The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1890-09-18

PROFESSIONAL TEACHING.

| son, 3. u.
PROFESSIONAL TEACHING.
Teaching is sure to become scientific
that is, to be recognized as profession.
But not all teachers will be professional
"a large number will "try it on" and
give it up. Out of 1000 young men who
are graduated as physicians fully one
third do not practice medicine. Why Z
They have not the make mp of physicians
| in them. So there are thousands of young
| men and women who will want to try
teaching. They find they are invited to
read of Frebel and Pestalozzi, aud they
are determined not to go to that trouble;
they drop out. It is we'll for the chill
drep, and it is we'll for the profession,
that they do 80.
How shall a teacher know that be is
progressing toward professional teaching?
1. He will have professional spirit
he will be studying the children and
watching the ways they learn and having
found out these ways will govern him.
self accordingly. The uuprofessional
teacher simply follows the way he was
taught-a reading lesson or two, spell.
ing Lesson or two. Then "boys may go
out" and so he goes on-calling it keep.
ing school. Let him call it this-it is
not teaching.
2. He will collect library of books
on education and read them. Now this
library may be small at some part of the
career of the professional teacher, but as
the physician has his library and the
lawyer his, go the teacher will have his.
The real teacher will study the art of
teaching will feel impelled to com.
mune with other minds, and to gsin more
information.
8. He will find some solid ground for
his daily work-thatis, he will gain some
principles. For example: /. That an
educational principle is in every mind
and ne can only set it to work. 2. That
there should be all.aroundness in the
teachers aim. 8. That the child's hori-
zon must be widened daily. 4. That all
teaching nust be self-teaching. 5. That
primary instruction must be concrete. 6.
That the teacher must proceed from the
known to the unknown and not be dog
matte. z. That facts must 60 before
causes-the concrete before the abstract.
This little summary is given simply to
show the teacher some of the principles
be must apply in every lesson, and every
day. Yet there are thousands who do
not know of q principle-only Of meth.
cd. That is, they know that pupils are
to learn lessons, and they to hear them.
Remember that that plan if widely fol-
lowed, is not teaching; it is hearing
Lessons" But the desire to teach scienti-
.tically has been widespread. It was
said at convention this summer that sit
had been the fashion to study education"
The speaker meant to deride the fashion;
has opposed it for years-but, it has
become more the fashion every year.
The wise teacher will. take measures
to-day, and every day, to increase his
scientific knowledge. A new race of
teachers are entering the field; and the
old fogies, the dry as-dust teachers, the
reciting posts, will disappear and be
heard of no more. The methods these
are employing will be the subject of
wonderment and laughter in the years to
come.
Last September a teacher wrote: II
have returned from my summer school a
new being; ] shall teach this winter. I
shall be "a director of Guild power, child
earnestness, child growth, as one of my
instructors put it, aud as l quickly put it
down. / have new spiritin me. Once
I thought all this talk was .nere talk, but
now haze clearer insight, and see
what teaching really is."
That teacher had got upon the track,
you see. Her school-rnem will be trans
formed; there will be little whispering
done in it, not becauoe she commands it
to disappear, but because the children
are too much engaged iu employing their
faculties to want to whkper.
How many who read this will get on
this high plane? There will be large
number, we venture to say. There will
be twice as many as last year..
Your pupils may be troublesome,
NOISY, ,~disrespectful- War-against-4-dis: lis.
couragement. Fix in your mind what
the school.room Should joe like, and then
plan the means to achieyeE Eit.-1sadhers
lnstitute. :
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