The Recitation | Page 7

the page! Surely drill with such a result would be long in arriving at skill. Such practice is not only wholly wasted, but actually results in establishing false models and careless habits in the pupil's mind. Each line must be written with correct models in mind, and with the effort to make it better than any preceding one, if skill is to be the outcome.
Much of the value of drill is often lost through lack of interest and attention. The child lazily sing-songing the multiplication table may learn to say it as he would a verse of poetry, and yet not know the separate combinations when he needs them in problems. What he needs is drill upon the different combinations hit-and-miss, and in simple problems, rapidly and many times over, with sufficient variety and spice, so that his interest and attention are always alert. A certain boy persisted in saying "have went" instead of "have gone." Finally his teacher said, "Johnny, you may stay to-night after school and write 'have gone' on the blackboard one hundred times. Then you will not miss it again."
Johnny stayed after school and wrote "have gone" one hundred times as the teacher had directed. When he had completed his task the teacher had gone to another part of the building. Before leaving for home Johnny politely left this note on the teacher's desk: "Dear Teacher: I have went home." Plenty of drill, but it was not accompanied by interest and attention, and hence left no effect.
c. Drill must not stop short of a reasonable degree of efficiency, or skill.--Most teachers would rather test or teach than drill. Others do not see the necessity of drill. Hence it happens that a large proportion of our pupils are not given practice or drill enough to arrive at even a fair degree of skill. Set ten pupils of the intermediate grades to adding up four columns of figures averaging a footing of 100 to the column, and you will probably have at least five different answers. And so with many of the fundamentals in other branches as well. We too often stop practice just short of efficiency, and thereby waste both time and effort.
d. Drill must be governed by definite aims.--Probably drilling requires more planning and care on the part of the teacher than any other work of the recitation. Drill applied indiscriminately wastes time and kills interest. To study a spelling lesson over fifteen times as some teachers require is folly. Every spelling list will contain some words which the pupil already knows. He should put little or no drill on these, but only on the troublesome ones. In learning and using the principal parts of verbs it is always the few that cause the difficulty. "He done it"; "Has the bell rang?" "Set down." These and a few other forms are the ones which give the trouble; they should receive the drill. Likewise in arithmetic, there are certain combinations in the tables, and certain operations in fractions, measurements, etc., which always make trouble. They are the "danger points," and upon these the practice should be put.
The teacher must aim, therefore, to select the difficult and the important points and drill upon these until they are mastered, being careful not to stop at the "half-way house," but steadily to go on until skill is obtained. He must be resourceful in methods and devices which will relieve the monotony of repetition; he must be persistent and patient, insisting on the attainment of skill, but realizing that it takes time to develop it; he must possess a good pedagogical conscience which will be satisfied with nothing short of success in his aims.
6. A desirable balance among the three aims
The aims to be accomplished through the recitation are, then, testing, teaching, and drilling. These three aims may, as said before, all be carried on in the same recitation, or they may come in different recitations, as the needs of the subject require. Not infrequently they may alternate with each other within a few moments. In every case, however, the teacher should have clearly in mind which one of the three processes he is employing and why. Not that the teacher must always stop to reason the matter out before he employs one or the other, but that he should become so familiar with the nature and use of each that he almost unconsciously passes from one to the other as the need for it arises.
Not many teachers are equally skilled in the use of testing, teaching, and drilling. Some have a tendency to put most of the recitation time on testing whether the class have prepared the assignment, and devote but little time to teaching or drilling. Others love to teach, but do not like to test or drill. It