The Teaching of History 5

The Teaching of History 5

THE METHOD OF THE RECITATION

 

 

_Assumptions as to the recitation room_

 

Let us now assume that the recitation will be held in a quiet room free

from the distracting influence of poor light, poor ventilation, and

inadequate seating capacity. The blackboard space is ample for the whole

class, the erasers and chalk are at hand, the maps, charts, and globe

are where they can be used without stumbling over them. The teacher can

give his whole attention to the class. Discipline should take care of

itself. The pupil who is interested will not be seriously out of order.

 

 

_What the teacher should aim to accomplish_

 

The problem, then, is so to expend the forty-five minutes in which the

teacher and class are together that:--

 

1. So far as possible the atmosphere and setting of the period

being studied may be reproduced.

 

2. The great historical characters spoken of in the lesson may

become for the student real men and women with whom he will

afterwards feel a personal acquaintance.

 

3. The events described will be understood and properly interpreted

in their relation to geography, and the economic and social

progress of the world.

 

4. Causes and effects shall be properly analyzed.

 

5. And that there shall be left sufficient time for the occasional

review necessary to any good instruction.

 

 

_Work at the blackboard_

 

The first five minutes may profitably be spent at the board, each member

of the class being asked to write a complete answer to one of the

assigned questions. Whatever may happen later in the recitation each

student has had at least this much of an opportunity for

self-__EXPRESSION__, and his work should be neat, workmanlike, complete, and

accurate. By this device the alert teacher will secure in the first five

minutes of the recitation hour a fairly accurate idea of each student's

preparation, the weak spots in his understanding of the lesson, and the

errors to be corrected. He may even be able to record a grade for the

work done.

 

 

_Special reports_

 

The class having taken their seats, the next order of business should be

the reports on special topics assigned for the purpose of making the

period of history under discussion more interesting and vital. As has

been said, these reports should not be read, but delivered by the pupil

facing the class. The class should be encouraged to ask questions on the

report when finished and the student responsible for the report should

be expected to answer any reasonable inquiry. If other students are able

to contribute to the topics reported on, they should be encouraged to do

so. Let the teacher be sure that he has sounded the depths of the

students' information and curiosity before he himself discusses the

report. If the device of reports delivered in class is to justify

itself, the matter contained in them must be so arranged and discussed

that the whole class receives real benefit. The ingenious teacher will

be able to establish a tradition in his course for a careful preparation

and critical discussion of these reports. The rivalry of students for

excellence in this work is not difficult to stimulate. A premium should

be put on criticism which finds mentioned in the characterization

qualities inconsistent with the facts recorded in the text, or omissions

which the facts of the text seem to justify.

 

 

_Fundamental principles of good questioning_

 

It is not likely that the teacher will find it advisable to require

reports at every recitation nor that the reports and their discussion

will consume, at the most, longer than ten or fifteen minutes of any

class period. There must always be time for direct oral questioning on

the facts of the lesson; questioning that will test the student's

memory, ability to analyze, and powers of __EXPRESSION__. Certain principles

are fundamental to good questioning in any recitation.

 

1. The questions should be brief.

 

2. They should be prepared by the teacher before coming to

recitation. This will insure rapidity. A vast deal of time is

lost by the unfortunate habit possessed by many teachers of

never having the next question ready to use.

 

3. They should precede the name of the pupil required to answer it.

 

4. They should not be leading questions to which the pupil can

guess the answers.

 

5. They should be grammatically stated with but one possible

interpretation.

 

6. Except for purposes of rapid review they should not be

answerable with yes or no.

 

7. They should be asked in a voice loud enough to be heard by all

the class, and only once.

 

8. They should be asked in no regular order, but nevertheless in

such a way that every member of the class will have a chance to

recite.

 

 

 

_Some additional suggestions for teachers of history_

 

There are additional suggestions particularly applicable to the teacher

of history.

 

1. In all the questioning remember the purposes of the recitation.

Ask questions knowing exactly what you wish as an answer. There

is no time for aimless or idle questioning.

 

2. Inquire frequently as to the books used in preparation of the

lesson. Let no allusion or statement in the text go unexplained.

Let none of the author's conclusions or opinions go

unchallenged. Ask the student for inconsistencies, inaccuracies,

or contradictions in the text. Put a premium on their discovery.

Insist on the student's authority for statements other than

those given in the text.

 

3. Do not use the heavy-typed words frequently found at the head of

the paragraph or the topical heads furnished by the text, if it

can be avoided. The pupil should not be allowed to remember his

history by its location in the text.

 

4. Be sure that the class have an opportunity to recite on the

questions assigned for their advance preparation. Nothing is

more discouraging to a student than carefully to prepare the

work required and then fail of an opportunity either to recite

upon or to discuss it.

 

5. Discover the tastes, shortcomings, and abilities of your

individual students and direct your future questions

accordingly. There will usually be in the class the boy who is

glib without being accurate. He should be questioned on definite

facts. There will be the student whose analysis of events is

good, but whose powers of description are poor. Adapt your

questions to his special need. There will be the pupil with the

tendency to memorize the text _verbatim_. There will be the

student who knows the facts of the lesson, but who fails to

remember the sequence of events--the kind who never can tell

whether the Exclusion Bill came before or after the Restoration.

There will be the usual amount of specialized tastes, curiosity,

timidity, laziness, and rattle-brained thinking. The questioning

should probe these peculiarities, and stimulate the pupil's

ambition to improve his preparation at its weakest point.

Needless to say the questions should not be asked with the daily

idea of making the pupil fail. Like any other surgical

instrument the question probe should be used skillfully and with

a proper motive. It would be as great an error to bend your

questions continually away from the student's special tastes and

abilities as to be perpetually guided by them.

 

6. The bulk of the teacher's attention should be given neither to

the few exceptionally able students nor to the few very poor

pupils. It is to the average normal boy and girl that the most

of the questioning should be directed. The brilliant student

should be called on sufficiently to retain his interest and to

set a standard of excellence for the class. He should be given

the most difficult of the assignments of outside work and if

necessary an additional number of them. As to the few pupils

whom the teacher deems exceptionally poor, it may be said that

the effect of questioning should never be to discourage the

pupil who has made an honest effort at preparation. During the

early part of the course the efforts of the teacher may well be

directed to asking the backward student questions to which he

can make reasonably satisfactory answers. By saving the student

from the daily humiliation of failure before the class, and by

tactfully encouraging him to greater effort, the teacher may

shortly discover that the poor pupil is far from hopeless.

 

7. Do not allow your questions to consume a disproportionate amount

of time with details. Until very recently in all our history

teaching, battles have been exalted to a place immeasurably

greater than their importance. We are coming to see that the

fighting is one of the least important things in the war. The

causes and results, the financial, political, and social effects

now absorb our attention. One or two battles in a course may

profitably be studied in detail, particularly in the history of

our own country, but in the press of considerations far more

interesting and vital, it is a waste of time to give more than a

moment's notice to the remainder. Student descriptions of

battles are bound to be stereotyped. The ordinary textbook

describes each of the thousand battles of the world in about the

same fifty words.

 

8. Let some of the questions be directed towards cultivating the

student's powers of oral description. History is not altogether

a matter of analysis or generalization. There can scarcely be

assigned a lesson in history that does not contain events which

lend themselves to dramatic description. Their recital should be

made the occasion of the student's best efforts in this

direction. Let the pupils be taught to use adjectives and

adverbs. Break down the barrier of listlessness or fear or

self-consciousness which keeps the student from rendering a

graphic and thrilling account of great events.

 

9. Let the questions from day to day develop the continuity of

history. Avoid questioning that fails to unite the events of

previous lessons with the one being studied. Bring out the

connection of the past and the present. Slavery existed in

America for two hundred years before the Civil War was fought.

Your teaching of those two centuries of history should be so

conducted that when the Civil War is finally reached, the class

can tell the process by which anti-slavery sentiment was finally

crystallized. The hiatus between the mobbing of Garrison in

Boston and the extraordinary contribution of Massachusetts to

the Northern army should be bridged, not by a heroic question or two when the war is finally reached, but by a daily attention to the events which effected the metamorphosis.