The fact of possessing within one's self this gift, or power of teaching, sometimes breaks upon the possessor himself with all the force of a surprising and most delightful discovery. The good teacher does not indeed stop here. He goes on to improve in his art, as long as he lives. But his greatest single achievement is when he takes the first step,—when he first learns to teach at all. The pupil of a Normal School gains there a start and an impulse, which carry him forward the rest of his life. A very little judicious experimental training redeems hundreds of candidates from utter and hopeless incompetency, and converts for them an awkward and painful drudgery into keen, hopeful and productive labor.
XXV.
PRACTICE-TEACHING.
One feature of a Normal School which distinguishes it especially from other schools, is the opportunity given to its matriculants for practising their art under the guidance and criticism of an experienced teacher. This practice-teaching is done in a Model School, maintained for this purpose in connection with the main school. Such is the theory.
But serious difficulties are encountered in carrying the plan into practical effect, and these difficulties are so great as in some instances to have led to the entire abandonment of the plan, while very rarely have the conductors of Normal schools been able to realize results in this matter commensurate with their wishes or with their views of what was desirable and right.
Some of the difficulties are the following: Parents who send their children to the Model School object to have their children taught to any considerable extent by mere pupil-teachers. The teachers of the Model School, having little or no acquaintance with the Normal pupils sent to teach under their supervision, do not feel that entire freedom in criticising the performance which is essential to its success. The irregularities produced by these practice-teachings have a tendency to impair the discipline of the classes in the Model School.
For these and other reasons which I need not dwell upon, I at least have always been obliged to be somewhat chary in regard to the amount of practice-teaching that was done in the institution under my care, and have never felt quite satisfied as to the result. At the beginning of the year 1867, I determined to try the plan of having a considerable portion of the practice-teaching done in the Normal School itself, the Model School still holding its place in the system as furnishing an unrivalled opportunity for observation, and to some extent of practice also. The effect of thus extending the opportunity for practice by including the Normal School in its operations has been most happy. The pupils have attained a degree of freedom in the exercise which is working the most marked and decisive results. They enter into it with more zest than into any other exercise of the class, and derive from it in some instances as much benefit as from all their other exercises put together.
Some detailed account of the method may perhaps be of interest to other laborers in the same field. The method is substantially the same as that followed in the Girls High and Normal School of Philadelphia, from which indeed I borrowed the idea.
Once a week I make up a programme containing the names of those who are to teach during the following week, and the classes and lessons which they are severally to teach. The practice-pupils are thus enabled to prepare themselves fully for the exercise. It is an indispensable condition in all these exercises that the lesson be given without the use of the book. When a pupil enters a room to teach one of these assigned lessons, he is to bring with him only his crayon and pointer, and is expected to assume entire charge of the class, maintaining order, hearing the pupils recite, correcting their mistakes, illustrating the subject, if necessary, by diagrams or experiments, giving supplementary information drawn from other sources than the text-book, and acting in all respects as if he were the regular teacher. The regular teacher meanwhile sits by, observing in silence, and at the close of the day writes out a full and detailed criticism upon the performance in a book kept for this purpose, and gives the pupil an average for it, the maximum being 100. These criticisms, together with the teaching averages, are read next day by the Principal to the pupil in the presence of the class to which he belongs, with additional comments in regard to any principles of teaching that may be involved in the criticisms.
An essential element of success in this scheme, is that the teachers should be thoroughly faithful in the work of criticism, and point out the errors and shortcomings of the young practitioners, not with harshness, but with unsparing truthfulness and wise discrimination. Practice-teaching under such conditions cannot fail to have a powerful effect. The pupils are stimulated by it to put forth the very best efforts of which they are capable, and the talent which they often develop is a surprise equally to themselves and their teachers.