The teacher is vexed at the
interruption, and severely rebukes or punishes the boy, when, after
all, the offense, in a moral point of view, was an exceedingly light
one--at least it might very probably have been so. In fact, a large
proportion of the offenses against order committed in school are the
mere momentary action of the natural buoyancy and life of childhood.
This is no reason why they should be indulged, or why the order and
regularity of the school should be sacrificed, but it should prevent
their exciting feelings of anger or impatience, or very severe
reprehension. While the teacher should take effectual measures for
restraining all such irregularities, he should do it with the tone and
manner which will show that he understands their true moral character,
and deals with them, not as heinous sins, which deserve severe
punishment, but as serious inconveniences, which he is compelled to
repress.
There are often cases of real moral turpitude in school, such as where
there is intentional, willful mischief, or disturbance, or habitual
disobedience, and there may even be, in some cases, open rebellion. Now
the teacher should show that he distinguishes these cases from such
momentary acts of thoughtlessness as we have described, and a broad
distinction ought to be made in the treatment of them. In a word, then,
what we have been recommending under this head is, that the teacher
should make it his special study, for his first few days in school, to
acquire a knowledge of the characters of his pupils, to learn who are
the thoughtless ones, who the mischievous, and who the disobedient and
rebellious, and to do this with candid, moral discrimination, and with
as little open collision with individuals as possible.
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