holding with them in class sessions of half an hour each
for two or three times during the week but teaching
each day six or seven hours. I have seen even greater
extremes.
One teacher meets his pupils in a log-cabin with log-
fumiture; another meets his in a pressed-brick palace
with the latest adjustable desks for furniture.
One high school may have seventy-five teachers for
seven hundred and fifty pupils, while another has but
thirty-five for eleven hundred pupils.
These instances suffice to show that in the conditions
and circumstances of their work, teachers differ too
much to make closely prescriptive directions profitable.
But regarding all teachers a few facts may be as-
sumed.
Of these, the first is that whatever be the number or
119
CLASS TEACHING AND MANAGEMENT
grade of their pupils, and whatever the conditions and
surroundings of their work, the teacher has all that he
can do. For this, there are two reasons: First, the
employers of teachers are seldom so careless of the ex-
tent of the duties of their employes as to allow them
a relaxing and disintegrating amount of leisure. Second,
it requires but two or three boys or girls to open up
opportunities for thought, endeavor and anxiety enough
to keep an intelligent adult constantly busy in caring
for them. The average American city school teacher
has for employers principal, supervisors, superintend-
ent, board of education members, perhaps other public
governing officers, taxpayers, citizens and parents and
as a class some forty pupils. The case of the American
district school teacher is different but not easier. Like-
wise, the teacher in the parochial or other private school
is working under conditions that tax strength and
ability to their limits.
A second fact that may be assumed is that a large
amount of the hard work that the average teacher per-
forms daily is the result of friction in relation to the
task. Every change that reduces the friction eases the
amount of hard work.
To illustrate : — It is easier to work under an agreeable but
not omnipresent principal than to work under other kinds.
It is easier to work in a well-lighted, well-ventilated, prop-
erly heated, large, clean, commodious room than in one that
fails in these particulars. Of all the advantages and quali-
fications that a teacher can have for his daily task, these are
the greatest: — 1st, adequate financial return; 2d, security
of tenure; 3d, health; 4th, strength; 5th, general intellect-
ual preparation for teaching; and 6th, adequate daily prep-
aration before entering the class-room. These advantages
120
THE DAY'S WORK— ITS PLAN AND RECORD
are of extremely complicated relationships with one another.
The teacher who lasts in teaching twenty-five years is en-
tirely familiar with these relationships. Yet not more than
one of them has been measurably within his or her personal
control — the last. Most teachers can in a degree control
the extent of the daily preparation of their lessons. There
are no successful teachers of twenty-five years' experience
who have not felt soijie interest constantly in, and have not
given some time regularly to, the daily preparation of the
class lessons. The degree in which a teacher prepares his
daily lessons depends in part upon his health and strength,
in part upon the number of hours given to actual teaching,
but in the main to his own conception of the importance of
the teaching function. One who cares about the lessons
next to be given thinks about them when going to school
and at many other apparently care-free times of the day.
The extent of the teacher's daily preparation is less within
his control; and yet even the teacher whose school lasts
seven or eight hours a day can usually get one or two hours
for preparation, when he so wnlls, desires, and intends.
A third fact may be assumed as true of all teachers, —
they teach because they are interested in the work.
There are some exceptions, perhaps a considerable pro-
portion among the older teachers; but taking the entire
half million men and women, one can find no other
profession with so small a number relatively who work
neither for money nor for fame, neither for livelihood
nor for respectable employment. To teach is a very
natural human function, requiring but little stimulus
for its awakening in most hearts. Because of this fact
that most teachers enjoy doing the work, they are
usually ready and indeed in many instances eager for
suggestions. Most of the exceptions are in those cities
121
CLASS TEACHING AND MANAGEMENT
where they have been badly managed by disloyal
boards of education or by incompetent and perhaps
tyrannical superintendents.
From these facts, it follows, first, that to ease the
work in their class-rooms, teachers should prepare them-
selves immediately and in detail before entering upon
the day's duties; second, to go on improving year after
year and to be happy in their work, they should make
such daily preparation; and, third, that making such
preparation is evidence of fitness for and happiness
in teaching. And the corresponding negatives are all
true: — not to prepare each day's lessons properly is to
make the day's work hard; not to prepare them regu-
larly year after year — to live by the old note-books — is
to insure both intellectual stagnation or worse, and also
esthetic distaste for the tasks of education; and not to
prepare is evidence of unfitness for, and unhappiness in,
the work. WTiat and whom we love, we labor for and
gladly serve. Thereby, we grow.
In preparation for the day's duties, the first move is
to make a general daily program. When that is already
provided by others in authority, the first move is to
make the special daily program.
The principles that should govern the making of the
daily program are as follows — viz.:
1. Before school, get materials ready, see individual
pupils, confer with school heads and colleagues.
2. By morning exercises in music, ethical lesson, story-
telling, and literary or elocutionary class or individual
features, bring the pupils into harmony with the school
atmosphere.
3. Because we have many fatigue rhythms or natural
122
THE DAY'S WORK— ITS PLAN AND RECORD
bodily periodicities, the child under ten should seldom be
held to lessons over 15-20 minutes in length;
4. And the hardest work should come earliest in the
morning.
5. Hard and easy subjects should alternate.
6. Such exercises as spelling, writing, and calisthenics
should not be over ten minutes in length because of special
difficulties, — respectively, confusion of ideas, special mus-
cular fatigue, and widely extended physical excitation.
7. Children need a mid-morning, spontaneous, care-free
period, best secured by a recess not too long nor too closely
supervised.
8. End each session with study period or manual work.
9. Where the curriculum is crowded, teach informa-
tional studies and physiological or psychological exercises
but two or three days each week, using one program for
Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and another for Tuesday
and Thursday.
10. Teach a subject always at the same hour of the day,
if at all. Expectation and functioning depend upon reg-
ular periodical rhythms.
11. Since teachers differ in psychical rate and otherwise,
they should have freedom within limits to lengthen or
shorten the periods devoted to the various subjects.
12. The easiest lessons should be assigned for Mondays
and Fridays,
General Note. — For a discussion as to whether or not
to divide a third-year class into two sections (say) A and B,
or 1st and 2d, see Chapter VII following. When two sec-
tions or three or four groups are formed, it becomes Requisite
to prepare the special day's program in much detail.
123
CLASS TEACHING AND MANAGEMENT
I. THIRD YEAR AT SCHOOL
General Daily Program
A.M.
9.00- 9.15 Morning exercises
9.15- 9.35 Arithmetic
9.35- 9.50 Writing
9.50-10.10 Nature-study*
a.m.
10.10-10.30 Language
10.30-10.45 Recess 2
10.45-11.05 Reading
11.05-11.15 Spelling
11.15-11.45 Manual work
P.M.
1.15- 1.30 Music
1.30- 1.45 Oral arithmetic
1.45- 1.55 Calisthenics
1.55- 2.05 Memory selection
2.05- 2.15 Recess
2.15- 2.35 Drawing
2.35- 3.00 Study
Speclvl Day's Progr.\m, Oct. 1
St. Luke ^^ : 27-38 (1)
"9" Table, written problems (2)
mnmnmn
Squirrels '
Statements about autumn
H 's Third, p. 18
(3)
Finish raffia basket
New rote song: "Dance of the
Leaves"
Fund, opems. sm. numbers
Supervisor's day
Bryant's "A Forest Hymn,"
5 lines (4)
Squirrels (5)
Help S. G. with arithmetic (6)
' Preferably each class-room, certainly each school-house should
have a Nature library, with well-illustrated books. There should
also be a museum, however small at the beginning. Some of the
books and materials should be for the teacher, but most of tliem
sliould be selected for the uses of the pupils themselves. There
sliould also be lantern slides and stereoscope views. Often, tlie
teacher can have none of these aids; more often, he or she is unwilling
to make a small beginning.
Of course, tlie kind of lesson that the teacher is to give about the
squirrel will depend partly upon whether he or she and the pupils
already know anji^liing bj- observation about squirrels. Many Na-
ture lessons are absurd because they assume that the pupils know
notliing whatever about the things discussed, when in fact they
know much. Other lessons are scarcely less absurd because tlie
teachers assume that the children know something about their topics
but in reality know nothing.
' In a graded .school, probably each teacher will be assigned to
124
THE DAY'S WORK— ITS PLAN AND RECORD
Lesson Notes, — (1) Talk about true kindness. Song,
page 3. Have Dorothy recite from Lowell's "Vision of Sir
Launfal." Discuss specific acts of kindness with children,
(2) Set of problems such as this: — "Isabel picked some
cherries and gave Catherine, Marie, and Susan each nine.
She had nine left herself. How many did she pick in all?"
Work out 9x5 dramatically with five groups of nine chil-
dren each, and with nine groups of five children each. Work
by squares, etc., on blackboard, 9x 10. (See Appendix V,
Dramatic Number Lesson.)
(3) New words, — tax, taxes, since. Review, — ever, fail,
world, hire.
(4) "Oh, there is not lost
One of earth's charms: upon her bosom yet,
After the flight of untold centuries,
The freshness of her far beginning lies.
And yet shall lie."
Bring out the rhythmic beauty of the passage. Tell
children how old the earth is. Tell them that it seems new
to each new little child. Explain meaning of "charm,"
"flight," "centuries," and any word about which inquiry
is made.
(5) Make paper cuttings of squirrels in characteristic
poses. Put on blackboard drawing. Have six children do
same.
(6) Help J. T. with his articulation of "s." Ask M. P. D.
why she doesn't bring her home work.
recess duty for a day once in every week or every fortnight. It is
usually preferable to have the recesses separate for the older and the
younger pupils. Even three or four di\'isions of a large school may
be desirable. Unless there is a special physical culture teacher who
teaches games and plays for recess, there should be instruction and
direction by the principal and class teachers in recess play and
manners. Some of the lessons may be given in the class-rooms.
There are now several good practical books on the subject.
125
CLASS TEACHING AND MANAGEMENT
II. EIGHTH YEAR AT SCHOOL
Teacher has several subjects in each of two classes.
General Daily Program Pupils from
A.M.
Special Day's
Program, June 15
9.00- 9.15 Morning e.xercises
9.15- 9.45 Arithmetic
9.-45-10.15 Arithmetic
10.15-10.30 Recess
10.30-11.00 Geography
11.00-11.15 Music
11.15-11.45 Geography
P.M.
1.15- 1.45 History
1.45- 1.55 Music
1.55- 2.10 Writing
2.10- 2.20 Recess
2.20- 2.50 History
2.50- 3.00 Calisthenics
3.00- 3.15 Writing
3.15- 3.30 Study
Room 18
Room 18
Room 19
Room 19
Room 19
Room 18
Room 18
Room 19
Room 19
Room 19
Room 18
Room 18
Room 18
Psalm XV (1)
Class test: — percent-
age and interest (2)
Class test: — percent-
age and interest (2)
See note ', p. 124, pre-
ceding
Re\'iew Asia R. & H.
(3)
Key of E (4)
Asia
-'s, pp. 401-410
(•5)
E
O C Q (6)
401-410
Wands (7)
OCQ
Go over to-morrow's
geography (8)
(1) Explain promises, contracts, agreements. Songs,
pages 44, 89. Declamation by William S., "Horatius."
Discuss recent change in protection tariff.
(2) Test paper, five problems such as the following: — B
had $600 and put it in a savings-bank for three years at
4 per cent, compound interest semiannually. R had the
same amount but loaned it out at 6 per cent, simple in-
terest for three years. What amounts of interest did each
receive at close of this period?
(3) Compare carefully relative areas and populations of
all the important countries. Draw sketch maps of Arabia,
India, China, Japan Islands.
(4) Review one-flat, two-flat, three-flat scales. Explain
relation of C key to E key. Call attention to the melan-
126
THE DAY'S WORK— ITS PLAN AND RECORD
choly effect of the flats, and why. Compare with sharps,
and why. Illustrate. Group children to illustrate.
(5) Explain reconstruction policy of Republican party
as partly caused by revenge for Lincoln's death, partly from
hatred of victors for vanquished, partly by sheer ignorance
of the character of the freedmen, partly by rise in North
of unworthy men and of new men to high office, and partly
as no policy at all but haphazard action. Show damage
done to South by the Reconstruction Acts. Johnson was
irascible and unsufficiently informed, Grant a soldier-
engineer, not a statesman or a politician. Neither under-
stood human nature thoroughly and broadly.
(6) Work over the swing both from right to left and from
left to right; and then proceed to capitals. Use both
blackboard and pen-and-ink exercises.
(7) Work for shoulder -straightening: use sixteen full
overhead swings of wands.
(8) Show children what study is. Take first paragraph,
page 272. Discuss words: general meaning of sentences:
special meanings : recall similar truths learned earlier. Com-
pare Ganges with Danube and Susquehanna. Help J. T. ;
McL.; Hester, to read. They don't read yet.
III. JUNIOR AND SENIOR SCIENCES IN HIGH SCHOOL
General Daily Program
A.M.
9.00- 9.20 Chapel exercises
9.20-10.05 Senior chemistry
10.05-10.45 Senior chemistry
Pupils from Special Monday
Program, Sept. 24
Room 12 Purify sea salt (1)
Room 26 Determine some im-
purities (2)
10.45-11.00 Recess
11.00-11.40 Junior physics
11.40-12.20 Junior physics
12.20-12.50 Noon intermission
12.50- 1.30 Free time
Room 9
Room 10
Pendulum (3)
Pendulum (3)
p.m.
1.30- 2.10 Geology
2.10- 2.30 Charge study hall
Room 25
127
Chronology by eras (4)
I
CLASS TEACHING AND MANAGEMENT
General Note. — The special teacher in the high school,
like the college professor, seldom fails in the same way to
prepare himself daily as does the general elementary school
grade-and-class teacher. The high school expert is apt to
take large enough views but not apt to complete the detail
preparation. Often, he sets out to give lessons that are too
long and above the knowledge and powers of his pupils.
Lesson Notes. — (1) This lesson will require several days
for accomplishment. Notes on "salts," iodine, organic
matter, etc.
(2) Assumes that Room 26 has proceeded a little faster
than Room 12,
(3) Show clocks with weights and with springs. Time
and measure the 60-beat to the, minute pendulum; the 30-
beat; the 120-beat. Derive the law. Show how imma-
terial the weight of pendulum is, provided heavy enough to
accpire momentum and to preserve inertia. Draw arcs of
these pendulums.
(4) Etymology *'zoic" and other parts of the terms
"eozoic," "palaeozoic," etc. Make drawing to show earth's
crust. On map show oldest and youngest surfaces on
North American Continent. Define "rock." Assign and
explain advance lesson, pages 15-20. G 's Geology.
Call up each pupil on cards for one question at least. Give
references to encyclopedias, dictionaries, etc.
It may be perhaps objected that the competent teacher
can remember all these points without writing them
down. In many instances, this is true. No superin-
tendent or principal is likely to insist that the teacher
who can remember his special day's program shall write
it down. But every good superintendent and every
good principal does insist that before going into class,
the teacher shall have clearly in mind all the work that
he hopes to accomplish in that period with that class.
128
THE DAY'S WORK— ITS PLAN AND RECORD
Those who can certainly remember just what they have
proposed to do are better off without notes than with
them. But such persons need constantly to guard
themselves against the spirit of improvisation, lest, in
the presence of the class, they depart widely from, even
hopelessly of return to, the proposed line of instruction.
Now and then, a complete abandonment of the proposed
lesson is commendable; but inventive and resourceful
teachers who think that they do not need written notes
are apt to carry the pupils at a jump into regions essen-
tially incomprehensible to them. When the abandon-
ment is of an advance lesson in favor of some review
unexpectedly discovered as being needed, serious harm
is not likely to result.
In truth, the predicaments at end-of-term time of the
two kinds of teachers who do not use prepared lesson
plans are apt to be serious. Those of one kind are too
indifferent to make such preparation, but live in self-
confidence not merely from hour-to-hour without fore-
sight but actually from minute-to-minute trusting to
"inspiration" and to the suggestions of events and op-
portunities. Those of the other kind are often without
sufficient imagination to conceive of the class and reci-
tation save in the actual presence of necessity. The
teacher who trusts his or her mother wits may be brill-
iant but is not likely to be thorough or complete. For
want of method and of carefully considered devices, he
loses much time and often the sight of the true goal.
The teacher who dully waits to see what the turn of
affairs will be seldom arrives anywhere, seldom goes at
all. The brilliant teacher is redeemable: the dull, un-
imaginative teacher is incurable.
It is, of course, true that no one can foresee exactly
129
CLASS TEACHING AND MANAGEMENT
what a day is to bring forth, — of work, of need, of op-
portunity. For days, for weeks, for months, a teacher
may see each day's plan fairly realized ; then may come
days, weeks, months, when things go differently, even
go wrong. A parent or several parents, a supervisor,
a politician, a bad boy or girl or both or several, a new
text-book that will not "work," — that does not serve
the needs properly, — a shortage of books or supplies,
bad weather, ill-health, misfortune, an unpleasant per-
son in a neighboring class-room, an excess of laggard
pupils, an insufficient proportion of stimulating pupils,
want of authority in the head of the school, weak new
teachers — any one or more of a thousand factors may
suddenly or slowly intervene to break up a hitherto
delightful relation between plan and fulfilment.
The making of a good program for a district school,
taught by one teacher with a large number of pupils,
is one of the difficult mechanical tasks of pedagogy. It
involves many conflicts of sound educational principles
and of the interests of individual pupils. I have seen
a teacher in such a school with sixty children ten grades
apart, — beginners too small to learn to read and ad-
vanced pupils taking Latin, physics and geometry.
Attempts have been made to standardize the "district
school" into three "forms" or "cycles"; and this per-
haps fits the general need more frequently than does any
other. But of three-form eight-graded schools, one with
twenty pupils averaging twelve years of age is one thing;
and another with sixty averaging nine years of age
is quite another. The fluctuations from summer to
winter and again to spring present yet other difficulties.
A few principles may, however, prove generally appfica-
ble : a few others may be occasionally helpful.
130
THE DAY'S WORK— ITS PLAN AND RECORD
1. Make the number of classes for recitation purposes
as small as possible.
2. Put as many pupils into each recitation class as is
reasonably defensible.
3. Make each recitation period as long as possible.
4. Work as many classes together in one subject at the
same time as possible, either hearing all recite together or
hearing one recite while directing others in the same study.
5. Do not try to have the same subjects invariably every
day.
6. Keep an eye always for the classes not reciting and
see that they have study-lessons or "busy work" in their
seats.
7. If possible, let each class recite at least once in every
hour.
8. Let no class have less than three recitations, however
brief, each day.
9. Provide for abundance of written work.
10. Keep at least one day each week and an extra day
each month relatively free to help backward classes and
pupils, — to "pick up dropped stitches."
IL In large schools, requiring four "forms," it may
prove helpful to let older pupils assist considerably, not in
teaching or in discipline, of course, but to give recess signals,
to follow the movements of smaller pupils, to assist in
handling materials, and in other ways to help economize
the time of the teacher.
12. In such schools, keep making time for and progress
in arithmetic and English, whatever else must be set aside.
13. Always have morning exercises, — music, some ethical
lesson, general directions, memory gem or other literary
feature by class or individual, story-telling, — and, if pos-
sible, have "something special" for part of Friday after-
noon.
14. In large schools, make three programs, — one for Mon-
10 131
CLASS TEACHING AND MANAGEMENT
M
to
CO
o
^ 4)
CO a
« o o
et a o
Ui
o
u
Pi
o
Ph
vj
nl
n
•O
o
HI
u
cu
Q
2
I
>«
p
CO «
Q
W
o W
£^
« C5
W W
dtCP
Sg
•J Ol'S
2S
«:s
<§
Kgp-s-^'-
:"2 n!
y E.ti
02S
rt s s a 4->
S n)
Q
2p^
2WI
'2>.T
3.2 -
C rt 2
M^
[t] C Co I>
132
THE DAY'S WORK— ITS PLAN AND RECORD
s
O
«
O
O
o o
IT) O
o
o
o
to
O
.* IT,
o o o
O M IN
er, rr) fi
o o o
f^ •* lO
t^ fO ro
o
•
<
u
o
u
s
M
K
<
.2i
'>
z "^
OS a
O V-
U !>
O
U
o
H
O
Pi
<
Q
H
w
M
5
>•
s
a
z
<;
>•
o
o
>■
X
tn r- CIS ^ C*
-1 C W o ^
-§- "^ ^
1 i
>•
"a
g
s
8 S
<
U 0)
z °*
H
O
Pi
I
a.
•a
w
s
<:
o
Hi
a;
E
ri
<:
■7- '"
o n
o S
z i2
« Q
ft,
<
^ s
LTURE
ion or
cise
'3 -
.s §
tudy
dua'
the
r
choo
GEOGRAP
Recitati
Study
^■^■^
Z
AGRICU
Stu
Recitat
Exer
w
0,
Q
ENG. (re
Stu
Stu
Recit
K S -^J
|c Pi
Genera
and ind
help b
teac
Close of
a o
Id
S
m
P S ^ °
III
Pi
u
^15 (u
<
Z M
0. =^>,•J3
3
<
"-?s
:::>^s
§i
ass"
AGRICU
Exer
Stud
Recit
ci'nJ^
z 23
OS
o
o
P
en
s
Gener
and in
help
tea
0! Q
b
anguage)
- telling
-writing
anguage)
tation
iudy
tn
(4
>•
<
►J
Study
vidual
y the
ler
O w
o ^
H
"S-d^g
<
ENG. (
Stor>
Story
§1
" .at/1
z
H
Pi
m
w
<
Genei
and in
help
te
a
&.
O o
-. "
o
o
t
o o
VI o
o o
IV, ^ in
"
GOO
O
in O
« ^ H
-
-
" "
«
«
1 "
«
f> ro
CO t«1 1^
m ■*
133
CLASS TEACHING AND MANAGEMENT
day and Wednesday, another for Tuesday and Thursday,
and a third for Friday. (Upon occasion, the teacher may
say, — " Now for to-morrow, though it is Monday [or Wednes-
day] we will have our Tuesday [or Friday] program. But