Reaching the children ; a book for teachers and parents

Table Of Contents

CHAPTEB PAGE

I. The Aim 1

II. The Teacher as Inspieer 7

Introduction

"Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it" was said long ago. This counsel is a constant reminder of the duty of teachers and parents.

The present century has been aptly called the children's century. Increasing reverence for childhood is one of its dominant characteristics. This reverence is both the cause and the effect of a better understanding of children. Never before were so many earnest men and women giving their best thought and effort to a study of children as at present. They profoundly realize that children are the greatest of the potential assets of a community or of a state.

The practice of good schools and of well ordered homes in training children has been modified as a result of the better understanding of children. So far as the school is concerned, there is a growing conviction that the child does not exist for the school but that the school exists for the child; a conviction that the child has his own way of feeling, thinking, and doing, which is not the way of men and women of forty. As Saint Paul said, "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man I put away childish things.'* There is also a conviction that the individual child is becoming more and more the center vi INTRODUCTION of educational interest and effort, and that his actual present need, rather than his probable future need, should be emphasized.

Bearing these considerations in mind, any well thought out contribution to the means that may be employed for the training of children is to be welcomed, and Superintendent Krebs has made such a contribution in this little book. The contribution is a practical one. Mr. Krebs for many years has had the opportunity of working with teachers, particularly with those in the rural and town schools. The book is therefore the outgrowth of experience and not the mere expression of theories. The title, "Reaching the Children," is a good one. To reach them is not easy, but to reach them is essential if educational processes are to be effective. Indeed, the failure of some of our educational activities in both the school and the home may be traced to a failure to understand the mind and the heart of children.

In a series of twenty chapters Mr. Krebs points out for the use of teachers and parents some of the ways of reaching children. No teacher, however inexperienced, and no mother or father, after reading this interesting book carefully, will regard the child and the ways of training him in quite the same way as before. The contribution deserves a wide reading in both the school and the home, the two institutions upon which so much depends.

Calvin N. Kendall, Commissioner of Education April, 1916, Trenton, N.J.

Chapter I TEE AIM

So manifold is the opportunity, so open is the road of the higher success to ability, industry, and character, that human life may fairly be described as a divine chance to do and to be that which lies in the imagination of youth. God does not deceive the fresh, instinctive faith of childhood; life does not lie to those who trust its promises. It is commonplace only to those whose natures, tastes, and aims are commonplace. — Hamilton W. Mabie.

Scorn trifles, lift your aims; do what you are afraid to do. Sublimity of character must come from sublimity of motive. — Maey Emeeson.

What is the chief purpose of the school? What should be the primary aim of the teacher? These are fundamental questions. On their correct answer depends the attitude of the teacher and of parents, and the attitude governs the results.

The central principle of education is the self-activity of the child. To this principle all others are subservient. Without the self-activity of the child little can be accomplished. There is no reaction to the instruction. There is no growth, no development.

In the light of this principle the purpose of the school is plain. It is to arouse the self -activity of the child and guide this activity into right channels. The aim of the teacher should be to inspire the pupils, and to the degree in which she succeeds in doing this is her success measured.

Proficiency in school work may be secured by a teacher who drives her pupils through threat of punishment. This proficiency is, however, of little value because it is not based on the pupil's self-activity. It is based merely on the pupil's activity, which is a totally different matter. Activity that does not originate in the pupil has no permanent qualities.

It is to be feared that many teachers are satisfied if they can secure quiet in their schoolrooms and a reasonable degree of good work in school subjects. This may or may not mean good results in the lives of the pupils. The measure is the degree of self-activity that is involved in the process. A child who is a poor penman but full of energy and ambition may become a Horace Greeley; while the good penman without such qualities may never rise above the commonplace.

The discerning visitor to a schoolroom will therefore look through and beyond the things that meet the eye and the ear. He will not only look for good performances, but for the principle underlying them. Is the teacher reaching her pupils? Does she inspire them? Is her teaching such as to arouse their self-activity? If so, the work is fundamentally good, and if not, the work is essentially poor, however brave the show.

If the purpose of the teacher and the school as thus stated is accepted, several deductions follow.

TEE AIM 3

In the first place, extensive learning, though veryvaluable, is not indispensable to the teacher. There are some who are so interested in subject matter that they lose sight of the pupil who is being taught. The broader the education of the teacher the greater the danger of falling into this error. When a teacher of profound scholarship has also the right attitude toward children, she becomes a conspicuously great teacher.

But there are hundreds of instances of persons of very mediocre attainments in scholarship who have nevertheless produced remarkable results through their enthusiasm. That they would have been greatly aided by scholarship is freely admitted; but in spite of that handicap their effectiveness in reaching the children is noteworthy.

In an obscure country school in Pennsylvania there taught a teacher who had difficulty in working the problems in an ordinary elementary arithmetic. He would often say to his pupils, "For to-morrow we will try the next five problems. I will work as many as I can myself, and we may be able to get the rest together." This very inefficiency of the teacher proved a blessing to the pupils, because they were thrown on their own resources. But this teacher was filled with enthusiasm and earnestness. He could point out the way even if he could not travel it himself; and from that small, remote school came no less than twenty-three college graduates, many of whom have gained distinction in the professions, as well as men who have become markedly successful in business. After his retirement, fifty of these men gathered to pay homage to the teacher who had given them their inspiration toward success. This teacher could show no high grade certificates or diplomas, possessed no degrees, knew little of the field of learning, but he had reached the children.

Pestalozzi founded our system of popular education. His own methods of teaching are said to have been crude. He talked too much during a recitation — gave the children little opportunity to express themselves; but he was so full of enthusiasm for the work and so permeated with love for the children that he reached the hearts of all, and stimulated them to a remarkable degree.

In the second place, teachers will carefully consider their methods of teaching and the incentives placed before the pupils, and will ask themselves whether these are such as will arouse an abiding interest in the hearts of the children, or whether their influence will pass away with the ending of school days. They will carefully use the many avenues of approach to the interests of the children until some way is found that leads to their hearts. Children will no longer be considered merely as pupils to be taught, but as individuals to be studied and helped as may be necessary. Good teaching demands not only learning and pedagogy, but also psychology in its broadest sense.

Instead, then, of having a superficial view of the profession, the teacher should consider it of profound importance.

It requires all the elements of heart and mind that any one can possess. It is the most responsible work that can engage the human mind. It puts to

THE AIM the test all the tact and judgment and courage that are in the teacher. Its results are so far reaching for good that no one can even estimate their value. And there is so much opportunity for leaving things undone — for fatal omissions — that no one can estimate the possible loss. Teachers often fail to appreciate the significance of this work, but begin it as a matter of mere occupation instead of a means of effective service. They do not know how to teach, nor why they teach. Our State authorities are wisely raising their standards of certification; and it is hoped that the time is not far distant when at least some training for teaching may be required of all applicants, and the entirely unprepared teacher may be excluded.

It is the purpose of the following chapters to point out specific means of reaching the children. It is believed that with sufficient insight all can be reached. What appeals to one may not appeal to another. The teacher must have all these means consciously in mind, and must employ them judiciously in accordance with the disposition of each child.

Many teachers of good purposes have failed to be completely successful because their aims lacked definiteness. Their ambition was to do good to the children; but they did not set forth their purposes in detail or employ them with exactness and forethought.

The physician may have a perfect attitude toward his work, but he nevertheless needs detailed and specific knowledge of medicine in order to cure his patients. This is true of all professions, and of all lines of business. So, in the work of teaching, a merelygood person will be of little usefulness unless she is skilled in the art of discovering and employing the means that will accomplish the chief aim of the school — arousing the ambition of pupils, and directing it in the right channel.

Chapter II TEE TEACHER AS INSPIRER

How shall he give kindling in whose own inward man there is no live coal, but all is burnt out to a dead grammatical cinder? — Cakltle.

The school is the manufactory of humanity. — Confucius.

The best teacher is the one who suggests rather than dogmatizes, and inspires his listener with the wish to teach himself. — Bulwer-Lytton.

There is no human life so poor and small as not to hold many a divine possibility. — James Martineau.

Lowell says of Emerson that "he had the supreme power of fertilizing other minds." Longfellow spent several days with Emerson, and on his return wrote poetry with great intensity for many weeks. No American writer has had so much influence on thought in this country as Emerson. He was the great inspirer of America. Many obscurities may be found in his prose writings, and some of his poems are said to have no beginning, or middle, or end. Nevertheless they arouse the reader, and set him on fire with ambition, thus doing what the mere rhetorician can never accomplish through a faultless style.

This is what Emerson says of teaching: "The greatest enterprise in the world, for splendor, for extent, is the up-building of a man." He also says elsewhere that the value of a country should be measured neither by the census nor the crops, but by the kind of men it produces.

The great names of the past are the names of inspirers. Who is the greatest navigator in all history? Christopher Columbus. Did he make the longest or quickest voyage in the world.'* No. Did he sail the largest ship in the world.? No — he made a slow voyage in three miserable ships. And the results of his voyages would have been meager indeed if his example had not inspired others to continue and develop his enterprise.

Who is the greatest scientist of modern times? Charles Darwin. Did he know more science than any one else? No — Spencer and Tyndall and Huxley knew much more than he did. But Darwin gave a marvelous impulse to thought by his epoch-making book "The Origin of Species." Other scientists merely advanced and developed the ideas he originated; and his place of supremacy is sure.

The greatest novelist in English literature is Samuel Richardson. Almost no one now reads the nine volumes that make up his novel "Clarissa Harlowe"; and comparatively few have read "Pamela." Thackeray and Dickens have written better novels, but Richardson founded the school of sentimental fiction, and the founder is always greater than the successor.

David Hume ranks highest as historian of England because he founded the literary school of historical writing that reached its height in Froude, Green, Freeman, and Macaulay.

Horace Mann was never superintendent of the

TEE TEACHER AS INSPIRER 9

largest city in America, nor was he State Superintendent; but his name will rank first in American educational history because he "blazed the way*' in the glorious enterprise of improving school systems.

In colonial history we know the names of those who founded the colonies, but the names of their successors are obscure.

Thes^ illustrations have been brought forward in corroboration of Emerson's statement that the up-building of man is the greatest enterprise in the world. We teachers are engaged in this wonderful work; and if we reach the pupils and send them forth to live noble and useful lives and perhaps to make great names for themselves we are nevertheless the authors of their success, and in that sense the credit of their achievements is ours.

It is of course true that the name of the teacher is often unknown to the world when the name of the pupil is famous. But what of that.f^ The fact remains, whether known or unknown.

One of the most mischievous ideas in the minds of some people is that publicity is necessary to greatness — that a man's success in life is measured by the number of times his name appears in the newspapers. This may be fame, but it is not necessarily success or greatness. The quiet, unobtrusive worker may set in motion forces that will revolutionize the world. Name and fame are nothing — results are everything.

The teacher who inspires her pupils is on the same plane with all other persons in the world's history who inspired others. If she sends forth pupils full of ambition she has accomplished immeasurable resuits. No one can estimate the extent of her influence. What a splendid opportunity the teacher's work thus presents! To play a conspicuous part in making the world better, to be the fountain of a stream of influence that will broaden and deepen as it flows for generations to come — a teacher is hopeless if this prospect does not lift her up and inspire her soul with zeal and energy and a determination that will transform her life and her work.

The story in Genesis tells how man was made in the image of God; but he was mere clay until God breathed into him the breath of life. Only then did he become a living soul.

There are some communities in which it seems as if the only life were physical. There are few signs of intellectual and moral and spiritual life. Yet the capacity for these higher qualities is there, and when once the big, strong, virile physical becomes transformed by a great idea, there is no end to the heights to which the individual may attain. The soil is there — it needs seed and fertilizer to produce crops. 'l "My people perish for lack of knowledge," said the prophet. Persons in remote communities, living on a low plane, are benighted simply because they do not know any better. How can they? Children see and hear and think naught but the low ideals in which they are brought up. This is generally true in all states of society. The children are not to blame for their conditions. They cannot control the place nor the circumstances into which they are born. Yet they may be just as capable as the children of the most favored. Of any two children in the world no

TEE TEACHER AS INSPIRER 11

one can tell which will do the greater service to mankind.

Into such a community the inspiring teacher comes as a being from another sphere. She brings to the children glimpses of a new world. Without directly condemning the barren wastes in which the people live she will point out the green fields and the babbling brooks of the new country. The children will come to feel that they need not live in this lowly condition all their lives, but may advance to something better. This is truly a great opportunity for the teacher.

Backward communities are precisely those in which inspiring teachers are most needed; and yet the schools in such localities are often the refuge for such teachers as no other community wants. When a teacher cannot, because of lack of qualifications, get a desirable school she takes as a last resort what is generally considered an undesirable school; and because this school has a lowly reputation some teachers feel that "anything goes." They see no call for skill in teaching and management. The children are of a low class, and so they will remain. Because there are but ten children in this school the work is not worth while; yet Abraham Lincoln attended such a school, and he alone was worth while.

Young teachers usually and very properly get the most desirable positions they can; but a higher motive is to seek the position in which one can do the most good. Surely there are more opportunities for valuable service in backward districts where the teacher is the only light in the community than there are in a city where there are hundreds of influences that make for enlightenment.

When a teacher deliberately elects to teach in a backward community, not only will she do more good than elsewhere, but she will get more good than elsewhere. Giving inspiration to others always reacts on the giver. Doing a noble work in any community exalts the character of the doer. Mrs. Ballington Booth, whose life is spent in reclaiming criminals, has a light in her face that would not be there if she were living the life of ordinary society. Missionaries returning from heathen lands have a "something" in their personality that distinguishes them in a crowd. This "something" is one of the worth while things of life; and the teacher who breathes inspiration into a school and into a community stamps her features and her character with the mark of a great accomplishment.

Chapter III REACHING THE CHILDREN THROUGH THE CLASS RECITATION

The greatest poet is not he who has done the best; it is he who suggests the most. — Emerson.

In all schools pupils recite their lessons. The teacher spends the greater part of each day in conducting recitations; and her daily preparation is devoted largely to the work of the recitation.

Teachers and pupils sometimes take the recitation period so much as a matter of course that they are not conscious of the momentous character of this part of the school day. Years ago the current idea of the recitation was that the teacher should tell pupils some facts and at another time the pupils should recite them — that is, should *'tell them back'* to the teacher. Or the teacher would assign several pages in the book and the recitation would consist in giving these back to the teacher. Sometimes the teacher would do knitting while the class was reciting, following the pages with her eye and punishing those who failed to recite verbatim.

This was, of course, a wholly inadequate idea of the worth and purpose of the recitation. A great step in advance was taken when Dr. E. E. White taught that the objects of the recitation are to test.

to drill, and to instruct. Unless, however, we are willing to give to the word instruct a very broad construction, we must, in the light of the central purpose of this book, add one more element to the recitation, and that is to inspire.

The recitation period is therefore an opportunity period. It presents the occasion for the interaction of the mind of the teacher and the minds of the pupils. The assigned lessons are merely the basis for this play of mind on mind. They afford the material of thought. But the electrical connection is necessary before these materials produce light. Otherwise they are dead matter.

Every well taught lesson inspires pupils. If the teacher has a fund of scholarship, if she has assembled the information and other material for the lesson of the day, has organized it and vivified it by special preparation, her class will receive an interest in the subject, a desire to know more in regard to it, and a glow of enthusiasm that will weld the impressions into permanent forms; and if the lesson contains a spiritual element, the pupils will attain to higher standards, and form higher ideals.

It is said that when John S. C. Abbott was engaged in writing his "Life of Napoleon," he knelt down in his library every morning before beginning his work to seek divine guidance. The opportunity for reaching the children through the recitation is so great, and its neglect so disastrous, that the teacher should not undertake it without at least some sense of the solemn duty of the hour to make the recitation effective for inspiration as well as for instruction.

THROUGH THE CLASS RECITATION 15

Pupils should be given a realizing sense of the dignity of the recitation period. In many classrooms some pupils remain at their seats to study. These latter should clearly understand that they must do nothing whatever that might interrupt the recitation. No hands should be raised, no questions asked, no noise be made, that might attract the attention of either teacher or pupils. The teacher must give her undivided attention to the pupils reciting; otherwise the connection of interest will be broken, and the effect of the recitation lost.

Teachers have been known to start a class in oral reading and then go among the pupils not reciting and give help here and there, thus taking their attention from the reading lesson. This is, of course, vitally wrong. This makes oral reading a purely mechanical exercise. There can be no interaction of mind on mind unless all are attentive to the work in hand. Such a teacher will never realize the possibilities of the recitation period.

Another main reason why the recitation period is not inspiring has already been suggested. It is because the teacher does not possess fulness of knowledge in regard to the lesson. Very rarely should a teacher have a book in her hand during a recitation period. Her eyes should be on the pupils. There must be a direct connection between mind and mind. The book breaks the connection.

Many recitation periods are of little value because of the wrong method of conducting them. In oral reading lessons the teacher asks a pupil to rise and read, and tells the others to "watch for mistakes."

When the pupil has read the paragraph, the hands of the others are all raised. "What mistake did you see, John?" asks the teacher. "She repeated!" says John, with a note of satisfaction in his voice because he was sharp enough to detect an error. "She said the for a/" says Mary, with equal triumph. "Didn't hold her book in the left hand!" is Charley's sage suggestion. And so the process goes on, a pure waste of time, a frittering away of the precious minutes of the recitation, not an iota of good accomplished. No wonder children receive no impetus from such fatuous performances. Yet such recitations occur every day in every state in the Union. We are still far from grasping the significance of the recitation period.

No recitation period is of value unless some things are definitely clinched. When the pupils take their seats they must be conscious of a definite acquisition. They must have a solid foundation for further study. They can only be reached if they themselves feel that they have learned something, have taken a distinct step in advance in the process of gaining knowledge. There is much unconscious development in the school, but there is also much that the pupil must clearly realize. He will not be likely to take an interest in school, or be susceptible to uplifting influences, if the school exercises seem to him mere "marking time," mere routine, mere things that must be done because this is school. Here we have drudgery, not work. There is no oxygen in this atmosphere — only distilled air, that can neither give life, nor sustain life.

What a deHght it is to watch a teacher conduct a

THROUGH THE CLASS RECITATION 17

recitation when she is thoroughly prepared and knows how to teach! The pupils are eager. She leads them through pleasant paths. Her knowledge is fresh and clear. Every question has a purpose. She is master of the whole situation. There is electricity in the air. When the period is over the pupils have gained something. They have made a distinct acquisition. They have had a valuable intellectual exercise. They have a new interest in the subject. They are anxious to pursue it further.

On the other hand, how disappointing it is to see a teacher waste her opportunities through failure to prepare her lesson properly! She can do little but refer to the book. There is no mental action and reaction, no interest. No love of learning is enkindled, no permanent impressions are made. It is needless to say that such a teacher is no inspirer; and it is distressing to feel that thousands of children are compelled to sit under such teaching and waste their precious days that might otherwise be rich in preparation for life.

A school stands or falls if the recitation period is a success or a failure. This period is the intellectual crisis of the school day, and it is often the moral crisis. It determines not only whether the lesson of the day shall be of value, but whether a permanent interest in that study and in all studies shall be engendered. Hence in reaching the children this period cannot be overestimated. It behooves all teachers who seek to inspire their pupils to take careful thought as to how this phase of the school work may be made a potent minister to that end.

Chapter IV REACHING TEE CHILDREN THROUGH THE SCHOOL LIBRARY

A good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life. — Milton.

The true university of these days is a collection of books. — Carlyle.

In the best books great men talk to us, give us their most precious thoughts, and pour their souls into ours. — Channing.

When reading the lives of great men and women, one is struck by the fact that nearly all of them were inspired more or less by a book or by several books. This is not at all surprising when one considers what a book really is. "Great books are the life-blood of master spirits," says Milton; and this sums up their value. By reading great books we gain this life-blood for ourselves through transfusion, mysterious, but real.

If the newspapers were to announce some fine morning that from ten to twelve that day a reception would be held at which the public were invited to meet William Shakespeare, Martin Luther, and Napoleon Bonaparte, all work would be dropped, and everybody would hasten to shake hands with these great men. If John Milton were to call on us and spend two hours in our sitting-room, we should consider ourselves honored for life by the favor. As a matter of fact, Mil-

THROUGH THE SCHOOL LIBRARY 19

ton, Shakespeare and the rest are now in our homes. They are ready to talk to us night and day. They are never too tired to give us their best thoughts. And yet, instead of appreciating this wonderful opportunity, we too often let them rest on the shelves and occupy ourselves in talking with commonplace people We "gossip with the stable-boy," when in our houses "kings and queens" are waiting for us, as John Ruskin puts it.

Great books contain the finest things that the greatest minds in the history of the world have been able to put on paper. Certainly any one who has any serious purpose in life must feel the need of being instructed by those greater than himself. Deliberately to put aside these priceless teachings as not worthy of time and attention is to arrogate to oneself a conceit that is hard to justify. What can be thought of the intellectual capacity of one who has time to read current fiction, but no time for the really great things in literature.? Likewise what shall we say of a person who spends hours learning to play a two-step on the piano, but has not a minute to give to the study of fine music? In too many departments of life we are guilty of false valuations. We count that which is worthless as more valuable than that which is precious.