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It seems to me wise to call attention at this point to a fact that has
been too often overlooked by the educational administrator. The director of
physical education, because of the very nature of his athletic “situations, has
under-his control more powerful satisfiers and annoyers than does any other
ao “educator. ‘A boy who strikes out at a critical point in the game is vastly more
‘annoyed than when he misses the third problem in arithmetic. He is correspondingly
more elated when he knocks a home run than when he solves the problem correctly.
The little child is playing with powerful satisfiers and annoyers in a game of
tag, and this whole gamut of physical expression lends itself most admirably to
conditioning the individual in one way or another. Character education is always
taking place. It is the duty of the physical educator to see that the process
is moving in the right direction.

One will perhaps not need to warn a teacher of physical education that
from the standpoint of the individual participant in a program of physical edu-
cation the most important thing is the joy of doing, of accomplishing, and the
sheer delight of self-expression through skilled activity. The student should
not be depressed by the reformer-like emphasis upon some mystical gain. The
character education process is a process manipulated by a skilled teacher who sees
to it that a favorable educational wind is heading the student's travel in life
towards the desired goal. Hence the principal emphasis will be an indirect one.

It is usually held by character educators that the indirect method of
instruction should be used almost exclusively although Charters is inclined to
question this. In the indirect method the individual is influenced so far as
his habits are concerned without his realising that there is any true emphasis
upon character traits as such. I hold that this can be somewhat over-done. In
the first place certain habits of feeling and acting can be developed in a given
environment, which function only in that environment because they are based on
nothing deeper than the seeking of the approval of the teacher or the group,

It would seem to me that permanent improvement which would result in transfer will
come only when, in addition to a realization of the wider scope of the concept,

we have a conviction that the behavior pattern in question is a desirable one.

As propaganda shows us, much conviction is based simply on reiteration upon the
part of “authority”. In the interests of the better educational process, however,
it would seem that such conviction should be based primarily upon a realization

of the social values involved and that some form of a direct approach should be
combined with the indirect to produce such a result. No very acceptable method

of doing this has come to our attention. A small pamphlet entitled "Character
Education on a Practical Basis" by Agness Boysen, published by F. E. Compton and
Company is suggestive.

THE PROCESS oF TRaNSFER! 2)

 

The process given above would be narrowly circumscribed if it went no
further. Some method must be found which will cause learnings in the physical
education field to have a wider spread of influence. With this end in mind it
becomes necessary to devise educational procedures which will capitalize the
common elements in the various types of situations covered by the same general
trait-name, and to cause the individual to generalize them and, as far as possible,
to intellectualize the process; this would seem to be a matter of pointing out
such common elements from time to time and of helping the individual to such

generalizations and intellectualizations. More important still, I believe, is