A brief course in the teaching process

by George D. Strayer

This leads us to consider a third means commonly employed to secure earnest work, the appeal to emulation. The desire of a pupil to do as well as other members of his class, or the desire of a class to equal the record of another class of the same grade, will do much to keep attention fixed on the work. Neither the devices mentioned nor any others will avail unless the teacher is wide-awake and alert herself. The greatest single reason for lack of interest and attention on the part of the class is found in the indifference and lack of energy on the part of the teacher. It is useless to expect vigorous action on the part of pupils, when the teacher is half asleep or otherwise either physically or mentally incapacitated for good work. It is possible at times for a teacher to arouse her own flagging interest by just such appeals as have been suggested above as applying to children.

Necessity for accuracy in practice: Our nervous system is so constructed that to do anything once leaves a tendency to do the same thing the same way when next we are placed in a similar situation. It is bad to allow careless work or random guessing, not simply because the result in this one case may be wrong, but more especially because the tendency to the wrong reaction is there and must be overcome before the correct action can be fixed as a habit. If a child, the day after he has studied the word foreign, has occasion to write the word and does not know how to spell it, it is a mistake to permit the word to be written incorrectly. It would be better to have the child discover for himself or find out from the teacher the correct form before attempting to write the word. It is well to insist on the necessity for absolute accuracy. Better by far discontinue the drill while every one is still fresh enough to give close attention to the work in hand and while the responses are accurate, than to make the serious mistake of allowing the work to be done carelessly or to flatter one’s self that approximately accurate results are good enough. Better be sure that in the drill work on the multiplication table to-day the children have invariably given the correct response when we have asked them how many are six times three and six times four, than to have attempted to teach the whole table with the knowledge that one fourth of the answers have been wrong. We should not be misled; the child who gave us a wrong answer is not simply wrong this time, but, what for us is more important, will tend to be wrong ever after. We have more than doubled the task we set out to accomplish. We must now get rid of the tendency to give the wrong answer, and then teach the correct one. In our later consideration of the moral life of the child, we shall have occasion again to point out the significance of this principle.

The periods elapsing between repetitions or series of repetitions should be gradually lengthened: The fixing of a habit so that it shall always thereafter be available to determine our thought or action requires that we do more than arrive at a point where the response can be readily secured in a given situation. The word which your pupils spell so readily, the table which they recite so glibly, the poem which they have so completely mastered, will apparently have completely disappeared next week or next month. Of course the work you have done is not without effect. It will be easier to learn the word, table, or poem again. But the child should command these results for which we labored now. There is a body of knowledge, a group of actions, which ought to be available automatically at any time. If we are to succeed in fixing this body of habits, if they are to be made permanently available, we must recognize the fact that when we have first secured the result desired we have only begun the process. The boy who recites Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address without any mistakes to-day has made a good beginning; but if that address is worth remembering always, he must recite it several times during the next week, and go over it again next month, next term, and next year. There will come a time, depending upon his native retentiveness and upon his method of memorizing, when it will no longer be necessary to repeat it for the sake of fixing the address in memory. It will not take a great deal of time to recall that which we believe we have fixed permanently last week or last month, and by doing this we shall add greatly to the probability of possible recall a year or ten years from now, and incidentally discover, much to our surprise, how much has already escaped.

Teachers often unconsciously follow the cramming method in their attempt to have children advance rapidly; and, as is always the case when this method is employed, what has apparently been learned is soon forgotten. Fortunately for all concerned, many of the responses which need to be reduced to an automatic basis are demanded over and over again as the child progresses from grade to grade, and are thus provided for. But much that is now lost could be retained, and each succeeding teacher could accomplish more than is now customary, if only this principle of habit formation were commonly observed.

In the case of a series of responses to be made automatic, be careful to include each member of the series: Much of our work is weak because it lacks system. If we are engaged in teaching addition combinations, we should be absolutely certain that we have taught every possible combination. If we want to be sure that children know how to write numbers up to one million, we must have given them drill on all of the possible difficulties. If children are always to respond correctly when problems involving two steps in reasoning are presented, we must have been careful to provide for the purpose of drill all of the combinations of situations involving addition, multiplication, subtraction, and division which can occur. For any other similar field, the same care must be exercised.

The greater part of the time should be spent in drilling upon that part of the work which presents special difficulty. There is no use in spending one’s time equally on all of the words included in any list. Some of them can probably be spelled with little or no drill, while others may require very careful study and many repetitions. In any other field the same situation will be found. Many of the responses desired will be reduced to the basis of habit readily, and a few will require continued attention. It is the function of the teacher to discover these special difficulties as soon as possible, to clear up any obscurity in ideas which may stand in the way, and then to drill with special reference to these special cases.

Briefly summarized, it is the function of the teacher in guiding pupils in the formation of habits to see to it that they have the correct idea of the thing to be done; to secure the maximum of motive and to maintain the maximum of attention during the process; to guard against carelessness and lapses by insisting upon the accuracy or the adequacy of the responses; to provide occasion for repetitions from time to time with gradually lengthened intervals; to be careful not to omit any of a group or series of responses equally important; to spend the greater part of the time and energy of both herself and pupils upon those cases which present special difficulty.

For Collateral Reading

W. C. Bagley, The Educative Process, Chapter XXII.

S. H. Rowe, Habit Formation and the Science of Teaching, Chapter XIII.