THE TEST OF TEACHING

Evening Star, Issue 18288, 30 May 1923, Page 2

THE TEST OF TEACHING

"" EVOKING PURPOSE. The test of all teaching is the extent to which the instruction evokes purpose, and so excites and directs the fullest activity of thought (states the annual report of Otago inspectors to tho department). There are some pupils mentally inert, just as there are others physically lazy, and with these the very essence of effective teaching is absent unless they are stimulated to ask “ why ” and “ how ” and to seek answers to those questions. In some instances grammar is merely a form of abstract mental exercise. Sentences are analysed, words parsed; phrases and clauses substituted for words; passive voice for active voice, direct narration for indirect, but the instruction is not purposive. To make tho teaching of grammar effective a teacher should endeavor to make the pupils see that the new knowledge or skill will be of somo worth to them in that it will help them to understand and to do things worth understanding and doing. A teacher may obtain accurate work in mechanical exercises such as substitution or variation; but, if tho pupils (ail to use their knowledge of substitution or variation in their spoken and written compositions, there is no proof of effective or educative teaching.