Em Tradução:Talks to Teachers on Psychology; And to Students on Some of Life's Ideals
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Autor: William James
Título: Talks to Teachers on Psychology; And to Students on Some of Life's Ideals
Data: 1899, 1900
A versão original foi retirada de Gutenberg.org
Prefácio
[editar]about 1892 I was asked by the Harvard Corporation to give a few public lectures on psychology to the Cambridge teachers. The talks now printed form the substance of that course, which has since then been delivered at various places to various teacher-audiences. I have found by experience that what my hearers seem least to relish is analytical technicality, and what they most care for is concrete practical application. So I have gradually weeded out the former, and left the latter unreduced; and now, that I have at last written out the lectures, they contain a minimum of what is deemed 'scientific' in psychology, and are practical and popular in the extreme.
Por volta de 1892 a Corporação Harvard pediu-me que proferisse algumas palestras públicas de psicologia para os professores de Cambridge. Os discursos agora impressos formam a substância desse curso, que desde então foi apresentado em vários lugares a várias audiências de professores. Apercebi-me por experiência que o que os meus ouvintes parecem menos apreciar é tecnicalidade analítica e ao que eles prestam mais atenção é à aplicação prática concreta. Por isso aparei gradualmente a anterior e deixei a última intacta; e agora que finalmente passei estas palestras para papel, elas contêm o mínimo do que é considerado 'científico' em psicologia e são práticas e populares ao extremo.
Some of my colleagues may possibly shake their heads at this; but in taking my cue from what has seemed to me to be the feeling of the audiences I believe that I am shaping my book so as to satisfy the more genuine public need.
Alguns dos meus colegas poderão possivelmente abanar as suas cabeças a isso; mas ao aproveitar a deixa do que me pareceu a mim ser o sentimento das audiências acredito que estou a moldar o meu livro de modo a satisfazer a necessidade mais genuína do público.
Teachers, of course, will miss the minute divisions, subdivisions, and definitions, the lettered and numbered headings, the variations of type, and all the other mechanical artifices on which they are accustomed to prop their minds. But my main desire has been to make them conceive, and, if possible, reproduce sympathetically in their imagination, the mental life of their pupil as the sort of active unity which he himself feels it to be. He doesn't chop himself into distinct processes and compartments; and it would have frustrated this deeper purpose of my book to make it look, when printed, like a Baedeker's handbook of travel or a text-book of arithmetic. So far as books printed like this book force the fluidity of the facts upon the young teacher's attention, so far I am sure they tend to do his intellect a service, even though they may leave unsatisfied a craving (not altogether without its legitimate grounds) for more nomenclature, head-lines, and subdivisions.
Os professores, obviamente, irão sentir falta das divisões, subdivisões e definições minutas, das secções numeradas e com letras, das variações tipograficas e de todos os outros artifícios mecânicos com os quais eles estão acustumados preencher as suas mentes. Mas o meu desejo principal foi fazê-los conceber e, se possível, reproduzir simpateticamente na sua imaginação, a vida mental do seu pupilo como o tipo de unidade activa que ele próprio sinta que seja. Ele não está cortado em processos e compartimentos distintos; e teria frustrado este sentido mais profundo do meu livro fazê-lo parecer, depois de empresso, como um livrete de viagens de Baedeker ou um manual de aritmética. Tanto quanto livros empressos como este livro forçam a fluidez dos factos sobre atenção do jovem professor, tanto quanto tenho a certeza que eles tendem a fazer um serviço ao seu intelecto, mesmo podendo eles deixar insatisfeito um querer (não totalmente sem os seus fundamentos legítimos) de mais nomenclatura, títulos e subdivisões.
Readers acquainted with my larger books on Psychology will meet much familiar phraseology. In the chapters on habit and memory I have even copied several pages verbatim, but I do not know that apology is needed for such plagiarism as this.
Leitores familiarizados com os meus livros mais volumosos sobre psicologia vão encontrar muita fraseologia conhecida. Copiei até várias páginas em verbatim nos capítulos sobre hábito e memória, mas desconheço que desculpa é necessária para tal plágio como este.
The talks to students, which conclude the volume, were written in response to invitations to deliver 'addresses' to students at women's colleges. The first one was to the graduating class of the Boston Normal School of Gymnastics. Properly, it continues the series of talks to teachers. The second and the third address belong together, and continue another line of thought.
Os discursos para alunos, que concluem o volume, foram escritos como resposta a convites para fazer uma comunicação verbal a alunos numa universidade para mulheres. O primeiro foi para a turma graduante da Boston Normal School of Gymnastics. Apropriadamente, termina a série de discursos para os professores. A segunda e a terceira pertencem juntas e continuam outro tipo de pensamento.
I wish I were able to make the second, 'On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings,' more impressive. It is more than the mere piece of sentimentalism which it may seem to some readers. It connects itself with a definite view of the world and of our moral relations to the same. Those who have done me the honor of reading my volume of philosophic essays will recognize that I mean the pluralistic or individualistic philosophy. According to that philosophy, the truth is too great for any one actual mind, even though that mind be dubbed 'the Absolute,' to know the whole of it. The facts and worths of life need many cognizers to take them in. There is no point of view absolutely public and universal. Private and uncommunicable perceptions always remain over, and the worst of it is that those who look for them from the outside never know where.
Desejava ser capaz de fazer a segunda, 'Sobre uma Certa Ceguez nos Seres Humanos', mais impressionante. É mais do que o mero pedaço de sentimentalismo que pode parecer a alguns leitores. Liga-se ele próprio a uma vista definitiva do mundo e das nossas relações morais com o mesmo. Aqueles que me fizeram a honra de ler o meu volume de ensaios filosóficos vão perceber que eu me refiro à filosofia pluralista ou individualista. De acordo com essa filosofia, a verdade é demasiado grande para qualquer uma mente em concreto, mesmo sendo essa mente entitulada 'o Absoluto', conhecer o todo dela.
The practical consequence of such a philosophy is the well-known democratic respect for the sacredness of individuality,--is, at any rate, the outward tolerance of whatever is not itself intolerant. These phrases are so familiar that they sound now rather dead in our ears. Once they had a passionate inner meaning. Such a passionate inner meaning they may easily acquire again if the pretension of our nation to inflict its own inner ideals and institutions vi et armis upon Orientals should meet with a resistance as obdurate as so far it has been gallant and spirited. Religiously and philosophically, our ancient national doctrine of live and let live may prove to have a far deeper meaning than our people now seem to imagine it to possess.
A consequência prática de tal filosofia é o bem conhecido respeito democrático pelo carácter sagrado da individualidade, -- é, de qualquer maneira, a tolerância formal do que não é ele próprio intolerante. Estas frases são tão familiares que soam agora um tanto sem vida aos nossos ouvidos. Noutros tempos elas tinham um sentido oculto apaixonado. Tal significado oculto elas podiam facilmente adquirir de novo se a pretensão da nossa nação para castigar os seus próprios ideais e instituições vi et armis sobre os orientais devia encontrar uma resistência tão obstinada como até agora tem sido galante e espirituosa. Religiosamente e filosoficamente, a nossa antiga doutrina nacional do "viva e deixa viver" prova ter um antigo e profundo significado que o nosso povo agora parece imaginá-lo para o possuir.
CAMBRIDGE, MASS., March, 1899.
CAMBRIDGE, MASS., Março, 1899.
Conteúdo
[editar]Discursos para Professores
[editar]I. Psicologia e a Arte do Ensino(Psychology and the Teaching Art)
The American educational organization,—What teachers may expect from psychology,—Teaching methods must agree with psychology, but cannot be immediately deduced therefrom,—The science of teaching and the science of war,—The educational uses of psychology defined,—The teacher's duty toward child-study.
A organização educacional americana, -O que professores podem esperar da psicologia, -Métodos de ensino devem concordar com a psicologia, mas não podem ser dela imediatamente deduzidos,-A ciência do ensino e a ciência da guerra,- Os usos educacionais da psicologia definidos,-O dever do professor com relação ao estudo infantil.
II. The Stream of Consciousness
Our mental life is a succession of conscious 'fields,'—They have a focus and a margin,—This description contrasted with the theory of 'ideas,'—Wundt's conclusions, note.
III. The Child as a Behaving Organism
Mind as pure reason and mind as practical guide,—The latter view the more fashionable one to-day,—It will be adopted in this work,—Why so?—The teacher's function is to train pupils to behavior.
Education defined,—Conduct is always its outcome,—Different national ideals: Germany and England.
No impression without expression,—Verbal reproduction,—Manual training,—Pupils should know their 'marks'.
VI. Native and Acquired Reactions
The acquired reactions must be preceded by native ones,—Illustration: teaching child to ask instead of snatching,—Man has more instincts than other mammals.
VII. What the Native Reactions Are
Fear and love,—Curiosity,—Imitation,—Emulation,—Forbidden by Rousseau,—His error,—Ambition, pugnacity, and pride. Soft pedagogics and the fighting impulse,—Ownership,—Its educational uses,—Constructiveness,—Manual teaching,—Transitoriness in instincts,—Their order of succession.
Good and bad habits,—Habit due to plasticity of organic tissues,—The aim of education is to make useful habits automatic,—Maxims relative to habit-forming: 1. Strong initiative,—2. No exception,—3. Seize first opportunity to act,—4. Don't preach,—Darwin and poetry: without exercise our capacities decay,—The habit of mental and muscular relaxation,—Fifth maxim, keep the faculty of effort trained,—Sudden conversions compatible with laws of habit,—Momentous influence of habits on character.
A case of habit,—The two laws, contiguity and similarity,—The teacher has to build up useful systems of association,—Habitual associations determine character,—Indeterminateness of our trains of association,—We can trace them backward, but not foretell them,—Interest deflects,—Prepotent parts of the field,—In teaching, multiply cues.
The child's native interests,—How uninteresting things acquire an interest,—Rules for the teacher,—'Preparation' of the mind for the lesson: the pupil must have something to attend with,—All later interests are borrowed from original ones.
Interest and attention are two aspects of one fact,—Voluntary attention comes in beats,—Genius and attention,—The subject must change to win attention,—Mechanical aids,—The physiological process,—The new in the old is what excites interest,—Interest and effort are compatible,—Mind-wandering,—Not fatal to mental efficiency.
Due to association,—No recall without a cue,—Memory is due to brain-plasticity,—Native retentiveness,—Number of associations may practically be its equivalent,—Retentiveness is a fixed property of the individual,—Memory versus memories,—Scientific system as help to memory,—Technical memories,—Cramming,—Elementary memory unimprovable,—Utility of verbal memorizing,—Measurements of immediate memory,—They throw little light,—Passion is the important factor in human efficiency,—Eye-memory, ear-memory, etc.,—The rate of forgetting, Ebbinghaus's results,—Influence of the unreproducible,—To remember, one must think and connect.
XIII. The Acquisition of Ideas
Education gives a stock of conceptions,—The order of their acquisition,—Value of verbal material,—Abstractions of different orders: when are they assimilable,—False conceptions of children.
Often a mystifying idea,—The process defined,—The law of economy,—Old-fogyism,—How many types of apperception?—New heads of classification must continually be invented,—Alteration of the apperceiving mass,—Class names are what we work by,—Few new fundamental conceptions acquired after twenty-five.
The word defined,—All consciousness tends to action,—Ideo-motor action,—Inhibition,—The process of deliberation,—Why so few of our ideas result in acts,—The associationist account of the will,—A balance of impulses and inhibitions,—The over-impulsive and the over-obstructed type,—The perfect type,—The balky will,—What character building consists in,—Right action depends on right apperception of the case,—Effort of will is effort of attention: the drunkard's dilemma,—Vital importance of voluntary attention,—Its amount may be indeterminate,—Affirmation of free-will,—Two types of inhibition,—Spinoza on inhibition by a higher good,—Conclusion.