The idea of class teaching must be postponed, for out of it come most of the difficulties of discipline, and it is not the natural arrangement at this transitional period.  A teacher is imposing on a number of very different individuals a system that says their difficulties are alike, that they must all work at one rate and in one way:  and so we have the weary “reading round” class, when the slow ones struggle and the quick ones find other and unlawful occupation:  we have the number lessons broken by the teacher’s breathless attempts to see that all the class follows:  we have the handwork that imposes an average standard of work that fits nobody exactly.  Intellectual freedom can only come by individual or group work, while class teaching is only for such occasions as a literature or a singing lesson, or the presentation of an occasional new idea in number.  Individual and group work need much organisation, but while classes consist of over forty children there is no other way to permit intellectual and moral freedom.  Of course the furniture of the room will greatly help to make this more possible, and it is hoped that an enlightened authority will not continue to supply heavy iron-framed desks for the junior school, those described as “desks for listening.”

The prevailing atmosphere should be a busy noise and not silence—­it should be the noise of children working, oftener than of the teacher teaching, i.e. teaching the whole class.  The teacher should be more frequently among the children than at her desk, and the children’s voices should be heard more often than hers.

Such children will inevitably become intellectually independent and morally self-controlled.  Most of the order should be taken in hand by children in office, and they should be distinguished by a badge:  most questions of punishment should be referred to them.  This means a constant appeal to the law that is behind both teacher and children and which they learn to reach apart from the teacher’s control.

“Where ‘thou shalt’ of the law becomes ‘I will’ of the doer, then we are free.”

III.  CONSIDERATION OF THE ASPECTS OF EXPERIENCE

The aim of the following chapters is to show how principles may be applied to what are usually known as subjects of the curriculum, and what place these subjects take in the acquisition of experience.  An exhaustive or detailed treatment of method is not intended, but merely the establishment of a point of view and method of application.

CHAPTER XXI

EXPERIENCES OF HUMAN CONDUCT