PART I. CHAPTER 4. Informal reviewing. A young teacher's experience. is it only by a written, examination of a series of Bible lessons gone over by a scholar, that a scholar is to be tested as to the knowledge gained by him, in his studies, or through his teacher's teaching of him. The testing-work must go on in conjunction with the other portions of the teaching-process; and the reviewing must be frequent, and at times informal, as well as being also at stated times and more formal at the close of one day's lesson, at the opening of the lesson the next Sunday; sometimes in midlesson, again at the close of the month, or the quarter, and so on, all through the period of a teacher's work of teaching. Most teachers would be surprised at finding, by any fair testing of their work, how little, comparatively, has been gained by their scholars, or rather how much which they supposed they had made clear has been missed by their scholars, in any lesson, or in any series of lessons of their teaching. And here is one of the real advantages of the testing nature of review-methods in the teaching-process. One of my daughters, who seemingly had real tact in dealing with little children, and who certainly had unusual love for the teaching-work, had a good illustrative experience in this line, at the very beginning of her Sunday-school teaching life. The class given to her was composed of children just out from the primary department. The lesson for the day was about Elijah and Ahab. My daughter delighted What One Test Revealed. 203 PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Process. in pictorial, or descriptive, teaching. Graphically and vividly she pictured in simple language the appearance of Ahab and Elijah, explaining at every point the characteristics and relative positions and circumstances of Ahab, the idolatrous king of Israel, Teaching and of Elijah, the rugged and courageous prophet of Jehovah. The children listened as for their lives. They were all attention. There could be no doubt on that point. And when she had finished that story, she proceeded confidently to test her scholars' knowledge of it. Addressing a young girl, whose large bright eyes had never turned from her teacher's face during the spirited recital, and who who was was still all attent on her teacher's words, she said pleasantly: "And now I want to see what you remember of what I have told you. Who was this Ahab?" The child's answer came back promptly, "God." That was discouraging. My daughter came home with a heavy heart, and told me of her failure. Ahab? training. To her this was a mystery. To my mind it was perfectly explicable. That little girl was not lacking in natural brightness, but she had never been trained to independent thought. She had listened to the A lack of story with hearty interest, and had, probably, even gained a general impression of its main tenor. But she was unaccustomed to stop and reflect on what she had heard, and a direct question like the one given her, concerning the details of a narrative to PART I. CHAPTER 4. which she had just listened, was only a bewilderment to her. There was no reason why she should give one answer rather than another, save that "God" would seem to be a safe answer, a "good" answer, to any Sunday-school question; so that was ventured on with a grotesque inaptness. All this I explained to my daughter, and then I gave her some of these practical points about the essentials and the methods of the teaching-process, emphasizing especially the importance of carrying her scholars along with her in Meeting the co-work, and of testing their knowledge sentence by sentence as she made the truth clear to them, until they were more accustomed to study and to reflection, as supplemental to their attentive hearing. difficulty. Progress under wise methods. It may be well to add, that by these methods that teacher brought that scholar steadily, and even rapidly, forward in habits of Bible-study, so that at the close of the first year in that class, that same scholar stood first on the list for accuracy and completeness, in a written examination of an entire quarter's lessons,-first not in her class alone, but in a school of several hundred scholars. So it may be seen, that the testing of a scholar's knowledge by some method of reviewing may, on the one hand, be a means of immediate confusion and regret, and, on the other hand, may tend to the ultimate bringing of a scholar into habits of thoughtful endeavor, which but for some such method would never have been cultivated properly. Methods of Testing. 205 PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. The methods of testing a scholar's knowledge are quite as simple as the methods of teaching truth to a scholar. In fact, he who can teach, will have no difficulty in testing the results of his teaching. The real barrier to the testing-process, which stands in the way of its exercise by many a teacher, is the fact that no teaching-process has gone before it. If a "teacher" has been contented with telling truth to a scholar, he has not taught that scholar; hence it will not be easy for him to test the results of a teaching which never existed. Moreover, as intelligent questioning is a chief agency in the testingprocess while it has no part in the telling-process, the teacher who relies on telling as a means of teaching is naturally unskilled in the true testing method. He, also, who has counted the hearing of a recitation as teaching, has not even attempted the impart- No teaching, ing of knowledge to his scholar, and there is no reasonableness in an effort by him to test the efficacy of a teaching-process which he has never undertaken. Even though he has asked the scholar a series of printed questions as a means of securing the scholar's recitation, he has acquired thereby no experience which would aid him in asking other questions which should test the scholar's real knowledge of the subject matter of his recitation. If, indeed, there were testing-questions printed in the "lessonhelp," the teacher might ask them of the scholar, and they would go for what they were worth. But. no testing. PART I. Teaching CHAPTER 4. Asking testquestions. that would be the lesson-help's testing of its own work; not the teacher's testing of his work. The first thing for a teacher to consider in the testing-process is the question of what he has tried to teach the scholar, and what he wants the scholar to have in his mind. When the teacher is clear on these points, it is a very simple and a very easy thing to ask questions of the scholar accordingly. Take, for example, that lesson on Elijah and Ahab. After the teacher has endeavored to cause the scholar to know who Ahab was, and who Elijah was (not by merely telling the truth to the scholar, but by means of the teaching-process proper, including the questioning of the scholar on these points before giving the needful information), then the teacher desires to test his scholar's knowledge so far. He may begin in this way: "How many men have I told you about?" "What was the name of one of them?" "What was the name of the other?" "What office (or what rank, or station, or place) did one of these men hold?" "What was the office (or mission) of the other?" "Which was the king?" "Which was the prophet?" "What is a king?" "What is a prophet?" "Tell me what you can about Ahab." "Tell me what you can about Elijah." Questions like these would test quite fully the knowledge of any scholar on this starting point of the lesson; and some such testing as this is an important element in perfecting, and in giving proof of, the teaching-process. |