The practical teacher

Front matter

THE PRACTICAL TEACHER.

THE

PRACTICAL TEACHER

Contents

Preface, Chapter i. How to Teach, .... n. The Teaching of Spelling, Reading, and the

Alphabet, in. The Teaching of Grammar, iv. The Teaching of Arithmetic, v. The Teaching of Geography, vi. The Teaching of Geometry and Algebra, vii. How to Raise your Salaries, viii. Miscellaneous, ....

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Chapter I. How To Teach

" To teach a child his A, B, C, is not to educate him." — Frs. Wayland.

The first requisite for a successful Teacher is to love teaching. He who does not love teaching is not fit for it. — It has been remarked, that " he who can be lonesome with children, should leave the school room." It is equally necessary to make the school room, and all connected with it, interesting to the pupil.

A Teacher of Lancaster county, writes as follows in the Pennsylvania School Journal: — "Kindness mixed with dignity of character, commands respect, and will contribute more to the enforcement of obedience than all the torture ever resorted to in the school room. Kindness begets love; and love is the strongest passion of the human heart. Armed with the powerful weapon of kindness, the Teacher's control is almost infinite."

" Be kind', yet firm," says a celebrated Educationist.

Having gained the confidence of both parents and pupils, (Avhich can be done most effectually at the fireside of the parent,*) let there be " a good correspondence between master and pupil." Let your government be kind, but parental. — Make but few rules. A parent makes but few rules for the government of his family.

Mr. Page says : " The main business in school is instruction and not government."

Let the Teacher govern himself. A noisy Teacher makes a

* Visit parents frequently.

noisy school. Keep your pupils employed. Let industry be your watchword, and you will have order. Not that a child should be kept like a slave, with his eyes fixed mechanically on his book, " controlled in every look and action by the aspect of authority, and his whole nature put under a discipline of repressions and restraint," but be kept at useful and phasing employment.

" Variety is the spice of life" ; and with children, it can be made to afford a spice more exciting than even their accustomed play* " He is the successful Teacher," says Page, " who can excite and maintain the necessary interest."! As said in a succeeding chapter, the order of exercises must depend upon circumstances. A Teacher who understands his profession, can regulate his own school. Page says, in his Theory and Practice of Teaching : " The circumstances of schools will be found to vary so widely, that no model, however perfect in itself, would answer for all. The Teacher must exercise his own ingenuity and judgment, to meet his own wants."

But first, make your school house and grounds agreeable, pleasing and attractive ; and the task of making the studies within attractive, will be more easy4 We extract the following remarks from an article in the Pa. School Journal, by the lamented D. S. Kieffeb, of Lancaster county :

" Four years ago, I commenced teaching in what is called the ' Sand-stone School-house,' in Strasburg Township — a desolate, uninviting, prison-looking tenement, with nothing to protect it from the heat of summer, or the cold of winter. I proposed to the children, the improvement of our house and

* Health, however, demands physical exercise. Pupils should not only be permitted to exercise, but encouraged.

f Drawing and Music are exercises which will interest the dullest pupils, and which the whole school can take part in. Drawing may be done on the blackboard, slate, paper, or even on the floor. Any Teacher can draw a rough picture of a house, a tree or some familiar object, which the pupil will endeavor to imitate. Think not the time thus spent, lost.

% I once taught in an old, dark school-house, which we were accustomed to leave every pleasant day and meet in an adjoining wood.

grounds by subscription. The proposal was acceded to with alacrity, and being seconded by the parents, was soon put into execution. Our grounds were enclosed by a neat fence, the house was whitewashed, inside and outside, and things began to assume a better appearance.

" I then proposed that our enclosure should be converted into a flower garden. The ground was prepared, and every boy and girl brought some kind of tree or bush to be planted, each to own and cultivate what he or she brought.

"In season, the fences are festooned with vines, and the paths bordered with flowers, which grow as vigorously, smell as fragrant, look as tasteful, and are preserved as carefully as though planted anywhere else than in the yard of a district school.

" To one who has not had similar experience, it would be difficult to imagine the delightful interest manifested by the children in these simple auxiliaries to their enjoyment.

" While these exterior arrangements were going forward, the interior was being furnished with blackboards, maps, charts, globes, thermometer, clock, library, &c, to facilitate learning."

Let everything connected with the school room be calculated to "inspire the mind with activity and delight." "Let everything be conducive to health and happiness : and promotive of moral, intellectual, and physical comfort." But, above all, let the pupils play: play in the open air: for upon it depend much of the " health, cheerfulness and tranquility' of the school room.

The Popular Educator contains the following remarks : — " A child who has had the advantage of as much bodily exercise as possible in spacious gardens and fields, until he has reached his seventh year, even if he should not then know a single letter, will soon overtake those who have their heads crammed with book information at an earlier period ; and not only overtake them, but outstrip them. And why ? Because his mind is in a healthy state, as well as his body. All judicious instructors of youth are well aware that it will not do to exert the mind too much. What, for instance, does Humel say, whose ' Piano-forte school ' is one of the ablest productions that ever came under the notice of a musician ? He intimates that a very young pupil of delicate organization, and possessing a fine ear, must not be confined to the instrument more than four hours a day.

"Who that has ever given the matter a thought, can imagine, for a moment, that the delicate and marvellous mind of Shakspeare, would have been developed in the way that it has been, if he had at an early age, been crammed with Latin, Greek and Algebra.

"Every parent and teacher should be careful not to tax the time and application of the child beyond his strength. The pupil has an imperative claim to rest, and recreation, and amusement. To deny the play-ground, with its many games, and sports, and leaps, and loud-rising laugh, is to retard the progress of the mind. Much precious time is literally wasted in cramming the memory with words and phrases, which bar the admission of thought, and render application irksome. A mere effort of memory, is not the attainment of knowledge ; and words, instead of ideas and facts, make up but a poor capital with which the future man is to carry on the intercourse and pursuits of life."

" To teach successfully, the Teacher should be educated in his profession." He should understand the art of teaching.

Francis Wayland says : " If there be any such art, as the art of teaching, we ask how it comes to pass that a man shall be considered fully qualified to exercise it without a day's practice, when a similar attempt in any other art would expose him to ridicule."

We will now come to the subject denoted at the head of this Chapter : and, in our opinion, more depends upon the manner of teaching than the order of exercises.

" It is desirable," says F. Wayland, " that the pupil should be taught thoroughly ; that is, that he should have as exact and definite a knowledge as possible of the law and of its relations. It is desirable that he be taught permanently: that is, that the truth communicated, be so associated with his other knowledge, that the lapse of time will not easily erase it from his memory. It is important also, in this practical age, that no more time be consumed in the process than is absolutely necessary. He who occupies two years in teaching what might as well be taught in one year, does his pupil a great injury. He not only abstracts from the pupil's acquisition, that year's improvement, but all the knowledge which would have been the fruit of it for the remainder of his life."

How often have we seen pupils, nearly arrived at manhood, who, after having gone to school every winter since they were old enough to attend school, and during their earlier years, both summer and winter, had learned nothing but to be miserable scholars, who neither knew how to spell, read, write nor cast accounts ?

Now, the quickest way to do anything is to do it right. — Better spend the whole time in teaching the elements, than to advance the pupil before he is acquainted with them ; for without them, he can effectually learn nothing ; and no time can be gained by attempting to pass on without them. If he cannot learn the elements he can learn nothing else. But have patience. " Patience and perseverance work miracles." When at length he has mastered the elements, he goes ahead as if b} T magic: and the time apparently lost is repaid a hundred fold.

Let reviews be frequent. " What is understood to-day, may with pleasure be reviewed to-morrow." But keep in view that " to teach a child his A, B, C, is not to educate him."

James G. Carter says : " In vain you put into the head of the child the elements of all the sciences ; in vain will you natter yourselves that you have made him understand them. If there has been no endeavor to develope his faculties by continual, yet moderate exercise suited to the weak state of the organs, if no care has been taken to preserve their just balance, so that no one may be greatly improved at the expense of the rest, your child will have neither genius nor capacity ; he will not think for himself, he will judge only after others ; he will have neither taste, nor intelligence, nor nice apprehension ; he will be fit for nothing great nor profound ; always superficial ; learned, perhaps in appearance, but never original, and perpetually embarrassed whenever he is put out of the beaten track ; he will live only by his memory, which has been diligently cultivated ; and all his other facilities will remain, as it were, extinct or torpid."

Better that the pupil should leave school, a thinking being with his faculties fully developed, than to be profoundly skilled in the depths of learning, and be "a learned dunce." In the language of Page, " let the pupil's mind be waked wp." Create an interest in his studies. This is the grand point. He who can do this, can make his pupils study. But how, some may ask, is this interest to be excited ? Let the Teacher himself be interested, and he will soon find that his pupils are interested. As the Teacher who governs himself, finds no difficulty in governing his school, which, as it were, governs itself, so if the Teacher be not idle, neither will be his pupils.

Much has been said by writers on education respecting the order of exercises, classification of pupils, &c, &c, all very good. I, however, intend to dwell more particularly upon the methods of teaching the various branches taught in the school room, leaving the classification and arrangement of the school to the judgment of the Teacher.

Make a pupil understand what he is doing. A child will not even play without a motive. I once heard of a man in search of work, who was given the task of turning the empty grindstone : and though well paid, he soon tired, and gave up his job. So with the pupil who conns lessons without meaning : and who knows not what he is doing. He should be treated as a reasonable being, and be required to do nothing without a motive, which he understands.

Mr. Carter " once knew a child, who, the first day he entered the school, was assigned the first seven letters of the alphabet, and sent to his seat to learn his lesson. Do you think it strange," he says, " that he found it difficult to confine his attention to his book ?"

To learn, a child must love his studies, and to love them, he must understand them ; and if he understands them, it is not a difficult task to make him love them. If he becomes wearied, change the exercise. Let him play, or sing, or in some way relieve the monotony : and he will renew his study with fresh vigor.

F. J. Grund says: " Children the most unlike are often put together in the same class, and have to learn, each day, a fixed portion of one science or another, and the test of their acquirements is a verbal recitation from a book. The memory is charged with the crudest and most heterogeneous conceptions, without allowing the mind the least respite, to assort and adjust them,much less the time which it need to reflect upon them. Thus, from the first moment the boy goes to school, until the young man leaves college, he is harrassed and haunted with studies for which he has no spirit or inclination : and it it is a wonder if his mental powers are not prostrated or destroyed."

" The belief is yet too common among parents," says the same author, " that education consists in learning and applying certain dogmatical rules, without caring for their being understood." Even the most enlightened seem pleased that their children "are through the book." The more branches that are crammed into the mind, or pretended to be, the better the parents are pleased. The practical teacher is, therefore, necessitated, in some measure, to compromise his principles ; and while he takes care to make the child a thinking being, to awaken his faculties, "enable the pupil to acquire knowledge by his own exertions," he must make the parent believe that his child has swallowed the book. This confidence must be gained. I once knew a Teacher who, during the first week of his school, heard his reading classes six lessons in the morning, and six in the afternoon of every day in the week. I know not how his plan succeeded, but if he thereby gained the confidence of his patrons, without which he could not teach his pupils, he was excusable for a week's loss to his school.

In fine, the Teacher who would succeed, must enter the school house with the determination to instruct the pupils entrusted to his care ; and with this, he need not trouble himself with systems of government, rules of order, or forms of exercises. As to government, it will take care of itself. He who is zealous for the improvement of his scholars, as a parent is for his children ; he whose intercourse with them is as free and unreserved, as a father's with his children, needs no rules : he will know nothing of disorder : his school will be governed, for it will govern itself: and he whose school is not thus governed, will experience the difficulty experienced by most Teachers, of " governing too much." He who governs least, mostly governs best ; while multitudes of rules, are mostly promotives of disorder. School government, then, being only a " good correspondence between master and scholars," the modes of imparting a knowledge of the various branches of education, {the modus operandi' of the school-room) seems to be the only requisite to the faithful Tteacher. That a Teacher may be faithful to his trust, and be profoundly learned in the sciences which he is to teach, yet deficient in the best methods of imparting that learning to his pupils, is an admitted truth. And, although a skilful teacher will mostly arrive at correct conclusions, and adopt modes of imparting knowledge in his own school more successful than any learned from others ; yet what Teacher has not been improved by the experience of others ? He who blindly adopts a mode, because it has been successful with another, will not succeed : yet he may from it derive something of lasting benefit to his school. Most successful Teachers although not blindly adopting any mode of teaching, are yet familiar not only with the best works on education, but the modus operandi of their fellow Teachers. What is more beneficial to the young Teacher than "mutual improvement" meetings of Teachers, where each gives his own experience of teaching, school-government, &c, or what more beneficial than mutual visitation of schools? Even from their faults we learn.

Thus, then, while we re-assert that the successful Teacher will not blindly adopt any method untried, and that the methods obtained from a Teacher's own experience, are generally the most successful, yet he who is best acquainted with the modes of others, is generally himself most efficient. From the mass, he selects the best. We, therefore, in the succeeding chapters, will endeavor to describe, not only the experience of a Teacher who thinks it no presumption to say, that he has been, in some degree, successful ; but methods of teaching the branches of a common school education practised by some of the best educators of the age : and sanctioned by the highest authority. One thing we insist on throughout, not to place too much dependance upon the arrangements of the books. " The best book on any science needs much aid from the instructor."

" If a Teacher can do no more," says another Teacher, "than repeat the printed questions at the bottom of the text-book, and hear the ready-made answers, he had better quit the business."

"I am of opinion," says Page, "that aptness to teach, like aptness to do anything else, is usually an acquired power, based upon a correct knowledge of what is to be done, and some accurate estimate of the fitness of the means used for the end."

Again he asks : " How far shall I assist the pupil, and how far shall the pupil be required to assist himself?" The mode, as explained in the subsequent chapters, is to tell the pupil nothing directly, further than to make him fully understand what he is at ; but always have something to be done by the pupil himself.

Mr. J. P. Wickersham, in vol. II, page 141, Pa. School Journal, says : " Make the subject intelligible to your pupils. Not only should the subject be made intelligible to the pupils, but it should be presented in such a form as to be attractive, and to secure attention. An anecdote or story is now and then appropriate ; and if a fact in the personal history of any member of the class can be introduced, or some occurrence in every-day life, or, which may have happened about the school room, can be made available (and no lesson need pass without some such allusion) it will never fail to secure attention. In Grammar, sentences can be given in which the names of some of the pupils may be embodied ; and in arithmetic, transactions in which they figure as parties ; and not unfrequently the careless and intractable may be made to work manfully by some such artifice.

"In hearing a recitation, the Teacher should generally stand — always, if the class is large. It may look dignified to sit on a platform or behind a desk, and demurely doll out questions, but surely it is not the best way to interest pupils of any age. Let the Teacher stand in front of his class ; and his eyes, his countenance, his gestures, the very motions of his body, all speak, and assist in impressing what his tongue would utter. The effect of an oration would be greatly impaired, if the orator delivered it in a sitting posture ; and so the instructions of the Teacher.

" Questions as to the kind of answers required, may be asked in two ways ; first, in detail, requiring but a single sen. tence, or a few sentences, to embrace the answer ; second, by subjects embodying many details in one general question. — The former method is probably the most searching, while the latter inculcates broader views of the study, and cultivates to a greater extent the powers of generalization and expression ; and both, doubtless, should be practised. * *

" The written method may be divided into the blackboard method and the slate method. The oral may be divided into the turn-about method, the selecting-out method, the uplifted hand method, and the concert method. * * *

" In the selecting-out method, the Teacher gives out the question to the whole class, and after allowing a little time to think, names the answer. By this method, the attention of the whole class is enlisted. All must think at the question, and this alone is worth something. * * * *

" The uplifted hand method is a modification of the selecting-out method, and differs from it only in this, that when the question is put, all that think they can give the correct answer, raise their hands, and from these, the Teacher selects the answerer. It makes a lively recitation, and enables the Teacher to tell, if not deceived, how many are able to answer."

Sometimes the Teacher finds it difficult to fix the pupil's attention to any study. The pupil may be dull in mathematics and grammar, he may feel no interest in them, which the Teacher strives in vain to excite. But he has not touched the right chord. There is a chord to every person's heart which will vibrate, when touched : and which will arouse other emotions which have lain dormant. Cause an interest in one subject, and it will lend an interest to others. I once had a pupil who appeared to be insensible to everything connected with the school room, until near the close of the session, when the preparation for an exhibition aroused his energy, and, as his parents declared, "he learned more in three weeks, not only in reading, but in other studies, than he had during the previous part of the session." His interest in a portion of the school exercises, was excited, which was easily transferred to the others. Independent of school exhibitions, which I do not recommend, the Teacher can find something to interest the pupil ; drawing, music or even hearing the lessons of the smaller pupil, something to make him think he is good for something. Let him know that he is good for something, and you have something to stand on, to work the lever of instruction.

Emulation may, in many cases, excite an interest in study : but it does not always succeed. A judicious Teacher will guard well this principle. That it works well in a class of pupils, with attainments nearly equal, we have experienced : but who has not seen in a class where the few surpassed the others, that the others " fall into hopeless indifference ? "Who has not seen in a class, where the strife was for head, all but two or three quite as well satisfied with being at the foot ?" — Much more might be said respecting the modes of teaching, and the waking up of miiid* but leaving this subject so ably discussed by others, we pass on to the methods of teaching the different branches. Before closing this chapter, I would, however, impress upon the Teacher, the necessity, in the governing of his school, of being firm. "What mode soever you adopt, let your word be law. Be mild, yet firm. A school cannot be a republic. The Teacher must be the monarch, from whose will there is no appeal.

* See Page's admirable chapter on " Waking up mind."

Chapter II. The Teaching Of Spelling, Reading, And The Alphabet

To teach spelling has been considered an arduous task ; a labor of many months ; and even years. To obtain a thorough knowledge of orthography and ortheopy, is yet a labor of years, and will be until a phonetic system is introduced ; but to teach a child to be a tolerable speller, i, e. to be able to spell and pronounce with ease and facility, the ordinary words of our language, and to read with fluency in the shortest time, and with the most ease to Teacher and scholar, is the province of the Common School Teacher : and this is what we propose to treat of in this chapter. To be able to write without mis-spelling ordinary words, and to read ordinary reading, are the primary studies of the School-room. G. F. Thayer, says :

" Numerous as are the innovations in, or (to adopt a more acceptable term) new methods of teaching the various branches of education at the present day, I hold those only to be improvements, which present the subject in a more practical form ; which will require the least change from the school-method to that to be pursued in the business of life.

" If, then, we look for a moment at the common mode of teaching spelling, viz : to assign one or more columns of words, in a spelling book, to be committed to memory, and uttered by the voice, letter by letter ; we see one entirely at variance with practical instruction, tedious to the pupil, expensive in time to the instructor, and never to be used in after life ; of course, one that needs reformation, and in relation to which 2 almost any change would be an improvement." Again he says :

" The practice once so common of assigning lessons in spelling and defining from the columns of a dictionary is one of the most stupid and useless , exercises ever introduced into a school."

Every Teacher who has practiced this mode, can bear testimony that the pupils thus taught, do not remember the definitions ; and as the same author says ; " even if they could be remembered they would be of doubtful utility ; for, as the right application of a definition must depend entirely on the situation of the word to be explained, and the office it performs in a sentence, the repeating of half a score of meanings — as obscure, perhaps, as the word itself — conveys no definite thought, and serves rather to darken, than illuminate the mind."

How often have the feelings of the Teacher been mortified by the practical spelling of the best spellers of his school. — How often do we see a boy who can spell {off the book) every word in the spelling book, unable to write a letter -without mis-spelling half the words ?

Of this important branch of education, Wm. Eussel lays down the following primary rules :*

" Every exertion should be made to render the school-room, and the school furniture, conducive to health and comfort.

" The school exercises should be often varied, and the attitude of the children, frequently changed.

"Motion at short intervals, should be a part of regular school exercises.

" The school should be ruled by management, rather than government.

" A mild, affectionate and judicious treatment of individuals should be substituted for general laws and penalties.

* These remarks more properly belong to Chapter 1st, but as they have particular reference to "primary schools" we introduce them in this Chapter.

READING AND THE ALPHABET. 21

"Conscience, judgment, affection, sympathy, arid not fear, should be employed, as means of moral influence.

" Lessons should be very short, as well as simple ; and strictly adapted to the powers and capacities of the pupils : and nothing taught to be understood by and by."

I repeat, let the children play. Nature demands it : health demands it. You can teach more in the interim, than in the whole time. Their minds will be invigorated ; they will learn faster ; and finding that they learn, they will love learning, and learn faster still.

I will now give a few gleanings from my own experience ; and also from others who have given their experience to the world, in the teaching of this most important branch of education : but it is to be regretted that so few Teachers have thought this subject worthy of much notice.

The words of the reading lessons, which contain the most common words, and, therefore, the most useful,* are among the child's first spelling lessons. As to the primary books, there is so great a variety, that it is next to impossible to make a choice, but the Teacher cannot go amiss, if he be careful to select easy sentences, and pleasing to the pupil. I never found any sentences more pleasing to the pupil than the following from Bonsai's edition of Comly's spelling book :

" We had a red cow and a fat pig."

"The boy cut his lip on the ice."

As to the lines of spelling composed of long difficult words, they may be left until the pupil can spell, read and write, with tolerable facility the most common, simple, and consequently most useful words. As the pupil advances, the principles of reading should be attended to. The pupil should never be allowed to sing or drawl his words ; and until he can put his words together correctly and understandingly, which is reading, let him continue to spell mentally : — which is not read-