The most patent fact in psychology is that of growth and development. Man as an organism grows before birth from the union of two cells into an embryo and then into a foetus, and -after birth from an infant into a child, a youth, an adult and finally into an old person. At each moment of life, each one of us is in the process of changing into something different from what one now is.
What we are today is different from what we were yesterday and from what we will be tomorrow. The whole pattern is changing depending on what we were in the past and what influences are working on us.
Growth and development are important characteristics of man and any study of human behaviour would be incomplete without a study of human growth and development.
The terms growth and development are very often used interchangeably but it is worth our while to keep in mind the distinction wdiich is very often made between them or at least to understand why they are so often used together.
The term growth implies an increase in size. When a body or any of its parts is described as having grown, it usually means that it has become larger and heavier.
It is thus that we speak of growth of arms, brain, muscles or the body in general. Growth means increase or addition in size, height, length or weight and can be measured.
Development means change in shape, form or structure so as to improve in working or functioning. Development implies certain qualitative changes or changes in character leading to maturity or improvement in functioning.
Arms grow larger but also they develop by undergoing certain changes "which equip them for better work.
Usually growth and development go hand in hand. When a body grows in structure it also develops in function.
Our growth helps our development. But this is not always so. A person may grow’ fat and heavy without any improvement or development in any direction.
A number of children grow in size, height or weight but do not indicate any improvement in physical or sensory-motor activity. Similarly it is possible for a person to develop even though his growth may be negligible.
There is growth and development in the life of every individual from infancy to adulthood, but there may be periods when they grow but do not develop or develop but do not grow.
Many children put on weight and increase in size but do not develop in physical activity, in walking, running or jumping, and some children do not grow in size but develop ability, discrimination* stamina, etc.
And certainly man continues to develop long after his physical growth has stopped. He acquires many new skills, and habits, many new attitudes, wdiich make for better adjustments and health.
Many adults learn to play new games, typewrite or drive. This development may take place in many areas.
Intellectualy an adult may learn to look at things more carefully, observing minute details and studying their relations. Or he may acquire a habit of looking at things from a nationalist standpoint or from a religious angle.
Emotionally too he may develop into a more steady and patient person, keeping cool when all around him are excited. Or he may develop into an angry old man fretting at everything and with everybody.
Socially he may become more companionable or develop into a recluse hating social life and its attendant hubbub. Thus development continues even after growth has ceased.
Now growth and development which takes place before any particular behaviour takes place is called maturation. This term has been variously defined but all definitions supplement each other.
One definition describes maturation as development resulting from the growth of the nervous system upon which capacity for increasingly complex learning and activity is dependent. Another puts it down to inner growth processunaffected by training.
And still another considers maturation as an unchangeable inner process of growth by which readiness is developed in part. An infant is attracted by a brightly coloured rattle and its sound. His eyes and ears have reached adequate maturation to catch the colour and the sound.
But if the rattle is dangled within his reach, he may move his hand towards it and even be able to touch it, but he is not able to hold it. He is not mature for prehension, for catching and holding it.
No amount of training will help him to do that unless his nervous system matures from within, unless he develops readiness for this work.
Similarly, there are many fine movements which children cannot perform because they are not yet mature for them or their nervous system including small muscles, etc. has not yet reached a state of readiness for them.
These processes of maturation are not influenced by environmental conditions for they are a natural phenomenon independent of normal life experiences.
Parents are aware of this process when they say that any child is not big enough yet to do a paiticular job. The fact of maturation has been only recently emphasized but it has always been recognized in life and education.
The subject of growth and development is of vital importance for both teachers in service and teachers under training, for education, as has already been stressed, is designed, planned and directed growth and development.
The teacher is called upon to provide and arrange such conditions as will stimulate and guide growth in physique and health, in knowledge, thought and intellect, in emotional control and stability, and in social competence and personality.
Education is too often considered as a process of acquiring the basic skills and tools of reading, writing and counting, or of acquiring knowledge accumulated by previous generations and considered essential for living in the present-day world, that is, knowledge of history, geography, science, literature, mathematics and other subjects.
As we have already seen in the first chapter, the objectives of education vary and include character building, development of personality, training for citizenship or creative thinking.
But whatever objective we accept and emphasize the fundamental concern of all those engaged in the task of education is the growth and development of individuals placed in their care.
Knowledge and skill, social effectiveness and intellectual ability are prized no doubt but the measure of achievements of a modern school is the extent to which its procedures and practices have contributed to the all-round development of inherent abilities and talents of an individual, that is, the extent to which it has succeeded in turning out well-adjusted, balanced personalities.
Education has also been described as a process of bringing about desirable changes in behaviour.
Behaviour results from inner factors of maturation and an individual’s reactions to the the influence of his environment. Life itself is one long process of interaction of the individual and his environment. Education too is such a process of interaction in which the individual reacts to certain types of environment.
The acquisition of knowledge and skills, of thoughts and attitudes, is the outcome of such interaction. Learning and experience also are similar outcomes. All these grow because an individual’s reactions grow. His behaviour grows and develops, and education, involving teaching and learning, must study growth and development.
Teaching procedures and practices must take into account how far pupils have already grown, their capacity for future growth, and what kinds of reactions or behaviour they must grow into so that the objectives cherished by the school and the community are realized in them.
Educational psychology presents principles governing human growth and development and if the teacher wants to make his procedures and practices more effective in the interest of quicker and more balanced growth he must base them on such principles.
It is obvious that human growth and development is a manysided process and when we speak of a variety of educational objectives we bring out this underlying fact. Usually the physical and intellectual aspects of growth are readily recognized but the emotional and social aspects are equally important.
These aspects involve each other, they are inter-related and interdependent. The individual grows as one indivisible whole and it is only for purposes of clear understanding that several aspects, phases or stages of growth are distinguished and separately discussed.
Parents and teachers accept that growth processes work in the acquisition of physical capacities and skills and it is only gradually that a child can leurn to walk, talk or jump, but they tacitly assume that so far as other types of development are concerned, mere telling, lecturing or pointing out will succeed in bringing about the desired changes in behaviour, and that children acquire meanings and understandings, emotional poise and social traits, all at once on being told to do so.
All these acquisitions are subject to slow growth and children will take time to develop them through experiences and the influence of environment.
All learning processes whether they pertain to acquisition of knowledge, skill, habits or attitudes, memorization or improvement of insight, changes in emotional behaviour or problem solving, are processes of growth and development.
Learning is progressive adaptation and improvement of behaviour whether it refers to intellectual, emotional or social aspects of personality.
It is the result of activity and experience, and is essentially a process of growth. The development of emotional stability and balance, of social competence and effectiveness, is as much the result of a long process of growth as the amassing of knowledge or the building up of physique. Education means growing.
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