Page images
PDF
EPUB

In the methods of management and teaching, the aim is not to see how little this room can diverge from the grade room, but rather how near we can come to naturalness. A greater freedom is permitted-physical freedom and mental freedom. The attempt is made to permit pupils to think and move and mingle very much as they do in the home. They are permitted to study aloud, to gather in groups about a table, and study, to pass to the blackboard for their study, and so forth. They are taught in groups as far as possible, but individually if necessary.

Special ungraded rooms.-These rooms for incorrigibles and truants are not considered in any sense as places of commitment for school offenders. They are considered simply as another kind of school in which these boys can get a different kind of school life. It is believed that these boys have lapsed for the time being to the infantile or the animal. They have let themselves go, and let go of themselves, until they have become creatures of impulse, and they must be rebuilt. These rooms are to reconstruct them, and the management and teaching is ordered to that end. The truant officer does not take these boys to the special school. They are assigned by ordinary transfer. The teachers are in all cases selected young men, not scholastic young men, but young men who have the power to get into boy world, and to make this school a lifelike place. The theory on which the management is based is that, if a school is like life, the life of the big world which the boy seeks when he plays truant, he will be willing to stay in school just as he is willing to stay in life, and the theory works. These boys prefer to stay in school. They prefer to stay in this kind of a school to anything else that can be offered them. The great benefit to the boys from this treatment comes through the fact that while they are in this lapsed condition they do not have to conform to prescribed environment. In large measure they make their own.

The methods in these rooms include frequent hikes over the hills and adjournment to the baseball diamond, even right in the midst of the school session. These rooms are distributed over the city so that there may not be any large number of these boys gathered together in one center, and so that they may be given this near-to-nature life and management.

The course of study has been modified more than in the ungraded rooms. The injunction to the teacher is to restore the boy to a normal status. Much more manual work is used in the day's exercises than in the ordinary schoolroom.

Assignments of pupils to these rooms are made on the request of the school principal, indorsed by the special supervisor. Dismissals are made on the judgment of the teacher of the special ungraded

room, and indorsement of the special supervisor. An assistant superintendent of schools has a general supervision of the rooms.

The maximum pay of the teachers is $25 a month more than the maximum of the regular grade teacher. This difference in pay has never been the cause of any trouble to the department.

Permanent ungraded room.-The candidates for the permanent ungraded rooms have nearly all spent some time just previously in an ordinary ungraded room. Their teachers and parents have come to recognize that their dullness or queerness renders them unfit for regular grade conditions. Therefore, after a trial in the ordinary ungraded room, they are transferred to the permanent room. No attempt is made to do anything more than merely to give the children such elementary subjects as each one can take, and at such a pace as they can take them. The enrollment may run as high as 30 to a teacher. On leaving this room, the pupils find some occupation involving only simple tasks, and are absorbed into society.

The compensation for the teachers is the same as in the ordinary ungraded room.

Parental school. The parental school of Los Angeles so far has been run in conjunction with the juvenile court. The school department furnishes the teacher and course of study; the court furnishes the pupils. It is the intention of the city to open a school of this kind, independent of the court, in the near future. This will come near to fitting into our system of special classes. At the present time the cooperative work with the juvenile court has worked very well.

The school, at present known as Juvenile Hall, occupies commodious up-to-date buildings on 11 acres of ground. The course of study emphasizes agricultural, commercial, domestic, and manual branches. The teachers are paid on the schedule of the special ungraded rooms.

Deaf classes.-The deaf classes, both primary and advanced, use lip methods only. The maximum enrollment is 7 pupils per

teacher.

Results. First. In the special rooms the pupils have their needs met. They have a right to this, and they do not get it in a grade. Second. All pupils in these ungraded rooms, both the ordinary and the special, acquire better habits and more power of concentration of mind. They excel in these respects the pupils of the grade classes. Those who go to high school from these rooms make a smaller per cent of failures than those who go from the regular grades.

Third. By removing the misfits the enrollment in the graded room can be increased. In that way no financial loss follows from maintaining a class for only 15 or 20 pupils to the teacher.

Fourth. In practically all cases of pupils transferred for disorderly conduct in the grade the trouble ends as soon as the transfer is rade.

This shows that the trouble was due to conditions, and the way to treat the case is to change conditions.

Fifth. These rooms improve the general relationships of pupils and teachers throughout the system. The following tabulation shows the bearing on suspensions and corporal punishments of these rooms for the first 5 years after they were established.

[blocks in formation]

In a city school system where the record of suspensions and corporal punishments has been coming down with such a steady pace, while the record of enrollment is going up with such leaps and bounds, it would seem that there must be some agency or agencies at work to account for the same. First and most important of these is the ungraded

rooms.

A continuation of this tabulation would have shown continued diminution in the number of cases of discipline. It was discontinued because the case seemed to have been fully established.

Sixth. The personnel of the boys who are sent to the special ungraded rooms has steadily improved since these rooms were established; that is, the boys who are sent to these rooms now are fully 50 per cent better in character qualities than were those who were sent there six years ago, when the rooms were first opened. The city is now practically cleared of the typical school hobo. This shows that the influence of these rooms is working its way upstream and checking the drifting of the city school children into idleness, truancy, and criminality.

Seventh. The incorrigibles and truants, after they have been transferred from the special ungraded rooms to a grade class or after they leave school to go to work, are hardly ever heard from again because of trouble. They seem to be absorbed into good citizenship.

Eighth. In general all the children of all kinds of schools in the city are made happier, and especially the people of the city are made happier.

The intermediate schools, which are being established in Los Angeles for seventh and eighth grade pupils, together with ninth and tenth year high-school students, are ministering to the needs of some pupils whom the ungraded rooms had to take under the regular grade system of organization. They are a part of the one great plan, of which the ungraded rooms are also a part, for so diversifying school work that varying needs of communities and individuals may be met.

Columbia, S. C. Ernest S. Dreher, superintendent of city schools.At Columbia, S. C., during the summer of 1912 the school board opened a summer school for backward and irregular pupils. This school was in session three hours a day from July 15 to September 6. The number of pupils enrolled was 108, and the number of teachers employed was 5. Only pupils who failed, who were promoted on trial, or who withdrew during the session were admitted. Those who failed paid tuition at one-half the regular rates; the others were charged the full amount.

At the close of the session examinations were held, and 67 pupils were promoted. As the enrollment was 89, the percentage promoted was 75.2. The record for the high school deserves special mention. In June 24 pupils failed in this school; of this number 16 attended the summer school and 13 were promoted.

The cost of maintaining the school is shown in the following statement: Teachers' salaries, $502.50; janitor's services and incidentals, $36.28; total, $538.78. Deduct amount received from tuition fees, $208; net cost, $330.78.

SEGREGATION OF THE SEXES.

Marinette, Wis. G. H. Landgraf, superintendent of city schools.Last fall a plan was begun for the segregation of sexes in the physics and chemistry classes, modifying the courses to suit the particular needs of the classes, and in physics using different texts for the sexes. The course in physics given to the girls' classes is largely informational and cultural and less technical. On the other hand, the boys' courses are more technical and mathematical and look toward fitting the boys to take scientific and engineering courses in the colleges and universities, and in fitting them to apply their knowledge of technical physics in the arts and industries. In chemistry the same principle governs the differentiation of the work. The chemistry of the girls' classes is built up largely around the chemistry of the home, of cooking, food values, and adulterations and their detection, while that of the boys' classes is like that of physics, more technical and "scientific," calculated to be of most service to them in higher institutions and in the arts and crafts.

Experience in the limited tentative trial of the plan seems to demonstrate its value to all concerned and has resulted in greater enthusiasm and better work in each section. It is thought also that its success points the way to profitable segregation and differentiation of secondary school work in other subjects, as biology, English, and mathematics.

Riverside, Cal. A. N. Wheelock, superintendent of city schools.-In 1911 complete segregation of boys and girls in secondary schools was

adopted. A group of buildings for the boys' school was begun, and in September, 1911, the schools were organized as distinct schools, each with its principal and corps of teachers.

South Bend, Ind. L. J. Montgomery, superintendent of city schools. In January, 1913, beginning with the new semester of the school year, we segregated into boys' classes and girls' classes all pupils of the eighth grade. Reports from teachers are constantly becoming more enthusiastic over this division of the work. Both boys and girls seem to enter with more enthusiasm into their class work and many objectionable features which have arisen in mixed classes have disappeared. Discipline is easier and attention is more concentrated upon the work. A somewhat different kind of work is offered, especially in arithmetic.

Everett, Wash. C. R. Frazier, superintendent of city schools.—In September, 1912, the boys and girls were separated for class work in the greater part of the high-school work. Beginning with February, 1913, the eighth-grade pupils (all of whom are now gathered at the Central building) were also segregated into boys' classes and girls' classes for all of their work. This step, both with reference to the high school and the eighth grade, has been taken in the belief that there is enough difference in the way the minds of boys and girls attack a subject to classify them separately. Teachers find themselves presenting subject matter in a different way to a class of boys than to a class of girls. So far the testimony of the teachers has been favorable to the segregation in this respect. It is thought to be much better to have the boys and girls separated in the grammar and highschool grades for the reason that this is just the stage when boys and girls are apt to become too conscious of the attractions of the opposite sex. This plan also facilitates the classification of pupils for their industrial work.

SCHOOL AS EMPLOYMENT BUREAU.

Selma, Ala. A. P. Harman, superintendent of city schools.—In a very simple manner we have made the superintendent's office an employment bureau for graduates and former pupils of the schools. Also we supply business men with boys who work part time afternoons and Saturdays. In order to place this plan in operation I sent a circular letter to business and professional men, placing the schools at their service and calling attention to our ability to report accurately as to the character of our pupils. It is interesting to note that we have had more calls for boys and young men than we could supply; that no adverse report has been made upon any pupil whom we have recommended for a position; that the movement has been indorsed in the news columns and in the editorial columns of the local papers.

« PreviousContinue »