CHAPTER XII.THE VOCATION OF TEACHING.
“The power of any life lies in its expectancy.”—Phillips Brooks.“Usefulness is the rent we pay for room upon the earth.”—Dorothea Beale.
“The power of any life lies in its expectancy.”—Phillips Brooks.
“Usefulness is the rent we pay for room upon the earth.”—Dorothea Beale.
It is only thirteen years since Dorothea Beale passed over to the other side to enter on the greater service which we believe is granted to all who toil here in singleness of heart. In her theories of education, in her outlook on life, she was of our day. Her methods of teaching are still employed in our best schools, and the teacher can still find her essays on teaching suggestive and helpful.
Yet we live in another world. Since August 1914, we have passed through experiences that have changedfor ever the values of things. Nothing can ever be the same again. We of our generation are faced not with one little difficulty or another but with the building of a new world. The old civilisation lies in dust at our feet. With it have gone many things that were very dear to us, our security, our comfort, our national serenity, our happy-go-lucky individualism. With it, too, have gone the best of our young manhood, those on whom much of the work of the immediate future was to rest.
Nor is it without significance that to women at this hour have come for the first time direct power in politics and opportunity to do any work of which they are capable. On them must fall the work that the dead and disabled would have done. To the men of England and of other countries came the call to give their lives: to the women no less comes the same call.
Perhaps the greatest need of the world just now is work: not only for the production of material necessities, but for its steadying, sanity-restoring power. After four years of the passions and sorrows of war, mankind has not yet regained its mental balance; and in honest, steady work, it will perhaps most surely win again the gift it has lost.
In the building of a new world there is no force so great as that of education in its many aspects, the most important of which is that of the home. Teachers realise that what is done at school is as nothing compared with the enormous power of home education, composed as it is of all the influences of early childhood. Parents must always be the chief educators, and for this reason parenthood must be one of the most sacred of human relationships and one of the highest callings. It is at home a child learns to look at the great things of life from the right or the wrong angle: it is at home he learns to reverence the good and the true or to hold them in contempt. Parenthood requires a great preparation of heart and soul, for it brings with it thegreatest of all responsibilities, that of guiding human souls into the right pathway.
Of late years the need for teachers has been great, the supply being less than the demand. Many teachers are still needed, and to the girl of intellectual interests and power who is seeking a profession, the question may well arise, whether she should adopt that of a teacher. There are many matters to be faced in considering this.
Teaching brings with it few of the rewards for which the ordinary person craves. Financially, its prizes are few: for the most part it is a badly-paid profession, especially considering the years of training it involves. It brings with it little renown. Even the greatest teachers are known in a comparatively narrow circle, at any rate during their lives. Praise and appreciation are almost unknown, whilst criticism is given, as was the medicine of last century, in large doses and at frequent intervals. If it is properly done, the work is hard. Real teaching implies ceaseless learning. It is imperative to keep a mind open to all new thought and new ideas, not only in the educational work but in the world at large. It is necessary, too, to acquire the wisdom to deal with what is new, so that to some extent the true may be separated from the false, the lofty from the base. It is a work, moreover, that is a perpetual test of character, worth, and spirit. There are no teachers worthy of the name, who do not frequently shrink from the magnitude of their task and tremble at their own lack of power. The teacher is called to incessant mental and spiritual work. Only as he or she lives an active life in mind and soul can he hope to have any success in training the young for life.
But the chief question after all is that of personal fitness. There are two essentials; the first is a love of children; the second is some love of study and of teaching. There can be no good work done without love of the children we teach: a teacher who does not lovechildren would probably be serving God better if she were breaking stones by the roadside. The love of the work itself increases as time goes on. As a rule the desire to teach indicates some aptitude for the work; though between the eager expectancy of the untried student and the quiet joy of the skilled teacher, lie many dark valleys which must perforce be passed. This, however, is not peculiar to teaching. It is common to all work of a personal nature, in fact is inherent in all high living.
For those who wish to teach, the great problem arises: “What kind of teaching shall I undertake?” It is a difficult one to solve.
In England the different kinds of teaching for girls are very clearly defined. Socially, educational establishments are pretty clearly differentiated. There is the elementary school for the children of those whom, for want of a better name, we call the people. Next, the high school or secondary school, largely for the children of the middle classes. Lastly, the public school for the boys and the public or private school for the girls of the wealthy and the aristocracy. These all usually have their kindergarten or preparatory departments which offer attractive work to those gifted in dealing with little children.
There is a great need to-day of real peace. International war, hardly ended, has been succeeded by internal strife of a very serious nature: at the root of this lies much deep bitterness, the result of the failure of the different classes of the community to understand one another. If a number of girls of the middle and upper classes, who feel that they are called to the work of teaching, would take up work in the Elementary Schools or the new Continuation Schools, it would do much, I believe, to bring about a better understanding between class and class. In this way each would get to know something of the other and the ideals and knowledge of thosewho have had greater advantages would begin to permeate our national life.
Dorothea Beale tried at one time of her work to establish a school of training for such teachers, but the difficulties put in her way by the Government of that day made the continuation of the work impossible. With an educationalist at the Board of Education many difficulties have been and will be removed, and elementary teaching with smaller classes, higher pay, and better buildings, is made more possible for those who wish to embark on it. It is useless, however, to take up this work unless one has in one’s heart a great love for little children, whether dirty or clean, ragged or well-cared for. The elementary schools have not yet adopted the high school system of morning lessons and afternoon preparation, and this makes the hours of teaching long. The corrections and necessary preparation are usually less than in a high school: the holidays are shorter, but are gradually being lengthened.
Some, however, are quite incapable of understanding those outside their own social class: and such would be foolish to attempt work in the elementary schools. They would do better in high, secondary, or boarding schools. The last are not popular amongst present day girl teachers, largely because of the restrictions. Yet in a boarding school a true teacher has opportunities which never come into a day-school teacher’s life. In many ways it is a much more satisfactory sphere, provided the Head realises that no teacher can do good work without ample leisure and opportunity for a life of her own apart from the school. More and more are our generation realising that outside interests are absolutely essential for a teacher if he or she is going to be a person of real power and influence. Apart from the knowledge of one’s own subject there is nothing so necessary in a teacher as a knowledge of life; not simply the life of the schoolroom, but of life in its many branches. It is often said thatunmarried women teachers never grow up. They pass from school to college, and from college back to school, and never quite lose the schoolgirl point of view. It is often the greatest boon to a teacher to be obliged to give up her own work for a year or two at some period of her life and to live in a world where people do not measure time by terms or mark out the day by bells. But in any case a teacher can always have some interest that has nothing to do with teaching and has no direct bearing on her work. Such interests do much to prevent overstrain.
The training for teaching is very thorough and long. That for secondary or high school work is usually expensive; but the cost of training for elementary school teaching is much less, as the Government have their own training colleges. After January, 1921, all teachers registered by the Government will have to be trained not only educationally but in the art of teaching. Degrees, now, are almost asine quâ non, or are at any rate very desirable. All universities admit women to their degree examinations, though Oxford and Cambridge do not yet grant degrees.
It is a profession where a good standard of health is desirable, though people of a sensitive, nervous temperament are often the best teachers. A tired teacher is,ipso facto, a failure: it is, therefore, work in which the preservation of freshness of mind and body becomes a special duty. In the best schools the hours of teaching are short, and long holidays, wisely spent, ought to keep the health vigorous. The right use of holidays is frequently overlooked, especially by young teachers, who often spend them in the fulfilment of claims as strenuous as their work, and return to school used-up and unfit for their duties—a form of dishonesty not always recognised as such.
In considering teaching as a possible calling the advantages of the long holidays are worthy of consideration.They give opportunities of friendship, life with one’s own family, travel, study, and pleasures of many kinds. It is good, too, in these busy days that a few people have intervals of leisure in which they have time to sympathise with others, and to think of the little things of life that are in reality the great things. Holidays may be the greatest boon not only to oneself, but to all the people one meets.
Particulars about the training for teaching are to be found in many books. Two which come readily to my mind are “The Teacher’s Year Book” and “The Englishwoman’s Year Book”. The registrars of the different universities are always glad to supply particulars if asked. The Board of Education will give details about elementary school teaching: these change somewhat every few years. There are many helps for those who intend to be teachers, the chief being the scholarships offered by the different colleges to those who could not without aid afford the fees. This is especially true of some of the newer universities. Many large schools also offer help to their pupils who have the ability and desire to go on to the universities.
To the girl who feels in her the desire to teach, and has the power necessary for the task, I should say, “Accept your work, and I am sure you will have no reason to regret your decision.” For with all its hardships, all its endless striving after impossible ideals, it is a work which can really be one’s life: and surely such work is always the happiest.
It has many joys. There are few in life greater than that of seeing gradually awaken in a child interest and keenness where before there has been apathy and dullness. To be able to give life to dry bones of knowledge, to rouse from its torpor the still sleeping mind, to turn the faces of the children we teach towards the light is surely well worth doing.
It has many opportunities. The teacher’s task isnot to teach opinions, but to lay the foundations of sound moral standards on which all true opinion must rest.
The world needs teachers: not the perfunctory worker who takes up one of the most sacred of callings as a means of livelihood, but the teacher who is willing to consecrate herself for the work.
At the end of that powerful novel of Robert Herrick’s, “The Healer,” is a vivid scene. The old doctor, whose gift had been lost through the exacting claims of an unsuitable marriage, is walking arm-in-arm with a young student. The older man has recognised in the younger the power he himself once had, the gift of healing. Very affectionately he lays his hand on the lad’s shoulder.
“Remember,” he says—I quote from memory—“this gift of yours will demand whole-hearted devotion and will be satisfied with nothing less than your life.”
So with the work of teaching. It is a profession that demands whole-hearted devotion. To those who give to it their lives it brings many joys, great opportunities, and the satisfaction that constant giving alone bestows. It has many dangers and many temptations, but these lose much of their power over the teacher who tries to realise in practice as well as in theory:—
“That the influence of personal character has been from the first the great means of bearing truth into men’s hearts.”