several daughters.
223
CLASS TEACHING AND MANAGEMENT
GRADES
VIII
VII
X
SUBJECT
X
VI
1
5 years
AMERICAN HISTORY
2 years
V
1
X
IV
X
III
II
I
We may do, in reason, some twelve different things
with this situation. Here are four of the twelve ā viz.:
1. We may teach American history for five years, in
Grades IV to VHI, inclusive. This is not seldom done.
2. We may teach it for three years, in Grades VI-VIII.
3. We may teach it in Grade IV and review it again in
Grade VII ā a two years' discontinuous treatment.
4. We may teach it only in Grades V-VI.
I. The lower the locus of the study, the easier we must
try to make its content.
II. The longer its locus, the more complete may be
its treatment.
III. A false locus betrays the true philosophy of any
subject.
My opinion is that the true locus of American hisCory is
(a) in Grades VII-VIII, with pupils of the ages
assigned above (page 222j ;
(6) daily for a forty-minute period.
This, of course, is above the compulsory age-limit of
most States; but that age-limit should be sixteen years
224
CLASSIFYING, MARKING, GRADING, PROMOTING
of age, with a dollar a week per child from the public
funds to help widows bring up fatherless boys and girls.
8 years
X
1
3 years
X
GRADES
viri
VII
SUBJECT
VI
V
HANDWRITING
IV
III
II
I
Here again we may do many different things. I ven-
ture again an opinion as follows ā viz.:
(a) The formation of letters should be taught in
Grades I and II, daily, for a twenty-minute period.
(6) Systematic daily drill in handwriting as an art
should begin in Grade IV and continue through Grades
V and VI.
(c) The boy or girl who has not then learned to write
well should be forgotten until puberty is well estab-
lished, when cross-heredity may give better nervous and
muscular control; and
(d) The subject may be taken up as it were de novo
in the first and second years of the high-school course.
In the early adolescent period, good handwriting is
often broken up forever; but I do not recall a case where
a boy at thirteen years of age or a girl at twelve years
who could not write well learned how to do so in the next
two years. The drill-period for most boys is from nine
225
CLASS TEACHING AND MANAGEMENT
to thirteen; for most girls, from eight to eleven years
of age.
In other words, we now spread handwriting too gen-
erally and too thinly through the course. As a special
exercise, it should be concentrated in three years.
Though I do not deal specifically with arithmetic or
geography in this treatment, I entertain similar opinions
regarding their pursuit.
The locus of geometry has been shifted up and down
the scale of the grades, up and down from top to bottom,
several times since Euclid discovered its nature and first
propositions. In one form, Froebel placed it in the
kindergarten, though not a kindergarten for children
under six years old.
College
SUBJECT
X
I
1 year
I
X
GEOMETRY
GRADES
1st
4th
3d
2d
X
1st
VIII
5 years
X
VII
VI
V
IV
III
II
I
Kdgn.
High School
^ Elementary
School
226
CLASSIFYING, MARKING, GRADING, PROMOTING
At present, many of "the progressives" propose to
place some geometry in the kindergarten, some in Grade
VI or VII, more in the second year of the high school,
and the rest in college. The present ''conservatives"
would force it all into the second high-school year.
Some educators for decades have been placing it in the
first year of the high school before algebra.'
The question of what is the true locus of any school
subject is a matter of fact, to be determined by psycho-
logical experiment and pedagogical verification. My
own opinion is that for educational uses we have dif-
ferentiated arithmetic, algebra and geometry too sharp-
ly and have integrated them too completely and that
what we now actually need is elementary mathematics
for our grammar grades and first and second high-school
years. But wanting in current practice such a logical
order as will put the topics of arithmetic, algebra and
geometry in their true rational relations, I incline to
the view that arithmetic now has too low a locus and too
long a range in our elementary schools and that what
we know as geometry should occupy one and a half years
in the second and third years of our high schools.^
The second of the great unsolved problems of the or-
ganization of the curriculum is how many subjects should
be assigned to each grade. This is a special problem in
* In 1878, in the public schools of the city of Dayton, under John
Hancock, a famous educator of that period, as superintendent, I
studied and finished algebra in the Seventh Grade and studied
geometry in the Eighth Grade. None of the pupils of my class had
any serious difficulties with either subject. The average age of the
pupils of that class was eleven years in the Seventh Grade. I cite
this merely to indicate that it is unsafe to say of such pedagogical
propositions, "It cannot be done."
^ For a course of study, see Appendix IV.
16 227
CLASS TEACHING AND MANAGEMENT
application of the Aristotelian principle of the "golden
mean." On the one side, we have the cliild who is to
make his growtli and to live his own life as an individual.
On the other side, we have a great and a complicated
society ever growing greater and more complicated. It is
dangerous for one to go into that society poorly equipped
in knowledge and in training. It Is perilou&^r society
to receive one more individual poorly equipped. It
is pretty well agreed now that the school curriculum is
overcrowded already. It is likewise agreed that our-
schooL "graduates" commonly know rather less than
they should know before entering upon their life-work.
The first consideration requires change by omissions in
the course of study: the second requires change by ad-
ditions. The situation is worse than a dilemma: it is
a battle between opposing forces.
It may help somewhat to say that perhaps age as a
factor may be important. Perhaps we should favor the
child in the early stages of education and society in the
later. Perhaps a better professional knowledge of the
temperaments of children and more skill in teaching
may help somewhat. Perhaps we squander time in
teaching the motor boys to be efficient ā they are
efficient naturally; the vital to be good and kind ā they
are both by birth; the reflective to, be careful ā which
they cannot help being. Certainly some of us squander
time in teaching badly subjects of which we know too
little and exercises in whose technique we are seriouslj''
deficient. But even so, we have not done enough to
clear up this difficulty and to bring the individual
himself and the social requirements as expressed in
the course of study into a harmony that properly
unites both. Frankly, the problem is beyond not
228
CLASSIFYING, MARKING, GRADING, PROMOTING
only class teachers, but at present our educationalists
also.
A few suggestions may, however, help practical class
teachers in a measure.
I. The apportionment of material from the several
subjects of an elementary or secondary school course is
seldom just in all details. When it is unfair as between
the grades, the class teachers may persuade the higher
authorities to readjust the apportionments. To be
specific: I. Generally throughout the land, too much
work is assigned to Grade I, especially in number (arith-
metic). There are many, very many, ''Advanced First
Grades" that really should be called "Grade II." The
test is simple and final. Given two periods of twenty
minutes a day, how much work in numbers can a class
of thirty-five pupils aged six to eight reasonably do in
one year? This means that all except the feeble-
minded and the lazy are to pass, ā all of them. My own
opinion is ā Maximum, the number 12, preferably 10;
and counting to 100. ā All the work to be dramatized.
Minimum, ā wliich I consider entirely reasonable^ ā
counting to 12, no dissection of any numbers at all.
II. Generally, in order to prolong the subjects of the
elementary course through all the grades there is a deal of
what, closely considered, is scarcely else than "marking
time" in them because the pupils for want of intellectual
development are incapable of rapid progress. Intellect-
ual development is itself a tricksome phrase; but it has
meaning enough when closely considered ā it is that
thing which in properly constituted individuals is the
result of normal physical and psychical growth in com-
bination with suitable educational advantages. By no
means all the progress in intellectual power to be ob-
229
CLASS TEACHING AND MANAGEMENT
served in the normal child between his condition at
entrance to kindergarten and his condition at graduation
from grammar school is due to the school, for some of
it, despite the naive assumptions of his teachers, has
been due to natural growth.
2. "When the directions of the higher authorities are
not so detailed as to make the two following suggestions
impracticable without violation of such directions, we
may ease the daily work in a measure, first, by omitting
some subjects for a term and emphasizing other and then
emphasizing the omitted subjects and dropping others
for a time, and, second, by having somewhat different
programs for (say) Mondays and Thursdays from those
for Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays/
To illustrate : ā The course of study may call for so much
history and so much geography each year; but it may per-
haps be permissible to take the history for one half of the
year and the geography for the other half.
Again: ā The course may call for drawing and manual
training each term ; but in such case it may be permissible
to give the drawing three days a week and the manual train-
ing for two days. Such are two possible applications of the
principle.
3. The class, even though properly graded, may be
divided into three or four groups for recitation, study,
construction lessons and other purposes. In some cities,
in lower grades it is the universal practice; and not in-
frequent in the higher grades. Whether it is desirable
or not depends much upon the temperament and tech-
nical training of the teacher. That it promotes the wel-
fare of peculiar children is certain.
> See pages 123, 140, 141, above.
230
CLASSIFYING, MARKING, GRADING, PROMOTING
4. In almost any class, there are some children who
are unusually proficient in some subjects and yet al-
most correspondingly deficient in others. Unless the
higher authorities have been unduly detailed in their
prescriptions, the class teacher may so vary the pro-
grams of individual students as to permit them to put
their strength where it is needed. To be specific : A girl
in Grade III actually reads well enough to be in
Grade VI, but is poor in arithmetic. Let her take four
of the five reading periods a week for extra study upon
arithmetic. Or a boy in Grade V is good in arithmetic,
but poor in spelling: let him omit two or three lessons
a week in arithmetic for a time in order to give extra
study to spelling.
In general, for the entire situation, I heartily indorse
the practice of giving to every pupil in school at the
least one-third of his time daily to study and to the
preparation of lessons and to every teacher one-fifth of
liis or her time solely to the supervision of the pupils
in individual study. To put the matter otherwise: In-
stead of trying to give to the pupils as many hours of
recitation and of exercises daily as possible, try rather
to give them at least one-third and preferably one-half
of the time daily to study. Where classes are divided
into several groups, this is easy of accomplishment.
Even if we must overcrowd the curriculum for the
school considered as a whole, let us not overcrowd
the individual pupil. How to organize our school
courses so as to avoid the former offence to a
sound applied psychology, may be a problem for philo-
sophical educators; but the latter problem is the busi-
ness of every practical class teacher. Short hours and
high pressure is the new educational order; but it must
231
CLASS TEACHING AND MANAGEMENT
not mean defrauding the pupil either of his right to pre-
pare his lessons at school and to review them at school,
or of his right to pursue at each stage in his education
a few and not a multitude of studies and exercises.
Intellectual confusion is too high a price to pay for
enlightenment from too many directions at once.
"We should therefore see if it be possible to place the art
of intellectual discipline on such a firm basis that sure and
certain progress may be made. Since this basis can be
properly laid only by assimilating the processes of art as
much as possible to those of Nature, we will follow the
method of Nature, taking as our example a bird hatching
out its young; and if we see with what good results gar-
deners, artists, and builders follow in the track of Nature,
we shall have to recognize that the educator of youth should
follow in the same track.
"Nature observes a suitable time.
"Nature is not confused in its operations, but in its for-
ward progress advances distinctly from one point to
another.
"In all the operations of Nature, development is from
within." ā CoMENius, The Great Didactic. 1649.
CHAPTER VIII
HOW TO MAKE A GOOD SCHOOL AND A GOOD CLASS
The school as seen by a visitor. ā Active attention, absorbed atten-
tion, deliberative attention. ā Order and decorum of the pupils. ā The
use of the English language. ā Voice. ā Condition of the room itself.
ā School equipment. ā Qualifications as seen by systematic ob-
servers. ā Aims of the good class teacher. ā The school spirit. ā In-
terest of each pupil in his own welfare: self-activity. ā Tlie school
neighborhood. ā The financial authorities. ā Public opinion.
IN order to have a good class, three things are always
requisite, ā an ideal, an intention to realize it, and
skill. It may help to form the ideal for us to consider
how others judge classes.
There are several degrees in which one may discrimi-
nate regarding teachers. The first is by looking in upon
their classes. The second is by periodical visits to the
classes, staying long enough to see the work in process.
The third is to observe systematically for a considerable
length of time the later history of the pupils.
It is a safe opinion to venture that in nine cases out
of ten a skilful supervisor's impression of a class will
be borne out substantially unchanged, ā save as the
class changes, ā by a series of visits fortnightly or often
for a year, and that his greatest disappointment will be
in case it does not change for the better, and that upon
his first visit, from the relation then discovered between
the teacher and the class, he will be able to predict the
235
CLASS TEACHING AND MANAGEMENT
future record of that class. The excellence of skill in-
deed is, given unchanged factors, in the certainty of its
prediction. Conversely once in ten cases, the single
observation will prove erroneous. It may have been
too favorable or too unfavorable. Hence in about nine-
teen cases out of twenty, the single observation is as
favorable as was fitting. Once in twenty cases, it was
not favorable enough. Unskilful supervisors and lay-
men make many errors upon single observations, though
seldom against the teacher. In other words, when a
layman or an unskilful supervisor reports, after one brief
visit, that a teacher is incompetent, he is seldom wrong:
but when he reports favorably, he is much more likely
to be wrong.
It is also a safe enough opinion that a skilful super-
visor's annual report regarding the work of a teacher in
a class that he has visited (say) fortnightly for a year,
staying in all at least ten hours in the room, would not
be challenged once in a hundred cases by any committee
of supervisors making a drastic examination of the
teacher's work because of that report. Less than once
in a hundred cases, he will report erroneously; but he is
just as likely to be too favorable as too unfavorable, so
that scarcely once in two hundred cases is a skilful super-
visor's annual report on a teacher too unfavorable and
therefore unfair.
Teachers also in their views of supervisors are just as
likely to be lenient as to be censorious.
And it is a safe enough opinion that after a teacher
has taught in the same neighborhood five years, the pro-
fessional opinion entertained of that teacher will be the
same in nearly every case as the opinion of the great
majority of the parents and citizens. I am speaking
236
HOW TO MAKE A GOOD SCHOOL AND CLASS
now solely of class teachers, not of supervisory officers.
I have had over three thousand different teachers under
my official observation; I have investigated the records
of several times as many more; and I do not recall ten
instances where the professional opinion regarding an
experienced teacher differed materially from that of a
majority of the lay-observers of that teacher. As super-
intendent in four different cities, I have known but two
cases where the general opinion of the citizens regarding
the experienced class teachers was materially difTerent
from that of the supervisory officers. In both these
cases, professional opinion proved upon later develop-
ments to be right, and public opinion wrong; and in
both cases, the public were too lenient, mistaking in one
instance physical force for moral power and in the other
pretentious affability for constant scholarship. Leniency
to teacher or to supervisor is, of course, a wrong to the
pupils. And censoriousness is a wrong to the edu-
cator.
It appears that since the critics are usually right, per-
haps the criticized may benefit by learning beforehand
by what criterions the professional and lay-critics judge.
Taking first the half-hour visit, let us note seriatim
what the skilful observer seeks to discover.
1. Upon entrance to the room, one notices the air of
the pupils and of the teacher. This "air" is a matter,
in the main, of the attention that is being paid by both
pupils and teacher to the work. There are three kinds
of attention. The first is active attention, ā ^listening,
seeing, toucliing. In part, it represents usually the
activity of the "special senses," ā seeing, hearing, touch-
ing, smelling, tasting. But it represents also the direct
activity of the mind aroused by and considering the
237
CLASS TEACHING AND MANAGEMENT
things brought before it by these senses.^ The second
is absorbed attention, commonly known as concentration,
and usually in evidence when one is interested in the
work at hand. In such a case, no attention is being
paid to what is going on around the worker, who is " lost "
in his task. The third kind is deliberative attention, when
one is thinking upon something in consciousness.
A visitor should expect to discover from their coun-
tenances, attitudes, and manners active attention on the
part of the students, should the teacher be giving instruc-
tion or conducting a recitation; absorbed attention, should
they be engaged in lesson-study or upon the perform-
ance of some assigned exercise; and deliberative atten-
tion, should their duty be to think something over.
The opposite of these modes of attention are (1) no
attention at all, but sheer passivity; (2) dissipated at-
tention, with eyes for everything and yet for nothing;
and (3) misdirected attention, more commonly known
as "mischievousness."
2. The visitor notices the general order of the room
and the decorum of individual pupils. Order does not
necessarily mean stillness; but it does mean something
less than noisiness. It means progress from one
item of the matter under consideration to another;
it is the opposite of confusion. It .may not mean
silence; but it does not mean whispering,^ note-
' This, of course, is not to be taken as asserting the limitation of
the senses to five in number. For the locations and nature of our
40,000 "special" senses, see Titchener's Outlines of Psychology, page
67. For the educational significance of sense-life, see A Theory oj
Motives, Ideals and Values in Education, Chapter XI, "Intelligence."
^ Whispering is a technical school offence, ā it is speaking to an-
other pupil without general or specific permission. How much
communication between pupils, a teacher should permit depends
238
HOW TO MAKE A GOOD SCHOOL AND CLASS
writing, and an undertone of voices, with strange
signalings and eye-winkings. It does not necessarily
mean all the pupils doing uniformly the same things at
the same time; but it certainly does mean that each
pupil is doing with appropriate quietness the thing that
his teacher wishes done. It means that reason is in
control. In an elementary or secondary school, order
means obedience to the rules as expressed and enforced
ultimately by the teachers.
3. The blackboard will be noticed. Good teachers
have blackboard work appropriate to their grades.
Their own blackboard instruction is legibly and neatly
written; their handwriting is neither a scrawl nor a
flourishing scroll, but a fair model. Much of the work
on the blackboard will be that of the pupils; and while
no reasonable visitor will expect perfection, he will ex-
pect to see evidences that the teacher tries to secure
careful writing from the pupils. The notion that unless
all pupils do excellent work the teacher is incompetent,
springs from the false assumption that the order of a
teacher is the equivalent to performance by the pupils:
it is in short the denial that education is a process re-
quiring time, going forward by stages, issuing from in-
ternal endeavor, and only eventuating at the end in the
faithful and congenitally normal pupils in the degree of
perfection desired.
It is perhaps expedient to note here that the black-
board is rather for exercising the powers of the pupils
than for displaying the accomplishments of the teacher
in writing and in drawing. It follows that while in
upon many considerations. But in general, let us remember that
inhibition is a large part of education because it is a condition co-
incident with concentration.
239
CLASS TEACHING AND MANAGEMENT
lower grades some blackboard illustrations by the teach-
er are desirable, even in such grades most of the space
should be used daily by the pupils.
4. The visitor will probably notice the orderliness of
the teacher's own desk, and the neatness and appro-
priateness of his or her mode of dress. Mere newness or
richness of attire is not the desideratum, but on the
contrary may be objectionable as attracting undue at-
tention. Simplicity, durability, ease of fit, a texture
that throws off dust or else washableness of the fabric,
and dignity or harmony of cut and of color are the
desiderata.
5. The cleanness of the room is likely to come under
the eye of the visitor. Of course, in graded schools
there are janitors, and often janitors are appointed from
politics;^ nor are they appointed by the teacher. But a
good teacher usually finds a way to persuade or to com-
pel the janitor to keep his or her room clean, ā usually, not
always, for in the conditions prevailing in some American
communities, the janitors are sometimes both indifferent
to their real business, which is to keep the school-house
clean, and too sure of their positions to care what the
teachers think and say of their services. In some dis-
trict schools, the teachers are also janitors; in which
case, they should keep their schools clean as a duty
quite as important as teaching well.
On the other hand, there are teachers whose rooms
are always littered with papers or pieces of chalk; where
rags for wiping pens and for cleaning the brushes used
* This word has come to include every quality other than a sincere
desire and a proper method to secure the best person for a position,
the best plan for an enterprise, the best means for the end rationally
and morally proposed.
240
HOW TO MAKE A GOOD SCHOOL AN l CLASS
in color-work are hung on the school desk-irons; ther
books are lying "every which way" in the book-cloll.
where the pupOs' caps and coats, hats and cloaks ai
anywhere but in the wardrobe ; and where the vis-
itors' chairs are broken ; and yet where the jan-
itors are excellent men, constantly protesting to
these very teachers to take more pains in these mat-