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The Recitation by George Herbert Betts
page 14 of 86 (16%)
our interest and thought nothing will serve to clear up faulty
thinking and partly mastered knowledge like attempting to express it.
One really never fully knows a thing until he can so express it that
others are caused to know it also.

Further, every person needs to cultivate the power of expression for
its own sake. Expression consists not only of language, but the work
of the hand in the various arts and handicrafts, bodily poise and
carriage, facial expression, gesture, laughter, and any other means
which the mind has of making itself known to others. These various
forms of expression are the only way we have of causing others to know
what we think or feel. And the world cares very little how much we may
know or how deeply we may feel if we have not the power to express our
thoughts and emotions.

The child should have, therefore, the fullest possible opportunity in
the recitation for as many of these different kinds of expression as
are suitable to the work of the recitation. Not only must the teacher
be careful not to monopolize the time of the class himself, but he
must even lead the children out, encouraging them to express in their
own words or through their drawings and pictures, or through maps they
make or through the things they construct with their hands, or in any
other way possible, their own knowledge and thought. The timid child
who shrinks from reciting or going to the blackboard to draw or write
needs encouragement and teaching especially. The constant danger with
all teachers is that of calling upon the unusually quick and bright
pupil who is ready to recite, thus giving him more than his share of
training in expression and robbing thereby the more timid ones who
need the practice.

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