How to Study and Teaching How to Study by Frank M. (Frank Morton) McMurry
page 291 of 302 (96%)
page 291 of 302 (96%)
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books, periodicals, and newspapers, and that they actually select and
reject freely in their own reading, shows how normal it is to do such work in school, and how important it is to make it prominent. Method of study will then have precedence over other aims of the school, even ranking above the acquisition of other knowledge. Possibly as much as one-fourth of all the school time might be devoted primarily to this problem, although within that period much subject- matter in the studies would also be mastered. While children completing the curriculum of the elementary school might then be well enough acquainted with the general principles of study, in their practical applications, to stop the customary complaints of teachers and parents in that regard, method of study would still be far from mastered. For, besides the general principles, there are special principles peculiar to each branch of knowledge, just as there are both general and special methods of teaching. Proper study of arithmetic, for example, does not fully include the method of studying algebra, to say nothing of grammar; neither does the method in algebra duplicate that in geometry; nor the method in English, that in Latin; nor the method in Latin that in French. As each new branch is begun, therefore, two or three weeks might need to be spent primarily in considering how it should be studied, and now and then, later, an hour should be occupied in the same way. Topics in learning to study that are too broad for the limits of any particular branch would need to be taught from time to time. For instance, the use of the table of contents, or of the index of a book, of the library catalogue, of encyclopedias and other reference works, should become familiar in the elementary school, as well as some facts |
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