“The method of observation is established upon one fundamental base–the liberty of the pupils in their spontaneous manifestations.” (p. 54)
“…so that the children may be free to go and come s they like…” (54)
“Above the blackboards are hung attractive pictures, chosen carefully, representing simple scenes in which children would naturally be interested. Among the pictures in our ‘Children’s House’ in Rome we have hung a copy of Raphael’s ‘Madonna della Seggiola’, and this picture we have chosen as the emblem of the ‘Children’s Houses’. For indeed, these ‘Children’s Houses” represent not only social progress, but universal human progress, and are closely related to the elevation of the idea of motherhood, to the progress of woman and to the protection of her offspring.” **This is a great paragraph! (55)
” …the child will not only learn to move gracefully and properly but will come to understand the reason for such deportment.” (56) ***Meta-cognition
“The simplicity or imperfection of external objects often serves to develop the activity and dexterity of the pupils.” (p. 56)
(59) **Teacher as observer.
60: “mobility” and freedom/liberty as a moral “good” (60) “The first idea that the child must acquire, in order to be actively disciplined, is that of the difference between good and evil; and the task of the educator lies in seeing that the child does not confound good with immobility and evil with activity, as often happens in the case of the old-time discipline. And all this because our aim is to discipline for activity, for work, for good; not for immobility, not for passivity, not for obedience.”” (60).
***I think about genre when she writes this:
“If we can, when we have established individual discipline, arrange the children, sending each one to his own place, in order, trying to make them understand the idea that thus placed they look well, and that it is a good thing to be thus placed in order, that it is a good and pleasing arrangement in the room, this ordered and tranquil adjustment of theirs–then their remaining in their places, quiet and silent, is the result of a species of lesson, not an imposition. To make them understand the idea, without calling their attention too forcibly to the practice, to have them assimilate a principle of collective order–that is the important thing.”
“If, after they have understood this idea, they rise, speak, change to another place, they no longer do this without knowing and without thinking, but they do it because they wish to rise, to speak, etc.; that is from that state of repose and order, well understood, they depart in order to undertake some voluntary action; and knowing that there are actions which are prohibited, this will give them a new impulse to remember to discriminate between good and evil.” (60)
“the movements of the children from the state of order become always more co-ordinated and perfect with the passing of the days; in fact, they learn to reflect upon their own acts.” (61) ***MetaCognition
“For the child with such exercises makes, to a certain extent, a selection of his own tendencies, which were at first confused in the unconscious disorder of his movements. It is remarkable how clearly individual differences show themselves, if we proceed in this way; the child, conscious and free reveals himself.”
***This speaks very much, to me, of writing and first-year writing. We tend to see students as needing education in “genre” in forms, in structure. We put cart before horse? Genre, form, could be very constructive if taught in a way that enables students to “reveal themselves” via individual differences within genre. So there isn’t such a focus on “correctness” and expectation of this on the part of the student?
**This section seems very much to speak to writing and FYC: “The child, because of the peculiar characteristics of helplessness with which he is born, and because of his qualities as a social individual is circumscribed by bonds which limit his activity.”
“An educational method that shall have liberty as its basis must intervene to help the child to a conquest of these various obstacles. in other words, his training must be such as shall help him to diminish, in a rational manner, the social bonds, which limit his activity.
Little by little, as the child grows in such an atmosphere, his spontaneous manifestations will become more clear, with the clearness of truth, revealing his nature. For all these reasons, the first form of educational intervention must tend to lead the child toward independence.”
***Really this is what we strive for: the revelation of the individual speaking his individuality (cogently) to academic audiences.
“Such an attitude toward woman leads to the fact that man works not only for himself, but for woman. And the woman wastes her natural strength and activity and languishes in slavery. She is not only maintained and served, she is, besides, diminished, belittled, in that individuality which is hers by right of her existence as a human being. As an individual member of society, she is a cypher. She is rendered deficient in all those powers ad resources which tend to the preservation of life….” (63).
Gamification/ “abolition of prizes and of external forms of punishment” (63)
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