In a great many cases where simultaneous answering is practiced, after a
short time the evils above specified are allowed to grow, until at last
some half a dozen bright members of a class answer for all, the rest
dragging after them, echoing their replies, or ceasing to take any
interest in an exercise which brings no personal and individual
responsibility upon them. To prevent this, the teacher should exercise
double vigilance at such a time. He should often address questions to
individuals alone, especially to those most likely to be inattentive and
careless, and guard against the ingress of every abuse which might,
without close vigilance, appear.
With these cautions, the method here alluded to will be found to be of
very great advantage in many studies; for example, all the arithmetical
tables may be recited in this way; words may be spelled, answers to sums
given, columns of figures added, or numbers multiplied, and many
questions in history, geography, and other miscellaneous studies
answered, especially the general questions asked for the purpose of a
review.
But, besides being useful as a mode of examination, this plan of
answering questions simultaneously is a very important means of fixing
in the mind any facts which the teacher may communicate to his pupils.
If, for instance, he says some day to a class that Vasco de Gama was the
discoverer of the passage round the Cape of Good Hope, and leaves it
here, in a few days not one in twenty will recollect the name.
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