It would be a good plan for every teacher to ask herself questions like the following: “What would the children do if I did not carefully direct their work?” “How much better able are they now to work independently than they were at the beginning of the year?” “Can they take a book and find in it the part which bears upon the topic assigned for study, and do they do it with the least possible waste of time and energy?” “Do they know how to memorize; what it means to concentrate their attention; how to reflect?” “Are they more open-minded or more dogmatic on account of the year spent with me?” “Have they established the habit of verification?” “Do they appreciate the method to be employed in habit formation?” To answer these questions honestly will give the teacher some idea of her success as a teacher, for the teacher’s goal is realized in proportion as her pupils have advanced in power to work independently of her guidance or control.
In teaching children how to study, it will be well to devote whole periods to this type of exercise. The teacher will gain much in the progress which her class will make by taking a period frequently during which she studies with the children. By example rather than by precept, by guiding children in correct methods of study and then making them conscious that they have done their work to the best possible advantage, rather than by telling them what to do, she will secure the maximum of results in her endeavor to teach children how to study.
For Collateral Reading
F. M. McMurry, How to Study.
Lida B. Earhart, Teaching Children to Study, Chapter VIII.
Exercises.
1. What is the relation between a knowledge of the principles of teaching and the attempt to teach children how to study?
2. How would you teach a boy to study his spelling lesson?
3. What exercises would you give your pupils to make them able to use books to the best advantage?
4. State five problems which you have assigned to your pupils which seem to you to have furnished a sufficient motive for study.