solution comes only by getting away from\nthe meaning of terms that is already fixed upon and coming to see the\nconditions from another point of view, and hence in a fresh light. But\nthis reconstruction means travail of thought. Easier than thinking with\nsurrender of already formed ideas and detachment from facts already\nlearned is just to stick by what is already said, looking about for\nsomething with which to buttress it against attack.\n\nThus sects arise: schools of opinion. Each selects that set of\nconditions that appeals to it; and then erects them into a complete and\nindependent truth, instead of treating them as a factor in a problem,\nneeding adjustment.\n\nThe fundamental factors in the educative process are an immature,\nundeveloped being; and certain social aims, meanings, values incarnate\nin the matured experience of the adult. The educative process is the due\ninteraction of these forces. Such a conception of each in relation to\nthe other as facilitates completest and freest interaction is the\nessence of educational theory.\n\nBut here comes the effort of thought. It is easier to see the conditions\nin their separateness, to insist upon one at the expense of the other,\nto make antagonists of them, than to discover a reality to which each\nbelongs. The easy thing is to seize upon something in the nature of the\nchild, or upon something in the developed consciousness of the adult,\nand insist upon _that_ as the key to the whole problem. When this\nhappens a really serious practical problem--that of interaction--is\ntransformed into an unreal, and hence insoluble, theoretic problem.\nInstead of seeing the educative steadily and as a whole, we see\nconflicting terms. We get the case of the child _vs._ the curriculum; of\nthe individual nature _vs._ social culture. Below all other divisions in\npedagogic opinion lies this opposition.\n\nThe child lives in a somewhat narrow world of personal contacts. Things\nhardly come within his experience unless they touch, intimately and\nobviously, his own well-being, or that of his family and friends. His\nworld is a world of persons with their personal interests, rather than\na realm of facts and laws. Not truth, in the sense of conformity to\nexternal fact, but affection and sympathy, is its keynote. As against\nthis, the course of study met in the school presents material stretching\nback indefinitely in time, and extending outward indefinitely into\nspace. The child is taken out of his familiar physical environment,\nhardly more than a square mile or so in area, into the wide world--yes,\nand even to the bounds of the solar system. His little span of personal\nmemory and tradition is overlaid with the long centuries of the history\nof all peoples.\n\nAgain, the child's life is an integral, a total one. He passes quickly\nand readily from one topic to another, as from one spot to another,\nbut is not conscious of transition or break. There is no conscious\nisolation, hardly conscious distinction. The things that occupy him are\nheld together by the unity of the personal and social interests which\nhis life carries along. Whatever is uppermost in his mind constitutes\nto him, for the time being, the whole universe. That universe is fluid\nand fluent; its contents dissolve and re-form with amazing rapidity.\nBut, after all, it is the child's own world. It has the unity and\ncompleteness of his own life. He goes to school, and various studies\ndivide and fractionize the world for him. Geography selects, it\nabstracts and analyzes one set of facts, and from one particular point\nof view. Arithmetic is another division, grammar another department, and\nso on indefinitely.\n\nAgain, in school each of these subjects is classified. Facts are torn\naway from their original place in experience and rearranged with\nreference to some general principle. Classification is not a matter\nof child experience; things do not come to the individual pigeonholed.\nThe vital ties of affection, the connecting bonds of activity, hold\ntogether the variety of his personal experiences. The adult mind is so\nfamiliar with the notion of logically ordered facts that it does not\nrecognize--it cannot realize--the amount of separating and reformulating\nwhich the facts of direct experience have to undergo before they can\nappear as a \"study,\" or branch of learning. A principle, for the\nintellect, has had to be distinguished and defined; facts have had\nto be interpreted in relation to this principle, not as they are in\nthemselves. They have had to be regathered about a new center which is\nwholly abstract and ideal. All this means a development of a special\nintellectual interest. It means ability to view facts impartially and\nobjectively; that is, without reference to their place and meaning in\none's own experience. It means capacity to analyze and to synthesize. It\nmeans highly matured intellectual habits and the command of a definite\ntechnique and apparatus of scientific inquiry. The studies as classified\nare the product, in a word, of the science of the ages, not of the\nexperience of the child.\n\nThese apparent deviations and differences between child and curriculum\nmight be almost indefinitely widened. But we have here sufficiently\nfundamental divergences: first, the narrow but personal world of the\nchild against the impersonal but infinitely extended world of space and\ntime; second, the unity, the single wholeheartedness of the child's\nlife, and the specializations and divisions of the curriculum; third, an\nabstract principle of logical classification and arrangement, and the\npractical and emotional bonds of child life.\n\nFrom these elements of conflict grow up different educational sects.\nOne school fixes its attention upon the importance of the subject-matter\nof the curriculum as compared with the contents of the child's own\nexperience. It is as if they said: Is life petty, narrow, and crude?\nThen studies reveal the great, wide universe with all its fulness and\ncomplexity of meaning. Is the life of the child egoistic, self-centered,\nimpulsive? Then in these studies is found an objective universe of\ntruth, law, and order. Is his experience confused, vague, uncertain,\nat the mercy of the moment's caprice and circumstance? Then studies\nintroduce a world arranged on the basis of eternal and general truth; a\nworld where all is measured and defined. Hence the moral: ignore and\nminimize the child's individual peculiarities, whims, and experiences.\nThey are what we need to get away from. They are to be obscured or\neliminated. As educators our work is precisely to substitute for these\nsuperficial and casual affairs stable and well-ordered realities; and\nthese are found in studies and lessons.\n\nSubdivide each topic into studies; each study into lessons; each lesson\ninto specific facts and formulae. Let the child proceed step by step to\nmaster each one of these separate parts, and at last he will have\ncovered the entire ground. The road which looks so long when viewed in\nits entirety is easily traveled, considered as a series of particular\nsteps. Thus emphasis is put upon the logical subdivisions and\nconsecutions of the subject-matter. Problems of instruction are problems\nof procuring texts giving logical parts and sequences, and of presenting\nthese portions in class in a similar definite and graded way.\nSubject-matter furnishes the end, and it determines method. The child is\nsimply the immature being who is to be matured; he is the superficial\nbeing who is to be deepened; his is narrow experience which is to be\nwidened. It is his to receive, to accept. His part is fulfilled when he\nis ductile and docile.\n\nNot so, says the other sect. The child is the starting-point, the\ncenter, and the end. His development, his growth, is the ideal. It\nalone furnishes the standard. To the growth of the child all studies\nare subservient; they are instruments valued as they serve the needs\nof growth. Personality, character, is more than subject-matter. Not\nknowledge or information, but self-realization, is the goal. To possess\nall the world of knowledge and lose one's own self is as awful a fate in\neducation as in religion. Moreover, subject-matter never can be got into\nthe child from without. Learning is active. It involves reaching out\nof the mind. It involves organic assimilation starting from within.\nLiterally, we must take our stand with the child and our departure from\nhim. It is he and not the subject-matter which determines both quality\nand quantity of learning.\n\nThe only significant method is the method of the mind as it reaches\nout and assimilates. Subject-matter is but spiritual food, possible\nnutritive material. It cannot digest itself; it cannot of its own\naccord turn into bone and muscle and blood. The source of whatever\nis dead, mechanical, and formal in schools is found precisely in the\nsubordination of the life and experience of the child to the curriculum.\nIt is because of this that \"study\" has become a synonym for what is\nirksome, and a lesson identical with a task.\n\nThis fundamental opposition of child and curriculum set up by these\ntwo modes of doctrine can be duplicated in a series of other terms.\n\"Discipline\" is the watchword of those who magnify the course of study;\n\"interest\" that of those who blazon \"The Child\" upon their banner. The\nstandpoint of the former is logical; that of the latter psychological.\nThe first emphasizes the necessity of adequate training and scholarship\non the part of the teacher; the latter that of need of sympathy with the\nchild, and knowledge of his natural instincts. \"Guidance and control\"\nare the catchwords of one school; \"freedom and initiative\" of the other.\nLaw is asserted here; spontaneity proclaimed there. The old, the\nconservation of what has been achieved in the pain and toil of the ages,\nis dear to the one; the new, change, progress, wins the affection of the\nother. Inertness and routine, chaos and anarchism, are accusations\nbandied back and forth. Neglect of the sacred authority of duty is\ncharged by one side, only to be met by counter-charges of suppression\nof individuality through tyrannical despotism.\n\nSuch oppositions are rarely carried to their logical conclusion.\nCommon-sense recoils at the extreme character of these results. They\nare left to theorists, while common-sense vibrates back and forward\nin a maze of inconsistent compromise. The need of getting theory and\npractical common-sense into closer connection suggests a return to our\noriginal thesis: that we have here conditions which are necessarily\nrelated to each other in the educative process, since this is precisely\none of interaction and adjustment.\n\nWhat, then, is the problem? It is just to get rid of the prejudicial\nnotion that there is some gap in kind (as distinct from degree) between\nthe child's experience and the various forms of subject-matter that make\nup the course of study. From the side of the child, it is a question of\nseeing how his experience already contains within itself elements--facts\nand truths--of just the same sort as those entering into the formulated\nstudy; and, what is of more importance, of how it contains within itself\nthe attitudes, the motives, and the interests which have operated in\ndeveloping and organizing the subject-matter to the plane which it now\noccupies. From the side of the studies, it is a question of interpreting\nthem as outgrowths of forces operating in the child's life, and of\ndiscovering the steps that intervene between the child's present\nexperience and their richer maturity.\n\nAbandon the notion of subject-matter as something fixed and ready-made\nin itself, outside the child's experience; cease thinking of the child's\nexperience as also something hard and fast; see it as something fluent,\nembryonic, vital; and we realize that the child and the curriculum are\nsimply two limits which define a single process. Just as two points\ndefine a straight line, so the present standpoint of the child and the\nfacts and truths of studies define instruction. It is continuous\nreconstruction, moving from the child's present experience out into that\nrepresented by the organized bodies of truth that we call studies.\n\nOn the face of it, the various studies, arithmetic, geography, language,\nbotany, etc., are themselves experience--they are that of the race. They\nembody the cumulative outcome of the efforts, the strivings, and the\nsuccesses of the human race generation after generation. They present\nthis, not as a mere accumulation, not as a miscellaneous heap of\nseparate bits of experience, but in some organized and systematized\nway--that is, as reflectively formulated.\n\nHence, the facts and truths that enter into the child's present\nexperience, and those contained in the subject-matter of studies, are\nthe initial and final terms of one reality. To oppose one to the other\nis to oppose the infancy and maturity of the same growing life; it is to\nset the moving tendency and the final result of the same process over\nagainst each other; it is to hold that the nature and the destiny of the\nchild war with each other.\n\nIf such be the case, the problem of the relation of the child and the\ncurriculum presents itself in this guise: Of what use, educationally\nspeaking, is it to be able to see the end in the beginning? How does\nit assist us in dealing with the early stages of growth to be able to\nanticipate its later phases? The studies, as we have agreed, represent\nthe possibilities of development inherent in the child's immediate crude\nexperience. But, after all, they are not parts of that present and\nimmediate life. Why, then, or how, make account of them?\n\nAsking such a question suggests its own answer. To see the outcome is\nto know in what direction the present experience is moving, provided\nit move normally and soundly. The far-away point, which is of no\nsignificance to us simply as far away, becomes of huge importance the\nmoment we take it as defining a present direction of movement. Taken\nin this way it is no remote and distant result to be achieved, but a\nguiding method in dealing with the present. The systematized and defined\nexperience of the adult mind, in other words, is of value to us in\ninterpreting the child's life as it immediately shows itself, and in\npassing on to guidance or direction.\n\nLet us look for a moment at these two ideas: interpretation and\nguidance. The child's present experience is in no way self-explanatory.\nIt is not final, but transitional. It is nothing complete in itself, but\njust a sign or index of certain growth-tendencies. As long as we confine\nour gaze to what the child here and now puts forth, we are confused and\nmisled. We cannot read its meaning. Extreme depreciations of the child\nmorally and intellectually, and sentimental idealizations of him, have\ntheir root in a common fallacy. Both spring from taking stages of a\ngrowth or movement as something cut off and fixed. The first fails\nto see the promise contained in feelings and deeds which, taken by\nthemselves, are uncompromising and repellent; the second fails to see\nthat even the most pleasing and beautiful exhibitions are but signs,\nand that they begin to spoil and rot the moment they are treated as\nachievements.\n\nWhat we need is something which will enable us to interpret, to\nappraise, the elements in the child's present puttings forth and\nfallings away, his exhibitions of power and weakness, in the light of\nsome larger growth-process in which they have their place. Only in this\nway can we discriminate. If we isolate the child's present inclinations,\npurposes, and experiences from the place they occupy and the part they\nhave to perform in a developing experience, all stand upon the same\nlevel; all alike are equally good and equally bad. But in the movement\nof life different elements stand upon different planes of value. Some of\nthe child's deeds are symptoms of a waning tendency; they are survivals\nin functioning of an organ which has done its part and is passing out of\nvital use. To give positive attention to such qualities is to arrest\ndevelopment upon a lower level. It is systematically to maintain a\nrudimentary phase of growth. Other activities are signs of a culminating\npower and interest; to them applies the maxim of striking while the\niron is hot. As regards them, it is perhaps a matter of now or never.\nSelected, utilized, emphasized, they may mark a turning-point for good\nin the child's whole career; neglected, an opportunity goes, never to\nbe recalled. Other acts and feelings are prophetic; they represent the\ndawning of flickering light that will shine steadily only in the far\nfuture. As regards them there is little at present to do but give them\nfair and full chance, waiting for the future for definite direction.\n\nJust as, upon the whole, it was the weakness of the \"old education\" that\nit made invidious comparisons between the immaturity of the child and\nthe maturity of the adult, regarding the former as something to be got\naway from as soon as possible and as much as possible; so it is the\ndanger of the \"new education\" that it regard the child's present powers\nand interests as something finally significant in themselves. In truth,\nhis learnings and achievements are fluid and moving. They change from\nday to day and from hour to hour.\n\nIt will do harm if child-study leave in the popular mind the impression\nthat a child of a given age has a positive equipment of purposes and\ninterests to be cultivated just as they stand. Interests in reality are\nbut attitudes toward possible experiences; they are not achievements;\ntheir worth is in the leverage they afford, not in the accomplishment\nthey represent. To take the phenomena presented at a given age as\nin any way self-explanatory or self-contained is inevitably to result\nin indulgence and spoiling. Any power, whether of child or adult,\nis indulged when it is taken on its given and present level in\nconsciousness. Its genuine meaning is in the propulsion it affords\ntoward a higher level. It is just something to do with. Appealing to the\ninterest upon the present plane means excitation; it means playing with\na power so as continually to stir it up without directing it toward\ndefinite achievement. Continuous initiation, continuous starting of\nactivities that do not arrive, is, for all practical purposes, as bad\nas the continual repression of initiative in conformity with supposed\ninterests of some more perfect thought or will. It is as if the child\nwere forever tasting and never eating; always having his palate tickled\nupon the emotional side, but never getting the organic satisfaction that\ncomes only with digestion of food and transformation of it into working\npower.\n\nAs against such a view, the subject-matter of science and history and\nart serves to reveal the real child to us. We do not know the meaning\neither of his tendencies or of his performances excepting as we take\nthem as germinating seed, or opening bud, of some fruit to be borne. The\nwhole world of visual nature is all too small an answer to the problem\nof the meaning of the child's instinct for light and form. The entire\nscience of physics is none too much to interpret adequately to us what\nis involved in some simple demand of the child for explanation of some\ncasual change that has attracted his attention. The art of Raphael or of\nCorot is none too much to enable us to value the impulses stirring in\nthe child when he draws and daubs.\n\nSo much for the use of the subject-matter in interpretation. Its further\nemployment in direction or guidance is but an expansion of the same\nthought. To interpret the fact is to see it in its vital movement, to\nsee it in its relation to growth. But to view it as a part of a normal\ngrowth is to secure the basis for guiding it. Guidance is not external\nimposition. _It is freeing the life-process for its own most adequate\nfulfilment._ What was said about disregard of the child's present\nexperience because of its remoteness from mature experience; and of the\nsentimental idealization of the child's naive caprices and performances,\nmay be repeated here with slightly altered phrase. There are those who\nsee no alternative between forcing the child from without, or leaving\nhim entirely alone. Seeing no alternative, some choose one mode, some\nanother. Both fall into the same fundamental error. Both fail to see\nthat development is a definite process, having its own law which can be\nfulfilled only when adequate and normal conditions are provided. Really\nto interpret the child's present crude impulses in counting, measuring,\nand arranging things in rhythmic series involves mathematical\nscholarship--a knowledge of the mathematical formulae and relations\nwhich have, in the history of the race, grown out of just such crude\nbeginnings. To see the whole history of development which intervenes\nbetween these two terms is simply to see what step the child needs to\ntake just here and now; to what use he needs to put his blind impulse in\norder that it may get clarity and gain force.\n\nIf, once more, the \"old education\" tended to ignore the dynamic quality,\nthe developing force inherent in the child's present experience, and\ntherefore to assume that direction and control were just matters of\narbitrarily putting the child in a given path and compelling him to\nwalk there, the \"new education\" is in danger of taking the idea of\ndevelopment in altogether too formal and empty a way. The child is\nexpected to \"develop\" this or that fact or truth out of his own mind. He\nis told to think things out, or work things out for himself, without\nbeing supplied any of the environing conditions which are requisite to\nstart and guide thought. Nothing can be developed from nothing; nothing\nbut the crude can be developed out of the crude--and this is what surely\nhappens when we throw the child back upon his achieved self as a\nfinality, and invite him to spin new truths of nature or of conduct\nout of that. It is certainly as futile to expect a child to evolve a\nuniverse out of his own mere mind as it is for a philosopher to attempt\nthat task. Development does not mean just getting something out of the\nmind. It is a development of experience and into experience that is\nreally wanted. And this is impossible save as just that educative medium\nis provided which will enable the powers and interests that have been\nselected as valuable to function. They must operate, and how they\noperate will depend almost entirely upon the stimuli which surround\nthem and the material upon which they exercise themselves. The problem\nof direction is thus the problem of selecting appropriate stimuli for\ninstincts and impulses which it is desired to employ in the gaining\nof new experience. What new experiences are desirable, and thus what\nstimuli are needed, it is impossible to tell except as there is some\ncomprehension of the development which is aimed at; except, in a word,\nas the adult knowledge is drawn upon as revealing the possible career\nopen to the child.\n\nIt may be of use to distinguish and to relate to each other the logical\nand the psychological aspects of experience--the former standing for\nsubject-matter in itself, the latter for it in relation to the child. A\npsychological statement of experience follows its actual growth; it is\nhistoric; it notes steps actually taken, the uncertain and tortuous, as\nwell as the efficient and successful. The logical point of view, on the\nother hand, assumes that the development has reached a certain positive\nstage of fulfilment. It neglects the process and considers the outcome.\nIt summarizes and arranges, and thus separates the achieved results from\nthe actual steps by which they were forthcoming in the first instance.\nWe may compare the difference between the logical and the psychological\nto the difference between the notes which an explorer makes in a new\ncountry, blazing a trail and finding his way along as best he may,\nand the finished map that is constructed after the country has been\nthoroughly explored. The two are mutually dependent. Without the more\nor less accidental and devious paths traced by the explorer there would\nbe no facts which could be utilized in the making of the complete and\nrelated chart. But no one would get the benefit of the explorer's trip\nif it was not compared and checked up with similar wanderings undertaken\nby others; unless the new geographical facts learned, the streams\ncrossed, the mountains climbed, etc., were viewed, not as mere incidents\nin the journey of the particular traveler, but (quite apart from the\nindividual explorer's life) in relation to other similar facts already\nknown. The map orders individual experiences, connecting them with one\nanother irrespective of the local and temporal circumstances and\naccidents of their original discovery.\n\nOf what use is this formulated statement of experience? Of what use is\nthe map?\n\nWell, we may first tell what the map is not. The map is not a substitute\nfor a personal experience. The map does not take the place of an actual\njourney. The logically formulated material of a science or branch of\nlearning, of a study, is no substitute for the having of individual\nexperiences. The mathematical formula for a falling body does not take\nthe place of personal contact and immediate individual experience with\nthe falling thing. But the map, a summary, an arranged and orderly\nview of previous experiences, serves as a guide to future experience;\nit gives direction; it facilitates control; it economizes effort,\npreventing useless wandering, and pointing out the paths which lead most\nquickly and most certainly to a desired result. Through the map every\nnew traveler may get for his own journey the benefits of the results\nof others' explorations without the waste of energy and loss of time\ninvolved in their wanderings--wanderings which he himself would be\nobliged to repeat were it not for just the assistance of the objective\nand generalized record of their performances. That which we call a\nscience or study puts the net product of past experience in the\nform which makes it most available for the future. It represents a\ncapitalization which may at once be turned to interest. It economizes\nthe workings of the mind in every way. Memory is less taxed because the\nfacts are grouped together about some common principle, instead of being\nconnected solely with the varying incidents of their original discovery.\nObservation is assisted; we know what to look for and where to look.\nIt is the difference between looking for a needle in a haystack, and\nsearching for a given paper in a well-arranged cabinet. Reasoning is\ndirected, because there is a certain general path or line laid out\nalong which ideas naturally march, instead of moving from one chance\nassociation to another.\n\nThere is, then, nothing final about a logical rendering of experience.\nIts value is not contained in itself; its significance is that of\nstandpoint, outlook, method. It intervenes between the more casual,\ntentative, and roundabout experiences of the past, and more controlled\nand orderly experiences of the future. It gives past experience in that\nnet form which renders it most available and most significant, most\nfecund for future experience. The abstractions, generalizations, and\nclassifications which it introduces all have prospective meaning.\n\nThe formulated result is then not to be opposed to the process of\ngrowth. The logical is not set over against the psychological. The\nsurveyed and arranged result occupies a critical position in the process\nof growth. It marks a turning-point. It shows how we may get the benefit\nof past effort in controlling future endeavor. In the largest sense the\nlogical standpoint is itself psychological; it has its meaning as a\npoint in the development of experience, and its justification is in its\nfunctioning in the future growth which it insures.\n\nHence the need of reinstating into experience the subject-matter of the\nstudies, or branches of learning. It must be restored to the experience\nfrom which it has been abstracted. It needs to be _psychologized_;\nturned over, translated into the immediate and individual experiencing\nwithin which it has its origin and significance.\n\nEvery study or subject thus has two aspects: one for the scientist as a\nscientist; the other for the teacher as a teacher. These two aspects are\nin no sense opposed or conflicting. But neither are they immediately\nidentical. For the scientist, the subject-matter represents simply a\ngiven body of truth to be employed in locating new problems, instituting\nnew researches, and carrying them through to a verified outcome. To him\nthe subject-matter of the science is self-contained. He refers various\nportions of it to each other; he connects new facts with it. He is not,\nas a scientist, called upon to travel outside its particular bounds;\nif he does, it is only to get more facts of the same general sort.\nThe problem of the teacher is a different one. As a teacher he is\nnot concerned with adding new facts to the science he teaches; in\npropounding new hypotheses or in verifying them. He is concerned with\nthe subject-matter of the science as _representing a given stage and\nphase of the development of experience_. His problem is that of inducing\na vital and personal experiencing. Hence, what concerns him, as teacher,\nis the ways in which that subject may become a part of experience; what\nthere is in the child's present that is usable with reference to it;\nhow such elements are to be used; how his own knowledge of the\nsubject-matter may assist in interpreting the child's needs and doings,\nand determine the medium in which the child should be placed in order\nthat his growth may be properly directed. He is concerned, not with the\nsubject-matter as such, but with the subject-matter as a related factor\nin a total and growing experience. Thus to see it is to psychologize it.\n\nIt is the failure to keep in mind the double aspect of subject-matter\nwhich causes the curriculum and child to be set over against each other\nas described in our early pages. The subject-matter, just as it is for\nthe scientist, has no direct relationship to the child's present\nexperience. It stands outside of it. The danger here is not a merely\ntheoretical one. We are practically threatened on all sides. Textbook\nand teacher vie with each other in presenting to the child the\nsubject-matter as it stands to the specialist. Such modification and\nrevision as it undergoes are a mere elimination of certain scientific\ndifficulties, and the general reduction to a lower intellectual level.\nThe material is not translated into life-terms, but is directly offered\nas a substitute for, or an external annex to, the child's present life.\n\nThree typical evils result: In the first place, the lack of any organic\nconnection with what the child has already seen and felt and loved makes\nthe material purely formal and symbolic. There is a sense in which it is\nimpossible to value too highly the formal and the symbolic. The genuine\nform, the real symbol, serve as methods in the holding and discovery of\ntruth. They are tools by which the individual pushes out most surely and\nwidely into unexplored areas. They are means by which he brings to bear\nwhatever of reality he has succeeded in gaining in past searchings. But\nthis happens only when the symbol really symbolizes--when it stands for\nand sums up in shorthand actual experiences which the individual has\nalready gone through. A symbol which is induced from without, which has\nnot been led up to in preliminary activities, is, as we say, a _bare_\nor _mere_ symbol; it is dead and barren. Now, any fact, whether of\narithmetic, or geography, or grammar, which is not led up to and into\nout of something which has previously occupied a significant position\nin the child's life for its own sake, is forced into this position.\nIt is not a reality, but just the sign of a reality which _might_ be\nexperienced if certain conditions were fulfilled. But the abrupt\npresentation of the fact as something known by others, and requiring\nonly to be studied and learned by the child, rules out such conditions\nof fulfilment. It condemns the fact to be a hieroglyph: it would mean\nsomething if one only had the key. The clue being lacking, it remains\nan idle curiosity, to fret and obstruct the mind, a dead weight to\nburden it.\n\nThe second evil in this external presentation is lack of motivation.\nThere are not only no facts or truths which have been previously felt\nas such with which to appropriate and assimilate the new, but there is\nno craving, no need, no demand. When the subject-matter has been\npsychologized, that is, viewed as an out-growth of present tendencies\nand activities, it is easy to locate in the present some obstacle,\nintellectual, practical, or ethical, which can be handled more\nadequately if the truth in question be mastered. This need supplies\nmotive for the learning. An end which is the child's own carries him\non to possess the means of its accomplishment. But when material is\ndirectly supplied in the form of a lesson to be learned as a lesson, the\nconnecting links of need and aim are conspicuous for their absence. What\nwe mean by the mechanical and dead in instruction is a result of this\nlack of motivation. The organic and vital mean interaction--they mean\nplay of mental demand and material supply.\n\nThe third evil is that even the most scientific matter, arranged in\nmost logical fashion, loses this quality, when presented in external,\nready-made fashion, by the time it gets to the child. It has to undergo\nsome modification in order to shut out some phases too hard to grasp,\nand to reduce some of the attendant difficulties. What happens? Those\nthings which are most significant to the scientific man, and most\nvaluable in the logic of actual inquiry and classification, drop out.\nThe really thought-provoking character is obscured, and the organizing\nfunction disappears. Or, as we commonly say, the child's reasoning\npowers, the faculty of abstraction and generalization, are not\nadequately developed. So the subject-matter is evacuated of its logical\nvalue, and, though it is what it is only from the logical standpoint, is\npresented as stuff only for \"memory.\" This is the contradiction: the\nchild gets the advantage neither of the adult logical formulation, nor\nof his own native competencies of apprehension and response. Hence\nthe logic of the child is hampered and mortified, and we are almost\nfortunate if he does not get actual non-science, flat and common-place\nresidua of what was gaining scientific vitality a generation or two\nago--degenerate reminiscence of what someone else once formulated on the\nbasis of the experience that some further person had, once upon a time,\nexperienced.\n\nThe train of evils does not cease. It is all too common for opposed\nerroneous theories to play straight into each other's hands.\nPsychological considerations may be slurred or shoved one side; they\ncannot be crowded out. Put out of the door, they come back through the\nwindow. Somehow and somewhere motive must be appealed to, connection\nmust be established between the mind and its material. There is no\nquestion of getting along without this bond of connection; the only\nquestion is whether it be such as grows out of the material itself in\nrelation to the mind, or be imported and hitched on from some outside\nsource. If the subject-matter of the lessons be such as to have an\nappropriate place within the expanding consciousness of the child, if it\ngrows out of his own past doings, thinkings, and sufferings, and grows\ninto application in further achievements and receptivities, then no\ndevice or trick of method has to be resorted to in order to enlist\n\"interest.\" The psychologized _is_ of interest--that is, it is placed in\nthe whole of conscious life so that it shares the worth of that life.\nBut the externally presented material, conceived and generated in\nstandpoints and attitudes remote from the child, and developed in\nmotives alien to him, has no such place of its own. Hence the recourse\nto adventitious leverage to push it in, to factitious drill to drive it\nin, to artificial bribe to lure it in.\n\nThree aspects of this recourse to outside ways for giving the\nsubject-matter some psychological meaning may be worth mentioning.\nFamiliarity breeds contempt, but it also breeds something like\naffection. We get used to the chains we wear, and we miss them when\nremoved. 'Tis an old story that through custom we finally embrace\nwhat at first wore a hideous mien. Unpleasant, because meaningless,\nactivities may get agreeable if long enough persisted in. _It is\npossible for the mind to develop interest in a routine or mechanical\nprocedure if conditions are continually supplied which demand that mode\nof operation and preclude any other sort._ I frequently hear dulling\ndevices and empty exercises defended and extolled because \"the children\ntake such an 'interest' in them.\" Yes, that is the worst of it; the\nmind, shut out from worthy employ and missing the taste of adequate\nperformance, comes down to the level of that which is left to it to\nknow and do, and perforce takes an interest in a cabined and cramped\nexperience. To find satisfaction in its own exercise is the normal law\nof mind, and if large and meaningful business for the mind be denied, it\ntries to content itself with the formal movements that remain to it--and\ntoo often succeeds, save in those cases of more intense activity which\ncannot accommodate themselves, and that make up the unruly and\n_declasse_ of our school product. An interest in the formal apprehension\nof symbols and in their memorized reproduction becomes in many pupils\na substitute for the original and vital interest in reality; and all\nbecause, the subject-matter of the course of study being out of relation\nto the concrete mind of the individual, some substitute bond to hold it\nin some kind of working relation to the mind must be discovered and\nelaborated.\n\nThe second substitute for living motivation in the subject-matter is\nthat of contrast-effects; the material of the lesson is rendered\ninteresting, if not in itself, at least in contrast with some\nalternative experience. To learn the lesson is more interesting than to\ntake a scolding, be held up to general ridicule, stay after school,\nreceive degradingly low marks, or fail to be promoted. And very much of\nwhat goes by the name of \"discipline,\" and prides itself upon opposing\nthe doctrines of a soft pedagogy and upon upholding the banner of effort\nand duty, is nothing more or less than just this appeal to \"interest\" in\nits obverse aspect--to fear, to dislike of various kinds of physical,\nsocial, and personal pain. The subject-matter does not appeal; it cannot\nappeal; it lacks origin and bearing in a growing experience. So the\nappeal is to the thousand and one outside and irrelevant agencies which\nmay serve to throw, by sheer rebuff and rebound, the mind back upon the\nmaterial from which it is constantly wandering.\n\nHuman nature being what it is, however, it tends to seek its motivation\nin the agreeable rather than in the disagreeable, in direct pleasure\nrather than in alternative pain. And so has come up the modern theory\nand practice of the \"interesting,\" in the false sense of that term. The\nmaterial is still left; so far as its own characteristics are concerned,\njust material externally selected and formulated. It is still just\nso much geography and arithmetic and grammar study; not so much\npotentiality of child-experience with regard to language, earth, and\nnumbered and measured reality. Hence the difficulty of bringing the mind\nto bear upon it; hence its repulsiveness; the tendency for attention to\nwander; for other acts and images to crowd in and expel the lesson.\nThe legitimate way out is to transform the material; to psychologize\nit--that is, once more, to take it and to develop it within the range\nand scope of the child's life. But it is easier and simpler to leave it\nas it is, and then by trick of method to _arouse_ interest, to _make_ it\n_interesting_; to cover it with sugar-coating; to conceal its barrenness\nby intermediate and unrelated material; and finally, as it were, to get\nthe child to swallow and digest the unpalatable morsel while he is\nenjoying tasting something quite different. But alas for the analogy!\nMental assimilation is a matter of consciousness; and if the attention\nhas not been playing upon the actual material, that has not been\napprehended, nor worked into faculty.\n\nHow, then, stands the case of Child _vs._ Curriculum? What shall the\nverdict be? The radical fallacy in the original pleadings with which we\nset out is the supposition that we have no choice save either to leave\nthe child to his own unguided spontaneity or to inspire direction upon\nhim from without. Action is response; it is adaptation, adjustment.\nThere is no such thing as sheer self-activity possible--because all\nactivity takes place in a medium, in a situation, and with reference to\nits conditions. But, again, no such thing as imposition of truth from\nwithout, as insertion of truth from without, is possible. All depends\nupon the activity which the mind itself undergoes in responding to what\nis presented from without. Now, the value of the formulated wealth of\nknowledge that makes up the course of study is that it may enable the\neducator to _determine the environment of the child_, and thus by\nindirection to direct. Its primary value, its primary indication, is for\nthe teacher, not for the child. It says to the teacher: Such and such\nare the capacities, the fulfilments, in truth and beauty and behavior,\nopen to these children. Now see to it that day by day the conditions are\nsuch that _their own activities_ move inevitably in this direction,\ntoward such culmination of themselves. Let the child's nature fulfil its\nown destiny, revealed to you in whatever of science and art and industry\nthe world now holds as its own.\n\nThe case is of Child. It is his present powers which are to assert\nthemselves; his present capacities which are to be exercised; his\npresent attitudes which are to be realized. But save as the teacher\nknows, knows wisely and thoroughly, the race-expression which is\nembodied in that thing we call the Curriculum, the teacher knows neither\nwhat the present power, capacity, or attitude is, nor yet how it is to\nbe asserted, exercised, and realized.\n\n\n\n\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber's note.\n\nTwo half-title pages have been omitted.","title":"The Child and the Curriculum","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":7293}