The Recitation | Page 4

may be called three different levels. The first is the
sensory level, represented by the phrase "in at one ear and out of the
other." Every one has experienced reading a page when the mind would
wander and only the eyes follow the lines on down to the bottom of the
page, nothing remaining as to the meaning of the text. It is easy to
glance a lesson over just before reciting, and have it stick in the
memory only long enough to serve the purposes of the recitation.
Things learned in this way are not permanently serviceable and really
constitute no part of an education.
The second level of the mind may be called the memory level. Matter
which enters the mind only to this depth may be retained for a
considerable time but is little understood and hence of small value. All
rules and definitions committed without knowing their meaning or
seeing their application, and all lessons learned merely to recite without
a reasonable grasp of their meaning, sink only as deep as the memory
level.
The third and deepest level is that of the understanding. Matter which
permeates down through the sensory and memory levels, getting
thoroughly into the understanding level, is not only remembered but is
understood and applied, and therefore becomes of real service in our
education. Of course it is clear that the ideal in teaching should be to
lead our pupils so to learn that most of what enters their memory shall
also be mastered by their understanding.
Therefore, in the recitation we should test not alone to see what the
pupil knows, but also to see how he knows it; not only to find out
whether he can recite, but also what are his methods of learning. We
should discover not alone whether the facts learned have entered the
memory, but whether they have sunk down into the understanding, so
that they can be used in the acquisition of further education.
c. The pupil's points of failure and the cause thereof.--Every teacher
has been surprised many times to discover weak places in the pupil's

work when everything had seemingly been thoroughly learned. With
the best teaching these weak places will occasionally occur. It is not
less essential to know these points of failure than to know the
foundations of knowledge which the pupil has already mastered. For
these weak spots must be remedied as we go along if the later work is
to be successful. Very frequently classes are unable to proceed
satisfactorily because of lack of thoroughness in the foundation work
which precedes. To know where a pupil is failing is the first requisite if
we are to help him remedy his weakness.
But not only must the teacher know where the pupil is failing, but also
the cause of his failure. Only when we know this can we intelligently
apply the remedy for the failure. A physician friend of mine tells me
that almost any quack can prescribe successfully for sickness if he has
an expert at hand to diagnose the case and tell him what is the matter.
This is the hardest part of a physician's work and requires the most skill.
So it is with the teacher's work as well. If we are sure that a certain boy
is failing in his recitations because he is lazy, it is not so difficult to
devise a remedy to fit the case. If we know that another is failing
because the work is too advanced for his preparation, we select a
different remedy. But in every case we must first know the cause of
failure if we hope to prescribe a remedy certain to produce a cure.
Some teachers prescribe for poorly learned lessons much after the
patent medicine method. A recent advertisement of one particular
nostrum promises the cure of any one of thirty-seven different diseases.
Surely with such a remedy as this at hand there will be no need to
diagnose a case of sickness to find out what is the trouble. All we need
to do is to take the regulation dose. And all patients will be treated just
alike whatever their ailment. This is the quack doctor's method as it is
the quack teacher's. If the teacher is unskillful or lazy the remedy for
poor recitations usually is, "Take the same lesson for to-morrow."
There is even no attempt to discover the cause of failure and no thought
put on the question of how best to remedy the failure and prevent its
recurrence.
4. Teaching as an aim in the recitation

While testing deals with the old,--reviewing and fixing more firmly that
which we have already learned,--teaching, by using the old, leads on to
the new. To educate means to lead out--to lead the child out from what