The Recitation Part 4

These questions were all answered fairly well by the cla.s.s, but the answers contained only so many bits of isolated information, and the pupils did not understand the subject after they had recited upon it.

Another teacher asked the following questions:

Why must the body have air to breathe?

Of what use is oxygen in the body?

Where does this oxidization, or burning up of worn-out cells, take place?

But how is the oxygen carried to every part of the body and brought into contact with the tissues?

Where do the corpuscles of the blood get their loads of oxygen?

What gas do they give up in exchange for the oxygen?

Where do they get the carbon dioxide?

How does air entering the lungs differ from air leaving them?

What corresponding change takes place in the blood while it is in the lungs?

Explain how the change is effected in each case.

Suppose we breathe air that contains too little oxygen, what will be the effect on the corpuscles?

What will be the effect on oxidization in the tissues?

And what is the effect of poor oxidization on physical vitality?

On mental vitality?

The cla.s.s that answered these questions not only had the information belonging to each separate question, but also understood the lesson as a whole, because each question grew out of the ones that preceded it, thus making the recitation a unified whole.

5. _The principle of clearness_

Questions must be made clear, so that their meaning may be understood.

This is not always an easy task, and the teacher frequently misses being wholly clear. This is evidenced by the fact that often when a pupil fails to answer a question asked in one way, he can answer it easily when the wording is changed. This means that the difficulty for the pupil existed in the question, and not in the answer.

Clearness in questioning involves three factors: (1) Freedom from ambiguity or obscurity of wording; (2) adaptation to the age and understanding of the pupil; (3) reasonable brevity.

_a. Freedom from ambiguity or obscurity of wording._--This is fundamentally a matter of the use of good English. It requires such a choice and arrangement of words and clauses that there can be no doubt as to the meaning to be conveyed. a.s.suming a fair command of the language and care in its use, the basis of clearness at this point is thorough mastery of the subject-matter of the questions, so that the teacher himself understands clearly just what he means to ask.

The following ill.u.s.trations show some questions that are faulty from the standpoint of obscurity of meaning:--

What caused Lincoln to issue the Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation in 1863?

(Not clear whether question means why did he issue the Emanc.i.p.ation Proclamation at all, or why did he issue it in 1863 instead of at some other time.)

What are the effects of attention to a moving object? (Not clear whether question means effects on the person attending or the effect which the moving of an object has in making itself seen.)

Who chased whom down what valley?

Why has a cat fur and a duck feathers?

_b. Adaptation to the age and understanding of the child._--Questions that are perfectly clear to an adult may be hazy or incomprehensible to a child because he does not understand the terms used in the question, or because it deals with matters beyond his grasp. The teacher must keep within the vocabulary of the child in formulating his questions. Where it is necessary or desirable to introduce new words into questions, care must be taken that the child knows fully the meaning of the new terms. A teacher asked a cla.s.s in elementary physiology, "What measures would you take to resuscitate a person asphyxiated with carbon dioxide?" The cla.s.s all looked blank. No one seemed to know what to do. It chanced that the superintendent was visiting the school, and he said to the teacher, "Let me try." Then he asked the cla.s.s, "What would you do for a person who had been smothered by breathing coal gas?" The cla.s.s brightened up, and every hand was raised indicating readiness to answer the question.

Another teacher bewildered his cla.s.s by asking, "Which phenomena of the fratricidal strife in the American Republic were most determinative of the ultimate fate of the nation?" No one knew. Had he asked his question in plain terms, no doubt the cla.s.s could have answered it.

In an elementary history cla.s.s, a teacher propounded this question: "What American inst.i.tutions have been founded on the principle of social democracy?" Not only the terms of the question, but the thought also is beyond the comprehension of children. Such questions are not only useless as a means of testing, teaching, or drilling, but serve to confuse and discourage the child, and cause him to lose interest in school.

_c. Brevity._--No matter how well a question is worded, or how well it is adapted to the age and capacity of the pupil, it may fail in clearness because it is too long and disjointed, or because it deals with too many points. Far better break a complicated question up into several simple ones, concerning whose meaning there can be no doubt.

A teacher who had not yet mastered the art of questioning asked his physiology cla.s.s a question somewhat like this: "Do you consider it advisable, taking into account the fact that none of the vital processes go on as vigorously during sleep as during the waking hours (you remember that the breathing and the pulse are less rapid and the temperature of the body also lower), to eat just before retiring at night, especially if one is very tired and exhausted--a condition which still further lowers the vitality and hence decreases the powers of digestion and a.s.similation, and would your answer be different if it is understood that the food taken is to be light and easily digested?"

It is needless to say that the cla.s.s found themselves lost in the maze of conditions and parenthetical expressions and did not attempt an answer. The question contains material for a dozen different questions, and probably the cla.s.s could have answered them all had they been properly asked.

6. _The principle of definiteness_

Questions should be definite, so that they can have but one meaning.

It is possible to ask a question so that its general meaning is clear enough, but so that its _precise_ meaning is in doubt. Such questions leave the pupil puzzled, and usually lead to indirectness or guessing in the answer. Failure to make questions definite, so that they can have but one meaning is responsible for much of the difference of opinion on disputed questions.

Many a stock question upon which amateur debating societies have exercised their talents would admit of no debate at all, if once the question were made definite. For the ground for debate lies in the difference in interpretation of the question and not in the facts themselves. For example: If a cannon ball were to be fired off by some mechanical device a million miles from where there was any ear to hear, would there be any sound? The lack of definiteness here which permits difference of opinion lies in the word "sound." If we add after the word "sound" the phrase, "in the sense of a conscious auditory sensation," the answer would obviously be, No, since there can be no auditory sensation without an ear to hear it. If, on the other hand, instead of the above phrase we add, "in the sense of wave-vibrations in the air," the answer will obviously be, Yes, since the wave-vibrations in the air do not depend on the presence of an ear to be affected by them.

Likewise, in the question, If a man starts to walk around a squirrel which is clinging to the limb of a tree, and if, as the man circles the tree, the squirrel also circles the tree so that he constantly faces the man, when the man has gone completely around the tree, has he gone around the squirrel? Here the indefiniteness lies in the meaning of to "go around." With this indefiniteness remedied, there is no longer any possibility of difference of opinion.

Indefiniteness may come from the use of certain words that from their very nature are indefinite in meaning. Such are the verbs _be_, _do_, _have_, _become_, _happen_, and the prepositions _of_ and _about_.

Examples of indefiniteness growing out of such colorless words are found in the following questions, which are types of many asked in our schools daily:--

What does water _do_ when heated? (Expands, evaporates, boils.)

What _happens_ when it lightnings? (Thunder, discharge of electricity, flash.)

What must immigrants coming into this country _have_?

(Money, freedom from disease, character.)

What did Arnold _become_? (A traitor, a British general, an outcast, a repentant man.)

What _is_ the cow? (A mammal, a quadruped, a producer of milk, b.u.t.ter, and beef; an herbivorous animal.)

What _about_ the Monroe Doctrine? (A dozen different things.)

What _of_ the animals in the temperate zone?

Questions may be so general as to be indefinite. The teacher asks, "Where is Chicago?" The cla.s.s may answer, "In Illinois on Lake Michigan; in North America; in Cook County." The teacher should know just what answer he desires, and then ask, "In what State; on what continent; on what lake; or in what county?"

Other ill.u.s.trations of vagueness coming from the use of words of too general a meaning are found in such questions as, What _kind_ of man was George Was.h.i.+ngton?

_When_ does a person need food?