The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1912-04-05
THE VIEWS OF AN Ex-PEDAG0GUE

fession; the wages are no incentive
for man or woman of the intelligence
that we should have in our schools, to
take up that branch of work
Il do not mean by that statement
that we do not have some teachers
who are efficient; but there are a
whole lot of them that are permitted
to pass the examination in order to get
enough teachers to All the teaching
positions. Of course, the examinations
are not fair test of ones ability; be-
cause there are some teachers who
can answer all the questions as easily
as saying their A. B. C.'s; yet they
haven't the least idea as to how to
train child's mind"
Then they don't all know as much
about teaching as you do?" we ques-
toned. 1--WE are sorry that teachers do
not receive more pay; because there
are many children who are being neg
lected because you have quit the pro-
fession" We had to dodge a chicken
bone or we might have gone home
minus an eye; because this ex- was
noted for accuracy when it came to
! throwing erasers at the miscreant in
| the rear seat on the boys side of the
room.
1T wasn't only the money end of
the teaching business that caused me
to give it up I just simply got sick
and tired of the whole business from
practically every standpoint" He was
wound up now and would not run
down until he got all of his ideas on
teaching out of his system.
"The parents don't seem to want to
cooperate with the teacher and the
Junk that is Incorporated in the curri-
culum would make any pupil, no mat
ter how bright, know less when he
leaves school than he did when he
started
He always developed a crouch when
he got to talking on this subject; but
we didn't care how far he went, be-
cause the kind of a day that we were
having was enough to give any one a
grouchy feeling.
1.-The average teacher don't make the
children think for themselves; all they
seem to care about is the memoriZine
of a bunch of dates or the getting OF
an answer to a problem in arithmetic
no matter whether they do any think
ling when trying to solve the problem
or whether they don't.
what ought to be done is this:
Get the child to thinking for himself
and cut out a lot Of that superficial
Junk that means nothing whatever in
the mental training. If we want to dc
the most good in our school work we
must come down out of the clouds q
little and travel on the earth for &
while and even dig around bit in the
learth
How much more of genius is the
boy who knows whether LongfelloW
was born on ST. Patrick's Day OF
whether he was born the 4th of July
! in the year 1? than the boy who doe:
not know the first thing about dates
but has a good idea of how to use the
English language?"
your question is mixed up little
but we guess we catch the meaning
You must be getting rusty on you
English" was our reply.
But to answer your jumbled ques
ton, we will say that the latter DO.
would get our money"
"Of course he would, and mine too
, The answers to some of the question
| in the eighth grade examination re
, Gently show about how much good tn
, kind of work the pupils get does them
"One of the questions was: Mann
the three highest county officers ant
: tell briefly of their duties
l "a boy gave the following answer
The janitor. Sweeps out and tends tn