Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1890-08-07
Up-Hill work in Teaching

from th0 F00D OF I000b0fos
Uphill Work in Teaching.
A Boston teacher writes to the Jour-
nal of Education:
After having taught for many
years in school where the children
talked and wrote freely with very lit
tie effort on my part beyond that of di-
recting their thoughts. it was quite \
change when took, this fall, class OF
children who came from homes where
they seldom heard correct sentences
and who seemed content to answer
every question in monosyllables.
Il had secured such good results at
my former school that I had felt some
little pride in my success as teacher
Of language, but | found that this sue
cess had been largely due to the quail
ty Of the class.
II tried my new class with stories;
the children listened to them eagerly,
more so than my former class; but
after the reading. the interest in the
stories tagged, and it was almost inn
possible to get an answer to any of
my questions. tried them with pic
lures; the result was even worse. l
found that during the summer vaca-
ton they had lost the greater part of
what they had learned the previous
year, and that must begin at the be-
/ ginning. / resolved that they should
answer in complete sentences, if they
did not do another thing in language
the whole year.
1T was hard work at first. and
paid more attention to the wording of
the sentence than to the fact contained
in it; and if boy had said, mine and
five is thirteen" should have correct
ed him, and said, Nine and five are
thirteen" without regard at first to
the mistake in addition, until the
fault in language had been corrected.
1t seemed as if | had to remind the
class continually, but one day | had
my reward when the principal, after
questioning them in arithmetic, COM
plimented them upon their way of an
swering.
Every afternoon at the close Of
school asked them to notice the moon
in the evening, or come prepared to
tell me something about the wind. or
the frost, or whatever was available.
In the morning they found on the
board sentences similar to these:
Write statement about the moon"
or Fell me something about to-day"
Ine statements they wrote upon their
states before school. and after the de-
votional exercises read them to me.
This took about ten minutes. and was
well spent, for | questioned them
about the capital and period, and if
there was word used that l thought
might be misspelled, l had it written
on the board and copied into a small
blankbook directly after the writing
lesson. At first the sentences were
very crude, but they grew better and
better, until now l can lind very little
fault with them.
After using such subjects as the
wind, snow. hail, ETC., put words on
the board, AS hear and here. and had
them put them into sentences, each
one in "A separate sentence, and later,
the two combined into one sentence.
lr this way killed three birds with
one stone, for | taught spelling and
sentence making. and also passed
the states for neatness of work.
Il next tried stories. | read to them
for several days without any comment
on what | had read, then | began 10
ask for the title and main facts. and
sometimes told the story in my own
words. After this. | began to get the
title and the various sentences in the
story by questions, and made what the
boys called "a talking story"
One boy gave the title and stepped
to the back OF the room; another gave
the first sentence and took his place
beside the title, making sure to keep
quite space between them; then tho
next sentence went out, and so on, I'M
til the whole story was on the floor.
Then the children Photographed it, and
each paragraph. with its one or more
sentences, as the case might be, moved
slightly away from the paragraph be-
fore it. This pleased TIE children very
much, and after the story told ITSELF"
it was written on the states.
Picture reading was our rock ahead,
but even that was soon robbed ~ its
terrors. At first the children told me. in
simple statements, what they saw in
the picture; but later the principal OBJ
iect, and described it.
when | found they could read the
picture. or describe it so that others
could see it, l turned their attention to
story making. At first l asked them
for the title only, and keeping the IT,
tie in mind, ! told the story of pic
ture suggested to me. This did for
several days. and then | began to get
the story from them by questions only
one sentence from each volunteer.
This story was read and Photographed
as the first story was, and oftentimes
was written on the board.
Il began afterwards to get the story
from them by suggestions and topics;
and, as soon as | feel they are ready
for it, shall give them q picture and
ask them to tell story about it with
out any suggestions from me-"
Teaching AS ~ Profession.
Sv,Nt Il, ID Sa,ra, ., N la,t,,u~