ndnv: n xpl f th hltl thd n rph, b ltr J. nn. Kenyon, Walter J. [San Francisco] Graduates of the San Francisco state normal school, 1904. http:hdl.hDndlH.nHt202lRF.DrN:60tF4JhV Pbl Dn http:ZZZ.hDthLtrXVt.RrJDFFHVVBXVHpd We have determined this work to be in the public domain, meaning that it is not subject to copyright. Users are free to copy, use, and redistribute the work in part or in whole. It is possible that current copyright holders, 7/loc.ark:/13960/t9c54gh9s heirs or the estate of the authors of individual portions of the work, such as illustrations or photographs, assert copyrights over these portions. Depending on the nature of subsequent use that is made, additional rights may need to be obtained independently of anything we can address. Public Domain / http://www.hathitrust.org/access_use#pd Generated on 2016-01-03 17:16 GMT / http://hdl.handle.net/202 17 >y 1 SAN FRANCISCO STATE NORMAL SCHOOL BULLETIN No. 5 SCANDINAVIA: AN EXAMPLE OF THE CHALK-TALK METHOD IN GEOGRAPHY WALTER J. KENYON :::::::: Supervisor of Geography 7/loc.ark:/13960/t9c54gh9s Public Domain / http://www.hathitrust.org/access_use#pd Generated on 2016-01-03 17:16 GMT / http://hdl.handle.net/202 BOARD OF TRUSTEES 5EORGE C. PARDEE G Ex officio. KIRK .Superintendent of Public Instruction Ex officio. •■• San Francisco )TNKELS.PIEL. San Francisco San Francisco .NDERLYNN STOW San Francisco .NK W. MARSTON. .. .. ;San Francisco OFFICERS FOR 1903 - 1904 DENSON Chamnan :NRY G. W. DINKELSPIEL Secretary OFFICERS OF GRADUATE ASSOCIATION, 1903-1904 7/loc.ark:/13960/t9c54gh9s MRS. MURIEL SWAIN-DICKIE yiiCE-PRESiDENT MRS. IMOGENE STEIN-JONES : i ary MISS RUETTE LYNCH Honorary Treasurer MISS KATHERINE HUSSEY Public Domain / http://www.hathitrust.org/access_use#pd Generated on 2016-01-03 17:16 GMT / http://hdl.handle.net/202 Generated on 2016-01-03 17:16 GMT / http://hdl.handle.net/2027/loc.ark:/13960/t9c54gh9s Public Domain / http://www.hathitrust.org/access_use#pd 7/loc.ark:/13960/t9c54gh9s Fig. i. Chalk Relief of Scandinavia. Public Domain / http://www.hathitrust.org/access_use#pd Generated on 2016-01-03 17:16 GMT / http://hdl.handle.net/202 SCANDINAVIA: AN EXAMPLE OF THE CHALK-TALK METHOD IN GEOGRAPHY BY WALTER J. KENYON Supervisor of Geography, State Normal School San Francisco 7/loc.ark:/13960/t9c54gh9s PUBLISHED BY THE GRADUATES OF THE SAN FRANCISCO STATE NORMAL SCHOOL January, 1904 Public Domain / http://www.hathitrust.org/access_use#pd Generated on 2016-01-03 17:16 GMT / http://hdl.handle.net/202 ,5 ,K37 LIBRARY of CONGRESS Two Copies Received JAN 6 1904 ight Entry : 'fe- ltfeiLASS a- XXc. No. COPY 8 Copyright 1904 By Walter J. Kenyon 7/loc.ark:/13960/t9c54gh9s Public Domain / http://www.hathitrust.org/access_use#pd Generated on 2016-01-03 17:16 GMT / http://hdl.handle.net/202 METHOD IN GEOGRAPHY TEACHING. A text-book in geography can furnish maps and can serve as a statistical reference book ; but by the nature of the case, a text-book can never be an important source of that body of general information which it is the essential purpose of geography teaching to furnish. In order to give pupils prac- ticable information concerning the conditions in foreign countries— modes of living, agricultural, industrial, social, and climatic conditions, etc., it is neces- sary that the child should receive it in concrete form, chiefly in mental pic- tures which he may clearly visualize. It is not necessary, nor is it even desir- able, that the pupil should remember these varied details ; but these concrete pictures are the only material out of which generalizations can be constructed, and the mass of such details will fade away into that perspective and general feeling which all persons of general intelligence possess. But it is neces- sary for the pupil to go through this mass of concrete detail in order to comprehend a generalization he may find in the text. The fields of geo- graphical information are so vast and so varied that a text-book which would include this concrete material necessarily must be a library of books. No two covers could possibly encompass this varied mass. The texts there- fore are necessarily so condensed and the language into which the facts must be compressed so general and abstract, that concrete picture-thinking is impossible from them. The pupil cannot, therefore, read the texts under- standing^; and if he succeeds in making out the words, they do not create concrete pictures for him. As a consequence, the best that the children of the schools can do is to memorize the words of these condensed general statements in order to recite or to pass the examinations necessary for pro- motion. What are we as teachers to do about it? If consciences are perfunctory, the State Board of Education can prescribe texts, the State and County Super- intendents can rigidly enforce their exclusive use, and teachers can teach under this wretched pretense of real instruction; but let us at least be frankly aware that we are forcing indigestible mental food upon the chil- 7/loc.ark:/13960/t9c54gh9s dren. If our consciences are not perfunctory, we must recognize that sys- tems of instruction have found only two alternative methods of escape from the wretched system of geography and history teaching which formal ad- ministration of the schools permits, and has forced, and is now forcing, upon the schools : i. The Method of Supplementary Reading. The schools may be supplied by their libraries with a variety of supplementary books in travel, charac- teristic descriptive stories of adventure and incidents suitable to children's reading. 2. The Method of Oral Instruction by the Teacher. In this case, the teacher becomes the source of this concrete knowledge and gives to the ( Hi ) Public Domain / http://www.hathitrust.org/access_use#pd Generated on 2016-01-03 17:16 GMT / http://hdl.handle.net/202 ( iv ) pupils by oral talks, framed in matter and concrete form to call up mental pictures of distant countries ; the teacher must further work up these concrete pictures into the form of general information which the average person of intelligence possesses concerning those distant lands. The first alternative method has occasionally been tried in sporadic in- stances, but owing to the lack, until the very recent past, of a reference book to this supplementary material and to tendency in this method to drift into wandering and foggy recitations, it has thus far not proved of very general acceptance. Bulletin No. 2 of this series, prepared by Mr. Frank Bunker, is really the first and only comprehensive effort to offer a method, and furnish a reference book to supplementary geographical readings for school use. In Bulletin No. 6 of this series, just issued, Mr. Bunker further illustrates the method concretely in a special treatment of China. In the present Bulletin, Mr. Kenyon offers concrete illustration of the other alternative method —that of oral instruction combined with blackboard illustration. The German schools have long made extensive use of an oral method in teaching geography, and Mr. Kenyon as a supervisor of geogra- phy teaching in the Training Schools of the Normal School has worked out with the student-teachers a feasible method of oral instruction, especially serviceable in the intermediate grades, where any reading by pupils is at- tended with considerable difficulty. His method also has an advantage in any grade where the administration of the school fails to supply sufficient supplementary reading to make the first method practicable. The chief features of the plan are that the teacher reads the supplementary material, arranges it in the form of a chalk or blackboard lesson, by which the informa- tion is given concretely and systematically; and then follows class dis- cussions and recitations, concluding with memory drills and examinations upon those final generalizations which constitute the knowledge which persons of average general culture and intelligence possess. Neither of these alternative systems excludes the use of the text. But they make use of it for its maps, and as a review after the concrete informa- tion necessary for its comprehension has been acquired. For the purpose of illustrating this method of teaching geography Mr. Kenyon has selected Scandinavia because it serves very neatly as a type, 7/loc.ark:/13960/t9c54gh9s and permits brevity with some necessary degree of thoroughness. Before entering upon the industrial, cultural, and descriptive material Mr. Kenyon's method requires that an accurate and clear mental picture of the map be established in the pupils' minds. The insistency he urges to secure a mental picture rather than what may be mere pictureless word-statements about the map, will be profitably noted. Far too large a majority of pupils in the schools study their maps in this way ; the teacher assigns a number of places to be found upon the map. The pupils write down the list, spend much time in finding them, and thereupon write down in sentences upon " paper the location, as, for example, St. Louis is on the eastern boundary of Missouri upon the Mississippi River." This is what they memorize—the Public Domain / http://www.hathitrust.org/access_use#pd Generated on 2016-01-03 17:16 GMT / http://hdl.handle.net/202 ( v ) zvords, not the map. Such knowledge, while it too often deceives the teacher in the subsequent recitation, is of little or no value as geographical knowl- edge, and it can serve no purpose except that of word-examination. What is necessary is a clear map-image indelibly impressed upon the visual memory, so that the child sees Missouri, St. Louis, the Mississippi River, in their rela- tive positions and as a part of the map-image of the United States.