KinSource - Tale of the Week - Discipline A Necessity

KinSource

Minnesota Tales

The St. Paul Daily Globe, September 2, 1888, p. 2

DISCIPLINE A NECESSITY.

According to the Superintendent of Schools.

ADVICE TO THE TEACHERS.

Everything in Readiness for Opening the Various Buildings Tomorrow.

Superintendent of Schools Taylor was busily engaged all day yesterday, consequent upon the reopening of the public schools tomorrow morning. The principals and teachers of the thirty-one scholastic establishments of the city met Professor Taylor in the assembly hall of the high school building. There was a full attendance, the few absentees being those teachers who are out of town and have not returned from their vacation. The superintendent of [music led] the company in singing, and a thoughtful address followed, by Superintendent Taylor. This address created an excellent impression, it being replete in timely advice and pertinent suggestions.

Prof. Taylor first dilated upon the responsibilities and duties of teachers, and expressed a decided opinion of the advantages accruing from a well spent vacation. He proceeded to advise teachers in the coming term to ascertain the cause of all absenteeism among their pupils, and urged that in the general discipline of the school-room there should be great carefulness exercised; there should be more firmness combined with government, and firmness with kindness. It lifted the school by giving it a healthy tone. All believed in government. What was a nation, a state or a city without it? It was as essential for a school as for either of the above-mentioned bodies. It might be said that the method in use did not produce the desired effect. Possibly not; but if it did not, teachers who had done their best had done what could

BE EXPECTED OF THEM.

A teacher's attention should not be given specially to a single study to the crowding out of others. Different teachers had different likes and dislikes in studies, and those which were best liked received most attention. This was wrong. Each study in the curriculum of a school should receive its proper attention. Having, during the past year had the matter of reading in the primary under consideration, he desired to bring it to the attention of teachers of all the grades of the city schools. He was convinced that this subject was one of the real essentials of public school education, and instanced Lord Bacon's famous saying that "Reading makes a full man, writing an exact man, and speaking a ready man." Its importance was shown to a sufficient degree by the efforts made and that were being made, to have the methods of teaching this subject upon lines of mental development. A pupil was not a good reader until he could not only give ideas from the printed page, but could impart those ideas in a clear, intelligible and pleasing manner. Proper instruction and drill should give pupils this power of grasping thought and joining expression to it. The fact that good readers were rare in the schools only increased the obligation of teachers, not only to themselves, but to those under their charge. Correct reading had much to do with solving the question of the appreciation and love of good literature. Here was a field which had been most neglected in the past, and the importance of which could hardly be over-estimated. Teachers might make a judicious selection of books for their pupils and counsel them in regard to the same: such counsel, given in a right spirit, would invariably be heeded, and thus a taste for good reading correctly formed. If teachers did this the danger of their pupils drifting into the habit of reading cheap and sensational stuff, which

CREATED DISTASTE FOR STUDY,

debased and demoralized the mind and tended to crime, might be greatly lessened. The best ordered rooms were governed by the quietest teachers. It did not follow, however, that all quiet teachers were good [disciplinarians], but it generally was true that a noisy teacher was not. A disorderly school was due to one or two things: A too talkative teacher, or to poor ventilation, or to both combined. Good discipline was the keynote to a successful school. Not that he was a believer in the rod of iron form of discipline, because the correct principal was to cultivate the moral qualities of the pupils and take their consciences and honor into consideration in planning and carrying out forms of study. Mental impressions were far more lasting than the sting of the flesh. He was opposed to overpressure, and urged that children should not be kept after school to study unless the teacher was well satisfied that failure of pupils to keep up with their class had arisen from neglect or laziness, and that they would not suffer any bodily effects from it. Even this practice should be the exception and not the rule. Extra home tasks should not be imposed, and he had no sympathy with the hot house forcing of intellectual growth. Two examinations were now being held yearly, each at the end of five months, but he thought arrangements might be made so that a large amount of strain in these examinations might be removed from the pupils -- say an examination upon one subject each month. After pointing out that one of the objects of public schools should be to make good citizens, and that sure practical methods of teaching were needed against teaching mere memory rather than mind, he concluded: "Teachers, the ground to be occupied is

READY FOR THE SOWING.

Weigh well your responsibilities, consider well your methods, teach with a kindliness and energy and perserverance the cause and the pupils' demand, and may the year be full of the best results to you all."

Supt. Taylor closed his address amid the hearty plaudits of those present, and the assembly broke up with the completion of arrangements for holding the teachers' general meetings. Each teacher was supplied with a copy of the annual report of the education board, which was published yesterday.

A large number of parents of prospective pupils visited the school superintendent yesterday afternoon, and his office presented a lively appearance. With the exception of the Albert Scheffer, all the schools are ready for reopening to-morrow, and it will be interesting to many parents and guardians to reproduce Rule 47 of the education board. "During the first week of each term, and on each Monday thereafter, pupils in all respects qualified may enter the schools by applying to the principal at the school building. A pupil applying for admission for the first time must be accompanied by a parent or guardian, who shall give satisfactory evidence that the child is six years old and has been vaccinated within five years."