SOCIAL PHASES OF THE RECITATION
Emphasis has already been given to the social aim in education. This
chapter will discuss in some detail the possibility of realizing this
aim through the conduct of the recitation. The real advantage to be
derived from grouping children in classes is found in the opportunity
which is afforded for exchange of ideas. A group of children seated
with faces to the front responding to the teacher’s questions
and anxious only for her approval is an educational anomaly. The
recitation is more than a place for the teacher to test the knowledge
of the children, or to explain to them as a group some phase of their
work with which they have had difficulty. It may be well to inquire
concerning the motives which operate, the activities present, and the
results commonly achieved by the recitation.
In many classes children seem to feel that the main purpose of the
recitation is to please the teacher. Nor is the teacher’s attitude
different. She praises or blames in proportion as the children answer
her questions or follow her directions. Of course there are times
when it is the main business of the teacher to test children or to
direct their activity; but more commonly it is the office of the
teacher to work as a member of a group who are working together for
the realization of some worthy end. Both teacher and pupil should be
pleased when progress is being made in the work at hand because of
the active participation of all of the members of the group.
There are other motives commonly operating which are even less worthy
than that of pleasing the teacher. Children not infrequently are
somewhat attentive to the work of the class because they fear the
punishment which follows failure. The more ambitious, on the other
hand, come to look upon the recitation as an opportunity to display
their superiority. They believe, and too often they are right, that
the chief end of school work is to get ahead of some one else,—to
get a higher mark. In each of the cases mentioned, the motive is
essentially individualistic. Better have the boy at work in order
to please the teacher than to have him idle; better use punishments
and rewards and secure some results in knowledge and habits than to
fail of these desirable ends: but the socialization of the boy and
the maximum of intellectual activity for each member of the group can
only be brought about in a situation which is genuinely social.
What could be more natural than that children should ask each
other questions; that they should exchange experiences; that they
should work in coöperation for the satisfaction of a common end?
This presupposes that they have a problem or purpose which is
genuine. But that is only to assume that there is some real reason
for intellectual activity. Or let us suppose that the children are
at work in order that the product of their effort may be used in
some social situation. It is not particularly difficult under such
conditions to get the liveliest kind of discussion, to secure the
most earnest coöperation, or to have pupils themselves accept in a
considerable measure the responsibility for progress in their work.
This difference in attitude toward school work, if once established,
is apparent in all subjects. The work of a class in reading or
literature will be transformed when children work together to
understand and appreciate its content. Instead of the complaint
that John has lost the place, it will be discovered that he not
infrequently has a question to ask, or that he can contribute an
explanation. The writer has seen a class of third-grade children as
active in questioning each other concerning a reading lesson as they
were on the playground in inquiring concerning the games they played
or the novel experiences in which they were interested. The teacher
had attained this result by making the children understand that they
ought to ask each other questions when they did not understand the
thought expressed in their books, and that one of the best ways to
explain was to tell of a similar experience which they had had.
In a class in nature study in a fourth grade a boy told a wonderful
story of the activities of a squirrel. Ordinarily the teacher might
have been expected to tell the boy that the story was untrue and
that she did not want that kind of stories. In this class, however,
the children felt responsible for the contributions which were made.
The story had no sooner been told than the narrator was plied with
questions. Where had he seen the squirrel? On what kind of a tree?
What was the color of the squirrel? Just when did the events related
happen? The boy could not answer these questions satisfactorily, and
finally admitted that his story had a very slight basis in fact. The
rebuke thus administered by his classmates probably did more toward
giving this boy respect for truth than a dozen statements by the
teacher that his contribution was unsatisfactory.
In an eighth-grade class the children were discussing the panic of
’73. One of the boys maintained that the causes of panics were, in
general, the same, regardless of the activities of a few individuals
occupying important positions in government or in the commercial
world. His contention was mainly that it was unfair to charge a
president or a political party with the distress occasioned by
a panic, when in reality the cause was to be found in economic
conditions over which neither president nor party had control. One
of the girls in the class objected, and cited as proof the panic of
’37, which she claimed was caused by President Jackson. The teacher
could have settled the question immediately by an authoritative
statement, which most classes of children would have accepted. In
this class, however, the teacher encouraged the class to participate
in the discussion. In the end the members of the class consulted
textbooks and other more complete histories, and reached their
own decision with comparatively little help from the teacher. The
value of this work in history consisted mainly in the fact that the
children, having once discovered the problem, felt responsible for
its solution. They were engaged in the liveliest kind of thinking and
discussion. They were learning where to go, and what materials to use
in the solution of this kind of problem.
Possibly work in the industrial arts offers the very best chance for
group work. At every turn in work of this kind there is the demand
for careful planning involving discussion of ways and means, and for
coöperation in the execution of the plan. A group of second-grade
children were occupied most profitably with the partial furnishing
and daily care of the teacher’s rest room. They had first of all
to decide what they could do to make the room more comfortable or
more beautiful. They decided that they could make pillow, table,
and couch covers, and window curtains, and that they could keep the
room clean. In determining materials and design, as well as in the
execution of the work itself, there was need for coöperation. The
children gained not only in appreciation of some of the elements
of home-making, but also in ability to plan and to work together.
They were being socialized both by the content of their work and
by the method employed in executing it. Another group of children,
fifth grade, spent a number of weeks working together in planning
and building a playhouse for the first grade. A wide-awake teacher
enlisted the coöperation of three grades in the making and selling of
candy in order to get money enough to buy pictures for the school.
The preparation of a picnic luncheon, or meal for guests invited by
the cooking class, the making of a large rug from many smaller rugs
woven in such a way as to contribute to the pattern of the final
product, the building of window boxes, the writing of the account of
an excursion or other school exercise in order that the best results
may be brought together in the final account which is to be used in
a school paper, are examples of the kind of work which may involve
the kind of activity which makes for present social efficiency,
and, therefore, for that social efficiency which it is the ultimate
purpose of education to achieve.
One of the best ways to transform the recitation from a place where
lessons are heard to an active social group is to plan definitely
for a variety of contributions from the individual members or small
groups of the class. When each member of the class studies the same
pages of the same book, there is little incentive either to try to
tell well what the book contributes to the problem in hand, or to
listen to the recitation of one’s classmates. If, however, one group
of children have been referred to one book, another to a second
book, and still another to a magazine article, to pictures, or other
objective representation, there is some reason why each should do
his best in reporting, and a genuine motive for following closely
the contribution of each member of the class during the recitation
is provided. Work of this sort is easily available in history,
geography, nature study, or manual training.
In the subjects which seem to lend themselves less easily to variety
in assignment, many possibilities will be found by the teacher who
is anxious to prove the efficiency of this method. The best reading
that the writer has ever seen in a third grade was done by children
who read to each other. They used the readers in the school and books
from home and from the public library. Each child was permitted to
make a selection and submit it to the teacher for approval. Then
came the period of preparation, extending often over two or three
days or even a week. During this time the child was supposed to
study the selection carefully, learn the pronunciation of difficult
words, and practice reading the selection so that he might give
pleasure to those for whom the reading was done. The one good reason
for reading aloud is to read to an audience who cares to hear what
you have to offer. These children were participating in a social
situation which demanded much of them, and they enjoyed the hard work
which was necessary because the motive back of it all was genuine.
In arithmetic, if arithmetic deals with the quantitative aspect of
the experiences which the children are having, it will be possible
to allow for some variety in the work which is assigned. If the
problems are real, there will be a considerable interest manifested
by the children in the solution of the problem and the results which
are secured. Suppose a class were given a list of the articles
which are to be put in a Thanksgiving basket, with instructions to
find the cost of the basket so that a friend may pay for one of the
donations which the class plans to distribute. In such a situation
the children will be most eager to compare prices and total cost when
the class next meets for the arithmetic lesson. Of course the carping
critic will say that it is easy to devise a few cases of the sort
listed above, but that in real school work you haven’t time to make
such plans. The only answer is that the difference between superior
teaching and the kind that one sees all too commonly is found in the
ability and willingness of the artistic teacher to be more nearly
true to her ideals than are others. Any teacher, who is sufficiently
interested, can find many situations in which she can vary the
work of the class in such a way that the recitation period shall
become a place where each member of the class brings his individual
contribution.
Possibly the greatest need in our schools to-day is for more
purposeful work for children. We are so much concerned about the many
things which children ought to know that we are tempted to spend most
of the time drilling children on facts which have very little meaning
for them. The demand that the school be socialized is only another
way of saying that the work of school children should function in the
school itself and in their lives outside of school. It has seemed
possible, in a few schools, to give children opportunity in the
industrial arts to work at making something which they really want
for themselves, or upon a project which may involve the welfare of
the group, as, for example, when they work upon school apparatus or
furniture. An eighth-grade group of boys made the furniture for the
principal’s office; the children at Hyannis, Massachusetts, make
baskets, brooms, hammocks, raise vegetables, build a boat or a fence,
as occasion demands.[18] At Tuskegee the more mature students have
even burnt the bricks and constructed the buildings for the school.
If a significant project in the industries is undertaken, it may
furnish the motive for doing work along many lines. The raising of
vegetables may involve arithmetic in the measuring of beds and the
buying of seeds, in finding the value of the product, and, if the
product be sold, in the keeping of a bank account. The study of
dairying might very well involve a visit to a farm; the measuring
of an acre; the estimating of the cost of production of milk and
butter; and the return from the investment. The cost and means of
transportation might be studied; a churn, butter bowl, and paddle
might be constructed; and finally a complete account of these many
experiences might be written and printed. If children are engaged in
activities of this sort, there will be no question of socializing the
school. By the very nature of their activities children will be led
to question each other and their teachers; they will of necessity
coöperate in those phases of the work which involve team work.
But it is not in the industrial arts alone that school work may deal
with genuine situations. A good teacher finds a hundred situations
in which children can write for an audience. The writer recently
attended the closing exercises of an elementary school where the
graduating class had composed a play which they presented. The main
plot of the story centered in a prize essay contest, and, as might be
inferred, the essays which were read were those which the children
had written during the regular class work. In geography the members
of a sixth-grade class prepared talks to accompany pictures thrown on
the screen from a lantern. In history certain incidents of the period
which a class was studying were dramatized and presented to the whole
school.
The president of a water company in a middle-western city told the
writer that they kept things in better shape at the water works since
they had agreed to allow the children to come to visit the waterworks
whenever a teacher chose to bring a class. In the same city there is
an unusual number of pianos in the schools, school playgrounds are
being established, parents’ associations are active in coöperation
with the teachers to improve school conditions. If one were asked
to explain why the schools in this city are better, why they are so
loyally supported and so proudly spoken of by all classes of people,
the answer would be found, I believe, in the fact that there is a
closer relationship between the school and activities outside the
school in home and city than in most other places. If teachers more
commonly had in mind the needs of the children during the time they
are not in the school, it would be easier to find situations in which
the school activities would be significant because of the genuine
needs which are felt by the children.
If there were nothing gained toward socializing children through
activities involving the coöperation of the whole group, the fact
would remain that the best type of intellectual activity can be
secured only with this most genuine of all incentives. Most people,
even as adults, think better when they have some one with whom to
discuss the problem in hand. It is true, too, that often the best
teacher is one whose experience is somewhat similar to our own and
whose attitudes and difficulties are similar to ours. Children
can often interpret where teachers fail. It cannot be too often
reiterated that it is the chief business of every teacher to render
her services unnecessary. If the children taught are not at the end
of any term’s work better able to work for themselves, more ready
to take the initiative, more capable in defining their problems,
in gathering data, and in finding solutions than they were at the
beginning of the period, then the work has been a failure. Creative
work[19] is not done when some one stands over the child and dictates
his every step, nor does thinking consist in answering the questions
which a teacher may put concerning the facts recorded in a text.
There is entirely too much truth in the charge which is sometimes
brought against our schools, that they fail to keep alive the
intellectual activity which is natural to childhood.
We must never lose sight of the fact that a child who is vigorous
intellectually, actively sympathetic with those causes which make
for the general welfare, and able and willing to work in coöperation
with others, even though this may mean that he subordinate himself to
others for the time being, is the type of individual upon which our
democracy depends for its perpetuation and for its future progress.
It is necessary to emphasize the social side of school life because
we have, in our anxiety to impart information and form habits,
neglected this aspect of school life. The pity of it all is that in
neglecting the child’s social development we have done less efficient
work in the fields we sought to emphasize because of the lack of
genuine motive. Whether we are concerned with habits, with the
acquisition of knowledge, with development in clear thinking, or in
fixing ideals, the maximum of return will be secured in the genuinely
social situation. Children working together on real problems are
being socialized through participation in social activities. There is
no other way in which the school can contribute so certainly to the
accomplishment of the aim of all education.
FOR COLLATERAL READING
John Dewey, _Moral Principles in Education_, and _The School and
Society_.
_Exercises._
1. What are the advantages to be derived from teaching a group
rather than an individual?
2. What is the ideal relationship between teacher and pupils?
3. Why should a pupil face his classmates when he recites?
4. How could you provide for class discussions with the pupils you
teach?
5. Name class projects which your class has undertaken which
involve coöperation and end in a product which children consider
worth working for.
6. Why do the household and industrial arts lend themselves
especially well to the development of the social phases of the
recitation?
7. When should it be wrong for one pupil to help another? Name as
many occasions as you can where you would encourage coöperation and
helpfulness.
8. Give an illustration of one project which may furnish an
adequate motive for work in several school subjects.
9. Of what value are associations of parents and teachers from the
standpoint of increasing the efficiency of school work?
10. Why is a genuinely social situation the best for the
development of intellectual vigor?
11. Do you think children ought to accept any social responsibility
outside of the school and home?
12. How may we hope to develop in children the desire to serve, the
willingness to work for the general good?
13. How would you change your work in order to accomplish the most
possible for the development of children who are now socially
efficient?
14. Ought we to expect all children to accept the same social
responsibilities, either as to kind or degree, in the school or in
their out-of-school life?
15. If children do not work together for common ends in our
schools, if the spirit of coöperation and service is not present
there, ought we to be surprised at the non-social or anti-social
attitude and practice of adults?