The question as a factor in teaching

Contents

Introduction. By F. M. McMurry ... . . v I. The Question as a Factor in Teaching Stories 1

II. Some Studies in Teaching Stories .... 6

1. Rumpelstiltskin; Grade I. 6

Introduction

In college and university instruction the question, as a factor in teaching, is of minor importance. The method of instruction being largely that of the lecture, there is little use for the question, except as a test of results, offer the learning process is supposed to have been completed. In most textbooks for the elementary and high schools, it has the same place and rank, following the work of acquiring knowledge and merely testing the degree of understanding and memorization reached. In both cases getting knowledge means the getting of positive facts, and that is a task in which questions are not considered a necessary part.

The rank of the question in active life is very different. The situation is typically represented there by the arithmetical problem. No builder figures for the answer to a question until some situation has arisen that requires figuring. Answers alone, without the problems that called them forth, w^ould be absurd. So in the field of business in general, of politics, and of scientific investigation, questions necessarily precede answers; they are prerequisite to all thinking; they supply the motive for the effort as well as the basis for the selection and organization of the data. They are the key to the situation, determining the value that shall be attached to the answer itself.

vi INTRODUCTION

In the light of these facts the usual classroom procedure in school and college is strange indeed. The positive facts offered there in lectures and textbooks are nothing more than answers to questions of some sort, data for the solution of problems supposed to be worth solving. Yet the questions themselves are overlooked; or, if included, they are so tardy in appearance that they fail of what ought to be their main purpose, i.e., to supply motive for effort, and a basis for the selection and organization of data. At the same time the method of work in school and college, and the consequent discipline received, is valuable to the extent that it duplicates, and thus prepares for the method found most successful outside. That has to be the final basis for judging its merit.

Here is a case of extreme misfit therefore. How is it explained? There are at least two facts that help toward an explanation. The truth that all good thinking or studying is necessarily purposive, that it involves a problem or purpose as well as the facts wanted for its solution, has been little understood. Thinking has been thought of more as a general faculty, capable of application at any time to any kind of matter, without conditions. In addition, there is doubt whether children and even college students are commonly supposed to think. Their more commonly accepted object, in attending class at least, is to remember; to collect and retain facts that are answers to questions, perhaps, but questions that have not yet arisen; ques-

INTRODUCTION vii

tions that may arise in some distant future. Their present purpose as students, in short, is storage; real thinking will come later, as real problems present themselves. This conception of education relieves the teacher of any necessity of patterning classroom procedure after the practice of the most effective thinking outside.

So much for the general rank of the question as a factor in instruction. What is a good question? It is unfortunate that this problem has not been far more fully discussed. Probably it will receive proper attention when the general significance of questions has' come to be appreciated. Probably the most important test of any question is found in the extent to which it appeals to the student as worthy of an answer from him. In other words, its relation to the student's experiences, interests, and purposes is the first basis for judging the character of a question. Provision for motive is the first factor in all instruction, partly because motive or purpose is the biggest thing in education, and partly because the provision for motive paves the way for independent thinking and exercise of initiative on the part of the pupil. He is in a strait- jacket as a thinker until the reason for the effort is keenly felt by him.

While the relation of a question to the pupil is of first importance in judging its merits, its relation to the subject-matter is still vital. A question should certainly be clear and pointed, so that the ground it viii INTRODUCTION

covers, or the issue it raises, may be definite. It should! usually be broad, too, requiring numerous data; otherwise ideas fail to be brought together into sufficiently large units, and organization is poor. And for the same reason any question should belong to a series, rather than stand isolated.

This brief and abstract discussion is, perhaps, long and clear enough to suggest that a large share of the problems in education center in the question.

The following work deals with the question, and fortunately from the viewpoint of practice rather than theory. It contains such questions as the authors believe should be put in the teaching of certain well-known topics in various studies. It furnishes a concrete basis for studying the general rank of the question in instruction, its peculiar purposes and possibilities, and its desirable characteristics. It suggests that lesson plans for teachers might consist of a few well-conceived questions, and that questions, rather than the answers to questions, might well be the first consideration of both teachers and pupils. It is a new treatment of general method, and of a kind that is very much needed.

F. M. McMuRRY

Teachers College, New Yohk City June 19, 1916

Chapter I The Question As A Factor In Teaching Stories

The term "teaching" has come to be used so loosely as to include almost everything a teacher does in the classroom. In the following discussions it is used to mean the stimulation of genuine constructive thinking directed toward a definite and desired end. This is accomplished in the main by thought-provoking questions. It is rarely accomplished by telling, by memorizing texts, or by lecturing, followed by testing. This meaning is in accord with modern educational theory but is rarely found in practice. Memory and test questions dominate the whole range of classroom work. It is not uncommon, indeed, for teachers of method, even of special method, to lecture and test, thus violating the most fundamental principle involved.

Unless general principles are seen in the concrete, it is doubtful if they are really comprehended; at least, it is difficult to understand how they can be of assistance to the teacher who, if she is teaching at all, must be teaching something. In this book, therefore, much space is given to a series of studies in teaching stories in the first five grades. The general principles involved in the effective use of the question must necessarily be involved in these lessons. It should be kept in mind that all statements which seem justifiable to make concerning the use of the question in teaching stories have this wider significance.

A very important distinction is made, therefore, between telling stories and teaching them. Telling stories implies giving them outright, ready-made, to the children; while teaching a story implies its presentation through the consideration of its successive problems and their solution by the pupils, the children themselves building the stories. Such a distinction is not meant to suggest the elimination of the valuable exercise of story-telling from school work, but that a larger part of the time now given to it should be used for the more stimulating exercise of teaching certain stories which may be adapted to this form of treatment.

The difference in the mental attitude of the children in the two exercises is quite obvious and significant. In the one it is receptive and relatively passive, in the other it is aggressive and constructive; in the one the children are being entertained, in the other while entertaining themselves they are forcing themselves into the situations of the story and living it with the characters, developing an interest of a more active and profound quality. It is not the function of the

THE QUESTION IN TEACHING STORIES 3

school merely to entertain or to amuse the pupil. Each exercise should make him stronger in abihty to work, keener in insight, and sounder in feeling. Children come to school expecting to work, eager to attack problems, and they are most deeply interested when doing so at the maximum of their abilities. Telling the story appeals almost exclusively to the memory, while in teaching it the appeal is made to comparison, inference, and the constructive powers, making at the same time wide drafts on the memory to bring to hand all data that may aid in the solution of its difficulties or interpretation of its situations.

The instrument in teaching a story is the thoughtcompelling question. The story is not told first and then analyzed, dissected, and speculated about, after all of the most gripping situations have been nicely smoothed out for the child and his interest satisfied. A good question must be based upon information or data that the child has and must require him to use the same to answer the question so as to carry forward the story. The answer to a question furnishes additional data for further use. A good question starts lines of associations in all promising directions for helpful data which the child rejects or selects until the solution seems to him satisfactory. He then offers it tentatively to the class for consideration. It should be obvious from this that a question should permit more than one logical answer although only one may be the solution in the story. When questions are answered on the instant the chances are against their being the result of much thinking.

Not all stories can be taught in the sense in which the term is here used. It is probable that not all parts of any story may be taught. Indeed, it would be a more serious defect to question on trivial points or on points that carry the thought away from the main thread of the story, than it would be to tell a part of a story that oflfers an opportunity for a strong question. The stories and parts of stories to be taught ought to be selected with some care. To be profitably taught the story must be reasonable, natural, or logical. No one could with any certainty foretell a fantastic or purely fanciful sequence to an impossible situation. A question on such a point would lead to mere guessing, unconsidered answers. However, there are relatively few stories that do not have situations which suggest problems, and which, so far as using stories in school is concerned, might well be discussed in a way to carry on the story and add to the interest and pleasure of the children.

After a teacher has developed some judgment and skill in conducting such a round-table discussion as this implies it will be found that the children anticipate her in raising the questions and problems of the story with almost startling insight. The rules of procedure and good sense necessary to round-table discussion in any learned society may suffice here. The fact that the teacher knows the story gives rise to the

THE QUESTION IN TEACHING STORIES 5

constant danger that she may dominate the discussion unnecessarily, and makes it important that she be on her guard against doing this.

It is quite necessary that the problem or question, or difficulty, or thread of development, should be kept in mind from the beginning by the children as well as by the teacher to insure clean-cut thinking and definite progress. It is quite necessary also that this problem or aim shall be recognized by the children as their own diflSculty and indeed, in good work, will often be stated by them. Unless the children do identify the problem with themselves and take a vital interest in it, the statement of an aim by the teacher becomes an empty and therefore a harmful formality.

A discussion is properly closed by taking stock of what has been accomplished. If it has not been a vital discussion the summary is perfunctory and adds to the pervading depression. It is an art to have the children feel that this review is a desirable climax to the discussion. Summaries that are made in answer to a new problem or to a new statement of the main problem or from a desire to assure one's self of the successful solution of the main problem as at first conceived are most effective.