A brief course in the teaching process

CHAPTER VIII
THE STUDY LESSON

That it is the main business of the teacher to render her services unnecessary cannot be too often reiterated. To be able to reason clearly one’s self; to have control of one’s habits; in short, to know how to use one’s energies to best advantage when the problems of life are encountered, is the greatest benefit to be derived from education. We shall concern ourselves in this discussion with study as it involves controlled thinking, whether inductive or deductive; with the most economical method of making knowledge more available for use by increasing the possibility of recall; and with the possibility of reducing certain knowledge or responses, whether physical or mental, to the basis of habit.

In general, our problem in teaching children to study consists in making them conscious of the best methods to be employed in logical thinking, or in the formation of habits, and then in giving sufficient practice in the use of these methods to make them the habitual manner of reaction, as far as this is possible. It is true, of course, that one who applies the logical method to a question of mathematics or geography may be swayed by prejudice when the question concerns politics or religion; and that the man who knows best how to form desirable habits may be so bound by some other that he will fail to achieve that which he knows to be desirable. Be this as it may, if the school makes the child conscious of the most economical methods of work, the chances for later efficiency are greatly increased.

Strangely enough, what we have been prone to call good teaching has not always accomplished this desired result. It has too often happened that the direction and help offered by the teacher have tended to make the child dependent, utterly unable to do a piece of work for himself. Even when children have supposedly been required to do much thinking, the teacher has sometimes weakened her work by continually stepping in to propose the next step whenever a critical point has been reached. The argument which proves conclusively that children do not learn to work independently is found in their inability in the upper grades, in the high school, and even in the college to use their time to good advantage.[11]

In teaching children how to study, the first step involves a clear statement of the problem to be solved. The teacher who says “take the next five pages” cannot expect that the children will do anything more, so far as learning how to study is concerned, than waste time in fulfilling her demands. We think hard when we have a problem to solve. If it be true that children need to have an aim clearly in mind when they are at work with the teacher, it is much more essential that they should have clearly in mind the goal toward which they are striving when they work alone. Whenever children are expected to do any work at their seats or at home, the type of assignment becomes a determining factor. It is a mistake to suppose that a minute or two at the end of a recitation will be sufficient to make clear to the pupils the problem involved in the work to be accomplished during the study hour. The best time to make assignments is when, as the subject is developed, a problem arises which cannot then be solved. A good recitation ought to culminate in the statement of the questions yet to be answered quite as much as in a statement of what has been accomplished. If the class has been kept intellectually alert, there ought to be raised by the children many questions, which may be assigned either to the whole class or to individuals for report at a succeeding recitation.

A very good incentive to study is found in making assignments to individuals or groups for report to the whole class. Even if the problem itself is not of surpassing interest, the desire to contribute one’s share to the group project, and the wish to do as well as one’s neighbor, will stimulate to greater effort. It would be well if teachers tested their own work and the children’s comprehension of the assignments made by asking frequently during the study period for a statement of the problem. To read a book intelligently, to perform an experiment to advantage, children must know what they seek. The attitude which we hope to develop should lead a child to ask, when in doubt, such questions as these: “What am I to try to find out from reading this chapter?” “What am I to look for on the excursion?” “What is the problem which we are now discussing?” “Is the report which has just been made to the point?” “Did John’s answer have anything to do with the question we are discussing?” and the like. When children have learned to expect to work toward the accomplishment of some definite result in thought as well as in action, when they hold to the main issue regardless of the allurements of subsidiary problems which should be held for later investigation, when they become critical of the contributions offered by books or by their companions, then, and not until then, have they taken the first step in learning to study.

When children have become conscious of the meaning of the aim or problem as an element in successful study, and when their practice is guided by this consciousness, they will meet with another difficulty in learning how to secure the data adequate for the solution of the problem. Before leaving the elementary school, children should know how to use dictionaries, encyclopedias, gazetteers, year books, and the like. It is passing strange that college students often seem not to know the purpose either of the table of contents or of the index in the books which they use. It is pitiful to see a person leafing through a book trying to find information on some question at issue, when in a minute he could find in the index just the page or section in which this topic is treated, and so spend the time gathering data instead of wasting it in a random search for the information desired. It is necessary to teach children to consult the indices and tables of contents of books, and to give them frequent practice in work of this kind, if they are commonly to employ this device or method.

Another help to the collection of data might very well begin to be used in the intermediate grades of the elementary school; it is the practice of noting, when more than one book or source of information is used, just where the information is to be found, and something of its nature. If the pupil consults more than one authority, the one read last may raise questions which must be answered by a return to those used earlier, and one ought to be able to turn directly to the sources formerly consulted. Or it may be that a similar problem, or one having much in common with it, will arise a week or a month later, when a record of the sources of information consulted before will lighten the work by half. A record of this sort could be kept in notebooks, or, as is done by older people who know how to work, in a card index. Of course work of this kind presupposes the use of some books other than a single textbook; and to go very far in giving children the command of the technique of study we shall have to provide ourselves with more than a single book for a subject.

Another way by which children can be greatly helped is teaching them how to take notes and how to annotate. There is no exercise more valuable to the student, so far as his future work is concerned, than practice in writing in a very few words the gist of a paragraph or page. As they reflect later, they may want to know the argument of this authority or that, but they must have it in condensed form or they will be little better off than when they began their work. A very helpful exercise is to have children to abstract, either orally or in writing, a page or two of a book which they are studying, and to compare results. In this work the problem is that which confronts the thinker at every stage of his work, the selection of that which is relevant and the discarding of that which is less significant. If we think logically, among the mass of possible data we must always choose that which in our judgment is relatively most valuable for our purpose. The teacher in the organization of material for presentation in any subject is confronted constantly with the problem of relative values. Not all can be presented, even though relevant to the issue involved; hence, choice must be made. And just so, if the child learns to study, to conduct his own investigations, he must be made conscious of this need of discrimination, and he must be given practice in its exercise.

Adequate study demands not simply that an abundance of data which bear on the problem be secured, but that the validity of the data be brought into question. Children ought not to accept blindly the statements of books or even of the teacher. The one thing which characterizes the student is his search for truth, his attitude of inquiry as opposed to an appeal to authority. It is well for children at times to question the statements found in their books when experience suggests the doubt. It is equally important, of course, that they be willing to acknowledge their mistake, should proof be forthcoming in support of the book. If a child really studies, he must, even as an adult, find statements of fact, the records of observations or experiments, which are at variance with the evidence which he already possesses. It is just in this particular that the student differs from ordinary men who allow others to do their thinking for them. The student may not be able to settle the question, and so forms a judgment which is frankly tentative. Children ought to have the experience of finding that there are some questions to which a definite answer cannot, in the present state of knowledge, be given. They should be shown, wherever possible, how the conclusions of men on some of the most important problems that have been studied have changed from time to time. They can at times be made to realize the folly of overhasty generalization.

No one has learned how to study who has not been trained to reflect upon his experience, whether the experience has been recently acquired with the express purpose of solving his problem, or is some more remote element in experience which may shed light on the question in hand. A skillful teacher can guide in this process of reflection, and will later tell them what is meant, and demonstrate for them something of the value of the practice. It is quite worth while for a student to know when he has concentrated his attention upon a problem, and just what is meant by reflection. Many older people deceive themselves into thinking that they are exercising themselves in these directions when a slight acquaintance with the elements involved in fixing attention or in reflection might awaken them to the futility of their practices. There need be nothing occult or hard to understand about the practice of study. It is not a matter of terminology nor of a systematic course in psychology, but rather consists in guiding the individual in his practice of the art, and then making known to him the elements in his experience which have meant success or failure. It may be enlightening to compare the emphasis upon careful examination of data, the formation of tentative rather than fixed judgments, the guarding against hasty generalizations, and the emphasis upon reflection with the steps of presentation, of comparison and abstraction, and of generalization in the inductive lesson, and with the corresponding steps of the deductive lesson. The conviction will probably be deepened that when the teacher instructs the student in the art of study she is making available for him the method which she employs in instruction. This must be the relationship; for the teacher can do nothing more than take account of the way the child learns, and adapt her method to his possibilities.

The habit of verification is one of the most important from the point of view of learning how to study. The questions which the student must constantly ask himself are: “Can the conclusions be applied?” “Do they always hold?” “Does it work?” Fine-spun theories are of little avail, however much satisfaction the originator of them may have found in deriving them. At every step in the progress of his thought the conclusions must be tested by an appeal to known facts. The teacher cannot too frequently insist upon this step as the criterion of the worth of the thinking which has been done. And the insistence will be necessary, for it seems natural for human beings to become so enamored of their theories that they hesitate to expose them to the test which may prove them false.

Teaching children to memorize: Throughout the school life of the child, memorizing is a regular part of his work. If practice alone were necessary, every child should soon learn how to do this kind of work in the most economical manner. The great difficulty is that often neither teacher nor pupil has given any thought to the method employed, their attention having been wholly engrossed with success or failure in achieving the result. It is a well established principle of psychology that the possibility of recall is conditioned by the system of ideas with which that which we wish to recall has been identified. The more associations made, or the more perfect our control of any system of ideas which involves that which we wish to remember, the greater the probability of bringing to mind the fact when we need it. As Professor James puts it: “Of two men with the same outward experience, the one who thinks over his experiences most, and weaves them into the most systematic relations with each other, will be the one with the best memory.” And along with this fact is another equally important for the teacher: that we may not hope to increase the native power of retentiveness. The child whom we teach may be endowed by nature with little or much power of this sort, and we cannot change it; but we can improve his method of memorizing.

The first step in memorizing is to understand. If we try to commit to memory the words of a book when we do not fully comprehend the meaning, we are depending very largely on our desultory memory, i.e. upon our ability to remember the things because they have been once present in mind; and our efficiency will depend wholly upon our quality of native retentiveness. But, unfortunately, for want of knowledge of a better method, children are frequently satisfied that they are doing adequate work when they are repeating over and over again the words which they have made little attempt to comprehend.

Even when the sense of the words to be memorized is fairly clear, it is uneconomical to employ this method of accretion. The child who studies the poem by saying first the first line, then the second, then the first and second, then the third, then the first, the second, and the third, depends upon mere repetition, not upon thinking, for the persistence of the impression. It has been demonstrated that on the basis of the amount of time required this method is uneconomical. Add to this the fact that after the first complete repetition, later successful recall depends upon the efficiency of the system of associated ideas which have been established; and there can be no doubt of the folly of such a method of procedure. It is no wonder that children who commit to memory in this way forget so readily. They may have understood what they said when they first repeated the poem; but the method they employed almost precludes the building up of a system of associated ideas on the basis of careful thinking.

If the child has read aloud and understands the selection to be memorized, the next thing to be done is to analyze it into its principal thought units; and then each of these large units of thought may be again carefully scrutinized until a full appreciation of the thought has been accomplished. The thought of the whole may then be stated, using as far as possible the words of the author, and then each of the subdivisions or thought units may be examined in more detail in order to get the shade of meaning that is brought out by this or that word, by relationship of coördination or subordination of clause, or the modification indicated by this word or phrase. It will be necessary, as the work progresses on the large thought units into which the selection has been divided, to return constantly to the whole thought in order to keep clear the relationship of the part to the whole, and to establish the part in the system of ideas which we seek to build up. “All the evidence we have goes to show that the method of memorizing by wholes is most economical.”[12] If children were taught to work in this way, there would be little drudgery about memorizing. The careful, thoughtful study once completed, memorization has been accomplished. The energy and attention of the child have not been centered upon a merely technical process, but he has been concerned mainly in trying to appreciate fully the thought that he is to make his own. Memory work of this kind is highly educative, not merely because of the product, but also because of the process employed. Suppose, for example, you wish children to memorize Stevenson’s Bed in Summer:—

You would begin by reading the whole poem, calling to mind the experiences of the children in going to bed before dark on the long summer evenings and of the cold, dark winter mornings when they may have dressed before it was light. The number and the kind of explanations which will need to be made will, of course, depend upon the previous experience of the children and the time of the year. Then the poem might be read again a time or two. After this preliminary work has been done, you might ask some one to tell you the story. Let us suppose that the reply was about as follows: “A little boy had to get up before it was light in the winter, and go to bed before it was dark in the summer. In summer when he went to bed he heard the birds hopping on the trees and the people walking past him in the street. He thought it was hard to have to go to bed when it was still daylight, when he wanted so much to play.” If the main facts were less well told, or if there were notable omissions, it would be necessary to get at least an outline of the main thought before proceeding. Now we are ready to call the attention of the children to three main thoughts, each told in a stanza. First, the difference between getting up in winter and going to bed in summer. Second, what did the boy in the story see and hear when he went to bed before dark? Third, how do you feel when you have to go to bed in summer while the sky is still so clear and blue, and you would like so much to play?

It will be very easy to get the thought of the first stanza impressed in the words of the author. It will help to read the whole poem again, the teacher meanwhile asking the children to pay particular attention to the way the author says it. Possibly there will be some difficulty with “quite the other way,” but skillful questioning will get the correct form. And so for the second and third stanzas; if the thought is clear, the words will follow very easily. After each thought has been thus carefully developed, with the whole story always in mind, and the words of the author have been made the vehicle of expressing the thought by the children, it will be advantageous to have the poem repeated several times by individual members of the class. In this repetition the dramatic element should enter as far as possible. To suit the action to the word, to really feel what one recites, helps greatly to strengthen the impression, and thus aids recall.

It may be thought that the illustration used was particularly well adapted to illustrate the theory advanced. Or some teacher may say that children would memorize Bed in Summer without teaching. It may, therefore, not be out of place to suggest that the best way to discover for one’s self the value of the method is to try it. It will work equally well if the subject is Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, a selection from the Declaration of Independence, the Twenty-third Psalm, or any other masterpiece of English.

The principles to be applied are essentially the same even when verbatim memorization is not required. To get lasting control of the facts of geography or of history, one must have reduced them to a system. There must be a relating of less important facts to more important, a clustering of important points of reference to any other facts which are logically related. This, indeed, is just what scientific organization means, and the main purpose of such organization is to render facts more available, to save labor. The memory is relieved of much of its burden when once we have established the relationship of cause and effect, of equivalence, of similarity, or of analogy among facts. It is this association of ideas on a logical basis which counts most in the possibility of recall.

It is quite possible for children, very early in their school life, to begin to apply these principles and to become conscious of the fact that the way they do their work has an important bearing upon the ease with which it is accomplished and the permanency of the results gained. The work of the teacher is not done by merely dictating the method, even though that may help greatly to establish right habits of study; our best assurance that the method will be employed when the teacher is not present to direct the work is found in our knowledge that the children not only habitually, but also when a question arises or there is a suggestion of another way, consciously employ the right method.

Teaching children how to form habits: Our next problem is to inquire how children may be led consciously to employ the principles of habit formation when their school work involves work of this type. They can be taught the function of drill or repetition, and can be led to see under what conditions such work will prove most successful. It is not difficult to prove to a boy that his listless, half-hearted work in repeating the spelling of the words he has missed is making little improvement in his ability to spell them. A boy can be led to see by an illustration in which he himself is the chief actor that concentrated attention will make much difference. Let him see how much he can accomplish in ten minutes, and thus get him in the habit of using this means when he finds that he is not working up to his normal capacity. Show him that a new impetus will be given and that attention will be easier if he reverses the order, writes instead of spelling orally, or closes his eyes and attempts to visualize the words. No matter what motive the boy has for the attempt he is making, he will welcome the suggestions which make the task easier.

Later you can teach this same boy the need of verification before drilling himself whenever a question of fact is raised. In the beginning, of course, the doubt or question will be raised by the teacher, and it will be the chief work of the child to find an authority and assure himself that he has the right idea or form before proceeding. A big step in the education of a child has been taken when he is able to say, “I know I am right, because I have consulted the commonly accepted authority.” Occasions will arise constantly in the study of any subject where, instead of asking the teacher or being satisfied with information which is of questionable validity, the child should, as a matter of habit, turn to the authority for verification. It is not at all unusual for children to have misgivings, but they too frequently end by going ahead and ignoring their doubt. To respect one’s doubts, to be somewhat critical, is significant for education only when one is led thereby to endeavor to discover the truth. Children will work to advantage when they realize that these steps of doubt, verification, repetition, with undivided attention, are essential to good work.

Children can be taught the necessity of accuracy in practice. Any day’s work in a schoolroom will furnish illustrations of the danger of lapses and the necessity of guarding against them. The fallacy of the notion that “this one doesn’t count” can be made just as clear to children as to adults. So, too, the mistaken notion that cramming may be substituted for systematic work day in and day out can be brought to the attention of pupils.

It would be a good plan for every teacher to ask herself questions like the following: “What would the children do if I did not carefully direct their work?” “How much better able are they now to work independently than they were at the beginning of the year?” “Can they take a book and find in it the part which bears upon the topic assigned for study, and do they do it with the least possible waste of time and energy?” “Do they know how to memorize; what it means to concentrate their attention; how to reflect?” “Are they more open-minded or more dogmatic on account of the year spent with me?” “Have they established the habit of verification?” “Do they appreciate the method to be employed in habit formation?” To answer these questions honestly will give the teacher some idea of her success as a teacher, for the teacher’s goal is realized in proportion as her pupils have advanced in power to work independently of her guidance or control.

In teaching children how to study, it will be well to devote whole periods to this type of exercise. The teacher will gain much in the progress which her class will make by taking a period frequently during which she studies with the children. By example rather than by precept, by guiding children in correct methods of study and then making them conscious that they have done their work to the best possible advantage, rather than by telling them what to do, she will secure the maximum of results in her endeavor to teach children how to study.