The More Things Change..
We heard just a day or so ago of a young teacher who had been trained to believe that learning was a process that belonged to the pupil rather than the teacher and who conducted her class on that basis. It was a living school. The pupils asked more questions than the teacher. Comprehension rather than pagination was the text of work. Subjects rather than textbooks were studied. What was done was done by the pupils and what was undertaken was undertaken because the pupils could live in it, not in spite of it. Their minds worked. It was the best class in the school. But when it was promoted the teacher of the next grade found that these pupils did not understand her method of sitting still and conning a book until its words had been memorized, and then repeating them parrot fashion in the recitation. The system of the school had been sadly disarranged. The course of study had been flouted. She consulted the principal and he immediately checked the unauthorized activity of the only good teacher in the school and set her to marking time with the others.
If the experience of this teacher were unique it would not be recounted here. [...] Why do we spend so many years in teaching reading and yet do not succeed in teaching our pupils that reading is not a thing for an idle hour, a luxury, but an indispensable aid in accomplishing whatever they seriously undertake? Why do we teach writing in such a way that the generations take their pens in hand with pain? Why do we teach history to every boy and girl in the land and not get a better return in terms of citizenship? Why do we teach literature without greatly affecting the moral tone of the people? Why has our devotion to nature study resulted so largely in dulled observation and lack of interest on the part of children? [...]
What are you going to do about it? One schoolmaster to whom this question was put replied: "I am going to give it up. I am going into a business in which improvement is possible. I am not going to devote my life to vain and profitless things."
Care to guess the provenance of the above text?
If the experience of this teacher were unique it would not be recounted here. [...] Why do we spend so many years in teaching reading and yet do not succeed in teaching our pupils that reading is not a thing for an idle hour, a luxury, but an indispensable aid in accomplishing whatever they seriously undertake? Why do we teach writing in such a way that the generations take their pens in hand with pain? Why do we teach history to every boy and girl in the land and not get a better return in terms of citizenship? Why do we teach literature without greatly affecting the moral tone of the people? Why has our devotion to nature study resulted so largely in dulled observation and lack of interest on the part of children? [...]
What are you going to do about it? One schoolmaster to whom this question was put replied: "I am going to give it up. I am going into a business in which improvement is possible. I am not going to devote my life to vain and profitless things."
Care to guess the provenance of the above text?