Part 9 (1/2)
=Absorbing standards=--If we give full credence to Tennyson's statement, ”I am a part of all that I have met,” then it follows that we have becoh the process of absorption In other words, we are a composite of all our ideals The vase of flowers, daintily arranged, on the breakfast table becoh life a vase of flowers arranged less than artistically gives one a sensation of discomfort A traveler relates that in a hotel in Brussels he sa curtains of a delicate pattern; and, since that tiht in many cities for curtains that will fill the measure of the ideal he absorbed in that hotel Beauty is not in the thing itself, but in the eye of the beholder, and the eye is but the interpreter of the ideal
One person rhapsodizes over a picture that another turns away from, because the latter has absorbed an ideal that is unknown to the former
=Education by absorption=--This subject of absorption has not received the careful attention that its importance warrants In the social consciousness education has been so long associated with books, and formal processes, that we find it difficult to conceive of education outside of or beyond books If, as we so confidently assert, education is a spiritual process, then whatever stimulates the spirit must be education, whether a landscape, a flower, a picture, or a person The traveler who sits enrapt before the Jungfrau for an hour or a day is becohly educated, even in the absence of books and formalities The beauty of the mountain touches his spirit, and there is a consequent reaction that fulfills all the claims of the educational processes In short, he is lifted to a higher plane of appreciation, and that is what the books and the schools are striving to achieve
=The principle illustrated=--In the presence of this randeur which becohout life A boy once heard ”The Dead March”
played by an artist, and when he was grown to manhood that was still his ideal of majestic music A traveler asserts that no i and not becoer man for the experience A writer on art says that it is worth a trip across the ocean to see the painting of the bull by Paul Potter; but that, of course, depends upon the ideals of the beholder All these illustrations conforical dictum that in the educational process the spirit reacts to its environment
=The teacher as environment=--But the environment may include people as well as inanimate objects, mountains, rivers, flowers, and pictures
And, as a part of the child's environment, the teacher takes her place in the process of education by absorption A city superintendent avers that there is one teacher in his corps ould be worth more to his school than the salary she receives even if she did no teaching This means that her presence in the school is a wholesome influence, and that she is the sort of environht not be a si to convince some taxpayers of the truth of the superintendent's statement, but this fact only proves that they have not yet come into a realization of the fact that there can be education by absorption
=The Great Stone Face=--The people of Florence maintain that they need not travel abroad to see the world, for the reason that the world comes to them It is true that many thousands visit that city annually to win a definition of art There they absorb their ideals of art and thus attain abiding standards In like ain an ideal of grace of manner and personal charm as exemplified by the teacher, and no one will have the temerity to assert that this phase of the child's education is less ih the forrew into the likeness of the ”Great Stone Face” because that had become his ideal, and not because he had had formal instruction in the subject of stone faces, or had taken measurements of or corew into its likeness because he thought of it, dreamed of it, absorbed it, and was absorbed by it, and reacted to it whenever it cay in literature=--Hawthorne, in this story,to teach the lesson of unconscious education or education by absorption, but his readers have not all been quick to catch his reat unction in the reflection that they afford to the child his only means of education, and that but for them the child would never become educated at all We are slow to admit that there are many sources of education besides the school, and that formal instruction is not the only road to the acquisition of knowledge
Tennyson knew and expressed this conception in the quotation already given, but we have not acquired the habit of consulting the poets and novelists for our pedagogy When we learn to consult these, we shall find they that are basic
=The testio beyond our own experiences to realize that ained, that we have absorbed ard as the most vital part of it We have but to explore our own experiences to discover so us out of ourselves and causing us to yearn toward higher levels; who has been the beacon light tohich our feet have been stuht to shape our lives; and for e feel a sense of gratitude that cannot be quenched The influence of that person has been a liberal education in the vital things that the books do not teach, and we shudder to think e ht have been had that influence not come into our lives This ideal is not some mythical, far-away person, but a real ed our adeneral bearing in society
=The one teacher=--This prelith in an effort to win assent to the general proposition that unconscious education is not only possible, but an actuality This assent being once given, the mind feels out at once for applications of the principle and, inevitably, brings the parent and the teacher into the field of view But the parent is too near to us in time, in space, and in relation to afford the illustration that we seek, and we pass on to the teacher In the experience of each one of us there stands out at least one teacher as clear in definition as a cameo This teacher may not have been the most scholarly, or the most successful in popular esteem, or even the most handsome, but she had so from all others Others may seem but a sort of blur in our memory, but not so this one She alone is distinct, distinctive, and regnant
=Her supremacy=--The vicissitudes of life have not availed to dethrone her, nor have the losses, perplexities, and sorrows of life caused the light of her influence to grow di presence with us, nor can we conceive of any influence that could possibly obliterate her She rees, but when she came fully into our lives she cauest, but as a lifelong friend and coently as the dawn comes over the hills, and since her arrival there has been no sunset Nor was there ever by pupil or teacher any profession or protestation, but we simply accepted each other with a frankness that would have been weakened by words
=The role of ideal=--But the role of ideal is not an easy one It is a coraphy, arithmetic, and history, but to know one's self to be the ideal of a child, or to conceive of the possibility of such a situation and relation, is sufficient to render the teacher deeply thoughtful Once it is borne in upon her that the child will grow into her likeness, she cannot disrammar The child may be unconscious of the matter, but the teacher is acutely conscious When she stands before her class she sees the child growing into her iives cause and occasion for a careful and critical introspection She feels constrained to take an inventory of herself to deter and so far-reaching
=The teacher's other self=--As she stands thus in conterown to maturity with all her own predilections--physical, mental, spiritual--woven into the pattern of its life In this child grown up she sees her other self and can thus estimate the qualities of body, mind, and spirit that now constitute herself, as they reveal theains the child's point of view and so is able to see herself through the child's eyes When she is reading a book, she is aware that the child is looking over her shoulder to note the quality of literature that engages her interest When she isat her elbow and duplicating her order When she is buying a picture, she is careful to see to it that there are two copies, knowing that a second copyher personal adornh the door and absorbing her with languishi+ng eyes
=The status irrevocable=--Wherever she goes or whatever she does, she knows that the child is walking in her footsteps and reenacting her conduct Her status is irrevocably fixed in the life of the child, nor can any philosophy or sophistry absolve her from the situation She cannot abdicate her place in favor of another, nor can she win immunity from responsibility She is the child's ideal for weal or woe, nor can h all the hours of the day she hears the child saying, ”Whither thou goest I will go,” and there is no escape
=The child's viewpoint=--This is no flight of fancy Rather it is a reality in countless schoolrooms of the land if only the teachers were alive to the fact But we have been so busythe child for our purposes that we have given but scant consideration to the child's point of view as regards the teacher
We have not been quick to note the significant fact that the child is esti the teacher for purposes of its own and in the strictest obedience to the laws of its nature
=The child's need of ideals=--Every child needs and has a right to ideals, and finds the teacher convenient both in space and in the nature of her work to act in this capacity Because of the character of her work and her peculiar relation to the child, the teacher assumes a place of leadershi+p, and the child naturally appropriates her as the lodestar for which his nature is seeking And so, whether the teacher leads into the le, the child will follow; but if she elects to take her way up to the heights, there will be the child as faithful as her shadow If the teacher plucks flowers by the way, then, in ti floill become habitual to the child, nor will there be any need to adather flowers The teacher plucks flowers, and that becomes the child's command Education by absorption needs neither admonition nor homilies
=The ideal a perpetual influence=--And all this is life--actual life, fundamental life, and inevitable life Moreover, the inevitableness of this phase of life serves to accentuate its iives to the child his ideals of conduct, literature, art, music, home, school, and service Take this teacher out of his life and these ideals vanish Better by far eliminate the formal instruction, important as that may be made to be, than to rob the child of his ideals They are the influences that are ever active even when forhout the day and throughout the year They induce reactions and roove into habits, and they are the external stimuli to which the spirit responds
=The teacher's attitude=--The vitalized school takes full cognizance of this phase and e scope and freedom for its exercise and development The teacher is more concerned ho and what her pupils are to be twenty years hence than she is in getting therade She knows full well that vision clarifies sight, and she is eager to enlarge their vision in order to ht more keen and clear She, therefore, adopts as her own standards of life and conduct what she wishes for her pupils when they have come to maturity She may not proclainizant of the fact that she is the model and the ideal of one or more pupils in her school and bases her rule of life upon this fact
=Prophetic conduct=--In her dress she decides between ornateness and si factor in the lives of her pupils both for the present and for the years to co her part in helping to deter such books as she hopes to find in their libraries when they have co her thinking into such channels as will bear the thoughts of her pupils out into the open sea of bigness and subli that pettiness will be inieneration, she is careful to banish it fro she comes into intimate relations with the sea and all its ramified influences upon life She invites the mountains to take her into their confidence and reveal to her the in, and their influence upon the winds, the seasons, the products of the earth, and upon life itself She coreat of all times that she may learn of their concepts as to the immensities which the mind can explore, as well as intricate and infinite manifestations of the human soul She associates with the planets and rides the spaces in their co, the hues of the rainbow, and the drop of dew to explain to her what God is, and rejoices in their responses
=Her growth=--And so, through her thinking she grows big--big in her aspirations, big in her sy in her altruis in her conceptions of the universe and all that it eht of the teacher in their contemplation of the woman Her pupils, by their close contact and coness and so follow the lead of her thinking, her aspirations, her syrow into her likeness by absorbing her thoughts, her ideals, her standards, in short, herself
=Seeing life large=--The bigness of her spirit and her ability to see and feel life in the large superinduce dignity, poise, and serenity She never flutters; but, calal h or less effective because she has a vision On the contrary, she teaches cube root with accuracy and still is able to see and to cause her pupils to see the index finger pointing out and up toward the itude of Ro so, review the achievements of that historic city She can explain the action of the geyser and still find tiht in its wonders She can analyze the flower and still revel in its beauty She can teach the details of history and find in thereat historical s her pupils sense and so invest her with the attributes of an ideal
QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES