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"Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me."
The third great guarantee of the Spirit is an unswerving obedience to all principles of the Gospel. To teach belief a man must believe. Firmly grounded in all the cardinal principles the teacher may well inspire a spirit of the Gospel, but not otherwise. Doubt and uncertainty will keep the teacher from the position of counsel and leadership.
The fourth assurance in the matter of developing spirituality is the consistent performance of one's religious obligations. The complaint is often made that teachers in a particular organization will meet their classes regularly, but that done they seem to consider their religious duties discharged. Teaching does not excuse a person from attending the other services required of Latter-day Saints. He is asked to attend Sacrament meetings, Priesthood meetings, Union meetings, special preparation meetings—they are all essential to the full development of the Spirit of the Gospel, which is the spirit of teaching. The teacher may rightly expect to be sustained only as he sustains those who preside over him.
"For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." (Matt. 7:2.)
And finally, if we would enjoy the spirit of our work we must familiarize ourselves with the Word of the Lord. To read it is to associate in thought with Him. His Spirit pervades all that He has said, whether in ancient or modern times. One of our apostles frequently remarked that if he would feel fully in touch with the spirit of his calling he must read regularly from the Doctrine & Covenants. "That book keeps me attuned as no other book can." It is not given to us to associate here with the Master, but through His recorded words we can live over all that He once lived. Thereby we not only come really to know what He would have us do, we partake of a spirit that surpasses understanding.
"Search the scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life."
As for attainment in other matters involved in the teaching process, the teachers who attended the course at the Brigham Young University were agreed that regular practice in the following processes will insure marked growth and development:
1. The taking of a personal inventory at regular intervals. "Am I the kind of teacher I should like to go to?" starts an investigation full of suggestiveness. The qualities listed in chapter four constitute a reference chart for analysis. A teacher can become his own best critic if he sets up the proper ideals by way of a standard. A teacher in one of our Church schools in Idaho carried out an interesting investigation during the year 1919-1920. Anxious that he should not monopolize the time in his recitations, he asked one of his students to tabulate the time of the class period as follows:
Number of questions asked by teacher. Number of questions asked by pupils. Amount of time consumed by teacher. Amount of time consumed by pupils.He was astonished to discover that of the forty-five minutes given to recitation he was regularly using an average of thirty-two minutes. Similar investigations can be carried on by any interested teacher.
2. Contact with the best in life. It is a fundamental law in life that life is an adaptation to environment. The writer has been interested in observing the force of this law as it affects animal life. Lizards in Emery county are slate-gray in color that they may be less conspicuous on a background of clay and gray sandstone; the same animals in St. George take on a reddish color—an adaptation to their environment of red sandstone.
Nor is the operation of this law merely a physical process. On a trip into Canada recently the writer traveled some distance with a group of bankers in attendance at a convention at Great Falls. On his way home he took a train on which there was a troupe of vaudeville players. The contrast was too marked to escape notice. One group had responded to an environment of sober business negotiations—the other to the gayety of the footlights. And so the teacher who would grow must put himself into an environment that makes the kind of growth he desires natural—inevitable. Through good books he can associate with the choice spirits of all ages. No one denies his acquaintanceship. Great men have given their best thoughts to many of the problems that confront us. We can capitalize on their wisdom by reading their books. We re-enforce ourselves with their strength.
Magazines, too, are full of stimulation. They constitute a kind of intellectual clearing house for the best thought of the world today. Business houses value them so highly in promoting the advancement of their employees that they subscribe regularly. One manager remarked: "No one factor makes for greater growth among my men than reading the achievements of others—leaders in their lines—through the magazines." There is scarcely a phase of life which is not being fully written about in the current issues of the leading magazines.
Then, too, contact with men and women of achievement is a remarkable stimulus to growth.
There are leaders in every community—men and women rich in experience—who will gladly discuss the vital issues of life with those who approach them. There still remain, too, pioneers with their wonderful stories of sacrifice and devotion. To the teacher who will take the pains there is an untold wealth of material in the lives of the men and women about him.
3. Regular habits of systematic study. Thorough intensive effort finds its best reward in the intellectual growth that it insures. In these days of the hurry of business and the whirl of commercialized amusements there is little time left for study except for him who makes himself subscribe to a system of work. Thirty minutes of concentrated effort a day works wonders in the matter of growth. President Grant was a splendid evidence of the force of persistent effort in his writing, his business success, and his rise to the leadership of half a million Latter-day Saints.
4. Assuming the obligations of responsibility. In every organization there are constant calls upon teachers to perform laborious tasks. It is so natural to seek to avoid them—so easy to leave them for somebody else—that we have to cultivate vigorously a habit of accepting the obligations that present themselves. The difficulties of responsibility are often burdensome, but they are an essential guarantee of achievement. "Welcome the task that makes you go beyond your ordinary self, if you would grow!"
Questions and Suggestions—Chapter VI
1. Discuss our obligation to grow.
2. Point out the difference between praying and merely saying prayers.
3. Discuss the various means which guarantee spiritual growth.
4. Comment on the thought that a personal inventory is as essential to teaching as it is to financial success.
5. What is your daily scheme for systematic study?
6. What plan do you follow in an attempt to know the scriptures?
7. Why is it so important that we assume the responsibilities placed upon us?
Helpful References
Those listed in Chapter IV.
CHAPTER VII NATIVE TENDENCIESOutline—Chapter VII
Importance of Child Study to teachers.—Teaching both a social and an individual process.—A Child's characteristics—his birthright.—What the nervous system is.—Types of original responses.—The significance of instinctive action.—Colvin's list of native tendencies.—Sisson's list.—A knowledge of native tendencies essential to proper control of human behavior.
We have now discussed the significance and meaning of teaching, together with the consideration of the characteristics that constitute the personal equation of the teacher. It is now pertinent that we give some attention to the nature of the child to be taught, that we may the more intelligently discuss methods of teaching, or how teacher and pupil get together in an exchange of knowledge.
Teaching is a unique process. It is both social and individual. The teacher meets a class—a collection of pupils in a social unit. In one way he is concerned with them generally—he directs group action. But in addition to this social aspect, the problem involves his giving attention to each individual in the group. He may put a general question, but he gets an individual reply. In short, he must be aware of the fact that his pupils, for purposes of recitation, are all alike; and at the same time he must appreciate the fact that they are peculiarly different. In a later chapter we shall consider these differences; let us here consider the points of similarity.
The fact that a boy is a boy makes him heir to all of the characteristics that man has developed. These characteristics are his birthright. He responds in a particular way to stimuli because the race before him has so responded. There is no need here of entering into a discussion as to how great a controlling factor heredity may be in a man's life, or how potent environment may be in modifying that life—we are concerned rather with the result—that man is as he is. It is essential that we know his characteristics, particularly as they manifest themselves in youth, so that we may know what to expect in his conduct and so that we may proceed to modify and control that conduct. Just as the first task of the physician is to diagnose his case—to get at the cause of the difficulty before he proceeds to suggest a remedy—so the first consideration of the teacher is a query, "Whom do I teach?"
Man may normally be expected to respond in a particular way to a particular stimulus because men throughout the history of the race have so responded. Certain connections have been established in his nervous system and he acts accordingly—he does what he does because he is man. We cannot here go into a detailed discussion of the physiological processes involved in thinking and other forms of behavior, but perhaps we may well set down a statement or two relative to man's tendencies to act, and their explanations:
"The nervous system is composed of neurones of three types: Those that receive, the afferent; those that effect action, the efferent; and those that connect, the associative. The meeting places of these neurones are the synapses. All neurones have the three characteristics of sensitivity, conductivity, and modifiability. In order for conduct or feeling or intellect to be present, at least two neurones must be active, and in all but a few of the human activities many more are involved. The possibility of conduct or intelligence depends upon the connections at the synapses,—upon the possibility of the current affecting neurones in a certain definite way. The possession of an 'original nature,' then, means the possession, as a matter of inheritance, of certain connections between neurones, the possession of certain synapses which are in functional contact and across which a current may pass merely as a matter of structure. Just why certain synapses should be thus connected is the whole question of heredity. Two factors seem to affect the functional contact of a synapses,—first, proximity
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