Show HOW SHALL THE TRANSITION BE HADE nADE FROM THE PRACTICAL TO THE INTELLECTUAL ATTITUDE IN LEARNING A REPORT OF OP LECTURES GIVEN BY PROF PROP JOHN JOHN DEWEY DURING THE SUMMER TERM OF OP CHICAGO UNIVERSITY The connections of the ear with the brain are more numerous than in the case of any other organ and greater in bulk The ear performs the office of o a central station and thus saves an immense immense immense im im- mense amount of energy The child does not need to touch every hot t thing ing but can use the ear and indirectly set up upa a connection He learns through the ear ear not only to interpret one experience in terms of another but his own in terms of some other persons person's experience Through this development we come to the period where connections are so well made that the power to form an image is well brought brough brought out Power to form an of the image simply means the success activities as related to some particular one It is learning to translate from the and is the work of eve eye to the hand etc the child from six months to one year of age afe When this is learned he is prepared for another type which comes in response response response re re- to the image The image is a focus of activities When any fragment will stand for a group of experiences we have an image Texts on psychology usually reverse the procedure The image image image im im- age is not a patchwork but rather the reduction of a whole system of activities so organized that one stands for all The block is not an isolated object to l the the child but it is what he can do with J jit it It represents the whole activity of building the house or the tower reduced The power ower to reduce activities to a single ingle point so that suggestion can be carried out is the power of imagery The child at this period is responsive responsive responsive sive to suggestions His world is not lar large e. e Different things suggest many activities to him which he is bound to realize As the image comes to stand for a larger circuit he begins to play The difference is that he does not take merely one object and move it out but in play he combines objects The making of a a. a new combination is the essence of and is directly r related to the power of Cf imagery The main characteristic of the he period of play is that there is an activity performed for its own sake in inI I rep response m e to the childs child's power of forming an n image The child does for the doing a and d not for or the r result sult He lIe is interested yin in in Carrying out his is ow own imagery On the negative side the control of the act ac- ac t 1 t is not found in the product b but t in tithe lithe the activity itself Positively t the e principle prin- prin ciple is that the object of the child hild is the the ex exercise of his own powers Th This s is illustrated in childrens children's drawings Houses are drawn with transparent walls some objects are neglected and ot others ers are are magnified How is this distortion of real facts acts to tobe tobe o obe be accounted for Is it that the child cannot discriminate Products as products products pro pro- ducts have no meaning for the child and if the act satisfies his own imagery that is sufficient nt Pictures suggest activity activity ac ac- indirectly as objects do directly The childs child's st standard for reality is quite different from that of the adult An object is real to o the child if it he helps ps in upholding his powers and imaginative constructions As long as the childs child's hild s interest is in his own powers as long as r the end does not control the succession ssi m of steps he cannot propound intellectual problems for himself We have the kindergarten to take acc account of this stage and are not concerned at this stage tage as to whether its work is satisfactory As the childs child's activities become more consolidated as he begins to see the de dependence dependence dependence de- de of one act upon another his activities begin to be put in a a sequence of means and ends He becomes capable e of projecting his imagery He sees something ing ahead sufficiently remote to be realized only by intermediate processes so his acts become more and more controlled d by something to be reached later Here is isa a change in the principle pIe of control In Instead Instead Instead In- In stead of being based on the immediate sugg suggestion stion it is upon som something thing more remote As Ashe he uses uses uses' games he lie begins to put in order his various activities on th the basis of means and ends It is possible to classify children for school work on the basis of play If the child cannot conceive of the end in his play he is still in the practical attitude of mind The test is the capacity to set up an end with sufficient definiteness in order to tp h have ve it control and re regulate a number of antecedent steps The capacity to transfer transfer trans trans- fer ter interest would be another statement of the same principle The dawning of the power of voluntary attention as distinct from voluntary non-voluntary is another statement of the s same me change In voluntary non-voluntary attention interest is all in the object with reference to carrying out an n activity the essence of voluntary attention is the power to give ones one's attention to things not immediate so as not to be absorbed with the senses Even here we do not have intellectual learning in the full sense of the term It Itis is here something to be done lather rather than n something ing to be acquired The child of five or si six w will get a great deal of p power nyer f to regulate present action by future ends but the dominant interest is not mot Intellectual intellectual intel intel- h before the child is eight years of age and even then he can control his powers to do something better than he can can to acquire something Every intellectual end is abstract The fallacy is usually in considering that material things are concrete The difference difference dif dif- ference between the concrete and the abstract is not a physical one but an intellectual intellectual intellectual in in- one It is a difference in mental attitude Give the child a peb peb- ble He will wil be interested as long as he heis heis heis is able to do something with it Get the child to try to give its qualities and his interest flags He will need constant He cannot conceive of an intellectual end as one that will control his powers The question on the side of school gra gradation is whether the present system allows for sufficient play whether it recognizes the rhythmical breaks in the childs child's powers Katherine E E. Dope Dopp |