A brief course in the teaching process

by George D. Strayer

There are other motives commonly operating which are even less worthy than that of pleasing the teacher. Children not infrequently are somewhat attentive to the work of the class because they fear the punishment which follows failure. The more ambitious, on the other hand, come to look upon the recitation as an opportunity to display their superiority. They believe, and too often they are right, that the chief end of school work is to get ahead of some one else,—to get a higher mark. In each of the cases mentioned, the motive is essentially individualistic. Better have the boy at work in order to please the teacher than to have him idle; better use punishments and rewards and secure some results in knowledge and habits than to fail of these desirable ends: but the socialization of the boy and the maximum of intellectual activity for each member of the group can only be brought about in a situation which is genuinely social.

What could be more natural than that children should ask each other questions; that they should exchange experiences; that they should work in coöperation for the satisfaction of a common end? This presupposes that they have a problem or purpose which is genuine. But that is only to assume that there is some real reason for intellectual activity. Or let us suppose that the children are at work in order that the product of their effort may be used in some social situation. It is not particularly difficult under such conditions to get the liveliest kind of discussion, to secure the most earnest coöperation, or to have pupils themselves accept in a considerable measure the responsibility for progress in their work.

This difference in attitude toward school work, if once established, is apparent in all subjects. The work of a class in reading or literature will be transformed when children work together to understand and appreciate its content. Instead of the complaint that John has lost the place, it will be discovered that he not infrequently has a question to ask, or that he can contribute an explanation. The writer has seen a class of third-grade children as active in questioning each other concerning a reading lesson as they were on the playground in inquiring concerning the games they played or the novel experiences in which they were interested. The teacher had attained this result by making the children understand that they ought to ask each other questions when they did not understand the thought expressed in their books, and that one of the best ways to explain was to tell of a similar experience which they had had.

In a class in nature study in a fourth grade a boy told a wonderful story of the activities of a squirrel. Ordinarily the teacher might have been expected to tell the boy that the story was untrue and that she did not want that kind of stories. In this class, however, the children felt responsible for the contributions which were made. The story had no sooner been told than the narrator was plied with questions. Where had he seen the squirrel? On what kind of a tree? What was the color of the squirrel? Just when did the events related happen? The boy could not answer these questions satisfactorily, and finally admitted that his story had a very slight basis in fact. The rebuke thus administered by his classmates probably did more toward giving this boy respect for truth than a dozen statements by the teacher that his contribution was unsatisfactory.

In an eighth-grade class the children were discussing the panic of ’73. One of the boys maintained that the causes of panics were, in general, the same, regardless of the activities of a few individuals occupying important positions in government or in the commercial world. His contention was mainly that it was unfair to charge a president or a political party with the distress occasioned by a panic, when in reality the cause was to be found in economic conditions over which neither president nor party had control. One of the girls in the class objected, and cited as proof the panic of ’37, which she claimed was caused by President Jackson. The teacher could have settled the question immediately by an authoritative statement, which most classes of children would have accepted. In this class, however, the teacher encouraged the class to participate in the discussion. In the end the members of the class consulted textbooks and other more complete histories, and reached their own decision with comparatively little help from the teacher. The value of this work in history consisted mainly in the fact that the children, having once discovered the problem, felt responsible for its solution. They were engaged in the liveliest kind of thinking and discussion. They were learning where to go, and what materials to use in the solution of this kind of problem.

Possibly work in the industrial arts offers the very best chance for group work. At every turn in work of this kind there is the demand for careful planning involving discussion of ways and means, and for coöperation in the execution of the plan. A group of second-grade children were occupied most profitably with the partial furnishing and daily care of the teacher’s rest room. They had first of all to decide what they could do to make the room more comfortable or more beautiful. They decided that they could make pillow, table, and couch covers, and window curtains, and that they could keep the room clean. In determining materials and design, as well as in the execution of the work itself, there was need for coöperation. The children gained not only in appreciation of some of the elements of home-making, but also in ability to plan and to work together. They were being socialized both by the content of their work and by the method employed in executing it. Another group of children, fifth grade, spent a number of weeks working together in planning and building a playhouse for the first grade. A wide-awake teacher enlisted the coöperation of three grades in the making and selling of candy in order to get money enough to buy pictures for the school. The preparation of a picnic luncheon, or meal for guests invited by the cooking class, the making of a large rug from many smaller rugs woven in such a way as to contribute to the pattern of the final product, the building of window boxes, the writing of the account of an excursion or other school exercise in order that the best results may be brought together in the final account which is to be used in a school paper, are examples of the kind of work which may involve the kind of activity which makes for present social efficiency, and, therefore, for that social efficiency which it is the ultimate purpose of education to achieve.

One of the best ways to transform the recitation from a place where lessons are heard to an active social group is to plan definitely for a variety of contributions from the individual members or small groups of the class. When each member of the class studies the same pages of the same book, there is little incentive either to try to tell well what the book contributes to the problem in hand, or to listen to the recitation of one’s classmates. If, however, one group of children have been referred to one book, another to a second book, and still another to a magazine article, to pictures, or other objective representation, there is some reason why each should do his best in reporting, and a genuine motive for following closely the contribution of each member of the class during the recitation is provided. Work of this sort is easily available in history, geography, nature study, or manual training.

In the subjects which seem to lend themselves less easily to variety in assignment, many possibilities will be found by the teacher who is anxious to prove the efficiency of this method. The best reading that the writer has ever seen in a third grade was done by children who read to each other. They used the readers in the school and books from home and from the public library. Each child was permitted to make a selection and submit it to the teacher for approval. Then came the period of preparation, extending often over two or three days or even a week. During this time the child was supposed to study the selection carefully, learn the pronunciation of difficult words, and practice reading the selection so that he might give pleasure to those for whom the reading was done. The one good reason for reading aloud is to read to an audience who cares to hear what you have to offer. These children were participating in a social situation which demanded much of them, and they enjoyed the hard work which was necessary because the motive back of it all was genuine. In arithmetic, if arithmetic deals with the quantitative aspect of the experiences which the children are having, it will be possible to allow for some variety in the work which is assigned. If the problems are real, there will be a considerable interest manifested by the children in the solution of the problem and the results which are secured. Suppose a class were given a list of the articles which are to be put in a Thanksgiving basket, with instructions to find the cost of the basket so that a friend may pay for one of the donations which the class plans to distribute. In such a situation the children will be most eager to compare prices and total cost when the class next meets for the arithmetic lesson. Of course the carping critic will say that it is easy to devise a few cases of the sort listed above, but that in real school work you haven’t time to make such plans. The only answer is that the difference between superior teaching and the kind that one sees all too commonly is found in the ability and willingness of the artistic teacher to be more nearly true to her ideals than are others. Any teacher, who is sufficiently interested, can find many situations in which she can vary the work of the class in such a way that the recitation period shall become a place where each member of the class brings his individual contribution.

Possibly the greatest need in our schools to-day is for more purposeful work for children. We are so much concerned about the many things which children ought to know that we are tempted to spend most of the time drilling children on facts which have very little meaning for them. The demand that the school be socialized is only another way of saying that the work of school children should function in the school itself and in their lives outside of school. It has seemed possible, in a few schools, to give children opportunity in the industrial arts to work at making something which they really want for themselves, or upon a project which may involve the welfare of the group, as, for example, when they work upon school apparatus or furniture. An eighth-grade group of boys made the furniture for the principal’s office; the children at Hyannis, Massachusetts, make baskets, brooms, hammocks, raise vegetables, build a boat or a fence, as occasion demands.[18] At Tuskegee the more mature students have even burnt the bricks and constructed the buildings for the school.

If a significant project in the industries is undertaken, it may furnish the motive for doing work along many lines. The raising of vegetables may involve arithmetic in the measuring of beds and the buying of seeds, in finding the value of the product, and, if the product be sold, in the keeping of a bank account. The study of dairying might very well involve a visit to a farm; the measuring of an acre; the estimating of the cost of production of milk and butter; and the return from the investment. The cost and means of transportation might be studied; a churn, butter bowl, and paddle might be constructed; and finally a complete account of these many experiences might be written and printed. If children are engaged in activities of this sort, there will be no question of socializing the school. By the very nature of their activities children will be led to question each other and their teachers; they will of necessity coöperate in those phases of the work which involve team work.