An even greater individuation of children exists in Fitchburg and Newton, Mass., and in Providence, R. I. Children from the country and foreign children who have difficulty with their English, together with any other children who do not fit into any grade, are placed in an ungraded class. A typical ungraded class of fifty pupils contained Germans, Russians, Greeks, French, Italians and Polish children, who were unable to speak English on entering the school. The ages of these children varied from eight to fifteen. As soon as the ungraded children appear to be fitted for any special grade, they are transferred.
This ungraded work is supplemented by “floating teachers,” who are located in each school for the purpose of dealing with special cases. The case of any child who, for this reason or that, cannot keep up with the work in a particular subject, is handed over to these teachers. Thus individual attention is secured in individual cases.
XVI All Hands Around for An Elementary School
These progressive educational steps are not isolated instances of success in new lines, nor are they incompatible with good work. They may be welded into a unified system, aglow with the real interests of real life. It is possible to correlate the old standard courses and the new fields in such a way that the child will gain in interest and in life experience.
Nowhere is this possibility better illustrated than in the elementary schools of Indianapolis. Take as an example School No. 52, which is located in an average district. The children, neither very rich nor very poor, possess the advantages and disadvantages of that great mass known as “common people.”
The children in grades one to three, inclusive, in addition to studying the three R’s, spend thirty minutes each day learning to measure, fold, cut and weave paper. In grades four and five, an hour and a half per week is devoted to simple weaving, knife-work, raffia work, sewing and basketry. Grade six has four and a half hours of similar work each week, while in grades seven and eight, the pupils are occupied for one-third of their entire school time in art work, book-binding, pottery work, weaving (blankets and rugs), chair caning, cooking, sewing and printing.
“But how is it possible?” queries the defender of the old system. “How can the necessary subjects be taught in two-thirds of the time now devoted to them? Are we not already crowded to death?”
Yes, crowded with dead work, the proof of which lies in the fact that the children who devote a third of the time to apply their knowledge get as good or better marks in the academic work than the three-thirds children. That, however, is not the really important point. This course of study is valuable because it gives a rounded, unified training.
This is how the course is organized. The school life is a unit, into which each department fits and in which it works. The spelling lesson is covered in the classroom and set in type in the print shop. The grammar lesson consists in revising compositions with regulation proofreaders’ corrections. The art department designs clothes which are made in the sewing classes. The drawing room furnishes plans for the wood and iron work and designs for basketry and pottery. In the English classes, the problems of caning and weaving are written and discussed. The mathematical problems are problems of the school. Children in the sixth year keep careful accounts of personal receipts and expenditures—accounts which are balanced semi-weekly. The boy in one woodworking class makes out an order for materials. A boy in another class makes the necessary computations and fills the order. All costs of dressmaking and cooking materials are carefully kept and dealt with as arithmetic problems. For the older boys, shop-cards are kept, showing the amount and price of materials used and the time devoted to a given operation. These again form a basis for mathematical work. The whole is knit together in a civics class, which deals with the industrial, political and social questions, in their relations to the child and to the community.
Best of all, the things which the children talk and figure about, plan and make, have value. The seventh and eighth year girls make clothes which they are proud to show and wear; they cook lunch for which some of the teachers pay a cost price. The baskets are taken home. Eighty chairs are caned by the children each year. The bindery binds magazines, songs and special literature. The boys make sleds and carts, hall stands, umbrella racks, center tables and stools. They make cupboards and shelves for the school, quilting-frames on which the girls do patchwork. Rags are woven into rag carpets and sold. The print shop prints all of the stationery for the school. Each can of preserves, in the ample stock put up by the girls, is labeled thus: