It will give new meaning to notebooks and note-taking, if both teacher and children realize that the books thus prepared are a real addition to the texts used. A comparison of the work done by different members of the class will add interest in the work. One of the greatest deficiencies of the recitation lesson is the danger that nothing new will be presented. It is not intellectually stimulating to listen to others who repeat simply the thought with which you are already familiar. Where good notebook work is done and reported upon, the chance for new ideas, the stimulus to thought, through the presentation of new material, will greatly strengthen the work.
A tendency in work of this type to accept vague and indefinite answers is another argument against the recitation lesson which consists merely in rehearsing the words of the book. Statements are apt to be vague when ideas are vague, and we may not expect ideas to be very clear when the child lacks experience. The child’s power of expression, aside from the difference in original talent in this direction, is conditioned first of all by his acquaintance with things and processes. The recitation lesson, as it is ordinarily conducted, gives little opportunity for this sort of firsthand knowledge. To work at the sand table, to construct with wood, clay, paper, or yarn, to experiment, and to observe carefully the working of nature may mean more for the command of language than much more time devoted to so-called language lessons. But the effective use of such experience for language growth depends in a measure upon the requirement that the teacher makes for adequate expression. The teacher who accepts the vague and indefinite answer encourages slovenly habits of expression and incidentally slovenly habits of thought. It is usually a mistake to say to a child: “I know what you mean even though you have not said it.” Children are often lazy enough to allow the teacher to do their thinking for them, if the teacher willingly accepts the burden. Thinking is necessary for expression; language is the tool of thought; we can do no greater service to children than to hold them for what they say, give them credit for the thought which they express and no more. Words for children, as well as for adults, are used to conceal ignorance as well as to reveal thought. A child is quick to take advantage of the teacher who will accept any sort of an answer and interpret it as a statement containing thought. Indeed, it is possible that a child may even come to think that his incoherent statements, his word juggling, really represent thought.
Another danger in the recitation lesson is found in the tendency to develop the purely individualistic attitude. If excellence consists in endeavoring to repeat more of the book statement than any one else, manifestly it is your advantage to hinder rather than to help others in their work. The attitude of excessive competition on the one hand, and of indifference on the other, are both avoided when children work together for common ends. The standard of the school should be coöperation and helpfulness.
The recitation lesson in its least desirable aspects will not disappear until all of our teachers realize that teaching does not consist in hearing lessons. The broader the training of the teacher, the better her understanding of child nature and of the meaning of education, the less likely is she to resort to this method to any considerable degree. We shall, it is true, so long as we use textbooks, take occasion to discover what use children have made of them; but this testing will be incidental to our teaching, and not the sum and substance of it.
For Collateral Reading
W. C. Bagley, The Educative Process, Chapter XXII.
Exercises.
1. Why is a recitation in which the teacher asks fifty questions which test the pupil’s knowledge of the facts recorded in the book not particularly valuable?
2. Why ask pupils to recite by topics rather than ask questions which will bring out the facts concerning each topic treated in the book?
3. Discuss the use of the textbook in teaching from the point of view of both teacher and pupil.