Courses of Instruction in Relation to the Problem of Grouping
We find ourselves led by the discussion of groupings to a consideration of different levels of difficulty in subjects of instruction and to the rate of progress of each individual in each subject. The teacher in the one-room school has no difficulty in seeing the wisdom of holding together those pupils who have a common grade of knowledge in geography. In like fashion the class in arithmetic must be as homogeneous as possible. There is, however, no recognized demand that a certain section of geography be coupled in the education of any child with any particular section of arithmetic. Pupils are grouped in the one-room school with reference to each subject considered by itself.
New Problems of Grouping in Large Schools
When schools grow to the size where pupils are put into different rooms, as in an eight-room building, a problem arises which was never faced in the one-room school. It is the problem of carrying a group of pupils through all the subjects at the same rate. Thus, when the pupils in an ordinary city school have been grouped together in arithmetic, there are obvious advantages from an administrative point of view in keeping them together in reading and in geography. In ordinary practice the graded school assumes that it is possible to find means of keeping the group together for long periods in all subjects.
This assumption leads to the necessity of asking a kind of question which did not confront the teacher in the one-room school. The kind of question which comes up in the graded school can be illustrated as follows: When a pupil is old enough and intellectually mature enough to study the products and industries of North America in his geography, what phase of arithmetic will be appropriate to hold his attention and stimulate his thinking? When a pupil is old enough to read the history of his own city, what other reading material will insure real effort on his part?
The one-room school escapes these questions for the most part because it is at liberty to allow the pupil to take a different pace in each subject. The one-room school is a place where the subjects of instruction taken in their totality, or the curriculum, as the whole series of subjects may be called, is usually not recognized as important. Each subject has a sequence of its own, but the curriculum as a whole is not thought out. In the graded school the curriculum is one of the matters of major importance. The graded school not only grades pupils; it grades subject-matter of instruction. The importance of this contrast cannot be overemphasized. Many of the problems of the modern school arise at this point.
Fundamentally Different Views on the Curriculum
Let us consider certain cases which will make clear the importance of the contrast. The following extract from the report of the state superintendent of schools in Maine sets forth a definite view on the matters under discussion:
More Careful System. The number of pupils in ungraded schools is shown to be 29,089, a decrease of 1986 from the figures shown for the previous year. It is clear that the work of the schools is becoming more carefully systematized. This fact is further attested by the reduction in the number of schools not using a course of study. In 1904 there were 2323 schools that were reported as following no definite outline of studies. In 1913 this number had dropped to 827 and, as indicated by this report, has now been further reduced to 670. This change, already increasing to no small extent the efficiency of the schools, suggests a promise of the greater advantages that would follow the adoption of a course that would in essentials be uniform for the state. While an absolute uniformity that would prevent individual initiative and wise experimentation would retard progress and is not to be desired, there is much to be said in favor of an agreement on established and essential points for all parts of the state school system.[34]
On the other hand, practical efforts are being made in many quarters to overcome the rigidity of the graded system by devising methods of taking the individual out of the group whenever the course of study proves to be inapplicable to his particular needs. In Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, the elementary schools have their programs for the various grades so arranged that language comes for every grade at exactly the same hour in the day; in like fashion, all arithmetic classes are held at the same time, and so with geography and the other subjects. Through this arrangement it is possible for a child who is backward in a single subject to withdraw from the group with which he spends most of the day and to go for the period to another class where he receives a different type of instruction in the subject in which he is behind.