The Evolution of Educational Psychology for Teaching Composition

    In his article, “Nineteenth-Century Psychology and the Teaching of Writing,” William F. Woods theorizes that composition teaching by 1900 drew its assumptions from two fundamentally opposed theories, and that teachers, even, to some extent, contemporary teachers, tended to choose one methodology or the other. His work also suggests that while education has evolved over the decades, it has not evolved so much that contemporary education is free of even the earliest theories of psychology. Indeed, Woods points out, many contemporary teachers and students remain intimately familiar with these modes of teaching as these older psychologies still heavily influence today’s pedagogy.
    Early nineteenth century psychology, according to Woods, consisted of three approaches, but the branch he elaborates on is mental philosophy. The philosophy of mind consists of two opposing branches: innate faculties and principles of association. Philosophers following the former used faculties, like memory, taste, or conception, to explain the variances in human thought, feelings and will. The theorists focusing on association suggest that simple ideas forged from immediate stimuli, internal or external, are then combined together to create more complex ideas.
    In response to the association theory presented by David Hume, which did not take into consideration man’s freedom of choice nor man’s relationship to God, Scottish philosophers such as Thomas Reid countered his theory with one that gave the “soul a directive role in the functioning of the mind” (23). The soul’s role in this theory is to coordinate the mind’s faculties, the honing of which strengthened the student’s abilities in not just one subject, but cross-curriculum. For example, Woods explains that studying Greek or Latin grammar improved memory and attention to detail, thus allowing the student to also excel in business.
    The result of teaching to these general faculties- that is, faculties of the mind that are considered not subject-specific- is a growing obsession with taste. This obsession is reflected in the teaching of composition in the pedagogical addiction to correctness and style, which has been retained to this day. Over time, this obsession with grammar has become internalized, and teachers have ceased any intentional consideration of the theory of faculties when reviewing their pedagogy. Instead of a thought, it is now a belief, and the distinction of that evolution is important to the next theory that Woods explores, as the internalization of this philosophy leaves the theory of faculties an innate part of contemporary composition teachers, despite the discrediting of the theory in the 1870’s.
    Overtly replacing the discredited theory based on faculties, Bain’s associationist psychology. The basis of his work focused on the way “related ideas tend to be recalled together, in bundles, by the memory” (25). Bain, contrary to the associationist theory presented by Hume, accounts for will power as a reaction to pain or pleasure. The movement towards or away from said sensation is then tagged and associated with that sensation. Bain advised teachers to break down subjects into small pieces that are more easily learned and associated with one another to be recalled together as a whole. William James took Bain’s theory one step further and surmised that not only will the stimuli be recalled together in bundles, but it will also provoke a response. As a result, James said a teacher’s job is to teach students to respond to stimuli in effective ways while calling on their interests.
    Pedagogical focus on student interest and desire draws teaching away from the associationist philosophy where the learner is a passive element and pulls pedagogy into recognizing students as active participants to learning and idea formulation. This metamorphosis of passive to active is the basis for the organicist theory of composition.
    Organicism, as presented by DeQuincey, is “the stylistic confluence of manner and matter which occurs when the mind, in conceiving and expressing a subject, draws upon ‘what is internal and individual in the sensibilities,’ so that the style becomes ‘an organ of thought…’” Like Schiller’s conception of beauty, “composition is the “organic union of form and content” (31). Ideas find themselves embodied in the language, a union of thought and language.
    By the end of the nineteenth century, Woods postulates the teaching of composition remained an art split into two sects by the science. Teachers struggled to find a balance between composition education based on associationist assumptions and organicist assumptions. His article also suggests a problematic question in regards to the internalization of old theories: If those discredited theories have become so internalized and innate even in contemporary teachers, how well could we be applying the newer, and presumably more effective, philosophies of teaching? From my perspective, I do not see the carryover as a problem. Instead of totally abandoning old theories and moving forward without them, I believe pedagogy needs to both grow in new philosophies while retaining the effective elements of old philosophies. Woods presents the dichotomy created by the associationist and organicist theories as a problem when it may actually be a desirable result.