Tensas gazette. [volume] (St. Joseph, La.) 1886-current, 1921-11-25
'esehing During tbe Recitation Period
Versus Hearing Lessons
By n HARRIS

| By T. n. HARRIS
srate Superintendent of Public Education
To the Teachers of Louisiana:
As you enter upon the duties of a
new session, l desire to wish for you
the highest measure of success and
the happiest year of your experience
That such may be the result of your
efforts, ! am taking the liberty to
make a few suggestions. which
trust YOU will consider carefully
and put into effect to suclr extent as
the circumstances and conditions
may make necessary.
~ l am more and more impressed
that our greatest duty now is to see
that the classroom instruction yields
good results. The children I should
make satisfactory progress in their
subjects Of study. The final test of
our efforts in the field of education
Is what the child learns in his spelling,
composition, arithmetic, algebra, and
other subjects. Fine houses and high
priced teachers amount to nothing if
the child fails to make progress in
his studies. Granted that the child
rem are even fairly intelligent and that
their classification is not far wrong,
there should be few pupils dissatis-
fled with school and not many fail
ures in any subject at the end of a
month or session.
am very firmly of the opinion
that many pupils fail to get on in
school because we do not teach child
rem how to attack their studies. 1 do
not recall that any teacher ever made
q suggestion to me as to how / could
best prepare q particular lesson, and
! am quite sure that in all my teach
ing experience ! made, no effort to
point out to pupils how they should
attack their lessons, and l am afraid
that this indictment can be brought
against the majority of US teachers
today. We hear and do but little
teaching. The recitation period is
used to test the children in know
ledge which we hope they have ac-
quired at vacant periods or at home.
Frequently, not much learning takes
place during that period.
A mother suggested to a certain
principal that he do the teaching Of
the lessons during the day and let her
hear the lessons. at night. She said
that she really did not have time to
do the teaching, but she could man.
age to hear the lessons. There was
justice in her demand. The recitation
period should be learning period.
can best illustrate what l mean !:
(a) Some years ago was visiting
the country schools of certain par
ish. The teacher of one-room school
called up an elementary class in ge-
osraphy and proceeded in the usual
way to lombard the class with rapid
fire questions on the lesson. 1t soon
developed that the mothers must
have been busy the night before, be-
cause the children's knowledge of
the lesson was zero minus. The teach
er said plainly and emphatically that
she was humiliated and compromised,
and to show how mad she was she
told the children that they would be
required to spend the recitation Pc
riod studying the lesson. l glanced
over the lesson and placed on the
blackboard the ten or twelve i'm
portant facts which the lesson con-
tanned, and l asked the children to
note these facts as they studied the
lesson and fix them in their minds.
At the end of a study period of fif-
teen minutes, the children proved in
test or five minutes that they knew
the lesson perfectly. When the teach
er attempted to apologize for the sit
uation, I told her that that lesson was
the only good one had seen in the
parish and hoped that she would
manage, somehow, to conduct all
Of her lessons in. some such fashion.
Note what took place in this reci-
tation period: The children were di-
rected to the important points in the
lesson; they were told to locate these
in the text, and to fix them definitely
in their minds. They then proved in
a test Of q few minutes that they
knew the lesson. The period was spent
in learning, instead Of in floundering
around in a sea of useless questions
and answers.
I saw o teacher last session con-
duct q lesson in seventh grade arith-
metic. A pupil would read problem,
state what was given, the result that
was desired, the principles involved,
and then outline the method of pro-
cedure. No one imsde any figures, no
one wsns - II blackboard. There