The first that I shall name is called the Concert Method. This is
practised chiefly in schools for very young children, especially for
those who cannot read. There are many advantages in this method, some of
which are not confined to infant classes. The timid, who are frightened
by the sound of their own voices when attempting to recite alone, are
thereby encouraged to speak out; and those who have had any experience
with such children, know that this is no small, or easy, or unimportant
achievement. Another benefit of the method is the pleasure it gives the
children. The measured noise and motion connected with such concert
exercises, are particularly attractive to young children. Moreover, one
good teacher, by the use of this method, may greatly multiply his
efficiency. He may teach simultaneously fifty or sixty, instead of
teaching only five or six. But in estimating this advantage, one error
is to be guarded against. Visitors often hear a large class of fifty or
more go through an exercise of this kind, in which the scholars have
been drilled to recite in concert; and if such persons have never been
accustomed to investigate the fact, they often suppose that the answers
given are the intelligent responses of all the members of the class. The
truth is, however, in very many such cases, that only some half dozen
or so really recite the answers from their own independent knowledge.
These serve as leaders; the others, sheep-like, follow. Still, by
frequent repetition, even in this blind way, something gradually sticks
to the memory, although the impression is always apt to be vague and
undefined.
The method of reciting in concert is chiefly useful in reciting rules
and definitions, or other matters, where the very words are to be
committed to memory. The impression of so large a body of sound upon the
ear is very strong, and is a great help in the matter of mere verbal
recollection. Children too are very sympathetic, and a really skilful
teacher, by the concert method, can do a great deal in cultivating the
emotional nature of a large class.
Young children, too, it should be remembered, like all other young
animals, are by nature restless and fidgety, and like to make a noise.
It is possible, indeed, by a system of rigorous and harsh repression, to
restrain this restlessness, and to keep these little ones for hours in
such a state of decorous primness as not to molest weak nerves. But such
a system of forced constraint is not natural to children, and is not a
wise method of teaching. Let the youngsters make a noise; I had almost
said, the more noise the better, so it be duly regulated. Let them
exercise, not only their lungs, but their limbs, moving in concert,
rising up, sitting down, turning round, marching, raising their hands,
pointing to objects to which their attention is called, looking at
objects which are shown to them. Movement and noise are the life of a
child. They should be regulated indeed, but not repressed. To make a
young child sit still and keep silence for any great length of time, is
next door to murder. I verily believe it sometimes is murder. The
health, and even the lives of these little ones, are sacrificed to a
false theory of teaching. There is no occasion for torturing a child in
order to teach him. God did not so mean it. Only let your teaching be in
accordance with the wants of his young nature, and the school-room will
be to him the most attractive spot of all the earth. Time and again have
I seen the teacher of a primary school obliged at recess to compel her
children to go out of doors, so much more pleasant did they find the
school-room than the play-ground.
Quite the opposite extreme from the concert method, is that which, for
convenience, may be called the individual method. In this method, the
teacher examines one scholar alone upon the whole lesson, and then
another, and so on, until the class is completed.
The only advantage claimed for this method is, that the individual
laggard cannot screen his deficiencies, as he can when reciting in
concert. He cannot make believe to know the lesson by lazily joining in
with the general current of voice when the answers are given. His own
individual knowledge, or ignorance, stands out. This is clear, and so
far it is an advantage. But ascertaining what a pupil knows of a lesson,
is only one end, and that by no means the most important end of a
recitation. This interview between the pupil and teacher, called a
recitation, has many ends besides that of merely detecting how much of a
subject the pupil knows. A far higher end is to make him know more,--to
make perfect that knowledge which the most faithful preparation on the
part of the pupil always leaves incomplete.
The disadvantages of the individual method are obvious. It is a great
waste of time. If a teacher has a class of twenty, and an hour to hear
them in, it gives him but three minutes for each pupil, supposing there
are no interruptions. But there always are interruptions. In public
schools the class oftener numbers forty than twenty, and the time for
recitation is oftener half an hour than an hour. The teacher who pursues
the individual method to its extreme, will rarely find himself in
possession of more than one minute to each scholar. In so brief a time,
very little can be ascertained as to what the scholar knows of the
lesson, and still less can anything be done to increase that knowledge.
Moreover, while the teacher is bestowing his small modicum of time upon
one scholar, all the other members of the class are idle, or worse.
Teaching, of all kinds of labor, is that in which labor-saving and
time-saving methods are of the greatest moment. The teacher who is wise,
will aim so to conduct a recitation that, first, his whole time shall be
given to every scholar; and secondly, each scholar's mind shall be
exercised with every part of the lesson, and just as much when others
are reciting, as when it is his own time to recite. A teacher who can do
this is teaching every scholar, all the time, just as much as if he had
no scholar but that one.
Even this does not state the whole case. A scholar in such a class
learns more in a given time, than he would if he were alone and the
teacher's entire time were given exclusively to him. The human mind is
wonderfully quickened by sympathy. In a crowd each catches, in some
mysterious manner, an impulse from his fellows. The influence of
associated numbers, all engaged upon the same thought, is universally to
rouse the mind to a higher exercise of its powers. A mind that is dull,
lethargic, and heavy in its movements when moving solitarily, often
effects, when under a social and sympathetic impulse, achievements that
are a wonder to itself.
The teacher, then, who knows how thus to make a unit of twenty or thirty
pupils, really multiplies himself twenty or thirty-fold, besides giving
to the whole class an increased momentum such as always belongs to an
aggregated mass. I have seen a teacher instruct a class of forty in such
a way, as, in the first place, to secure the subordinate end of
ascertaining and registering with a sufficient degree of exactness how
much each scholar knows of the lesson by his own preparation, and
secondly, to secure, during the whole hour, the active exercise and
cooperation of each individual mind, under the powerful stimulus of the
social instinct, and of a keenly awakened attention. Such a teacher
accomplishes more in one hour than the slave of the individual method
can accomplish in forty hours. A scholar in such a class learns more in
one hour than he would learn in forty hours, in a class of equal numbers
taught on the other plan. Such teaching is labor-saving and time-saving,
in their highest perfection, employed upon the noblest of ends.