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
classes, 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 platitudes 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 altitude 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 establishing precedents only to find it following precedents.
When we would find in it a leader we find merely a follower. To such
teaching statistical numbers mean far more than living children.
Pages:
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213