Education and the Aim of human life

III

The Educational Environment

The purpose of the school environment is to give to the child the stimuli that impel him to a self-educative activity. These stimuli are produced by the multiple objects that constitute the equipment of the class-room. In theory, they have to fulfil a double condition. Firstly, they should correspond to actual needs of the children of the class; and secondly, all the needs of these children should find satisfaction in them. In simpler words, no need should be left unsatisfied, no object should be felt as useless. In practice, the environment must offer stimuli in sufficient number and variety, so that the interest of all the children may be constantly kept alive. And the environment must be constantly renewed so as to keep up with the forward march of the class.

If a child does not find in the environment objects corresponding to one of his immediate needs, they can for some time be replaced by objects corresponding to other needs. But the substitution cannot be effective for very long; the neglected need presses and the child shows it unconsciously by restlessness and stress. Naturally things are worse when several needs are left unsatisfied. It can be stated as a sound rule that a child becomes restless when he does not act and he stops acting when he does not find in the environment a meaning for his action.

It may happen that a child responds only to a very few stimuli. This occurs when the corresponding need or needs of the child have been long suppressed; consequently satisfaction of these has assumed priority over all other needs. It may also come about when the objects offered for the child's attention correspond to needs that have not yet developed in him. In both cases, and if the child does not disturb the class, it is best to wait and see, that is, to observe without showing any disapproval. The child may after some time become receptive to other stimuli, which shows that the dormant

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needs have become operative.

But if the child remains persistently closed to the solicitations of the school environment, it means either that he is an abnormally dull child or that his needs are elsewhere. After all there are children who will never show any appetence for science, grammar or history. In such cases an attempt should be made to find out whether the child has hidden artistic tendencies: drawing, painting, music, dance. If this also fails, the inclusion of manual work of various types in the school environment may become extremely useful. Not only will this help to discover natural abilities of the child and give him the necessary help in his own line, but it may also happen that, having satisfied through a manual activity a long suppressed need, the child relaxes and begins to take a more lively interest in some mental activities, for which he had hitherto shown no bent.

It is the task of the teacher to gauge and find out the needs of his pupils and to assemble or prepare the class equipment accordingly. This is surely a considerable work and it will require much time, especially during the first year when the class starts from scratch. Much of the class vitality and push will depend on the manner in which this equipment is conceived and realized, and how it is used.

When a child has confidence in his teacher he will often spontaneously mention a suppressed source of interest for which he is longing. The satisfaction of this longing, when possible, may solve a long-standing psychological problem of the child.

On the other hand, it has been noticed that an environment that is all-organized or too rich causes often in the child a feeling of insecurity and bewilderment. The class must be clean and tidy, always kept in order. The children may be offered this responsibility and they will gladly accept it provided the teacher does not withdraw his interest, but brings them his collaboration by interest and suggestion.

A similar insecurity may arise when the class-room is stuffed with many objects that do not correspond to the

children's needs: objects in which they are now no longer interested or which they are yet incapable of understanding. The class equipment must not be an incongruous medley, but a careful selection of well-adapted and well-presented objects of interest.

What should be the equipment of the class? Much depends on the age and mental development of the children, that is, on the level of the class. We have distinguished three stages in the relation of the children with the outer material world: manipulation, construction, observation.

The first stage belongs to early childhood and is that of the Kindergarten; the second belongs to the primary levels and is the phase when educational games and construction kits (of the meccano type) are particularly effective. It is true that there is no sharp delimitation of the three stages and that they blend gradually into one another.

We are more concerned here with the stage of observation. It begins with the primary and develops all along the secondary levels. It would be best if the children could meet the objects of study and observe them in their original state and actual working: animals and plants in their natural environment, tools and machines in actual operation, arts and crafts in the productive setting. This is possible only rarely, but the opportunity should not be missed. Other means have to be resorted to and, as it is not possible to bring elephants, giraffes, steamers, airplanes into the classroom, some kinds of diminutive reproductions of the world will have to be created. In the order of their relative efficiency, they are: samples and models, pictures and photos, descriptions.

Some of these items belong to the scientific collections and laboratories of our Centre; they are common to all the classes: stuffed or preserved animals and skeletons, herbarium, slides and film stripes, models of engines and scientific and technological devices, demonstration outfits in elementary science, laboratory equipment for physics, chemistry and biology. The co-ordination of the needs of the various

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classes has to be planned carefully so as to ensure the best use of the extensive facilities that we now possess in our laboratories. Practical work for the desirous children must be arranged at as early a stage as possible - in fact as soon as elementary science (leςons de choses) is taken up. This can be done at first with the help of experimental outfits which could be lent to the class, if accommodation is available. However, most of the practical work will have to be done in the laboratories themselves.

The class equipment proper will thus in major part consist of pictures and photos, text-books, reading books and books of reference (dictionaries, atlases, junior encyclopedias). This documentation is the basis of the school work.

Text-books should not be used as such, for they present to the child only a chewed food which he is expected to swallow and digest. This process does not at all satisfy the need for a creative discovery so essential in the child's life, or it satisfies it only partially and at a later stage. But text-books of the self-instructor type are on the way to proper teaching. In a book of this type, each step is carefully explained so that the student can follow it easily, and at each step questions are
put that enliven the mind, keep it alert and inquisitive, oblige it to ensure and test its understanding. All this is very good, but the defect is that self-instructors are standard books, they do not take into account the variations in individual capacities.

For this reason we have introduced what we shall call the "work-sheets” (fiches de travail in French). I shall describe them in more detail in the next chapter. For the present, let me say that they are built on the same principles as the self-instructors, but made into separate lessons or sections related to a single theme of interest, sometimes to separate problems or experiments. The work-sheets are given individually to the students by the teacher, one at a time, and the student has to answer the prescribed questions before proceeding to the next one. This system, as we shall see, is more flexible than a book and has many advantages.

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A time comes in the child's development when manipulation and observation do not suffice. By living with adults and sharing their company, the child acquires some new needs, such as reading, writing and counting. They are what we have termed artificial needs, but we have to admit them as true needs when they manifest spontaneously, because they mark the passage from action to thought. They arise at the same time as the social need, from the necessity of communication and exchange with fellow beings and their appearance signifies the admission of the child into the (mental) human community.

Reading, writing and counting can hardly be acquired by children without the help of an adult: they require learning. That does not mean that teaching becomes necessary, in the sense it is generally understood: that of showing and asking the child to reproduce what the teacher does. No doubt, imitation should have a part in learning, but it is not the essential part. If we want the process of learning to be rapid and fruitful, it must be based on personal striving, invention and discovery. The child must be induced to try and experiment. By a balanced amalgam of encouragement, guidance and correction, he can be b ought to learn by himself, so that he may not lose the joy of a constant progress and self-perfecting. Imitation belongs to the last stage of the corrective process when the child fumbles and fails to succeed alone. Truly imitation is only justified as a perfecting technique; it is hardly conducive to discovery.

The child opens later to more elaborate stimuli. These are produced not by the immediate material surroundings, but by the world at large. The child is thus introduced into the various branches of knowledge, which we may continue for practical reasons to classify under four headings:

Languages

Mathematics

Sciences

History and Geography
We shall now see how the work-sheet system applies to

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each of these categories with only slight modifications.

The aim of the documentation and scientific equipment is to help the child in the building up of his knowledge. This building up is achieved mostly through the work prescribed in the work-sheets. In the documentation, the child must find all the information needed to answer the questions put to him.

The documentation - pictures, text-books, reference books - are considered by us as a source of information rather than a source of knowledge, because the child is not expected simply to store up in his memory what lies in the documentation but to find in it the stimuli that will call forth the knowledge that lies in him. In common parlance the word "knowledge" has two distinct meanings. First, "the act of knowing"; secondly, "the sum of what is known". Our education is directed towards knowledge in the first sense, while an encyclopedia constitutes a "storehouse of knowledge" in the second sense, i.e., a store of known facts.

The part played by information in the process of learning becomes at times very important, but at the school level the child should never be crushed under its weight. Once again, the aim is not to make him mug up the information, but to teach him how and where to find information, so that he learns to use it for his own development and its various applications.

There is one source of information which I have hitherto not mentioned - it is the teacher. To him, the child will come for any information that he does not find in the documentation, or for an explanation. The teacher must answer with kindness, precision and clarity, and give to the child exactly what the child expects, and no more. He must strictly resist the temptation to pour out all that he knows on the subject. What the child needs is a piece of information, not a display of knowledge. If he needs anything further, he will ask for it.

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