Comrade Enver Hoxha on the Methods of Teaching
I wish to say a few words also about the method and style of work of teachers and educationalists.
Our socialist school demands of teachers and educators a new, revolutionary method and style of work; and for this to be so, the teachers themselves should be revolutionaries, should be educated in this way so that they may educate also the school children and students. The programs and textbooks built in this spirit and on new methods, will teach the teachers and educators themselves in this way. There is no doubt about this, but this will be insufficient if they confine themselves within their own castle, to their school world, and fail to feel and temper themselves as active members of the vigorous revolutionary development of our socialist society. It they fail to live and work in this way, regardless of texts and programs, they will not be shock workers, innovators and revolutionaries in the method and style of their work, they will be overcome by routine, formalism, red-tapism and the method and style of their teaching will be inert, lifeless, they will turn to that style and method of the bourgeois school which is ready at prescribing recipes and which, pretending to be «didactic» or of an «experienced pedagogy», are anti-dialectic, non-revolutionary, reactionary and static.
The method and style of teaching are the principal profession of teachers and professors who should become competent and improve them. It will be difficult for us and we would not be doing well if we handed out recipes, and the teachers and professors, on their part, would err if they thought that the method and style of their work has reached perfection and should be taken as a perfect model for all. The good experience in this line should be spread, but efforts and struggle, the improvement of their capabilities will create still better methods and style of work. There are no limits to perfection. Therefore. I think, this important problem should not be inserted into the mould of formalism and typiness but should keep developing. This should not be taken to mean amateurism and not based firmly on programs and textbooks. It is necessary to pursue the way of a worker who is both an innovator and a revolutionary in his work, who turns out of his lathe the detail called for in the most perfect shape, and not something not asked of him or which is the product of a sickly imagination. The good method and style of work should serve its purpose.
Everything will be done well when the teacher and professor have a good grasp of the subject matter. Apart from this, there can be no good method and style of work either for the worker, or the teacher and professor. Once a teacher masters his subject matter well, he will be able to gauge the cultural level of his students, their inclinations and psychology, to keep modifying the style and method of his work to comply with the situation and will thus arrive at that stage of his method which he will deem perfect.
A method of this kind will oblige the teacher and professor (and here they will show themselves to be revolutionary and enterprising) to use different forms of presenting the subject matter, to use a variety of forms that will lead them away from stereotypy, dogmatism, formalism and other similar evils. It is only in this way, I think, that they will not be afraid of questions asked by the students, and the latter will not be afraid of questions asked by the teacher and professor. This will create in the classroom a living, pure, untarnished, warm, fitting and revolutionary community in the process of the osmosis of thought and feelings of students and the teacher and that of imparting the teacher’s knowledge to the students.
A teacher’s verbalism and sickly «academicism» are nothing but a mania and a striking weakness behind which lies the deficiency of his knowledge of the subject matter and a tendency to keep this hidden from his students. A teacher of this type resorts to these methods in order to cover up the vacuum in his «knowledge» with meaningless verbiage. This, of course, creates a false situation between the educator and students, is a stumbling block to the complete education of students who get bored and try to escape from this situation by not being attentive, by chatting, by making noise or by scribbling senseless things in their notebooks. All these manifestations of students, which are the result of an objective situation, are attributed by the unmethodic and flimsily prepared teacher to the subjective aspect of the students, to their lack of discipline, of good conduct, and so on. In order to correct this unfavourable situation for him, this teacher, being unable to make a self-critical analysis of his work and feeling superior to the students in all respects, resorts to unbecoming, peremptory «pedagogical» methods, all of which point out clearly «authoritarianism», formal discipline, the force of marks, sickly antipathies, contemptuousness — all of them anti-educational and anti-pedagogic manifestations. The Party should take note of these and many other matters in the political, ideological and methodical education of teachers and educators who have been entrusted with a major task.
While upholding with all firmness the extensive application of the line of the masses in the development of education and the work of our schools, while firmly encouraging within this framework the initiative of schools and teachers at the grass roots to carry out in a creative way the programs of teaching, to use textbooks in a creative way and to view them with a critical eye, to perform experiments, we should, at the same time, base these initiatives always on the principle of democratic centralism.
I wish to say something also about the question of marks. This problem, whether to use marks or not, is being discussed by teachers and educators alike. This is a correct and fruitful discussion. All of us can express an opinion to contribute to this discussion which, sooner or later, will lead to a conclusion.
Marks have continually been used in schools. The idea is created that if marks are not used, schools cannot function. Thus, marks have assumed the form of «a regulator» of learning, they have penetrated deep into the minds of students and teachers as something that gauges mathematically every effort of theirs, from their mastery of the subject matter to their conduct. A teacher’s authority towards his students is linked up, willy-nilly, with marks.
It can be claimed that marks are a stimulus to learning, but the contrary holds also true. They may also be an impediment, they may become a harmful weapon in the hands of unprincipled teachers or educators and may not be, in all cases and at all times, a stimulus to learning for a student who, once he receives a good mark, rests on his oars and cruises behind his marks.
For our schools the problem is posed otherwise. The principal aim of our new school is to imbue all students with sound education and culture. Our school is of a massive character. It has done away with all barriers which hampered people from attending school, as the bourgeois school does. In bourgeois schools, the question of marks, in addition to other obstacles, has had the character of putting on the brakes, of selecting, and it is easy to imagine against the children of which social class.
Our new school, being of a massive character, aims at having everybody learn, and learn well at that, so that nobody may have to repeat the class. This does not imply that all will shine but all will be and should be trained for life and, when people will have passed through school to life, they will not be asked what marks they have received but how well they will do the job they are assigned to.
I think that it is necessary to do away altogether with the idea expressed by: «I learn in order to receive a good mark». Fix your thought on: «I must learn, since without learning I can neither live nor work, since without acquisition of knowledge I cannot serve the people, the country and society properly». Learning is an essential nourishment for man. In order to implant this correct notion on students, we should not make resort to marks but to the political and educational work with them.
In this connection, we should also fight against the idea that receiving a school certificate or degree from any school is a privilege and a means to draw personal benefits from, and implant the idea that a diploma is only a certificate of having been through school, of having acquired a certain degree of knowledge and specialization which one should put into the service of society.
Politically, therefore, we have to do a lot of educational work so that all of those who attend school should study not to get a mark or a diploma in the petty bourgeois sense, but to acquire as much knowledge as possible.
The acquisition of knowledge in school does not depend at all on marks, it depends on a correct grasp, politically first of all, of the subject matter, on the clear, unsophisticated and understandable programs and textbooks, on the ability, methods and styles of teachers and professors, it depends on all school and out of school education. According to my opinion, these, and not marks, are decisive factors.
Some may say: «These are correct, but have we reached to the point of discontinuing marks?», and from this reach the conclusion: «Discontinuing the use of marks may be untimely».
I may be mistaken, but my opinion is that our conditions are not bad, not to say very good, since we must do a lot to make them even better. Our political conditions are very good, since we have a fiery, revolutionary youth who understand too well the importance of schooling and learning and understand this in a revolutionary way. The other conditions we should and we will improve. What is now called untimely we should see to it that it becomes timely.
But how? By discontinuing marks? With what should we replace this stimulus?
First, I think that if we accept that marks are only stimuli, we could replace them with many other stimuli, moral, of course; secondly, we should discontinue the marking system on a five or ten basis as we have it at present and, temporarily, adopt that of general valuation, which we have used more or less also before, namely, «excellent, good, insufficient, etc.», and gradually abandon these, too, and replace them with more definite and qualificative characteristics to gauge the ability, efforts and other qualities and weaknesses of students which I think are the only thing to give a full idea of the students and comply with our new pedagogy. The main features of a student are reflected by these characteristics not by dry marks.
We are not practising the marking system now in the Party School or other courses. We may first begin to discontinue the marking system in primary schools and, I think, there is no danger for the youngsters to discontinue studying, on the contrary, we educate them in a new spirit when they are young, to study not for a mark or under its dread and influence. Whereas, for other schools, we should proceed at a gradual pace, making the necessary experiments, as I just said, or adopting other forms.
Lastly, marks are also connected with promotion of students, they are, so to say, a reference card for the teachers and professors. How will this be done; will the school child or student be promoted on the basis of some characteristics? Characteristics should be the vantage point for teachers and professors, but, like marks, they should formulate these characteristics on an objective basis, when they pose questions to a student, when they control his homework or when they test him. In communicating his impressions and ideas to students, why should the teacher use dry marks and not more living, more political and more educational expressions and assessments? This is a more appropriate form. And in the end, when the student is given his certificate of promotion, this should be based on the sum total of these characteristics of each teacher in collaboration with the teacher in charge of the class or with persons charged with this task. Of course, these forms and changes are debatable. Our teachers possess a major experience and, of course, those who are in favour of continuing the marking system have not only their arguments why this system should be continued but also how to make marks a stimulus, while those opposed to keeping the marking system have also their ideas of how and with what to replace it. Therefore, in conclusion, let this matter be discussed and debated like all the problems of our new school.
Source: Enver Hoxha, Speeches 1967–1968, Tirana 1969, Eng. ed., pp. 105-113.
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