34. Teaching Defined.—The Sunday-school teacher as much as any other teacher should understand clearly what teaching is. Teaching is not telling, and no amount of talking to the pupil can be considered as teaching. Teaching is not determined by anything that happens outside the pupil, but by the action of the pupil's soul upon the things that are presented to it through the senses.Teaching may be defined as causing a human soul to know.
35.Everything outside the learner may be considered his teacher. We are taught in the broadest sense by the spirit of God's universe expressed in terms of order and law. We are taught in a more restricted sense by our immediate environment, and especially by the people whose lives come in close contact with our own. In the most restricted sense we are taught by a trained mind, and this trained mind belongs to a person called a teacher. The process of teaching may be considered as the act of bringing into the consciousness of the learner the knowledge already in the consciousness of the teacher. We cannot teach what we do not know. Teaching ends when the pupil knows all that the teacher knows.
36. Impression and Expression.—When I say that I know a certain thing, I mean that my soul possesses that thing and knows that it possesses it; this isconsciousness. The teaching act completes itself when the learner is able to express in language or otherwise to the satisfaction of the teacher the facts in consciousness. In other words, the soul is not fully educated until it has reached the point of expression.
37.It will be seen from this that teaching is possible only when the soul is actively seeking new knowledge. This attempt of the soul to seek new knowledge causes it, for one reason or another, to focus itself upon some one object of thought to the exclusion of all other objects of thought.This act is called attention.When the will directs the attention it is calledvoluntaryattention. When some other agency than the will directs the attention it is calledinvoluntaryattention.
38. Securing Attention.—The greatest art in teaching is to secure attention. The highest form of attention is voluntary attention. The young child does not possess sufficient will-power to control attention; consequently in the early grades some other agent than a command of the will must hold attention. This other agent in a general way may be characterized asinterest. In other words, the young child's interests hold his attention, and the thing in which he takes the greatest interest will easiest attract his attention.
39.There are certain well-known principles underlying the interest of the child. First, his curiosity; second, novelty, or unexpectedness; third, imitativeness; fourth, illustrations based upon his experience. The teacher cannot be too careful to consider what is of interest to a child. We cannot measure the interests of a child by the interests of an adult. Here the study of child nature is the only safe and adequate guidance.
40. How Knowledge Reaches the Soul.—There are but five gateways to the soul of a child, called the senses:—Seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, smelling. There are no other channels of approach. Whatever increases the breadth of this sense-approach in a subject of study increases the interest of the learner in that subject. If I tell a child about aball, I utilize his sense of hearing; if I show him a ball, at the same time I describe it, I utilize seeing and hearing; if I hand him a ball, as I describe it, I utilize touching, seeing, and hearing. A single fact reaching consciousness through the senses and recognized in consciousness is called a percept or a particular notion. It is sometimes called an idea. The soul in giving expression to an idea uses a word or some other sign for the idea. Thus words are the signs of ideas.
41.When other facts of a similar character reach consciousness, and are identified there with the first percept, the percept becomes a concept, general notion or general idea, just as the percept is an individual idea; that is, the percept stands for one object apprehended in consciousness; the concept stands for a group of similar objects under one name apprehended in consciousness. All the common nouns are concepts just as all proper nouns are percepts. For example, in the sentence, "Washington was a brave man," it is plain that "Washington" is a particular idea or percept and "man" is a general idea or concept.
42. Judgment and Reasoning.—The aim of the teacher is, first, to secure clear percepts, and then rapidly to change these percepts into concepts, which is only another way of saying that good teaching relates the things in the soul in such a way as to give the child the fewest possible terms with which to carry the largest possible number of particular facts. Concepts are the shorthand of the soul's language. When these concepts are compared and their agreement or disagreement noted the soul is forming judgments. When these judgments are expressed in language the soul is forming sentences. When these judgments are compared and their agreement or disagreement noted, the soul is reasoning. Sentences are the signs of judgments or reasons, just as words are the signs of percepts or concepts. Thus the percept first comes; the percept grows into the concept; the concept into the judgment; the judgment into reasoning; and these are the four steps in the process of knowing. They are the tools of thought. Teaching must be a training in the use of these tools.
43. Memoryis of little use unless it is simply the power to hold things clearly understood by the soul. It is not good teaching to burden the memory with masses of things not clearly perceived and conceived, although it may be at the beginning not at all objectionable to commit to memory certain great utterances from the Bible and other standard literature, even when the meaning is not clearly and fully apprehended. But at the earliest time possible these should be analyzed and the meaning worked into forms of clear knowledge.
44. Imagination.—Imagination is the power of the soul to work up into new combinations the things in memory. Memory keeps things as the soul got them through the senses. The products of memory have a basis in experience. The products of imagination have no such basis in experience. Imagination is the creator of new products. It cares not forfacts, but works after its own fancy. It is a more dangerous power because more free. To curb it at the outset is necessary. To allow it free range is to open the way for statements from the child that often alarm the parent or teacher. But when once the moral sense is awakened and governs imagination the latter becomes the agency that creates all art and enriches all life.
45.Teaching aims to develop by appropriate exercise all these powers of the soul. What the pupil learns is not so important as what power he gains in the control and use of his thinking processes under the guidance of a skilful teacher.
1. What is teaching?
2. When does teaching end?
3. What is consciousness?
4. What marks the completion of the teaching act?
5. What is attention? Voluntary? Involuntary?
6. What will most easily attract the attention of a young child?
7. State four principles underlying the child's interest?
8. Name the gateways to the soul.
9. What is a percept?
10. What is a concept?
11. State the four steps in the process of knowing.
12. When is memory of most use?
13. What is imagination?
1. What point of view must the teacher take?
2. Is it true that teachers are "born" not "made"?
3. What does apperception mean?
4. By what means does knowledge enter the soul?
5. What is the teacher's goal?
6. What is the highest art in teaching?
7. What four things help to the pupil's approach to the lesson?
8. What should be the teacher's real concern about the pupil?
9. What is teaching?
10. What is attention? Voluntary? Involuntary?
11. State four principles underlying the child's interest.
12. Name the gateway to the soul.
46. Laws of the Soul.—Everything in this world behaves in a certain way under certain conditions. All the things in God's great, good world operate in harmony with some force or power that is always present and that always does or causes to be done the same thing. When once we have discovered this power and stated in a formula how it behaves we have a law. The soul is no exception to this general statement. It behaves, under similar conditions, in the same way. When once we have discovered how the soul acts and formulate its methods of action we have a law of the soul.
47.From these laws of the soul we may also learn how to make the soul grow in a certain desired way. We can also discover the laws in the materials which we use to cause growth in the soul. These laws become the guide to all good teaching. They are here called educational laws or principles.
48. Educational Principles.—Thus it will be seen that educational principles rest upon the laws of the soul. They tell us in brief and clear statements what should govern us in teaching a growing soul. If one turns to any treatise on pedagogy he will find there a statement of these laws. Of course, these will be found to vary somewhat because no one is quite certain that the last facts concerning the soul are known.
49.But the important thing is not, after all, what one finds in the books, but what one is finally led to accept as his own guiding principles. It is of the utmost importance that one should have certain general principles of education as standards by which to test his own teaching. A ship without a compass sails a no less aimless or dangerous course than does a teacher without pedagogic guidance. What the compass is to the ship, educational principles are to the teacher. Thus educational principles aid in achieving the end or purpose of the educational process; which end is, according to Spencer, "to live completely," or, as we usually say, to fit each one to live in the exercise of allthe power God made it possible for him to enjoy. To realize this end teaching must proceed according to law.
50.The first law to be noted is thatthe subject matter presented to a growing soul must be adapted to the capacity of the learner. This law is so self-evident that we unconsciously observe it. We do not give the same kind of lessons to a child in the primary grade that we should and do give to the pupil in the adult Bible class. The whole significance of graded exercises is based upon this fundamental principle. This law rests upon the generally accepted fact that the different powers of the soul change their relative activity during the years of growth.
51.The second principle is equally important:There is a natural order in which the powers of the soul should be exercised.This order is the order of their activity. The earliest power to become educationally active is sensation, the last is reason, and hence we can phrase this law in the maxim "from sense to reason." Different writers state the same thing in the following way: observation before reasoning; the concrete before the abstract; sense knowledge before thought knowledge; facts before definitions; processes before rules; the particular before the general; the simple before the complex; from the known to the next related unknown. All these maxims may be traced to the same law of the soul, and they may all be summed up in the maxim,teaching must proceed from things to symbols, since the senses deal with things and reason deals with symbols. No wise teacher will pass this law by until its full significance is understood. Jesus was a masterful teacher. He observed this law frequently. Note the examples in the Gospels, using the incident at Jacob's well as an example. Æsop's fables are all built upon the principle here laid down, as are the numerous fairy tales by the Grimms, Andersen, and others.
52.Since the soul grows only by its own activity a third law arises:Knowledge can be acquired only by occasioning the proper activity in the soul of the pupil.It is always important to keep in mind that it is not what the teacher thinks and does, but what he causes the pupil to think and do, that makes for knowledge. The best teaching secures the best mental activity on the part of the pupil.
53.Just what the proper activity is may be seen by a consideration of a fourth principle:First presentations of new knowledge must be made objectively in all grades of the school.Ideas cannot be taught through words. They can be taught through objects, and the ideas can then be named. The name is the word. This law may be stated as "ideas before words." It stands as a protest against abstract and formal teaching. It demands that knowledge shall be fitted to the nature of the soul's growth. The child that for the first time was shown a growing fern in a vase and called it "a pot of green feathers" was on the right track. He will in due time acquire the right word. His idea is clear. It follows also thatthe only words in which knowledge can be presented to the soul are words that name known things.
54.These and many other principles are the basis of the whole teaching process. Happy that child whose teacher has thought his way through these essential laws and observes them in all the activities of the recitation. No teacher can grow in power or skill without mastering the meaning of these laws, which may be called the alphabet of the teacher's preparation. These laws the teacher should always have in mind as guidance. They are not to be announced to the pupil. Jesus always followed great educational principles, but he never announced these to his disciples. When you say "That is a good lesson," you mean that the lesson is in harmony with laws of teaching you know to be good. There is no other basis of judging the worth of a teacher.
1. What is meant by a law of the soul?
2. Why are educational principles needed?
3. What is the first law as to the subject matter of teaching? The second?
4. What is the earliest power that becomes educationally active?
5. What maxim sums up the order in which the soul-powers should be exercised?
6. State the third law of the soul. The fourth. Illustrate.
55. Applying Principles.—When the teacher puts an educational principle to work in the act of teaching he uses a method. A method is a principle applied, put into operation. Principles make up one's educational theory; methods make up one's educational practise. It is as important to have a good method as it is to have a good law. The way a law is applied is a method. When we agreed that it would be a good thing to teach scientific temperance to our children we announced a principle. To apply this led to the use of the school. Teaching in the school the subject of scientific temperance became a method. We might have chosen the home, the church, or any other agency.
56.One's method is often the test of one's principle. If I say that repetition makes for clear knowledge I announce a law or principle. The test of the law is the way the soul acts under repetition. Does the learner gain in clearness of knowledge by repetition? If so, the law is true. If not, the law is not true.
57. Kinds of Methods.—Methods are of two kinds:generalandspecial. A general method may be followed in teaching all the different subjects that make up a course of study. A special method is followed in teaching one particular subject or a part of a subject. A device is merely a temporary resort to some special act to accomplish an immediate result. Methods, general and special, may be used again and again. A device rarely can be repeated, since the same conditions may never again arise.
58. Analytic and Synthetic Method.—A lesson, like a jack-knife, is made up of a number of parts. We may begin the recitation by presenting first the object or lesson as a whole and follow with a study of the parts; this is theanalytic method. Or we may begin the recitation by presenting first the parts, one at a time, and follow with a study of the object as a whole. This is thesynthetic methodin teaching. These two general methods are usually combined in a complete lesson. That is to say, we usually consider first the whole thought, thenanalyze it into its several parts, and when each part is understood, we combine by synthesis the parts into the general thought. If, for example, we begin by citing the golden text, and then analyze the lesson to find the parts that illustrate the meaning in the golden text, and finally combine these parts into a fuller understanding of the golden text, the process is analytico-synthetic. The purpose of this thought exercise is to enlarge the learner's comprehension of the general truth in the lesson. In the earlier years teaching should be largely synthetic; in later years, analytic. A study of the growth of the powers of the soul will show why this is so.
59. Inductive and Deductive Method.—When once the mind is trained to analyze fairly well it is possible to use another set of general methods. In reasoning we may begin with particular facts, with simple sensations, with the individual notions based upon concrete experience, and rise step by step to a general law. If we pursue this plan in the recitation, we use theinductive methodin teaching. If we pursue the opposite order, beginning with some general law or principle and proceed by reasoning to special or particular facts, we use thedeductive methodin teaching. The parable of the sower is a good example of inductive teaching. The seventh chapter of Matthew contains a number of excellent examples of deductive teaching. Note carefully the method by which Jesus makes plain the words, "Beware of false prophets." These general methods are followed always in one order or another by every good teacher.
60.The recitation also affords opportunity for the exercise of special methods. We may or we may not askquestions. We may or we may not assigntopics, we may or we may not drawpictureson a blackboard. We may or we may not ask pupils toconsult the textof the lesson in reciting the same. These facts suggest methods that the wise teacher will consider carefully.
61. Questioning.—If the teacher asks and requires the pupils to answer a series of questions he is using thequestion method. It is a good method because it compels the pupils to think and to give expression in proper language to their thoughts. It is vastly better than telling, for telling things to pupils is not teaching, since it fails to cause the pupil's mind to act in any creativeway. It is a much abused method because many questions that an unwise teacher asks do not lead by synthesis to a common general truth or law. It is to be noted that the simplest form of questioning seeks only to obtain in answer a statement of fact, as when one asks how many miles it is from Jerusalem to Jericho, or who betrayed Jesus, or any similar question that calls for a statement of fact. A better question is one that sets all the currents of thought aflow, that causes one to stop, think, weigh, ponder, deliberate, before framing an answer. A careful study of Jesus' method of asking questions is of the utmost value in mastering the fine art of teaching by the question method. In Luke 9 Jesus asks the question, "Who do the multitudes say that I am?" After the disciples had reported all the guesses of the people, he asked, "But who say ye that I am?" This question went to the heart of the subject of his identity. It forced from Peter a great declaration. Wise questioning always touches the very center of discussion and crystallizes thought.
62.For more advanced classes it is a good plan to assign in advance certain subjects to be recited by the pupil in the recitation. When this is done, the teacher uses thetopical method. It requires a maximum of effort and should not be used with young pupils. It is an excellent method in the Bible classes.
63. Illustrations.—If the teacher uses objects, pictures, or drawings to make meaningful his language in teaching, he is using theillustrated method. This is especially valuable in the primary grades. The one necessary caution is that the objects, pictures, or drawings shall be wisely selected, and that in their use special care be taken that the interest of the pupils is focused upon the thought or fact to be taught and not upon the illustration.
64.If the teacher allows the pupils to consult the text while reciting, his method is likely to produce little permanent good. To fix the lesson in memory, to lay aside all books, to face the anxious and earnest teacher, is to secure the best results. Of course, there are times when the text is to be studied and when it is necessary to refer to the printed lesson, but a wise teacher will remember that when soul looks into soul the greatest possible good comes from teaching.
1. What is meant by a teaching method?
2. What is meant by theanalyticmethod?
3. Thesyntheticmethod?
4. What is meant by theinductivemethod?
5. Thedeductivemethod?
6. Why is thequestionmethod a good one?
7. Why is mere telling not teaching?
8. What kind of question is better than that which merely draws out a fact?
9. What is the topical method, and with what pupils should it be used?
10. What is the gain in using illustrations? What the danger?
11. Should the lesson text be consulted by the pupil when reciting? Why?
65. Value of the Concrete.—The world is made up of concrete things; that is, things which can be recognized by the senses. The first impressions the soul gets of this world are concrete. We call them individual or perceptual notions. The soul compares, classifies, generalizes these concrete notions into general or conceptual notions. These thought products are abstract. But all knowledge begins in these individual notions and hence all first presentations of a new lesson or a new object of thought must be in the concrete. The richer and more varied the concrete data, the more valuable is the mental result in abstract thought. When an abstract notion is presented to a class it is of no educational value unless it can be referred back in the mind of each pupil to some concrete experience in his own past. The teacher, knowing this, will always aim to interpret general truths, which are abstract, into terms of experience, which are concrete. When David wishes to express the thirst of his soul for God he says, "As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God." To a people familiar with Palestine and the habits of the hart this language at once made vividly real, in a concrete image, the great longing the pure soul has for its Creator.
66.All the tentacles of the soul seem to find in the concrete thing great sources of nourishment. Note the crowds that throng the zoölogical gardens, the flower expositions, the picture galleries, the museums of one sort or another, to see the potency of the concrete as a great teaching power. Explore a boy's pocket to learn what the concrete is worth. Why all these "scraps," broken glass, rusty nails, old knives, buttons, peculiar pebbles, colored strings, parts of a watch or clock, odd sticks, bits of chewing gum, ends of pencils, broken buckles, speckled beans, colored papers, bits of fur, and other things that he treasures? Because in a most potential way they are nutrition to his yearning soul. One will never fathom the real depths of the concrete as teachingdata until he can appreciate why the son of a President of the United States gladly traded rare exotic flowers from the White House conservatory for the discarded paper caps of common milk bottles.
67.The trouble we all experience is to discover just what concrete thing the general statement figures in the soul of the child. When our pupils read
"Up from the meadows rich with corn,Clear in the cool September morn,"
"Up from the meadows rich with corn,Clear in the cool September morn,"
what does it mean to them? Instance a poor child whose life is pent within the narrow walls of a city tenement, one who has never seen the park, much less the great, grand farms of the country; what can even this simple language of Whittier's figure to that child? Do you not see that first of all the needed thing in teaching is to bring new thoughts into terms of old thoughts, to interpret the new by the old, to translate all abstract truth into terms of conduct and into terms of real concrete experience. If then the pupil's personal experience is meager, how very difficult it is to teach him, and how very important it is that we should be wise enough to supply the concrete data necessary to make meaningful our teaching.
68. Tools for the Teacher.—The agencies at the teacher's disposal are objects, pictures, drawing, and stories. These demand extended study. Do you have a collection of objects and of pictures for teaching purposes? These are your tools. Be sure you carry a goodly store of them. Select them with care and use them with caution. If you cannot draw beautiful pictures, do not worry. But be sure you can, with a few strokes of the crayon, make concrete the thought you wish to emphasize. This power is of immeasurable value and the training of every teacher should include lessons in simple graphic illustration.
69. Stories.—But above all else, as equipment to teach, can you tell a story? The story is an abstract truth dressed in concrete garments. When Jesus was asked to define the wordneighborhe might have answered in some such definition as may be found in any dictionary. He was too wise a teacher to do that. He immediately translated the meaning of neighbor intothe concrete story of the good Samaritan and gave us an example of the loftiest teaching power the world has ever known. Every parable is an example of great skill in teaching the abstract by means of the concrete. Go over the series and note in how many ways the Kingdom of heaven is concreted into terms of the common experience of the people Jesus taught.
70.A good story, well told, at once attracts marked attention. The pupil unconsciously turns to a concrete incident and from that obtains the richest nutrition for his spirit. But the story must be well told. It must contain abundant elements of specific detail and must be packed with incidents that thrill with action. The old Mother Goose rhymes are excellent examples of stories full of action, and, as a result, of interest. The child personifies all things, that he may find in them the elements of life, of action, of things in the process of doing. If you will spend an hour with a boy who is riding a stick that is to him a horse, or a girl who is playing with a rag-doll, you will learn the method and value of action in the concrete materials of instruction.
71. Rhyme and Song.—If to the story is added the attractive appeal of rhythm, rhyme, and song the concrete materials of teaching become almost ideal. It is a good thing to conclude a well-told story with a short, simple poem and a song, both of which should relate to the same truth the story sets forth in the concrete. Through story, rhyme, and song the growing soul climbs most surely and securely to the lofty and illuminating vistas of God's universal laws. Maxims, precepts, proverbs, mottoes, laws, become meaningful and potential only when the soul moulds these mass motives of guidance from the plastic and suggestive data of a rich and varied contact with concrete experiences and things. "I am the vine," "I am the good shepherd," "I am the way," contain the very essence of all great method in the art of building a soul for the Kingdom of God and of service.
1. Give an illustration of a "concrete notion"?
2. What may be learned by the study of a boy's pocket?
3. By what means should we bring new thoughts to the pupil?
4. What are four tools at the teacher's disposal?
5. What constitutes a "good story"?
6. What appeal may well be added to the story?
72.The two processes at work in every good recitation areteaching and learning. The first of these processes is the work of the teacher; the latter is the work of the pupil. Learning includes study proper and practise in the use of knowledge learned. The learning process should, of course, be directed by the teacher.
73. Teaching, the work of the teacher, includes three distinct elements or parts:instruction,drill,examination. These may at times be supplemented by a fourth teaching process of considerable importance,review. Every good class exercise is made up of these elements. In certain cases the amount of time devoted to one or to the other of these varies greatly. No fixed law can be set. The judgment of the teacher, the condition of the class, the immediate purpose of the particular lesson, combine to make the relative value of these elements vary from one recitation to another. We can, however, study the purpose or function of each and arrive at some fairly adequate guidance.
74. Instructionis the process through which the teacher aims to assist the pupil in the acquisition of knowledge or power, or both. It may take the form of written or of oral instruction. Written instruction has to do with the mastery of the printed page. To know how to obtain knowledge from the printed page is an important end of instruction. "Understandest thou what thou readest?" is a question that goes to the heart of good written instruction. Oral instruction is the act of the living teacher in stimulating the pupil to know. It has three phases—objective,indirect, anddirect.
75.Objective instructionis the presentation to the eye or other sense of the pupil, by means of objects or pictures, some concrete thing which will aid the pupil to gain clear knowledge. We have already considered the value of this form of concrete instruction.
76.Indirect instructionis the process of recalling, throughmemory, past objective experiences and causing the mind to discern their likeness or unlikeness, their relations one to another, and to express a conclusion that the teacher does not first announce. In indirect instruction the learner is led to express his own past knowledge and, by comparing one fact with another, to arrive for himself at new knowledge. This is a most difficult but a most valuable type of instruction. It makes the pupil an explorer after truth and it should result in making him a discoverer of truth. The joy of original discovery possesses the soul of the successful pupil, who is taught by this indirect or suggestion method of instruction.
77.Direct instructionis the communication of facts by the teacher through oral language to the pupil. The pupil in this type of learning follows the statements of the teacher and sees for himself the truth of the facts presented and the conclusion reached. The danger of direct teaching lies in the fact that the teacher may fail to arouse in the pupil a current of thought corresponding to his own. In this case there is no resulting knowledge in the soul of the learner; and, instead, there is likely to be confusion or disorder in the class. This is a common phenomenon in classes that are so unfortunate as to have poor teachers. The law underlying all oral teaching is as follows:Do not tell the pupil directly what he may be reasonably expected to observe or discern for himself.
78. Drillis the process through which the teacher aims to assist the pupil in the acquisition of power and skill. The new truth, when first apprehended by the pupil, must be made so familiar to the learner that he can promptly and easily recall the new truth or knowledge. Drill is the agency that accomplishes this result. Note how often a boy or girl repeats some new sentence or word or game in order to fix its easy recall. Many teachers think repetition deadens interest. But without repetition Comenius rightly declares we do not know solidly. Repetition is nature's way of developing strength. It is of prime importance that every new truth be drilled until it is as familiar to the learner as old knowledge. Then it becomes easy of recall and ready for use. The wise teacher will avoid the abuse of the drill by so varying the exercise as to secure a maximum ofinterest, for interest is the basis of pleasure, and the soul does not easily retain knowledge that is not pleasurable.
79. Examinationis the process through which the teacher aims to test the result of instruction and learning. Its value is twofold: it adds to the learner's knowledge by the preparation he makes for the examination, and it gives the teacher a means of measuring the results obtained through instruction and drill. If the examination tests only knowledge gained by direct teaching, it is of little value. If, on the contrary, the questions are so phrased as to cause the pupil to think his way out of things known into some newer and higher order of knowledge, it is a valuable exercise. Usually before examinations are given the teacher and pupils join in areview.
80.Thereviewis an invaluable teaching agency when it results in such a reorganization of unrelated or partly related facts of knowledge as to give the pupil a clearer and surer grasp upon the relative value of the facts previously acquired. A drill fixes a given fact more securely or solidly in the soul; a review organizes these drilled facts into new systems and wider classifications. It is seeing the old once more, but seeing it from a new point of vantage; just as a man climbing a tower with windows at stated points sees in each case all that he saw before, but sees it in a new setting, sees it as part of a larger scene, and sees it finally as a part of a mighty whole. Wisely conducted, the review establishes proportion in the knowledge set in the soul and leads finally and directly to the fact that all truth is at last one truth; all life at last one life; all parts at last one great infinite unity, whose name is God.
1. What two processes are at work in every good recitation?
2. What four elements does teaching include?
3. What are the three phases of oral instruction?
4. Define each of these three phases.
5. What law underlies all oral teaching?
6. What is meant by drill?
7. Define examination. What is its twofold value?
8. When is a review valuable?
81.The soul bythinking, feeling, and willingcompletes its round of activities. It is not a three-parted power, each part doing one and only one of these things; but it is a single power, capable of doing in turn all these things. The soulthinkingis at work in an intellectual process. The soulfeelingis at work in an emotional process. The soulwillingis at work in a volitional process. These three processes are so inter-related that it is not easy to separate them at any given time, and yet a bit of reflection upon how the soul does operate will make fairly clear these distinct processes. A child that has not been made unnatural by arbitrary training always follows its emotions and its thoughts by action. The inference from this is significant. The soul untrammeled always translates thought and feeling into action. This is only another way of saying that all intellectual and emotional products are under the direction of the will.The will is the power of the soul that resolves to do, that causes us to act.The will uses thought and feeling in much the same way that a sailor uses compass and rudder to guide a vessel in the right course.
82. The First Step, Obedience.—At the beginning the feeling and thought elements are so numerous and so complex that the will is unable rightly to organize all this data into guidance. Hence the child must be guided by a will that has, through experience, acquired this power. The will of the parent and of the teacher is at the outset the effective guide, and the one necessity for the welfare of the child is obedience. Gradually the child finds his way through the maze of things his intellect and his sensibilities have retained, and then he becomes self-directive. His own will has asserted itself. He is now able and should be free to direct his own actions. When he does this his difficulties will not disappear. At times, he will find his will at a loss to give the guidance he knows he should have. Then, by all means, it is important that he should willingly surrender his finite will to the infinite will, his imperfect guidance to theperfect guidance; and he shall thus find his complete freedom of action in full surrender to the will of Almighty God.
83.In this first stage, when parent and teacher are motive and will to him, the child needs to be guided with the utmost care.There must be reasonableness in the guidance.Caprice, anger, impatience, arbitrariness, and severity are the methods of weaklings and cowards. From all such the child should be freed. Consistency, kindness, patience, reasonableness, and moderation are the methods of strong, successful teachers. If you utter a command, see to it that the child obeys. Nothing is quite so deadly in the realm of the will as the fact that the pupil knows that his teacher threatens, commands, talks—but never acts. If you really do not intend to enforce obedience, do not utter the command. If you do not intend to compel obedience, do not assume the rôle of guide and teacher. How many children come into caprice instead of regulated conduct because they have from infancy lived in a realm of caprice, of confusion, and of disorder; a realm that moved by no law and hence set no law of guidance in the soul of the child.
84. The Aim of Teaching is Right Living.—We err when we assume that intellectual endeavor will inevitably lead to right conduct. Nothing is more obvious than the fact that our conduct is far below the plane of our thought. Weknowvastly better than wedothe things that are right and true. Nor do we quite understand the function of good teaching if we neglect to cultivate the feeling powers of the soul. It is my conviction that we act more nearly in harmony with our feelings than our thoughts. If, then, conduct, right action, or character is the end of all true teaching; if, as Jesus taught, it is not what we know, nor yet what we feel, but what we do, that makes life worth while, it is of the utmost importance that we should so train the feeling life as well as the thought life as to prepossess the soul to right conduct. But the feelings are intensely concrete. Whence arises again the value of concrete teaching as a method in will training.
85. Self-control.—Aim to bring the pupil speedily into the exercise of his own will, into self-regulated conduct. Nothing will so surely negative good instruction as to deny to the pupil the freedom to exercise his own will as soon as that will hasbecome sufficiently powerful and reasonable to be an adequate agency to direct the pupil's conduct. Many teachers and parents insist upon guiding the pupil long after he is capable of self-direction. Here, of course, is the critical moment in the pupil's life, and only the most careful study of the pupil and constant prayer for Divine assistance will insure the wisest procedure. When a boy has acquired self-control it is always a mistake to treat him as you would a small child. His self-respect is involved in his desire to do things in the way his own will determines. To ignore this fact is to predispose the boy to rebellion against his teacher; and perhaps against all constituted authority—human and divine.
86. Teach What to do, Rather than What not to do.—Above all, do not build a negative code in the soul of a child. It is not what he is restrained from doing, but what he is constantly encouraged to do that makes for right will training. The great power of Jesus as a teacher lies in his steadfast ability to teach the world what to do, how to act, right conduct in the midst of complex conditions. A negative code stops all endeavor, a positive code sets the soul aglow with the consciousness of things done, of processes initiated and completed, of struggles with wrong successfully ended, of progress from weakness to strength, from human error to Divine truth.
87.The end of all endeavor is to do the will of God, and the goal of all teaching is to equip a human soul to live in joyous accord with the infinite wisdom. "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."
1. In what three ways does the soul round out its activities?
2. What is meant by the will?
3. What should be the effective guide for the child at first?
4. Name five elements that characterize the methods of strong teachers.
5. Why are some children capricious rather than obedient?
6. What is the aim of teaching?
7. What mistake will most surely negative good instruction?
8. What is Jesus' great power as a teacher?
9. What is the goal of all teaching?
1. What is meant by a law of the soul?
2. What is the first law as to the subject matter of teaching?
3. What is the earliest power that becomes educationally active?
4. What is meant by the inductive method?
5. Why is mere telling not teaching?
6. What is the gain, and what the danger, in using illustrations?
7. Illustrate what is meant by a concrete notion.
8. What are four tools at the teacher's disposal?
9. What constitutes a good story?
10. What two processes are at work in every good recitation?
11. What are the three phases of oral instruction?
12. When is a review valuable?
13. What is meant by the will?
14. Name five elements that characterize good teaching?
15. What is Jesus' great power as a teacher?Note.—This entire subject has been more fully discussed by Dr. Brumbaugh in his book "The Making of a Teacher."