The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-05-12
THE TRAINING OF TEACHERS.
One Sided Trainng-What Teacher
 Should Look Out For.

I
 Should Look Out For.
 A visitor was recently shown through l the rooms in which phychology is
 taught at one of Americas famous
 sechools for the training of teachers, i The walls were covered with excellent ! diagrams and charts showing the diff | ferent parts of the nervous system.
 The rooms were we'll supplied with ex- pensive models of the brain and with | delicate apparatus for testing the yari-
 ous kinds of nerve action. When the | visitor was about to leave, the teacher told him she had no time to discuss
 thinking with her classes. Since this school is called the state normal school, and is the only training school for teachers maintained at state expense in
 that commonwealth, the visitor went away wondering whether that state
 would not ere long become missionary
 ground for the apostles of true educa-
 tion. To train develop and discipline
 the mind surely means more than the
 education of the spinal cord and the
 gray matter of the brain. It involves
 more than the formation of habits
 based upon repeated nerve action. Im-
 portant as the brain and the nervous
 system are in education, careful study of their functions cannot atone for the
 neglect of inquiry into the nature of thinking The true test by which genu-
 inc teaching can be distinguished from it's counterfeit, rote teaching is found eeir xrrl to the mind through the gateways of Knowledge must be interpreted and or ganized in thought; otherwise observa- tion lessons have little value as factors in the mental growth of the child.
 Many a young teacher has filled her mind with facts relating to nervous &C., tion, and with statements of the prin- ciples which are supposed to guide good teachers in all their teaching AL though these facts may prove valuable in the management of the individual child and although the principles of teaching are at times helpful in making the needed preparation for giving les son, yet in the absorbing interest and enthusiasm which characterize instruc- tion when it is at it's best. these facts and principles sink into the sub-con- scious realm, even if they are not en- tirely forgotten. At each step of the recitation the teachers chief care is to make the pupils think the thoughts which the words enshrine; and the su- pervisor tests the quality of the think ing which the teacher begets in the pu- pills. If they repeat words without comprehending the meaning, the teach ing is Justly stigmatized as parrot work If on the other hand, they think | the thoughts which the words embody, | the class work. even If not above criti- , cism belongs to the category of good 1 teaching. Mere nerve action may beget | good habits; but if it does not involve | the exercise of thought, it cannot pro- 1 duce intelligent men and women. Rou- I tine work seldom appeals to the under | standing and review lessons which do l not contain an element of new thought | tend to deaden the intellec- l tual life Whenever mental activity 1 sinks to the level of mechanical routine, | either by the use of ratio blocks or in the manipulation of the ten digits, the is apt to become dormant, l and habit takes the place of thinking, | although the exercises strike the casu- al observer as marvellous exhibitions of ] good teaching Nathan c, Shaeffer in | he Forum,