First.--The teacher should visit all homes and get acquainted with the
patrons. This is important in order that he may get an insight into the
conditions under which the people are living, and that he may know the
particular difficulties of the pupils with whom he has to deal.
Moreover, acquaintance on the part of the parents with the teacher will
often aid in avoiding disciplinary difficulties, inasmuch as the parents
come to have increasing confidence in him and his work as their
acquaintance with him increases.
Second.--The teacher should study conditions from all angles so as to
adapt the school work to the needs of the community. Even in so small an
island as Porto Rico, we have distinctly different occupations centered
in different parts of the Island, and the teacher should remember that
the majority of his pupils will undoubtedly grow up to take a part in
the prevailing industry of the community in which they are born and
raised. The schedule and work of the rural school should not be an
attempt to imitate the plan of study of the urban schools, inasmuch as
the problems are entirely different, and until a teacher has convinced
himself of this fact and has made an attempt to model his work on the
needs of the community, the school will not accomplish its full mission.
Third.--The teacher should live in the district seven days in the week
during the school term. More and more the idea is becoming prevalent
that rural teachers should be provided with a house and a small plot of
ground near the school in order to become permanent residents of the
district. The average farmer is very conservative and needs visual
demonstration of the merits of new ideas before he will accept them. No
amount of theoretical teaching will improve farming conditions to any
great extent, and unless the teacher is able to become a demonstrator of
his ideas by actually putting them into practice on the plot of ground
which he himself manages, he cannot expect to influence to any great
extent the agricultural movements of the community in which he works.
The school should aim not only for the education of the children who
are actually enrolled, but also for the betterment of the agricultural
and social conditions of the community.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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