TEACHING
1878
TEACHING
all the simpler acts of human skill are learned; as grasping, standing, walking etc. If the learner possess intelligence enough to imitate, he can shorten the method of trial-and-error by copying the successful acts of others. Older children acquire the more advanced types of skill by the help of imitation — as piano-playing, tennis, the use of tools etc. Here the trial-and-error method is not abandoned but simply aided. Indeed, many models are successfully imitated only by a number of trial-and-error experiments. The method of reasoning consists, as the name implies, in applying one's knowledge to the solution of a new situation. One stops to think instead of experimenting blindly. This method is usually employed in connection with the other methods, and only by the most intelligent beings.
When mankind endeavors consciously to teach his fellows, his purpose is to shorten and render easier the process of learning by trial-and-error. The simplest methods of doing this consist in presenting a model for imitation or in giving instruction in the method of performing the act. The success of such methods is easily tested when they aim to instruct in some simple act of skill, immediately and constantly useful, as speech, the use of tools etc. When, however, the aim is not so immediately to be realized, but consists, as with most of the school-work of to-day, in equipping the child with knowledge and skill to oe applied by him at a time far distant and in the solution of problems the details of which can not be foreseen, the simpler methods of teaching no longer suffice, The divorce between the acquisition of knowledge and skill and the use of them and the wide difference between the conditions under which the child first learns and those in which he applies his learning demand the utmost art of method in order that education may help life and learning lead to practice. The criticisms of old-fashioned school-method may be summed up under two heads. First, it often fails to provide the proper and adequate motive for learning and relies instead on purely school-motives, like rivalry, fear of punishment etc. The true motive is desire to do some work that can not be performed without the knowledge in question. The teacher, however, finds it difficult or impossible to rouse in the child a living sense of the value of what he is called upon to learn, because it is to be used in a later life that the child cannot realize very clearly. Hence artificial motives are used, and the learner finds in the entire school-program something arbitrary that he strives to outwit. The second criticism is that knowledge is imparted, learned and recited in a set form instead of in a variety of conditions. The result is that the student fails to use it in
any other connection than that in which it originally appeared. Arithmetic is used to pass school-examinations but not to solve actual business-problems.
The reformers of method have endeavored to meet the first criticism by developing interest (q. f.) in the school-work and the second by such devices as will lead the learner to use his knowledge in a variety of conditions. The correlation of subjects (q. v.)^ so that each is made to illuminate others, and the inductive method represent the most important of these devices. The inductive method rests on the notion that the mastery of general concepts, principles or laws is the aim of all instruction. This is because only in such generalized forms can knowledge be applied to new conditions. But in order to master principles it is necessary for the learner to start from the concrete facts upon which these are based and by his own insight discern the generalization involved therein. Only thus can he be relied upon to recognize the principle when the conditions vary. Moreover, he must be practiced in the application of these principles. In accordance with these requirements the so-called "formal steps" have been evolved by Herbart, Ziller, Rein and Charles and Frank McMurry. They constitute what is known as the method of the recitation, and may be described as follows: After the subject of study for the lesson has been announced, the pupils are called upon for what they know concerning it. This constitutes the preparation. After it is finished comes the presentation. Here whatever questions remain unsettled are attacked. They may be answered either in the form of a lecture by the teacher, the study of a textbook or, perhaps partly or even wholly, by the original efforts of the pupils. The latter method is called the method of development. It may be based on direct observation of the facts involved, as in an excursion, a laboratory experiment etc. Presentation is followed by comparison, in which facts similar to those studied are recalled and compared. Then comes the generalization, in which the principle behind the entire class of facts is deduced. Finally, the application insures that this principle shall fee employed to explain new cases. The entire treatment may require several lesson-periods and is called a lesson-unit.
This method has been attacked as not providing for all necessary kinds of school-work. It is probable, however, that specific exercises like drill, review etc. are all provided for, especially in the step of application. Professor Dewey suggests that the motive by which interest should be secured comes through the anticipation of the application. To get this motive and the dependent interest, his method is to have the school-room a little society in which living
