Knowledge of Alphabet

KNOWLEDGE of the alphabet should be treated as a separate subject altogether. The letters should be treated as pictures which the children will first be taught to recognize and name. Writing will follow as part of the drawing lesson. Instead of making daubs of their letters, pupils should be able to make perfect copies of the models placed before them. They would not, therefore, be called upon to draw the letters till they had acquired control over their fingers and the pen. It is criminal to stunt the mental growth of a child by letting him know as much only as he can get through a book he can incoherently read in a year. We do not realize that, if a child was cut off from the home life and was merely doomed to the school, he would be a perfect dunce for several years. He picks up information and language unconsciously through his home, not in the school-room. Hence do we experience the immense difference between pupils belonging to cultured homes and those belonging to uncouth homes, which are no homes in reality.

— Harijan : Nov. 10, 1933

A Warning

The knowledge of the alphabet has its place, but I should warn you against a misplaced emphasis on it. Do not proceed on the assumption that you cannot proceed with rural instruction without first teaching the children or adults how to read and write. Lots of useful information on current affairs, History, Geography and Elementary Arithmetic can be given by word of mouth before the alphabet is touched. The eyes, the ears and the tongue come before the hand. Reading comes before writing, and drawing before tracing the letters of the alphabet. If this natural method is followed, the understanding of the children will have a much better opportunity of development than when it is under check by beginning the children's training with the alphabet.

— Harijan : Aug. 31, 1934

In My Scheme of Things

In my scheme of things, the hand will handle tools before it draws or traces the writing. The eyes will read the pictures of letters and words, as they will know other things in life ; the ears will catch the names and meanings of things and sentences. The whole training will be natural, responsive, and, therefore, the quickest and the cheapest in the land.

The children of my school will, therefore, read much more quickly than they will write. And when they write, they will not produce daubs as I do even now ( thanks to my teachers ), but they will trace correct letters even as they will trace correct figures of the subjects they may see. If the schools of my conception ever come into being, I make bold to say that they will vie with the most advanced schools in quickness, so far as reading is concerned, and even writing, if it is common ground that the writing must be correct and not incorrect as now is in the vast majority of cases.

— Harijan : Aug. 28, 1937