Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals

About the book

James addresses teachers through practical discussions of the mental processes involved in learning, including interest, attention, association, memory, habit, and will. He resists the idea that psychological knowledge automatically supplies a method of teaching, keeping room for the teacher's judgment and inventiveness. The pupil appears as an active person whose existing tendencies and experiences matter to the reception of anything new. The accompanying addresses to students widen the discussion towards the strain of daily life, the difficulty of appreciating another person's sources of meaning, and the question of what gives a life significance. Together the two parts connect educational practice with a broader discipline of sympathetic attention. Their conversational style makes the arguments approachable while preserving James's interest in individual differences that a tidy formula would overlook.

• Attention and habit
• Teaching and judgment
• Sympathetic understanding

Why read it

For an accessible connection between classroom psychology and a wider argument for noticing the variety of individual experience.

Lectures and addresses · English text