Problems of the secondary teacher Author:Wilhelm Jerusalem Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE SCIENTIFIC PROBLEM OF THE SECONDARY TEACHERS 1. The General Problem IF then, the aim of the secondary school, discussed in detail in cha... more »pter two, is to be realized, each teacher, no matter what branch he has chosen for his special field, must study the fundamental principles of pedagogy and give some attention to the aim and the method for the guidance of the pupils. Among the general scientific problems, which are .obligatory on all teachers, it seems to me therefore that the scientific pursuit of pedagogics is the first and most important. The opposition to everything pertaining to didactics and methods which has been prevalent among us for a considerable period seems now to be happily on the wane. The charge that we are scholars but not teachers, that we lecture instead of instruct and educate has been made too emphatically and too loudly. Educational administrators have been very active in organizing and developing schools of education during recent years. But notwithstanding this fact there are still many who regard the study of pedagogy at the university as unnecessary, useless and even harmful. At the university, so they say, the student should devote himself wholly to the science of his chosen department. He should study and investigate without being hampered by any thought of his future vocation, so as above all else to become skilled in his department. The majority of hearers, it is added, likewise have no interest in pedagogy during their university years. They want to learn and are not concerned about the fact that they are sometime later on expected to teach. I am utterly opposed to this view so frequently heard and advocated even by so famous a pedagogue as Fries, both from the viewpoint of theory and likewise on the basis of the facts....« less