How much the teacher should tell or show
It is unnecessary to discuss at length presentation as a factor in the recitation, because our last chapter covered the topic under the captions of observation and communication. The function of presentation is to supply materials that force home the nature of a problem and furnish suggestions for dealing with it. The practical problem of the teacher is to preserve a balance between so little showing and telling as to fail to stimulate reflection and so much as to choke thought. Provided the student is genuinely engaged upon a topic, and provided the teacher is willing to give the student a good deal of leeway as to what he assimilates and retains (not requiring rigidly that everything be grasped or reproduced), there is comparatively little danger that one who is himself enthusiastic will communicate too much concerning a topic.
The pupil's responsibility for making out a reasonable case
II. The distinctively rational phase of reflective inquiry consists, as we have already seen, in the elaboration of an idea, or working hypothesis, through conjoint comparison and contrast, terminating in definition or formulation. (i) So far as the recitation is concerned, the primary requirement is that the student be held responsible for working out mentally every suggested principle so as to show what he means by it, how it bears upon the facts at hand, and how the facts bear upon it. Unless the pupil is made responsible for developing on his own account the reasonableness of the guess he puts forth, the recitation counts for practically nothing in the training of reasoning power. A clever teacher easily acquires great skill in dropping out the inept and senseless contributions of pupils, and in selecting and emphasizing those in line with the result he wishes to reach. But this method (sometimes called "suggestive questioning") relieves the pupils of intellectual responsibility, save for acrobatic agility in following the teacher's lead.
The necessity for mental leisure
(ii) The working over of a vague and more or less casual idea into coherent and definite form is impossible without a pause, without freedom from distraction. We say "Stop and think"; well, all reflection involves, at some point, stopping external observations and reactions so that an idea may mature. Meditation, withdrawal or abstraction from clamorous assailants of the senses and from demands for overt action, is as necessary at the reasoning stage, as are observation and experiment at other periods. The metaphors of digestion and assimilation, that so readily occur to mind in connection with rational elaboration, are highly instructive. A silent, uninterrupted working-over of considerations by comparing and weighing alternative suggestions, is indispensable for the development of coherent and compact conclusions. Reasoning is no more akin to disputing or arguing, or to the abrupt seizing and dropping of suggestions, than digestion is to a noisy champing of the jaws. The teacher must secure opportunity for leisurely mental digestion.
A typical central object necessary
(iii) In the process of comparison, the teacher must avert the distraction that ensues from putting before the mind a number of facts on the same level of importance. Since attention is selective, some one object normally claims thought and furnishes the center of departure and reference. This fact is fatal to the success of the pedagogical methods that endeavor to conduct comparison on the basis of putting before the mind a row of objects of equal importance. In comparing, the mind does not naturally begin with objects a, b, c, d, and try to find the respect in which they agree. It begins with a single object or situation more or less vague and inchoate in meaning, and makes excursions to other objects in order to render understanding of the central object consistent and clear. The mere multiplication of objects of comparison is adverse to successful reasoning. Each fact brought within the field of comparison should clear up some obscure feature or extend some fragmentary trait of the primary object.
Importance of types
In short, pains should be taken to see that the object on which thought centers is typical: material being typical when, although individual or specific, it is such as readily and fruitfully suggests the principles of an entire class of facts. No sane person begins to think about rivers wholesale or at large. He begins with the one river that has presented some puzzling trait. Then he studies other rivers to get light upon the baffling features of this one, and at the same time he employs the characteristic traits of his original object to reduce to order the multifarious details that appear in connection with other rivers. This working back and forth preserves unity of meaning, while protecting it from monotony and narrowness. Contrast, unlikeness, throws significant features into relief, and these become instruments for binding together into an organized or coherent meaning dissimilar characters. The mind is defended against the deadening influence of many isolated particulars and also against the barrenness of a merely formal principle. Particular cases and properties supply emphasis and concreteness; general principles convert the particulars into a single system.