CHAPTER XI

SEAT WORK

The greatest waste in the public school occurs, no doubt, in the recitation; the next, in the seat work. Children, oftentimes, are expected to study at their seats before they have acquired the power of separating the essentials from the non-essentials. Because of this inability, or rather lack of ability, they fall into habits of rote-learning and verbalizing. These weaknesses are especially prominent in the lower grades where children have little power of attention. Here they are disposed to heed every passing thing, to be attracted by the gay, the bright, and the unusual.

Until the power of inhibition is nurtured and strengthened, we must expect mind-wandering and wool-gathering on the part of the children. Aside from the immaturity which, in itself, is a cause of verbalizing, this tendency is to be attributed frequently to teaching that directs attention to form rather than to content or to teaching, if it can be so styled, that accepts verbatim or paraphraseanswers of the text-book. The intimate connection existing between the assignment and seat work will be elaborated in some detail in chapter XXII.

The Purpose of Seat Work

We realize full well the numerous difficulties with which the primary teacher is confronted in regard to seat work. Many of the myriad devices invented were intended simply to give children employment, to keep them quiet without reference to whether they were especially educative. This purpose, the least laudable probably of all, must, of course, be realized if there is more than one grade or class in the room. Usually, however, this end should be attained by giving material, something to do, which supplements the recitation. If the recitation has been well-conducted, it is a simple matter to stimulate in the children a motive for carrying forward at their seats some of the things brought out in class.

Excellent opportunities are easily found for wordbuilding and for illustrating the reading lesson. Whatever is done at the seat must afford opportunity for the children to be active, not merely mentally but physically as well. The children must be made to feel that they are doing something. They like to see results. In every case where seat work is assigned, the pupils must be held responsible for it, but the necessity of using force to secure results will diminish in proportion as we are able to create a desire in the children for doing the thing.

Seat work is also assigned that children may acquire habits of neatness and accuracy. No slipshod, indifferent, inaccurately prepared work should

be accepted. Looseness in one place is likely to mean looseness in another. It will not do to have neat and accurate work done in the reading only; it must be done everywhere and all the time if the habit is to be of the greatest possible utility.

Really the end to be striven for in all seat work is independence on the part of the worker. This goal is probably never completely attained, but growth toward it should characterize the child as he passes through the grades.

Proportion of Time

In the primary grades the first three of these purposes are the ones emphasized most in seat work. The seat work in these grades is reduced to the minimum and the recitation work is extended as much as possible. Educators disagree somewhat as to the amount of time to be given reading in the lower grades. Few think that it is entitled to less than one-third and many hold that it should have onehalf or two-thirds of the total time. Regardless of the amount of time given it, it is undoubtedly true that the chief business of the primary school is to teach the child to read. Because this is true, reading is entitled to more time than any other subject, but most of it should be given to recitation.

Since there must be some seat work in connection with reading in most schools, there is appended to this statement a brief list of devices which have been found of value.

Two Kinds of Seat Work

In two ways the work in reading may receive help from seat work:

I. The form of words may be kept before the eyes of the pupils and the impression thus deepened. II. The thought of the story may be expressed by the hands of the children in a variety of ways.

EXAMPLES OF FIRST KIND-FIRST GRADE

1. The teacher writes with a brush a word for each child upon drawing paper. The child cuts out the word and takes it home.

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2. The words are written with damp chalk upon the desk-tops. Children cover tracings with lentils

or corn.

3. Mimeographed words from sentences used are given to the children in such form as this:

4. The above words are used another day in building sentences which the teacher has written on the board, i. e.:

Hiawatha was an Indian.

Nokomis was an Indian.

Nokomis was his grandmother.

5. The above words are used another day to build original sentences, i. e., without blackboard copy.

6. Envelopes containing pictures and slips of paper upon which are written words naming the pictures, are distributed. The children match name and picture.

7. Printed letters are used for word and sentence building.

8. Pages from sample primers and first readers are mounted. The stories are copied in bold script. The words in script stand each on a separate oblong and are in an envelope with the printed page. The children build sentences with written words, matching those on the printed page.

SECOND GRADE

9. Pupils do silent reading from supplementary books or papers.

EXAMPLES OF SECOND KIND-SECOND GRADE

1. The children draw, cut, or paint pictures which "tell the story." This exercise can be used in either first or second grade.

2. The children in the second grade may impersonate one of the characters in the story just read and tell in writing what was seen or heard or done. 3. They may model in clay something that helps tell what they have read.