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AT WHAT SHOULD THE UNGRADED SCHOOL AIM AND FOR WHAT CLASS OF PUPILS SHOULD IT PROVIDE?

C. R. FRAZIER, SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, WINONA, MINNESOTA

The insane asylum, the prison, the schools for the blind, the deaf, and the feeble minded are institutions which have grown out of the needs of society in caring for its abnormal members. The state has provided, equipped, and maintained these institutions generously, but while this has been doing, society has been intent upon a study of the causes of these abnormalities and the means of reducing their number, and if possibleʻ preventing them altogether. Important and necessary as are these corrective agencies, no one questions the greater importance of preventive measures such as will reduce the tendency to the abnormal and give positive direction along the lines of normal development, thus giving to society as a valuable asset that which would otherwise become a public charge and a menace.

There are in the schools and among the school population of every city, irregular, backward, incompetent, and incorrigible children. They are the abnormal elements of the school. The parental school, the special disciplinary school, and the ungraded room are the agencies that have been provided to correct these abnormal tendencies, and it is perhaps well enough to inquire what measures are being taken to prevent development of these special cases which are so difficult to deal with. Except where ungraded schools have been allowed to become mere disciplinary schools, they have aimed to take care temporarily of (1) foreign children of some maturity, but unacquainted with the English language; (2) those who have attended an ungraded rural school and have advanced unevenly in their studies; (3) those who because of irregular attendance or physical deficiency have fallen behind their grade, and finally (4) those who because of failure, due to discouragement and lack of ambition, need special individual attention. The number of those who fall into the first and second classes is small in most communities; the number of those who fall into the third class is larger, and the number of those who fall into the fourth class is still larger. The cases arising under numbers one, two, or three are probably not preventable. In most cases those falling under number four are preventable, but the same measures which are preventive for the discouraged or unambitious class will be corrective for the pupils of the first three classes, i. e., those who are irregular thru no fault of their own.

If we shall bend our energies toward reducing the number of pupils per teacher and toward arranging programs which give time for individual instruction and supervision of study, we can, in most communities, at least, relieve ourselves of the necessity of establishing and maintaining ungraded classes. The mass teaching of the modern school results in the teacher losing sight, until too late, of the peculiar difficulties of the individual child. A few days of failure and neglect leaves him in an indifferent and perhaps hopeless attitude. The tedious process of long-drawn-out torture often administered to an embarrassed pupil who is much more conscious of the scrutinizing attention of the teacher and classmates than he is of his own powers of thought, causes him to suffer agonies of embarrassment and perhaps humiliation, and the remainder of the class to become disgusted with the waste of time involved in trying to teach an individual something that they already understand. It is undoubtedly true that in just such ways as this many pupils are lost to the normal development of which they are capable and soon become abnormal charges upon the school and the home.

In some good schools the special-help hour at the close of the day, in other good schools the special help of a second teacher provided for this purpose, and in many schools, one form and another of special provision for individual help and supervision of study has been provided, but this is not at all general. Every school program for the middle and upper grades should make adequate provision for individual instruction and supervision of study. It has been found an excellent plan in some rooms to reduce the number of

class recitations by half, the pupils spending the time thus saved to the teacher in study under her supervision. Much of the individual instruction and testing is thus done during the study period, leaving the recitation time for the consideration and development of the main issues involved in the lesson. The study period in one subject may alternate with the recitation period on the same day, or an entire day may be given up to study except as broken by lessons in writing, drawing, music, etc., the next day being given up to recitations. In either case, the teacher not only has an opportunity to furnish a little help or stimulus at the initial point of difficulty, but she has a grand opportunity for teaching pupils how to study, thus gaining power over subject-matter and control over themselves, which keeps them in the line of normal development. Under this system the number of delinquents is reduced to the minimum. Pupils become conscious of power, and teachers feel that composure and poise which come from a knowledge that they now have time to do the thing which they had always wished to do but could not.

The writer has greater confidence in such arrangements as shall give the teacher an opportunity to give to special cases the attention which they need in the regular schoolroom, than he has in the special schools for special classes. When adequate provision is made for individual instruction and attention, either upon any of the plans suggested above or by other means or devices, it is believed that there will be very little need for the ungraded school, and less need than at present for the disciplinary or parental school. The positive thing done at the right time is much better than the corrective thing done when compelled by necessity.

In Winona an ungraded school was maintained for two years with a special teacher and with manual-training equipment, but the school soon came to be known as the truant school, the bad boys' school, etc., and the stigma attached to membership therein neutralized its usefulness and led the school authorities to discontinue it, a policy in which principals and teachers concurred. It was decided that these special cases would better be taken care of in the regular schoolrooms. This latter policy has been persisted in for four years with results which we think justify its continuance in our particular community.

Correspondence with superintendents in different educational centers develops the fact that other communities have had a similar unfavorable experience with ungraded schools. One city which maintains at the present time both truant schools and ungraded schools, but keeps them distinct and separate, nevertheless finds pupils and parents regarding the ungraded school as odious and the superintendent of these schools expresses himself as dissatisfied with the results of the experiment with the ungraded school. On the other hand, several superintendents of important school systems report ungraded schools working well and still more express their intention of establishing such schools

soon.

Even when every effort is made to prevent irregularities in the development of pupils and after every possibility for providing individual attention in the regular schools has been exhausted, there still may exist in some communities a need for the special ungraded schools. Granted that such schools are needed, it will require no argument to establish the aim of such a school as being simply and solely to care for the intellectual needs of pupils, who, for one cause or another aside from conduct, are unable to classify with regular classes. If the ungraded room undertakes to become a reformatory for incorrigibles and truants, or even if it is allowed to get the name of being such an institution, the very aim and purpose for which it is instituted must necessarily be defeated, for a child or a parent with even a small degree of pride will resent such a classification; it comes to smack too much of reformatory and prison. It would seem, then, to be clear that the aim should be to take care only of those whose failure has been intellectual rather than moral and to avoid scrupulously the sending of pupils into these classes whose repu tations with their fellows is bad from the standpoint of conduct. Teachers recommending pupils for assignment to the ungraded room should avoid giving the impression that such an assignment is disgraceful in any way. The teacher of the ungraded room should be a

man or woman of attractive personality, versatile in devices, whole-souled, and optimistic. He should have good insight into child nature and be skilful at diagnosing cases sent him and able to base his treatment of a case upon an intelligent understanding of it. He must not be expected to deal with large numbers as his instruction is, in the very nature of the case, individual; probably fifteen pupils are as many as any one teacher should attempt to handle at a time. He should assume and have his pupils feel that they are there temporarily for a special effort in which they are to have the help and sympathy of a competent teacher. While to some few he may have to play the rôle of taskmaster because they are unable to understand any higher language, for the most part, he will be the skilful and inspiring helper, desiring to co-operate in every way with the pupil for the accomplishment of a recognized purpose.

Another aim of the ungraded school, perfectly consistent and with the advantage of being positive, is to enable pupils who have the capacity, the health, and maturity, to do some special study under direction, make up a grade, and pass into a higher class. The bright child has his natural rights as well as the slower child, and that often means the right of advancing a grade ahead of his class, but there is danger in the so-called "skipping" of grades. The ungraded school enables the bright child, in a short time, to master the essentials in the work between his class and the next one instead of skipping them. Allowing pupils of this kind who are well known to be strong in scholarship to have membership in the ungraded school will do more than anything else to remove the curse of belonging to the ungraded school. It becomes a place for the bright and the dull student alike. If the ungraded room can come to have the name of being in existence for the purpose of giving special opportunity to the forward and backward pupil alike, and if it can be kept disassociated in the minds of pupils and parents from anything in the nature of a reformatory, it can no doubt be made a blessing to many communities. Nevertheless the advisability of establishing and maintaining ungraded rooms in any system of schools should not be conceded until every possible effort to render them unnecessary has been exhausted.

DISCUSSION

W. L. STEVENS, superintendent of schools, Lincoln, Neb.-1. The aim.-For the most part public provision for backward children is institutional in character. This plan is defective because many of these children cannot or should not be removed from home. Competition and companionship are as valuable to these children as to normal children. Institutionalism may prevent progress or produce degeneracy, leading to the almshouse or the prison. The aim, therefore, of the ungraded class should be to make out of the backward child a self-supporting member of society. It is not a question of inculcating educational facts but of getting an educational grasp of the child.

A secondary aim is to relieve the regular class teacher of certain classes of pupils whose presence in the room demands an undue amount of the teacher's time and strength.

2. The pupils for which the ungraded room should provide.-1. Defective children: those who can profit little from the ordinary methods of instruction. Learning thru the senses. Learn to do by doing.

2. Backward children: those who have entered school several years later than usual, or those who are dull but who can profit by the usual methods provided they are given more time and much individual attention. Manual training.

3. Disciplinary classes for those who are seemingly incorrigible, whose presence in the ordinary classroom makes teaching difficult and even impossible. Essential subjects. Military drill.

4. Foreign children, who need instruction in language to make classroom work intelligible. Lincoln's best field children.

3. The need of specially trained teachers, and of expert medical inspection. The abnormal child responds readily to proper stimuli when placed in congenial and well

regulated environment and will develop toward true and self-controlled manhood and womanhood.

4. Results.

HENRY P. EMERSON, superintendent of schools, Buffalo, N. Y.—I wish to say a few words relative to the opposition to technical education on the part of labor unions, and the best practical way of dealing with such opposition. Buffalo is a rather conservative city, and up to twelve years ago had done absolutely nothing in the way of manual or any special training in the public schools. Since 1895, however, manual training has been gradually extended and perfected in the grades. Three years ago the nucleus of an advance school for technical training was begun in a grammar-school building which was no longer needed for elementary work. About two months ago I recommended that the city make provision of a new building for the technical high school. This precipitated a discussion of the whole question and brought out whatever opposition existed to technical education. At a public hearing several men who professed to represent organized labor opposed the recommendation on the ground that the school was designed to produce strike-breakers and was favored by manufacturers for this reason. Thereupon, the principal of the school invited some of the most influential of the so-called labor leaders to visit the school and make themselves familiar with its work and aims. They were induced to remain long enough and to make the inspection thoro enough to understand what was going on. The result was that most of the visitors confessed that they had entertained unwarranted opinions about the school. In short, they were converted, and as a result of their change of heart the United Trades and Labor Council officially indorsed the proposition to erect and equip a new building for the school. I have related this bit of actual history in order to show that it is often better to get into touch with opponents of our plans and reason with them rather than to keep at a distance and hurl philippics against them.

CLARENCE F. CARROLL, superintendent of schools, Rochester, N. Y.-The question presented by Mr. Frazier calls for a discussion of the interests of the individual pupil. Theoretically we class pupils as precocious, normal, slow, backward, and defective. As a matter of fact these divisions are for the most part imaginary and one class passes by insensible gradations into another. At some point every child is an abnormal child, and needs especial assistance and direction at a given point. If this principle were generally accepted we should be more careful to study each child and to have at hand a diagnosis that would assist us in directing his interests.

The various suggestions that have been made for the treatment of the slow, the backward, and the defective all have their practical bearing and value. Every item of suggestion may be carried into practical effect at some point. For example, a teacher should always be willing to assist a child in need of such assistance out of school hours. She should have in mind the particular and probable need of such a child at all times. She should instinctively, by the unerring instinct of her sex, watch his recitation and his study, and provide the needed assistance at the critical moment.

On the other hand it is to my mind a mistake to prescribe as a cure for all evils the "after-school" theory. Just as serious a mistake would it be to prescribe what has been exploited as the "individual" method of assisting the slow pupil. As a system either of these is insufficient and will break down in practice.

As a matter of fact the individual may be reached and often is by an expert teacher quite as effectively in the class recitation as by the so-called "individual" method. Such a skilled teacher will so direct her questions, so present the elements of the recitation in concrete form that even the slowest child may at least during a part of each general recitation be stimulated far more successfully than by any individual scheme. A skilled teacher will thus accomplish wonders with the slowest pupil and promote every member of her class. This fact may be studied most effectively in the work of the successful teacher in the first grade where practically she never fails to advance every child.

In addition to these various so-called schemes of reaching the individual we must of course provide special classes, which is only another way of grouping pupils according to their need and ability and present attainment.

This leads me to say what I most desire to express in connection with this discussion. We should recognize some general principles in connection with this most vital question. For indeed it is of central importance to our system that the lock-step be broken, that the individual be reached, and yet that we preserve enough of unity and organization to make our work economical and effective.

The first of these general principles is in brief that we should ever seek for frequent adjustment. This adjustment should be made in the organization of the schoolroom as a whole. In every schoolroom there should be at least two working groups, and in the lower grades this number may be increased profitably to three or four or more if the school is very large.

There are two advantages patent in the grouping system. One is that the teacher by such a division as the grouping system is enabled to reach successfully practically every pupil in class recitation. Even if at the outset forty or fifty pupils appear to be well graded they quickly and inevitably drift apart and demand variety of treatment by the teacher.

Again on the group plan each pupil has an opportunity for independent, quiet study at his desk, which is likely to be wholly lacking if the pupils recite in mass. There is the added advantage that the nervous strain of the constant attention required in recitation is relieved. This division into groups makes it possible for the easy and natural transfer of pupils from one section to another if they forge ahead or fall behind in their work. Such transfer or adjustment should be frequent and a matter of course if the necessity

arises.

Again classes for backward, defective, or non-English-speaking foreigners should be organized temporarily wherever and whenever called for. It may indeed be well to have one or more permanent centers for such pupils in any city or section of a larger city, but we should never wait for the slow-moving process of such possible centers. If a group of a half-dozen such pupils appears in a given building more provision should be made for this group. If for a small school, principals may be asked to give considerable time and attention to these pupils. In the promotions it may be possible to leave a smaller number of pupils in a given room in order that this group may there receive special attention from the teacher in charge. Such a group may be provided for temporarily by a teacher added to the force for this occasion and for a limited time. In other words if the need of this local group is upon our minds and if it is our earnest purpose to provide suitable instruction, we may find a way to accomplish this end, and the superintendent, supervisor, principal, and the teaching force of the building should co-operate in meeting such emergency.

Furthermore, after a recent experience which was my first with the semi-annual promotion, I am ready to recommend most earnestly this theory for general use. If pupils are advanced twice in the year a general adjustment to the needs of all pupils can be much more successfully attained, and the need of the backward can certainly be met more satisfactorily. If a pupil is left behind his mates for an entire year his loss morally and intellectually is almost irreparable. It goes without saying that this loss is minimized materially under the system of semi-annual promotions.

To review briefly: Any theory of dealing with the individual is faulty when it attempts to prescribe definitely a single method to be followed. The time, the place, the school, the child, the teacher, the environment, all these must influence the application of the theory if we are to accomplish results most helpful to the system and to the individual and to the community.

GEORGE A. CHAMBERLAIN, principal, East Division High School, Milwaukee.— Among the reforms recently introduced in the Milwaukee school system is the half-hourhelp period at the end of the school day. The attitude of pupils toward this help-hour

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