Modern Teaching, Practice and Technique
- Author:
Panton, Vice-Principal,
Borough Road College, Isleworth. Longmans Green. Pp. 298. 8s. 6d.
This is a sound and pleasantly written handbook on the art of teaching, based on many years’ experience of both teaching children and training students. As the author states in his preface, it is intended for those who are entering on a course of preparation for the teaching profession.
The major part of the book is concerned with a very practical and well illustrated exposition of the technique of teaching, though the first three chapters are devoted to a simple description of the more generally accepted psychological principles underlying the development of children and their learning processes, and the two concluding chapters contain some straightforward suggestions on the character of discipline and the maintenance of class order, and on the qualities of personality which the intending teacher would do well to cultivate in himself.
The main purpose of the book is not so much to discuss educational theories or to consider possible reforms in curriculum and technique which many people to-day consider necessary to meet modern developments in education, but to put into the hands of the novice, a guide to the day-to-day practical problems connected with childrens’ learning, which often baffle and discourage the inexperienced. Generally speaking, the book would be a useful complement to Learning and Teaching by Drs. E. H. and A. G. Hughes, to whom the author acknowledges his indebtedness, but would possibly be best suited to the older and more mature student training under the Ministry of Education’s Emergency Scheme. For this reason it is to be regretted that no bibliography for rather wider reading is provided: instead we have to rely on references in the footnotes to those books whose opinions and ideas the author quotes.
Although the language of the book is simple, clear and untechnical the author’s use of certain terms would seem to be open to question. For instance, his differentiation between physical and manipulative skill and his discussion of habits on the mental plane?in which he includes reading, writing and speaking as well as thinking proper?might be somewhat confusing to the beginner. Again, his explanation of the term ” project ” would seem to correspond rather to the more typical English ” centre of interest ” than to the thoroughgoing American conception of project. Nor would the school of psycho-analysts accept his suggestion that an exposition of their principles is given in Geraldine Coster’s book (with its somewhat misleading title) Psycho-Analysis for Normal People, useful though that book may be as an introduction to the part played by unconscious forces in motivitating behaviour. His reference, moreover, to the pleasure-pain principle seems to be somewhat of an over-simplification.
However, these are perhaps minor defects in a book which, in general, is characterized by lucidity and comprehensiveness. Certainly, it is full of sound commonsense and shows a sympathetic understanding of the beginner’s situation which will be of considerable help to many when they first come to practise the craft of teaching. P.N.W.
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