Problems in securing and holding attention

ply dominated for the time being, or perhaps permanently, by unrelated trains of thought, or feelings which are the results of recent experiences. Suppose, for instance, you have a class in history, to which the pupils come direct from a class in English literature. Let us say that the topic for discussion in this last class was interesting to all the members, and made a deep impression upon them. It stimulated their emotions, which, of course, tended to persist after the inciting stimuli were removed. The pupils come into your class, and your teaching does not arouse lively feeling, but instead fails to awaken much response in either the thought or the emotional attitudes of the students. The impressions made in the preceding class, having established themselves in consciousness, are determining the trend of thought of some or all of your pupils. It is a fundamental law of human nature that an individual will yield to the most persuasive and potent appeals to consciousness. In no other way could he adjust himself to the world in which he lives. Sometimes, of course, it would be better if he resisted stimuli that appealed to him strongly; but the law is that he can not on his own volition make unimpressive, uninteresting, and dull things seem to be of importance. This is the task of the teacher. It will not do simply

to say: "Give me your attention", or "If you don't attend, you must leave the room", or anything of the kind. These latter expedients may temporarily arouse attitudes which will hold the distracting emotions in check; but this inhibition will not last long if there is nothing else to awaken strong feeling, and so to claim the attention.

There are many details respecting the arrangement and conduct of a class which tend to favor the persistence and domination of interests foreign to the work of the hour. If significant noises are made anywhere within the hearing of pupils, they will be likely to arouse irrelevant trains of thought and feeling. Continuous and more or less undifferentiated noise, as the roar of a waterfall, the sighing of the wind, etc.,-noise that does not suggest any particular past or anticipated experience to pupils, is much less distracting than periodical noises which awaken curiosity, as of people walking or talking in the hall outside the class-room, and the like. Any sound or any movement striking on the pupil's senses, and which has been associated with some interesting or vital incident in his life, will be likely to shunt him from the concerns of the class-room into irrelevant trains of thought. Human nature is constructed on this plan, which is carried through most completely in the early years.

There is another source of distraction found in many school-rooms. A pupil may sit in his seat hidThe influence of den from the view of the teacher the eye upon a pupil's attention

by heads in front of him. Now, it is a simple matter of human nature that the moment you lose the eye of pupils, you release your strongest hold on them. Under such circumstances, the chances are that the stimuli you are presenting to your class will soon become impotent, and the more interesting experiences outside will get the upper hand in their consciousness, with the result that their attention will wander. Often pupils (usually those who are least strongly attracted by the work of the class) occupy corners of the class-room remote from the teacher, so that his personality as revealed through his eye, the timbre of his voice, and the changing expressions of his features can not play upon their extra-school emotions and trains of thought, and hold them in check. Of course, if the teacher could make his work of such absorbing interest that it would awaken profound emotional states, it would hold the wandering pupils anyway. But generally the new thing one must present in the class-room very much needs reinforcement by every possible ex> pressional accompaniment of voice and face and eye, (which is perhaps the greatest factor in discipline)

and even bodily attitudes, in order that it may capture and hold the attention of pupils.

The coming and going of people in a class-room after the work has started is always a source of Cultivating confusion. Once the signal has been distractions given for beginning the duties of the hour, no one should be admitted to the class, except on the most urgent business. The practice in some schools of allowing any one to enter a class any time he pleases is wasteful, and destructive of attentive attitudes on the part of pupils. Sometimes principals have the habit of sending messages to teachers while they are conducting classes, with the inevitable result that a general air of distraction is spread throughout the entire school. When a teacher is given a message by the janitor, all pupils set to work to figure out what it contains. It is safe to say that every message a teacher receives during the progress of a class wastes at least five minutes of the pupil's time; and it may spoil the whole hour.

An open door of a class-room may keep an entire class in a constant state of distraction, if there is any activity whatever going on in the hall without. It is inevitable. Groups of adults even are always interested in people who come late to meetings, or who pass by an open door of the room in which they are congregated. It is a law of human nature, as

true of college faculties as of high-school or elementary-school pupils-that people who are in action about us attract our attention. It is a more or less automatic and perhaps instinctive reaction, which makes it all the more difficult to control.

In some schools the doors of the class-rooms are provided with glass panels, so that a principal, superintendent, or visitor may at any moment look in to see what is going on. Usually the doors are in such a position that the inspector can peer into the eyes of the pupils, and the pupils can look at the visitor, which is exactly what they will do as long as he has his face glued to the panel. One sometimes hears it said that pupils will easily get accustomed to this sort of thing; but the experiences of daily life show such a statement to be, as a rule, false. It would be entirely justifiable for a teacher to hang curtains over the glass panels in the doors of his class-room, provided his superiors do not object too strenuously. He could certainly do better work by eliminating all distracting influences of this char

acter.

The method of seating pupils is often a source of distraction in a class-room. Arranging pupils in a semicircle so that one member may see the faces of the others when they are reciting, greatly favors attentive attitudes toward the work in hand. When a