Chapter 4

A method frequently employed by teachers of history is to require written reports or themes on various phases of the history as the work progresses. This plan is particularly valuable for the students in the first two years of high school history, for the reason that their library requirements are less exacting and their need of fluency greater during that time than later in their course. The objects of theme work in history courses are usually to arouse the pupil's powers of observation, description, and narration, and to provide means of drill in the exercise of these powers. These should not be the sole purposes of theme work, however. As the year advances, an increasing amount of the written work should be on subjects requiring some generalization or analysis of the facts brought out in the text or in the recitation. The pupil who has written a theme describing the appearance of the Pyramids has completed an exercise in history less valuable than that of the student who writes a theme on the errors of the Athenian Democracy.

To summarize, reviews in history should consist of both oral and written work; they should be rapid enough to insure quick thinking, alert attention, and small expenditure of time; they should occur with increasing frequency as the year advances; they should stock the memory, fix in the student's mind the order of events, stimulate fluency, insure a permanent acquaintance with the personnel of history, and give to the student a better view of the subject as a whole and in its various phases.

VII

EXAMINATIONS AS TESTS OF PROGRESS

_The examination should determine how much the student has progressed_

The time is coming, if it is not already here, when the public will cry out against the nervous fear and sleepless nights with which their children approach the semi-annual torture of our inquisitorial examinations. That reasonable examinations are essential and beneficial is hardly open to question. That a student should be expected correctly to answer a fair percentage of reasonable questions on work which has been properly taught is not a cause of complaint from anyone. But that children should be frightened into a state of nervous terror by the bugaboo of an impending examination, and then be forced to attempt a series of conundrums propounded by a teacher who takes pride in maintaining a high percentage of failures, is indefensible. An examination should not be conducted with the primary object of making it a thing to be feared. However desirable such a questionable asset may seem to certain college professors, it is a serious fault in a high school teacher to have any considerable number of normal children fail. The ambition of the good instructor is to give an examination which shall at once be thorough, reasonable, and intelligently directed toward finding what the student has really learned. His purpose is to test accurately the various abilities which he has endeavored to encourage in the student during his course. He wishes to ascertain how much the student has really progressed.

_Specific suggestions on formulating questions_

In order to do this the examination must be on the really material considerations of the history. Questions on unimportant details should be omitted. The student should not be expected to burden his memory with the limitless mass of petty isolated facts contained in the average history text. The questions should be on considerations that have been carefully discussed, and not on facts that have received but cursory attention.

The examination should not require too much time for writing. The several hours' continuous nervous tension sometimes exacted by too ambitious teachers does the average child more harm than the examination can possibly do him good.

The examination should consist of questions that will jointly or severally test the student's powers of description, generalization, and analysis. They should test his knowledge of the sequence of events, his ability to use a library or a map, his knowledge of the various phases and the various periods of the history studied. In every examination there should be at least one question dealing with the time and the order of events, one each on the geographical, political, and social history, one that is analytical, one that requires generalization, one that will test his knowledge of the library, and one that will test his powers of description. It is not necessary to limit the questions to the customary number of ten. It is frequently advisable to give a class some degree of choice in the selection of their questions by requiring any ten out of a larger number asked. Certainly such a plan gives the student a more favorable opportunity to demonstrate his ability without in the least diminishing the value of the examination.

Examination questions, like all other questions, should be definite, clean-cut, and reasonable. If possible, each student should be supplied with a copy, instead of having the set written on the board. They should cover only those portions of the subject that have been properly taught. The teacher should not expect the boy who has kept no useful notes, whose library work has been haphazard, and whose methods of study have not been supervised, to perform at examination time the miracle of accurately remembering what he has never been properly taught.

OUTLINE

I. SOME PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS

1. Assumptions as to the teacher of history

2. Actual conditions confronted by the teacher

II. HOW TO BEGIN THE COURSE

1. What should be done on the day of enrollment

2. What should be done at the first meeting of the class

3. Necessity for definite instruction in methods of preparing a lesson

4. The question of note-taking

5. Instruction in the use of the library and indexes

III. THE ASSIGNMENT OF THE LESSON

1. Careful assignment will reveal to the student the relation of geography and history

2. His power of analysis and criticism will be stimulated

3. The conditions in other countries will add to his comprehension of the facts in the lesson

4. His disposition to study intensively will be encouraged

5. His acquaintance with the great men and women of history will be vitalized

6. He will correlate the past and the present

7. He will be required to memorize a limited amount of matter verbatim

8. Methods of preparing questions assigned in advance

IV. THE METHOD OF THE RECITATION

1. Assumptions as to the recitation room

2. What the teacher should aim to accomplish

3. Work at the blackboard

4. Special reports

5. Fundamental principles of good questioning

6. Some additional suggestions for teachers of history

V. VARIOUS MODES OF REVIEW

1. The place of drill in the history recitation

2. Good reviews will develop a knowledge of the sequence of events

3. They will give a view of the whole subject

4. They will insure a better acquaintance with great men and women

5. They will be economical of time

6. They will secure fluency

7. What the student may do with "problems" in history

VI. THE USE OF WRITTEN REPORTS

1. The purpose of theme work should change as the course continues

VII. EXAMINATIONS AS TESTS OF PROGRESS

1. The examination should determine how much the student has progressed

2. Specific suggestions on formulating questions