6. The oral narration and presentation of stories has a curious way of being turned into development lessons, in which the teacher deals in questions and problematic situations and the children work out many of the facts and incidents of the story by a series of guesses and inferences. These are well known as development lessons, and they are capable of exhibiting the highest forms of excellence in teaching or the most drivelling waste of time. The subject is a hard one to handle, but it needs a clear and simple elucidation as much as any problem in the teaching profession. Generally speaking it is better for young teachers not to launch out recklessly upon the full tide of development instruction. It is better to learn the handling of the craft on quieter waters. Development work needs to be well charted. The varying winds and currents, storms and calms, need to be studied and experienced before one may become a good ship's master. Let young teachers first acquire power in clear, simple, direct narration and description, using apt and forcible language and holding to a clear-cut line of thought. This is no slight task, and when once mastered and fixed in habit becomes the foundation of a wider freedom and skill in development exercises. The works of the great story-tellers furnish excellent models of this sort of skill, and teachers may follow closely in the lines struck out by Scott or Hawthorne in narrating a story.
A book story cannot do otherwise than simply narrate; it cannot develop, set problems and questions and have children to find solutions and answers. It must tell the facts and answer the questions. But in oral narration there is room not only for all the skill of the story-writer, but also the added force of voice, personality, lively manner, gesture, action, and close adaptation to the immediate needs of children and subject. This is enough to command the undivided effort of the young teacher at first, without entering the stormy waters and shifting currents of pure development work.
Yet the spirited teacher will not go far in narrating a story without a tendency to ask questions to intensify the children's thought, or to quicken the discussion of interesting points. Even if the teachers or parents are but reading a good story from a book, it is most natural, at times, to ask questions about the meaning of certain new words, or geographical locations, or probabilities in the working out of the story. These are the simple beginnings of development work, and produce greater thoughtfulness, keener perceptions of the facts, and a better absorption of the story into a child's previous knowledge.
A sharp limitation of development work is also found in the circumstance that a large share of the facts in a story cannot by any sort of ingenuity be developed. They form the necessary basis for later development questions. Even many of the facts which might be developed by a skilful teacher are better told directly, because of the difficulty and time-devouring nature of the process. There may be a few central problems in every story, which, after the necessary facts and conditions have been plainly told, can be thoroughly sifted out by questions, answers, and discussions. But to work out all the little details of a story by question and surmise, to get the crude, unbaked opinions of all the members of a class upon every episode and fact in a story, is a pitiful caricature of good instruction.
The purpose of good development work is to get children to go deeper into the meaning of a story, to realize its situations more keenly, and to acquire habits of thoughtfulness, self-reliant judgment, and inventiveness in solving difficulties. These results, and they are among the chiefest set for the educator, cannot be accomplished by mere narration and description. Their superior excellence and worth are the prize of that superior skill which first-class development work demands.
With these preliminary remarks, criticisms, and limitations in mind, we may inquire what are the essentials of good development work in oral lessons.
(1) Determine what parts of a story are capable of development; what facts must be clearly present to the mind before questions can be put and inferences derived. In a problem in arithmetic we first state the known facts, the conditions upon which a solution can be based, and then put a question whose answer is to be gained by a proper conjunction and inference from these facts. The same thing is true in reasoning upon the facts in a story.
(2) In placing a topic before children it is always advisable to touch up the knowledge already possessed by the children, or any parts of their previous experience which have strong interpretative ideas for the new lesson. At this point apt questions which probe quickly into their previous knowledge and experience are at a premium. The teacher needs to have considered beforehand in what particulars the children's home surroundings and peculiar circumstances may furnish the desired knowledge. The form of the questions may also receive close attention. For these words must provoke definite thought. They should have hooks on them which quickly drag experience into light.
(3) In order to give direction to the children's thoughts on the story's line of progress, interesting aims should be set up. These aims, without anticipating precise results, must guide the children towards the desired ends and turning-points in the story. The mind should be kept in suspense as to the outcome, and the thoughts should centre and play about these clearly projected aims. Such aims, floating constantly in the van, are the objective points, towards which the energy of thought is directed. Every good story-teller keeps such aims expressly or tacitly in view. Novelists and dramatists hinge the interest of readers or spectators upon this curiosity which is kept acutely sensitive about results. Such an aim should be simple and concrete, not vague or abstract, or general. It may be put in the form of a question or statement or suggestion. It will be a good share of the teacher's work in the preparation of the lesson to pick out and word these aims which centre upon the leading topics of the lesson. For it is not enough to have an aim at the beginning of a story, every chapter or separate part of the story should have its aim. For aims are what stimulate effort and keep up an attentive interest.
(4) Self-activity and thoughtfulness in working out problems find their best opportunity in development work. The book, in narrating a story, cannot set problems, or, if it does, it forthwith assumes the task of solving them. But in the oral development of a story the essential facts and conditions may be clearly presented and the solution of the difficulties, as in arithmetic, left largely to the ingenuity and reasoning power of the children. In the story of Hiawatha's boat-building the problem may be set to the children as to what materials he will use in the construction of the canoe, how the parts were put together, and how he might decorate it. Not that the children will give the whole solution, but they can contribute much to it. In "Robinson Crusoe" many such problems arise. How shall he conceal his cave and house from possible enemies? Where can he store his powder to keep it from the lightning and from dampness? In fact, nearly every step in Crusoe's interesting career is such a problem or difficulty to battle with. In Kingsley's "Greek Heroes" and other renderings of the Greek myths, the heroes are young men who have shrewdness, courage, and strength to overcome difficulties. To put these difficulties before children in such a way that they by their own thinking may anticipate, in part at least, the proper solutions, is one of the chief merits of development work. The story of Ulysses is a series of shrewd contrivances to master difficulties or to avoid misfortunes, so that his name has become a synonym for shrewdness. The story itself, therefore, furnishes prime opportunities to develop resourcefulness. How shall he escape from the enraged Polyphemos in the cave? His invention of the wooden horse before Troy; his escape from the sirens; his battle with the suitors and others. The story of Aladdin has such interesting inventions, and even the fairy tales and fables have many turns of shrewdness and device where the children's wits may be stimulated. The turning-points and centres of interest in all such stories are the true wrestling-grounds of thought. To put them point-blank before children in continuous narrative, without question or discussion, is not the way to produce thoughtfulness and inventive power. Merely reading or telling stories to children without comment is entertaining, but not educative in the better sense. Children will have plenty of chances at home and in the school library to read and hear stories, but it is the business of the school to teach them how to think as they read, to produce a habit of foreseeing, reviewing, comparing, and judging. The serious defect of much of young people's reading, from ten years on, is its superficial, transitory character. It lacks depth, strength, and permanency. It is not many stories that can be orally treated in this thorough-going way, but enough to give the right idea, and to cultivate habit and taste for more thoughtful study.