Principles of Teaching

by Adam S. Bennion

An intelligent review is the result only of thorough preparation on the part of the teacher.—Assignment and preparation.—Ability to make assignments a test of good teaching.

Characteristics of a good assignment: It is definite.—It raises a problem.—It connects with the experience of pupils.—It stimulates to action.

General and specific assignments.—When to make assignments.

Each organization within the Church follows regularly its own course of study. At the beginning of the year it sets out upon a prescribed subject subdivided according to the number of meetings scheduled for the year's work. As a result, no one lesson stands out independent of all others, but rather fits in naturally in a sequence of chapters each of which develops some aspects of one big subject. Because of such a plan the matters of review and preview take on vital significance. Each lesson should be made to link up naturally with what has already been presented and should point out by way of anticipation what is to follow. Many educators maintain that the ability to conduct a good review and to make an effective assignment are two of the surest tests of a good teacher.

The problem of review is really one of the most fundamental processes in education. It is the great key to learning. Anyone who has enjoyed the fun of teaching young children how to read has been impressed with the fact that the child has to be led to see and repeat the simplest words over and over again before they are really mastered. It is really astonishing how many times as simple a word as "ran" has to be repeated before the beginner in reading gets it fully into his consciousness. This very difficulty of teaching mere words or letters has led to the abandonment of the old "A-B-C" drill as the first step in reading, and the substitution for it of an indirect method wherein, through the laws of association, groups of words and sentences are mastered as the symbols which express concrete and objectified ideas. But by way of experiment, one of the most impressive experiences open to teachers is to take a child of four or five that has not been taught to read and attempt to drill into its consciousness a group of half a dozen words as simple as these: cat, fan, hat, get, man, jam. To the teacher who has attempted such an experiment no argument is necessary to prove the significance of review and repetition.

Review, then, first of all, is vitally essential because it makes possible impression through repetition which insures the fixing of ideas. Literally, review means to view again. Psychologically it is to repeat the processes of mind which were called into operation the first time the stimulus in question started a mental reaction. The nervous system of man is so constituted that in the acquirement of knowledge, each time the nerve centers react to the same stimulus, the tendency so to react becomes stronger, under the mere presence of the stimulus, starts up an automatic sort of reaction, and we say that the child knows the meaning of the object constituting the stimulus.

Not only is review thus essential in the beginning of the learning process with children, but it remains a vital factor as long as men and women undertake to learn. Review guarantees recall, and recall re-establishes "nerve connections" to the permanent fixing of impressions. Very little of our knowledge remains ours to a purpose unless it is gone over and over until it is thoroughly established. A truth that is taught in a Mutual lesson on a particular Tuesday night, but which is never referred to again, and therefore never recalled, very likely will soon be gone out of consciousness and usefulness. Those truths and facts which are of greatest functioning value to us are those which we continue to run over in our minds and ponder. The reinforcement of review is what establishes our permanent working stock of truth.

Not only is review valuable as a matter of recall, but it makes for an enrichment of mental content which is altogether desirable. The real art of review lies in calling up an old truth in a new setting. Upon second perusal it is seen in skilful review from a slightly different angle so that each recall adds a reinforcement that makes for a clinching of thought which makes it permanent. It very often happens that the first time an idea is called to our attention it means but little, because our mental reaction is limited in the particular field of the presentation; the same idea in a new setting more in keeping with our experience may take on an entirely different significance. That teaching is best, therefore, which presents truth from the greatest number of angles possible, thereby guaranteeing the richest kind of associations in the minds of pupils.

Another value that attaches to the review lies in the fact that it makes possible proper connection between new material and old. It is axiomatic in teaching that pupils learn new truths and take on new experiences, in terms of the old. Teaching that unfolds—that develops new ideas that are built upon those already understood—is the kind of teaching attended by best results. In our organizations, meeting as we do only once a week, we must appreciate the fact that in the intervening time, between meetings, hundreds of ideas have crowded into the mind and have displaced those that may have been there as a result of our teaching. By calling to mind those ideas of a week ago, we not only reinforce them, but we start a chain of thought to which it will be very much easier to add the link of today's work than to proceed as if forging an entirely new chain.

No farmer goes out and plants grain on the unplowed field. He plows and harrows that the soil may be prepared not only to receive the seed, but to make generation possible.