“For there is a man whose labor is in wisdom, and in knowledge, and in equity."—Ecclesiastes 11-21
The chief duty of a naval officer is the instruction, training, and indoctrination of the men under his command so that at all times, in peace, or war, or emergency, they function as an efficient unit and use the equipment at their disposal with the maximum of speed, economy, and effectiveness. Viewed in this light it is evident that the naval officer must be more than a technician, more than a mere inspector or supervisor, more, even, than a leader—he must also be a teacher.
At the Naval Academy and thereafter throughout his professional career, great stress is placed on the officer’s technical perfection and on the various elements which constitute leadership: honesty, loyalty, forbearance, thoughtfulness, and all the other qualities a man must develop in order to be acknowledged the guide of those whom he commands. But nowhere is any emphasis put upon the technique of teaching or how to instruct. Many an officer detailed to the Academy as an instructor senses for the first time his inadequacy along these lines. And while the department to which he is assigned may make efforts to enlighten him, the instructions he receives are usually intended to provide for a uniform routine in conducting a class and giving grades, rather than to serve as an explanation of the principles of teaching as such. Too often the officer in question feels incompetent to do the task before him and degenerates into that character we all know so well: the referee between the student and the book.
There is, however, more than a suspicion that the officer who is not competent in the classroom is not much better in training a gun crew or coaching a football team, and, conversely, it is more than possible that the division officer who puts an “E” on his turret may be better than average in teaching a plebe “math” class. There is a correlation between the work of an officer in the classroom and his work in the fleet, and competence in one should reflect better work in the other. At the Naval Academy or afloat the officer is a teacher. This fact needs recognition, and the basic factors of pedagogy should be brought to the attention of all those called on to train and drill men. Especially is this so today when the service is undergoing considerable enlargement through the enlistment of previously untrained men.
Teaching depends on many factors, the personality of the instructor, the background and personnel of the class, the subject taught, the equipment and time available, and many more. In reviewing the methods used by successful coaches, battery officers, and schoolteachers, one finds certain principles so widely used that we may feel safe in asserting that they are rules of universal application and quite as valid in teaching Latin as in coaching swimming, as true on the parade field as in the mathematics class.
These basic principles of teaching deal with but two subjects. First we must consider the instructor, his technical competence, his personality, his personal preparation for his task. We must not lose sight, as it is so easy to do, of the fact that it is not paint and canvas, nor yet the sitter, but the artist himself who makes the portrait. In the same way it is the instructor who trains the men or teaches the class, not the book, nor the instruments, nor the paper and pencil in the pupil’s hands. When this first question of the instructor is clear, we may turn to the second subject which deals with the technique of teaching itself, and since this must be applied by the teachers we shall speak first of the men themselves and next of their methods.
It may be safely assumed that any naval officer, even one who studies only because he fears the Selection Board, has a wide fund of general information, is particularly competent in several special lines, and is above the average in mentality and personality. The more able men may have wider general knowledge, more technical skills, and be superior leaders. Not even the best officer, however, can be expected to be a specialist on all matters, even those which concern his particular division on a ship. Yet he is expected to train the men under his command in all their duties. The question at once arises, “How much must the successful instructor know?”
Competence in any given subject does not imply erudition. It is far more important that the teacher be able to impart what he knows, then that he know a great deal which he cannot explain. Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address,” in spite of its brevity and limited choice of words, is far more instructive and inspiring than Webster’s Dictionary, though all will concede the latter to have the more brilliant vocabulary. So it is with instructors. What is required is that the instructor know what he is teaching and why it is important. If he is handling a gun crew he must know how the gun is to be loaded, pointed, and fired, but the mathematical exactness of his knowledge of interior ballistics is scarcely germane to the task. The same is true in other subjects and may be reduced in simplest terms to the well-known statement that before you can teach a person something you must know more than he does. If the officer does not know, though usually he does, he can easily acquire the necessary knowledge from such sources as training manuals, instruction books, and a little thought of his own.
As for the officer’s personality, it is safe to say that he is above the average of mankind, that he has learned his own abilities and limitations, and that he enjoys the respect of his men. It would be surprising, in view of the system of selection and training followed, and the experience an officer acquires, if this were not so. Important as this question is, it has been studied so much and commented on so often, that it may be dismissed from our consideration of the officer as a teacher. Let us rather consider what the officer must do in preparing himself to train his division or to conduct a class in physics.
First and foremost of the attributes of a teacher is enthusiasm—a belief in the value of his subject, a conviction that his students will be thankful some day that they have mastered it, and finally a faith in his ability to teach it. But this belief, and this conviction, and this faith are not, in themselves, enough. They must be dynamic and infectious. Making them so is one of the teacher’s greatest problems.
The lack of enthusiasm so often to be seen in instruction periods reflects itself in the attitude of the men and in their accomplishment. While it is occasionally traceable to temporary or protracted physical ailments, and is sometimes the product of overwork or worry, apathy in teaching is usually due to a lack of interest resulting from failure to recognize the importance of the task at hand, or a secret conviction on the instructor’s part that he does not know enough, may make a mistake, or cannot teach.
The officer must realize that, whatever the instruction and training he is giving his men, it is important to his ship, to the Navy, and to the nation. If it is something which does not interest him superficially, let him study it until it begins to awaken his curiosity or to present new angles and applications which he has never seen before. Only when he is interested can he hope to interest others. And once he is interested, he will push himself on until all fear as to his ignorance will disappear. He will cease to dread a mistake and, feeling that at last he has something worth while to put across, he will be ready to teach.
Basically, then, the instructor’s enthusiasm is founded on faith in his subject and in himself. And faith in himself comes from a conviction that he knows what he wants to do and how he is going to do it. This latter question is, of course, largely one of technique, but at this point it is necessary to point out the purely personal angle. Before an officer goes to drill or enters a classroom he must prepare the day’s work and know exactly what is important and what is not. The time necessary for such preparation varies. A lecturer in a university with but two classes a week may spend 15 or 20 hours of preparation for a single 50-minute class. The greatest authorities always review the work they know best before committing themselves on it. Even the authors of textbooks review what they themselves have written, before they go to class. It is a universal rule of successful teaching to be prepared for class.
By this we do not mean that an officer who is burdened with many other duties must spend several hours in getting the work of each drill in order. What we do mean is that he must have a clear picture in his mind of what he did the day before, what questions were unanswered, what he plans to do this day, what is important and what is not, what questions may be raised, and how much time to give to every point. This mental preparation before the class begins may be likened to the practice so universally recommended and so widely followed by officers of the deck. Scarcely has an officer uttered the words “I relieve you” than he runs through in his mind the contingencies which might arise during his watch. Mentally he checks the procedure for “Man Overboard,” or “Collision,” taking each step in order. Thus should the occasion come, his course will be clear, and his subconscious mind will keep him to the job at hand, without effort or hesitation. An instructor must realize that each instruction period is not only a watch to be stood, but, in a certain sense, an emergency to be met with calmness and decision.
And now we are ready to take up the last aspect of this all-important personal question of enthusiasm. Assuming the officer to be interested, competent, and prepared, what then? There is still the question of making this enthusiasm dynamic and infectious.
We have discussed those things which hinder enthusiasm and have shown how they may be removed. We must, however, recognize that there is more to the question than this. Enthusiasm is not a habitual state of mind, nor is it, with most people, something to be turned on or off at will. It must be planned for and deliberately fostered. It is the same in essence as the fighting spirit evinced by a team on the football field. Only with a football team there is a whole apparatus designed to build up the team’s will to win. There are training tables, pep meetings, a gallery and above all a coach to curse or encourage as need be. But the instructor has no training table and no gallery; over him stands no coach to counsel or condemn. If he is to enter the classroom as he should, on edge and nervous to do his job, like a boxer entering the ring, he must be these things to himself.
Before an officer takes over a group of men for drill or instruction, he must set his mind in tune with the job before him. He must use positive mental stimuli. Let him repeat to himself with conviction such phrases as:
“We have an interesting job today. The men will like it. I am lucky to have a bunch of men who are on their toes. This is the chance I have been waiting for. I am going to take the men over the jumps today as they never were before and at the end they are going to be begging for more. I bet that our division gets through the work faster, more thoroughly, and better than all the others put together.”
All this may look silly in print, yet, nevertheless, it works. Call it mental hygiene or self-hypnotism, the fact remains that the officer who peps himself up before he begins his job, does it more efficiently and is less tired at the end than the one who waits until he begins his work to warm up. To make another comparison with boxing, let us ask what sort of fighter it would be who waited until the gong went before he began taping his hands and putting on his gloves.
This brings us to the last point in personal preparation. Enthusiasm is enervating, and any well-conducted training period is far more tiring for the teacher than for the pupil. This is largely because the teacher may be said to be always trying to project himself into the place of his class in order to anticipate and understand their difficulties and remove them. He is trying to put his points over by force of will and mental concentration as much as he is by his technique. For this reason he must not only be constantly building himself up mentally before the drill period, but he must rest afterwards. This does not mean that he must go to bed, though to lie down for a few minutes would be desirable. This is seldom possible. It does mean, though, that, instead of mulling over the drill afterwards like a postmortem in bridge, he should turn to some other activity and for the time being forget that particular drill period completely.
Let us now consider that an officer possesses all the qualities that a leader should possess, that he knows his job, is interested and enthusiastic, and that both technically and emotionally he is prepared for class. What remains for him to know before he can be termed a successful teacher? There are only the rules of teaching—what we call technique. And this technique is nothing but the application of a few simple rules of psychology that are so universal in their scope that we find them equally true in all countries and all branches of instruction. For convenience we have chosen only five of these which include or imply all the others and these we can call: (1) Objective; (2) The Rule of Three; (3) The Rule of One; (4) The Divided Period; (5) Standardized Routine. Let us look at each in order.
(1) Objective. —Really there are two objectives; one is the ultimate (what you hope the men will accomplish at the end of their training), and the other is immediate (what you expect them to accomplish in a given lesson). Make these objectives clear to the men. At the beginning show them why they are being instructed, why they are important, and what you expect them to achieve. Whenever possible start with a demonstration of how the trained man works. If you are teaching algebra, take a few practical problems (be sure they are practical) and solve them. Do not be worried about whether the students know what you are doing—the important thing is for them to see that it works and that it is worth doing. If it is a gun crew and you can get a group of trained men to run through the routine while you comment on the importance of gunnery, what happens in battle, and why every man must do his part, you will have put a goal before the eyes of every man in the crew. If you cannot arrange a demonstration, at least let the men know that they are going some place and that you can and will lead them there. From time to time during the course remind them of their objective when interest seems to flag. Remember Hannibal revived his half- frozen African troops by reminding them that beyond the Alps lay Italy.
In the same way you must make your immediate objective clear to the men each day. It has been not inaptly said of teaching that the way to teach a lesson is to tell the class what you are going to talk about, to talk about it, and then to tell them what you have been talking about.
(2) The Rule of Three. —Make each lesson simple. Few people can learn more than three apparently unrelated things in one lesson, and, if the points are difficult, perhaps two, or one, is the limit. If the things are closely related it may be possible to teach more, but when there is doubt stick to the rule of three. Following this method, 30 different points can be thoroughly taught to everyone in a large class in 10 lessons. But if you try to teach all 30 points in one lesson and then repeat the lesson 10 times, it is doubtful if anyone in the class will know more than 7 of them—and no two members of the class will remember the same 7. This point is of extreme importance. Do not teach too much. You may know a lot, but don’t tell all you know.
This is the greatest fault of the average amateur teacher, and of many professionals. It is especially to be noted among the rated men who try to train those under them. We have all seen the machine gunner who, after field-stripping his piece three times in rapid succession while naming all parts, flies into a rage because nobody in the class can tell the ejector from the extractor, or show how to fit the bolt in place. Remember the old saw, “One thing at a time, and that done well, is a very good rule, as many can tell.
(3) The Rule of One. —Correct one fault at a time. After all, correction of faults is not a game for finding mistakes and making men lose face. It is a way of showing a man how to do the right thing at the right time. In this sense it differs no whit from the question of instruction which we have covered under the Rule of Three. There is a difference, however, in that the very fact the mistake is being made shows that the point in question is difficult for that particular man. It should, therefore, be treated by itself and not confused with other issues. When, as usually happens, a man makes several mistakes concurrently, the instructor must decide which is more fundamental and tackle that one first. When an improvement has been made, it is best to take up some other error the next time and to return to the first only if the man seems to have stopped trying or is showing no improvement.
There is no line of instruction in which this rule does not apply. If it is swimming, do not try to correct a man’s kick, breathing, stroke, and timing all at once. Choose whichever one is most at fault. Try to correct that one thing one day. Take another fault the second day. The third day combine these two and mention another, and so on. In rifle practice take up the question of the elbows, the sling, the bolt action, the trigger squeeze, and the like, separately. In algebra correct the addition, the factoring, the exponents, or the law of signs, one by one, not all at once.
(4) The Divided Period. —One trick in keeping your men interested and so maintaining their efficiency is to use short instruction periods. This is not, however, quite so easy as it sounds, for the length and arrangement of drills is usually determined by the commanding officer, or the executive, who worked out his schedule from an administrative rather than a pedagogical viewpoint. The way to escape this difficulty is to divide the period into different parts. As an example of what is meant we can turn to the Department of English and History at the Naval Academy which recommends that a certain number of minutes of each class be devoted to a review of the previous day’s lesson, to be followed by a short written exercise, after which the day’s lesson is discussed, with perhaps some comment on the new assignment. In this way monotony can be avoided and interest maintained.
The same technique can be applied to drills. New men have been given full instruction in rifle shooting in 5-minute rest periods during close order drill so that 60 per cent of them have qualified on the 200-yard range within 10 days after they began. It is always effective to introduce new material while drilling on the old. There are many variations, and the solution of any particular problem depends on the ingenuity and enthusiasm of the instructor. The main thing is to not keep the men at any one task for too long a stretch. A few minutes of snappy work, with everyone on his toes, and then a shift to something different, will keep things going. If it is a long period, the instructor can return to the first point a second, or even a third time and drive his point home more effectively in three 5-minute periods than with one-half hour’s unremitting labor at the same exercise.
(5) Standardized Routine. —Make the men go through the routine you prescribe. In almost every subject some men have a natural aptitude or peculiarity which encourages them to do things their own individual way. While this is permissible in an expert, it is an undesirable practice for a beginner because it implies inattention to the instruction being given or may lead to difficulties for the individual or the group later on. As a case in point it should be sufficient to point out that the failure of the second shellman on a 5-inch, 51- caliber gun to hold the shell by the middle (which seems quite unnatural) when handing it to the first shellman, may keep the latter from pushing it home promptly and so delay the firing of the gun. The same is true, though often less markedly, in other types of work.
Insist that all men qualify according to the methods recommended by the training manuals, or by yourself. Only when a man has qualified should he be permitted to experiment. He has then earned the right and may accomplish something by it. This is a point to be particularly stressed in such studies as language, navigation, rifle practice, and swimming, which are, in essense, technical skills.
These five points are the essence of all teaching technique. The principles involved are simple and their mastery is easy. Coupled with the instructor’s personal preparedness and enthusiasm they form the body and soul of all successful instruction. All these points could be elaborated upon and others dug up; books could be and have been written about them; yet when all is done and said these are enough. The application of these principles should serve materially to increase the efficiency of the officers of the Navy in facing the great task which the enlargement of the service places before them at the present time. If the question of the naval officer as a teacher has been slighted in the past it is, perhaps, because the problem is so simple.