At the end of the
time she had the pupils so completely muddled that, for months, the
appearance of either of these constructions threw them into a condition
of panic. To another class, later, this teacher explained these
constructions clearly and convincingly in three minutes. In the meantime
she had studied methods in connection with subject matter. Another
teacher resigned her position and explained her action by confessing
that she had become so accustomed to the traditional methods of teaching
a certain phase of arithmetic that it was impossible for her to learn
the newer one. Such a teacher must be given credit for honesty even
while she illustrates tragedy.
=The waste of time.=--In explaining the loss of two hundred minutes a
day the teacher will inevitably come upon the subject of methods of
teaching, and she may be put to it to justify her method in view of its
results. The more diligently she tries to justify her method, the more
certainly she proclaims her responsibility for a wrong use of the
method. Those twenty minutes point at her the accusing finger, and she
can neither blink nor escape the facts. The other teacher led her pupils
into a knowledge of the subject in ten minutes, and this one may neither
abrogate nor amend the record. As an operative in the factory she holds
in her hand one shoe as the result of her thirty minutes while the other
holds three.
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