Weekly graphic. [volume] (Kirksville, Adair Co., Missouri) 1880-1949, 1883-03-09
THE HOME CIRCLE.
CONDUCTED BY MRS. NJ. woLvERrcN
Teach Pupils How to Learn.

Not only must We have Normal
Schools ITO teach teachers how to
:e oh" but children also must be
taught how to learn. The work of the
school.room is two-fold, or, as We have
often thought, many fold. knowledge
must be impaired, the effort of the
pupil must be supplemented. his ideas
must be Strengthened and systematized,
his fragmen,ary knowledge connected
with known facts and his enron Gus
impre ssion connected. This. however,
is he natural work OF the recitation
period Apart from that. pupils must
be taught how to best utilize their
powers. Help should be administer
ed to them in such ways as will assist
and strengthen. but not take the place
of, their own effort. Given a child Of
ordinary intelligence and book the
consecutive words in which are reson-
ably plain to the child-the mere act
Of bringing the two things together
does not argue that the one will readily
absorb the ideas expressed IN the other.
As a mater of fact tie effort at first
partakes ot the nature OF a new and
untried experiment. Many children
think that if they learn the words by
rote they have of necessity acquired
the ideas Others read -orer the pages
and feel that they understand tine mat
ter as they proceed, but are quite I'M
able to Gete: mine when they know
the essential part of 1t. With many
children this ability to study in proper
manner comes, if at all, late in their
school-room experience. The time may
be fastened by careful guidance. and it
should be the aim of the teacher to
observe each individual case, so as to
lnduce correct habits of mind from the
first
Unquest.onably one of the best meth
DDS for increasing the mental grasp
and Strengthening the power of CON-
prehen ion is that of employing the
children to look up certain things IN
books other than their textbooks, the
subject-li,atter atterward to be reta'led
to the teacher in the child'sown words.
Beginning with narratives, they may
gradu lilly pass to matters of reasoning.
the statement Of arguments,the relation
of cause ard effect. Ii is easier :hus
to search for particular thing than to
go over certain pages with the general
purpose of acquiring whatever is in
them.
Whatever else, teach the child 20 re-
ly upon his own exertions. This will
not be a palatable lesson. He can
understand in general terms that the
practice of throwing stones himself, and
not by proxy, increases his own power
to throw stones. Not SO readily will
he believe that extra work, spent III
overcoming the difficulties of the arith-
metic, is equally beneficial in strenthen.
ing him for future effort. Most chill
dren would be more than willing to do
percentage and compound proportion
by proxy. If they only knew, they
might as reasonably expect to learn to
skate or play cricket in the same way.
We nave known two boys 10 cipher
though the arithmetic together, one
self.rellant. the other dependent. One
not only did m ost of the problems him
self, but explained them down to the
comprehension of his companion,
thereby clearing up any obscurities
which might have renamed in his own
mind Day by day they received
equally good numbers for reel alton
but the future showed that one had
grown stronger, the other weaker, all
the time.-IRe STUDENT.