The Sabbath School by Mrs. W. F. Crafts

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 11, 1880

The Sabbath School.

By Mrs. W. F. Crafts

ATTENTION AND DISCIPLINE.

Dear Teacher Friend: I have made a visit to Miss T.'s class, having heard much of her excellent methods of securing attention and good order. Knowing so well the great interest you have in your work, and knowing, too, your desire to go on to perfection in the art of teaching, I want to give you the advantage of what I saw and heard.

When Miss T. entered the room, the assistant teachers and the children were all in their places. She came before them with a bustling, cordial manner, laying her Bible on the little table. For the moment every eye was upon her, and before those eyes had time to wander and carry the attention with them, she had commenced the exercises. It seemed as if she had swept the "pansy-bed," and held them all in a beautiful bouquet close to her heart. After the "introductory exercise," the lesson was given to the assistant teachers. Each little group of teacher and class put their heads so close together that you could almost have put a bushel basket over them.

I said to myself, I do hope no tardy ones will break up those interested little circles. Just then the door opened, and in came two little tots. Miss T. gently intercepted them, and gave them seats so near me that I heard her ask, "What has made my little friends late this morning?" "Breakfast wasn't in time," was sobbed out. "Look over to your class and see how hard they are thinking and talking about the lesson. If you go there and talk about you; will you go there, or stay here?" "Stay here." I noticed that these children were allowed to take their places in the class just before the closing exercise, in which Miss T. then assumed full charge with a manner that indicated such perfect confidence in the children's disposition to do right that for them to have done otherwise would have been like betraying trust. If it had not been a mission school I should have said to myself, I wonder where the troublesome children go to Sunday-school? surely not here. Nothing was said about order during the whole session. Just before beginning the closing exercise the children were allowed to rise and sing a song, accompanied with appropriate motions. I thought it was a happy way of resting little bodies that would otherwise have to move and be called disorderly. I noticed that Miss T. made the motions which she wanted the children to make.

I was favorably impressed with the naturalness of her voice. She always used pleasant, conversational tones, and in this regard differed from the majority of primary teachers I have heard, whose voices were either too loud, or had in them a patronizing element. The quality of the voice has great influence in a class. Have you not yourself felt this when listening to different public speakers whose voices seemed to have the power either to soothe or irritate?

At the close of the school Miss T. apologized for not speaking with me before, saying that it was her habit to devote herself wholly to the class during the session. We walked away from the church together. And now I want to give you a few extracts from our conversation, for I am sure I gained some hints which must be a part of her secret of success.

I said, "I was gratified by the order in your class; but are you not sometimes obliged to give reproof, or ask for quiet?"

"I never tell children to keep quiet," was her reply, "but I correct myself, rather than the children. If my class becomes restless, I am sure that I have grown tedious, so I either brighten my lesson, or change the exercise. Sometimes there will be a degree of inattention or play in any class, for which the teacher is hardly responsible. In such cases I ask the disorderly ones questions on the lesson; or, if possible, go and stand by them, making no mention of the fault, however, as that would destroy the attention of the whole class."

"If you should not succeed in checking the disorder by diversion, what would you do?" I asked.

"Quietly dispose of the offender by seating him alone, continuing all the time to talk about the lesson."

"Some teachers, you know, have difficulty not only in keeping, but also in securing attention."

"Children should not be required to pay strict attention until there is something to receive for it. To request attention before the exercises or lesson begins, reminds me of the individual who had agreed to teach a class of boys and girls to whistle. The smiling which followed rendered whistling impossible. I am persuaded that the quickest, surest, and pleasantest way to gain the attention is not to ask for it, but to win it. I cannot say that I have ever had the perfect attention of a class from the beginning to the end of a lesson, but I have been able to prevent habitual inattention on the part of any children by asking several in succession to give answers to the same question, and by having their replies repeated by the whole class simultaneously, or by any one who seemed disposed to be inattentive. In all this, then, there is for you and me this thought: Win attention and order, rather than demand it."

I was here reminded of what Dr. Gregory has said about securing attention. He says in substance, attention is of two sorts—compelled, and attracted. The former is only momentary, because it is mechanical, and therefore purely external. The latter scarcely knows any fatigue, because it is vital—hunger, seeking food—excited interest, seeking gratification.

"Yes," Miss T. replied, "but we must not forget that 'fixed attention is physically impossible in a child for any lengthened period.'"

Now I am going to close this letter by giving you a few extracts from Pestalozzi, "the father of popular education:"—

"When I recommend to a mother to avoid wearying a child by her instructions, I do not wish to encourage the notion that instruction should always take the character of amusement, or even of a play. A child must, very early in life, be taught that exertion is indispensable for the attainment of knowledge. But a child should not be taught to look upon exertion as an evil."

"I would suggest that the best means to prevent this is to adopt a mode of instruction by which the children are less left to themselves—less thrown upon the unwelcome employment of passive listening—less harshly treated for little and excusable failings, but more roused by questions, animated by illustrations, interested and won by kindness."

"Interest in study is the first thing which a teacher, a mother, should endeavor to excite and keep alive. There are scarcely any circumstances in which a want of application in children does not proceed from a want of interest. There are, perhaps, none in which a want of interest does not originate in the mode of teaching adopted by the teacher. If he is not, with his whole mind, present at the subject—if he does not care whether it is understood or not, whether his manner is liked or not—he will never fail of alienating the affections of his pupils, and rendering them indifferent to what he says. But real interest taken in the task of instruction—kind words, and kinder feelings, the expression of the features, and the glance of the eye—are never lost upon children."—Mrs. W. F. Crafts.