# Interest and Effort in Education/Outline

Layout 2
OUTLINE
| | I. UNIFIED VERSUS DIVIDED ACTIVITY. | |
| 1. | The educational lawsuit of interest versus effort | 1 |
| 2. | The case against the current theory of effort | 2 |
| 3. | The case against the current theory of interest | 3 |
| 4. | Each is strong in its attacks upon the opposite theory | 6 |
| 5. | Both fail to recognize the identity of facts and actions with the self | 7 |
| 6. | Both are intellectually and morally harmful | 7 |
| 7. | The child's demand for realization of his own impulses cannot be suppressed | 8 |
| 8. | Emphasizing outward habits of action leaves the child's inner nature to its caprices | 10 |
| 9. | Making things interesting substitutes the pleasure of excitation for that of activity | 12 |
| 10. | The result is division of energies | 13 |
| | (a) In disagreeable effort it is simultaneous | |
| | (b) In adventitious interest it is successive | |
| 11. | When properly conceived, interest and effort are vitally related | 14 |
| | II. INTEREST AS DIRECT AND INDIRECT | |
| 1. | A brief descriptive account of interest | 16 |
| 2. | The active or propulsive phase | 17 |
| 3. | The objective phase | 19 | ​ |
| 4. | The emotional phase | 20 |
| 5. | Interest is primarily a form of self-expressive activity | 21 |
| 6. | Direct or immediated interest | 21 |
| 7. | Indirect, transferred or mediated interest | 22 |
| 8. | Two thoroughgoing errors | 23 |
| | (a) Selecting subject-matter regardless of interest | |
| | (b) Making method a device for dressing up unrelated materials | |
| 9. | The criterion for judging cases of transferred interest | 25 |
| | (a) Are means and ends intrinsically connected? | |
| | (b) Two illustrative cases | |
| 10. | Means and end are stages of a single developing activity | 28 |
| | (a) Three illustrations | |
| 11. | Failure follows the appeal to adventitious or substituted interests | 33 |
| 12. | The true relation of subject-matter and the child's activities | 34 |
| 13. | Consequences of this view for pleasure and happiness | 35 |
| 14. | There is no rigid line between direct and indirect interests | 36 |
| 15. | Indirect interests are symptomatic of the expansion of simple activities into more complex ones | 38 |
| 16. | Indirect values become direct | 39 |
| 17. | Interest is legitimate only when it fosters development | 41 ​ |
| 18. | Genuine interest indicates personal identification with a course of action | 43 |
| | III. EFFORT, THINKING, AND MOTIVATION | |
| 1. | The demand for effort is a demand for continuity in the face of difficulties | 46 |
| 2. | It has no significance apart from an end to be reached | 47 |
| 3. | Persistent but obstructed activity creates conflicting tendencies; dislike and longing | 49 |
| 4. | The emotion of effort or stress is a warning to reflect | 50 |
| | (a) On the worth of the end | |
| | (b) On the provision of new means | |
| 5. | The experience of difficulty may have a double effect | |
| | (a) To weaken the impetus in a forward direction | 51 |
| | (b) To increase consciousness of the end | 52 |
| 6. | A conscious aim inspirits and guides in two ways | |
| | (a) It makes the individual more conscious of his purpose | 53 |
| | (b) It turns his energy from thoughtless struggle to reflective judgment | 53 |
| 7. | The difference between educative and uneducative tasks | 55 |
| 8. | The criteria to be borne in mind | 56 |
| | (a) Is it so easy that it fails to stimulate thought? | |
| | (b) Is it so difficult that it discourages activity? | |
| 9. | Some specific consequences of violating these criteria | 57 ​ |
| 10. | Good teaching must stimulate initiative | 58 |
| 11. | Difficulties and effort occur normally with increased depth and scope of thinking | 59 |
| 12. | Motive is a name for end in its active or dynamic capacity | 60 |
| 13. | Personal motivation cannot be thought of apart from an object or end in view | 61 |
| 14. | The problem is not to find a motive, but materials and conditions for the exercise of activities | 62 |
| 15. | The use and function of subject-matter is to promote the growth of personal powers | 63 |
| | IV. TYPES OF EDUCATIVE INTEREST | |
| 1. | Genuine interest is always marked by the absorption of powers in an occupation or pursuit | 65 |
| 2. | Activity includes all the expressions that involve growth of power | 66 |
| | (a) It specially includes: Power to realize the meaning of what is done | |
| | (b) It excludes action under external constraint, random reaction, and habitual action | |
| 3. | True educative interests or activities vary indefinitely | 67 |
| 4. | Physical activity | 67 |
| | (a) In so far as physical activity has to be learned it is intellectual in value | 68 |
| | (b) The importance of school occupations which involves the exercise of senses and movements | 69 |
| | (c) Sense organs are simply the pathways of stimuli to motor responses | 70 ​ |
| | (d) Growth of knowledge occurs In adapting sense-stimulus and motor response | 71 |
| | (e) The great value of a wide range of play games, and occupations | 72 |
| 5. | Constructive activity | 74 |
| | (a) The use of tools and appliances makes possible development through complicated activities of long duration | 75 |
| | (b) The use of intervening tools distinguishes games and work from play | 76 |
| | (c) Work is distinguished from play only by the presence of an intellectual quality | 79 |
| | (d) Children need both work and play | 80 |
| 6. | Intellectual activity | 81 |
| | (a) The intellectual phases previously subordinate, develop and become dominant | 82 |
| | (b) Interest in the theoretical becomes direct | 83 |
| 7. | Social activity | |
| | (a) The child early identifies his concerns with those of others | 84 |
| | (b) His social interest also suffuses his interest in things | 86 |
| | (c) Impersonal material should be presented in the rôle it actually plays in life | 87 |
| | (d) There is a close connection between social and moral interests | 88 |
| | (e) Interest itself is not selfish; its character depends upon its objects | 88 |
| | V. THE PLACE OF INTEREST IN THE THEORY OF EDUCATION | |
| 1. | All interests mark an identification of self with ends and means | 90 |
| 2. | All misconceptions of interest come from ignoring its moving, developing nature | 91 |
| 3. | The idea of interest protects pedagogical theory | |
| | (a) From a merely internal conception of mind | 92 |
| | (b) From a merely external conception of subject-matter | 94 |
| 4. | Interest is obtained by considering and aiming at the conditions that lie back of it | 95 |