ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses some of the important effects of the school experience upon personality at the elementary, secondary, and college levels. It reviews the cultural foundations of education in our society and explores certain aspects of learning in the elementary and secondary schools and describes some special problems of pupil adjustment. The former are illustrated by learning to read, to spell, to write, to handle arithmetic, and otherwise to secure the intellectual tools upon which depend further acquirement of knowledge. The central importance of learning in the school program is self-evident, but, as a background to our subsequent discussion of particular problems associated therewith, we must note briefly some aspects of individual differences in learning ability and the interplay of motivation, goals, and cycles of activity in the total learning situation. Learning might be stated in terms of power and speed, and there are obviously marked individual differences in intellectual matters.