How to Study and Teaching How to Study · Chapter 9Practical Suggestions for Teaching Children to Neglect Relatively Unimportant Details
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1. Placing responsibility upon children.
The responsibility of deciding what shall be neglected should very often be left with the children, no matter how many mistakes and how much loss of time it may temporarily cause. Criticisms and suggestions from the teacher would be in place later. Many parents as well as teachers refuse to place this responsibility upon children for fear of the mistakes that they will make. On account of this fear they make it as nearly as possible unnecessary for children to judge freely, by giving them arbitrary rules to follow, or by directing them exactly what they shall do each moment. This cultivates poor judgment by depriving children of the very practice that will make their judgments reliable; it prevents the school requirements from corresponding to those in life outside.
Confidence in the general and growing good sense of children is a presupposition in the sensible parent and teacher. Having such confidence, their mission is to let these young people alone much of the time; to direct, not to control the selections that they make, assuming the role of advisers and critics but not dictators.
This training toward independent judgment should begin even in the first year of school. If Johnny raises his hand in beginning reading to state that Mary said a for the, the teacher need not either accept or reject the criticism. She may merely turn to the whole class and ask whether that is a helpful correction to make. A similar course may be pursued with many corrections and suggestions in later years. In this way a class sense of what is fitting or valuable in the way of neglect can be developed.
It should be remembered, however, that children cannot judge the worth of details without a basis of some sort. Unless, therefore, they helplessly rely upon the direction of the teacher in each case, they must be taught what the reading or other subject is for. They must gradually get a fair idea, for instance, of what good reading is, and realize that it includes pleasant tones, a careful grouping of words, much inflection of voice, and clear enunciation of final consonants. As they become acquainted with this standard in reading, they will readily learn to overlook such details as have little to do with its attainment.
It is true that it saves much time for the teacher herself to determine what shall or shall not receive attention, or at least for her to accept or reject a child's suggestion dogmatically, rather than to allow him or the whole class to pass upon its worth. Also, the constant demand for "more facts" tempts teachers to save time in this way. But again, it behooves the teacher as well as the pupil to use judgment, and not sacrifice one of the main objects of an education in order to save some time.
2. Class study of printed articles.
Children who use reference works might now and then study an encyclopedic article together merely to see what parts should be slighted. When looking for a certain fact they will discover, from the way the paragraphs begin, that one paragraph after another can be discarded without being read in full. In the same spirit newspapers might be studied by the older children, to determine from the headings what articles need not be read at all, what ones in a cursory manner, and what ones carefully, if any. Similar study of some magazines might be in place. It is a duty of the school thus to accustom pupils to proper methods of reading common kinds of printed matter.
3. Reduction of reproductions.
Pupils might occasionally be asked to reproduce a story or any other line of thought as fully as they wish. Suppose that it occupies six pages. Then they might be requested to reduce it to three pages, and perhaps, finally, to one page, eliminating each time what is of least importance. Such an exercise compels a very careful study of relative values.
4. Holding and carrying a point.
Having decided upon a definite problem for consideration, all grades of learners might be held responsible for detecting beginning wanderings of thought. They might accustom themselves to the responsibility of rising to a point of order at such times, stating the main question and asking the suspected person to show the relevancy of his remarks. There is no reason why the teacher should carry this responsibility alone; indeed, it is an imposition on the children, checking their growth in judgment and power of initiative.
Again, at times students in all grades might be allowed full freedom, in order to show how quickly they will engage in discussion, and even become excited, with no definite question before them. They may not realize their error, however, until asked to state what they are considering. It should be remembered that the question at issue may be as much neglected in the reading of books as in participation in discussion; on this account the method of reading might be tested in a similar manner.
5. Encouragement of different rates of reading.
Finally, varying rates of reading should be encouraged, according to the nature of the subject matter. While some books should be perused very slowly and thoughtfully, others should be covered as rapidly as possible. In the case of many novels, for instance, the ideas are so simple that they can be comprehended as rapidly as the words can be scanned.
Many persons, however, can read only as fast as they can pronounce the words. They follow an established series of associations: first, the word is observed; this image calls up its sound; the sound then recalls the meaning. Thus the order is sight, sound, meaning. That is a roundabout way of arriving at the meaning of a page and is usually learned in childhood. It explains why many an educated adult can read very little faster silently than aloud.
Some adults read fast simply by skimming over the less important parts, which is often justified. Some, however, save time by associating the form of a word directly with its meaning, leaving the sound out of consideration. Then by running the eye along rapidly they double and treble the ordinary rate of advance. It is said that Lord Macaulay read silently about as rapidly as a person ordinarily thumbs the pages; and he must have seen the individual words, because his remarkable memory often enabled him to reproduce the text verbatim. The slow-reading adult can, by practice, learn to take in a whole line or more almost at a glance, in place of three or four words, and can thus increase his rate of advance. But habit is so powerful that the rapid eye-movement necessary in rapid reading, together with the direct association of the form of a word with its meaning, should be learned in childhood. To this end, children should often be timed in their reading, being allowed only a few seconds or minutes to cover a certain amount. Some exercises might be given them, too, so as to accustom them to taking in a considerable number of words at a glance.
Meanwhile, however, pains should be taken to avoid the impression that rapid reading is always in place. Matter that requires much reflection, like the Bible for example, may well be read slowly. It is not merely rapid reading, but varying rates according to need, that the teacher should encourage.
There is no expectation that children will learn to handle books as Carlyle did. But they should be guided by the same general principles, and should form practical acquaintance with these principles while in school. Ordinarily there is a striking contrast between the use of books in school and outside, and the different rates of reading in the two places afford a striking illustration. Text in school is taken up in a gingerly fashion, scarcely enough of it being assigned for one lesson to get the child interested. Then this is reviewed over and over until any interest that may originally have been excited is long since destroyed. Thoroughness is aimed at, at the expense of life. In independent reading outside of school the opposite course is pursued. In the reaction from the school influence children revel in their freedom to do the things that their teachers forbid, and they accordingly go racing through their volumes.
Both methods are at fault. The school handling of books is intolerably slow; that outside is likely to be too rapid. In general, the method of using books in school should more closely resemble that desired elsewhere. The school method is the first to be reformed. It is seldom wise to be so thorough in the treatment of a text as to kill it for the learner. As a rule longer textbook lessons should be assigned in the elementary school, and less attention should be given to the minor facts. Then, if necessary, the same general field should be covered from another point of view, through another text. This change of method is already largely realized in our beginning reading, and partly realized in several other subjects.