The Seven Laws of Teaching

by John Milton Gregory

Bart loaned me thins. It was published in 1884 and is still quite relevant.

A child has immaturity and ignorance. We address these with training and teaching.

Communicating truths is not just a transmission of facts. Help reproduce the experience of realization, comprehension. When both teacher and student have had that experience, they share a common understanding. (12)

“A simple act of teaching may hide within it some of the most potent and significant laws of mental life.” (13)

“The true worker’s love for his work grows with his ability to do it well.” (14)

Law of the Teacher: The power of illustration requires clear and familiar knowledge. Knowledge brings enthusiasm. You have to know the lesson in order to teach it. Therefore:

• Schedule a time to prepare your lesson.
• Prepare it fresh even if you’ve taught it before.
• Mastering a few things is better than a partial understanding of more.
• Books help, “but do not read without thinking.”

Law of the Learner: Attend with interest. Sustained interest comes by strenuous effort but gets easier. Effort, sacrifice, persistence lead to success. Mental toil, mental effort, active attention.

Re: the attentive mind, “who has not read a whole page with the eyes, and the bottom found himself unable to recall a single idea that it contained?” (35) Nice to know that’s not just me!

For teaching younger kids, teach “little and often.” “Prolonged attention belongs to more mature minds.” (38)

Master the art of gaining and keeping attention.

Law of the Language: In order to make TALKING into THINKING, there must be independent and original effort, not mere repetition. Use of objects, drawings, nature help. Don’t lecture (much) with small kids. “Encourage them to talk freely” – they must acquire language. MAKE HASTE SLOWLY. Be clear, and have them say it back to you in their own words.

Law of the Lesson: Organize facts into systems. The unknown cannot explain the unknown. Connect new ideas to things they already know.

Make new facts familiar. Firmly entrench them; they will be available in later lessons.

Place pupils in the attitude of discovery so they apply what they’ve been taught to new problems.

Teaching Process: Teaching = transmitting experience. Tell the pupil nothing he can learn himself. “Make your pupil a discoverer of truth.” Don’t GIVE knowledge, but stimulate the pupil to seek it.

“One who knows nothing cannot think, for he has nothing to think about.” Furnish your mind with knowledge worth thinking about.

Love of country, one’s fellows, truth. Aspirations for a noble life. If these motives are lacking, the teacher must build them up.

“The explanation that settles everything and ends all questions usually ends all thinking also.”

“Knowing comes from thinking, not from being told.” If you’ve told them several times already, and they still don’t remember, you haven’t gotten them to think about it.

“The pupil must reproduce in his own mind the truth to be learned.”

No time in teaching is spent more profitably then time spent reviewing.

“Unconscious celebration” – the brain goes on working, unknown to us. Mental incubation. “The ever-growing mind teaches constantly for new positions.”