First, let the student get several sets of readers, beginning with primers and running up to the books designed for the upper grades. Note among other characteristics such matters as the following: Are the selections in the primers equally interesting? Are the vocabularies the same? What devices in the primer are adopted as aids in explaining the words? Are the sentences of equal length? In the readers for the upper grades is the emphasis on poetry the same? Is the reading matter equally appropriate for boys and girls? Does it fit all localities equally well? Is there any suggestion that would carry the pupil out of the book itself to other books?
Second, let the student take several geographies. Are the maps equally good? Are the pictures equally helpful? What is the order of topics? Is the treatment equally detailed in the various books? Is the attention given to the United States satisfactory both in point of gross volume and in point of details taken up? What is the degree of emphasis on physical geography and on man’s place in the world, that is, on commerce and civilization?
Third, take books in first-year Latin. What emphasis is given to vocabulary, to reading, and to grammar? How do books of this type differ from books on French and German? Is the choice of reading matter in the various books based on the same principle of selection? How far could the books be used by a pupil without a teacher? What is the contribution expected of the teacher; that is, what must the teacher know about Latin more than is given in the book? How are the pages of material related to assignments; that is, are assignments suggested by the text itself?
Bagley, W. C., and Rugg, H. O. “Content of American History as taught in the Seventh and Eighth Grades.” Bulletin No. 16, School of Education, University of Illinois, 1916.
Minimum Essentials in Elementary-School Subjects. Fourteenth Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, Part I, 1915. The University of Chicago Press. Other types of study than those suggested in the above questions are outlined in this yearbook.
[CHAPTER XV]
STANDARDIZATION
Tests and Measurements of Products
There is a group of recent studies which affect the curriculum and all other phases of school organization so profoundly that a separate chapter must be devoted to an exposition of their character and aims. These are studies which aim to standardize school work through tests, measurements, and exact quantitative descriptions of the products of teaching.
For example, one of the efforts of the elementary school is to teach pupils to write. It is entirely possible after the school has done its work to find out by an examination of the results how well pupils can write. It is never expected that pupils in the second grade will write as well as pupils in the upper grades. In this sense, then, it may be said that the results expected in the second grade are of a lower standard than those expected higher in the school. Furthermore, there is a sharp contrast between rapid writing and slow writing. The pupil who writes one hundred and fifty letters in a minute with a quality or form of letters which is fair exhibits one kind of result, while the pupil who writes only seventy-five letters a minute but shows great regularity in his letters exhibits another kind of result. It is not easy in two cases such as have just been described to determine at once which result is better. It may be that speed should be encouraged in order to secure free, fluent movements even if quality has to be sacrificed for the time being.