A brief course in the teaching process

by George D. Strayer

The besetting sin of most teachers is the practice of repeating the answers given by children. If the recitation is a place where children are to discuss their problems together, then every answer should be addressed to the whole class, not to the teacher. The teacher who repeats each answer cannot expect the children either to recite to the class or to pay attention to the one who is speaking. Here is another chance for an interesting experiment. Score one every time you repeat an answer, and then try to see how soon you can eliminate this bad habit. It is often helpful to stand or sit in some part of the room not directly in front of the class. The fact that the teacher is among the class, one of them at least in position in the room, will make it somewhat easier for children to talk to the whole group. This habit of repeating the answer really grows out of the feeling which so many teachers have that the function of questions is to test for facts, and that in the recitation the answer should be addressed to the teacher and given by her to the class so that all may be made aware of the correct answer. The position which has been maintained is that the main purpose of questioning is to stimulate thought. Even if questions were mainly useful as a means of testing for facts, it would still be unwise to repeat the answers.

Questioning by the teacher which does not lead to the asking of questions by pupils is unsatisfactory. If the children are thinking, really trying to solve the problem at issue, they will have questions of their own. If any single test were to be applied to the strength of the teacher’s questions, this would probably be best. Needless to say, the questions which children ask should, as a rule, be addressed to the class, or to some one member of the class, and not to the teacher. Some of the best lessons are those which end with children’s questions still unanswered, these problems furnishing the point of departure for the study which is to precede the next day’s work.

If any one thinks that questioning is a simple matter, one that deserves less consideration than has been given to it, let him sit down and write four or five good questions which might be used in teaching a first-grade lesson on the dog; a fifth-grade lesson on the Southern states; a seventh-grade lesson on making jelly; or a high school class on the law of gravity. The teacher who will get some one to write down for her the questions which she asks in a single recitation will be surprised both at the number (it will be almost unbelievably large) and the quality of the product.

There is nothing more searching than to attempt to write down beforehand the half dozen or more pivotal questions which are to be used in a recitation. When the attempt is made, any weakness in knowledge, in organization of subject matter, or in appreciation of the pupil’s point of view with relation to the material to be presented, will become apparent. There is no one thing that a teacher can do which will bring a greater reward in increased teaching power, than systematically to prepare questions for one or more recitations each day. If the writer could be sure that any group of teachers would try conscientiously to improve in the art of questioning, he would be just as sure that these same teachers would be rated by any impartial critic as superior to those who are willing to trust to inspiration in this most important part of the teacher’s work.

For Collateral Reading

J. A. H. Keith, Elementary Education, Chapter IX.

Exercises.

1. What is the chief function of questioning?

2. Why is the direct question of little value in teaching?

3. Give examples of leading questions. Why should a teacher avoid questions of this class?