The New School adapted to Adolescence
Has the school met the legitimate demand for a suitable education of the adolescent? The answer is that the school has been slow in meeting this situation. The archaic form of school organization which attached the seventh and eighth grades to the elementary school has hindered greatly a proper recognition of the special needs of adolescence. The child of twelve or thirteen does not need a review of the elementary work so much as a preparation for the active life of adulthood. The adolescent needs to be given an insight into the organization of society. He needs to be brought into contact with the ways and languages of other peoples. Fortunately, the keener educational insights of the present day are bringing us to a recognition of these needs. The school for the adolescent is beginning to emerge out of the current reorganizations of the seventh and eighth grades.
In many schools these two grades have been gradually separating from the rest of the elementary grades. The teaching has been organized on the departmental plan; that is, a number of special teachers, each dealing with a single subject, replace the single teacher who has charge of the whole curriculum in the lower grades. Furthermore, the curriculum has been enlarged. Manual arts and household science have been introduced and, in some cases, other subjects which were formerly offered only in the high school. A new type of school, including the seventh, eighth, and ninth grades and known as the junior high school or the intermediate school, is appearing.
Where these and like changes have not been made in the seventh and eighth grades, criticism has made itself increasingly heard because the pupils do not get ahead in these grades. The reviews which are sometimes carried on at great length in preparation for promotion into the high school are a waste of time and energy and leave the pupils without enthusiasm for school work and without habits of concentration.
In an earlier chapter it was shown that the seventh and eighth grades came from Europe during the decade 1840-1850. Every line of evidence which is taken up points to the desirability of a complete reorganization of the work of these grades.
The spread of the junior-high-school idea has been remarkably rapid. This is due to the growing conviction that pupils in the seventh and eighth grades require a higher type of instruction and discipline than that which is supplied in the lower grades. The curriculum is being enriched by the addition of science, foreign language, mathematics other than arithmetic, and several of the practical arts. Instruction is being intrusted to teachers of broader training, and the individual needs of pupils are being more adequately met by the introduction of some elective courses.