How to Study and Teaching How to Study Part 25

In reply, it is safe to say that they can be so trained, provided they have some native capacity for self-reliance that can be used as a basis for such training. And that they have such capacity can scarcely be questioned. In their choice and leadership of games and other play; in their plans for constructive work; in their serious tasks set by themselves at home; in their selection of topics for conversation and even in the turns that their remarks take, children plainly show power of initiative.

Intelligent parents recognize this fact, and they not infrequently take successful measures to cultivate this power. Kindergartners also recognize it. Indeed, they expect children who are little more than infants to propose suitable tasks, together with the method of their execution, in the kindergarten, and to carry the responsibility of leadership in the conversation of the "circle" and in the games. The resourcefulness of a ten-year-old boy was recently suggested in a certain cla.s.s in composition. The subject that they were writing on was Mining in the Far West, and spelling was a serious obstacle for one youth, as it was for most of his mates. Finally, with apparent innocence, he asked his teacher if he might not describe his experiences as a miner in the miner's own dialect. On receiving her consent he gloried in his freedom by misspelling nearly every word that he used.

Evidently, latent power of self-direction is one of the "native tendencies" of childhood. The statement may be ventured, also, that while the field of experience of children is very different from that of adults, the exercise of initiative within that field is as common among children as it is among adults within their own field.

There is, therefore, a good basis in children for a.s.suming the initiative. But it is only a basis. Unless this native tendency toward self-direction is carefully developed in connection with the studies in school, from year to year, it will of course prove inadequate to the demands of proper study. And that very often happens. In spite of the fact that schools exist for the sake of education, there is many a school whose pupils show a peculiar "school helplessness"; that is, they are capable of less initiative in connection with their school tasks than they commonly exhibit in the accomplishment of other tasks.

In its quest for knowledge the school may thus easily prove inferior to the street and the average home in the development of this extremely valuable power.

On the other hand, if children's native capacity for taking initiative has been carefully developed, well-selected subjects of study need make no excessive demands upon them. The topics to be considered will be found so nearly within their experience that their ability to study alone will be taxed only to a normal degree. Children, therefore, can be expected to exercise the initiative that is necessary for independent study from year to year, provided their teachers from year to year do their duty in developing that power.

_Is there time for teaching how to study?_

Finally, even though children be capable of learning to study alone, is there time for such instruction, particularly if it is to be the primary object throughout possibly a quarter of the elementary-school time, and during a considerable time later? Is not the curriculum already full enough, indeed full to completion? While it is true that it has begun to be reduced by the selection of only such matter as bears a plain relation to our lives, as can be understood by the learner, and as const.i.tutes some part of a large topic, when such reduction has been completed there may still remain twice as much as ought to be taught. Shall we, then, even while making these eliminations, make additions that may more than equal them?

The addition here proposed is not so alarming. For a long time some of our university departments of physics have aimed rather to teach the scientific method in laboratory investigations than to impart a knowledge of the facts in physics; and some of our departments of practical politics have been more concerned about the method of investigating political problems than about the conclusions reached concerning them. In such cases the acceptance of proper method as the primary purpose has not precluded the acquisition of much subject- matter, for the method has been taught through the subject-matter. The same would hold in teaching proper method of study.

But, aside from that, attention to proper method of study will result in greatly reducing, rather than in increasing, the work of both teacher and pupil, and in two ways.

First, it will reduce the quant.i.ty of subject-matter. It is strange that, in spite of the hue and cry of teachers and superintendents against overcrowding in the elementary school, they are really the ones who make out the course of study, and there are no persons back of them requiring them to include a large amount. Beyond a minimum portion of the three R's, spelling, and geography, which are required by society, almost anything and everything could be omitted if they greatly desired it. But they have forced young people to study in much the same way as they themselves visit European countries, straining to get a bird's-eye view of everything, and settling on nothing long enough to know it intimately and to enjoy it deeply. They justify Herbert Spencer's remark to the effect that he would have known no more than a great many other persons, if he had read as many books as they had.

The difficulty has been that teachers, with the center of gravity of the school within themselves, have lacked a standard for determining their pupils' normal rate of advance. The curriculum that they have outlined has been merely the sum of those things that they have deemed good, that they would like to have the children know; and the children have been set to work to consume all these good things, just like gourmands.

With the center of gravity in the child, however, and with the proper method of study in the lead, the learner's real power of a.s.similation becomes the standard for his rate of advance. And, since a.s.similation is a very slow process, including much discrimination among ideas as well as their use, comparatively few topics can be undertaken.

Appreciation of proper study then makes extensive eliminations so evidently necessary that they become compulsory. So long as we did not look closely at the minds of children, and they seemed to thrive physically, we have lacked proof that they were surfeiting; attention to study reveals the fact too plainly for it to be ignored.

It is not merely the teacher, either, that will be emboldened to cast aside subject-matter. The pupil himself, under the influence of specific purposes, a clear notion of thoroughness, and his own conception of values, will quickly pa.s.s over many of the facts that are a.s.signed in his lessons. If he pays little attention to a full half of any school text that possesses literary merit, he will probably not be far in the wrong. For perspective is essential in all presentation of thought, and there are usually as many things in the background, necessary and yet to be ignored, as there are in the foreground.

Besides reducing the amount of matter to be studied, proper method of studying will further relieve both teacher and pupil from overwork by eliminating much friction in the process of study. The want of axle grease on a wagon does not increase the actual weight of a ton of coal, but it makes the pulling a lot harder; likewise, awkward methods of study do not increase the curriculum in fact, but they do in effect, by making progress slower and more taxing. There are hosts of young people who are willing and are trying to be studious, who do not know how. They, as well as the lazy ones, have to be dragged along by their teachers, and it is this dragging more than the thinking that exhausts them all. It is the discouragement resulting from this condition that drives many pupils out of school and many teachers into matrimony. While numerous things compete with it as a source of waste in education, unnecessary friction in method of study is probably the greatest source of waste; and it is as foolish to ignore the fact longer as it would be for a manufacturer to refuse to oil and repair his machinery.

There is no question, therefore, about the advisability of taking time to teach proper method of study. In spite of helpful reductions in the curriculum from other sources, we must look to proper method of study as the princ.i.p.al means by which work for both the teacher and the pupil will be made lighter, more effective, and more enjoyable.