16 FOREWORD TO TEACHERS 



mulating the problem, to give the class — this time as individuals 



— opportunity to write their generalizations, or their answer to 

 the problem, in the form of a good English sentence or paragraph. 



After this is done reading of conclusions by several individuals 

 allows by comparison the fixing of the correct conclusion in the 

 minds of all. Time is thus obtained for rectifying the tangled 

 ideas of those members of the class less able to cope with the 

 problem. Incidentally, this does away to a large extent with 

 correcting laboratory papers, as the student, by comparison with 

 the final corrected conclusion, does his own correcting. This 

 makes for more effective science teaching, as the teacher of science 

 should be a leader, not a drudge. 



Sometimes a generalization is asked for, perhaps before the 

 pupil is ready for it, for the object is to incite the worker to be 

 something more than a blind reader of directions and a maker of 

 drawings. An immature conclusion — even a wrong conclusion 



— in the form of a generalization, is better for the pupil than 

 contentment with no conclusion at all. If the child can be stim- 

 ulated to think from the very beginning, then do not worry at 

 first over the exactitude of his conclusion so long as he is 

 trained in the making of judgments. It is the thought process 

 we are after at first, the method of thinking more than the scien- 

 tifically exact result. The latter will come gradually as the hori- 

 zon of the pupil widens. We all know our concepts change. 

 What is an exact concept at fourteen would not stand the test at 

 twenty-four or at forty-four. It is a true maxim that experi- 

 ence is the best teacher. Be that so, even experience does not 

 make thinkers of us, unless we know how to profit by her teachings. 



The pages that follow are intended to act as a guide and a stim- 

 ulus to the pupil so that he will be led to see beyond the printed 

 words in the textbook. Many children do not know how to use 

 their text. Diagrams and figures mean nothing to them. The 

 old-fashioned thought questions found in so many textbooks of 

 twenty-five years ago were of great value because they crystal- 

 lized the problem before the student and focused the attention 

 on the essentials within a given paragraph. The pedagogic value 

 of questions on diagrams is great. The use of graphs is a part 



