A brief course in the teaching process

by George D. Strayer

A second type of attention is that in which the individual makes an adjustment, follows a given line of activity, voluntarily. He is active in his determination to accomplish certain ends, and in order to secure these results he resists the tendency to wander, to give his attention to other elements in the situation which may be natively more attractive. This type of attention we call active. We have this type of attention wherever the individual works for the satisfaction of his idea of an end worthy to be accomplished. It corresponds to the second class of adjustments mentioned above.

Through the exercise of active attention over a considerable period, the necessity for effort, for the exercise of the will in order that we may not wander from the main purpose, becomes less and less, until finally a passive attitude is again reached. This type of attention is designated as secondary passive attention.[6] It corresponds to the third type of adjustments named above.

In teaching, we begin most frequently with passive attention; we work most earnestly to secure and to hold active attention; and if our work is successful, children will reach the stage of secondary passive attention, at least with reference to some of the activities found in the school.

In the first grade, in the beginning reading class, the teacher appeals to the children on the basis of their instinctive delight in movement, their desire to be like or to excel others, their pleasure in drawing with pencil or crayon, their love of a good story, and other like instinctive tendencies to react. The adjustments made are in response to instinctive needs, and the attention is largely passive. Gradually, as the work progresses, the ends to be achieved will become more remote, and instead of immediate satisfaction of instinctive needs, the children will work for the satisfaction of their ideas of ends which are desirable, whether based on instinctive or acquired needs. They may work diligently in the phonic or word drill because they have the idea that this must be done in order to read the story, and the end ultimately to be satisfied may be to give pleasure to others. The adjustment is made here in response to the idea of an end to be secured, which represents the satisfaction of a need which probably has been acquired in the school or at home. Later in the history of these same children they may read, overcoming whatever difficulties may present themselves, simply because this process is for them in itself worth while. Here we have the adjustment which gives immediate satisfaction of an acquired need, and the type of attention which has been designated as secondary passive.

The problem for the teacher is to secure continued attention to one thing. Almost any exercise which the school offers will be interesting for a brief time because it is something new. The difficult task is not to get attention, but to hold it. Children attend to the situation at hand just as long as it proves more attractive than some other. The boy who is called inattentive may be most attentive to the plan he is making to earn money to go to the circus. The teacher must endeavor to discover ends sufficiently attractive to command the active attention of children for a considerable period. The child must be willing to exert himself, and the motive for his effort must be strong enough to bring him back to the task in hand every time that he tends to wander. Often the success of the work will depend upon a recognition of the fact that it is very difficult to attend for any considerable period to a situation in which the elements do not vary. We may secure continued concentrated attention by recognizing the fact that variety in procedure, or in appeal, will make it possible for the child to keep his attention fixed. Take, for example, a topic in geography. The teacher will question to bring out different aspects of a topic, show the children pictures or use illustrative materials, have children read the map, tell a story or incident relating to the situation under consideration, and in this manner keep children actively thinking on one topic for half an hour. We shall discuss at some length the problem of aim, in connection with the inductive development lesson. Suffice to say here that often we fail to secure the continued attention of children because we ask them to attend to that which for them lacks interest or significance.

Children work hardest when the problem to be solved is one that they recognize as their own. They make adjustments which mean immediate satisfaction, or which they believe will ultimately give satisfaction. Our difficulty is often that the end we set up is too remote. The idea of becoming a well educated man will not ordinarily be powerful enough to keep a boy at work on a composition, but the desire to be the author of a paragraph in the school paper, to write to a boy in another city or country, or to compose part of a drama which the class will act for their friends, may mean the hardest sort of work, the most concentrated attention of which he is capable.

The children with whom we work come to us with tendencies to react, and are capable of reacting in a great variety of ways. They learn by making adjustments to a great variety of situations. The teaching process consists in providing the situations and the stimuli to action, in guiding the individual in such a way that the undesirable reactions will be eliminated by disuse or because the results are unpleasant, in making permanent desirable native reactions or those which have been grafted upon or derived from them by making the results pleasant.

The teaching process is, in general, as described above; but the actual work of the teacher varies greatly as she strives now for one end and again for another. There is a methodology of habit formation which the teacher must command if she is to do successful work in equipping her pupils with desirable habits. If our problem is one that lends itself to the inductive method, we have one sort of procedure; while if the thinking involved is deductive, certain other elements enter. There is a kind of work in which we aim primarily for appreciation, and at another time we are chiefly concerned in teaching children how to study. The proper conduct of a review or examination, and the type of exercise commonly known as a recitation lesson, need to be discussed in some detail. In the chapters which immediately follow, each of these types of schoolroom exercises will be considered. Success in teaching consists quite as much in working definitely for well defined ends which may be accomplished in this fifteen minutes, this half hour, or during this week, as in keeping in mind the more general aims of education. Indeed, the only way in which we can secure the larger ends is by successfully achieving the lesser tasks. The teacher who knows that she has fixed this desirable habit of thought, feeling, or action, that this bit of knowledge has taken its place in a usable system, that this ideal or purpose has been awakened, that certain methods of work are available for the group of children whom she is teaching,—that teacher can be sure that she is fulfilling her mission.