THE STUDY LESSON
That it is the main business of the teacher to render her services
unnecessary cannot be too often reiterated. To be able to reason
clearly one’s self; to have control of one’s habits; in short, to
know how to use one’s energies to best advantage when the problems
of life are encountered, is the greatest benefit to be derived
from education. We shall concern ourselves in this discussion with
study as it involves controlled thinking, whether inductive or
deductive; with the most economical method of making knowledge more
available for use by increasing the possibility of recall; and with
the possibility of reducing certain knowledge or responses, whether
physical or mental, to the basis of habit.
In general, our problem in teaching children to study consists
in making them conscious of the best methods to be employed in
logical thinking, or in the formation of habits, and then in giving
sufficient practice in the use of these methods to make them the
habitual manner of reaction, as far as this is possible. It is true,
of course, that one who applies the logical method to a question of
mathematics or geography may be swayed by prejudice when the question
concerns politics or religion; and that the man who knows best how to
form desirable habits may be so bound by some other that he will fail
to achieve that which he knows to be desirable. Be this as it may, if
the school makes the child conscious of the most economical methods
of work, the chances for later efficiency are greatly increased.
Strangely enough, what we have been prone to call good teaching
has not always accomplished this desired result. It has too often
happened that the direction and help offered by the teacher have
tended to make the child dependent, utterly unable to do a piece of
work for himself. Even when children have supposedly been required
to do much thinking, the teacher has sometimes weakened her work by
continually stepping in to propose the next step whenever a critical
point has been reached. The argument which proves conclusively
that children do not learn to work independently is found in their
inability in the upper grades, in the high school, and even in the
college to use their time to good advantage.[11]
In teaching children how to study, the first step involves a
clear statement of the problem to be solved. The teacher who says
“take the next five pages” cannot expect that the children will
do anything more, so far as learning how to study is concerned,
than waste time in fulfilling her demands. We think hard when we
have a problem to solve. If it be true that children need to have
an aim clearly in mind when they are at work with the teacher, it
is much more essential that they should have clearly in mind the
goal toward which they are striving when they work alone. Whenever
children are expected to do any work at their seats or at home, the
type of assignment becomes a determining factor. It is a mistake
to suppose that a minute or two at the end of a recitation will be
sufficient to make clear to the pupils the problem involved in the
work to be accomplished during the study hour. The best time to make
assignments is when, as the subject is developed, a problem arises
which cannot then be solved. A good recitation ought to culminate in
the statement of the questions yet to be answered quite as much as
in a statement of what has been accomplished. If the class has been
kept intellectually alert, there ought to be raised by the children
many questions, which may be assigned either to the whole class or to
individuals for report at a succeeding recitation.
A very good incentive to study is found in making assignments
to individuals or groups for report to the whole class. Even if
the problem itself is not of surpassing interest, the desire to
contribute one’s share to the group project, and the wish to do
as well as one’s neighbor, will stimulate to greater effort. It
would be well if teachers tested their own work and the children’s
comprehension of the assignments made by asking frequently during
the study period for a statement of the problem. To read a book
intelligently, to perform an experiment to advantage, children must
know what they seek. The attitude which we hope to develop should
lead a child to ask, when in doubt, such questions as these: “What
am I to try to find out from reading this chapter?” “What am I to
look for on the excursion?” “What is the problem which we are now
discussing?” “Is the report which has just been made to the point?”
“Did John’s answer have anything to do with the question we are
discussing?” and the like. When children have learned to expect to
work toward the accomplishment of some definite result in thought as
well as in action, when they hold to the main issue regardless of the
allurements of subsidiary problems which should be held for later
investigation, when they become critical of the contributions offered
by books or by their companions, then, and not until then, have they
taken the first step in learning to study.
When children have become conscious of the meaning of the aim or
problem as an element in successful study, and when their practice is
guided by this consciousness, they will meet with another difficulty
in learning how to secure the data adequate for the solution of the
problem. Before leaving the elementary school, children should know
how to use dictionaries, encyclopedias, gazetteers, year books, and
the like. It is passing strange that college students often seem not
to know the purpose either of the table of contents or of the index
in the books which they use. It is pitiful to see a person leafing
through a book trying to find information on some question at issue,
when in a minute he could find in the index just the page or section
in which this topic is treated, and so spend the time gathering data
instead of wasting it in a random search for the information desired.
It is necessary to teach children to consult the indices and tables
of contents of books, and to give them frequent practice in work of
this kind, if they are commonly to employ this device or method.
Another help to the collection of data might very well begin to be
used in the intermediate grades of the elementary school; it is the
practice of noting, when more than one book or source of information
is used, just where the information is to be found, and something
of its nature. If the pupil consults more than one authority, the
one read last may raise questions which must be answered by a return
to those used earlier, and one ought to be able to turn directly to
the sources formerly consulted. Or it may be that a similar problem,
or one having much in common with it, will arise a week or a month
later, when a record of the sources of information consulted before
will lighten the work by half. A record of this sort could be kept
in notebooks, or, as is done by older people who know how to work,
in a card index. Of course work of this kind presupposes the use of
some books other than a single textbook; and to go very far in giving
children the command of the technique of study we shall have to
provide ourselves with more than a single book for a subject.
Another way by which children can be greatly helped is teaching them
how to take notes and how to annotate. There is no exercise more
valuable to the student, so far as his future work is concerned, than
practice in writing in a very few words the gist of a paragraph or
page. As they reflect later, they may want to know the argument of
this authority or that, but they must have it in condensed form or
they will be little better off than when they began their work. A
very helpful exercise is to have children to abstract, either orally
or in writing, a page or two of a book which they are studying, and
to compare results. In this work the problem is that which confronts
the thinker at every stage of his work, the selection of that which
is relevant and the discarding of that which is less significant.
If we think logically, among the mass of possible data we must
always choose that which in our judgment is relatively most valuable
for our purpose. The teacher in the organization of material for
presentation in any subject is confronted constantly with the problem
of relative values. Not all can be presented, even though relevant to
the issue involved; hence, choice must be made. And just so, if the
child learns to study, to conduct his own investigations, he must be
made conscious of this need of discrimination, and he must be given
practice in its exercise.
Adequate study demands not simply that an abundance of data which
bear on the problem be secured, but that the validity of the data
be brought into question. Children ought not to accept blindly the
statements of books or even of the teacher. The one thing which
characterizes the student is his search for truth, his attitude of
inquiry as opposed to an appeal to authority. It is well for children
at times to question the statements found in their books when
experience suggests the doubt. It is equally important, of course,
that they be willing to acknowledge their mistake, should proof
be forthcoming in support of the book. If a child really studies,
he must, even as an adult, find statements of fact, the records
of observations or experiments, which are at variance with the
evidence which he already possesses. It is just in this particular
that the student differs from ordinary men who allow others to do
their thinking for them. The student may not be able to settle
the question, and so forms a judgment which is frankly tentative.
Children ought to have the experience of finding that there are some
questions to which a definite answer cannot, in the present state of
knowledge, be given. They should be shown, wherever possible, how the
conclusions of men on some of the most important problems that have
been studied have changed from time to time. They can at times be
made to realize the folly of overhasty generalization.
No one has learned how to study who has not been trained to reflect
upon his experience, whether the experience has been recently
acquired with the express purpose of solving his problem, or is
some more remote element in experience which may shed light on the
question in hand. A skillful teacher can guide in this process of
reflection, and will later tell them what is meant, and demonstrate
for them something of the value of the practice. It is quite worth
while for a student to know when he has concentrated his attention
upon a problem, and just what is meant by reflection. Many older
people deceive themselves into thinking that they are exercising
themselves in these directions when a slight acquaintance with the
elements involved in fixing attention or in reflection might awaken
them to the futility of their practices. There need be nothing occult
or hard to understand about the practice of study. It is not a matter
of terminology nor of a systematic course in psychology, but rather
consists in guiding the individual in his practice of the art,
and then making known to him the elements in his experience which
have meant success or failure. It may be enlightening to compare
the emphasis upon careful examination of data, the formation of
tentative rather than fixed judgments, the guarding against hasty
generalizations, and the emphasis upon reflection with the steps of
presentation, of comparison and abstraction, and of generalization
in the inductive lesson, and with the corresponding steps of the
deductive lesson. The conviction will probably be deepened that when
the teacher instructs the student in the art of study she is making
available for him the method which she employs in instruction. This
must be the relationship; for the teacher can do nothing more than
take account of the way the child learns, and adapt her method to his
possibilities.
The habit of verification is one of the most important from the point
of view of learning how to study. The questions which the student
must constantly ask himself are: “Can the conclusions be applied?”
“Do they always hold?” “Does it work?” Fine-spun theories are of
little avail, however much satisfaction the originator of them may
have found in deriving them. At every step in the progress of his
thought the conclusions must be tested by an appeal to known facts.
The teacher cannot too frequently insist upon this step as the
criterion of the worth of the thinking which has been done. And the
insistence will be necessary, for it seems natural for human beings
to become so enamored of their theories that they hesitate to expose
them to the test which may prove them false.
_Teaching children to memorize_: Throughout the school life of the
child, memorizing is a regular part of his work. If practice alone
were necessary, every child should soon learn how to do this kind
of work in the most economical manner. The great difficulty is
that often neither teacher nor pupil has given any thought to the
method employed, their attention having been wholly engrossed with
success or failure in achieving the result. It is a well established
principle of psychology that the possibility of recall is conditioned
by the system of ideas with which that which we wish to recall has
been identified. The more associations made, or the more perfect our
control of any system of ideas which involves that which we wish to
remember, the greater the probability of bringing to mind the fact
when we need it. As Professor James puts it: “Of two men with the
same outward experience, _the one who thinks over his experiences
most_, and weaves them into the most systematic relations with each
other, will be the one with the best memory.” And along with this
fact is another equally important for the teacher: that we may not
hope to increase the native power of retentiveness. The child whom
we teach may be endowed by nature with little or much power of this
sort, and we cannot change it; but we can improve his method of
memorizing.
The first step in memorizing is to understand. If we try to commit
to memory the words of a book when we do not fully comprehend the
meaning, we are depending very largely on our desultory memory,
_i.e._ upon our ability to remember the things because they have been
once present in mind; and our efficiency will depend wholly upon our
quality of native retentiveness. But, unfortunately, for want of
knowledge of a better method, children are frequently satisfied that
they are doing adequate work when they are repeating over and over
again the words which they have made little attempt to comprehend.
Even when the sense of the words to be memorized is fairly clear,
it is uneconomical to employ this method of accretion. The child
who studies the poem by saying first the first line, then the
second, then the first and second, then the third, then the first,
the second, and the third, depends upon mere repetition, not upon
thinking, for the persistence of the impression. It has been
demonstrated that on the basis of the amount of time required
this method is uneconomical. Add to this the fact that after the
first complete repetition, later successful recall depends upon
the efficiency of the system of associated ideas which have been
established; and there can be no doubt of the folly of such a method
of procedure. It is no wonder that children who commit to memory
in this way forget so readily. They may have understood what they
said when they first repeated the poem; but the method they employed
almost precludes the building up of a system of associated ideas on
the basis of careful thinking.
If the child has read aloud and understands the selection to be
memorized, the next thing to be done is to analyze it into its
principal thought units; and then each of these large units of
thought may be again carefully scrutinized until a full appreciation
of the thought has been accomplished. The thought of the whole
may then be stated, using as far as possible the words of the
author, and then each of the subdivisions or thought units may be
examined in more detail in order to get the shade of meaning that is
brought out by this or that word, by relationship of coördination
or subordination of clause, or the modification indicated by this
word or phrase. It will be necessary, as the work progresses on the
large thought units into which the selection has been divided, to
return constantly to the whole thought in order to keep clear the
relationship of the part to the whole, and to establish the part in
the system of ideas which we seek to build up. “All the evidence we
have goes to show that the method of memorizing by wholes is most
economical.”[12] If children were taught to work in this way, there
would be little drudgery about memorizing. The careful, thoughtful
study once completed, memorization has been accomplished. The energy
and attention of the child have not been centered upon a merely
technical process, but he has been concerned mainly in trying to
appreciate fully the thought that he is to make his own. Memory work
of this kind is highly educative, not merely because of the product,
but also because of the process employed. Suppose, for example, you
wish children to memorize Stevenson’s _Bed in Summer_:—
In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer, quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.
I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown-up people’s feet
Still going past me in the street.
And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?
You would begin by reading the whole poem, calling to mind the
experiences of the children in going to bed before dark on the long
summer evenings and of the cold, dark winter mornings when they
may have dressed before it was light. The number and the kind of
explanations which will need to be made will, of course, depend
upon the previous experience of the children and the time of the
year. Then the poem might be read again a time or two. After this
preliminary work has been done, you might ask some one to tell you
the story. Let us suppose that the reply was about as follows: “A
little boy had to get up before it was light in the winter, and go
to bed before it was dark in the summer. In summer when he went to
bed he heard the birds hopping on the trees and the people walking
past him in the street. He thought it was hard to have to go to bed
when it was still daylight, when he wanted so much to play.” If the
main facts were less well told, or if there were notable omissions,
it would be necessary to get at least an outline of the main thought
before proceeding. Now we are ready to call the attention of the
children to three main thoughts, each told in a stanza. First, the
difference between getting up in winter and going to bed in summer.
Second, what did the boy in the story see and hear when he went to
bed before dark? Third, how do you feel when you have to go to bed in
summer while the sky is still so clear and blue, and you would like
so much to play?
It will be very easy to get the thought of the first stanza impressed
in the words of the author. It will help to read the whole poem
again, the teacher meanwhile asking the children to pay particular
attention to the way the author says it. Possibly there will be some
difficulty with “quite the other way,” but skillful questioning will
get the correct form. And so for the second and third stanzas;
if the thought is clear, the words will follow very easily. After
each thought has been thus carefully developed, with the whole
story always in mind, and the words of the author have been made
the vehicle of expressing the thought by the children, it will be
advantageous to have the poem repeated several times by individual
members of the class. In this repetition the dramatic element should
enter as far as possible. To suit the action to the word, to really
feel what one recites, helps greatly to strengthen the impression,
and thus aids recall.
It may be thought that the illustration used was particularly well
adapted to illustrate the theory advanced. Or some teacher may say
that children would memorize _Bed in Summer_ without teaching. It
may, therefore, not be out of place to suggest that the best way to
discover for one’s self the value of the method is to try it. It will
work equally well if the subject is Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address,
a selection from the Declaration of Independence, the Twenty-third
Psalm, or any other masterpiece of English.
The principles to be applied are essentially the same even when
verbatim memorization is not required. To get lasting control of
the facts of geography or of history, one must have reduced them
to a system. There must be a relating of less important facts to
more important, a clustering of important points of reference to
any other facts which are logically related. This, indeed, is just
what scientific organization means, and the main purpose of such
organization is to render facts more available, to save labor.
The memory is relieved of much of its burden when once we have
established the relationship of cause and effect, of equivalence,
of similarity, or of analogy among facts. It is this association of
ideas on a logical basis which counts most in the possibility of
recall.
It is quite possible for children, very early in their school life,
to begin to apply these principles and to become conscious of the
fact that the way they do their work has an important bearing
upon the ease with which it is accomplished and the permanency of
the results gained. The work of the teacher is not done by merely
dictating the method, even though that may help greatly to establish
right habits of study; our best assurance that the method will be
employed when the teacher is not present to direct the work is found
in our knowledge that the children not only habitually, but also
when a question arises or there is a suggestion of another way,
consciously employ the right method.
_Teaching children how to form habits_: Our next problem is to
inquire how children may be led consciously to employ the principles
of habit formation when their school work involves work of this
type. They can be taught the function of drill or repetition, and
can be led to see under what conditions such work will prove most
successful. It is not difficult to prove to a boy that his listless,
half-hearted work in repeating the spelling of the words he has
missed is making little improvement in his ability to spell them. A
boy can be led to see by an illustration in which he himself is the
chief actor that concentrated attention will make much difference.
Let him see how much he can accomplish in ten minutes, and thus get
him in the habit of using this means when he finds that he is not
working up to his normal capacity. Show him that a new impetus will
be given and that attention will be easier if he reverses the order,
writes instead of spelling orally, or closes his eyes and attempts
to visualize the words. No matter what motive the boy has for the
attempt he is making, he will welcome the suggestions which make the
task easier.
Later you can teach this same boy the need of verification before
drilling himself whenever a question of fact is raised. In the
beginning, of course, the doubt or question will be raised by the
teacher, and it will be the chief work of the child to find an
authority and assure himself that he has the right idea or form
before proceeding. A big step in the education of a child has
been taken when he is able to say, “I know I am right, because I
have consulted the commonly accepted authority.” Occasions will
arise constantly in the study of any subject where, instead of
asking the teacher or being satisfied with information which is
of questionable validity, the child should, as a matter of habit,
turn to the authority for verification. It is not at all unusual
for children to have misgivings, but they too frequently end by
going ahead and ignoring their doubt. To respect one’s doubts, to
be somewhat critical, is significant for education only when one is
led thereby to endeavor to discover the truth. Children will work to
advantage when they realize that these steps of doubt, verification,
repetition, with undivided attention, are essential to good work.
Children can be taught the necessity of accuracy in practice. Any
day’s work in a schoolroom will furnish illustrations of the danger
of lapses and the necessity of guarding against them. The fallacy of
the notion that “this one doesn’t count” can be made just as clear to
children as to adults. So, too, the mistaken notion that cramming may
be substituted for systematic work day in and day out can be brought
to the attention of pupils.
It would be a good plan for every teacher to ask herself questions
like the following: “What would the children do if I did not
carefully direct their work?” “How much better able are they now to
work independently than they were at the beginning of the year?”
“Can they take a book and find in it the part which bears upon the
topic assigned for study, and do they do it with the least possible
waste of time and energy?” “Do they know how to memorize; what it
means to concentrate their attention; how to reflect?” “Are they
more open-minded or more dogmatic on account of the year spent
with me?” “Have they established the habit of verification?” “Do
they appreciate the method to be employed in habit formation?” To
answer these questions honestly will give the teacher some idea
of her success as a teacher, for the teacher’s goal is realized
in proportion as her pupils have advanced in power to work
independently of her guidance or control.
In teaching children how to study, it will be well to devote whole
periods to this type of exercise. The teacher will gain much in the
progress which her class will make by taking a period frequently
during which she studies with the children. By example rather than
by precept, by guiding children in correct methods of study and then
making them conscious that they have done their work to the best
possible advantage, rather than by telling them what to do, she will
secure the maximum of results in her endeavor to teach children how
to study.
FOR COLLATERAL READING
F. M. McMurry, _How to Study_.
Lida B. Earhart, _Teaching Children to Study_, Chapter VIII.
_Exercises._
1. What is the relation between a knowledge of the principles of
teaching and the attempt to teach children how to study?
2. How would you teach a boy to study his spelling lesson?
3. What exercises would you give your pupils to make them able to
use books to the best advantage?
4. State five problems which you have assigned to your pupils which
seem to you to have furnished a sufficient motive for study.
5. Which would be better as an assignment for a class in history:
“Study the topic of slavery for to-morrow”; or, “Try to find out
why slaves were not kept in the Northern states”; or, “Did all of
the people in the Northern states believe that slavery should be
abolished?”
6. What is the advantage in individual or group assignments? Give
a list of such assignments which you have recently given to your
class.
7. Why is it necessary in studying to restate the problem under
consideration at frequent intervals?
8. When children study, should they try to remember all that they
read in their books?
9. Is it wise to have children critical of each other’s
contributions during a recitation?
10. How could you hope to train children to discriminate between
the material of greater and of less importance when they read books
to find the answers to their problems?
11. What do you think of the success of a study period where ten
problems are given, each independent of the others?
12. How would you expect children to verify the conclusions which
they reach in solving their problems in geography, nature study, or
arithmetic?
13. Take any poem of from four to ten stanzas, and have your pupils
commit it to memory as a whole by reading it over and discussing
the thought as often as may be necessary. Take another poem of
equal length and of equal difficulty, according to your judgment,
and have them commit it to memory line by line and stanza by
stanza. (A good plan would be to take four stanzas for each test
from the same long poem.) Three weeks after each selection is
learned, without suggesting to the pupils that the selection is to
be called for again, find out what part of each selection can be
recalled.
14. How could you teach your pupils that the repetitions which
count when studying a spelling lesson are the ones which are made
with attention concentrated upon the work in hand?
15. Is a study period in the schoolroom properly regarded as a rest
period for teachers and pupils?
16. Are the children you teach better able to get along without a
teacher than they were when they came to you? What evidence can you
give to show that they can work independently?