The record given in the diagram for the third, fourth, and fifth grades is an impressive exhibition of increasing incoördination between the pupils and the work of the school. So striking is the difficulty in these later grades that we are led to ask for an explanation. This is supplied in part by the diagram in the middle of the figure and by the one at the right. These present the records of failures in two of the most important school subjects.
A record of constantly diminishing failures in reading is exhibited in the middle diagram. This shows that the teachers judge that the pupils improve steadily in reading. There is a satisfactory response to the methods of teaching reading and to the demands of the upper grades. Those pupils who have difficulty in reading in the lower grades are held back or are helped to master the art. The evident fact is that improvement in reading is, according to the record, continuous and satisfactory.
The diagram at the right shows the record in arithmetic. Here is the cause of many of the nonpromotions shown in the diagram at the left. Failures mount up in the middle grades at a rate which shows with manifest clearness that something is radically wrong.
One may venture several remarks in the presence of such records. It does not seem likely that the pupils are stupid, since it is shown that they can read. It is to be noted that they do not have any option about taking arithmetic, nor do they determine what arithmetic they shall study. They are evidently not getting a section of arithmetic in each of the grades which suitably parallels the reading which is administered to them.
Efforts to adjust Instruction to Pupils
The conditions shown in the figure are paralleled in many school systems. The result is that school officers, seeing the difficulty of doing justice to the pupils, have made radical changes in the grading system in order to meet individual needs. Two extracts from reports by superintendents will show the extent to which school systems will go.
A study of the performances of the failures in Boise has convinced the entire force that the repeater is generally a quitter, and does about as poor work in his second attempt as in his first trial at the work of a given grade. The stamp of disapproval has been placed upon him. He starts on his second attempt with a grievance against the teacher and the entire institution. The parents as well as the child feel injured, so that the teacher must combat both the antagonism of the home and the hostility of the pupil, who has been trained for failure and not for success, and who becomes either morbidly sensitive or brazenly indifferent. What the laggard would probably do as a repeater is therefore quite definitely known. If he were permitted to advance, he could hardly do worse and he might do better. It is less expensive and more human to promote him than it is to degrade him. This view of the situation is generally accepted in Boise. The standard for promoting the dull pupil is entirely individual. He is not compelled to do all the work of his present grade before he is permitted to pass to the next. He is even allowed to pass on without manifesting enough ability to justify the hope that he may be able to do the work of the advanced grade. The question is reduced to the one consideration: Would he do better if advanced than he would as a repeater?[36]
Ten years ago no pupil could enter the Newton High School, no matter what his age or educational need, who had not completed satisfactorily all the work of the grammar schools; and a considerable portion—probably one-third to one-half—of all Newton children were then leaving school at fourteen to sixteen years of age with only part of an elementary school education. To-day any boy or girl who needs secondary school instruction—and most boys and girls of high school age, fourteen or fifteen, do need such instruction—may enter some department of the Newton high schools, whether grammar school work has been completed or not; and nearly all—probably from eighty to ninety per cent—of our children are now getting secondary training before leaving school.[37]
Readjustments of the Curriculum
There are other and more fundamental remedies for some of the evils of the graded system. The curriculum can be readjusted. Where any considerable number of pupils fail in a particular subject, it is highly probable that the material of instruction or the method of presentation or both ought to be modified. In some cases pupils ought to be taken out of the regular grades and treated as special cases. The city of Cincinnati was a pioneer in recognizing the need of special curricula for special types of pupils. The whole country has in recent years come to recognize the importance of taking children who are mentally backward or slow out of the grades. Less commonly there is a recognition of the importance of specially arranged courses for the bright pupils.
In the city of St. Louis the curriculum of each grade is administered in units of ten weeks for each section. At the end of each ten weeks a readjustment is possible so that the bright pupils may go forward and the slow pupils may proceed more deliberately. There are at the end of each period of ten weeks a number of promotions which carry individual pupils forward two quarters. The curriculum is so arranged that a rapidly promoted pupil does not omit any essential part of the subjects, while the slow pupil has ample opportunity for drill and review.