A 36-class school requires 22 classrooms and 33 teachers.
A 48-class school requires 29 classrooms and 43 teachers.
A 60-class school requires 36 classrooms and 54 teachers.
A 72-class school requires 43 classrooms and 64 teachers.
In the 72-class school, 43 classrooms and 54 teachers are required, in addition to the provision for auditorium, playrooms, and library. For this work 10 teachers are required, making a total of only 64 teachers for 72 classes. The traditional elementary school requires 72 teachers and 72 classrooms for 72 classes; the manual-training shops and the manual-training teachers are extra. In addition there would be librarians in branch public libraries, playground directors in public playgrounds, and special teachers as supervisors of music, drawing, physical training, manual training, and nature-study. Often in the traditional school 80 or more persons are employed for the instruction of 72 classes, not including the building principal and assistants.
An important feature of the teacher organization in the Gary school is the division into senior and junior teachers, or head teacher and assistant teacher. Since each classroom accommodates two teachers according to the duplicate-school plan, the teacher who has been longer in service is designated as head teacher. The less experienced teacher acts under her direction. The head teachers, for instance, in the “X” school may visit and criticize the work of the assistant teachers in the “Y” school during the last hour of the day when the “X” school is not in session. Similarly the junior teacher in the “Y” school may visit the work of the “X” school during the first hour. Inexperienced or weak teachers may thus be developed under the direction of the more experienced. New teachers are thus being constantly trained in the new régime and spirit of the Gary school. The school is thus made an extension of the normal or training-school for teachers. The teachers continue to learn as well as the pupils. The question how teachers are to be procured for the new demands which the Gary plan puts upon them is thus answered. The school itself trains the teachers.
The responsibilities of the teachers for the auditorium period have been discussed. Under the old Gary plan each auditorium period was in charge of one teacher who acted as assistant principal. The teachers alternated in organizing the dramatic and other features of the auditorium work. Recently Superintendent Wirt has decided that this auditorium work functions better if it is specialized. In the new 72-school program, four teachers give their time exclusively to the auditorium exercises. One teacher has charge of the music; one has charge of the art, literature, history, civics, and current events; one has charge of the presentation of material relating to the science work; and one has charge of the presentation of the material relating to the shops and industries. In a properly equipped auditorium, with stereopticon lantern, motion-picture machine, stage, player-piano, organ, and phonograph, the auditorium teachers can do many things better with large numbers of children than the regular teachers can do with small numbers. The regular classroom teachers are expected to coöperate in this frequent presentation of work by their classes in the auditorium in order to use it as a place for “application” work and for motivating the academic work of the school.
In the new program, the “application” work is also specialized. Experience has shown that some teachers have a special talent for this imaginative and constructive side of teaching, and prefer to devote their entire time to it. In this scheme, the “application” teachers have six classes daily out of a total of twelve classes in each of their respective groups. They are thus able to meet each of the twelve classes of their respective groups every other day, week, month, or term. Or these teachers may select from each of the groups of three classes the pupils who need special work in language and mathematics, and meet these pupils every day. For the average pupil all of the opportunity necessary to make an application of his language and mathematics is provided in the regular manual-training, drawing, music, and expression classes. The “application” teachers meet their respective classes in the manual-training, drawing, music, and expression rooms. The facilities of these special rooms are used for “application” purposes. The “application” teachers are expected to make suggestions to the special teachers of these subjects concerning the opportunities to teach language and mathematics through the “application” opportunities of the regular work of their respective subjects. Each “application” teacher may be constituted the head of a group of eight teachers. The “application” teacher is the correlating agent for all the work of the twelve classes; also she works with all of the twelve classes as a constructive examiner, and is constantly placing before the children real problems of the type that the world of industry, business, and citizenship will place before them when they leave school. She may not be able to present these problems as well as the world will present them later, but the immediate and daily reaction while the child is in school should be invaluable in preparing him for meeting the more difficult problems which arise when he has completed his school course.
Class periods may be 40 or 50 or 55 minutes instead of 60. Teachers have six hours in school with 60-minute periods, five and one-half with 55-minute periods, and five hours with 50-minute periods. Pupils have a school day of seven, six and one-half, and six hours respectively, in addition to an hour for luncheon. The playground teachers are on duty an additional hour. Each teacher has an hour a day free for her own work. When her day is finished, she is supposed to leave the building. It is expected that all paper work, as well as all the work of the children, will be done in school. The purpose is to make the teacher’s day only six hours, without the burden of extra time at home.