Whistling at Work? A Crime?
- Author:
Herbert F. Clark,
Principal Olive Special School, Los Angeles, Cal.
Not long ago the principal of one of the largest schools in a neighboring city went into his sloyd room where thirty boys were busily at work, and amid the din of saw and hammer his ear detected the merry whistle of a happy boy. He turned to the teacher in charge of the room and asked him if he allowed the boys to whistle while working. The teacher pondered a moment. “Well,” he replied, ” I hadn’t really noticed it. Perhaps I had better tell him to stop.” “Yes, I would,” said the principal, “We can’t have them whistling in school.” So the noise was forthwith stopped, and the good old standard was maintained.
There are extremely interesting principles involved in this episode. The head of that school represents in a striking way a certain type of educational procedure. He stands for the notion that any indication of happiness in school is a crime. The sacred walls of the school room must not be polluted with the vile sound of whistling. He does not ask himself the questions?What harm was that boy doing by giving vent to a wholesome sentiment with his lips while busily engaged upon some piece of furniture for his home? What particular quality does the sound of whistling possess that distinguishes it from the sound of hammer and saw, and makes it a fit subject for rebuke? Is it inconsistent? W^hen has it been inconsistent to whistle while at work? Is it disorderly? Then whom does it disturb? Why should not all the boys whistle? What harm could it do? I know a sloyd room where the boys sing while at work. Yes, they all sing if they want to, and why not? Shouldn’t heart and hand go together in the work of the world? It is absurd to repress the finest emotions while the declared aim of education is expression. What is the sloyd room but a place for concrete expression? The normal boy is a veritable storehouse of potential emotions. Restrict their wholesome expression, and they are apt to break out in unwholesome ways. It seems to me that the slo^d room is the place of all places where the boy should be encouraged to give the fullest and freest expression of the best that is in him. Herein lies the efficacy of manual work as a part of our educational procedure. There are unhappy moments enough in the life of the average boy, and if perchance he bubbles over with joy in his school work, it isn’t a bad omen for the kind of work he is doing or the attitude he is taking toward it.
The question naturally arises,?How far in sloyd or other school work can the spontaneous expression of joy take place without interfering with the quality of the school work as a whole? It has been demonstrated in the special schools of this city, those schools which take care of the truants and so-called ‘incorrigibles,’ that considerable freedom can be given boys in method and in conduct without seriously impeding the progress of their work. Indeed they do more work, perhaps not quite so good in quality, but certainly done with a more wholesome attitude, than in the regular schools from which they come. In the special schools, if a boy feels like whistling he whistles, if he feels like singing he sings, if he feels like boxing he boxes, provided some other boy will ‘call his bluff’. Through it all there is required of him a certain amount of school work each day and this work he must do. The result is that the boys soon learn to get their work done amid considerable confusion, which in itself isn’t a bad lesson to learn. There is hardly any place in real life, excepting at funerals, where people walk on tiptoes and one can hear the clock tick. The notion that we must have absolute quiet in order to be able to concentrate our minds, is a relic of a past age. Real life is busy and bustling, and fortunate is he who can go about his own work and be so absorbed in it that he can whistle a merry tune and be heard above the noise of his fellows. That is just what the boy in our story was doing, and for that he was rebuked. What we teachers need to do is to drop the flimsy mask of false dignity and regard the boy as a boy and not as an automaton. We need to realize that growth of mind comes through wholesome expression and not through repression, and that wide latitude should be given each child in the kind of emotion he may express. We need to remember that a child cannot really be happy unless he is expressing his happiness in some emotional form. To inhibit the expression is to destroy the emotion in the child, and this is an educational sin.
Of course it takes a stronger teacher to manage a group of children where this wider freedom is given. Any policeman can control a large group of people without disorder, but he cannot arouse their interest and lead them into new fields of mental activity. The teacher needs a broadening of his educational vision, so that he can discern wholesome motives in the conduct of his pupils and so direct them that these motives shall be dominant. He needs the power to use school facilities as means in dealing with his children. To-day he may think best to ignore the regular school program altogether. To-morrow he may reverse its operation, but always he will have the happiness and welfare of his group of children at heart. He utilizes the emotional tides of his class as well as of the individuals, in order that their expression may have in it the spirit of the group and of spontaneous endeavor. That whistling boy is a perfect type of joyous expression, and our educational aim should be to increase his land a thousand-fold.
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