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In Talks to Teachers on Psychology, William James gave a series of lectures to Cambridge teachers so they might choose to integrate some

of the theories of psychology into their teaching repertoire. His presentation expounded on a minimum of what [was] deemed scientific in psychology as he felt his audience was more interested in the concrete and practical applications of the science, as opposed to the analytical technicality of it (James, 1899). Many of James ideas are seen to be present in todays educational system, either formally or informally, even though they were developed more than a century ago. Others are still changes we could make to improve the quality of our teaching and learning experiences in the schools. Since I do not work within our education system, this paper is presented taking into consideration what I learned in my three years as a teacher in a foreign country, what my personal experiences were in Albertas education system, my impressions as my niece and nephews go through our local school systems and my observations of alternative education systems available in Calgary, including Green Learning Academy and schools that use the Montessori Methods. (perhaps not typical, but fortunate!) I present my considerations on the presence of James ideas about student interests, object-learning, attention and the law of transitoriness of instincts; As well, I present my reflections on the absence of discussion about teaching and learning styles in Talks to Teachers. According to James, some things in life are naturally interesting, while others must acquire interest through their association with something else that is interesting. Since school curriculums do not present us with interesting topics of study alone, James encouraged teachers to be knowledgeable of what the students natural interests were, as through them was the most direct way to introduce new ideas and associations. He

believed that childrens natural interest was held by anything that provoked sensation, and as a result, that teachers would have a difficult time holding the attention of their students using only their voice. James believed that the best way to capture the interest of students was through their native tendencies or reactions. Fear, love, curiosity, imitation, emulation, ambition, pugnacity (the unwillingness to be beaten by anything), pride, ownership and constructiveness are the ten streams through which James believed a teacher could readily access a students interest. I address the area of constructiveness directly: If you have ever watched an infant, a toddler or a child, you will know that they spend most of their time exploring the world through touching things, exploring with their hands, putting things together and taking them apart, building things up and knocking them down, learning through what James referred to as objective and experimental methods (James, Chap. 7). James believed this to be a superior approach to learning, whereby the subject of learning absorbed the mind of the child, occupying the pupil in a way most congruous with the spontaneous interests of his age leaving impressions durable and profound. (James, Chap. 7) To capitalize on this natural form of interest, James promoted education in construction and object-teaching in schools. I have found these ideas, attention to student interest and object-teaching, most present in the alternative education systems such as Green Learning Academy and the Montessori schools. In both environments the child is supplied with a number of different types of materials and activities, often hands-on in nature, through which to learn about the topic of the lesson. Few lessons are taught in lecture format alone for students of any age, and students are usually self-directed in the method through which they will explore the new idea. Allowing a child to use their own interests as a jumping-off point for studying

new ideas encourages an enthusiasm and sense of exploration and adventure for learning that is not often seen in the traditional book-learning design of many modern classrooms, which James commented on in Talks to Teachers. In Montessori school environments, the teacher watches as the students choose and work on their activity, providing guidance only when needed, otherwise functioning as an observer as the student learns. Green Learning Academy uses an approach developed by Anne and Don Green called Cerebratic Accelerated Learning, which they define as a learning process which uses the students interests to engage them in learning. It encourages students to use their whole brain (experiences, investigation, knowledge, and application) during lessons, allowing them to discover strategies they can use when facing unfamiliar problems (Green Learning Academy). In Korea I taught in smaller classrooms where the student to teacher ratio was not very high, so I could easily tailor questions and activities in the lesson around the interests of the student, keeping them engaged and focused on the lesson for longer periods of time. Part of the early and ongoing expectation in the curriculum for the teacher was to make note of and incorporate the individual and collective interests of the students into the lesson plans. Students were far more engaged and excited during my lessons when I took the time to tailor them to the interests of the students, as opposed to when I taught the lesson as directed in the teachers guide. Working in our special needs environments present a unique opportunity working one on one with a student, where the teacher has a greater opportunity to work with the students interests. In my experience of our Albertan general education classrooms today, it seems that teachers are often limited by the large number of students per class, and the limited time prescribed to teach each concept within the set curriculum. I believe this is likely the

reason that I have seen less object-teaching and focus or awareness of student interests outside of the preschool and kindergarten levels. To say that an object is interesting is only another way of saying that it excites attention (James, Chap. 11). James distinguishes between two types of attention, spontaneous attention (which is held so long as an object or idea excites attention of its own) and deliberate or voluntary attention (which we give to subjects that are less interesting, or not interesting in and of themselves). Voluntary attention, according to James, cannot be sustained continuously; it is a short, momentary occurrence. He believed that the more spontaneous attention is relied on in the classroom by keeping the classroom material interesting, and the less a need of attention requiring effort, the more smooth and pleasant the classroom work will go. If you have ever found your thoughts drifting away during a lecture, or while reading a chapter in a textbook despite repeated attempts to redirect yourself, you have experienced the effects of voluntary attention. In the classroom, James directs teachers to ask new and varied questions about the subject at hand, to approach it from different angles and sides, and make it show new aspects of itself to keep the students attention. The teacher who can get along by keeping spontaneous interest excited must be regarded as the teacher with the greatest skill (James XI). James does make a note about the possibility of attention that I think many of todays teachers would agree with: sometimes in lessons there is a large mass of material that is in its own nature dull and unexciting, and to which it seems impossible to link a students natural interest and attention. This leaves teachers with the task of recapturing the students voluntary attention. Methods mentioned briefly in Talks to Teachers include changing posture or places, questions answered singly mixed with those answered as a

group, recapitulations, illustrations, examples and changes of routine (as well as the teacher pouncing on the most listless child to wake him up), all mixed together to keep the attention and interest in the subject alive (James XI). I believe the matter of attention to be an ongoing challenge in every school and classroom, whether working with children or adults. We see teachers in our schools use different methods to keep the attention of their students, from increasing the variety of activities, changing study locations in the classroom for different activities, incorporating games and songs to learn a new topic, and appealing to activities that engage the students different senses (e.g. painting, reading, reciting, building, singing). When that alone does not work, we see teachers appealing to voluntary attention of a more coerced sort, rapping on a students desk, or using a more commanding voice to bring the students back into the space of the moment. I often remember in school being reminded by my elementary teachers to come back to earth when my mind had drifted away from the topic at hand, and I hear similar stories coming home with my elementary-aged niece and nephew. In Korea I could always judge if my lesson had gone on too long in one direction or activity, as several of my students would be playing with their pencils or their hair, looking out the window, flipping pages or otherwise drifting away, prompting me to bring out the next game or activity. yes! Our curriculum always encouraged a steady flow of activities to keep the attention and interest of the students. Attention is attended to well within the Montessori Method: students are directed to choose activities that are most appealing to them, showing a resulting increased focus on activities for longer periods of time as they are self-directed in their attention, prompting their own reexamination and thorough exploration of their subject. Teachers report that students usually claim

boredom with an activity only after they have mastered the concept at their current level and are ready to advance to the next level (Association Montessori Internationale). As we have all been taught, children develop in what James calls a certain determinate order (James, CHAP. 7), from crawling and walking, to building and drawing and onward. Along with a general order of developing these kinds of skills, James suggests that our impulses and instincts also mature in a specific order, passing through a period of initial interest, through a time of potential for optimal growth to a kind of attrition if left unprovoked, which he referred to as the Law of Transitoriness in Instincts (James, CHAP. 7). Put simply, if the child is presented with the appropriate objects and stimuli when the instinct to develop the skill is ripe, they have a greater opportunity to develop skillful lasting habits around it. James believed that the optimal time for development of interests in some areas is short-lived, and that when a child shows instinctual curiosity in an area they should be provided with every chance and opportunity to explore and excel in it. aka "Critical periods" James himself stated that we can draw no specific rule around the development of these instincts, and that the law has little chance of individualized application in the schools (James, CHAP. 7). I agree that the advantage in this situation is with the childs parent our guardian rather than the school teacher in most environments, but I believe it does have potential for application within community education. I offer it for reflection here because of my experiences in the Korean education system. In Canada our children may attend playschool when they are three and four years old, where they learn to be creative, playful, social, respectful and helpful through play. When they are five they can attend kindergarten, where they learn foundational skills in language arts, mathematics, science,

social studies, physical education, health and life skills, and the fine arts, providing a transition to the subject area expectations of elementary schooling (Alberta Education, 2007). From kindergarten they move into the regular school system. We dont expect any great accomplishments of them before they enter school. We seem to believe that children become ready for formal learning when they are six years old, coinciding with the time they begin their formal academic career. Anyone who has observed a toddler will know that they are like little sponges; (you can't stop them from learning; then 6 years later, in school, so many of them are 'dead' -- makes one wonder what schools have that turns them off? all of their time awake is spent learning and growing, immersed in the world around them. Maria Montessori, creator of the Montessori Method, believed that when the child is unhampered in his activity we see that he is ready to do, to accomplish, much more than we expect because it is through this intense mental exercise that he develops himself. (Montessori, 1944). However, it seems uncommon for parents today to put children of these ages into any kind of formal educational programs in Alberta, though as James points out, the critical point for the development of interest and skills in some areas comes while the child is very young. In Korea, most children begin some form of schooling when they are two years old. As soon as a child showed an interest in an area such as art, music, construction or dance (for example), they were often enrolled in a class or program that allowed them to explore it. If they enjoyed it and excelled they would remain with the class as they grew; if the interest was fleeting the parents would continue to watch and enroll them in different classes as they showed their developing interests. Korean children often begin the study of martial arts when they are two or three years old, and have access to science,

engineering and construction, dance, art and language classes around the same age. The youngest students I taught were two and a half years old, and were only beginning to learn Korean at the same time they were learning English with me. I was amazed by the knowledge, kinds of questions and levels of understanding some of my students had at four and five years old they had a firm grasp on concepts that would only be introduced to children in our education system in second and third grades, and that effect often continued as my students advanced in ages. Access to these programs in Korea was often dictated by the parents financial situation, but their availability and variety was astounding, and attendance in some sort of community education appeared to be the norm, with parents capitalizing on the possibilities of catching those transitory instincts when they first appeared. While it would not fit well within our formal system of education, I believe our young children would benefit from opportunities to participate in more learning opportunities in community education when the instinct is ripe. (it is not the same as "teachable moments," rather a "biological readiness" almost -- perhaps it's a part of our general deemphasis of physiology in favor of "higher-mental processes"? ) The last thing I wish to cover is something that James did not include in his Talks to Teachers, and that is the application of our knowledge about different learning styles to the way we teach. While James did give consideration to the student as an individual thinking being, and labeled students as either naturally scatterbrained or easily focused in their attention, he did not pay any particular attention to the individual needs of the students in the classroom. We know now that students learn in very different ways, and this has greatly impacted the way we approach learners with special needs. Carl Jung first spoke about typology of personalities at the Munich Psychological Congress in

1913 (Wikipedia), and published his theory of psychological types in 1921 in his book by the same name (Psychological Types). As a member of any group of students, you will have seen that different students vary in their levels of motivation, their attitudes about teaching and learning, and that they have different responses to specific classroom environments and styles of teaching. According to the Institute for Learning Styles Research, individual difference might include personality, mental processing, confidence, attitude, sensory intake processes or some complex combination of these and other differences (2007). In their article discussing how best to understand student differences, Felder and Brent write The more thoroughly [teachers] understand the differences, the better chance they have of meeting the diverse learning needs of all of their students (Felder & Brent, 2005). I believe that there is a good deal of awareness of the different learning styles in todays classrooms, and if it is found to be lacking then I believe that it is likely due to lack of preparation or the availability of time for the lesson. When I was in school, teachers often combined different methods of teaching to reach more students, for example engaging the visual learners with a poster presentation and the auditory learners with a group presentation project; or engaging the kinesthetic learners with an action game and the sensory learners with hands-on experiments. My nieces teacher often presents a new subject in two different ways (reading and talking), and then gives homework that requires the use of one or two of the other modalities. With both Green Learning Academy and schools using the Montessori Method, learning styles are automatically accounted for, provided that ample classroom materials are available. IMHO - It seems to me that , in recent years, "regular schools" are pretty heavy into "indoctrination" and thus the

operations like Montessori have a chance to shine time will tell I guess. Since students are able to choose their own activity and approach for learning a new subject, they have opportunity to try out different methods to gain an understanding. If one approach does not work they are then able to try another, with support from the teacher if they exhaust their personal store of ideas. When I was teaching in Korea I participated in several workshops about different learning styles, and thought it was quite well-addressed in the teaching curriculum. However, even after attending the workshops I found that it was quite a lengthy process to ensure I prepared enough activities to meet the learning needs of all of my students, and especially in the beginning, it took up the majority of my preparation time. Overall I enjoyed James presentation on the application of psychological theories for teachers, and aside from the writing style was surprised to find the ideas came about so early in our time. I am impressed by the amount of his writing that is still applicable to ways that we could improve our teaching today, and a little saddened that even after a hundred years we have still not made some of the changes (amen!) to our education system that would benefit our children in the classroom. Today we see an unfortunate rise in issues and behaviours in our schools that James and those of his time did not have to deal with. We see bullying that is so severe that it leads to hospitalization or death by peer or suicide, significant mental health issues that result in our elementary children being medicated for conditions such as depression and anxiety, and unstable home environments due to the increasingly high incidence of divorce and family violence. On a positive note, we have also seen many advancements in the field of special education, on our approach to working with students who have special needs, and the

quality and amount of research available in the area of child-study that allows us to learn more about children and how best to work with them in our schools. 35/35 - Excellent, a pleasure to read!

References Alberta Education (2007). Kindergarten in Alberta, A Handbook for Parents. Retrieved June 14, 2008, from http://www.education.alberta.ca/media/445748/kindpub.pdf Association Montessori Internationale (AMI) (2008). Philosophy and Methods of the Montessori Method. Retrieved June 13, 2008, from http://www.montessori-ami.org/montesorri.htm Felder, R.M. & Brent, R. (2005). Understanding Student Differences. In Journal of Engineering Education, 94(10), 57-72 (2005). Retrieved June 12, 2008, from http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/Papers/Understanding_Diffe rences.pdf Felder, R.M. & Soloman, B.A. (2005). Learning Styles and Strategies. Retrieved June 12, 2008, from http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/ILSdir/styles.htm Green Learning Academy (2008). Cerebratic Accelerated Learning. Retrieved June 2, 2008, from http://www.greenlearning.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=38&Ite mid=64 Institute for Learning Styles Research (2008). Learning Styles. Retrieved June 14, 2008, from http://learningstyles.org/pmps.html James, W. (1899). Talks to Teachers on Psychology. Retrieved May 20, 2008, from http://www.des.emory.edu/mfp/ttpreface.html Montessori, M. (1944). Dr. Maria Montessori to the Students of her Advanced Course. In Association Montessori Internationale (AMI) (2008). Retrieved June 13, 2008, from http://www.montessori-ami.org/training/perspectives6.htm

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