Didacticism

“ This is the very essence of education, its informing spirit. The student no longer thinks merely of becoming an expert turner; he thinks of becoming a man! All the powers of his mind are roused to vigorous action; imagination illumes the path, and reason, following with firm but cautious step, drives straight to the mark. Rapid development results from the combination of practice with theory—rapid because orderly, or natural. ”

“ Instruction shall, in respect to the general encyclopædic culture, be the same for all, and parallel to this shall run a system of special schools to prepare for the special avocations of life. The method of instruction shall be the simple representation of the special idea of the subject, and no longer the formal breadth of an acquaintance with many subjects which may find outside the school its opportunity, but within it has no meaning except as the history of a science or an art. ”

“ There is no such thing as a valuable observation and investigation of natural objects without language in which to embody the results at every step." (Geo. P. Brown.) Report on Correlation of Studies by Committee of Fifteen. With annotations by Geo. P. Brown.
[86] "Of course, there is great difference between the disciplinary value of that study in which the pupil solves his own difficulties and that teaching in which the teacher accompanies the pupil, supplying the needed information or suggestion at every step of his progress. ”

“ We need especially, now that the purpose of education is adequately defined, an adequate doctrine of educational values and a rich and vital infusion of the spirit of experimental science. For efficiency in the work of instruction and training, we need to know the influence of different types of experience in controlling human conduct,—we need to know just what degree of efficiency is exerted by our arithmetic and literature, our geography and history, our drawing and manual training, our Latin and Greek, our ethics and psychology. ”

“ In the narrower sense, education may be confined to instruction, the imparting of definite information on various subjects, because such information, in and for itself, is useful in daily life. Elementary education—reading, writing, and arithmetic—is almost wholly of this kind. But instruction, necessary as it is, does not per se constitute education in the sense in which I wish to consider it. ”

“ After a little, these students are to take up the work I have begun, and give instruction under my observation. In time, in this way, teachers would be trained, whose method by means of reciprocal observation and discussion must be perfected. As a plan of teaching is valueless without a teacher, and indeed a teacher that is in sympathy with that plan, and is master of the method,— [Pg 281] so perhaps a small experimental school, such as I have in mind, would prepare the way for future greater undertakings. ”

“ Our instruction is adapted to the same end; we do not instruct them in studies above their rank in life; reading, writing, the elementary principles of arithmetic, geography, some of the natural sciences, and music, comprise the course of study. In the calling they select, we do what we can to make them intelligent and competent. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Much attention was given to training children in good personal habits, cleanliness, tidiness, punctuality, etc., and to moral training. Great stress was laid on information.... The curriculum included reading, writing, arithmetic, geometry, lessons on common objects, geography, singing and religion, and an effort was made to make the work interesting and 'concrete.' To this end much importance was attached to object-lessons, to the use of illustrations, to questioning and exposition, while the memory was aided by means of didactic verse.... ”

“ Under the phrase, 'Education is a life,' I have tried to show how necessary it is to sustain the intellectual life upon ideas, and, as a corollary, that a school-book should be a medium for ideas, and not merely a receptacle for facts. That normal children have a natural desire for, and a right of admission to, all fitting knowledge, appears to me to be suggested by the phrase, 'Education is the science of relations.'
These considerations clear the ground towards that of a curriculum. ”

“ To teach the child the art of study means, then, that we take every possible occasion to impress upon his mind the value of study as a means of solving real and vital problems, and that, with this as an incentive, we gradually and persistently and systematically lead him to grasp the method of study as a method,—that is, slowly and gradually to abstract the method from the particular cases to which he applies it and to emotionalize it,—to make it an ideal. Only in this way, so far as we may know, can the art be so generalized as to find ready application in his later life. ”

“ The principle however, is applicable to all; and one such experiment, dexterously carried through, will do more towards giving boys and girls, clear and practical ideas of the reason why they go to school, and of the importance of acquiring knowledge, than the best lecture on such a subject, which ever was delivered.
There is no branch of study attended to in school, which may, by judicious efforts, be made more effectual in accomplishing this object,—leading the pupils to see the practical utility, and the value of knowledge, than composition. ”

“ Such instruction, however, has by no means passed from the field of usefulness, even in our very best schools. The necessity of appealing powerfully to previous experience, in and out of the schoolroom, as a basis for understanding a matter presented in the daily lessons, is everywhere recognized. From being an end of school work, therefore, analytic instruction has passed to the realm of a useful means for arousing the mental activity of the children concerning the regular lessons of the schoolroom. It is, in modern terms, an apperceptive basis for all instruction. ”

“ The method of giving instruction in the different branches of philosophy will depend so much on the preparation of the particular pupils, and also on the cast of mind of the teachers, that it is difficult to offer suggestions, except to point out this very fact that each mind needs to be met just where it is—with its own mental images, vocabulary, habit of thought and attention, all calling for consideration and adaptation of the subject to their particular case. ”

“ Parents and tutors must, therefore, supply familiar oral instruction, and those simple, but essential explanations, which books disdain, or neglect to give. And there is this advantage in all instruction given in conversation, that it can be made interesting by a thousand little circumstances, which are below the dignity of didactic writers. Gradually we may proceed from simple to more complicated contrivances. The invention of experiments to determine a theory, or to ascertain the truth of an assertion, must be particularly useful to the understanding. ”

“ Before educational methods can be made to harmonise in character and arrangement with the faculties in their mode and order of unfolding, it is first needful that we ascertain with some completeness how the faculties do unfold. At present we have acquired, on this point, only a few general notions. These general notions must be developed in detail—must be transformed into a multitude of specific propositions, before we can be said to possess that science on which the art of education must be based. ”

“ It is maintained by some, that all the Normal School work is professional, in that throughout the curriculum the aim is to present the subject matter of instruction in the way that the teacher should present it to his or her class of children, and so to make the lessons model lessons. ”

“ The commencement of the instruction in reading, writing, ciphering, drawing, and in spelling, would take place as part of the object lesson which should be adopted as the first step to knowledge, and should be retained in the most advanced classes as the most perfect method of applying the knowledge which has been acquired. It would soon be understood by the pupils that the power of reading, of writing, of designing and of calculating is essential to the acquirement of knowledge, and to any thing like extent and variety of information on subjects relating to individual and social well-being. ”

“ The way to render instruction most useful cannot always be adopted; knowledge should be gradually imparted, and flow more from example than teaching: example directly addresses the senses, the first inlets to the heart; and the improvement of those instruments of the understanding is the object education should have constantly in view, and over which we have most power. ”

“ One more prejudice of those imputed to realistic instruction must still be pointed out, and it will be the last. It is one of those time-worn devices whose history, extending over a thousand years, reflects the entire life of the school—the composition. ”

“ But so long as the old traditional curriculum in Arts—of Humanity, Greek, Logic, Mathematics, Moral Philosophy and Natural Philosophy—endured, a large number of students found it profitable to attend at both hours, and it was possible to give a large amount of excellent tutorial instruction by the working of examples and oral examination. ”

“ From your observations do the teachers consciously strive to realize these values in the class?
7. Do the teachers seek to get back of the records of events and to discover the motives, ideas, and ideals that produced those events? What is the method used to do so?
8. Do the teachers assume "hard, dogmatic, and uncompromising" attitudes toward the interpretation of the facts, or do they give students opportunity to use their own judgment?
9. Does it seem to you that students really do put themselves back in imagination and live through the period they are studying? ”

“ After all, how are we to impress pupils with this ideal of persistence and with these ideals of getting and applying information, and with this ideal of investigation? I maintain that these important useful ideals may be effectively impressed almost from the very outset of school life. The teaching of every subject affords innumerable opportunities to force home their lessons. In fact, it must be a very gradual process—a process in which the concrete instances are numerous and rich and impressive. ”

“ As the latter desire that literature should be a means of educating the student's intelligence and sympathies, so the teachers of science, whether pure or applied, insist on the necessity of cultivating the scientific imagination, of developing a power of initiative in the learner, and of drawing out his inventive faculties. ”

“ The examination system, and the fact that instruction is treated mainly as training for a livelihood, leads the young to regard knowledge from a purely utilitarian point of view, as the road to money, not as the gateway to wisdom. ”

“ From whatever point of view we approach the problem of teaching our subjects, the answer is the same: meet present situations, solve present real, vital problems, make subject matter meet the needs of the children you are teaching. This analysis of the curriculum makes apparent the important part to be played by the teacher in making available the experiences which the school subjects are organized to present. ”

“ The result of this curriculum goal is obvious. Every legitimate teaching aid, every real instruction, and every sensible guide to learning will be misinterpreted, since they are all for facilitating the learning this strange curriculum is against. ”

“ If, then, these great truths in education be at the doors of our educators, why do they not acquire and use them? The answer is not far to seek. Not one teacher in five hundred ever makes a practical, thorough study of the history of education, to say nothing of the science.
“The tremendous projecting power of tradition stands stubbornly in the way of progress in education. It can only be met and overcome by the most thorough searching and indefatigable study of the child’s nature, and of the means by which the possibilities for good in God’s greatest creation may be realized.” ”

“ In addition to the training in observation, memory, expression, and inductive reasoning which most studies offer, we must consider the development of imagination, right emotion, and right will. In other words, æsthetic and ethical training is most essential. Secondary schools need not employ formal courses of study to this end, but various means may be employed incidentally. ”

“ We assert, then, that from a course or manner of instruction from which those characteristics of true study—real work of the learner's faculties, and a just consecution of steps—are largely omitted or excluded, the best sort of intellectual education can not, in the majority of instances, accrue. ”