A brief course in the teaching process

by George D. Strayer

Exercises.

1. Name the subjects or parts of subjects in which drill work is essential.

2. What was there of value in the old-fashioned method of choosing sides and “spelling down”?

3. Name some of the devices which you have used in drill work, and justify their use.

4. What argument can you advance for postponing the beginning of writing lessons until the middle of the first year or later?

5. Which would be better: to present the multiplication table in regular series (3 × 1 = 3; 3 × 2 = 6; 3 × 3 = 9, etc.), or in some other order? (3 × 5 = 15; 3 × 2 = 6; 3 × 7 = 21; 3 × 4 = 12, etc.)

6. If a boy was writing a composition and wanted to use a word that he did not know how to spell, what would you expect him to do?

7. What are the objections to learning rules of spelling?

8. In a drill lesson in arithmetic, which would you consider the better: to have the children work as individuals for the highest score, or to divide them into groups and have one group try to do better than the other?