Part 14 (1/2)

”The autumn leaves are falling, They are falling everywhere; They are falling through the atmosphere And likewise through the air.”

Woe betide the teacher who tries to explain! There is no explanation--there is just the humor. If that eludes the reader, an explanation will not avail.

A teacher of Latin read to his pupils ”The House-Boat on the Styx” in connection with their reading of the ”aeneid.” It was good fun for them all, and never was Virgil more highly honored than in the a.s.siduous study which those young people gave to his lines. They were eager to complete the study of the lesson in order to have more time for the ”House-Boat.” The humor of the book opened wide the gates of their spirits through which the truths of the regular lesson pa.s.sed blithely in.

QUESTIONS AND EXERCISES

1. What is the source of humor in a humorous story?

2. When should the teacher laugh with the school? When should she not do so?

3. How does the response of the school to a laughable incident reflect the leaders.h.i.+p of the teacher?

4. What can be done to bring more or better humor into the school?

5. Compare as companions those whom you know who exhibit a sense of humor with those who do not.

6. Compare their influence on others.

7. What can be done to bring humor into essays written by the students?

8. Distinguish between wit and humor. Does wit or humor cause most of the laughter in school?

9. What is meant by an ”apt.i.tude for vicariousness”?

10. How did Lincoln make use of humor? Is there any humor in the Gettysburg speech? Why?

11. What is the relation of pathos to humor?

12. Give an example from the writings of Mark Twain that shows him a philosopher as well as a humorist.

13. What books could you read to the pupils to enliven some of the subjects that you teach?

CHAPTER XX

The Element of Human Interest

=Yearning toward betterment.=--Much has been said and written in recent times touching the matter and manner of vitalizing and humanizing the studies and work of the school. The discussions have been nation-wide in their scope and most fertile in plans and practical suggestions. No subject of greater importance or of more far-reaching import now engages the interest of educational leaders. They are quite aware that something needs to be done, but no one has announced the sovereign remedy. The critics have made much of the fact that there is something lacking or wrong in our school procedure, but they can neither diagnose the case nor suggest the remedy. They can merely criticize. We are having many surveys, but the results have been meager and inadequate. We have been working at the circ.u.mference of the circle rather than at the center. We have been striving to reform our educational training, hoping for a reflex that would be sufficient to modify the entire school regime. We have added domestic science, hoping thereby to reconstruct the school by inoculation. We have looked to agriculture and other vocational studies as the magnetic influences of our dreams. Something has been accomplished, to be sure, but we are still far distant from the goal.

The best that writers can do in their books or educational conferences can do in their meetings, is to report progress.

=The obstacle of conservatism.=--One of the greatest obstacles we have to surmount in this whole matter of vitalizing school work is the habitual conservatism of the school people themselves. The methods of teaching that obtained in the school when we were pupils have grooved themselves into habits of thinking that smile defiance at the theories that we have more recently acquired. When we venture out from the sh.o.r.e we want to feel a rope in our hands. The superintendent speaks fervently to patrons or teachers on the subject of modern methods in teaching, then retires to his office and takes intimate and friendly counsel with tradition. In sailing the educational seas he must needs keep in sight the buoys of tradition. This matter of conservatism is cited merely to show that our progress, in the very nature of the case, will be slow.

=Schools of education.=--Another obstacle in the way of progress toward the vitalized school is the att.i.tude and teaching of many who are connected with colleges of education and normal schools. We have a right to look to them for leaders.h.i.+p, but we find, instead, that their practices lag far in the rear of their theories. They teach according to such devitalized methods and in such an unvitalized way as to discredit the subjects they teach. It is only from such of their students as are proof against their style of teaching that we may hope for aid. One such teacher in a college of education in a course of eight weeks on the subject of School Administration had his students copy figures from statistical reports for several days in succession and for four and five hours each day. The students confessed that their only objective was the gaining of credits, and had no intimation that the work they were doing was to function anywhere.

=The machine teacher.=--Such work is deadening and disheartening. It has in it no inspiration, no life, nothing, in short, that connects with real life. Such a teacher could not maintain himself in a wide-awake high school for a half year. The boys and girls would desert him even if they had to desert the school. And yet teachers and prospective teachers must endure and not complain. Those who submit supinely will attempt to repeat in their schools the sort of teaching that obtains in his cla.s.ses, and their schools will suffer accordingly. His sort of teaching proclaims him either more or less than a human being in the estimation of normal people. Such a teacher drones forth weary plat.i.tudes as if his utterances were oracular. The only prerequisite for a position in some schools of education seems to be a degree of a certain alt.i.tude without any reference to real teaching ability.

=Statistics versus children.=--Such teaching palliates educational situations without affording a solution. It is so steeped in tradition that it resorts to statistics as it would consult an oracle. We look to see it establis.h.i.+ng precedents only to find it following precedents.