What has been accomplished in the Wool Market school can be done in almost any community in the South. This and similar instances that might be mentioned lend strength to the contention that adequate school advantages can be provided for the country children in the community near the farm home.[33]
EXERCISES AND READINGS
A new school building with twelve recitation rooms is to be built. Shall the windows of the classrooms open to the north and south or to the east and west? Shall the lockers for coats and hats be in the general corridors or shall there be a cloakroom off each room? How high shall the blackboards be from the floor? How many sides of the room shall be supplied with blackboards? How high shall each step be in the stairways? If the building is designed to accommodate six hundred pupils, what rooms besides the recitation rooms shall be provided? How big should the auditorium be? Should it have a large stage? Shall the toilets be in the basement or on each floor? Is it legitimate to spend money on a teachers’ rest room? Where should the principal’s office be?
Is there any difference between the kind of school building to be recommended in San Antonio, Texas, and Minneapolis, Minnesota? What color should the walls of a classroom be? How much playground space should there be around a school building designed for six hundred pupils?
Should school buildings be frame buildings? Should doors open into the building? What is a fire drill, and why is it required?
Report of a Study of Certain Phases of the Public-School System of Boston, Massachusetts, made under the auspices of the Boston Finance Commission, Document 87 (1916), pp. 185-213. Reprinted by Teachers College.
Strayer, G. D. Score Card for School Buildings. Teachers College.
Terman, L. M. The Building Situation and Medical Inspection. Denver School Survey. Published by the Denver School Survey Committee.
[CHAPTER VII]
GROUPING PUPILS IN CLASSES
Transition to Problems of Internal Organization
The preceding chapters have dealt, for the most part, with aspects of school organization which are external to the classroom and to the operations of instruction. The external organization is set up, however, for the sole purpose of making class work possible. We shall progress, therefore, in our statement of educational problems and principles by turning to the consideration in detail of the organization of the groups to which instruction is given.