The Law of the Teaching Process

This, claims Gregory, is the most widely recognized rule among good teachers. Although there may be times to disregard this law — when time is of the essence, when the child is ill or weak, or when the child is discouraged, for example — however, for the most part, the teacher is to “make [her] pupil a discoverer of truth” — make him find out for himself. The teacher’s role is “awakening and setting in action the mind of the pupil, arousing his self-activities.” If we can learn without a teacher — and we can — then the teacher is not essential. The teacher is an aid, an ally, a support, facilitating the process of learning within the student’s own mind — lighting a fire, not filling a bucket, as the saying goes. In fact, the knowledge which is most permanent, claims Gregory, is that which is discovered unaided. Therefore, the true function of the teacher is to create the most favorable conditions for self-learning. These conditions are threefold:

• setting an ordered path (“curriculum”)
• providing leisure and quiet for study
• furnishing materials

Teaching is not telling, but leading. It is not the vigorous telling nor the hard work of the teacher upon the passive student that evokes learning, but the active student’s hard work. The student taught without learning for himself is like one who is spoonfed but not given exercise — the meager nutrition cannot work out toward its natural end and the body will not gain its full benefit, will not properly grow. In this task of teaching, then, the self-confidence of the student is essential. It is gained by self-prompted independent use, but such use is usually first motivated through external pressures (such as “Mom making him”) before maturing into internal self-promptings. Moreover, “thoughtfulness deepens and grows more intense with the increase of knowledge.” The increase of this appetite will grow by what it feeds on — the more effort is expended toward learning, the more one is motivated to continue. The teacher’s job is to do what is necessary to begin the child on that path, but once the child is following the path with a will, pushing and shoving him along is more counterproductive than beneficial. Though the child may get to the end early, he will not have gained the experience and strength he could have derived from the journey. We, the teachers, are to keep our children on the path and keep them moving, but we should refrain from either rushing them or carrying them. Instead, let each exercise strengthen their own muscles of self-prompting, self-discipline, self-learning.