SOME SERIOUS ERRORS IN TEACHING. BY L. R. KLEMM, PH. D., SUPT. OF SCHOOLS, HAMILTON, OHIO. I. Introduction. If I were called upon to compress into a single sentence my criticism of the American school, taking this term in its most comprehensive sense, and remembering that the teacher is the very embodiment of the school I should say with Hon. Henry Barnard, "Nowhere among civilized nations is the business of education pursued with such utter lack of system, such complete, unsympathizing, independent and. self-dependent isolation of effort, though yet with a fervor, devotion, energy, and natural capacity, almost equally unrivalled." But such a sweeping statement would scarcely suffice for an audience like this You would wish me to specify my charges. Let me do so. It is a notable fact, that while the people will not buy an exploded contrivance, nor manufacture goods for the market by means of antiquated machinery, but insist upon the latest improvements, they seem to be satisfied with antiquated methods of teaching in school, such as were applied by the proverbial school-keepers of yore. And while they hire in their workshops and factories nothing but skilled labor, they seem to think it perfectly proper to have persons employed as teachers who have not the remotest idea of what such terms as methods, didactics, etc., imply, so long as these persons represent home-talent. While people would ridicule any one who would travel with rheumatic post-horses, or carry his money in saddle bags, instead of making use of express trains, and the facilities offered by our unsurpassed American system of banking, these same people would and do permit their children, year after year, to travel by antiquated means, through the curriculum of school. People who advocate good, wholesome food, and who decry adulteration of food, allow their children to be fed with indigestible mental food, in form of grammar rules, which never did, and never will, develop mental faculties or linguistic skill, but which were considered a most necessary part of a scholar's outfit during the "good olden times." "In the market, it is only the latest improvement which commands a sale, and the steady force of the law of supply and demand, and the sleepless instinct of gain is a sufficient warrant, that while superfluities are dropped, and improvements are adopted, no invention of an exploded contrivance, no retrogression to an older and less perfect condition will be allowed." Not so in school apparently; here dead conservatism rules supreme. In the erection of schoolhouses, yes, all conceivable improvements and new appliances for physical health and comfort are provided for; such things can be seen by the naked eye, but bad teaching is not easily detected, and often assumes all the airs of good work; and thus the schoolhouse stands in the centre of the town, the most prominent building about, an indestructible monument of dead conservatism. This conservatism has been exposed to the withering gaze of the public, in the press, from the pulpit, from the lecture rostrum, in season, and out of season, but it is a plant of hardy growth; it feeds upon the heart's blood of the younger generation. It was again exposed in the most glaring manner in the educational exhibit in New Orleans, where an opportunity was given to compare our results with those of the schools of foreign countries, such as France and Japan. To search for the causes of this conservatism is unnecessary; they are so apparent to every thinking person, that I may leave them undiscussed. Only this fact may be mentioned. The majority of teachers are merely keeping school, and the average time they devote to this occupation is between three and four years. That is the argument in a nut-shell. All the noble work of Normal Schools, Training Schools, and Teachers' Institutes, is but the dropping on a hot stone. Let us hope, that since the dropping is constant, it will in time cool the stone and saturate it. Among the most serious errors of teaching in this country are: (1) the Per cent. System of Marking and Grading; (2) Competitive and too Frequent Examinations; (3) Rote Learning, or Unproductive Memorizing of Textbooks. II. Per cent. System of Marking and Grading. This system of grading the pupils, that is, to determine their relative standing in the class on a scale of one hundred, has greatly undermined the teacher's value. It has brought it about, that pupils think that their close attention to every day duties is not needed, that a little studying up" at the close of the term will secure them the necessary "per cents." And this, to speak candidly, is arguing correctly. Since according to the per cent. system, all examination questions must be 66 matter-of-fact questions, so that they may be marked on a scale of one hundred, it will easily be seen, that facts temporarily stored up in the memory will serve the purpose of passing the examination. This is contrary to the principles of sound and rational education, which condemn such a method of acquiring knowledge as false and pernicious. Let us look the question squarely in the face. What is to be done. to effect a reform? The surest way of finding the right way again, after we have lost it, is to go back whence we started. How did we get into the mire of the per cent. system? (1) The evident desire to grade the pupils' work accurately led us to adopt the scale, that is, the customary per cent. scale. (2) The scale has its influence upon the mode of questioning, that is to say, little matter-of-fact questions came to be asked, five, ten, or twenty in number, each worth 20, 10, or 5 per cent., because this afforded an easy marking of the manuscripts. (3) This mode of questioning in examination had its inevitabie and pernicious effect upon the teaching, which was degraded to mere memory work. Teachers knowing that skill of expression, the ability of grasping the farther bearings of a fact upon others, and such proofs of good scholarship are not inquired into during examination, teachers knowing this fashioned their instruction after the requirements of examination, and thus we have an unbroken chain of cause and effect. In order to improve the teaching, and bring it back to sound and rational principles, we must take away the high pressure of the per cent. system; first, by doing away with the scale which suggests the mode of questioning; second, change the mode of dry, matter-of-fact questioning, which conditions the mode of teaching; third, change our mode of teaching, by heeding the laws of growth, in order to comply with the requirements of nature and actual life. The per cent. system subjects all the pupils of a class to the treatment of Strassburg geese, which are fed in close confinement, that is, noodled, as the technical term has it, till their livers are unnaturally large, only that it is the memory of the children which is thus noodled. There is also an unpardonable injustice in saying, "This child has reached 90 per cent., the other only 60 per cent." Who knows but that the 60 per cent. is the result of hard and earnest toil of a boy who may have labored under disadvantages which the other boy who reached 90 per cent. never knew? Who knows but that the 60-per cent. boy, if measured by a hitherto unknown scale, would far outrank the other in character, in steadfastness of purpose, in virtue, in tenacity, in moral strength, and in other regards? While the 90 per cent. boy was perhaps surrounded by all the advantages which a home of culture and refinement offers, the 60-per cent. boy, it may be, could attend school but half the time, and had to help support the family-and yet, he reached 60 per cent.! The injustice is so glaring, that it cries for redress. Here is a set of questions of the old customary type: What island east of Greenland? What great river empties into the Gulf of Mexico? What river empties into the Arctic Ocean? What country north of New England? What is the largest river in New England? What seaport in South Carolina? These are patent questions suggested, nay required, by the abominable system of grading by per cents. If we do away with this mode of grading papers and pupils, we can ask questions of wider bearing, questions, the answering of which will permit the pupil to show his skill in applying language, to give a full account of certain branches of knowledge as far as he has mastered them, and show better, not only what he knows, but how he knows it. In the high school it should be the custom to give out, at the end of each term, a limited number of themes from each study (except mathematics), and each pupil be permitted to choose one of them, and to write as complete a dissertation as possible upon that subject. These essays are either satisfactory or they are not. In the latter case a second examination may be required. This procedure will make the gauging of children's intellectual depth by per cents. impossible. It will make the teacher's instruction more rational and thorough. It will teach the pupils to learn well. But above all, it will cause their power of application to grow. It will make a language lesson of every lesson, even in arithmetic, since it obliges them to express well what they have learned. Granted, that this is not making the work of the teacher easier; it need scarcely be asserted that the schools are not maintained for the better accommodation of teachers. There is this also to be argued against the per cent. system, at least so far as it is found in the primary grades: It is the using of terms which are absolutely incomprehensible to the small child. It under stands, if we say an exercise is done well or not well. It appreciates these terms, and if given in the proper spirit of approbation or reproof, they may exercise a beneficial influence upon the child's will power. But to mark the child's work, eighty-five per cent., sixty per cent., etc., is about as nonsensical, as marking it Popocatepetl or Parallelopipedon. In other words, it is using a symbol where no symbol as yet is desirable; moreover, it is a symbol which only the maturer mind of the intermediate pupil will understand, when he begins to study the subject of percentage. III. Competition in School. The high pressure of the per cent. system on the one hand, competition caused by too many examinations on the other, crush out all individuality and make of our boys and girls men and women of whom thirteen even do not make a dozen. "Competition is a curse, because it treats children as if they were all endowed with the same aptitude," says a writer in a recent number of an educational journal. "Overwork on the one side," he says, "coupled with self-conceit; despair on the other, coupled with the entire loss of energy, are the results of competition in our schools." He also remarks that "competition is immoral, because it is based upon the law of the survival of the fittest, which, however natural it may be, is not a moral law." Now as to the number of examinations and as to their mode, the superintendent, by virtue of his position, has the decision in his hand. But that does not, and can not, remove competition from our schools entirely, since in some classes the teacher does nothing but examine all day. The following sarcastic statement is the gist of an article upon this subject from the pen of Superintendent Aaron Gove, of Denver, a most accomplished leader of educational affairs in the West: "Teachers are not teaching, they are drifting. A pupil is assigned a task. Soon he is examined. When he has demonstrated the accomplishment of his task he is excused. The recitation is concluded. He is assigned another task. An examination determines its performance. So is composed the daily routine. He is tested, tried constantly, not taught. If he does not know a certain thing, he is asked to look it up in his textbook. The pupil learns that recitation is examination. He must present results, no matter how he obtained them. The chief duties of the adult person in the schoolroom are to prevent riot and to examine pupils!" Is this an exaggeration? May God grant it! These daily examina |