Growth in school achievement.

Abstract

It will have become apparent in preceding chapters that growth must be nourished'but that the individual organism has much resistance to changes that affect his design for growing. Wide individual differences are the rule in the measures of physical and mental factors. It is clear that deprivation has serious consequences. Does the growth point of view as applied to achievement in school subjects differ materially from its application to physique and intellect? CONCEPTS OF GROWTH APPLIED TOACHIEVEMENT IN SCHOOL growth and motivation. The willingness to wait for a process of maturation in education as contrasted with a heavy emphasis on external stimulation is dependent on the confidence of the worker in the inner growth processes. There is much evidence to support the view that the development of the nervous system and the acquisition of behavior involves an expansion and development of a pattern which is integrated from the beginning and within which partial patterns of detailed skills may occur. There is evidence for internal or endogenous drives during the early periods of growth. Coghill ( 12) believes that as long as the brain and nervous system are growing as a result of the maturation of neurons, there tends to be an internal motivation of behavior. The child strives for the perfection of patterns without being tutored. The existence of a structure in a child implies a drive toward its functioning. The child tries to exploit his environment in a wide variety of ways. By setting the stage, parents and teachers channel the activities.Here enters the complex cultural conditioning of the internal tendencies.growth and values. The school tends to set up a series of values aimed at producing maturity in children. To the extent that a 118 * See recent books and revisions by Betts, the Bonds,