June 1938 in Home and
School "Readers’ Questions"
Needing to lead
“M. Smithson” writes: I am a
teacher in an infant school, and in my class there is a boy of nearly six, an
intelligent child who talks and argues well, is clever with his hand and quite
original. He is quick to notice what is going on, and good at inventing games.
But the trouble with him is that he simply cannot bear to do what other people
suggest, or to let anyone else lead in a game or a play. He is a very good
leader himself, except that he is perhaps a little too bossy; but he will never
let anyone else lead, and if I make him stand aside so that one of the other
children has a chance, he just sulks and won’t join in at all.
Don’t you think he ought to be made
to learn that he cannot always be first? But it is so difficult when he feels
things so keenly, and thinks he has been snubbed if I won’t let him be first.
Such a child is by no means easy
to handle; and yet one has to find a way out of the difficulty, not only for
the sake of the other children who do not get a chance to show their gifts if
he is always in the front rank, but also for his own sake. There are not many
situations in an ordinary life when one does not have to follow as well as to
lead, and be able to give and take with others.
As a rule,
when a child feels this compulsion to be the most important person all the time,
this is because he has really too little belief in himself or in other people.
He is afraid that other people will do things so very much better than he if
they get the chance, and he can only believe in himself if he is demonstrating
all the time that he has more than the others. Such feelings are fairly common
at this age; but most children grow out of them as they get a little older.
It would be
worth while talking the whole situation over with him, saying frankly to him
that that you knew that he was good at leading other children in the various
games, but that you did not believe that this was the only sort of thing he
could do. You could say you feel sure that if he would try he is also clever
enough to be able to encourage others and join in the games when others are
leading, and that just as you don’t make the children follow your lead all the
time, but sit back and encourage them and let them invent things and for
themselves, so perhaps he could help in this way too. I should say quite firmly
to him that you are going to let the others have their chance as well, and that
when everybody had a chance to lead the group in turn and to give ideas to the
game, we usually found that there was more fun for everybody all round and more
interesting things to do.
I would
show him that you were going to be quite firm about this, although you wanted
him to understand your friendly reasons. Then you could ask him to choose the
other leaders, not all the time, but sometimes so that he felt he had a part in
the whole plan, even when he was not actually leading.
The
important thing is to avoid any suggestion, in your words, or your manner, of
snubbing him or of simply setting him on one side; and to let him feel that
there are other ways of cooperating and feeling oneself to be important in the
group, than actually leading.
All this,
of course, will affect not only this particular boy but the other children as
well. It would be a good thing to have a little talk with him privately, but
after this talk, if he helps you choose the leaders, or if each leader chooses
the next leader in turn, the children as a whole come to realise that you are
not concerned to encourage one child and snub another, but to help everybody,
to bring out the best that is in them, and bring the greatest amount of
pleasure to every child in the group.
Even at
this age children are acute observers of what teachers do. Not only does each
child know what the teacher says to him, but he listens and watches what her
behaviour is to all the others and to the group as a whole; and if the
teacher’s attitude is genuinely to encourage the best gifts of everybody, then
the children will feel that and respond to it.
Of course,
the millennium does not come in a day, and if a child of five and a half or
nearly six has this strong urge to be a leader, you can be sure that there are
real reasons for this in his own mind, perhaps arising out of his earlier
experiences at home. And it will take weeks, sometimes even months, before he
can feel happy and secure when he is not actually leading the group but
co-operating in some other way.
If you were
simply to scold or snub him for his wish to be important, you would never
change his attitude, although you might make him hide it; but he would become
disgruntled and lose interest in his real gifts. By showing him, however, that
you want to use his gifts in different ways and get him to help you discover
the good in the others, you may be able to help him to a greater belief in
himself and in the other children.
Do not make
too much of a song of it, of course. It is not moral talks that will help, but
your practical attitude and your sensible encouraging manner.
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