Meaning:
According to Diploma in Teacher Training, “Today we think individual differences as including any measurable aspect of the total personality.” From this definition, It is evident that it comprehends every aspect of the human personality, albeit all aspects that are in some manner measurable. Aspect of this nature can be many such as variability, conformity, difference in the rate of learning and development, of mutual relationship between the various characteristics of personality etc. In this manner, various individuals exhibits differences of physical and mental development, nature, rate of learning ability, specific abilities, interest and personality, etc.
Types of Individual Differences by Montessori Teacher Training :
1. Intelligence:
The following facts have come to light concerning individual differences of intelligence in children:
a) However good and beneficial the environment and the method of education, the moron invariably reaches his highest level of learning before the average or the intelligence child.
b) In favourable circumstances the average child generally gives a good account of himself in his academic pursuits.
c) If the circumstances are favourable, the intelligent child shows great alacrity in the process of learning.
d) Adverse circumstances have the worst effect on all children, and their learning activities are hindered.
2. Special abilities:
During the junior high school as well as the college stage, the individual’s difference in respect of special abilities, in addition to the general intelligence, are also important since special profession and specialised field of vocation all need certain specific abilities. Abilities of the kind are concerned with mental, artistic, personality or motor ability.
3. Background:
In school, the differences that the children exhibits are the outcome of their different families and their communities. Attitudes towards education and authority differ in each family, culture and class. Some of these attitudes are favourable while others are unfavourable to education. In either conditions, the difference of attitudes results in difference among children. Besides those attitudes, The child’s emotional, social, aesthetic and moral development is influenced by his family and neighbourhood. Hence differences of background are also manifest in individual differences.
4. Alacrity in learning:
Difference in quickness or alacrity in learning is visible not only in children of different ages but also among children in the same age group. This difference is dependent upon their maturity and educational background, Differences in the alacrity of learning result in benefit accruing from formal education.
5. Mental age:
Children of differing ages as well as children of the same age show differences in their respective mental ages. Generally, all students studying in the same class differ according to their mental ages. It has been observed that in the age of 6, differences in mental age range up to 5 years. Mental age and education are intimately related. The child’s level of education is determined according to his mental age.
6. Motor ability:
The individual’s movements of the hand and feet and other physical abilities are seen to be very individual, as they do not resemble another’s to any great extent. Till the individual’s attains adulthood, his manual dexterity, rate of muscular movement and resistance to fatigue develops continually. In this manner, the same individual in different ages and different individuals in the same age group manifest considerable differences in manual dexterity.