Evening capital and Maryland gazette. (Annapolis, Md.) 1910-1922, 1918-11-23
AN APPEAL TO
THE TEACHER
Nv DR. william A. McKeever.) J

fBy DR.. William A. Mckeeyer.)
Dear Teacher My name is Ordinary
Parent. and my residence is ANY
where. U. S. A.. I am writing to beg
you not to rush my child in his recita-
ions. Speed is not test of ability
Each child has his peculiar reaction
time, and to rush him beyond this
easy, natural rate OF response is to
render him nervous, TO retard his ul-
innate progress and to discourage his
effort.
There is absolutely no good reason
for matching school children against
one another and racing them through
the lessons. The school is no longer
to be thought of as game of compe-
tition out of which the learner is final
Iy 20 come prepared to defeat his fell
lows. The real business of living a
good. honest, efficient life is not COM
petitiye in the right sense of the
word: il is cooperative.
| do not want my child TO think all
the while OF defeating his fellows and
thus to lose his perfect good win to-
ward them and to weaken their happy
comradeship. II another child fal ers
and is naturally slower than my own,
/ want mine to look for way to help
the other one along rather than way
to make his slowness conspicuous and
embarrassing to him.
The very act of assisting or desiring
to assist his mate is very probably a
more vital lesson than the one being
studied In the book.
There is no doubt about al 1.-The or
binary children learning the bare me-
'chanics of reading. Then, why put
the emphasis there and lead the one
who reads most glibly-who has
quickest eyesight and INSTALLATION
to believe himself superior to the one
who or the time being is slow at
sigh. reading? Why not put the en-
phasis on the meaning of the lesson
and its relation to the interests of the
children?
The child who adds a column of fig
ures in three minutes is quicker at
that particular exercise than the one
who requires twice as long, but he is
not necessarily smarter in general. To
try to whip the slow one along by en-
phasizing the others quickness is to
do wrong to both-.o give the one a
false opinion of his smartness and the
other too much humility and sense of
unworthiness.
And now, Dear Teacher, il you will
give me just five minutes time will
show you up before your school as a
perfect blockhead." will take one of
the children's texts and ask you some
questions which you will answer fall
teringly, il at all This will embar-
rass you and make you hate yourself
or me, or both OF us. But, you say
that my assumed method is unfair.
Well, so is yours, when you match
very uneven talent in children, when
you put on those racing tess and give
the praise to the very one which prob
ably tries the least.
Praise the child who tries. not mere
ly the one who speeds. Praise the
one who displays the spirit of honest
endeavor and of fellowship in his
work, and not the one who would
show off with talent which happens
to be brighter or work more quickly
than the same talent in another child
Racing. speeding, outclassing in the
recitations, these are practices which,
il accumulated in school, will create
worry, jealousy. nerve strains, fear
of failure and very wrong estimate
of life's real values and durable sat-
isfactions. If you keep up this speed
ing mania, this whip of odious COM
parsons, then many of the boys and
girls will learn to dislike YOU
Wherefore, l ask you to soothe and
quiet the quivering nerves of my child,
by assuring him you will be patient
with his slowness. that you will be
tolerant of every honest blunder he
makes, that you will love him to the
last, that you are confident Of his ulti-
mate success in every necessary trial
which life may impose upon him.