The psychology of special abilities and disabilities / by Augusta F. Bronner.

  • Augusta Fox Bronner
Date:
[1919]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The psychology of special abilities and disabilities / by Augusta F. Bronner. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    gaining knowledge about its structure and functioning. Perhaps analogous methods might prove as valuable in the understanding of psychological problems, for much is yet to be learned of the processes underlying complex mental activities. Until laws concerning the processes involved in actual performance have been scientifically established, individual adjustments cannot be made rationally and successfully. Let us see how inadequately the problem of individual adjustment is being met at the present time, first, from the point of view of the school. According to our present practice, the child enters school without his particular characteristics or idiosyncrasies being known to the teacher. Nowhere is opportunity offered for any definite study of the individual, and except as peculiarities and variations from the rest of the class are so extreme as to attract attention, differences among members of the group remain unknown. Of course, obvious traits are learned as time goes on, but the recognition of even these depends on the astuteness of the teacher, her interest in the pupils, her powers of observation and judgment. That such subjective standards are inaccurate, often false, we know by experimental studies which have been made where judgments of various teachers in regard to the same pupil are found to vary greatly. Certain it is that the more subtle characteristics, which often are most important practically, remain unknown. Comments regarding character, mental make-up, unusual traits are rarely made, and when made, are not always considered worth recording. The next year the class passes on to another teacher; whatever information had been garnered previously is lost; all that is usually noted is the achievement in the different school subjects in terms of a scale of numbers or letters whose values are determined arbitrarily, according to each individual
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