How to Study and Teaching How to Study Part 4

The worth of specific aims for children as a source of energy in general is likewise great. It is a question whether children under three years of age are ever lazy. But certainly within a few years after that age--owing to the bad effect of civilization, Rousseau might say--many of them make great progress toward laziness of both body and mind.

The possibilities in this direction were once strikingly ill.u.s.trated in an orphan asylum in New York City. The two hundred children in this asylum had been in the habit of marching to their meals in silence, eating in silence, and marching out in silence. They had been trained to the "lock step" discipline, until they were _quiet_ and _good_ to a high degree. The old superintendent having resigned on account of age, an experienced teacher, who was an enthusiast in education, succeeded him in that office. Feeling depressed by the lack of life among the children, the latter concluded, after a few weeks, to break the routine by taking thirty of the older boys and girls to a circus. But shortly before the appointed day one of these girls proved so refractory that she was told that she could not be allowed to go.

To the new superintendent's astonishment, however, she did not seem disappointed or angered; she merely remarked that she had never seen a circus and did not care much to go anyway. Shortly afterward he fined several of the children for misconduct. Many of them had a few dollars of their own, received from relatives and other friends. But the fines did not worry them. They were not in the habit of spending money, having no occasion for it; all that they needed was food, clothing, and shelter, and these the inst.i.tution was bound to give. Then he deprived certain unruly children of a share in the games. That again failed to cause acute sorrow. In the great city they had little room for play, and many had not become fond of games. It finally proved difficult to discover anything that they cared for greatly. Their discipline had accomplished its object, until they were usually "good"

simply because they were too dull, too wanting in ideas and interests to be mischievous. Their energy in general was low. Here was a demand for specific purposes without limit.

One of the first aims that the new superintendent set up, after making this discovery, was to inculcate live interests in these children, a capacity to enjoy the circus, a love even of money, a love of games, of flowers, of reading, and of companions.h.i.+p. His means was the fixing of definite and interesting objects to be accomplished from day to day, and these gradually restored the children to their normal condition. Thus all children need the help of specific aims, and some need it sadly.

_Is it normal to expect children to learn to set up specific aims for themselves?_

There remains the very important question, Are children themselves capable of learning to set up such purposes? Or at least would such attempts seem to be normal for them? This question cannot receive a final answer at present, because children have not been sufficiently tested in this respect. It has so long been the habit in school to collect facts and leave their bearings on life to future accident, that the force of habit makes it difficult to measure the probabilities in regard to a very different procedure.

Yet there are some facts that are very encouraging. A large number of the tasks that children undertake outside of school are self imposed, many of these including much intellectual work. Largely as a result of such tasks, too, they probably learn at least as much outside of school as they learn in school, and they learn it better.

Further, when called upon in school to do this kind of thinking, they readily respond. A teacher one day remarked to her cla.s.s, "I have a little girl friend living on the Hudson River, near Albany, who has been ill for many weeks. It occurred to me that you might like to write her some letters that would help her to pa.s.s the time more pleasantly. Could you do it?" "Yes, by all means," was the response.

"Then what will you choose to write about?" said the teacher. One girl soon inquired, "Do you think that she would like to know how I am training my bird to sing?" Several other interesting topics were suggested. The finding of desirable purposes is not beyond children's abilities.

Individual examples, however, can hardly furnish the best answer to the question at present; the general nature of children must determine it. If children are leading lives that are rich enough intellectually and morally to furnish numerous occasions to turn their acquisitions to account, then it would certainly be reasonable to expect them to discover some of these occasions. If, on the other hand, their lives are comparatively barren, it might be unnatural to make such a demand upon them.

The feeling is rather common that human experience becomes rich only as the adult period is reached; that childhood is comparatively barren of needs, and valuable mainly as a period of storage of knowledge to meet wants that will arise later. Yet is this true? By the time the adult state is reached, one has pa.s.sed through the princ.i.p.al kinds of experience; the period of struggle is largely over, and the results have registered themselves in habits. The adult is to a great extent a bundle of habits.

The child, and the youth in the adolescent age, on the other hand, are just going the round of experience for the first few times. They are just forming their judgments as to the values of things about them.

Their intellectual life is abundant, as is shown by their innumerable questions. Their temptations--such as to become angry, to fight, to lie, to cheat, and to steal--are more numerous and probably more severe than they will usually be later; their opportunities to please and help others, or to offend and hinder, are without limit; and their joys and sorrows, though of briefer duration than later, are more numerous and often fully as acute. In other words, they are in the midst of growth, of habit formation, both intellectually and morally.

Theirs is the time of life when, to a peculiar degree, they are experimentally related to their environment. Why, then, should they be taught to look past this period, to their distant future as the harvest time for their knowledge and powers? The occasions are abundant _now_ for turning facts and abilities to account, and it is normal to expect them to see many of these opportunities. Proper development requires that they be trained to look for them, instead of looking past them.

Here is seen the need of one more reform in education. Children used to be regarded as lacking value in themselves; their worth lay in their promise of being men and women; and if, owing to ill health, this promise was very doubtful, they were put aside. For education they were given that mental pabulum that was considered valuable to the adult; and their tastes, habits, and manners were judged from the same viewpoint.

Very recently one radical improvement has been effected in this program. As ill.u.s.trated in the doctrine of apperception, we have grown to respect the natures of children, even to accept their instincts, their native tendencies, and their experiences as the proper _basis_ for their education. That is a wonderful advance. But we do not yet regard their present experience as furnis.h.i.+ng the _motive_ for their education. We need to take one more step and recognize their present lives as the field wherein the knowledge that they acquire shall function. We do this to some extent; but we lack faith in the abundance of their present experience, and are always impatiently looking forward to a time when their lives will be rich.

In feeding children we have our eyes primarily on the present; food is given them in order to be a.s.similated and used _now_ to satisfy _present_ needs; that is the best way of guaranteeing health for the future. Likewise in giving them mental and spiritual food, our attention should be directed primarily to its present value. It should be given with the purpose of present nourishment, of satisfying present needs; other more distant needs will thereby be best served.

A few years ago, when I was discussing this topic with a cla.s.s at Teachers College, I happened to observe a recitation in the Horace Mann school in which a cla.s.s of children was reading _Silas Marner_.

They were frequently reproved for their unnaturally harsh voices, for their monotones, indistinct enunciation, and poor grouping of words.

In the Speyer school, nine blocks north of this school, I had often observed the same defects.

At about that time one of my students, interested in the early history of New York, happened to call upon an old woman living in a shanty midway between these two schools. She was an old inhabitant, and one of the early roadways that the student was hunting had pa.s.sed near her house. In conversation with the woman he learned that she had had five children, all of whom had been taken from her some years before, within a fortnight, by scarlet fever; and that since then she had been living alone. When he remarked that she must feel lonesome at times, tears came to her eyes, and she replied, "Sometimes." As he was leaving she thanked him for his call and remarked that she seldom had any visitors; she added that, if some one would drop in now and then, either to talk or to read to her, she would greatly appreciate it; her eyes had so failed that she could no longer read for herself.

Here was an excellent chance to improve the children's reading by enabling them to see that the better their reading the more pleasure could they give to those about them. This seems typical of the present relation between the school and its environing world. While the two need each other sadly, the school is isolated somewhat like the old- time monastery. The fixing of specific aims for study can aid materially in establis.h.i.+ng the normal relation, and children can certainly contribute to this end by discovering some of these purposes themselves. That is one of the things that they should _learn_ to do.

PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS FOR TEACHING CHILDREN TO FIND SPECIFIC AIMS FOR THEIR STUDY

_1. Elimination of subject-matter that has little bearing on life_

The elimination from the curriculum of such subject-matter as has no probable bearing on ordinary mortals is one important step to take in giving children definite aims in their study. There is much of this matter having little excuse for existence beyond the fact that it "exercises the mind"; for example: in arithmetic, the finding of the Greatest Common Divisor as a separate topic, the tables for Apothecaries' weight and Troy measure, Complex and Compound Fractions;[Footnote: For a more complete list of such topics, see Teachers College Record, _Mathematics in the Elementary School_, March, 1903, by David Eugene Smith and F. M. McMurry.] in geography, the location of many unimportant capes, bays, capitals and other towns, rivers and boundaries; in nature study, many cla.s.sifications, the detailed study of leaves, and the study of many uncommon wild plants. The teaching of facts that cannot function in the lives of pupils directly encourages the mere collecting habit, and thus tends to defeat the purpose here proposed. Not that we do not wish children to collect facts; but while acquiring them we want children to carry the responsibility of discovering ways of turning them to account, and mere collecting tends to dull this sense of responsibility.

_2. The example to be set by the teacher_

By her own method of instruction the teacher can set an example of what she desires from her pupils in the way of concrete aims. For instance: (a) during recitation she can occasionally suggest opportunities for the application of knowledge and ability. "This is a story that you might tell to other children," she might say; or, "Here is something that you might dramatize." "You might talk with your father or mother about this." "Could you read this aloud to your family?" Again, (b) in the a.s.signment of lessons she might set a definite problem that would bring the school work into direct touch with the outside world. In fine art, instead of having children make designs for borders, without any particular use for the design, she might suggest, "Find some object or wall surface that needs a border, and see if you can design one that will be suitable." As a task in arithmetic for a fifth-year cla.s.s in a small town, she might a.s.sign the problem, "To find out as accurately as possible whether or not it pays to keep a cow." Finally, (c) as part of an examination, she can ask the cla.s.s to recall purposes that they have kept in mind in the study of certain topics. By such means the teacher can make clear to a cla.s.s what is meant by interesting or useful aims of study, and also impress them with the fact that she feels the need of studying under the guidance of such aims.

_3. The responsibility the children should bear._

The teacher need not do a great amount of such work for her cla.s.s. The children should _learn to do it themselves_, and they will not acquire the ability mainly by having some one else do it for them.

Therefore, after the children have come to understand the requirement fairly well, the teacher might occasionally a.s.sign a lesson by specifying only the quant.i.ty, as such and such pages, or such and such topics, in the geography or history, with the understanding that the cla.s.s shall state in the next recitation one or more aims for the lesson; for example, if it is the geography of Russia, How it happens that we hear so often of famines in Russia, while we do not hear of them in other parts of Europe; or, if it is the history of Columbus, For what characteristic is Columbus to be most admired? Again, In what ways has his discovery of America proved of benefit to the world? The finding of such problems will then be a part of the study necessary in mastering the lesson.

Likewise, during the recitation and without any hint from the teacher, the children should show that they are carrying the responsibility of establis.h.i.+ng relations of the subject-matter with life, by mentioning further bearings, or possible uses, that they discover.

Review lessons furnish excellent occasions for study of this kind. It is narrow to review lessons only from the point of view of the author.

His view-point should be reviewed often enough to become well fixed, but there should be other view-points taken also.

John Fiske has admirably presented the history of the period immediately following the Revolution. The t.i.tle of his book, _The Critical Period of American History_, makes us curious from the beginning to know how the period was so critical. This is a fine example of a specific aim governing a whole book. But other aims in review might be, Do we owe as much to Was.h.i.+ngton during this period as during the war just preceding? Or were other men equally or more prominent? How was the establishment of a firm Union made especially difficult by the want of certain modern inventions? The pupils themselves should develop the power to suggest such questions.

_4. The sources to which children should look for suggestions_

The teacher can teach the children _where to look for suggestions_ in their search for specific purposes. During meals, three times a day, interesting topics of conversation are welcome; indeed, the dearth of conversation at such times, owing to lack of "something to say," is often depressing. There is often need of something to unite the family of evenings, such as a magazine article read aloud, or a good narrative, or a discussion of some timely topic. There are social gatherings where the people "don't know what to do"; there are recesses at school where there is the same difficulty; there are neighbors, brothers and sisters, and other friends who are more than ready to be entertained, or instructed, or helped. Yet children often dramatize stories at school, without ever thinking of doing the same for the entertainment of their family at home. They read good stories without expecting to tell them to any one. They collect good ideas about judging pictures, without planning to beautify their homes through them. Thus the children can be made conscious that there are _wants_ on all sides of them, and by some study of their environment they can find many aims that will give purpose to their school work.

Again, by a review of their past studies, their reading, and their experience of various kinds, they can be reminded of objects that they are desirous of accomplis.h.i.+ng. It is, perhaps, needless to say that the teacher herself must likewise make a careful study of the home, street, and school life of her pupils, of their study and reading, if she is to guide them most effectually in their own search for desirable aims.

_5. Stocking up with specific aims in advance_

Finally, the teacher can lead her pupils to stock up with specific aims _even in advance of their immediate needs_. A teacher who visits another school with the desire of getting helpful suggestions would better write down beforehand the various things that she wishes to see. She can afford to spend considerable time and energy upon such a list of points. Otherwise, she is likely to overlook half of the things she was anxious to inquire about.

Likewise, children can be taught to jot down in a notebook various problems that they hope to solve, various wants observed in their environment that they may help to satisfy. Children who are much interested in reading, sometimes without outside suggestion make lists of good books that they have heard of and hope to read. And as they read some, they add others to their list. Keeping this list in mind, they are on the lookout for any of these books, and improve the opportunity to read one of them whenever it offers. A similar habit in regard to things one would like to know and do can be cultivated, so that one will have a rich stock of aims on hand in advance, and these will help greatly to give purpose to the work later required in the school.

_6. The importance of moderation in demands made upon children._

In conclusion, it may be of importance to add that this kind of instruction can be easily overdone, and it is better to proceed too slowly than too rapidly. It is a healthy and permanent development that is wanted, and the teacher should rest satisfied if it is slow.

It is by no means feasible to attempt to subordinate all study to specific aims; we cannot see our way to accomplish that now. But we can do something in that direction. Only occasional attempts with the younger children will be in place; more conscious efforts will be fitting among older pupils. By the time the elementary school is finished, a fair degree of success in discovering specific aims can be expected.

Yet, even if little more than a willingness to _take time to try_ is established, the gain will be appreciable. When children become interested in a topic, they are impatient to "go on" and "to keep going on." This continual hurrying forward crowds out reflection. If they learn no more than to pause now and then in order to find some bearings on life, and thus do some independent _thinking_, they are paving the way for the invaluable habit of reflection.

CHAPTER IV

THE SUPPLEMENTING OF THOUGHT, AS A SECOND FACTOR OF STUDY

_The question here at issue_

In the preceding chapter the importance of studying under the influence of specific purposes was urged. These are such purposes as the student really desires to accomplish by the study of text or of other matter placed before him. Since they are not usually included in such matter, but must be conceived by the student himself, they const.i.tute a very important kind of supplement to whatever statements may be offered for study. The questions now arise, Are other kinds of supplementing also generally necessary? If so, what is their nature?

Should they be prominent, or only a minor part of study? And is there any explanation of the fact that authors are not able to express themselves more fully and plainly?

_Answers to these questions--1. As suggested by Bible study._