The Teacher Part 24

To explain now what is meant by such scheming as is to be condemned, let us suppose a case, which is not very uncommon. A young man, while preparing for college, takes a school. When he first enters upon the duties of his office, he is diffident and timid, and walks cautiously in the steps which precedent has marked out for him. Distrusting himself, he seeks guidance in the example which others have set for him, and very probably he imitates precisely, though it may be insensibly and involuntarily, the manners and the plans of his own last teacher. This servitude soon however, if he is a man of natural abilities, pa.s.ses away: he learns to try one experiment after another, until he insensibly finds that a plan may succeed, even if it was not pursued by his former teacher. So far it is well. He throws greater interest into his school, and into all its exercises by the spirit with which he conducts them. He is successful. After the period of his services has expired, he returns to the pursuit of his studies, encouraged by his success, and antic.i.p.ating further triumphs in his subsequent attempts.

He goes on through college we will suppose, teaching from time to time in the vacations, as opportunity occurs, taking more and more interest in the employment, and meeting with greater and greater success. This success is owing in a very great degree to the _freedom_ of his practice, that is to his escape from the thraldom of imitation. So long as he leaves the great objects of the school untouched, and the great features of its organization unchanged, his many plans for accomplishing these objects in new and various ways, awaken interest and spirit both in himself and in his scholars, and all goes on well.

Now in such a case as this, a young teacher philosophizing upon his success and the causes of it, will almost invariably make this mistake; viz., he will attribute to something essentially excellent in his plans, the success which, in fact results from the novelty of them.

When he proposes something new to a cla.s.s, they all take an interest in it, because it is _new_. He takes, too, a special interest in it because it is an experiment which he is trying, and he feels a sort of pride and pleasure in securing its success. The new method which he adopts, may not be, _in itself_, in the least degree better than old methods. Yet it may succeed vastly better in his hands, than any old method he had tried before. And why? Why because it is new. It awakens interest in his cla.s.s, because it offers them variety, and it awakens interest in him, because it is a plan which he has devised, and for whose success therefore he feels that his credit is at stake. Either of these circ.u.mstances is abundantly sufficient to account for its success.

Either of these would secure success, unless the plan was a very bad one indeed.

This may easily be ill.u.s.trated by supposing a particular case. The teacher has, we will imagine, been accustomed to teach spelling in the usual way, by a.s.signing a lesson in the spelling book, which the scholars have studied in their seats, and then they have recited by having the words put to them individually in the cla.s.s. After sometime, he finds that one cla.s.s has lost its interest in this study. He can _make_ them get the lesson it is true, but he perceives perhaps that it is a weary task to them. Of course they proceed with less alacrity, and consequently with less rapidity and success. He thinks, very justly, that it is highly desirable to secure cheerful, not forced, reluctant efforts from his pupils, and he thinks of trying some new plan.

Accordingly he says to them,

"Boys, I am going to try a new plan for this cla.s.s."

The mere annunciation of a new plan awakens universal attention. The boys all look up, wondering what it is to be.

"Instead of having you study your lessons in your seats, as heretofore, I am going to let you all go together into one corner of the room, and choose some one to read the lesson to you, spelling all the words aloud.

You will all listen and endeavor to remember how the difficult ones are spelled. Do you think you can remember?"

"Yes, sir," say the boys. Children always think they _can_ do every thing which is proposed to them as a new plan or experiment, though they are very often inclined to think they _cannot_ do what is required of them as a task.

"You may have," continues the teacher, "the words read to you once, or twice, just as you please. Only if you have them read but once, you must take a shorter lesson."

He pauses and looks round upon the cla.s.s. Some say, "Once," some, "Twice."

"I am willing that you should decide this question. How many are in favor of having shorter lessons, and having them read but once?----How many prefer longer lessons, and having them read twice?"

After comparing the numbers, it is decided according to the majority, and the teacher a.s.signs, or allows them to a.s.sign a lesson.

"Now," he proceeds, "I am not only going to have you study in a different way, but recite in a different way too. You may take your slates with you, and after you have had time to hear the lesson read slowly and carefully twice, I shall come and dictate to you the words aloud, and you will all write them from my dictation. Then I shall examine your slates, and see how many mistakes are made."

Any cla.s.s of boys now would be exceedingly interested in such a proposal as this, especially if the master's ordinary principles of government and instruction had been such, as to interest the pupils in the welfare of the school, and in their own progress in study. They will come together in the place a.s.signed, and listen to the one who is appointed to read the words to them, with every faculty aroused, and their whole souls engrossed in the new duties a.s.signed them. The teacher, too, feels a special interest in his experiment. Whatever else be may be employed about, his eye turns instinctively to this group, with an intensity of interest, which an experienced teacher who has long been in the field, and who has tried experiments of this sort a hundred times, can scarcely conceive. For let it be remembered that I am describing the acts and feelings of a new beginner; of one who is commencing his work, with a feeble and trembling step, and perhaps this is his first step from the beaten path in which he has been accustomed to walk.

This new plan is continued, we will suppose, a week, during which time the interest of the pupils continues. They get longer lessons, and make fewer mistakes than they did by the old method. Now in speculating on this subject, the teacher reasons very justly, that it is of no consequence whether the pupil receives his knowledge through the eye, or through the ear; whether they study in solitude or in company. The point is to secure their progress in learning to spell the words of the English language, and as this point is secured far more rapidly and effectually by his new method, the inference is to his mind very obvious, that he has made a great improvement,--one of real and permanent value. Perhaps he will consider it an extraordinary discovery.

But the truth is, that in almost all such cases as this, the secret of the success is, not that the teacher has discovered a _better_ method than the ordinary ones, but that he has discovered a _new_ one. The experiment will succeed in producing more successful results, just as long as the novelty of it continues to excite unusual interest and attention in the cla.s.s, or the thought that it is a plan of the teacher's own invention, leads him to take a peculiar interest in it.

And this may be a month, or perhaps a quarter, and precisely the same effects would have been produced, if the whole had been reversed, that is, if the plan of dictation had been the old one, which in process of time had, in this supposed school, lost its interest, and the teacher by his ingenuity and enterprise had discovered and introduced what is now the common mode.

"Very well," perhaps my reader will reply, "it is surely something gained to awaken and continue interest in a dull study, for a quarter, or even a month. The experiment is worth something as a pleasant and useful change, even if it is not permanently superior to the other."

It is indeed worth something. It is worth a great deal; and the teacher who can devise and execute such plans, _understanding their real place and value, and adhering steadily through them all, to the great object which ought to engage his attention_, is in the almost certain road to success as an instructer. What I wish is, not to discourage such efforts; they ought to be encouraged to the utmost, but to have their real nature and design, and the real secret of their success fully understood, and to have the teacher, above all, take good care that all his new plans are made, not the subst.i.tutes for the great objects which he ought to keep steadily in view, but only the means by which he may carry them into more full and complete effect.

In the case we are supposing however, we will imagine that the teacher does not do this. He fancies that he has made an important discovery, and begins to inquire whether the _principle_, as he calls it, cannot be applied to some other studies. He goes to philosophizing upon it, and can find many reasons why knowledge received through the ear makes a more ready and lasting impression, than when it comes through the eye.

He tries to apply the method to Arithmetic and Geography, and in a short time is forming plans for the complete metamorphosis of his school. When engaged in hearing a recitation, his mind is distracted with his schemes and plans; and instead of devoting his attention fully to the work he may have in hand, his thoughts are wandering continually to new schemes and fancied improvements, which agitate and perplex him, and which elude his efforts to give them a distinct and definite form. He thinks he must however, carry out his _principle_. He thinks of its applicability to a thousand other cases. He revolves, over and over again in his mind, plans for changing the whole arrangement of his school. He is again and again lost in perplexity, his mind is engrossed and distracted, and his present duties are performed with no interest, and consequently with little spirit or success.

Now his error is in allowing a new idea, which ought only to have suggested to him an agreeable change for a time, in one of his cla.s.ses, to swell itself into undue and exaggerated importance, and to draw off his mind from what ought to be the objects of his steady pursuit.

Perhaps some teacher of steady intellectual habits and a well balanced mind may think that this picture is fanciful, and that there is little danger that such consequences will ever actually result from such a cause. But far from having exaggerated the results, I am of opinion that I might have gone much farther. There is no doubt that a great many instances have occurred, in which some simple idea like the one I have alluded to, has led the unlucky conceiver of it, in his eager pursuit far deeper into the difficulty, than I have here supposed. He gets into a contention with the school committee, that formidable foe to the projects of all scheming teachers; and it would not be very difficult to find many actual cases, where the individual has, in consequence of some such idea, quietly planned and taken measures to establish some new inst.i.tution, where he can carry on, unmolested, his plans, and let the world see the full results of his wonderful discoveries.

We have in our country a very complete system of literary inst.i.tutions, so far as external organization will go, and the prospect of success is far more favorable in efforts to carry these inst.i.tutions into more complete and prosperous operation, than in plans for changing them, or subst.i.tuting others in their stead. Were it not that such a course would be unjust to individuals, a long and melancholy catalogue might easily be made out, of abortive plans which have sprung up in the minds of young men, in the manner I have described, and which after perhaps temporary success, have resulted in partial or total failure. These failures are of every kind. Some are school-books on a new plan, which succeed in the inventor's hand, chiefly on account of the spirit which carried it into effect; but which in ordinary hands, and under ordinary circ.u.mstances, and especially after long continued use, have failed of exhibiting any superiority. Others are inst.i.tutions, commenced with great zeal by the projectors, and which succeed just as long as that zeal continues. Zeal will make any thing succeed for a time. Others are new plans of instruction or government, generally founded on some good principle carried to an extreme, or made to grow into exaggerated and disproportionate importance. Examples almost innumerable, of these things might be particularized, if it were proper, and it would be found upon examination, that the amount of ingenuity and labor wasted upon such attempts, would have been sufficient, if properly expended, to have elevated very considerably the standard of education, and to have placed existing inst.i.tutions in a far more prosperous and thriving state than they now exhibit.

The reader will perhaps ask, shall we make no efforts at improvement?

Must every thing in education go on in a uniform and monotonous manner; and while all else is advancing, shall our cause alone stand still? By no means. It must advance; but let it advance mainly by the industry and fidelity of those who are employed in it; by changes slowly and cautiously made; not by great efforts to reach forward to brilliant discoveries, which will draw off the attention from essential duties, and after leading the projector through perplexities and difficulties without number, end in mortification and failure.

Were I to give a few concise and summary directions in regard to this subject to a young teacher, they would be the following:

1. Examine thoroughly the system of public and private schools as now const.i.tuted in New England, until you fully understand it, and appreciate its excellences and its completeness; see how fully it provides for the wants of the various cla.s.ses of our population.

By this I mean to refer only to the completeness of the _system_, as a system of organization. I do not refer at all to the internal management of these inst.i.tutions: this last is, of course, a field for immediate and universal effort at progress and improvement.

2. If after fully understanding this system as it now exists, you are of opinion that something more is necessary; if you think some cla.s.ses of the community are not fully provided for, or that some of our inst.i.tutions may be advantageously exchanged for others, whose plan you have in mind; consider whether your age, and experience, and standing, as an instructer are such as to enable you to place confidence in your opinion.

I do not mean by this, that a young man may not make a useful discovery; but only that he may be led away by the ardor of early life, to fancy that essential and important, which is really not so. It is important that each one should determine whether this is not the case with himself, if his mind is revolving some new plan.

3. Perhaps you are contemplating only a single new inst.i.tution, which is to depend for its success, on yourself and some coadjutors whom you have in mind, and whom you well know. If this is the case, consider whether the establishment you are contemplating can be carried on, after you shall have left it, by such men as can ordinarily be obtained. If the plan is founded on some peculiar notions of your own, which would enable you to succeed in it, when others, also interested in such a scheme, would probably fail, consider whether there may not be danger that your plan may be imitated by others, who cannot carry it into successful operation, so that it may be the indirect means of doing injury. A man is, in some degree, responsible for his example, and for the consequences which may indirectly flow from his course, as well as for the immediate results which he produces. The Fellenberg school at Hofwyl has perhaps, by its direct results, been as successful for a given time, as perhaps any other inst.i.tution in the world; but there is a great offset to the good which it has thus done, to be found in the history of the thousand wretched imitations of it, which have been started only to linger a little while and die, and in which a vast amount of time, and talent, and money have been wasted.

Consider the influence you may have upon the other inst.i.tutions of our country, by attaching yourself to some one under the existing organization. If you take an academy or a private school, const.i.tuted and organized like other similar inst.i.tutions, success in your own, will give you influence over others. A successful teacher of an academy, raises the standard of academic instruction. A college professor, if he brings extraordinary talents to bear upon the regular duties of that office, throws light, universally, upon the whole science of college discipline and instruction. By going, however, to some new field, establishing some new and fanciful inst.i.tution, you take yourself from such a sphere;--you exert no influence over others, except upon feeble imitators, who fail in their attempts, and bring discredit upon your plans by the awkwardness with which they attempt to adopt them. How much more service to the cause of education, have Professors Cleaveland and Silliman rendered by falling in with the regularly organized inst.i.tutions of the country, and elevating them, than if in early life, they had given themselves to some magnificent project of an establishment, to which their talents would unquestionably have given temporary success, but which would have taken them away from the community of teachers, and confined the results of their labors to the more immediate effects which their daily duties might produce.

5. Perhaps, however, your plan is not the establishment of some new inst.i.tution, but the introduction of some new study or pursuit into the one with which you are connected. Before, however, you interrupt the regular plans of your school to make such a change, consider carefully what is the real and appropriate object of your inst.i.tution. Every thing is not to be done in school. The principles of division of labor apply with peculiar force to this employment; so that you must not only consider whether the branch, which you are now disposed to introduce, is important, but whether it is really such an one as it is, on the whole, best to include among the objects to be pursued in such an inst.i.tution.

Many teachers seem to imagine, that if any thing is in itself important, and especially if it is an important branch of education, the question is settled of its being a proper object of attention in school. But this is very far from being the case. The whole work of education can never be intrusted to the teacher. Much must of course remain in the hands of the parent; it ought so to remain. The object of a school is not to take children out of the parental hands, subst.i.tuting the watch and guardianship of a stranger, for the natural care of father and mother.

Far from it. It is only the a.s.sociation of the children for those purposes which can be more successfully accomplished by a.s.sociation. It is an union for few, specific, and limited objects, for the accomplishment of that part, (and it is comparatively a small part of the general objects of education) which can be most successfully affected by public inst.i.tutions, and in a.s.semblies of the young.

6. If the branch which you are desiring to introduce appears to you to be an important part of education, and if it seems to you that it can be most successfully attended to in schools, then consider whether the introduction of it, _and of all the other branches having equal claims_, will, or will not give to the common schools too great a complexity.

Consider whether it will succeed in the hands of ordinary teachers.

Consider whether it will require so much time and effort, as will draw off, in any considerable degree, the attention of the teacher from the more essential parts of his duty. All will admit that it is highly important that every school should be simple in its plan,--as simple as its size and general circ.u.mstances will permit, and especially, that the public schools in every town and village of our country should never lose sight of what is, and must be, after all, their great design--_teaching the whole population to read, write, and calculate_.

7. If it is a school-book, which you are wishing to introduce, consider well before you waste your time in preparing it, and your spirits in the vexatious work of getting it through the press, whether it is, _for general use_, so superior to those already published, as to induce teachers to make a change in favor of yours. I have italicised the words _for general use_, for no delusion is more common than for a teacher to suppose, that because a text-book which he has prepared and uses in ma.n.u.script, is better for _him_ than any other work which he can obtain, it will therefore be better for _general circulation_. Every man, if he has any originality of mind, has of course some peculiar method of his own, and he can of course prepare a text-book which will be better adapted to this method, than those ordinarily in use. The history of a vast mult.i.tude of textbooks, Arithmetics, Geographies, and Grammars, is this. A man of a somewhat ingenious mind, adopts some peculiar mode of instruction in one of these branches, and is quite successful, not because the method has any very peculiar excellence, but simply because he takes a greater interest in it, both on account of its novelty and also from the fact that it is his own invention. He conceives the plan of writing a text-book, to develope and ill.u.s.trate this method. He hurries through the work. By some means or other, he gets it printed. In due time it is regularly advertised. The Annals of Education gives notice of it; the author sends a few copies to his friends, and that is the end of it. Perhaps a few schools may make a trial of it, and if, for any reason, the teachers who try it are interested in the work, perhaps in their hands, it succeeds. But it does not succeed so well as to attract general attention, and consequently does not get into general circulation. The author loses his time and his patience. The publisher, unless unfortunately it was published on the author's account, loses his paper. And in a few months, scarcely any body knows that such a book ever saw the light.

It is in this way, that the great mult.i.tude of school-books which are now constantly issuing from the press, take their origin. Far be it from me to discourage the preparation of good school-books. This department of our literature offers a fine field for the efforts of learning and genius. What I contend against, is the endless multiplicity of useless works, hastily conceived and carelessly executed, and which serve no purpose, but to employ uselessly, talents, which if properly applied, might greatly benefit both the community and the possessor.

8. If, however, after mature deliberation you conclude that you have the plan of a school-book which you ought to try to mature and execute, be slow and cautious about it. Remember that so great is now the compet.i.tion in this branch, nothing but superior excellences will secure the favorable reception of a work. Examine all that your predecessors have done before you. Obtain, whatever may be the trouble and expense, all other text books on the subject, and examine them thoroughly. If you see that you can make a very decided advance on all that has been done, and that the public will probably submit to the inconvenience and expense of a change, to secure the result of your labors, go forward slowly and thoroughly in your work. No matter how much investigation, how much time and labor it may require. The more difficulty you may find, in gaining the eminence, the less likely will you be to be followed by successful compet.i.tors.

9. Consider in forming your text-book, not merely the whole subject on which you are to write, but also look extensively and thoroughly at the inst.i.tutions throughout the country, and consider carefully the character of the teachers by whom you expect it to be used. Sometimes a man publishes a text-book, and when it fails on trial, he says, "It is because they did not know how to use it. The book in itself was good.

The whole fault was in the awkwardness and ignorance of the teacher."

How absurd! As if to make a good text-book, it was not as necessary to adapt it to teachers as to scholars. _A good text-book which the teachers for whom it was intended did not know how to use!!_ i. e. A good contrivance but entirely unfit for the purpose for which it was intended.

10. Lastly, in every new plan, consider carefully whether its success in your hands, after you have tried it, and found it successful, be owing to its novelty and to your own special interest, or to its own innate and intrinsic superiority. If the former, use it so long as it will last, simply to give variety and interest to your plans. Recommend it in conversation or in other ways to teachers with whom you are acquainted; not as a wonderful discovery, which is going to change the whole science of education, but as one method among others, which may be introduced from time to time, to relieve the monotony of the teacher's labors.

In a word do not go away from the established inst.i.tutions of our country, or deviate from the great objects which are at present, and ought to be pursued by them, without great caution, circ.u.mspection, and deliberate inquiry. But within these limits, exercise ingenuity and invention as much as you will. Pursue steadily the great objects which demand the teacher's attention; they are simple and few. Never lose sight of them, nor turn to the right or to the left to follow any ignis fatuus which may endeavor to allure you away; but exercise as much ingenuity and enterprise as you please, in giving variety and interest to the modes by which these objects are pursued.

If planning and scheming are confined within these limits, and conducted on these principles, the teacher will save all the agitating perplexity and care which will otherwise be his continual portion. He can go forward peaceably and quietly, and while his own success is greatly increased, he may be of essential service to the cause in which he is engaged, by making known his various experiments and plans to others.

For this purpose it seems to me highly desirable that every teacher should KEEP A JOURNAL of all his plans. In these should be carefully entered all his experiments: the new methods he adopts; the course he takes in regard to difficulties which may arise; and any interesting incidents which may occur, which it would be useful for him to refer to, at some future time. These or the most interesting of them should be made known to other teachers. This may be done in several ways.

(1.) By publishing them in periodicals devoted to education.

Such contributions, furnished by judicious men, would be among the most valuable articles in such a work. They would be far more valuable than any general speculations, however well conceived or expressed.