The Gary Plan for distributing Pupils and enlarging the Scope of School Work
To meet the problems of economy and of adaptation of buildings to educational needs, ingenious ways of rotating classes have been devised. The most conspicuous experiment of this type is that worked out by Superintendent Wirt in Gary, Indiana. Indeed, Superintendent Wirt has advocated the most elaborate extension of the school building and its grounds and a corresponding expansion of the school program. For him the school playground becomes an additional space of great importance in rotating the pupils. Shops and laboratories are to be kept full all day and even in the evening; corridors are to be used as assembly rooms and recreational spaces. He goes so far as to draw the churches and the public library into his plan. With all these available places in which pupils may be instructed, a program is adopted which provides that each room with its special teacher be continuously engaged in some kind of teaching. Pupils are sent from room to room, the theory being that each room shall be kept full at all hours and that each pupil shall get all the different kinds of advantages which the elaborate course of study offers. The reorganization of grade work which is necessary to carry out this program reaches deeper than the addition of new subjects. To make rotation complete, each teacher must be a special teacher and the pupils must move from room to room. Even the lowest grades must be organized under what is known as the departmental plan. Thus, even a second-grade child gets his reading with one teacher and his arithmetic with another.