DYNAMIC METHODS OF TEACHING
I
IMPORTANCE OF METHODS AND THEIR IMPROVEMENT
Need of Right Methods We have discussed the question of the reconstruction of the curriculum in the preceding chapter. But every teacher and educationist of experience knows that even the best curriculum and the most perfect syllabus remain dead unless quickened into life by the right methods of teaching and the right kind of teacher. Sometimes even an unsatisfactory and unimaginative syllabus can be made interesting and significant by the gifted teacher who does not focus his mind on the subject matter to be taught or the information to be imparted but on his students-their interests and aptitudes, their reactions and response. lie judges the success of his lesson not by the amount of matter covered but by the understanding the appreciation and the efficiency achieved by the students. In building Up, therefore, a picture of the reorganized Secondary school, it is necessary to indicate the kind of methods to be adopted and popularized if the curriculum that we have recommended is to develop into the kind of educational medium that we envisage. It is really the function of Training colleges to introduce these methods in our schools through their trained teachers and we do not propose to cover here the ground that training courses are expected to do. We shall confine our attention to the most outstanding defects in this field and to indicate the general principles and approach to be adopted to eradicate these defects.
Objectives of Right Methods In discussing the problem of right methods, it is necessary to take a broad and comprehensive view of their objectives which are really closely related to the objectives of education that we have already discussed and which we must to some extent recapitulate from the point of view of methodology. A method is not merely a device adopted for communicating certain items of information to students and exclusively the concern of the teacher who is supposed to be at the "giving end." Any method, good or bad, links up the teacher and his pupils into an organic relationship with constant mutual interaction : it reacts not only on the mind of the students but on their entire personality, their standards of work and judgment, their intellectual and emotional equipment, their attitudes and values. Good methods which are psychologically and socially sound may raise the whole quality of their life ; bad methods may debase it. So, in the choice and assessment of methods, teachers must always take into consideration their end-products--namely, the attitudes and values inculcated in them consciously or
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unconsciously. Good methods of teaching should aim at the following objectives, which have not only intellectual but also social and moral implications, for in the domain of education, it is impossible to draw rigid lines of demarcation. Whatever impact education has on one aspect of the personality tends to react on other aspects.
The highest value that all methods should try to inculcate is love of work and the desire to do it with the highest measure of efficiency of which one is capable. There are only two real educative media, contact with a rich and well-integrated human personality (whether of the teacher or the parents or personal friends) and sincere, wholehearted pre-occupation with worthwhile work, intellectual as well as practical. If education fails to develop in the students a real attachment of the work that they are doing in school and the will to put the best of themselves into it, it can neither educate the mind nor train the character. For various reasons, which we, need not analyse here, this attitude to work is not common amongst our students-either in schools or in colleges. According to our evidence they are content with the minimum of effort, Slipshod in their work, and tend to confine themselves to the study of "Notes" and "Summaries" rather than textbooks, and to textbooks rather than significant books of wider interest. The Secondary school can render no greater service to the students (and ultimately to the nation) than by raising their standards of efficiency in every thing and creating the necessary attitude for the purpose. The motto of every school and its pupils should be "Every thing that is worth doing at all is worth doing well"- whether it be making a speech, writing a composition, drawing a map, cleaning the classroom, making a book rack or forming a queue. From this point of view, it is more valueable to take up fewer projects and to complete them with thoroughness and efficiency than to attempt a larger number haphazardly and superficially. In this connection, it is well to remember that good work, habits, and skills are not acquired theoretically or in a vacuum; it is proper habits of work and insistance on them in every detail and over a long period of time that create the requisite attitudes and values. Discipline or cooperation. for instance, cannot be instilled into students through lectures or exhortations; they can become a part of an individual's normal technique of life only when he has been given numerous opportunities of participating in freely accepted projects and activities in which discipline and co-operation are constantly in demand for achieving the ends in view.
Another serious defect which vitiates present day teaching is its excessive domination by verbalism i.e., the tendency to identify knowledge, with words the delusion that if a student is able to memorize or repeat certain words or phrases he has grasped the facts or the ideas that they are meant to convey. The use of an imperfectly understood foreign language as medium of instruction has greatly accentuated this evil and students have usually been content, or compelled, to memorize whole paragraphs or pages from their text-books in History, Geography and even in Science and Mathematics. In spite of the change in the medium of
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instruction in recent years, we are afraid there has not been much improvement in this situation. The strangle-hold of verbalism is still confused with the grasp of knowledge-knowledge, which is the fruit of personal effort and purposeful intellectual and practical activity. Consequently many students leave school with a certain amount of information as their equipment but neither well-assimilated knowledge nor wisdom, which is the grace of knowledge. We felt strongly, therefore that only such methods should be adopted as will give concreteness and reality to learning and help to break down the barriers between life and learning and between the school and the community. We shall have something to say later about the nature of such methods.
On the intellectual side the most important objective of teaching methods should be to develop the capacity for clear thinking which distinguishes every truly educated person and has become increasingly important in the modern world of "plural possibilities", where every one must learn to make up his mind and judge issues and problems without prejudice or passion. A majority of our citizens will not receive any education beyond the Secondary stage and if they cannot learn to think straight and dispassionately at this stage, they will never be able to play their part as responsible citizens of a democracy. Some of the objectives to which we have referred above will, if achieved, assist in training students in this valuable capacity. But that is not enough. It must also form the conscious objective of every single teacher, no matter what subject he is entrusted with. Whether a student is asked to make a speech in a debating society or to write an essay or to answer a question in history, geography, or science or to perform an experiment, the accent should always be on clear thinking and on lucid expression which is a mirror of clear thought. All students cannot become eloquent speakers or good stylists but there is no reason why-if proper methods are adopted-every normal student should not be able to learn to speak and write in such a way as to convey his ideas lucidly and intelligibly. In this connection we would like to discourage the present practice of giving excessive home work. It is not only a, great burden on the children but is likely to be a threat to their health and a hindrance to the development of proper habits of work. Whatever home work is given-and we are of the opinion that this should be confined to the higher classes should be carefully and scrupulously corrected and the mistakes discussed with the students so that their confusions of thought and expression may be gradually eliminated. When a great deal of home work is given and it is not properly scrutinized by the teacher, the mistakes of spelling, of grammar, of expression of involved presentation and, above all, of confused thinking remain undetected and are likely to become ingrained. That is why a little home work, well and willingly done and carefully corrected, is far better than great deal of slipshod work reluctantly accomplished. Here as elsewhere, quality is more important than quantity. This does not of course, mean that children will do no study at home. If interest has been aroused and reading habits have been cultivated they will read many books of general interest, they will pursue
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their various hobbies, they may prepare charts, models diagrams or perform simple experiments and study their textbooks in various subjects. But the difference is that all this will be work, spontaneously undertaken and stemming from the students' natural interest not imposed on them from outside.
Finally, it is desirable that the methods of teaching should expand the range of students' interest. A cultured man is a person of varied interests and, if healthy interests are fostered they will enrich the personality. The normal adolescent is naturally interested in many things and in the class-room, on the playground during excursions and in their social and extra-curricular activities. The intelligent and wide awake teacher has numerous opportunities to kindle new interest, to expand and strengthen existing ones and to satisfy their innate desire to touch life at many points. It is by exploring different avenues of interests and activities that he can truly discover himself and begin to specialize in due course. We would urge all schools to provide in the time-table at least one free period every day in which students may pursue their favourite hobbies and creative activities individually or in groups, preferably under the guidance of some interested teacher. We need hardly add that the success of this proposal would largely depend on the requisite accommodation and equipment being available for the purpose.
Value of Activity Methods Our own observation of many schools-at-work as well as the evidence given by experienced educationists lead us irresistibly to the conclusion that the methods of teaching in use are still dominated by routine. There is still too much of cramming and the teaching in the school is not related to life, nor is there any determined attempt to check deterioration of standards of expression in speech and writing. The point of departure for all reforms in method must be the realization that knowledge has to be actively acquired by every individual student through independent effort. The basis of teaching must therefore, be the organization of the subject matter into units or projects which would create opportunities for self-activity on the part of the students. These should largely replace the formal lessons which often lack proper motivation and, therefore, fail to arouse real interest. Students can put in their best effort only when the relationship between their life and their lessons is made manifest, for this win create the necessary feeling of interest and provide the requisite motivation. So the business of the teacher should be to re- establish the link between life and knowledge, to share the aims and objects of teaching with his, pupils and to plan the programme of work in such a way that pupils will have varied and ample opportunities for self-expression in speech, writing, collective reading, independent research, constructive activities and other projects that bring the hand and the mind into fruitful cooperation. Such a conception of the school day programme is far removed from the stereo-typed routine of the present day in which verbalism predominates-the teacher talking and dictating notes and the children listening passively in the classroom and memorizing things
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at home for the sake of passing tests and examinations. There is no opportunity or desire to acquire knowledge either for the sake of life or for its own sake-the dominant motive is to scrap through the examination. If the self-activity approach is adopted, if there is imagination in planning work and freedom in its execution, the present bookish schools can be transformed into "work schools" or "activity schools" and they can become genuine centres of education for the whole personality of the child. This approach also postulates that practical and productive work should find a prominent and honoured place in the school programme. We have already provided for it in the curriculum but what we are concerned with here is the principle that the teaching methods in all. subjects should be inspired, as far as possible, with the spirit underlying good craft work. This implies that, in the teaching of every subject opportunities should be afforded for pupils to apply practically the Knowledge that has been acquired by them. In Geography it may take the form of drawing maps, making models, illustrations, organising excursions, keeping weather records, constructing in appropriate materials scenes from the life of different regions of the world etc. In History, in addition to the preparation of suitable illustrations of the type mentioned above, they may prepare and stage historical plays-making the costumes, the stage effects, fixing the lights etc., themselves, or cooperatively study local history, or set up a small history museum and, in fact take up any projects that will bring history to life. In connection with the study of languages--particularly the mother-tongue-they may undertake to write small booklets on subjects of special interest to them. The collection of material from relevant sources, its editing, its actual writing, the binding of the booklets attractively-will all from part of a joyous project. Illustrated charts about great writers may be prepared-containing their pictures short notes on their life and works and brief appropriate quotations in prose or poetry from their writings-or they may possibly attempt translations of some easy books and articles in English with the object of providing rich reading material for their fellow students in the Library. The school magazine is another project which can become the nucleus not only of creative writing but of a number of academic and practical Activities which may widen the interests and quicken the whole intellectual pace of the group of students concerned-provided, of course, it is not organised as a compulsory task imposed on the students from above but is envisaged as a creative activity initiated and directed by them spontaneously and with zest.
There is another important principle which may be borne in mind by the teacher in planning his methods of teaching. It is not the amount of knowledge imparted or learnt in class that matters but the efficiency and thoroughness with which it is acquired by the students. With the great increase in knowledge that has taken place in every single field, it is quite impossible for a student-not only in the Secondary school but even in the university-to acquire even one hundredth of the most essential knowledge in any particular field of studies. Any attempt, therefore, at an encyclopaedic approach, however watered
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down, is foredoomed to failure. The teacher must concentrate on two things-quickening of interest and training in efficient techniques of learning and study. If, through proper presentation and the realisation of the relationship between the student's life and what he is learning at school, his curiosity and interest have been aroused, he will always be able to acquire necessary knowledge, on the spur of felt need. in his later life. On the other hand, the static, ready- made knowledge, which is forced on him, not only fails to irradiate his mind but is also quickly forgotten-as soon as it has been unburdened in the Examination Hall !
The emphasis therefore shifts from the quantum of knowledge to the right methods of acquiring it. For this purpose, it is essential that every student should be trained in the art of study. We consider this absolutely essential and wish to stress it in particular because, in a large majority of schools, no attempt is made to train students in this basic skill. It seems to be presumed that any one who can read a book, in the sense of passing his eyes over words or pronouncing them with his lips, has studied it. This is an untenable presumption. Study implies several mental processes-interpretation of words into their appropriate meanings, the art of building up ideas and sifting the significant from unimportant details of illustration or from incompetent "padding". These study skills cannot be acquired automatically but have to be consciously practised. It is not necessary for us to discuss the methods that should be adopted for this purpose and for assessing whether the students have acquired the habits and capacities needed for intelligent study. But we do feel that, with reference to every subject of curriculum, the teaching of appropriate methods of study must form an important part of the school programme. One approach which has been successfully tried in some schools, is to organize, at the beginning of the session, a "How to study week" in which all the pupils concentrate on this problem are made conscious of it and are initiated into proper methods of study. But obviously this can only be useful if care is taken to see that the habits, skills and attitudes acquired during this intensive training are used throughout the year and if every teacher cooperates in this project. One essential part of this programme must be a training in the use of reference materials such as the list of contents and index in books, the dictionary, the atlas and reference books like the Encyclopaedia or the Book of Knowledge.
Adaptation of Methods to Suit Different Levels of Intelligence Having stressed the value of activity methods, we should like also to put in Pi plea for individualized work and instruction, in order to train the students in the habit of working independently. If students are trained to do so, it will discourage cramming and make it necessary for the teacher to cover the entire course or teach the whole book through formal oral lessons. He could then concentrate on the essentials show the inter-connections of topics and arouse intelligent interest leaving some parts of the course to be studied by the students independently. There will always be certain types of assignment in the school programme
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which can be best carried out on the basis of individual activity. Such training is necessary not only to develop their capacity for independent work but also to adopt instruction to individual differences, these differences are a most significant part of the psychological data with which the teacher has to deal and, if he fails to adopt his methods of work and presentation to the psychological needs and mental range of different types of children, he can neither win their interest nor their active co-operation. The present practice of mechanically applying the same methods to dull average, as well as bright children is responsible for much of the ineffectiveness of the instruction given in schools. If these various groups of children are allowed to proceed at their own appropriate pace and the method approach as well as the curricular load are properly adjusted, it will be good for all of them-it will save the dull children from discouragement and the bright children from a sense of frustration. We commend for consideration in this connection a scheme that has been tried in schools in the United Kingdom. The curriculum is arranged in "three streams", A, B and C. For the dull children, the curriculum as well as the syllabus in each subject are simpler and lighter-that is the C stream-and include only the minimum essential subject-matter. If they can complete that with thoroughness and efficiency they will gain more intellectually than if they were dragged behind the chariot wheels of their brighter colleagues. For the bright students the curriculum has richer content and, after they have completed the common basic contents, they can go on to study the additional subject- matter. We have not considered it necessary to work out the curriculum or the syllabuses on these lines because it will have to be done by State Departments of Education and, to some extent, by each individual school according to circumstances. But we recommend that this idea of adjusting the curriculum to students of varying ability should be explored and, what is equally important, methods of teaching should also be similarly adjusted. The brighter children will, for example, be able to respond better to methods involving greater freedom, initiative and individual responsibility than the dull or the average children who may require, at least in the early stages, a greater measure of planning and guidance by the teachers.