The evolution of the teacher

Preface

This volume represents an attempt to interpret some of the basic principles of pedagogy in terms of every-day school-room experience. To this end, many concrete illustrations are used by way of clarifying and reinforcing these principles. These illustrations have been gleaned from schools of all grades — from the kindergarten to the university.

To the many teachers who, consciously or unconsciously, have made contributions to this illustrative material, and to the many others who have made helpful suggestions, the author acknowledges, with gratitude, his indebtedness.

If the teachers who read this book find in it suggestions that will help them in their efforts toward a wider professional horizon and a larger measure of service to all those whom they teach, the author's purpose will have been realized.

F. B. P.

February 24, 1914.

Contents

I. Preliminary 1

II. The Growing Teacher 5

III. The Learning Process 17

Chapter One. Preliminary

All who have meditated on the art of governing mankind have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth. — Aristotle.

WHETHER the teacher, like the poet, is born and not made, has long been a moot question. We often hear the expression "a born teacher," but whether this is a mere tradition or an established fact is, as yet, open to debate. In books and on educational programs we often see captions whose meaning may be expressed in some such form as "How to improve teachers already in the service." From this we are led to infer that those who are responsible for these captions are convinced that even such as are born teachers may be improved by specified forms of training and by formulated experiences.

Many seem to think that a full and complete mastery of a given subject is the only prerequisite for teaching and that inability to teach a subject is conclusive evidence of a lack of knowledge.

On the other hand, there are many who contend that method has much to do with the successful teaching of any subject, from primary reading to calculus. Indeed, a primary teacher of more than state-wide reputation, says that she devotes a full hour every evening to the preparation of the lesson in the reader for the primary class next day.

The truth must lie in one or the other of these views or else combines the two. Certain it is that an increasingly large body of literature has grown out of discussions on the general subject of teaching and the inference is clear that the authors and publishers of these books think there is need and a possible demand for such publications. The mere titles of these books suggest a wide range of needs on the part of teachers. There are entire volumes devoted to methods of teaching arithmetic, and geography, and reading, and even spelling. These many methods are based upon what the authors claim are scientific principles and these principles have been evolved by careful investigations in psychology. Many of these works are already antiquated and their theories have been put aside because of later discoveries. This is true, also, of books and theories in relation to the sciences. This body of literature is cited as evidence of a definite conviction on the part of many that there is a science of education and that improvement is possible in the teaching process, if only methods are based upon the principles of this science.

As a further evidence of this conviction colleges of education are being developed as an integral part of many of the great universities and the faculties

PRELIMINARY. 3

of these colleges are devoting themselves to the solution of problems connected with schools and teaching. Much research work, also, is being done, not only by colleges but also by laymen, and this, likewise, is done in the hope of increasing the efficiency of teachers. Whether the teaching and the schools of the present are the better for all these agencies is aside from the present purpose. Certain it is that vast sums of money are being voted for colleges of education and normal schools.

When the expression, "Learn to do by doing," came into use there were many who thought they had discovered, in this, the solution of all school problems, not giving it enough thought to see in it only a half-truth. Skill does not come by doing alone, but by thoughtful doing. The handwriting of many people has not improved any in a decade with all their practice because the faults of their earlier efforts were not corrected in the beginning and the doing has grooved these faults into a habit. In like manner we do not learn to teach by teaching unless we give careful thought to the process. Hence, experience in itself is not an evidence of progress. A few years ago a teacher in Ohio celebrated the fortieth anniversary of his induction into school work in a rural school. But his fortieth year was spent in the same kind of a school as the first year. The quality of his work may have improved, but not enough to lead to promotion. Moreover, his salary had not been advanced appreciably. Experience to be of value must be more than merely spending time in the school-room. If there is not thought or conscious effort, teaching becomes mechanical and this is fatal to growth.

In the following chapters an effort will be made to show some ways in which thoughtful and persistent effort on the part of the teacher may lead to increased efficiency; how a constant and careful regard for methods in the entire school regime may lead to better teaching; and how a larger apprehension of the real meaning of the teaching process may redound to the advantage of the children in the schools and, also, to the community.

Chapter Two. The Growing Teacher

I don't think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday. — Abraham Lincoln.

AS a general statement it may be said that all growth, whether physical, mental, moral or professional, is conditioned upon proper food and exercise. A very large contingent of the human family is constantly engaged in efforts to discover the right kinds of food and exercise for the race.

The minister of the gospel devotes a large measure of his time to this problem. For hours each day, in his study, he reads, and ponders, and writes, that he may give to his people proper spiritual food ; and, in organizing the activities of his church, he strives to enlist the cooperation of every member in order to induce growth in spiritual life.

In the realm of mental growth many agencies are active. Universities, colleges, schools, libraries, laboratories, the public press, writers and publishers of books — all these and many others are striving to lead the mind into larger fields of thought and action.

In the matter of physical growth there is scarcely any limit to the number of contributing agencies.

The increasing interest in agriculture has the physical well-being of the people as its ultimate object. Congress, legislatures, societies, and individuals are deeply interested in the subject of pure food in greater abundance. The people who are engaged in the production and preparation of foods form a large part of the population of every country. The profession of medicine is now concerned with dietetics more than formerly and its province includes the prevention as well as the cure of disease. At the suggestion of physicians physical exercise in the gymnasium, in the school, in the home, and more especially in the open air is a part of the daily regime of many people.

In like manner, it is coming to be recognized more and more that professional growth is dependent upon food and exercise. Indeed, the largest problem of the supervisor has to do with the professional growth of the teachers under his supervision. He is quite aware that teachers are advancing or receding all the while, that there is no "dead center'' in professional life. He knows, too, that if it were possible for one teacher to remain stationary the advance of the others would cause a relative retrogression of that teacher. Hence it is that his problem bulks large before him. He, himself, must knovv the school problem in all its aspects and ramifications in order to give sympathetic guidance and counsel.

It soon becomes evident to him that growth in himself is one of the essential qualifications of a supervisor, that he must be a diligent student of the educational process, and that he must cultivate the scientific attitude toward everything pertaining to the school and its work. Otherwise, he will not be able to devise courses of study, adapt subjects to individual needs, and to the needs of the community he serves, and be a wise leader to his teachers. He discovers that tradition, alone, will not serve in the changing plans of school work as they are adapted to changing conditions but that tradition may be used as a vantage-point from which to view the field of action. He realizes that he must hold fast to all the good things of the past while planning other good things for the future. These reflections lead him, inevitably, to make a survey of the agencies that may be invoked as aids in the solution of his problem. First of all, he looks to the library for assistance. There he finds books, in large numbers, bearing directly or indirectly upon the subject he is considering. He finds histories of education reaching back to the very beginning of the school.

In these he sees how teachers from Plato and Aristotle down to the present have striven to reduce the process of teaching to a system and how teachers have endeavored to profit by the successes as well as the failures of their predecessors. He sees how these teachers have tried to combine the experiences of the past into a congruous whole in an effort to arrive at a general method, effective in all lands and in all schools. He sees systems come and flourish and then pass away but leaving some precipitation, even if slight. He sees the recombinations and readjustments of these past systems and their meager results traced in detail down to his own time and recognizes in them the foundation upon which to build a system for the future. He finds, also, books on the philosophy of education, on psychology, on child study, and pedagogy, and finds these to be the results of much careful thought and investigation by scholarly men and women. These books, he finds, are used in colleges for teachers, in normal schools, in reading circles, and in college extension classes. In all these he recognizes a somewhat concerted movement toward better methods of teaching.

Growing out of these is another large class of books that deal with specific subjects and problems connected with the school. How to bring all these agencies to bear upon the teaching and disciplinary processes in his own schools is one of the large problems that confront the supervisor. This one problem engages much of his thought and time. He is the leader in reading circle work, both as instructor and as exemplar. In this way he hopes to stimulate growth in all members of his teaching staff. He advocates an increase of salary for teachers who do advanced scholastic or professional work in summer or regular terms of colleges or universities. He organizes extension classes among his teachers and sits with them as a student. He encourages them to attend meetings where informational and inspirational addresses are to be heard. He goes with them to visit other schools where excellent work is in progress. He secures leaves of absence for those who wish to study or travel. He encourages the reading of professional journals and books. He does all these things to induce self-activity on the part of the teachers, knowing that all these means of growth will be futile without this self-activity.

Thus we return to the elements of growth, food and exercise, and find them applicable to professional as well as to physical growth. The vital problem is to secure a right and constant use of the means at hand. The means may be supplanted by better ones in future but the teacher who awaits the coming of the better ones will not be able to use them well without, at the same time, using what we now have as the bases of what are to come. The development of educational theories and methods has been seen to be an evolution. Hence past, present, and future must ever be in the field of vision of every teacher who gives serious thought to the school problem.

Every school-room affords opportunities for original and scientific investigation if the teacher knows how to use the material at his command. But he must know if he hopes to make his work serviceable to others. To do this he must be conversant with the efforts of his predecessors and these efforts form the content of the history of education. To interpret aright the movements of the present in their relation to the every-day work of the school he must be a student of present-day affairs as revealed in the literature that deals with school problems. Having a knowledge of the past and the present he will be able to set his compass for the years to come and his daily task will project itself into the whole future of the child he is teaching.

Real teaching can not be done in daily installments, but a knowledge of this fact comes to the teacher, very often, only after much travail of spirit. At first he does not know what he is expected to do, nor how he is to do it. To the solution of these two problems, however simple they may seem, entire college faculties are devoting their time; authors and publishers are giving their best energies; editors and orators are contributing the best they have of logic and eloquence ; and a host of teachers are giving their best endeavors.

The growing teacher takes cognizance of all these in his efforts to come by a solution of the same problems and thus becomes a co-worker with all others who are striving to this end. The professor in the college and the teacher in the district school are thus co-ordinates with the advantage in favor of the latter so far as first-hand material is concerned.

This fact should lend encouragement to the teacher who is working directly with children and thus can study the problem, as it were, by the laboratory method. If he is conversant with educational theories as set forth in books he can test these theories in every school exercise and so arrive at deductions and generalizations that are the material which the investigator most desires. Emphasis needs to be placed upon the fact that the teacher has the most favorable opportunity for original investigation in educational processes if only his attitude of mind and his training fit him for the work. The teacher who is growing is constantly striving to learn what his problem is and how to solve it and is using the work of each day in school to aid him in his task.

In order to illustrate and reinforce what has been said in this chapter some extracts will now be given from letters of superintendents in which they explain how they try to aid their teachers to enlarge the content of their knowledge and to attain to a greater degree of efficiency.

The first is from the superintendent in a city of the middle west, who says: "All the teachers in this city pursue some study regularly every year. They meet weekly, in conferences conducted by their several principals, to recite, discuss, elaborate, and illustrate the lessons studied during the preceding week. Every teacher is required, not only to join these classes, but to procure as her personal property the book or books, used. These studies are sometimes professional and sometimes semi-professional. This year we are using Strayer's "A Brief Course in the Teaching Process." Last year we made a study of Sociology, in an attempt to make clearer to the teachers the place of the public school, along with other institutions that are engaged in the work of civilizing. In addition to these required studies, many of our teachers are taking correspondence courses in such institutions as Chicago University. Some are doing definite, special work under the direction of friends who are capable of aiding them.

"Certain clubs, meeting either regularly or irregularly, under the direction of the superintendent, or others, are engaged in the study of academic subjects. Sometimes these clubs consist of all the teachers of particular grades. At other times, they consist of groups of teachers who seem to need this particular help."

Another superintendent of schools in a city of about eighteen thousand people, says:

"I'd feel like resigning my position if I did not think that one hundred per cent, of our teachers (disregarding a few sufferers from anno domini) were growing in scholarship and teaching power every day of their lives. Here are some of the things we are doing: 1. Advocating membership in the various study clubs of the city and active participation in the work of these organizations. Only this week I excused two teachers from a grade meeting who were scheduled for papers before one of our leading women's clubs. 2. Follow the practice of mentioning new books and magazines in talks and conversations and, later on, making a second reference to the same books and articles. 3. Emphasize the value of travel and summer schools. 4. Conduct the customary grade and general teachers' meetings. 5. Organize and direct classes for the careful study of professional books. Our eightyfive teachers are divided into three sections for this work. 6. Another plan that I have used to good purpose is to have what we call a 'grade institute.' Suppose I have an excellent teacher of geography who has not the ability to explain her methods to her fellow teachers in a grade meeting. Some afternoon I dismiss the schools of the other teachers of her grade and we all go to her school and see her exemplify her methods with her class. I regard this a splendid means of extending the influence of the superior ability of a particular teacher. There is some danger in the use of this plan unless a corps of teachers has advanced beyond the point of petty jealousies."

Another superintendent says the means he employs is "not to employ them till they are professionally equipped with modern skill and knowledge and a healthy appetite for fresh food every day."

From another letter the following is taken: "Five per cent of our teachers are time servers and care little for anything but 'to hold their jobs.' I suppose about ten per cent., on an average, attend summer schools. They all read first-class educational periodicals — most of them because they like to do so, and some because I insist upon it. Three or four who have not degrees are working constantly to that end. All the high school teachers are enthusiastic students in their special lines and a few are interested in the general problems of education. I suppose fifty per cent of all the teachers are intelligent readers of the best current literature other than professional literature. We are becoming a little more progressive in attendance at educational meetings and are traveling more with our eyes wider open."

These letters are probably representative in showing the interest of supervisors in the growing quality of their teachers. They know that the wider the horizon, both intellectual and professional, of teachers the more resourceful they are and the greater their chances for positive success in their work.

One more of these letters will conclude these quotations :

"All of our teachers are doing something along the line of self-improvement. We all read the reading circle books as the accompanying program will indicate. I take up the reading and study each month in a general meeting of all the teachers. Parts are assigned. I make out programs, and send them around to the teachers. Teachers prepare for the meeting and are obliged to. do outside study and reading apart from what they find in the books. The meetings are very interesting to the teachers. Often they engage in very heated, though good natured, discussions, taking parts and carrying on their arguments. All this is good, for it means that preparation is necessary.

"Then, according to the enclosed program, I have a class called the Tennyson and Browning club. It is made up of all the teachers — fifty of them — and several townspeople. We meet as per schedule. Each prepares for a short reading. The main purpose is to get acquainted with the beauties of Tennyson and Browning. We strive to know their philosophy, and their influence on the age. This is good cultural work for the teachers. Besides they gain much by reading aloud before an audience once a month. I feel that this is one of the best things I ever attempted with teachers. They love the meetings. I prepare carefully and it takes time and concentrated effort.

"There is an association among the teachers, the Chautauqua Reading Circle with which you are very familiar. Many of the older teachers belong to this. I have nothing whatever to do with this.

"Each month according to schedule, we have the regular grade meetings. Each teacher prepares for this meeting. In fact, this is the real meeting for solid pedagogical work. We waste no time, but go right after the topics and make as much of them as possible. The teachers understand that the purpose of these grade meetings is for mutual improvement as teachers, that they may render more efficient labors for the good of the children. This kind of effort increases the content of the teacher's mind as well as efficiency. It makes the superintendent get out and hustle. He has to be among the teachers and pupils constantly that he may know how to meet the situations. It is always my rule to read all I can find on these topics and bring ideas to the teachers in these meetings. I am not an office superintendent. I am always among the teachers and pupils. What reading and study I do is done at night."

This chapter may well close with the prayer which Robert Louis Stevenson expresses so cogently in his

THE CELESTIAL SURGEON.

If I have faltered more or less In my great task of happiness; If I have moved among my race And shown no glorious morning face, If beams from happy human eyes Have moved me not; if morning skies, Books, and my food, and summer rain Knocked on my sullen heart in vain — Lord, Thy most pointed pleasure take And stab my spirit broad awake; Or, Lord, if too obdurate I, Chooose Thou, before that spirit die, A piercing pain, a killing sin, And to my dead heart run them in.

Chapter Three. The Learning Process

Every ultimate fact is only the first of a new series.

— Emerson.

EDUCATION comes not from the outside, but from the inside; not by accretions, but by enlargement. A quotation from Browning may serve to reinforce this statement and, at the same time, indicate the general trend of the present chapter. He says:

Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise From outward things, whate'er you may believe. There is an inmost center in us all Where truth abides in fullness; and around, Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in, This perfect clear perception — which is truth. A baffling and preventing carnal mesh Binds it, and makes all error; and to know, Rather consists in opening out a way Whence the imprisoned splendor may escape, Than in effecting entry for a light Supposed to be without.

This seems to be a reversal of the commonly accepted view as revealed in the expression, "getting an education." If Browning is right, then this expression has no warrant and we must reconstruct our nomenclature. Education is a process and not

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a product. We can get products but not processes. We can get material things but not immaterial things, not spiritual things. And education is spiritual. We may become educated but we do not get an education. This fact needs emphasis in order to have a clear understanding that education is a process. This process begins at birth and continues throughout life. It is not confined to schools by any means. Schools are useful in accelerating the process by organizing and systematizing the materials that are used in this process. Arithmetic, grammar, and geography are some of the materials that are commonly used to help the process on. Education is a movement extending upward and outward and these branches of study stimulate and strengthen the movement. Hence a child does not go to school to learn arithmetic, or history, or algebra, but rather studies these subjects that he may go to school, that the developing process may be nourished by them. They are the reinforcing agencies along the way, the articles of food that the soldier puts into his haversack to supply strength for the march.

There are a few fundamental and well-known principles of psychology that will stand us in good stead as we consider this subject of the learning process. One of these is "The soul responds to external stimuli;" another, "The soul reacts upon its environment;" and still another, "Proceed from the known to the related unknown." These principles have been explained and elaborated in books until now they are the common property of students of educational theories and processes. Dr. Strayer, in his illuminating book, "A Brief Course in the Teaching Process," says: "School education begins not with the ignorance of the child but with his knowledge," and we may well take this as a starting-point.

A boy is but the sum of all his knowledges, all his experiences, and all his native tendencies or interests. If we represent the boy as a circle, then within this circle will be found all these elements and outside the limits of this circle this boy does not exist. If we "begin where the boy is" we must enter this circle, else the boy will completely evade us. So far as this boy is concerned, this circle includes all the known, while the unknown consists of everything that lies outside this circle. The learning process presupposes a relation between the circle and that which lies outside. The known and the unknown must be related if the learning process is to continue. If the unknown is represented as a larger circle then this must intersect or, at least, impinge upon the boy's circle or there will be a chasm between the two with no possible bridge to span it. With this chasm existing there is no way by which the boy can go from his circle of the known over into the other circle of the unknown. If he has never seen or heard of a bird it will be futile to try to teach him lark, or robin, or sparrow, or eagle.

He has had no experience by which to interpret the new experiences as represented by the names of these birds. Or, as the psychologists tell us, he has no sensory foundation for new concepts. Speaking of robins or larks produces no reaction in his mind, brings no mental response.

In Revelation we have a description of the Celestial City, as follows : "And the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones. The first foundation was jasper ; the second, sapphire; the third, a chalcedony; the fourth, an emerald; the fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolyte; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, a topaz; the tenth, a chrysoprasus ; the eleventh, a jacinth; the twelfth, an amethyst." Only a lapidary is able to read this description with understanding because he, alone, has the sensory foundation. His mind reacts because his knowledge of and experience with precious stones enables him to interpret the new experiences which this description produces. The person who claims to read the New Testament entire each year may have looked at the words of this description many times and even pronounced them but only the expert ever read them. To the man who has had no experience with such materials the words have neither meaning nor significance. He could make no intelligent choice among these twelve foundations. If one had been of brass he would choose that, at once, because it is the only one upon which his mind reacts. To him the others have no value because they have no meaning ; and, hence, there can be no consideration of relative values.

His failure to read this passage is due to the fact that the known and the unknown are not related, that the large circle does not intersect his circle. In the case of the lapidary there is such intersection and the points of contact furnish the reaction and he gets the meaning from the words, whether they come to him through the sense of sight or the sense of hearing.

This brings us again to Dr. Strayer's dictum, "School education begins not with the ignorance of the child but with his knowledge." This must be so since his present knowledge is brought into requisition in the interpretation of new knowledge, and without knowledge there can be no interpretation of the new experiences that are brought to him through either of the senses. His concept of flower will enable him to react upon many flowers, and add to this a concept of aroma and he will differentiate the rose from the lilac through the sense of smell alone. Some time we may hope to have a school history written that will be based upon this principle of proceeding from the known to the related unknown. Some of our histories would well-nigh meet this requirement if the reading should begin with the last page and advance toward the first. The same might be said, also, of our books on literature. Some books on geography observe this principle in some degree, since they begin with local geography and advance to the unknown. The principle is used extensively in spelling and word studies. We take roots and from these, by means of prefixes and suffixes, build a long list of related words, and the philosophy of the process of learning points to a wider use in other branches.